TravelAinu

Hamburg, GERMANY

Around the world in one day. This is a must see in Hamburg! Almost 15km (real) of railway, airport where aircrafts land and take off, erupting volcano and a lot more. Found a small Finland too with sauna and Sibelius monument 😂

Our kids just love Viiru/Findus and they laughed so much watching this. Good kids theatre in a really nice atmosphere! Worth to visit!

Viiru-kissa ja ukko-Pesonen jatkavat seikkailuja lauantaina 6.8. klo 14 TeatteriTalon pihapiirissä 🎭

Aurich, GERMANY

Nice, Nice and Nice!!! De Baalje swimming pool in Aurich was so nice and easy to visit with a wheelchair. Right after the cashier you had the privat changing rooms. Plenty of place, lockers in reachable height, full length changing table (!!!) and adults size pool wheelchair to borrow. The room was connected to the shower/toilet room and the shower had also a shower chair and a straight access to the pools. (And at least in the women's showers there was for small children a highchair for showering!) At the pools there plenty of choices to choose. Our kids (including dad) favourite was the outdoor pool with a wave making platform-thing. The waves were according to our kids at least two meters high 😄 The only negative side I could say is that it was really crowded. But who can you blame - it is a nice pool!

https://www.debaalje.de/

De Baalje in Aurich | Bad und Sauna Ostfriesisch geniessen - Start

GERMANY, Bremen

Celebrating (Finnish) school end at Universum Bremen. Science center full of things to do and the kids just love it. (Compare to the Finnish Heureka). This time we didn't unfortunately have enough time to explore the outdoor area and the shows, but we'll be coming again this summer ...for the third time Ainu recommends this place highly
Universum offers Family tickets (2 adults with their own kids) for 40€, kids under 6yrs are for free. Otherwise Adults tickets are 16€ and children 6yrs on/disabled/students pay 11€.
There are several places to eat, but you're also allowed to bring your own food with you.
Wheelchair friendly place ♿

https://universum-bremen.de/?lang=en

I think I mentioned the following thing already in the summer when we last used the ferries. Always check different country pages for the best price! And it applies to all companies. The difference can be even hundred euros!

http://www.iltasanomat.fi/matkat/art-1453190125422.html

You don't always need to leave home to travel. Day spent in space. Todays program was to watch the spacewalk live from youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDh4uK9PvJU

NASA TV Public

Näin juuri! Nooran renkaanjäljillä yritetään mennä

http://www.hs.fi/m/ihmiset/a1452222333883?ref=hs-mob-extra-kapea

Konstanz, GERMANY

Finally reached todays destination. We booked just a normal double room and got one of the two corner rooms where you have a wide view. The hotel doesn't have their own parking place, but we managed to get a parking place from the market place next to it. And we were lucky enough that it wasn't a market day

The hotel is wheelchair accessible with an exception of one step at the main entrance. But maybe they have a ramp for it or will help with lifting.

Rheinfall, SWITZERLAND

Now that we fell in love with waterfalls why not make a stop at the biggest waterfall in Europe. Rheinfall is located in the northern part of Switzerland, couple of kilometers away from Schaffhausen. Unfortunately it was raining and foggy and taking the photos just with my mobile I couldn't capture the beautiful turquoise colour of the water. But can you see the amount of fish there is in the water?!

http://www.rheinfall.ch/de/

Breitnau, Schwarzwald, GERMANY

Hiking in amazing scenery! Ravennaschlucht is a side valley of the Höllental (Hells valley) and through it runs the Ravenna mountain brook with waterfalls, The Great Ravenna Fall (bottom left) being 16m high. There use to be several water mills on the brook. One of them is the well preserved Großjockenmühle (top right). Because steepness of the Ravena the water was run over the roof to the water mill. 😃
At the beginning of the hiking route (Or at the end -you can also walk the mountain down.) you walk underneath the 37m high Ravenna bridge. The bridge was built 1927 and it survived the massive bombings of World War II, but was then bombed down by the retreating German soldiers. However the bridge was rebuilt right after the war and is till in use. The Höllentalbahn (train) drives between Freiburg and Titisee offering amazing views with normal train prices (Around 5€ depending of the length of the trip.). I'll attach a nice English article about the train route below.
Next to the parking place there is the Hotel Hofgut Sternen where even Goethe and Marie Antoinette stayed. You can also visit nearby St Oswald's Chapel.

http://europeforvisitors.com/germany/freiburg/hoellentalbahn.htm

Schwarzwald, GERMANY

Here's a small saga to read and better photos:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirschsprung_(Black_Forest)

Ribeauvillé, Route des Vins D'Alsace, FRANCE

What a nice picturesque old town. Nice morning walk in the city with traditional breakfast with croissant and a bit of a wine tasting. Not too bad of a start for the day. Even the light rain didn't bother us.

Ribeauvillé belongs to the towns of Route des Vins D'Alsace (Wine route) which is 170 km long. Would be a nice road trip in the autumn when the wine has been just done, the leaves have beautiful colours and there are the new sweet wine to drink with the Flammkuchen.

