The Euro-Trip Movie!

This is just a little something that Ads put together whilst spending countless hours sitting on a train and watching the world go by! I think it encompasses most of the terrrain that we covered whilst on our trip.

Enjoy!

xxx

Home Sweet Home!

23.01.2012 - Monday, day 35

It was a long journey but at last we are home safe and sound! We left Frankfurt international airport at about 12pm Saturday, landed in Malaysia 14 hours later and straight away checked into the airport hotel for a much needed sleep.

Worst hotel ever, but god I needed that bed so it was worth it! The lobby itself is quite nice but as soon as you enter the corridoors to the rooms it starts to become worrying. Holes in the dirty carpet floor, stains everywhere, musty smell coming from somewhere I don't even want to know about. In our room it was much the same.. leaking toilet, stains everywhere on the carpet including a very distinguished iron burn right by the bed. But, when you are desperate you just have to look beyond all that, and beyond that was a bed with clean sheets calling my name!

We got 7 hours sleep, showered and then checked out as quick as we could! After that it was more like what didn't we do.. we had another 7 hours in transit which we spent walking around inspecting every store, surfing on every free WiFi we could find, and I think I tried on about 15 pairs of shoes (as you would expect of me since I am the shoe Queen!) but surprisingly didn't buy any.

Boarding the plane to Adelaide it felt like a small weight had lifted, the heavens had opened up and we were finally on the last leg of our journey. We tried to kill time by watching movies... Red Dog... not exactly the best choice of movies to watch on a plane. It's a fabulous movie and I absolutely loved it, but I cried my eyes out at the end which seemed to worry a few other passengers lol. After that episode we tried to get some rest, took a sleeping tablet but nothing seemed to knock me out.

7 hours later, I had the biggest smile on my face as our plane touched down at Adelaide International Airport, 8:15am Monday morning where the temperature was already 29 degrees with blue sky and sunshine! I have never been so greatful to live in a country as beautiful as this. I think we take for granted sometimes the things we have at our fingertips, but today I appreciate them all!

Mum of course was there to greet us at the airport, camera snapping like paparazzi, and for a minute there I thought I could be someone famous! Nope, double check, still me!

So we headed home to our beautiful house, cuddled our puppies, unpacked, grocery shopped, had a nap, got on the exercise bike and then headed out to watch the sunset at the beach with our two puppies in tow. As usual it was amazing, and an amazing way to top off an amazing European holiday.

Now its time to rest.
x

Ads waiting at KL airport

Walking the puppies at sunset

Our beautiful Australian Sunset!

The places we have accomplished.. mostly!

Frankfurt

Keeping out of the rain on the Hop-On-Hop Off bus again!

Ahoy! I finally learnt a bit of German and now it's time to go home ha ha.

We spent our last day in Germany cruising around on the sightseeing bus which for the most part kept us dry and out of the rain. We had a few special purchases to make so the afternoon was spent rugged up in raincoats catching tubes to special shops (I can't tell u what type of shop or that would be a dead giveaway and no it's not x-rated!), and then back to the main mall to finish off with some classic souvineer shopping. Adam got some great purchases including G-Star jeans at an absolute bargain price, and a few hats for 1 euro each!!!! Gold.

At the end of the day we had a beer at one of the Irish pubs which was absolutely packed, then went to a lovely little German pub that was also packed. We had to sit at the bar to eat because there was no room on any of the eight tables (huge place huh?!), but it was worth it. Massive schnitzels, big beers boy-oh-boy will we be hitting the gym when we get home.

So that's it. Euro trip over! Time to pack our bags and get our fat bottoms home.

Stay tuned for our best and worst ratings which we will post once we arrive back home on Monday.

Farewell Europe xxxx

Cosy little street in Frankfurts old town

Everyone has a River.. this was one beautiful spot

Ian Clutton, check this out!!!

Cheers to a 1 ltr bevvy!

The last arrival!

Hooray! We have arrived at our final destination, Frankfurt, before heading home to sunny Australia. Another 4.5 hour journey by train from Berlin, all in the rain. We got off the train and headed straight to our hotel, then back out to the main shopping precinct. Not much to do when it is pissing down with rain, so we just checked out some of the stores but failed to really buy anything.

