After our time in Nottingham with my family, it was time to start the trip back to New Zealand, via a few days in London & Paris first. We caught a bus down to London on Tuesday morning, before catching up with our friends Aaron & Dee (who are now back in New Zealand, as a married couple). Probably a poignant place to… Read more »

Monday morning we left Newcastle for the second time, en route for Nottingham! In some ways we were saving the best till last, on the other the whole time we had been trekking around Europe I had been dying to see all my family in Nottingham! I think if I did a similar trip again, I would have to go to Nottingham first, and then venture off from there. Heading down the M1… Read more »

After a week in Newcastle already, we decided to head to Edinburgh for a few days. On Friday we went shopping for the day, which included buying up a storm at Ikea. We ended up leaving a stash of loot behind in England, which is currently in a container somewhere on a ship en route for New Zealand. Also purchased my first (of… Read more »

On the wednesday we decided to head to Edinburgh Scotland for the night. Scotland is just an hours drive from Newcastle, so seemed silly not to venture up there. Once you hit the Scotland/England border, there’s a giant rock. I’m sure the only point of this is so you can jump from country to country… It also provides a nice windbreaker for the Bagpiper who is usually always here playing. The first port of call… Read more »

After a 12 hour crossing from Amsterdam we arrived back in England. If you ever are doing a trip around Europe, and want to get back to the UK, check the ferry crossings from Amsterdam. They’re often a lot cheaper than the chunnel crossings from France to London, and if you’re heading north once you get to UK, you save money again by not having to get from London north. While we were on board,… Read more »

Of all the places we were knocking off on this trip I had thought Amsterdam would’ve been my least favourite, purely for the reason that I had already spent three nights here two years ago, on my last trip to the UK. However this was not at all the case, and in fact Amsterdam became our favourite place of the entire trip! We can’t quite put our finger on what it is about Amsterdam that had… Read more »

Prague, or Praha as they call it locally, was our next stop. Another complementary hotel meant we lived like a king & queen for two nights at the stunning Santini Residence. It really was our home away from home, and the breakfast each morning was to die for! We didn’t do a whole lot in Prague, except for walking the streets exploring. We got in quite late on our first night, and left quite… Read more »

The train journey from Verona to Munich is one of the best in Europe. It is set between the German & Austrian alps, and the scenery is beautiful. We headed to the restaurant carriage and enjoyed a lovely meal as we blasted through the countryside. The Champions League football final was taking place on Saturday night, and when we left Venice we still didn’t actually have anywhere to stay in Munich on the Saturday night. Our… Read more »

Well it’s catch up time! We’ve been way too busy and having way too much fun that it has been harder than I thought to keep on top of my blogs. It’s not so much putting the pen to paper that is the issue, but more sorting through all the photos, editing them, and then finding a decent internet connection to upload it all. So where did we leave the story… ah yes the train… Read more »

As the saying goes, “When in Rome do as the Romans do and fast on Sundays”. We arrived on a Sunday. We lasted till 2pm… good pizza though! We arrived at 10am in the morning. It was nice knowing we had three nights here and keeping our feet on the ground a little more than usual. Having said that, the pace didn’t change at all and we still managed to squeeze every drop of Rome… Read more »

We had always planned to do a day trip to Pompei from Rome, but were going to opt for public transport given how crazy Italians drive here and the sheer speed the trains travel at. However after seeing so many SMART cars in Rome I had an urge to get behind the wheel, and what better chance. 600km round trip seemed a bit daunting, but after discovering the speed limits were 130km/hr time literally flew… Read more »

Well the 4:30am start wasn’t as bad as we had thought and we tried to sleep a bit on the train. The first hour was good as it was just Em & I in a compartment of 6 seats, so had a whole row to lie down and stretch out. It’s set out much like the seats on the Hogwarts Express from Harry Potter. Three seats facing each other, with it’s own door to the… Read more »