And so the journey begins....

From Strasbourg we headed into Germany, the little town of Kehl. From there we headed to Goldscheuer where we met Dad´s Aunty, my great aunty. She hadn´t seen Dad since he was a little boy, 2 or 3 years old. It was great meeting the relos from the other side of the family at long last. I was told that I had to learn to speak German. We had dinner with them and then headed to Offenburg, where Dad was born. The next day we headed down to Triberg to have a look at the Black Forest and the cuckoo clocks. Which Dad ended up getting one for his Birthday present. After chilling out there for a few hours we headed back to Offenberg, a last minute decission to jump off the train at a little place called Gengenbach was well worth it. It was a fantastic little town, with wood cladded building. Just brilliant!

That night we celebrated Dad´s 60th Birthday, his sister´s 59th Birthday and my 28th Birthday as they are all around the same time. The next day Dad´s sister headed off to go back to St Girons in France, and we spent the day having a look around Offenburg. This town has a lot to offer, more than first meets the eye. We were all glad that we spent the extra time there. The next day I parted ways with my folks, they were on there way to Paris and then eventually home to Oz and I am continuing on to Bamberg where I hope to do a language course.

Arrived in Bamberg, while on the train I found out that I would be able to do the course, so how I am here and the town is wicked! It was a Sunday afternoon and the town square was packed with people watching a Basketball game, Bamberg against Berlin.

Started the language school on the Monday. The people here are really cool. The first week was hectic, not because of school but for going out. I think pretty much every night I was out till 2 or 3 in the morning. Which didn´t leave a lot of time to get much needed zzz´s. The second week rocked around so quickly that I decided to stay another 2 weeks, so 4 weeks in total in Bamberg.

Some of the crew from the school

This little town is fantastic. I couldn´t have picked a more perfect place to have stayed and studied at.

A night at Stammtisch

Enjoying the Summer Sun

I ended up spending my Birthday here, and celebrated it here in traditional style of drinking beer! This place has too many beers to try in one month.

Time finally came for me to leave and now I am off to Italy again, catching up with friends there.

The sites of Bamberg

Arrived in France late at night in a city called Grenoble. This was just a rest stop to continue onto Carcassonne. Here we stayed for 3 days. The old part of town "La Cite" was beautiful, with a lovely old castle. Even though it was a bit over run with tourists and tourist shops it was still worth see and spending time in one place. From Carcassonne we headed to our final destination in this mad dash across Europe, St Girons. It is on the South West coast of France near a town called Dax. St Girons is just a small little place, but just fantastic for chilling out. We arrived a the right time of year, it wasn´t yet overrun with Summer holiday makers. We spent a week here, which included Easter. We drove along the coast to a town called Bairritz. In the Summer months the place is packed no room to sit on the beach. On Easter Saturday we headed to the local market in St Girons. This will give you some idea of how small this place it. The market consisted on 5 stalls, yep that is all. One selling Fruit and Vege, one selling roast chicken and Paella, one selling local cheeses, one selling local wine and the other was just selling strawberries. While we were there our cousins wouldn´t let us go till we had a feed of snails and frog´s legs. It was all very tasty. But I still feel sorry for the frogs that now only one pair of legs.

We enjoyed our time there, it was very relaxing.

From St Girons, we had to make our way to Germany for my Father´s big 6-0. Back to where he was born. We headed to France and then travelled onto Strasboug, just on the border of Germany.

Next stop Offenburg, Germany.

Arrived in Venice, minus my bag... thanks Mum and Dad... with that said an hour later I was back to carrying it.

First impressions of Venice was that I hated this joint. This was caused by misreading the map and getting off at the wrong water taxi stop, instead of only having to walk 300m we ended up walking 1+km. Opps my mistake. Antornin and Antorno are so simular, easy mistake to make.

After finally finding our accommodation, we headed out to wander the streets a bit. After a couple of minutes of not having to lug my bag around I was loving the place. First stop was the San Marco Plaza. Pretty cool. But the best thing was just walking around the endless little streets and just soaking up the atmosphere.

The next day was spent just having a look around. We headed to highly recommended cafe, where the coffee is cheap but is the best in Venice. It is such a secret one of the shopkeeps that I asked for directions from said he couldn´t tell me as it was a secret. But after a bit of battering the old eye lids he pointed me in the right direction. And yes it was worth it, the coffee was the best I have ever had.

