Moscow

After a 4:00am wake up, a delayed flight and a hurry through the Berlin airport, we touched down in Russia!

I must admit that it was pretty scary coming through Russian immigration, but we made it through all good. We were thrown into the deep end a bit, we decided not to get a taxi into the city, but to brave the express airport train and then the metro. All of a sudden we were trying to work out where we needed to go, trying to match words written not only in another language but with a different alphabet.
Somehow we managed to catch the right train and we made it safely to the main train/metro station in Moscow. Unfortunately by the time we got there it was peak hour and there was an absolutely ridiculous amount of people all trying to navigate the underground. We also had our packs which it made it feel like we were four people rather than two. 

It was scary and intimidating, but we figured it out and arrived at the correct station and eventually found our hostel. 

The hostel is great, we have a private room and it is close to a metro station, but only about a 15min walk from the Red Square. There is also plenty of food nearby. 

We decided to have an early night recover from the early rise. 

We caught the metro into the city centre. We had a look through the Kremlin, which is super cool. The Kremlin is made up of different government buildings, museums and cathedrals. It is the official residence of the President of the Russian Federation and houses the Senate, it dates back to the early Russian Tsar’s and was used through the Soviet Union period as the government head quarters. 

It’s a really cool place, and a number of the Tsar’s have tombs inside the cathedrals, it’s has an extremely interesting history with all kinds of buildings housed in the walled area. 

From the Kremlin, we walked along the Alexander Garden to the Red Square..
Through the garden there is all different monuments, and beside the gates there is a memorial for the Second World War. 

The Red Square is amazing. The buildings that surround the Red Square are gorgeous and so full of detail, most of them now house museums of shopping ares. The Kremlin lines on side of the square on one side, and on the opposite is Moscow’s oldest shopping centre, which is celebrating it’s 120th birthday.
At one end is State Historical Museum while at the other end stands the beautiful and very colourful St. Basil’s Cathedral. The cathedral is spectacular, the shape is so different to the other buildings in the square and the colours make it even more interesting. Apparently the Tsar Ivan the Terrible blinded the architect so that they would never be able to design something as beautiful as St.Basil’s. 

Entrance to the Kremlin

Cathedral in the Kremlin

Cathedral in the Kremlin

Red Square

St. Basil's

St. Basil's

State Historical Museum

Entrance to the Red Square

Paris

We spent one night just outside of Paris, in the shiftiest place we have stayed so far. The Lemon Hotel cost us $28 for the night and was way overpriced. Even the logo, which was a lime not a lemon, was dodgy. Luckily we escaped without bedbugs and we were able to clean out the car and leave our unwanted/broken things in the car park. 

Happy to leave behind the memory of the Lemon Hotel we headed into Paris. We drove into the city and found the apartment we are staying, which is an awesome little attic studio apartment in north Paris. It is a little bit of a dodgy area, but it’s still really cool. We are only about 500m down the road from Moulin Rouge. 

Unfortunately the first thing we had to do in Paris was drop off our car! It was really sad to say goodbye to the car, we drove 15,000 km in it and leaving it felt like the end of a really fun, exciting and important part of our trip. However, though it felt like the end, we know we still have plenty to look forward too!

From there, we headed to the Louvre. It was amazing, it is absolutely massive! The building is incredible! Although are reading the Harry Potter series and going to the studios, we were quite disappointed that none of the pictures moved... 

Our second day in Paris, we spent the entire day at the Saint Ouen Flea Markets. The antiques were amazing, and I loved all the vintage designer clothes. We both made a couple of purchases but we were content just wandering through the endless alley ways full of interesting things. 

We walked along Champs Elysees and had a look at the very impressive Arc De Triomphe. Though Sam thought the round a bout didn’t look too intimidating, I was pretty happy we no longer had the car... 

It was nice having lunch at a patisserie along Champs Elysees, although the area is packed with tourists. 

On our last day in Paris it poured with rain. Luckily we had plenty of things we needed to get done before we headed to Moscow tomorrow! We had to sort through the massive build up of stuff we had, most of which we just left in a charity bin, and what we wanted to keep we packed into a box and sent home. 