When the rain hit really hard we decided it was time to call it quits and headed to a local German pub for dinner. Schnitzel time! Found it amusing that the waitress was struggling so hard to explain to us what the sauces were that came with our dishes... turns out one was plain gravy, the other one was mushroom gravy! bah ha ha ha.

So excited to be coming home in two days time! It's been a great holiday and we have seen some amazing things, but 5 weeks is a long time and we are starting to feel quite chubby and lazy! ha. Coming home to summer and our winter clothes barely fit us anymore how sad :-(

Hopefully the weather is better tomorrow for our last day here before departing on Saturday at 11am.

Can you tell I'm missing home? lol.

x

Sightseeing in Berlin

18.01.2012 – Wednesday, day 30

This morning we were definitely in need of a little sleep in (8:30am!?), and feeling a little bit fragile we made our way down to check out the breakfast buffet. Of course at the Hilton Hotel they have the biggest most fanciest spread of food and drinks that anyone could dream of.. and of course at the Hilton Hotel they have amazing views of beautiful old German monuments.. How on earth did we afford to stay here again??!

Anyway, it was a glorious day, we did the city tour and saw all the famous sites, berlin wall etc on the old faithful ‘hop on hop off bus’. We stopped and had lunch at the Hard Rock Café, went to the Zoo, and then visited the Berlin TV Tower which stands at over 203m and provides 360° views of the city.

Surprisingly, Berlin is not at all what I had expected it to be. The buildings are all very modern and well looked after, and what was destroyed in the war they have rebuilt as new. So the city is really a new version of the old city. Well planned and coordinated… perhaps this is what the Germans are good at, being in control!

Tomorrow we leave for our last two nights in Frankfurt.. another 4.5hr journey by train, but it is the last one that we will do. Hooray!

Outside our Hotel!

The Berlin Wall (now an Art gallary!)

Lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe

Feeding time in the Lions den! Spectacular!!

Berlin.. fashion week!

arriving at Berlin train station

17.01.2012 – Tuesday, day 29

Fancy arriving at one of the top hotel chains in the world to find that there is absolutely no power! Ha! We are staying at the Hilton Hotel in Berlin which is located amongst upper-class shops, restaurants and cafes. But, since there was not much to do in the dark we decided to head out and explore. We visited the Brandenburg Gate, Reichstag (House of Parliament) and took a stroll through the parklands until the rain came!

We were hoping the hotel would have power back but unfortunately not, so we went and did some washing and headed out to a lovely Italian Restaurant for dinner (Lamama, BEST bruschetta ever!). After dinner we headed back to the hotel for what we thought was going to be just a quick, quiet drink.

Turns out, this week in Berlin there is a fashion fair on, so there are thousands of models, buyers, and designers floating around the hotels and our hotel is hosting the whole of G-Star. Needless to say the lobby and the bar was packed which made for a good “people watching” game.. until the DJ started and we got talking to a group of rich young buyers from England who proceeded to keep us drinking until about 1am in the morning! Who can turn down a free drink from a guy who has millions ($$) and wants to give you advice on how to get rich?! Not us! Lol.

It was definitely an interesting night watching the rich and famous all mixing it together in their designer clothes getting absolutely smashed! So for the night we mixed in with them, or at least we tried to.. I’m sure they can spot us ‘plebs’ a mile away wearing our wrinkled clothes that have been lugged around in backpacks through five countries in five weeks.

Oh well we had our fun! 

Over and out!

Brandenburg Gate

Behind me is the fashion week tent! Don't think I will be making an appearance!

Dinner at Lamama

Roaming Prague

The streets of Prague are beautiful day and night!

16.01.2012 – Monday, day 28

OK, so I was feeling a little bit fragile still this morning but I think I have finally found the cure! Minus temperatures! Yep, as soon as I was outside in -1°C weather the sickness was replaced with coldness.

Despite being a wee bit chilly, we had a great day. We walked around Prague city with our tour guide “George” who was excellent (a university history professor so he knew his stuff!). We went up to Prague Castle and watched the changing of the guards, saw a few Cathedrals, the Old Town, the New Town, Charles Bridge etc etc. We had a delicious lunch at a medieval underground pub, and then later in the afternoon we went on a gorgeous wooden boat along the river with a hot coffee and some chocolate cake! Just what the doctor ordered after spending 4 hours outside covered in snow flakes and freezing our bits off.

