Take 12 Trips… July On the Luce

As part of my mission to ‘Take 12 Trips’ in 2014, I’m taking at least one trip each month – which can be anything from a local day out to an international trip. So far this year I’ve been all the way from the North of England to the souks of Morocco, from the heart of UK politics in London to a culinary exploration of Sicily, and then across the Mediterranean on my first cruise. Each month I’ve been doing a round-up of where my

Take12Trips trip of the month has taken me, but now I’m going to widen these out into more of a general update into my recent travels – home and abroad – as well as what’s been happening on the blog and a preview of what’s coming up next. July was a month for celebrations, with a blog birthday and an actual birthday, celebrated in Strasbourg with fireworks, Champagne and light shows – though admittedly more for their National Day than in my honour but it still counts! So what else happened On the Luce in July?

After June’s travels were all about the sea, in July I got back on dry land and switched methods of transport from a ship to a train for a rail adventure across Europe, from Paris to Vienna. The trains throughout were smart, clean and totally punctual, this is definitely the way to travel in Europe – we just whizzed across borders without ever having to show our passports. After a couple of days exploring the pretty canalside city of Strasbourg we headed up into the Alps on some of the most scenic train journeys in the world.

I’ve always loved the mountains in winter but visiting the ski resort of St Anton in summer gave a whole new perspective on them, with an unbelievable range of shades of green. Our final stop was Vienna, a storybook place where every other building seems to be a palace. The city was sweltering in 36 degree heat, but a combination of shady museums and ice cream stops kept us going.