The end of Europe...

Well as promised here is the final post while we are here in Europe (yes England is actually part of Europe).

So where was I? We had just left Vienna for Prague. Prague was an amazing city that could have kept us there for longer, but as we were running out of time we had to settle for 2 days. We spent those mainly exploring the old town which is full of towers, churches, museums, bridges and babushka shops (Russian dolls). The main attraction is Prague Castle which overlooks the entire city. One of the best things we did was spend a night in a little bar where there was a duo of guitarists singing classic Czech rock songs (as best as we could tell) as wells as a few English hits from The Eagles, The Beatles and Eric Clapton.

Splitting the two days we spent in Prague was a day trip to one of the prettiest towns in all of Europe. Csesky Krumlov. Basically, Lonely Planet describes it best as a miniature Prague. It had the same architecture, had a castle but was it a more picturesque location being in the hills with a river snaking back and forth through town. Once again we walked all around town (literally this time, it was 10 minutes from one side top the other. We also enjoyed some tradition Czech food which is normally a lot of meat and for desert some dumplings filled with fruit, is was as delicious.

After the Czech Republic we headed to Berlin. To get a good taste of town, we went on a free walking tour that basically covered everything from The Brandenburg Gate, to the Berlin Wall. Berlin was a fascinating city with so much history, but little original buildings to show for it having been very badly damaged in the final stage of WWII. There is however, some amazing recent architecture from the dome of the Reichstag building, to the incredible Holocaust memorial. All in all, we really enjoyed our time in Berlin and really appreciated the difference between north and south Germany (we previously visited the south in October).

From Berlin we got on our last European overnight bus ride (I think they will be even worse in South East Asia) and headed for Amsterdam. As you can imagine, Amsterdam was a very interesting city but not only for the reasons you know of. The fact that the land was mostly reclaimed after damming the Amstel river was one of the main reasons for this. Sure there was the red light district and the “coffee” shops, but they were not the only attraction. We once again did a free walking tour which covered the highlights, which was definitely worth doing. On one of the days while Robyn was doing some historical site seeing at the Anne Frank Haus, I slipped off for a little visit to the Heineken Factory. Robyn assures the Anne Frank Haus was well worth a visit, but I still enjoyed learning about the brewing process as well as the hard task of sampling the quality produce.

One of the highlights of our whole trip was heading to Rotterdam to catch up with a fellow traveller we meet while hiking in Chile, Guido. He took us to one of the best places in Holland to see windmills after which he and his Girlfriend Karin took us all over Rotterdam giving us a really great guided tour of their city. They took us to sample some local treats. One was stroopwafels which were two waffles sandwiching some syrup. The other was something Guido talked about as the thing he missed most when we were hiking, raw herring. Surprisingly, holding a fish above your head and taking big chomps was actually quite a fun experience and didn’t taste all that bad to boot. If you like sushi, you could certainly enjoy it. After all the site seeing, Guido and Karin took us to a Belgian Beer café to have what was to be, one of the best meals of our whole trip. They took us there, as they have the hard task of reviewing restaurants as a hobby. They ordered heaps of different beers as well as other treats that were all delicious. If your reading this Guido and Karin, thanks once again for the great day.

So that bring us to where we are now, London. It was quite a strange feeling coming back here after the extended time in all of the different countries of Europe we visited (17 at final count) but at the same time it almost felt like we were returning home. I can only imagine what it will feel like when we touch down at Tullamarine, but we will tackle that next month.

Until then, enjoy the photos and we will see you soon.

Glen and Robyn

The temple of Olympian Zues, Athens, Greece

The Pantheon, Athens, Greece

The typical white and blue buildings of Santorini, Greece

The Sunset of Oia in Santorini, Greece

The cliff side of Santorini, Greece

Dusk setting in over Santorini, Greece

Our room overlooking the ocean in Santorini, Greece

Santorini, Greece

An amazing place to rest in Santorini, Greece

Santorini, Greece

The Royal Palace in Krakow, Poland

Auschwitz Concentration camp, Poland

Auschwitz Concentration camp, Poland

Hungarian beef stew

The statues of Heroes Square in Budapest, Hungary

A nice meal at an outdoor cafe in Budapest, Hungary

The old town Budapest, Hungary

Budapest, Hungary

Parliament building in Budapest, Hungary

A new friend in Bratislava, Slovakia

The Summer Palace of Vienna, Austria

What’s a set of photos without Robyn and oversize food

Mozart in Vienna, Austria

Prague, Czech Republic

Prague castle, Czech Republic

A typical Czech dish

The royal garden in Csesky Krumlov, Czech Republic

Csesky Krumlov, Czech Republic

Csesky Krumlov, Czech Republic

Drinks while watching live music in Prague, Czech Republic

The Berlin Wall

Ampleman, the hard working East Berliner, communism loving traffic light man

Bratwurst Man

Separation. Robyn is in West Berlin, I’m in the east

Richard Wagner in Berlin, Germany

Amsterdam, Holland

A big clog

The Dutch really are tall! Or am I really that short?

One of the many windmills of Kinderdijk, Holland

The raw herring in Rotterdam, Holland

Guido showing us how to eat the herring

Robyn and Karin having high tea in Rotterdam, Holland

Glen wearing Shaqs clogs

More clogs

The Cafcass Crew at a final lunch in London

Archived comments

Comments from the original blog; new comments are closed.

That is a seriously good looking guy in the middle on the left. I want to boof him. :-)

Shey - Thursday, May 17, 2007 02:19:33

I meant the CAFCASS Crew of course!

Shey - Thursday, May 17, 2007 02:21:07