Days 153 – 156: Czech Republic & Austria

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Days 153 – 156: Czech Republic & Austria
Prague, Czech Republic

Prague, Czech Republic


After an overnight train from Poland, I could have hugged the receptionist who checked us into our hostel at 7am and then upgraded us from an 8 person dorm room to the biggest private king room I’ve ever seen. From dormitory styled accommodation, trains and single beds to a private king bed was enough to reset the batteries. It’s people that do random acts of kindness like that, that you remember…. or maybe he smelt us after not showering for 3 days.

Prague or Praha came with more recommendations for a must see destination from friends and strangers than any other city. I was slightly worried it was talked up that much that I’d find it difficult to write about, if I didn’t like it. But everyone was right, Prague is one of our favourite cities in Europe. What makes a good city is the look and feel, the food and wine and the people. This is maybe an ignorant thing to say but in my opinion it can’t have always been a huge tourist destination (in comparison to Paris or London). It was only in 1989 a revolution ended the rule of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (former name) and they formed a democratic government. Our Czech tour guide said during that time you couldn’t buy any anything that wasn’t produced or made in Eastern Europe. Fruit and veges for example were only available a few times per year due to the weather. Clothing such as jeans or brands like Coke and McDonalds were also not available. The other turning point for this country was in 1993 when Czechoslovakia self-determined a separation and became two countries. The Czech Republic and Slovakia. Prague is the capital of Czech Republic.
The Prague that tourists see now is very colourful, most of the 14th century buildings are pastel coloured. When it was under the communist regime it was known as the ‘grey city’. It was only after the fall of communism that the city was beautifully renovated and brightly painted by its original owners. I also heard that Hitler liked it, therefore they did not bomb it during WW2 like many other cities. As a consequence, it has all of its historical charm.

There’s this vibrant yet romantic feel about Prague that people fall in love with. In both the Old Town and New Town there are car free squares with musicians packed in every free spot to entertain the crowds. It’s 7degrees and a Wednesday yet the streets are full of people eating the street food from the matching wooden carts, drinking local beer and hot wine on randomly placed bar stalls. My lunch of hot honey wine and hot plum and a cinnamon crepe was “out of this world, fantastic, best food I’ve ever eaten”.

The other thing about Prague that isn’t visible on first sight is what lay beneath. The city from before lies below the ground. In the 9th century the streets of Prague were purposely buried to prevent the flooding of the town. So the former level of the streets was much lower at that time than it is today. Many bars and restaurants today have entrances on street level but are below ground, including the one we went to for dinner. In a beautiful brick cellar with heavy wooden furniture and candles for lighting, we enjoyed a traditional Czech meal with Czech wine served in goblets (for under $10 each!). After dinner our plan was to enjoy one of the Old Town’s underground jazz clubs but got sidetracked along the way with a singing Italian busker. A few hundred people stopped and listened to him under the lights in the square and like many, we bought his cd. A great ending to our first and only day in Prague. Wrapped up in a scarf, woolly hat and gloves sitting on the cold cobbles in 5 degrees taking in the sounds, smells and atmosphere of the official ‘7th best European city’.

Prague’s famous 1410 Astronomical Clock indicates many things including name days. In the European name day calendar, my name Julia’s day is 10th December and Dave’s is 30th December. Our actual birth dates carry many different names, Francis for me and Byron for Dave. That’s the only ‘souvenir’ we takeaway from Prague, sadly none of their famous bohemian glass. You know how much I love glass.

We forfeited our second night in Prague and opted for visiting a smaller Czech town. Cesky Kromlov. Our train was delayed by a few hours so our exploring was unfortunately done just before night fall. Thankfully the town is only a few roads.
This tiny fairytale town has confirmed that Czech Republic is one of my favourite European Countries. My love of Prague is shared equally, if not little bit more with Cesky Kromlov. The core of the old medieval town is within a horseshoe bend of the river. The cobble stoned streets can take you from one side of the town to the other in 10 minutes. Similar to Prague it was a grey city under the communist regime but has since been restored to its 18th century self and painted in pastel colours. The river and green-spaces are lined with the most magnificent towering deciduous trees, in gold and red. The ground is lined with colour from the leaves.
I’m not a castle fan, in fact I actively avoid them at all cost, but when I saw Cesky Krumlov’s Castle I had to investigate. It has a tall colourful cylinder shaped tower with a large rather ugly bland brick building next to it. What makes this castle on the river so amazing is it’s completely rendered. The inner walls are’painted’ with 3D brickwork and windows. So there’s no bricks but they painted the whole castle to look like its all bricks. When walking through it and over the bridges it feels like a set from a movie. The castle even has, real and not painted, bears in the castle’s old moat..