On the road again, we've got busy day planned ahead 😄

http://www.alsace-wine-route.com/en

When you're in Alsace you need to eat the original tarte flambée (Flammkuchen) with a glass of local wine! Heaven on earth! Sorry no photos. There are just those moments when you don't want to take your phone out 😍

Hotel is definitely not suitable for wheelchair cruisers, but it was well worth of it's two stars and for us for our one night stay 😊

Strasbourg, FRANCE

Just driving through the city. No parking places here 😂

Schwarzwald, GERMANY

Driving through the Black Forrest. Stopping at the Kloster Allerheiligen for a bit of fresh air and culture.

http://www.klosterruine-allerheiligen.de/en/home/

Hamburg, GERMANY

Quick overnight visit to Hamburg. There are so many things to do in Hamburg that I have no chance to list them here. Our main purpose was to visit the Christmas market and to do some Christmas shopping. The Christmas markets are widely spread in the city, but the main one is at the town hall (upper photo). Just next to it is the White Magic Christmas market (Weißer Zauber) which is located on the promenade that runs along the Binnenalster, a large artificial lake within the city. Across the street is also the Europa passage, decent size shopping center (On one of the upper levels is a café/restaurant where you have a nice view to the Alster.). If you walk through the Europa passage you come out at the Mönckebergstrasse, the most famous shopping street. Almost opposite to the entrance, across the street is one of the nicest sweet shops, the Bären Treff. (Our favourite ones are the prosecco flavoured.)
We stayed the night in a hotel directly in the old Speicherstad (lower photo), which belongs to the Unesco World Heritage Sites, just 10-15minute walk from the town hall. I can highly recommend the hotel. It's also wheel chair accessible. Thumbs up! There were only few steps from the parking hall to the hotel that had no ramp, but there were direct phone connection to the reception for help. Below some links.

Speicherstadt
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speicherstadt

Hotel (cheap through secret escapes)
http://www.ameronhotels.com/de/hotel-speicherstadt-hamburg

BärenTreff
http://www.baeren-treff.de/

Unique christmas tree

Delicious 😋

Clearwater, Florida

Changing the coast to Gulf of Mexico.
Visited a sea life rehabilitation centre and got to meet the dolphins Winter and Hope. Winter lost his tail 2005 in a crab trap. He got a friend 5yrs later from a rescued baby dolphin Hope. Both starred in the films Dolphin tale 1 and 2. Most of the animals are returned to the sea, but unfortunately Winter and Hope wouldn't make it in wild. After the visit Winter became the favourite to Inna because of his little tail and her little hand. The rest of the holiday she spent planning her own animal rescue center.

http://www.seewinter.com/

http://www.warnerbros.com/dolphin-tale

Only bunny missing the contact details and this is what happens...

Snack time

Kennedy Space Center, FLORIDA

This is definitely a place worth to visit. What could be a cooler place for a 5-year-old astronaut and rocket fan?! The rest of the family was pretty amazed too. Unfortunately there was no rocket launching on the day we visited the center. Last year we missed seeing a launch because of a cloudy weather. One day...

What made up the fact not seeing a launch was spending a day with a good friend. Sometimes you need to go to the other side of the world to spend some quality time with your close ones.

Here you can check the launch schedule
http://spacecoastlaunches.com/

And here's a link to the Kennedy Space Center
https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/

Here we go again ✈☀

Cheap flights found again through Urlaubspiraten

http://www.urlaubspiraten.de/

We're rolling!

http://yle.fi/uutiset/yotaivas_oli_vihrea__parhaat_lukijoiden_revontulikuvat_taalla/8363177

Suosittelen!

http://retkinikkari.fi/?p=888

Crossing the border of Sweden and Denmark.
I like to drive and I like water so for me it's always been easy decision to drive over the bridges meaning the 16km long Øresund Bridge (including 4km long tunnel) and the 18km long Great Belt Bridge (Storebælt) that links the eastern and western parts of Denmark together. Toll prices for this year were for a normal size car (up to 6m) at Øresund 375DKK/~50€ and at Storebælt 235DKK/31.50€.
Kids love how the Øresund Bridge "ends" in the middle of the sea.

http://uk.oresundsbron.com/page/976

http://www.storebaelt.dk/

Optional is to take a ferry between Sweden and Denmark or even between Finland/Sweden and Germany. Below are some links to the ferry companies. I only have experience from travelling with Finnlines between Travemünde and Helsinki which was easy and painless, but the prices are a rip off. I've also travelled with Stena Line, but between Kiel and Klaipeida (route doesn't exist anymore) which was a nice trip.

http://www.stenaline.com/
Göteborg-Kiel
Göteborg-Frederikshav
Varberg-Grenå
Trelleborg-Rostock/Sassnitz

http://www.scandlines.com/
Helsingborg-Helsingør

http://m.finnlines.com/

http://www.directferries.co.uk/
With direct ferries you can just type your own country prefix instead the eglish one to get the right language for you.

Even that we've driven this leg between Stockholm and home several times it was the first time for us to overnight in between (Excluding last year's couple of day long trip to our friends summer cottage in Öland. That was btw heaven in earth!). It takes us around 12 hours to drive the whole leg so we decided to make a brake in the middle, in Malmö. We stayed at the Scandic Triangeln which is really central located and had a garage for the price of 160SEK/16,80£ for 24hrs. The brake was well worth it. We had the chance to meet a beautiful girl who shares similar chromosome deletion as our son and her family for a nice stroll at the Malmö Festival.

http://malmofestivalen.se/about/in-english

http://www.scandichotels.de/Hotelsuche/Schweden/Malmo/Triangeln/ #.VhTQmUbwCMY

A quick stop to eat something at Stigs in Värnamo. Got to enjoy a street festival at the same.

Since the beginning of this year Stockholm has started to collect city toll also from foreigners. As the harbor is located in the city area you can't avoid this payment. The bill will be sent to the address of the car owner.
As you can see the amount was massive. I wonder how much the processing and postal fees cost...