Germany

Guten tag/Hallo 

We are in Germany. In Germany people speak German. We're not very good at German, although I have been learning to count to 10 and I can say thank you 

(danke). 

Germany has a large river that runs right through the country from the bottom to the top. It's called the Rhine River. We stayed in Boppard, which is on the river bank and we took a cruise on the river. It was beautiful. We could see castles on the hills and passed lots of little villages. 

Down the bottom of Germany, near where the river starts are the Rhine falls, a huge waterfall.

In Germany we ate lots of black forest cake and apple struedel. They were yummy.

Mercedes Benz and Porsche cars are also made in Germany. We went to some museums where we saw lots of these brands of cars, from really old ones to new ones. 

Now we are going to Switzerland.

Auf wiedersehen (good bye)

Castles and Eurodisney

Bonjour.

This week we drove down to the Loire Valley where there are so many chateaux (castles and really big houses). We saw so many beautiful chateaux. One chateau had 440 rooms. It was huge. It also had a staircase that was two spiral staircases wrapped together going opposite ways (like DNA). Matthew went up one side and I went the other, and you couldn't see each other. It was amazing. (Leonardo Da Vinci designed the staircase).

Leonardo was a famous Italian man that lived a long time ago, (nearly 500 years ago). He painted the Mona Lisa and many other paintings, but he also invented many things. One of the chateaux we visited had many of his inventions, both in little models to look at, and life size ones in the gardens. He invented different types of bridges, early machine guns and an armoured tank, and even designed flying machines, like a glider and an air balloon.

After we had seen lots of chateaux, we went to a museum of magic, where there were magic tricks, puppets and a stage show, and dragons that came out of the windows every hour. These chess pieces were huge. When you looked through a special window at the pieces, your face appeared on the black square on the chess pieces. Very cool.

But the best part of our week was going back to Paris and visiting Eurodisney. Disneyland in Paris. We had heaps of rides and went up a huge tree house. We also saw a stunt car show where the cars and motorbikes drove up ramps and went into the air. Lightning McQueen came on stage and did some car tricks too.

We had a great week. We are now going to Germany, where they speak German. I have to start learning some German words now.

So au revoir. Have a great holiday, and you can hear more of our trip when you come back to school.

Pebble Beaches

Bonjour

We have now been to Yport and Etretat in the north of France, and walked on the beach. These beaches don't have white sand on it like ours. They are covered in pebbles (the little round rocks that some people put on their garden). They are incredible, and when you walk on them they make a scrunching noise.

Also on the beach they have little buildings that look like tents. People get changed in to their bathers in these buildings. Sometimes you can even get donkey rides on the beach, but we didn't see any donkeys. We thought it was too cold to go swimming, but some people were in the water.

Along the north coast of France are huge white cliffs. The waves crash up against the cliffs and you can see arches and caves in the cliffs. It really is beautiful.

We walked around the town and found an icecream shop. I had a waffle cone with two scoops (1 blueberry and 1 rose). Matthew had chocolate mint. They were delicious. We didn't give Kev any icecream.

We also visited Mont St Michel, a large building that was built on a small rocky island. The building is so big, it covers the whole island. It has walls all around the outside like a castle. We walked around the walls and all through the building. The weather was really warm too, I wished I'd worn shorts.

Now we're going down to the middle of Loire valley to see all the chateaux. Leonardo  Da Vinci lived at one of the chateaux that we are visiting. There is a display of his inventions there. I'll post some more photos soon.

Have a great week. Not long until holidays now.

Paris

Bonjour/Hello

We are in France. In France, people speak French instead of English, so we are learning to speak a little French.
These are our most used words.
Merci -Thank you
Sil vous plais - please
Parlez vous anglaise - Do you speak English?

We stayed in Paris, the capital of France, and ate croissants for breakfast, and jambon et fromage baguettes (ham and cheese rolls) for lunch. Some French people eat special snails for dinner (we saw some one eat them, but we didn't. We had beef bourginon (beef with onions and mushrooms in a special sauce).

Some famous buildings that we have seen are:

 The Eiffel tower

 The Arc de Triomphe (we climbed the stairs inside and looked at Paris from the top)

Awesome.

 The Palace of Versaille

 This room in the palace has mirrors all way down the hall and heaps of chandeliers. All the walls and ceilings are painted with beautiful paintings. There was also an art display in the palace. There was a huge shoe made out of cooking pots, and a pink helicopter.

We don't have a car in Paris, so we are using trains to travel around. Some of the trains run underground through tunnels and some run above the ground. They travel very fast. We are hiring another motor home and travelling around the north of France and down to the Loire Valley (where there are lots of chateaux (French castles).

Have a great week.
Au revoir.