We left the hostel at 7am the next morning, and walked the 40minute trip in the rain to the train station. Sitting on the platform waiting for the train we ate breakfast, left over bread that we took from the restaurant last night. It was freezing, every bit of me shivered. Dave’s been sick too. Since we left Germany, the days are getting colder and colder and we do not have warm enough clothing to suffice. Seeing snow on the houses and on the ground from the train to Austria, we knew it was getting cold, really cold.

The only musical I haven’t fallen asleep in: The Sound of Music
We have entered the world where the hills are alive and Mozart’s everything. Salzburg, Austria. Every hostel plays the movie over dinner and every tour takes you to those spots from the movie. As for Mozart, there’s Mozart chocolate, Mozart airport, Mozart coffee shop or hotel etc etc. We did our own little walking tour of the city before joining the original Sound of Music tour – a 4 hour sing along… I’m now officially ready to leave this city and have a break from singing “do ri me fa so la ti do” in my sleep.
300,000 people come from all over the world each year to Salzburg specifically to relive the movie filmed over 50 years ago. Unbelievably but sadly our guide has met diehards who have watched the movie twice a day for 20 years. He also has received hate mail from the same types of people/freaks who he’d told that the movie was only ‘loosely’ based on the real Von Trapp Family’s life. The family did not escape the Nazis by climbing over mountains with heavy suitcases and instruments (as that would have taken them straight to Hitler’s summer house in Germany), they left by train and headed to Italy before moving to Vermont USA with $4 in their pocket.They became a hugely popular singing troupe which made them enough money to open a holiday resort, the Trapp Family Lodge.
The 1965 film was based on a broadway musical, a book and 2 German films documenting the Von Trapp family. The Austrian public saw the Julie Andrews film only 17 years ago when it was shown in the cinema for 3 weeks. For this reason they aren’t really fussed on it even though the cities tourism demands they live and breathe it. Quite the contrast to the South Koreans. When the film was released there, it did so well that some cinemas were showing it 5 times a day. One cinema owner in Seoul tried to figure out a way to be able to show it even more often, in order to bring in more customers. So he cut out all th
e musical numbers. Maybe I wouldn’t fall asleep in musicals if they did that more often…

There’s a few things in the movie that I found really interesting. The front of the Von Trapp family house and the estate’s gardens and lake were filmed in two different locations. The inside is different as well, that’s actually in Hollywood as the building owners wouldn’t give permission for filming inside. The front of the church, the wedding scene, is at Nonnberg Abbey but the inside is in a beautiful basilica in Mondsee just out of Salzburg. The most ironic thing we found out when we visited the gazebo used for the “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” scene is that it’s now locked as an 80 year old injured herself while trying to reenact the scene by dancing along the seats.
We throughly enjoyed this tour, probably not so much for the Sound of Music elements, but it took us out of a city and into the countryside of Austria, to the beautiful lakes district and to the little Austrian town of Mondsee. Normally travelling by train we are limited to major cities so we enjoyed this tour for those reasons. I’d love to revisit the alps of Central Europe one day.Another thing for the bucket list!



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Day 151-152: Vienna and Poland's Auschwitz, Krakow

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Day 151-152: Vienna and Poland's Auschwitz, Krakow
Krakow, Poland

Krakow, Poland


There’s something quite amusing about having jam sandwiches on park benches everyday and then to be partaking in the free wine and nibbles in the first class lounge in the train station for dinner – of course our backpacks fitted right in amongst the suited up train snobs on the leather seats. I must say the Austrian trains are the best to date in Europe. Trust me when I say I know our trains. The first class seats from Munich, Germany to Vienna, Austria were like business class in a plane – complete with waiter and free nibbles.

We arrived in Vienna at 5pm and saw the city in a few hours before departing for the overnight train to Krakow, Poland. Vienna is such a beautiful city. It’s getting very cold fast so the towns we now visit have this cold mist in the air, almost grey like. It’s a modern city with lots of life and music coming from every corner, hardly surprising since it was the birth place of Mozart and Beethoven. To complete the postcard, hundreds of horse drawn white carriages and men in top hats take the rich tourists around the city.

