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

Vienna/Budapest

We made it to Vienna in the early afternoon and after checking in, we headed straight for the Chinese embassy, which was closed. However we were able to find the Mongolian embassy and it took about 10 minutes and we left with visa’s! So we are another step closer to getting all the way to China!
After being rejected again for our Chinese Visa’s the next day, we decided to just wait and we should be able to get them when we are back in the UK.
We found an english bookstore and wandered through the center of Vienna.

Which is an absolutely beautiful city! The buildings are amazing, so old and beautiful.
We went and visited Hofburg, which is the old palace of the monarchy who ruled over Austria. It was an awesome old palace, similar but not quite as grand as Versailles. We learnt about the story of the beloved Empress Elisabeth and other important members of the Habsburg family. 

We spent some time walking around the city, but when the heat became a bit much we headed back and struggled to sleep in our room with no air conditioning. 

We left Vienna heading for Prague, but decided at the very last minute to turn the other way and we drove to Hungary. After a lot of hassle trying to buy a ticket to use the roads in Hungary, we finally got one and made our way to Budapest.
The countryside of Hungary wasn’t very appealing, very dry and brown, but Budapest was amazing. The gorgeous chain bridge links the two sides of the city, and the buildings are so different compared to any city we have been to so far. We bought ice creams and spent the afternoon looking through the cobblestone pedestrian streets of the city centre. It wasn’t as crowded as most of the other cities we have seen, and although so many of the shops sold souvenirs, they were different and unique to Hungary.

We found a great deal on a 4 star Mecure hotel, which we got for about 70% off, and it was very nice to have a night in comfort. Plus there was air conditioning, which was nice after the 37 degree day.
Although we were disappointed we didn’t get to spend more time in Budapest, we were pretty keen to get to Poland, so we headed off. 

Budapest

Budapest

Budapest

Budapest

Hofburg - Vienna

Vienna

Hofburg - Vienna

Liechtenstein/Galtur

We spent our next morning looking around Vadus, the tiny capital of the tiny country of Liechtenstein. Vadus is a barely a city, more of just a big town, and on top of a hill overlooking the country sits the castle of the royal family. It’s a cool little country, with nice small towns, and a beautiful countryside and a backdrop of the Swiss alps. We got our passport stamped at the tourism office, which is the only place you can since there is no international airport or train system into the country!
We drove up into the forest and ate lunch in a gorgeous clearing next to a stream. It was so nice and relaxing and we sat and read for a little while before we jumped back in the car and headed back into Austria.

We drove up into the Austrian Alps and stayed the night in a small ski village called Galtur. It a really nice spot up in the mountains, and a tiny town just down the road from the ski slopes. I wish we could have seen the placed in winter, all covered in snow, it would have been gorgeous, but the bright green fields and pine forests weren’t too bad either! 

We drove back into Switzerland the next day, to have a look at the Swiss National Park. It was another awesome drive through the mountains, and the park was lovely. There were huge bright blue lakes and beautiful forests. We sat and cooked lunch in a small shaded area and sat back and enjoyed our amazing surroundings.

In the afternoon we were back in Austria and camped in a small town outside of Innsbruck, called Mils. 

From Mils, we drove to Vienna, we even got to drive through Germany for 100km or so. Unfortunately we didn’t know we had to have a toll sticker to use the motorways, and had to pay an on the spot fine of 120 Euro! 

Downtown Liechtenstein 

The Castle

Lunch in Liechtenstein 

Austrian Alps

Austrian Alps

Austrian Alps