Euro trip - Austria, Czechia and Slovakia, Germany

Speeding through the rest of my trip as, with no pictures because a) wifi is still terrible and b) I am so far behind and soon it'll be 2020 and I want to do one of those emo sentimental yearly roundups, and I am super anal about blog order so gotta catch up!!

So....

We then headed to Vienna, making a couple of pitstops on the way, including at an amazing ice cream place where they have cows on site that they milk and turn into icecream there and then so it’s super fresh.  Having said that, I ended up with a vegan icecream because I am limiting my dairy – but it was bloody delicious! We also went to Georg’s grandparents place in Durnstein, a very quaint old town where King Richard 1 was help captive.  His grandparents were super friendly and gave us lots of fruit they had growing in their garden.

Anja was an incredible host and took me on a 2 day tour around Vienna – it’s a pretty city but very big so I was graeful to have a local! She also introduced me to lots of local foods, including her favourite dumplings – in Austria they can be sweet or savoury, so I was surprised to be served up chocolate dumplings – my dumpling experience has been the Asian sort or the stodgy British sort.

On one of the days I snuck across to Slovakia as it was only 1 hour bus ride away.  I went to Bratislava and did a free city tour and learned a few random things including cat fish is a Christmas delicacy and they catch it a few weeks before Christmas and keep it alive in their bath to get the mud taste out, and at Easter they have an odd tradition where they spray girls with water and whip them gently….

I also got a tattoo!! I have been thinking about it for aaaaaaages, and always been too scared/unsure of what I wanted on my body for the rest of my life. However a thought struck me - I was with Anja when she got her first tattoo, and thought it would be nice if Anja was with me for when I got my first tattoo - so did some research and decided I wanted to feature my favourite things on my body - the ocean, mountains and forests.  I also wanted it somewhere not too obvious, so if I didn't like it then I didn't need to look at it all day, haha. I googled tattoo artists in Vienna, went to a few to check out their vibe and compare prices, and booked in for the next day - woo!! I made a rookie error of not getting them to draw it out on paper first - he drew straight onto my body in felt tip then went over it in ink, and so it's not entirely the style I wanted - however I do really like it and hopefully it doesn't look tacky and I'll love it forever. Also - it didn't hurt! Well a little, but not half as much as I was expecting.  

Before I knew it, it was time to wave goodbye to Anja and Georg and take the train to Prague!

By this point I was getting a bit over cities, and it was more of a stopover as I had time to kill before meeting Franzi in Berlin. My time in Prague was spent wandering the streets, taking photos and trying not to get distracted by the copious amounts of naked people sunbathing in the parks.  It’s a very cool city but I spent a lot of the time wishing I was with someone else – spending time with Anja made me miss traveling with someone and I was eager to meet up with Franzi. I wasn’t staying in a super social hostel and spent my time avoiding a overly eager older gentleman who showed way too much interest in me.  I would however like to go back to Czechia and explore a bit more – there are parts that look beautiful, and it’s a cheap country to travel in.

I think I might have cried when I saw Franzi, I can't remember, but it was SO NICE to see her - capital letters to extra emphasise how nice it was to see her!!!! (and some exclamation marks for added measure).

Again, my stars had aligned as they had with Anja - Franzi had a couple of weeks off before uni began and I happened to be nearby, so we arranged to meet at Berlin airport and then go on a 2 week road trip down to Bavaria in her parent's campervan - I was SO FRIGGIN EXCITED.

From the airport we went back to her parent's house in Potsdam to spend the night and pick up the camper, then headed to Braunschweig where she now lives.  She gave me a bicycle tour of the city and we went kayaking, then headed south to Bavaria with her friend Sarah, who we were dropping off on the way down.  Sarah lives in a tiny little town called Reid near Ingolstadt, and her parents have an awesome farm where they grow grapes, apples, their own veges and a whole lotta corn. I learnt a lot about farming in the 2 days we were there - it was cool!!! We were looked after very well and ate lots of homegrown food, it was delicious.  We went for a hike along the Danube and did some geocaching, then waved our goodbyes to her parents and carried on our trip.  We stopped off in Munich to go to the Deutsches Museum, which was brilliant and I wish we had more time in there - it is so interactive and well worth the entry fee! They had some very interesting exhibitions on climate change and sustainability and renewable energy! 

Southern Germany is beautiful - the alps are stunning and to be honest this blog nor my pictures will do it justice.  I had been so smug about New Zealand being so beautiful, but Europe is just as stunning, if not more so when it comes to mountains!  

The beginning of the trip was pretty chilly and I had to borrow some clothes from Franzi - living in a van is cold and I only had summer clothes, oops! We explored some of King Ludwig's castles - corr he had a good eye for design, they were beautiful!! We went to Lindenhof in the rain and did a free tour of the gardens, Franzi kindly translating what the tour guide was saying :) We then drove to Fussen via Austria which was a very stunning drive along huge mountain lakes which felt very magical with the low cloud and little traffic.   We also checked out the famous Neuschwanstein castle, which I think has inspired many a Disney castle! It is very impressive, perched on top of a hill, surrounded by mountains! 

The rain finally stopped after a few days so we made the most of it, having alfresco breakfasts (I discovered THE BEST cereal by Dr Oetker, I miss it so bad, can't get it here) and reading books in the sun - basically being lazy lizards.  Living out of the van was awesome - I loved having kitchen and lounge on wheels - everywhere is home!! 

On one of the days we did a super cool hike - Walchensee to Herzogstand, and across to Heimgarten.  Again - absolutely stunning.  We walked along a mountain ridge that had a high grading and we were a little bit scared as from a distance, it looked like a knife edge - but in reality it wasn't that bad.  Randomly we met an old guy on the ridge who started asking us 'young people' about his new mobile phone contract and he wanted to know if he had got a good deal or not - bless him.  Both peaks had beer gardens on top so we indulged before heading down to the lake for a quick, very chilly dip. 

Before we knew it, it was time to head back North, so we broke up the journey by stopping at Dachau Concentration Camp.  Morbidly, I have always wanted to go to a concentration camp - I guess we studied it a lot at school and so it's a part of history I wanted to explore more.   The camp is incredible - they've struck a really good balance of respect for the victims and educating the public.  It's harrowing what went on there and for the most part we walked around in silence absorbing it all, sometimes in tears.  Unfortunately I was shocked to see people taking selfies there - I truly don't understand why people do this.  

Franzi dropped me off at Berlin airport, we shed a few tears of goodbye, and I jumped on a plane to Bristol where I had a long overdue catch up with Lisa and Mark and my brother and his girlfriend.  I love Bristol, it's definitely a city I could live in.  Me and Lis did a nice walk and I had dinner with Jord and his girlfriend - it made me realise I have never in my entire life hung out with him as a friend, only as a brother as part of a family gathering - and it was really nice!! It's weird to think of him as independent from the family narrative but there he was, being all grown up in his own flat that he shares with his long term girlfriend, I was proud! 

Mum and Tim came up too so we had a family dinner and I hitched a ride with them back to Kent.  I was home for maybe 2 weeks before I got itchy feet again, so booked a train to Scotland - more on that in the next blog post!