We are shockers for seeing cities and countries within a day. We are in Krakow for only 12 hours before another overnight train out. It may seem a long way to come for a short period of time but we simply had to visit the ever so important memorial of those 1.3million who lost their lives at Auschwitz and Birkenau (also know as Auschwitz 2).
Similar to the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, we had heard of what went on in World War two and Hitler’s regime but we couldn’t really say we understood what scale or impact this had on the Jews, Europe and the world as a whole. Even after a 3 hour guided tour of Auschwitz 1 and 2, the topic is too huge to grasp and comprehend completely in one day.
I think this passage written on a sign I read captures the essence of it:
“Throughout the world, Auschwitz has become a symbol of terror, genocide and the holocaust. The German Forces occupied Poland during the Second World War and established a concentration camp, on the outskirts of the town Auschwitz and that is the name by which it was known. Over the next year it was expanded in to three main camps. The first people to be brought to Auschwitz as prisoners and murdered here were Polish then the Soviet prisoners of war. They were followed by the biggest mass murder campaign in history, when the Nazi put into operation their plan to destroy the entire Jewish population of Europe. The great majority of Jews were deported to Auschwitz.
When the Nazis realised that the end of the war was near, they attempted to remove the evidence of the deaths that were committed here. They dismantled the gas chambers, crematorium and other buildings, burned documents and evacuated all those prisoners who could walk to the interior of Germany. Those who were not evacuated were liberated by the Red Army on 27th January 1945. Of the 1,300,000 brought to Auschwitz only 6,500 were found alive on January 27th.”

There are many concentration camps around Europe but I wanted to come to Poland to see this one in particular. Auschwitz was the largest Nazi German concentration camp and death camp in Europe. It was classed as a central spot around Europe to bring the prisoners to. In the years 1940-1945, the Nazis made at least 1,300,000 people leave their homes and come to Auschwitz. Of them:
– 1,100,000 Jews
– 140,000 – 150,000 Polish
– 23,000 Gypsies
– 15,000 Soviet Prisoners of war
– 25,000 prisoners from other ethnic groups.
The figure that has to be remembered is that 1,100,000 of these people died in Auschwitz. Approximately 90% of the victims were Jews with most being murdered within an hour of arriving at the camp. They were stripped of their clothes and possessions and told to have a communal shower with between 800-1200 people. Water never came out of those taps in the ceiling, Cyclone B did. They were then shaved of their hair which was used for many purposes, before they were cremated and their ashes tossed. These are horrific numbers. Seeing the tonnes of human hair or kids shoes and clothes makes it all that more real.
The other people who arrived at Auschwitz, and passed the ‘sorting’ were sent to live and work in poor, terrible, horrible conditions in the camp grounds. If they eventually weren’t killed in gas chambers, it was through torture, starvation and disease. What shocked me was the control and systematic mechanisms put in place to ensure this happened.
Although Auschwitz was the largest, it was one of many, so the overall number was much higher – between 9 to 11 million people were murdered over that period.

There are many reasons why you visit a place as significant as this. To remember those who lost their lives, those who suffered and to really grasp the gravity and magnitude of this tragic time in history. I think it also makes you think about how thankful we should be to those who fought in world wars of the past and the present. Those men and woman were, and are, still fighting to stop the baddies of the world killing the goodies. Goodies like us, just normal men, woman and children who deserve the right to live in the world without being murdered because of race, gender or religion.

It was about 5pm by the time we had arrived by bus back into Krakow. It was a shame that we only have 4 hours to see such a beautiful city. The buildings are all different pastel colours. There is a green strip looping around the centre of the city, filled with huge deciduous trees. Green, red and gold, the leaves fall over a white misty city. My friend Scott was right, staying until nightfall was a must. The main plaza or square lights up accentuating the beauty in the buildings. Horse and white carriages transport people to the restaurants surrounding the square. Buskers belt opera in one corner with jazz in the other. One of the most beautiful squares in Europe.
There’s such beauty here, along side such a tragic history. Lest we forget.


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Days 144-150: Germany's Black Forest & Oktoberfest

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Days 144-150: Germany's Black Forest & Oktoberfest
Munich, Germany

Munich, Germany


This is the mentality of dog owners in Europe, written by a non animal lover who thinks this mindset is weird: “I stay in hotels, I eat in restaurants, I commute on trains and buses, I go grocery shopping, I drink in smoke filled bars, I see a bathroom big enough for two! My dog is my best friend therefore he will love to come with me everywhere I go!” Weird right?

