All posts by deandanielle

Home Sweet Home!

After a very long journey we finally made it home Saturday afternoon. We were pretty shattered and very glad to finally sleep in a proper bed.

We had such a fantastic trip with so many great times and no regrets. All in all a great success.

My pack is all finished now and doesn’t look to shabby. I’m glad I did it.

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Thanks for putting up with us for 10 weeks.

Farewell Europe

Our last day today. Was a crusiy day yesterday, just shopping around town. We went to a different beer hall last night and had a great time. We ate a traditional Bavarian meal of pork knuckle, cracking, potato dumpling and sauerkraut. The lady that served us didn’t speak English but was hilarious and kept tricking me into buying more drinks without me realising.

We are now at Munich Airport waiting for our flight. Not looking forward to the long trip but can’t wait to get home in two days time.

Neuschwanstein Castle

A great day today at Neuschwanstein castle. Got up nice and early and jumped on the train. After a 2 hour journey we arrived in Füssen which is 5km from the castle. We then caught the bus to the entrance. The line for tickets was huge so after an hour wait we finally had our tickets and began the 40 min uphill climb to the castle…we weren’t disappointed. It is pretty stunning from the outside.

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Once we reached the top we then did a tour of the inside. It was never completed inside and the tour was very average. The ‘English’ tour guide spoke zike zis zo zit zwas zery zard zo zunderstand. After the tour we walked around to a bridge over the canyon which gives the great views of the castle.

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Only two nights to go! Will spend the next couple of days looking around Munich and hopefully visiting the site of the first concentration camp.

Munich

Had a bit of a look around Munich today. Didn’t end up going to the castle, instead we went to the train station and figured out how to actually get there. We plan to go tomorrow.

We headed the main square but as it is Sunday nothing is open so there wasn’t much to see in the way of shops. We still saw some cool churches, palaces and clock towers before retiring to the beer garden for lunch.

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Only 3 days to go! Enjoying the most of the sunshine while we have it!

Stuttgart & Munich

A pretty laid back couple of days. We arrived in Stuttgart yesterday to a hostel that required us to give them a phone call when we arrived…only problem is we didn’t have a phone. After about 2 hours of waiting and asking around we finally got hold of the owners and got into our room.

This morning we headed into Stuttgart’s main area where we looked around until our 2pm train to Munich.

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We arrived in Munich, found our hostel then headed straight to a beer garden recommended by the locals…Augustiner Keller. What an amazing experience. So many people, great food and delicious beer.

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We have our last four nights in Munich, then heading home! Tomorrow we are going to try get to Neuschwanstein Castle which is about an hour away.

Frankfurt: Day 2

A very lazy day today. Got up late and enjoyed a good breakfast. Our hostel offers free breakfast and also pasta for dinner as well which is a first for us but was pretty good.

We then decided to go for a walk along the river, which has about 8 different museums along the banks and some cool bridges.

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We ended up back in the old town and had a look around all the little shops and also the main shopping street. We are now having a few drinks and playing some cards waiting for our pasta.

Frankfurt

After an intersecting day we are now in Frankfurt. The day started off with our first cooked breakfast on our trip. We then jumped on a train at the awesome train station in Antwerp.

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That’s where the fun started. Our first train was late arriving so we had to sprint so we didn’t miss the next train. We got there in in time but the train was jam packed. We had to sit in the doorway again, this time for 2 ¹/² hours… It was a nightmare. We finally arrived in Frankfurt to see a police car crash right in front of us, then two homeless guys decided to fight in front of us kicking each other and spilling their precious beer.

However, Frankfurt is a lot better than we thought and we had a great time exploring the old part of town (the rest was destroyed in the war).

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We have two nights in Frankfurt before we head to Stuttgart. Glad that we travelled when we did as everywhere is getting very busy and we are really struggling to find accommodation. Would hate to go a month later.

Antwerp

Another great day on our trip. We got up this morning and cooked ourselves a free breakfast then headed into town. We only had the town hall to see so spent most of the day cruising around. The town hall was great, it looked just like the one in Mini Europe. It also had an NZ flag but no Australian flag…always good to see.

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Town Hall

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Last night in Antwerp tonight then heading to Frankfurt tomorrow morning. On the home stretch now, just over a week to go. Really looking forward to coming home.

Bruges and Antwerp

Had an amazing morning in Bruges. We got up nice and early and hired some bikes from the hostel and hit the streets. Bruges is an awesome city, one of our favourites so far. We saw so much more by biking round.

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Once we had biked to the main square we climbed up the Belfry of Bruges which is the bell tower.  The climb was well worth it as it gave us a wicked view of the city. We even got to see the how the clock and bells work which was pretty cool but loud!

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We then carried on our cycle tour.

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Once we had enough we headed back to the hostel, picked up our bags and jumped on the next train to Antwerp. Antwerp is Belgium’s second largest city and has a choice town hall built in the 1500s that we will check out tomorrow.

In Bruges

We are now in Bruges, which is northern Belgium. We arrived today after a chaotic train ride (we missed the first train because it was too full then jammed our way onto the next one and had to stand in the doorway the whole way). Luckily it was only an hour!

Bruges is a lot bigger than we expected but is a really nice city. Lots of old streets with old brick buildings and windmills surrounding the city. We walked around the area near our hostel where we found a local market with food, drink and live music…was an awesome experience.

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Danielle is very happy as we have found the elusive fruit beer. She currently has peach flavour, raspberry is next. Tomorrow we hope to hire some bikes and cycle around the city and see all the sites.