On Top of Europe

Monday 28th September

Gruezi – Hello from Switzerland

We had a great night in Ceske Budejovice and the beer was very palatable, mind you it took us a few to decide. Ceske Budejovice had a big town square with lots of beautiful buildings all in different colours. It is very different to see all the colours as most places here in Switzerland have white or stone buildings.

From here we travelled to Prague where we spent a couple of nights. Prague was also a beautiful city and almost looked like something out of a fairy tale, lots of lovely old buildings with statues of cherubs on them. At night one of the buildings looked like a big witches house, all black with orange lights on behind the windows. We went on a guided tour where we visited the castle, old town, new town (which is only 300 years old), lesser town and the Jewish quarter. The tour also included a boat ride up the river. We walked over the Charles Bridge and rubbed the belly of one of the statues, which is good luck and also means that one day you will return to Prague. We had a great night out also sitting sampling their red wine listening to a live jazz band in a very pretty rose surrounded court yard…..ah…..we then went to Coyotes (the complete opposite) and had a cocktail before heading home. Unfortunately we left our camera in the taxi and after numerous phone calls we had to leave Prague without it…and without any photo’s. We have now purchased another one and so we continue on…..thank-goodness the only photo’s we lost were of Prague as Brent had just downloaded a whole lot.

From Prague we travelled to Bamberg – Germany. This really pretty town is said to be possibly the prettiest town in Germany. It has a river running through the middle of it with a new part of town on one side and the old town on the other. We spent the afternoon strolling around before trying their local delicacy which is a smoked beer. It really did taste like a beer that had been smoked, we thought we should have been sitting around the camp fire singing whilst drinking it. Suffice to say no purchase of camera in Bamberg so no photos from there either, lots of good memories though.

From Bamberg we drove through to Luxembourg, yay got a new camera. The people in this little country are amazing in that they speak four languages, Letzebuergesch, French, German and a little English. The country is predominately French so great to get the yummy bread again! We had a great day in Luxembourg City which is a fortified city, with casemates, which are tunnels built into the fortress walls. They are 36km around with some being underground. We had a great walk around them amazing to think that they are 1000 years old and they were used as bomb shelters during the war for up to 35,000 people.

From Luxembourg we travelled up the Moselle River which is right in the heart of Germany’s wine country. The views over the vines, river and towns was just stunning. We were driving and admiring when we saw a sign for a three day wine festival starting that day so what do two kiwi’s do…….that’s right, pull over, find a camper space in amongst about 150 other camper vans. We had a great afternoon/night trying the wines. The region is famous for its Rieslings and bubbly wine. We were expecting some oom pa pa music and got a little but mostly we had a band playing Eric Clapton, Eagles, Bon Jovi, Beach Boys etc. When we pulled up in the afternoon Brent tried to speak to a German lady but she couldn’t speak any English – we noticed her later in the night singing away in English – whilst they can’t speak English they can all sing the songs. We were sure that we were the only English speaking people there.
After making the hard decision to leave this area we drove to Saverne in France which was on our way to Switzerland where we are now. We are in a little town called Interlaken, it reminds us a little of Arrowtown/Queenstown as it is quite touristy with all the adventure sports, it is also beside 2 lakes and surrounded with big mountains covered in trees – of course being autumn here the colours are amazing.
We have had a really busy fantastic day today – we have been to the ‘Top of the World’…well Europe anyway… we caught an early train this morning that took us up to Mount Jungfraujoch , the train took 2 ½ hours and 3 different trains to get to the highest train station in Europe – we were 3454 metres high. Interlaken is at 534 metres so a very very steep track that climbed between the Eiger Mountain and the Monch Mountain. The steepest part of the track took 16 years to build and is only 10km long and took about 35 minutes by train. Several k’s of the train ride was actually inside the mountain where they chipped out a tunnel on a steep gradient, an absolute engineering marvel. We were treated to magnificent clear blue skies when we arrived. When you get off the train you then go up to the Sphinx tower in an elevator and we were then 3571 metres high – this is just short of the height at the peak of Mount Cook. We were thankful for our thermals as the temperature was -3degrees. There is also an Ice Palace at the top which was very similar to the Ice Bar in Auckland only on a much bigger scale and we didn’t have the cocktail!! We truly felt like we were on top of the world, actually they say here “the place between heaven and earth”.
We came back down the mountain early in the afternoon, we then went to Trummelbach Falls, which are the only glacier fed natural waterfalls inside a mountain that are accessible to people. These falls can produce up to 20,000 litres of water per second, the water corkscrews its way through a series of ravines and potholes down the inside of a mountain – quite amazing to think that water over many many years can hollow out a mountain. The noise inside the mountain was incredibly loud and it was hard to hear each other talking. There were 10 waterfalls that we walked up to look at - very spectacular and certainly something we have never seen before.
To end the day we sat outside in the beautiful Swiss sunshine and had a cheese fondue for a late lunch/early tea.
We were talking to some people last night and they think that the two most beautiful, scenic countries in the world would have to be Switzerland and New Zealand. We would have to agree…Switzerland is very pretty with its Chalets, lush green countryside, big mountains and best of all the cows grazing with their cow bells on – when we were driving we opened the windows and could hear all the bells… just fantastic. Rae wants a souvenir cow bell, Brent had a few ideas what to do with it too!!!. We are leaving here tomorrow and heading towards Munich for Oktoberfest at the end of the week. Brent is sorry to be leaving here tomorrow as there is a yodeling and French horn evening tomorrow night…but unfortunately time is pressing on for us!!