By the late afternoon the rain wasn’t so bad so we headed out.
We found an english book store who bought all our unwanted books for 22 Euro, which we were very happy with!
From there we walked along the river, which was surprisingly nice in the rain. 

We locked a lock on the Love Lock bridge, which was pretty cool. Then we decided to keep walking along the river to the Eiffel Tower.
Since the weather was pretty horrible, the line to go to the top was tiny, so we decided that would be a nice way to end out time in Paris and Europe. We caught the elevator all the way to the top. The view was absolutely incredible, even with the the rain and fog. It gives such an incredible look at the entire city, which is so much bigger than it feels. It was cool to be able to point out the different place we had seen! Plus we can say we had a coffee in the Eiffel Tower! 

We spent our last night packing all our things back into our packs, which was a lot harder than when we first packed them! An early night, since we are leaving for the airport tomorrow at 4:30am.
I can’t wait for Russia!

Champs Elysees

Champs Elysess

Arc De Triomphe

Arc De Triomphe

Arc De Triomphe

Our 2 man elevator

Belgium

Manneken Pis

Galeries Royale Saint - Hubert

Manneken Pis

London/Bristol/Cardiff/London

From London we decided to head over to the West coast and spend a few days around Bristol and Bath. We found a nice little place to stay and did very little for a few days. On our first day we had a bit of a look around Bristol, which is a pretty nice city, pretty similar to Geelong.
The place we stayed was in a little town outside of Bristol called Almondsbury. It was nice to stay in a little town and we had a nice walk around through the park. We caught up on newspapers and got to watch some TV, which was nice.

We also spent a day in Bath, which is an incredible old town. We had a look at some of the amazing old Roman baths and then just explored the streets. It’s a nice relaxing tourist town. 

From Bristol we decided to head up into Wales. We only spent one night in the capital of Cardiff. It was a pretty cool place, very different from anywhere we had been in England. It reminded us a lot of Belfast in Northern Ireland, it had the same kind of feel to it.
The weather in Wales was pretty miserable, so we gave the Cardiff Castle a miss and spent our day having a look through some shops. 

On our way back to London, we stopped and had a look around Oxford. It’s an absolutely gorgeous town, I loved it. The buildings are so old and incredible, but it was cool and really just made me wish I was going to Uni there. We walked passed a cemetery where there were gravestones from the 1700’s and the 1800’s. It was amazing.

Back in London, we stayed in a place a little way out of the city, in a little attic room, which was really cool.
On our first day we picked up our Chinese Visa’s! It’s nice to know that we are officially able to go to China now, no more wondering about getting flights home from Mongolia. 

The next few days we just spent having a look around a few of the areas we missed last time.
We spent a day in Camden looking around the awesome markets, and some time in Regents Park. We wandered through Mayfair and Primrose Hill.
One nigth we decided to take the car and go back to drive by some of the tourist attractions we liked. It was fun, I think the best part was driving past Harrods and seeing it all lit up. Although driving past Buckingham Palace and Big Ben was pretty cool too. 

On our last day we just hung around the area around our place, had lunch and managed to by five books for seven pounds at a secondhand bookstore.

From London we drove down to Dover. We had a picnic in a park near our hostel. We were both pretty shattered to be leaving England, it feels like the end of a huge part of our trip, but of course we have plenty more to look forward too!
In the morning we were back on the car ferry and headed for Paris.

London

First thing in the morning we were up and on the road, heading back into France. We made our way to the town of Dunkirk and caught the car ferry back over to England!
It’s nice to be back in an english speaking country, somewhere we feel a bit more comfortable. We have almost two weeks here, which gives us a bit of time to rest up and get prepared for Russia!

Although we were back on the right side of the road, now we are on the wrong side of the car. It’s a little bit stressful and scary being stuck in the gutter, but we are getting used to it. Although when we go into a parking garage it’s a bit weird that I have to grab the ticket. 

