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 »

After our previous early morning train dilemmas we decided to order our taxi 45 minutes before our train left. Stocked up on some goodies for the train, and chance to catch up again on some work, which includes Issue 26 of the NZ Photographer magazine. A relatively quick trip given Nice is at the very south of France, it is crazy how fast these bullet trains get up to! About 300km/hr. Is a great feeling… Read more »

Another early morning start! Can’t wait to get to England in a few weeks time, where we will be staying with family, and get some nice sleep-ins for awhile! Our lovely host Anne dropped us off at the Epernay train station, where we had problems printing our ticket we had bought online. The credit card I had purchased them with didn’t work in the automatic ticket machine, and our train arrived before we could get… Read more »

A wake up call of a bacon, ham, and mushroom omelet with a side of cocopops… a breakfast fit for kings! With our bags packed the night before, we quickly enjoyed breakfast, before heading downstairs to our waiting taxi to take us to Gare d’lest (East Train Station). Unfortunately today was Victoire 1945 in France (celebrating the end of hostilities in Europe in World War II), and the taxi driver seemed to take the longest… Read more »

Wow. It’s amazing what difference and amazing bed can make to a nights sleep. We were lucky enough to have a super king in our room, and we could almost starfish without touching each other! If you’re ever staying in Paris and want a fine hotel, look no further that Hotel de Sers. I can highly recommend every aspect of the hotel, and made our visit to Paris so much more enjoyable. After… Read more »