Hi ho, hi ho, its off to the Black Forest we go. The Black Forest is in south west Germany. Walt Disney got a lot of inspiration from the parks, castles and amusement parks around Europe. Some of the stories were set in the Black Forest. We entered and exited the Black Forest via train so we got to see a lot of it but think it would of had a more all encompassing feeling if we were driving through it. However, we did do a hike (more of a short stroll) up into the forest from Triberg, the little town we were staying in. The forest had a mysterious, fairytale feel about it as we walked past the moss covered rocks, around the waterfall, over the leaf covered paths and through the towering spruce trees (like pines). Supposedly there are squirrels in the forest but we never saw any. I think they are smarter than these 27year olds going on 5 year olds who left a trail of nuts for them to collect after dark.
Triberg is a one street town famous for its cuckoo clocks and at 150kg they also have the world’s biggest cuckoo – that’s one big bird. At a tiny 4 table restaurant with walls full of naked portraits we ate our first meal, specific to the Black Forest: schwarzwalder schaufele (Smoked pork shoulder with potatoes) and Wurstsalat (shredded luncheon in vinaigrette). In another restaurant, with less vaginas staring at us, we enjoyed a Black Forest cake, although it was frozen and in an Italian restaurant. It’s called that because of the specialty liquor from that region, known as Schwarzwälder Kirsch(wasser) and it is distilled from tart cherries. In Germany if it doesn’t have that ingredient it’s not legally a Black Forest cake.

We’ve arrived into the world of Oktoberfest. Although we are staying one night on the outskirts of Munich before we head in tomorrow, it’s clear as day we need traditional outfits – lederhosen and a dirndl. We weren’t going to due to the exorbitant amount of money they ask for them, even in the cheaper shops. But we can’t be the only ones there not dressed up. As it’s a public holiday in Germany tomorrow we had 3 hours to find these two outfits before the shops shut. What a mission. Dave’s was somewhat easier, red or blue checkered shirt with leather lederhosen in different lengths. For me, I think I tried on every single one of the few hundred Dirndl dresses available with limited sizes left (I was after size midget). We ended up getting kicked out of the store after they’d well and truly closed but we have our traditional wear!
Accommodation options this time of the year in Munich itself is either really expensive or sold out months ago. To stay in a tent in ‘tent city’ it would have been $150 a night if we were stupid enough to stay in the freezing cold and rain. We were thankful to have found a local’s house on AirBnB in the heart of Munich. For $100 per night Dave and I will share a single bed but at least it’s central, clean and warm.

OKTOBERFEST – WOW! It’s like one big costume party in beer tents with some big enough to hold 11,000 people with the best food I’ve ever tasted. Sure enough 90% of people all ages, from children to the elderly are dressed in traditional German wear. Oktoberfest is nothing like I’d expected. It far, far exceeded all expectations. The atmosphere was intoxicating. Maybe we’re getting old but it was more of an overall experience rather than just about the beer.

On the first day (out of 4) we got to the Löwenbräu tent at about 2pm and spent the afternoon with a table of Swiss guys. We were fortunate to get onto a table, as it’s packed at 8am. The most depressing thing is finding a seat. It’s next to impossible without a reservation. It can take an hour to find a table, walking around aimlessly from tent to tent trying to find a seat and if you find one chances are you’ll only have it for a few hours before the reservation comes. For us, it’s long enough to drink a few steins and eat some food before changing the pace and wandering the 103 acres of entertainment.

On the second day we arrived earlier, 12pm. We tried in three tents to find a table with two spare seats. Half the battle is getting into the tents before the doors are closed with the tent at maximum capacity. Each of the tents have their own beer, a live brass band and decorated theme. Only beer brewed within the Munich city limits are allowed tents within the Oktoberfest grounds; so no Double Brown tent… We were seated in the Hofbräu-Festzelt tent, which holds nearly 10,000 people and the table we were sitting at happened to be behind a Kiwi guy who we watched the Americas cup race with, a few weeks ago in a hostel on the French Riviera. What are the odds of that! There are 35 tents here, 15 of them are giant tents each holding between 5-11 thousand people. It’ll be a hard afternoon to beat; spending the afternoon with 10 kiwis was pretty awesome. What I love most about Oktoberfest is everyone is happy, just glowing from the inside out. Everywhere you look there’s people (6million to be precise) smiling, dancing, drinking, eating, laughing or singing to the same German song. Somehow it just works even with nearly 7 million litres of beer consumed over the 16 days there isn’t too much chaos. Even the ladies bathrooms, where you’d think the queues would take ages, only took 15 minutes max with a big German lady with a whistle herding people through the 1,500 toilets around the grounds.