After the tour, we took our time and walked around the street market and stopped into a few souvenir shops every now and then to warm up. I also bought a ridiculous looking beanie with a massive pom-pom on top because it seems to be the ‘in thing’ here. Might look funny but I will be warm for the next 4 days.. after that I don’t think I will require it’s uses since Adelaide is in a sweltering heat wave right now. Ha.  (I am looking forward to coming home to it though).

We are off to Berlin tomorrow, another 4-5 hour train ride. We are desperately in need of a laundry service at our next hotel because every time you go into a pub or a restaurant here you come out stinking like cigarette smoke. Hopefully the Hilton Hotel will pull through for us.

Farewell Prague…

X

View of the city from Prague Castle

Our tour group.. poor old guy on the right didn't come prepared he was like a walking snowman by the end of the trip. No gloves, no beany, no scarf, no coat... NO brains?!!!!! lol

Reminders of beheadings! Old parking machines WT!?

Charles Bridge.. view from the boat.

Beautiful by night

Prague's version of London's famous square?

Terezin

15.01.2012 – Sunday, day 27

Well what an energetic bunch we are today! Hungover and tired from our big night out at Infinity Club last night, where we drank vodka redbull until the wee hours of the morning! Who’s idea was that?! It was a great besides having to put up with all the smoke. People here smoke everywhere. Inside café’s, restaurants, and bars, and since we don’t do that in Australia any more you can really notice it. We are pretty much on sprint patrol to find the non smoking room as soon as we enter a shop. I don’t think the message “smoking kills” has quite got around here yet.

So I guess our quiet mood was well suited to our tour that we booked today, which was a 5 hour trip to a Nazi Concentration Camp. Actually, the first half of the tour was just looking through some museums showing the Jewish history during the Nazi period, which was good but our guide took forever to explain things and she was a little hard to understand. The second half of the tour we walked around the Terezin village which was isolated for Jews before being sent away for extermination… then we had a grand tour of the prison.

The prison was used as a Nazi concentration camp during World War II, and just being there gives you the creeps. It was absolutely horrible the conditions that those poor people had to live in, deprived of human rights, tortured, hung, stoned to death.. I’m not going to go all political and opinionated on the topic but you get the drift. It certainly was a dark era of mankind.

Hopefully tomorrow we will uncover some happier stories in the city.

Cell block A on the right, sick room and showers straight ahead

This room was for 300 prisoners.. there were a dozen more

Memorial gravestone

Prague

Sooo cold!

14.01.2012 – Saturday, day 26

One word… FREEZING! We arrived in Prague around 2pm today after a 5 hour train ride from Vienna. We passed through fields of snow which we thought were mentally preparing us for this cold cold weather ahead. WRONG! An hour of walking down the main mall, a few snaps of the city sights, and I was literally frozen! It’s that kind of cold when your face feels like it’s on fire and if you lick your lips you think that your tongue might freeze over! Either that or your nose might snap off if you so much as sneeze! The wind rips right through you brrrrrrrr. If I didn’t think that 1 degree was cold enough, tomorrows forecast is (-1) with a minimum temperature of (-6).

I am definitely up for some snow gear right about now. We have eaten and drank so much that the jeans are starting to get a little tight and with thermals underneath it’s even worse.. I wonder how many layers I can compact underneath my jacket tomorrow? Ohhhh Leah we are definitely hitting the gym and kicking up the beach runs when we get home! Lol.

So since it is ridiculously cold and dark outside we have decided to indulge again in a few drinks before getting our groove on at a local bar. We haven’t figured out how to speak a word of Czech yet so that should be interesting!

Čau

The National Museum

Touring Vienna

Michaelertor in the city centre

13.01.2012 – Friday, day 25

Today we jumped on board a couple of guided tours, the first through Vienna woods where we visited an old underground mine used as a prison and aeroplane factory during the first world war. We walked down a 500 meter narrow corridor that looked like something out of Charlie and the chocolate factory… you know the one I mean where it gets smaller and smaller as you go further so by the end you’re almost squatting to get through the door. Na, it wasn’t that bad, but we did have to duck our heads most of the way.

Despite being so far down, the air quality was amazing and it was a constant 9 degrees (6 degrees warmer than outside!). We went on a boat ride through the flooded lower level, which was also used in the movie The Three Musketeers.