The Calm, the Culture, the Cruelty

Friday 18th September

From the CALM of Lake Bled to the CULTURE of Vienna and then to the CRUELTY of Auschwitz!

Lake Bled – this beautiful wee village in the Julian Alps in Slovenia is postcard beautiful. The lake is a beautiful clear emerald colour and has an old church on an island, a medieval castle that is clinging to a rocky cliff as well as having some magnificent mountains as backdrops – this place is truly beautiful. We hired an old wooden row boat in the shape of a swan….ah I hear you say, how romantic…and we rowed (well Brent did) over to the island and climbed the 98 steps up to the top where a lovely old church is situated and we got beautiful views out of the lake. When we have been in each different country, city or town we have always tried to taste their local delicacy – this proved to be a real treat in Bled – we had for morning tea a Kremna Snezna Rezina – this is a layer of vanilla custard topped with whipped cream and sandwiched between two layers of flakey pastry – the first half was good, the second half was sweet and sickly but we both managed to finish. After that we cycled around the lake – think that we needed to do a couple of laps, the lake is about 7km round. We also discovered that Lake Bled is really popular with the young kiwi’s with lots of Wicked Camping Cars around. It felt like it was a long time that we had heard the kiwi accent. We spent a great night with a couple we met from Australia.

Vienna - the capital city of Austria and one of the culture capitals of Europe. Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Strauss and other composers were all drawn to Vienna in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the waltz originated here so the place is alive with concerts, museums, beautiful old stone buildings with some amazing architecture of both the new and old buildings. It is also home to the Vienna Boys Choir which unfortunately only perform on Fridays and Sundays and we were there on a Monday. Never mind we did get to go to a Strauss & Mozart Concert which was held in the Kursalon where Mozart played in the 18th century. The concert was a mix of music, opera singers, ballet, waltzes, arias and duets. We both really enjoyed it. We once again did the Hop On Hop Off sightseeing bus and we stopped off for a ride in the world’s oldest ‘Ferris Wheel’ having been built in 1876, not quite the London Eye but very scenic and it really liked to move in the wind. Driving into Vienna from Italy you could almost hear the ‘Sound of Music ‘coming from the hills – very beautiful green, lush countryside. There were also kiwi’s here – we think that for the next couple of weeks we will hear quite a bit of the kiwi accent as everyone is heading towards Oktoberfest!

Auschwitz – The site of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazi death/concentration camp in Oswiecim, Poland is probably one of the better known camps from WW2. The original site was built by the Polish for the use of their army but at the start of WW2 the Nazi’s took over the camp and set it up to be the largest centre for the killing of 1.5million people. We took a guided tour of the camp which took about 3 ½ hours – for this whole time I don’t think anyone of the 10 people in our group actually spoke. For us to have walked the path of so many innocent people, unknowingly for them, to their death, is something that is very hard to put into words. We have bought a couple of books and we are more than happy to share these with you and tell you personally about the place rather than writing lots about it. One part of Auschwitz is very original and you can walk into the buildings and they are as they were 65 years ago – the Birkenau part was burnt at the end of WW2 by the Nazi’s trying to destroy all evidence of what went on there. The original hospital where Doctor Mengele’s carried out his human experiments to create the true ‘Aryan’ (blonde hair and blue eyes) race still stands today. The day we were there the weather was very bleak – somehow we don’t think it would have been appropriate for the day to be sunny.

We have covered quite a few kilometres in the last week including a straight run from Austria right across the Czech Republic into Poland and are now in Ceske Budejovice in Czech Republic which is the home to Budweiser Beer – well there has been an argument between the USA and Czech’s since 1876 as they are both laying claim to have the original Budweiser – we are off now to the Budweiser Brewery to taste the local delicacy!!

From here we are heading in the direction of Prague.