We spent a night in a town near Dover, called Gravesend. Then it was back to London.
I think London is most definitely one of our favourite places, it is a really cool city. The first thing we did was head to the Chinese embassy to sort out our visa’s, which all went well and we should be getting them back next week. With that weight off our minds, we decided to head back to Kings Cross and have a look at Platform 9 3/4, which Sam has a whole new appreciation for after reading the whole Harry Potter series. 

We stayed a little way out of the city, but we caught the bus in each day. Since we have already done all the tourist stuff, it was nice to be able to just wandering around the streets and see more of the city.
We had a look around Oxford St and Regent St, unfortunately it was just a look. But we also had a look around Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square and Leicester Square. 

We had a very brief look around the Nation Gallery and National Portrait Gallery, but decided it wasn’t really our thing. 

Piccadilly Circus is cool, we went and saw a movie and had dinner there and it was crazy busy. 

For the four days we spent in London this time, we actually didn’t do much. We just kind of looked around some of the places we missed last time and some areas like Soho and Mayfair that we had heard a lot about. It was nice to just have some time to relax and take it easy.

Amsterdam/Brussels

The next day we rode our bikes in and again just cruised around in the morning. We rode around some less central areas and we were able to get a feel for what life in Amsterdam is like, away from the slightly seedy centre. 

In the afternoon, we visited Anne Frank’s House. It was amazing. You get to actually go inside the tiny area the two families lived. It explains her story and there are excerpts from her diary all over. It is incredible reading some of the things she wrote, you would never be able to guess she was so young.
We spent quite a bit of time there, before returning our bikes and wandering back to our campsite.

Unfortunately when we woke up in the morning it was pouring rain. we tried to wait it out, but eventually we just had to suck it up and pack the tent up in the rain. 

It wasn’t a long drive to Brussels, but we decided to have a relaxed day in the hotel after a hectic morning. 

Brussels is a gorgeous city, the town square is stunning. With amazing old buildings covered in incredible details, lined up around the cobblestone square.
We had a coffee in one of the small cafes in the square, before wandering around to the different chocolate shops.
We had a look through the beautiful Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert, the Hotel De Ville (Town Hall) and some of the other smaller shopping lanes.
The Manneken Pis fountain was a little disappointing, as it is absolutely tiny, but it’s still cool and pretty funny. 

After a stop at the Godiva Chocolate shop for some chocolate covered strawberries, we were able to get our car serviced, finally! 

The air conditioner is still broken, but everything else is perfect!

Amsterdam

From Kolping we left Denmark, and headed back into Germany. We arrived in Hamburg around lunchtime. It was nice to spend the day wandering through Hamburg, It’s easy to tell it is a wealthy city, and we felt a little out of place. It was similar to Milan, except that it was much prettier, there were small canals, a big lake and a town square with beautiful old buildings.

The next morning we drove down to Amsterdam. We found a caravan park outside of the city and decided we would camp for a few nights.
From the camp site, it was a short walk to the small ferry port, where every 10 minutes a ferry came to take us over the river to the center of Amsterdam. The ferry was great, it was free and frequent, plus it only took 3-4 minutes to cross.
When we first arrived on the other side we were amazed.
The whole city is set amongst canals, and bikes way out number cars. There are bikes locked to anything they can fix them too and bike lanes or paths on every road. It’s awesome.
On our first afternoon we wandered along a few streets and eventually decided to hire bikes. By the time we found a place and organized our bikes, we decided to jump back on the ferry and head back to camp.
The bikes were fantastic, they were single speed ‘Dutch Bikes’ with back pedal brakes and with no hills at all they were all we needed. Plus the bikes we got were bright green.

After a sleep in, we made our way into the city, and it was definitely handy having the bikes. We cruised around easily although the main city.
The place is gorgeous, with huge trees along the canals, pretty bridges and incredible crooked houses lining the streets. The houses really are almost comical, it’s hard to find two straight buildings in a row anywhere. They all have dark paint and bright white window sills, it’s really cool. 

We spent a few hours just riding around, most of the things we really wanted to see were packed, so we decided to leave them for the next day. It was just as fun and interesting cruising along the canals taking it all in.
And there is quite a lot to take in.
There are all kinds of strange and different people, most of them hanging around out the front of ‘Coffee shops’. But even the stores are interesting to look at, although when we stumbled upon the Red Light District, we were amazed as the mannequins were alive and lacking many clothes.. 