The food is really something else. You would think the quality would drop with these numbers but its simply amazing. Munich’s best chefs come to work in the tents. To name just a few of the German foods that are served to you at the tables are: pork knuckles, Wiesn-Hendl which is half a chicken (half a million are served over 16days), giant Brez’n (pretzel) and of course bratwurst which can be half a metre in length. The service is exceptional. The beer maids each carrying up to 19 (the record) steins of beer, each weighing 3kg, are always there to serve you. I’d have thought you’d need to tip huge amounts to keep them coming back but that simply is not true.

Oktoberfest is the world’s largest fair. To the locals it’s called “die Wies’n”, after the name of the fairgrounds. It started in 1810, as a wedding feast honouring the union of Bavarian royalty. The royal shindig took place in the same Theresa Meadow as it was held in today. Its only been cancelled two dozen times due to war over the last few hundred years. As expected the beer tents take a lot of the space but most of it looks exactly like a fair, a show day or Dreamworld. I have never seen so many roller coasters and amusement rides. I lost count at 80 rides – It really is epic. We went on just the one roller coaster as they are super duper expensive.
The smells of a fair are out of this world; candy floss, popcorn, hot roasted nuts; it just makes you melt. From beer to candy floss. Dave’s happy and I’m happy. It must have been invented by a man and a woman – something for everyone. Even the kids have their own day and their own rides.

“Its all in the bow fact #369: One thing I learnt the hard way, but did get a lot of attention for, is where to wear the bow on the apron of the dirndl. One day I was single, the next I was a virgin by the third day I was taken! Isn’t that the way it goes anyway? Ha ha”

On the third day we arrived really early, at 8am. By 9am we were allowed in however the first beer wasn’t served until 10am. By 10am the tent with over 10,000 people was at maximum capacity and full until dinner time. Saturday is their busiest day so we knew we had to get in early. I just can’t believe how fast it filled up. We were at a table with 10 Germans and Americans until the reservation came at 2:30pm.
By that time of the day there is no way we could even look for another table. We didn’t mind, we had had the best day so far and it was long enough. Whether you like beer (Dave) or don’t much care for it (me) you can’t help but have the most memorable time. And yes, I did drink beer and no I didn’t have a hip flask of lemonade… Well three of the days I didn’t!

Is it even possible to say the fourth day was the best? All other days we have been during the day. Seeing it was Oktoberfest’s final night we headed out at about 5pm. It took us three tents before giving in and heading back to the international tent – where the friendly expats will always find you a seat. Tonight we were at a table with what felt like representatives from every country in the European Union. To my pleasure, the band succumbed to 80s music and rock rather than the traditional brass bands. (Makes singing along much easier than songs in German). Four hours of the whole tent of thousands, singing and dancing with complete strangers around them- on the benches. It was amazing. The smiles were contagious! We have met so many fantastic people from all around the world, all ages and nationalities with one thing in common: the love of a good time.

To end Oktoberfest 2013, the sparklers came out lighting up the tent before we sang “Ein Protist” (cheers or good health) and raising our glasses to drink for one last time.



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Days 140 – 143: Switzerland- Zermatt, Lucerne, Zug

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Days 140 – 143: Switzerland- Zermatt, Lucerne, Zug
Zug, Switzerland