On our way back from the woods, it started sleeting and by the time we swapped buses to start our city tour at 2pm it was snowing very heavily! It was beautiful to watch for the first time ever, but it kinda ruined our view of most of the city because we couldn’t see out the windows very well. It got down to 2 degrees so they cranked up the heater on the bus and we drove around town for about 90 minutes.. I don’t remember much because all those lovely things (heating, comfy chair, peaceful cruise) are all ingredients for sleep! So off I drifted until we got to our final destination, the Palace where we froze and mucked about in the beautiful gardens and then visited about 10 of over 1,000 rooms.

From the little bit that we managed to see, Vienna is beautiful and has some amazing history much like a lot of the places we have been to. It’s a shame that we didn’t have longer to appreciate it here, but we have enjoyed a couple of traditional Venetian meals, seen the countryside and the most important city sites; so can’t complain really.

Off to Prague tomorrow where the weather forecast is maximum 1 degree!! OMG.

On the underground lake

Freezing at the Palace

In the Palace Gardens

Yep... that little blob down there is me!

The Palace by night

Walking the streets

Welcome to Vienna

The local "Waschsalon"

12.01.2012 – Thursday, day 24

This morning we said goodbye to Salzburg but not to Austria! We arrived in Vienna at midday and headed straight to our hotel which is a little different to most hotels. Boutique Hotel Stadthalle is an ecological friendly hotel and the entire place smells like fresh jasmine and lemon. It almost feels like I’m at a day spa retreat, everything is natural, the décor is modern and either recycled or still living (ie: Plants!). I must admit, I didn’t expect to find this little gem hiding in the back streets of Vienna but she is a beauty; and I would highly recommend to anyone coming here. We also have a supermarket directly across the road which is another added bonus.. wine for 2.99 a bottle! OK why not!

Since many of the tours are closed for the winter here, we were left with not much to do this afternoon and, since our dirty laundry pile was vast outgrowing our clean one, we decided to slum it with the locals and headed to the laundry mat. That’s about as much as we have done today! Lol.

So as we sit here guzzling down our cheap red wine and nibbling on cheese and crackers, we are wondering what the city of Vienna will surprise us with tonight and tomorrow...

Decor at the Eco Hotel

Salzburg

The Sound of Music Tour!

Well today was our one and only day in Salzburg so we crammed in as much as we could.. City Tour.. not a very big city so that was over quickly, then worked our way up to the Castle and back down again ready for our big afternoon tour through the country side.

That was amazing... lots of snow everywhere and who knew there were four amazingly beautiful lagoons and lakes hidden up there. I love the Jacuzzi floating right on the water looking up at the church too! ha.

Will update this post and our pictures another day as I am knackered!

x

At one of the lakes in the Alps

How's the location of the Spa down there! Nice view, bit chilli though I would think!

OMG… there’s snow!

One of the little villages we passed through

10.01.2012 – Tuesday, day 22

So much for Ads telling me that we wouldn’t see snow on our trip until maybe we get to Germany… well did we see snow today or what!? LOTS and LOTS of snow! We travelled firstly by bus from Venice to Villarch, then by train via the Alpine region to Salzburg. Our first class train tickets cost us about 3 Pound each and it would have to be the best 3 Pound we have ever spent!

Neither of us have seen snow before (well I clearly haven't, Ads has seen it but not actually seen it snowing); So we were like kids staring out at a candy factory or something! “Wow, check it out there’s snow over here on this side, and more snow over there, look how thick it is, OMG it's snowing and there’s skiers up there!” lmao. You can totally tell the tourists hey.

But honestly, it was the most beautiful winter scenery I’ve ever seen. Up close and personal with the snow capped mountains, little villages at the bottom of the hill with thick blankets of snow on the roofs of their houses, cars etc. Like luscious white pillows or marshmallows! Now all Ads can talk about is taking the train back up the hill just so he can build a snowman, have a snowball fight and push me over.. yeah nice pick on the crippled one! Lol. We are only in Salzburg for 2 nights and one day so not sure how much snow fighting we will be able to cram in there, but we shall give it a go.

Enjoy the pictures.

View from the bus window

Even the train tracks were covered, you can just see the front of our train as it goes around the bend.

Snow covered village! Beautiful.

Not sure how you get out of that place without drowning in snow! No footpath!

Ski Resort