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.