On my way back home from Japan, I decided to make a couple more stops along the way. I found a cheap flight to Paris and decided to visit my friend Myriam, who I had not seen in a few years. We had a nice weekend together and enjoyed lots of wine and cheese!

From Paris, I took the TGV to Dijon, where my sister lives now. I hadn’t had a chance to visit her until then, so I was excited to see her and explore small-town France. We both had to work quite a bit while I was there, but in our free time, we walked around town. Dijon has a pretty center with quite some half-timbered houses, that I did not expect.

The highlight was to climb up Philippe le Bon tower for a beautiful view over Dijon and its surroundings. Definitely work a stop along the way!

I had arranged to meet up with my mum in Vienna, but was looking for a gap-filler between Dijon and Vienna for two days. Geneva looked close and I had always wanted to visit another Swiss city, so there I went. I didn’t really have much of a plan and still quite some work to do as well, so on my first day, I just walked around the city to see the different parks and old buildings.

Next day, I took a train to the UN grounds (even though I couldn’t get inside), and walked around the gardens nearby, and then back to the city center along the lake. Geneva’s location on the lake is definitely one of its main draw cards!

From Geneva, I took a flight to Vienna, where I spent a few days with my mum before travelling back to Bad Ischl together. During our time in Vienna, we went to two different exhibitions – a really cool one about Frida Kahlo and some modern art in the Bank Austria Kunstforum. We also visited some friends and generally, took it slow, drinking iced coffee and shopping a bit. The highlight and the reason of our trip to Vienna, was to see the musical Rebecca – which was a great evening with really good singing and some unexpected special effects in the end.