Zug, Switzerland


Five trains and 9 hrs later we are in expensive Zermatt, Switzerland. We were stung again by the train reservation costs. Four of the train’s reservation costs were $60. We were told by the ticket office that we didn’t need a train reservation for the 5th train to Zermatt. This was actually incorrect as it isn’t included on the Eurail ticket even though it shows up on the Eurail website as any other train. (The fine print hey!) So we forked out $130 to the train conductor. So yes, thats $200 for 1 day on a train pass that we’d already paid $3000 for. However, on a positive note, we later found out that the train to Zermatt is actually one of the most scenic routes in Europe. Also the village of Zermatt is located in a pine tree covered mountain range and can only be accessed by that train. As it’s not accessible by car there are obviously no cars. It has a couple of tiny, electric vehicles to cater for moving people and goods. Most of the buildings are wooden chalets with slate roofs to keep the snow off. This picturesque village even has a blue-grey coloured stream running mountain water though the village. The whole village smells of fireplaces and crisp snow air. When you think of what a mountain village in the Swiss alps should be like, this is it.
All year around people ski Zermatt’s Matterhorn mountain /glacier which is 14,690 ft high. It’s the end of summer, a chilly 10 degrees, and people are here for snowboarding, trekking, mountain biking and ice climbing. Although we didn’t take Europe’s highest cable car up the Matterhorn itself ($110 per person), we appreciated its beauty from a distance. Unfortunately, many graves from the people who haven’t made the trek up lay below as a solemn reminder of the dangers.

Switzerland, in many ways, is like a big South Island but 5 times the price, so for us it’ll be a country of jam sandwiches for every meal – except one. We had to try the famous Swiss cheese fondu. It’s eaten as a main meal for two not a dessert, as it should be for $55! But it sure was tasty. Three swiss cheeses mixed with white wine are used as the sauce to dip bread and potatoes in. The closer you get to the bottom of the pot the stronger the wine tastes. I’ll definitely be trying that when we get home. So far it’s Spanish tapas with Moroccan tea and Swiss cheese fondu! Even if you don’t buy anything in this town and just window shop you can tell the type of people who holiday here by the number of Rolex shops in the tiny Main Street. Hundreds of watches valued between $10,000-$60,000 are displayed in the windows of closed shops. The watches over that and up to $110,000 are taken down at night times. I’ll giggle now when walking past a Michael Hill Jeweller shop who take their $50 stuff out of the windows at night. I have also never seen so many Swiss Army knife varieties. Most shops sell the full range, 151 varieties. We bought one here as well – free engraving! And yes it’s true, here they are only called ‘army knives’.

After three more trains and three more hours, we arrived at Lucerne. Lucerne is one of the towns I remember visiting when our family was in Europe in 1999. I wanted to take Dave up Mt Pilatus, the journey I’d once taken. We took the gondola from the bottom to 4,649ft then the aerial cableway for the final leg until we reached the top at 7,000ft. Time restricted us again, so we were only up there about 10 minutes before taking the ‘worlds steepest cogwheel railway’ down the mountain with a gradient of 48%! The railway is placed on the cliff face and twines through the mountain tunnels. From the bottom we took the 2hour boat trip along the shores of the emerald Lake Lucerne before hitting the beautiful township. It’s a lovely little town with fantastic wooden foot bridges that join the old town with the new. Considering that we arrived at 6pm last night and left for Zug at lunch time the following day, I’m pretty impressed with how much we jammed into a short period time. With only 4 nights in Switzerland we are always on the move. It is such a stunning country. The only thing I could criticise about it is it church bells. In most countries they go off for a minute or so. Not here, at least 5 mins each time, every 15 minutes.

I can count on a few fingers how many grumpy days we (meaning me) have had in the last 4 months. This morning was one of them. The one day per town / country, lack of sleep from the hostels, not enough food or nutritional food because of lack of money and being ill really takes its toll every now and again. I can’t describe how weird it is when those times are randomly placed just before you meet up with someone who turns it all around. We were greeted at Zug train station by the welcoming arms of my cousin Laurence and his beautiful partner Francesca. We are more than thankful to be staying with family for the next two nights. They even invited us out to a 35th birthday with them. Similar to the experience in Bordeaux, it’s nice to be dressed up and having a break from being a traveller. It only took a few hours in their company to feel reenergised and continue along our journey.
What we should be doing today is having a day to rest but we felt it was more important to catch the train to Zurich for the day. Switzerland has no Sunday trading so it probably wasn’t the best of days to visit. Zurich was dead quiet, very grey and cold. A beautiful city all the same. Nothing better to warm the cockles than Swiss hot chocolate and Swiss apple strudel with Swiss Movenpic ice cream.
To end our fantastic stay with Laurence and Francesca we (Dave) cooked our (Dave’s) speciality dish, ‘no butter, butter chicken’. Good wine, relaxing candles, smooth sounds of Ray Charles and great company with family ended one of the best weekends to date and reenergised us for the pilgrimage to Octoberfest….



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