Copenhagen

Christiansborg Palace

Amalienborg Palace

The Little Mermaid

Denmark

Denmark is awesome. The weather here is exactly what we were hoping, finally a break from the heat! It had been raining on and off, and the temperature staying around 18. With no air conditioner in the car, the cool is very nice.

Kolping is a nice little place, we found a nice cabin and were finally able to cook something in an oven! We had a little look around, although it turns out nothing is open on Sundays there, so we got some groceries, cooked, read and slept. It was nice to be inside and have it cold and rainy outside, I finally got to wear trackies again. 

We headed to Copenhagen in the morning, about a 2 hour drive. It was pretty nice, and we got to drive across a 20km long bridge. It was cool! 

We grabbed some lunch on the road and then made our way into the city. It was awesome, there were bikes everywhere, gorgeous buildings and the beautiful Tivoli amusement park in the heart of the city. Our afternoon was spent wandering around, looking through shops and admiring the city center. 

In the late afternoon, we made our way back to the small town of Koge, where we were staying. We had a good look around the main town square and along the harbor, having dinner down by the water. It was a nice fishing town, with stone streets and small restaurants and cafe’s. 

We spent another day in Copenhagen, this time having a look at a few more of the sites.
The National Museum was really interesting, and we learnt the history of Denmark from right back in the Stone Age. There was also a Viking exhibit happening, which was really cool. 

Next we went and had a look around the island of Slotsholmen, which houses Christiansborg Palace (Danish Parliament and Supreme Courts) as well as many other important museums and ministries. From there we walked to Amalienborg Palace, which is where the current Danish Royal family live. It was a really cool place, the building is divided into for sections that each sit on a corner of the square, with a big statue in the middle. It’s not quite as grand as Buckingham Palace, but I think they do alright. 

From here we walked up into a park and along the water to find the famous statue The Little Mermaid. Which, I have to admit, was a pretty cool statue. However I struggle to undestand how it has become Denmark’s biggest attraction, it’s cool, but there are plenty of cool statues all around the rest of the park too. 

After spending some time trying to work out where we were and where we needed to go, we jumped on the metro. We had heard that the Copenhagen metro was really cool, and it’s true. It was incredibly futuristic inside, and the train seemed to travel pretty fast. There were even secure stands to put your bike in.

We left Koge in the morning and headed back to Kolping. It was nice to be able to look around the small city with everything open this time. We ate lunch in an outdoor cafe in the town square and had a look around the shops.
It was nice to be able to cook another proper full meal, we didn’t realise how much we had missed steak and veggies! 

Berlin

The next day we got up and went to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. This is situated next to the old border crossing to the East from the American sector of the West. 

The museum explains the end of the war and the reasons behind the wall being built. It also goes into detail about escapes from East to West as well as the fall of the wall.
From there we went to see another remnant of the wall, and have a look through the Topography of Terrors Museum. This explains the rise and fall of Hitler and Nazi Germany. It explains the different secret police that operated under Nazi command and the people they victimized. They had a huge range of photos that had been taken by the SS officers, it was amazing. Though it was incredibly interesting, it was also extremely confronting. We were both disgusted when we reached the end of the timeline, only to discover that very few men had been punished at all for their crimes. Hitlers second in command had killed himself, while many others were just never punished.
One man, who was responsible for over 1,000 deaths, is still alive today and has never been punished. 

We were planning on leaving the city early the next morning, but we ended spending most of the day looking around the city. We found an amazing antique market. It was awesome, so many cool things , and Sam managed to find a heap of old money from all over the world, including GDR Mark, to add to his collection. 

From there we found a great English bookstore that sold cheap second hand books. We spent over an hour in there, looking for a range of books. Luckily for us they bought used books too, so we dropped off 7 and only bought 6. Hopefully that should keep us busy until we get back into England. 

After buying lunch from another small market, we jumped into the car and headed north. We found a little village just outside of a town called Schwerin and camped there for the night.
The next morning we drove straight up into Denmark, finding accommodation in the city of Kolding. 

