Aksel will surely grow up to be a skateboarder.

… and hopefully his last.

We stopped over near Bayreuth the first night… in order to have a morning in Playmobil Fun Park near Nuremberg. ***** experience (that’s five stars) and can be recommended to anybody driving down south. The rain started just after we left the Fun Park so when we got to Innsbruck 3 hours later it was very wet… but we had our best Italian meal there (mainly because it was open all day… whereas in Italy nothing opens until 7.30 in the evening).

Next stop was Lake Garda… staying over near the lake. Weather crap.

Thanks to Bo for helping us out the next day with the address for the Ferrari museum ‘Galleria Ferrari’ near Modena. It’s a nasty tacky building looking like the love child of the NEC in Birmingham and Høje Taastrup station (you’ll really have to be British-Danish to get that one). Inside it’s a little better and the cars certainly don’t disappoint but it isn’t for inquisitive 22 month-olds… no touching! So we spent the better part of 3 hours helping Aksel around without touching too much… he did get to sit in an F1 car however.

So we arrived just outside Siena after the nightmare that is the SiFi motorway (Siena-Florence). It was still raining… but fortunately not for long. The heavy rains for the last few days no doubt helped the preponderance of wild flowers that were there for the duration of our stay… and contributed to a beautiful place to stay.

After the adventures of the journey down we then had a week and a half to rest and recuperate. Daily life consisting of breakfast overlooking Siena, then a short trip out or play in the garden, lunch in the shade and a trip to the swimming pool late afternoon when the heat of the day was dying off.

From the photos you’ll see we visited Siena (2-3 times… it was the time of Palio, the ancient horse race… so there was much to see), Florence (very different to Siena… whereas Siena remains stuck as a medieval city Florence is much more Renaissance… but much busier and without any pleasant places to just sit and chill out), Montalcino (for the Brunello wine) and San Gimignano (for the towers).

The way back was more relaxed than the way down… DB Autozug. Efficient, clean, quick and cheaper than driving / staying over – we went for the ‘uber cheap’ option of sharing a cabin… who’d want to share a cabin with a 22 month old… turns out a ‘retired’ German couple had the honour. We’d do it again as a way of travelling despite the sharing and sleeping issues because it is just too easy… and always entertaining for Aksel.

Arriving in Hamburg was fun… you literally drive out the end of the platform… imagine driving a car through Waterloo or Paddington. Next stop was our last… the ‘Scandimarket (or whatever)’ where all good Danes go to stock up before the border home. Quite an experience.

Thanks also to Dad… for looking after Aksel for so long. He’s still going on about his ‘granja’.

A few photos from the weekend… (nothing from the wedding for some reason… perhaps drink related…).

Went up overnight on the ferry from centre of Copenhagen to centre of Oslo… getting to the resort at lunch time. Trysil is certainly quite a bit smaller than most other resorts (apart from perhaps those in Scotland and Morocco) and also gets very cold… fortunately for us the -20 temperatures finished the week before and we had -2 to -5 all week… very pleasant… perhaps warmer than Copenhagen.

Lots and lots of green and family slopes and only one ‘difficult’ slope that would be classed as pretty tough anywhere… a 45 degree wall of ice.

Any how here’s the pictures only a few weeks late.

Jamie, Lene and Aksel

Here’s some photos of the house and Aksel keeping warm inside.

Aksel spinning in the shops…

And playing with the reindeer (plastic ones that is)…