Dresden + Gorlitz/Zgorzelec and Berlin Because we had driven on the back roads between Austria and Pilsen, driving into Dresden we got our first taste of the German autobahns (highways). We’d been told there’s no speed limit but a bazillion trucks. Wow that sure was correct! We enjoyed the 3 lane highways the most (due to trucks passing trucks) and most of the time we sat between 130km p/h (the normal speed for highways in Europe) and 150km p/h…
We came out of the Austrian mountains, into Germany for a bit then finally into Pilsen, Czechia. It was an easy check in to the apartment. We ended up loving this Airbnb, from the furniture to the crockery to the internet speed. I took photos of a high back chair and the couch and hope to find similar in NZ for our collection. Next year’s goal is to not to travel the world but to finish renovating our house. …
It was a long drive up into Austria but we were happy to find much cheaper petrol and our destination, a very cool campground. We had booked through Eurocamp.co.uk and got a 3 bedroom cabin. Though a bit cold at night it was well set up and easy to live in for a week. The camp had an onsite kids club running, which had 2 morning sessions and an afternoon session so for most of the week the kids…
Rome, Amalfi Coast & Cinque Terre The day before we were due to leave the east coast I realised I was a day ahead of myself and wasn’t supposed to be arriving in Rome on a Thursday, it was meant to be a Friday! Eeek! No accommodation was booked. A quick look on Airbnb and we found a perfect place halfway between the east and west coasts. On the way there Little R spied a beautiful old town out…
Venice and San Marino Last time BK and I were in Europe a highlight of ours was Venice, we visited in November on my 25th birthday. So I was looking forward to returning but didn’t want the same kind of trip repeated. At least it was going to be warmer this time! We decided to stay out at an outlying beach area. Then got an all day pass on the ferries and spent a lot of time out…
It was an easy drive back out of Croatia, we passed through border control, made a quick stop to buy a vignette, (which is a sticker that goes on your windscreen, we think it’s instead of tolls), then onto some beautiful big highways which we found totally bizarre because on our way to Croatia we had already driven through Slovenia and the main road was like a rural back road in New Zealand so we were surprised to find highways…
After our friends left for London we stayed in Split but moved a little further south of the city on the coast. The views and sunsets were amazing. We spent a few days catching up on laundry, schoolwork and rest. We found a fortress high high high on a hill. We decided we’d climb it, so off C and I climbed while BK got left behind helping little R. A looooong 45 minutes later we reached the top. After…
We picked up our 2018 Peugeot 208 in Geneva, Switzerland and started driving. Wow the highways here are expensive but amazing! Europe appears to be just one big never ending highway. On our first day of traveling we spent NZ$153 on tolls, half of that was to go through the Mont Blanc tunnel. This is an amazing engineering feat which is 11.6km long and has a ton of rules including the slowest speed you can do (50km/h) as well as…
Must be time for a summary! Sleeping Number of beds slept in = 22 Best bed – Ho Chi Minh City Worst bed – Hong Kong Flying Number of flights flown = 15 Number of airlines used = 7 Best flight – The first Emirates one out of NZ to Melbourne even though it was delayed 2 hours Worst flight – Colombo to Dubai on FlyDubai Best take off – Dubai to Istanbul Worst take off – Istanbul to…
At stupid o’clock (4.30am) we got up and headed to the airport to depart Sri Lanka. The process was slow going, we arrived 2 hours early but only got checked into our flight 50 minutes before it departed. We were happy to arrive in Dubai and celebrated that we had come so far under budget in Sri Lanka by getting a taxi to our accommodation. We arrived too early to check in, so we took turns staying with our…