After we arrived at our Airbnb flat in London and dumped our gear, we headed off to my Aunty and Uncle’s for dinner. On the way we realised we’d been without the English language for just 5 days short of 7 months. We could understand what everyone was saying! Even the train and bus announcements!! It was wonderful! We had a lovely evening with them, great food, great company, and the kids were totally spoilt! Thank you Aunty & Uncle….
Leaving the camp we had been staying in we drove only a few hours to an area Brittany, still in France. We splurged a bit on this Airbnb and enjoyed the extra comforts that got us. After unpacking BK took the kids to explore the property, in bare feet and unfortunately C stood on a bee but he was very brave. The first day we went to see the local area. We had seen a photo of a pretty canal…
It was goodbye to the FREE no speed limit autobahns of Germany and back to tolled 130 km speed limit motorways as we arrived in France. We will be here for a month, staying in 5 different places in that time, this blog post is about the first two weeks. These two weeks were meant to be the south of France and Barcelona, Spain but after some long travel days a month or two ago we bailed on that idea…
It was a good drive down from The Netherlands to a lovely place called Osterspai on the Rhine river. On the way we went through Eindhoven and called into a special beer shop to get a smoked beer BK had been looking forward to trying. We came across a car accident on the autobahn and as we sat in traffic we found that very disciplined German drivers would make two lanes on the motorway by pulling to the side of…
The last long drive of our (continental) Europe trip took us 738km from Billund, Denmark through Germany (where we stopped in a city called Hamburg so of course we had to have a hamburger! Ha!), and into The Netherlands to a place 40 mins north of Amsterdam. We stayed in a cabin which they had described as located in a recreation park. I wouldn’t call it that. I was amused to see a flock of sheep out my bedroom window….
The next day we were all excited to go to Legoland! I wrote this blog a bit differently for people wanting to go to there. Legoland was built in 1968 so this year they are celebrating being open 50 years. I had read a few blogs on how to do it best. I wanted to do it quickly with the least amount of walking and waiting in queues! We downloaded their app which had wait times and a map…
It was a smooth drive out of Berlin and up to the coast to catch the ferry to Denmark. We arrived early checked in, lined up with everyone else, boarded quickly and early, parked, and went upstairs quite pleased with ourselves and the boat for the efficiency. Within a few minutes of being on board we glanced out the window and saw we were already departing, a whole 30 minutes before our sailing. We panicked slightly that we were on…
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…