We stayed at a Hotel in Nice, near the French Riviera for 3 nights. Again, the French Riviera was a place that I had heard about, but never thought that I would visit. We spent a whole day just enjoying Nice and it was nice!

Seafront of the city

A park above the city with cool features and a playground for the kids

War Memorial

We rode this train to see the sights and hear information about Nice...and no one had to carry a sleeping child

These two brave the cold and got in the water...they stayed there for a couple of hours

No sand to bury his sister in...so he used rocks (the only thing on the shores of Nice)

More photos of Nice

After church in Italy, we loaded up the car and drove towards Nice, France. On the way we stopped at Monaco…”a Sunny Place for Shady People!” Monaco’s total area is 2.05 km2 (0.79 sq mi) and is famous for Monte Carlo Casino and The Grand Prix. We had a great time visiting the Monaco Oceanographic Museum (Jacques Cousteau’s Aquarium) and walking around the streets.

Monte Carlo...where some 35,000 people live

Grand Prix: one of the most important and prestigious automobile races in the world

The Oceanographic Museum in Monaco rises from the cliff side rock

Many personal items of Jacques Cousteau

Palace guard marching to his new location

More photos of Monaco

We wanted to see as much of Europe as we could possibly do in 2 weeks with 1 car, 4 adults and 2 kids. So, we made the 5 hour drive from Zurich, Switzerland to Genoa, Italy. And interested thing to point out is that we paid 40 Swiss franc to enter that country, but never had to pay tolls on the highways. Once we entered Italy and drove through France and Spain we had to pay tolls again…and boy did we pay a lot in tolls since we drove everywhere!

Italy was a bit different for us since none of us speak Italian. We had French and Spanish covered, but couldn’t communicate with the Italians in their own language. Luckily between speaking French, Spanish, English or our own form of charades we were able to survive for the 24 hours we were in Italy.

We stayed at a pretty cool hotel in the heart of the city of Genoa. My favorite part of the hotel was that they had a kids room set up so Mason and Kalani could act like kids and play with toys. I wish more hotels would have something like that.

Kids being kids at the hotel

Famous elevator in Italy because it goes both horizontal and vertical ... think Willy Wonka

Castello d'Albertis

City of Genoa, Italy

1 pizza fed 1 person. Can't go to Italy without having PIZZA and it was yummy!

Gelato for dessert...YUM

Another fun adventure in Italy was attending church on Easter Sunday. The LDS ward in Genoa has rented out a floor of an office building. We met wonderful people who spoke English, Spanish and French. With my Spanish background I could understand about 50-60% of the things being said. It is so nice to be members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because no matter where you go in the world, the other members of the church have the same beliefs and standards and the gospel is the same.

More photos of Italy

I’ve always heard of the Alps. And having been to Disneyland a few times I heard of the Matterhorn. Still, I never dreamed that one day I would visit the Alps in person and even be able to stand on them. When Matt found this “excursion” online I got very excited. To be at the highest point possible in Europe sounded like a once in a life-time opportunity. And we were not disappointed!

First we had to drive from Zurich, Switzerland to Interlaken…another 2 hours spent in the car. But, the scenery was very pretty, so we didn’t mind. We got to the train station, purchased our tickets for the “Top of Europe” and headed to the Alps.

We took 3 trains to get to "The Top of Europe" and the view was spectacular

View from the train of the Alps

All of us on top of the Alps, wishing the guy would hurry up and take the photo

It was really cold there... -59' C (you'll have to figure out the conversion to Fahrenheit)

The Ice Palace was our favorite. Ice sculptures with NO glass between us and the sculptures

More photos of Interlaken & Jungfrau

An added bonus to serving a mission for the LDS church is all of the missionaries that you meet and through social networking we can stay in contact with them more easily. Such is the case with Matt and a sister missionary who lives in Zurich, Switzerland whom he met as a missionary in France. Dani graciously allowed us to stay at her apartment while she was away for spring break with her husband. Not only did she have the beds all made for us, but she also allowed us to use her computer, got the kids Easter baskets and a bunch of chocolate for all of us to share. And all that she asked for us to bring her was some baking soda from the states!

We had very full days while we stayed at the apartment.

6 apartments in this complex. We stayed at the middle one on the right

You can’t go to Europe without going to a Chocolate Factory! My favorite chocolate is Lindt and the factory just happens to be in Zurich. The factory wasn’t open for tours, but the store above the factory was open and all ready for Easter.

chocolate, chocolate everywhere

Then we walked around the town of Zurich and saw some cool buildings and interesting people.

Grossmunster church on the river Limmat

Taking a break near the Grossmunster. On the other side of the river is Fraumunster with its church tower

This guy kept trying to talk to Matt, but neither one spoke a language the other could understand. He was a little crazy...and he was rolling a joint

We ended the day with going to the Zurich zoo since our family loves the zoo and TripAdvisor places it as the #1 attraction.

Jungle Book Family

More photos of Zurich