Checkpoint Charlie

Checkpoint Charlie

Checkpoint Charlie

Topography of Terror

The Wall (been picked apart by tourists)

Berlin

We spent another night in Poland, in the city of Wroclaw. It was a nice night, and we got up early and headed for Berlin.

Berlin is an incredible city. We stayed in a nice hotel in the area that used to be East Berlin, and we were only a short walk from the East Side Gallery remnants of the wall. 

The place was full of character and all kinds of different people. There were heaps of organic shops and a huge range of people cruising around on their bikes. We wandered along the streets and kept an eye out for any english bookstores. It was a pretty run down part of the city, full of graffiti and all sorts of posters, but it was incredibly cool and only added to the uniqueness of the area.

The next morning we got up and went to have a look at the East Side Gallery. This is the largest remaining part of the old Berlin Wall, and it is covered in artwork that was painted in 1990 after Germany was reunited. All the murals some how relate back to a theme of freedom or hope, and the artwork is impressive. 

From there we caught a bus into the city centre. 

Here we had lunch on the river and then visited the GDR museum. The German Democratic Republic Museum gives an insight into the lives of those living in East Germany and specifically in East Berlin up until 1989. It was a really interesting place. We learnt a lot about how these people lived and the control the government had over them.
We jumped back on the bus and got to see the area that was West Berlin. The difference between here and what used to be the East, is incredible. This area is well kept and full of a lot more tourists. It’s not as quirky and different, it could be any city. That is until you come across some remnants of the wall or the line on the ground showing where the wall once was.

Parliament Building

Charlottenburg 

Slovakia/Auschwitz

What was supposed to be a 5 and a half hour drive, turned out to be around 8 hours. We drive through Slovakia, which was crazy and not at all what we were expecting. The scenery through the country was gorgeous and the hills and mountains were amazing. Definately not what we had imangined Slovakia to look like.
We were cruising along pretty well, but things started to go downhill after Sam got pulled over. Another on the spot fine, this time for speeding. The police wanted Sam to pay 60 Euro, however they only took cash and we only had 30. Eventually they agreed to take just the 30, and after slipping it into his wallet the policeman let us go. 

After that a few wrong turns set us back almost an hour and a half. By 6 we finally made it to Krakow!

We had a very relaxing night in Krakow, after a Polish dinner, just trying to keep cool.
In the morning we got up and drove to Auschwitz, which was about an hour away. We joined a guided tour and spent almost four hours between Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II - Birkenau.

Auschwitz I is the smaller of the camps and is partially now a museum. Here we got to walk through the different blocks, which now house different exhibits. In one block there is 2 tonnes of human hair, along with huge piles of the possessions stripped from the prisoners when they arrived at the camp. Things like glasses, brushes, combs, even shoes and children’s toys. 

We were able to see what the living conditions were like for the prisoners, and the ways that they were punished. The wall of Death, where thousands of prisoners were shot, the gallows where hundreds were hung, and even they gallows where, after the war, they hung the man in charge of the camp.
It was horrible to walk through a place where so many innocent people had died. It was even worse going inside the gas chamber and furnace rooms. 

Auschwitz II - Birkenau, is much bigger then the first camp, but it is now mostly ruins, as it was destroyed by the SS in the days leading up to the Soviets arrival. Here we saw the horrible conditions people were forced to live in, it’s hard to believe that anyone survived that place at all. The barracks in which they lived were horrendous, unsanitary and incredibly over crowded.
When people arrived at the camp, they were examined and if they were fit to work they stayed, if not, they were sent straight to the death chambers. We walked the same path that all those people walked.
It was chilling to be in a place where 1.5 million innocent people were killed. It was incredibly sad and quite confronting, but it was an incredible experience that we would recommend to anyone.

Slovakia

Slovakia

Auschwitz I - Block 4

Shoes taken from the prisoners

Auschwitz I

Barracks in where prisoners lived - 4-5 to a bed

Ruins of the gas chambers - Birkenau

Auschwitz II - Birkenau

Railway at Birkenau and the path to the gas chambers