Darin had a week's leave that he needed to take before the end of the year so we decided to visit Switzerland and Austria which are meant to still be nice during winter. We flew into Geneva on Friday night where we met Barry and took the train to Lausanne where Barry lives. We had a big night out in Lausanne on the Friday which unfortunately ended with somebody stealing Ellen's phone and iPod along with some money. We had a walk around Lausanne on the Saturday with Barry and Steve before having some yummy cheese fondue for dinner. The next day we had a little trip around Lake Geneva, visiting Monteux and Vevey. It was then goodbye to say goodbye to Steve and Barry and set off for Zurich. We had about 24 hours and Zurich and this was probably about all we needed. It was quite wet and gloomy in Zurich so we explored the town a bit before walking around the lakeside (something that is probably a bit more impressive in summer) before taking the tram out to the 'Industrial-Chic' West Zurich. However we really only managed to find the Industrial side. The next day we visited the Zurich Kunsthaus which had an amazing exhibition that included many Monet, Miro and Picasso paintings. It was time to move onto Austria. We took the train to Salzburg which was a long 5 hour ride across snow covered mountain ranges. We arrived in Salzburg and had to take a taxi to our hostel as although we had a great view over the city; it was very hard to find the hostel. The next day we walked around Salzburg visiting the Salzburg Cathedral, Mirabel gardens and St Peters Cemetery. We then headed up the hill to visit one of Salzburg's most famous attractions the Hohensalzburg fortress. We then headed to a typical Viennese coffee house to chill for a bit before walking around the Christmas markets with a gluhwein. We then checked out the museum of modern art, just down from the hostel before heading back to the hostel. The next day we checked out a local market which had lots of meat, cheese, bread and olives before heading off to Mozart's old residence which is now a Mozart museum. It was then time to catch the train to our final stop - Vienna. Once we arrived we jumped on the 'tourist tram' which went around the ring road of the city. We jumped off at the Christkindl market which is a huge Christmas market. We walked around there and had a gluhwien and beer. We then visited the Leopold Museum which houses Austrian Art. This was a bit disappointing though so we headed to the Nachsmarkt which had a large number of restaurants and had some dinner at a typical Austrian restaurant. The next day we actually split up with Ellen visiting the Hofburg Palace and Darin the Belvedere palace. Both were really good. We then took a tram across town to the Hundertwasser house which is a social housing project and then the Hundertwasser museum which was something we were looking forward to and a real highlight. We then went to another typical Viennese café and chilled for a bit and then headed to the Opera to line up for cheap tickets. After two hours of various lining up the opera finally started. This was pretty cool and the opera hall very impressive. However we could only stand so much so after 40 minutes we decided to leave and walked around town taking in the Christmas market before heading to the Nachsmarkt again for dinner. We spent our last day doing a food walking tour of Vienna. This however wasn't so much of a food tour but just a main attraction walking tour. It was still good though. Shortly after this we got our first snow of the trip with a few isolated snowflakes falling on us. This is however all it really came to. It was then time to head to the airport and back to London.