Na Shledanou – good bye in Czech Republic

Croatia Slovenia and now Italy again

Thursday 10th September

Buongiorno from Italy

We had a thoroughly great week exploring the Croatian Coastline. It truly is beautiful! We have stayed in Pakostane, Rijeka,Rovinj and Vrsar. The latter three having been small fishing villages but now quite touristy but still quaint. Croatia itself is now really geared up for the tourists, there are camping grounds everywhere and they are huge, some even catering for over 10,000 people. We had also heard that Croatia is really cheap which we have to disagree with as did other people we spoke to there. Up until last summer it was cheap but with so many people now going the prices have risen with the tourist numbers. Not that it has put people off – we have often joked in the last 10 days or so that we wonder if there are any people left in Germany, the camp grounds we have been to have been 97% full of Germans, 2% Italians and us.
Whilst in Croatia we also crossed over the infamous Bosnian Border – we thought that we would have crossed this with another campervan in case one of us broke down or something untoward happened to either van as our insurance doesn’t cover us in Bosnia. The strip of road is approx 30kms long and we were in and out of there without really realizing it. We came across border control who just waved us through and the next thing we saw signs with a different language, petrol prices in a different currency and then see another border control who also waved us through and we were back in Croatia – no problems!! We can now put down Bosnia as a country we passed through. It is very unusual to have a country split by another country.
Sunday night saw us sitting with a bottle of wine in Vrsar watching the most spectacular sunset we have every seen in our lives. Croatia is well known for it’s sunsets.
We left Croatia on Monday morning and drove through to Isola in Slovenia which was also a pretty fishing village. We stayed the night here and the camp site was up a hill where we had lovely views of both Croatia and Italy.
Tuesday saw us back in Italy in a wee place called Jesola di Lido which has the best camping ground we have stayed in yet. As part the price you get free internet, catamaran ride, paddle boats, canoes, entertainment programme, cable TV at your camp site, washing machine, dryers, dishwashers, tennis, swimming complex, spa pools, hairdryers, kids club, shooting range, golf, tennis, sun loungers and umbrellas to name a few. I am typing this blog sitting by the pool after having already spent two nights here and we are staying tonight also – the temp is 30 degrees but autumn has certainly arrived over here with the nights now getting cooler and leaves falling from the trees. We hear that spring has arrived at home and people are now having some warmer weather.
The very best thing about this camping ground is that it is only 40mins by boat into Venice where we spent the day yesterday. Venice is just what we imagined it to be and more, we weren’t expecting some of the buildings to be as spectacular as they actually are. One of things we have heard numerous times about Venice was that you will probably get lost – well that is one thing we divinely achieved – I think we spent the day lost even though we had a map each – I am sure people reading this that have been there are remembering when they were lost there. We are only thankful that we weren’t having to find a hotel room in the dark. Along with all the canals Venice also has lots of small narrow alleyways that just seem to wind around each other and then you cross another bridge and do the same thing again. We went up the canals on a small taxi boat and it was great seeing all the houses and hotel rooms that you pull up to on the boat and step out onto the red carpet and enter the hotel. It is a very romantic and quiet place. The only noise you hear on the canals is when an ambulance boat comes flying up the canal with its siren going – yes even the hospital has an entrance from the canals. After a beautiful very late lunch we were back home at 7.00pm, another great day.

As I mentioned earlier we are leaving here tomorrow morning and heading to Lake Bled in Slovenia. When we leave here we both know that it will be the last time we will be swimming in the sea until we get back home to Motunau so we are making the most of the afternoon.

Ciao

West Coast Italy to West Coast Croatia

Tuesday 1st September

Bog (Croatian for hello)

We drove from San Felice Circeo through Naples to Pompeii…never in our entire lives have we seen as much rubbish on the sides of the roads or as much graffiti – just amazing. Southern Italy is very like Southern Spain with lots of market gardens in desert like conditions and very poor. Pompeii itself is very similar – although around the ruins was very well kept. We went into the ruins first thing in the morning as it opened, when it was slightly cooler and much fewer people – it is hard to believe that Pompeii was a resort town for the wealthy when it was built before Mt Vesuvius erupted and covered the town with 6m of ash in 79AD. It is very very hard to describe how people lived within the town walls and the terror that the eruption caused and the huge loss of life – the only way for us to share this with you will be the photos. We were also surprised how big an area it is – it covers 66 hectares of which only 45 have been excavated. As I mentioned we were there at opening time so our first photos we feel privileged to have as there really was hardly any people there at all – when we left 3 hours later it was hard to move with all the tourists.

From Pompeii we travelled south to Salerno where we had a couple of nights which enabled us to visit the Amalfi Coast which is 50km of sheer rock cliff that has been used to create villages. We took the ferry to Amalfi which was great day trip for us – whilst the Amalfi was similar to Cinque Terre, it was great to see it all from the sea.

Friday saw us travelling from east coast of Italy (Salerno) to the west coast Bari and boarding an 11.30pm ferry sailing for Dubrovnik (Croatia). We arrived in Dubrovnik at 9.00am – so a 9 ½ hour trip of which we slept most of it. We had a night out on the town Saturday which was spent in the Old City which is a fortified city and was a great place to sit and sip the local beer/wine and people watch. Sunday we climbed one of the forts and were rewarded with some spectacular views over the Adriatic Seas and the Old Town. Brent then walked around the city walls whilst Rae went to look at the shops which were closed on the Saturday night. Some great photos from this old town. This time being in a different country we are also using different currency – so grocery shopping is taking a while again.

From Dubrovnik we headed north to Zaostrog, a quaint little village with great beaches, restaurants and cafes – we spent a couple of nights here just relaxing.

I am writing this from a really little village called Sparadici, just north of Split – we are staying right across the road from the small beach with a beautiful sunset. The drive up the coast has been spectacular – the clean turquoise waters and blue skies with lots of islands. We will only stay here 1 night and move on as there are so many little villages, coves and islands along the west coast of Croatia yet to explore.

Dovidenja (Croatian for Goodbye)