After that we headed to the Rialto Bridge and did a bit of window shopping. I have to say the Itailans have it when it comes to fashion! Hands Down!! Picked up a bit of Venician glass. I could so live here. I would need a very well paying job, but it is just terrific, it looks like a complete mess and in chaos but it all just works somehow.

After two fantastic days there, we headed on to Torino, the home of the Winter Olympics. Torino was ok, didn´t get much of a chance look around.

From Torino we are heading into France and we are making good time to be where we need to be by Easter.

Arrived in Salzburg, Austria from Cesky Krolov, Czech Rep. Only spent 2 days here, but it was enough to see most of the town. The place was starting to gear up for Easter. They really celebrate Easter like Christmas. I have never seen anything like it. There were decorations in every shop and the chocolate egg designs were so cool. The decorations here are nothing like the cheap paper ones, these things are like pieces of art!

Anyway, the old town of Salzburg is were the film the Sound of Music was filmed, for those that didn´t know. It was fantastic, the church, was amazing. The paintings and decoration... gob smacking, to put it simply.

Checked out the old castle on top of the hill. This is just what a castle should look like, moats, towers, high walls, large metal ´drop gates´. The only problem was that I stupidly rolled my ankle while walking down the steps. But on the up side I had my parents to carry my bag hehe

After 2 days here, we boarded yet another train to head to Italy.

Arrived in Prague safely. The check in counter in Madrid was what felt like 2kms away from the where you disembark the train. To give you some idea the counter numbers started at 399 and went down to one, and only ran on one side of the terminal. I was at counter 2. Lucky me!

Anyway arrived in Prague and caught up with my folks, brother and his girl. The hotel we were staying at has a bit of a rep for thin walls. Well that was proved that night with the guy verbally abusing his girl at all hours of the night. It was so clear that you could have sworn that he was in the same room as you. No matter, that is what you get when you don´t check the reviews

The next day we all headed up to Spindlerov Mlyn for a week of skiing. Spindlerov Mlyn is at the top of Czech rep, it just abouts borders Poland. A fantastic place. It has just about everything and puts Aussie ski resorts to shame. Don´t think I would want to be there in the winter though, it gets down to -30 deg C, while we were there it was a sizzling 6 deg C. We were there in the last week of skiing and there was still plenty of snow around, and there were tons of parties on, even on the slopes. These people know how to drink. A special mention goes to Scuba guy. There was a fancy dress party on one of the slopes. This guy was dressed in a wetsuit, snorkle and all, as a tank he had a empty water fountain bottle, but he had filled this with beer. At the end of the day there was just a little bit sloshing around in the bottom. Very cool.

The skiing is pretty hard here, the so called beginners slopes are probably intermediate by Aussie standards, even the ski instructors were saying they are a bit hard for the classing.

On one of the days it hailed while we were on the chair lift, those little suckers really hurt when they hit the tip of your nose. Surrived the hail storm, and the weather cleared up to be top skiing the next couple of days till we left.

On the Monday we left, and headed back to Prague. We all did a bit of site seeing that afternoon, as my brother and his girl were heading back to England and the rest of us were trying to plan the mad rush to the South West of France for Easter, where we were going to meet some of our relatives for the first time. So not long in Prague, unfortuneatly, but I will be back.

Tuesday morning, we headed off to a little town called Cesky Kromlov. This place is wicked, so glad we did a bit of a detour to come here. But as time is was pressing we only stayed one night there and left early in the morning. Kromlov is this little town with great old building that are still being used for every purposes. It isn´t that touristy yet, thankfully, I just hope it doesn´t. I will be coming back to this place again. Another special mention goes to the hostel that we stayed at, Kromlov House, this place is tops!

Wednesday we headed off and onto Austria.

Well we landed in Madrid early early in the morning, got bugger all sleep on the plane, and lost 4 hours on the time zones. I have felt better. After working through the maze of an airport that is Madrid, and it is a maze, we were surprised we got out, it reminded me of the film "13 Ghosts", all glass, you can see where you need to go, but can´t get there.

We arrived at the hostel very tired and wanting to sleep, but were told that we couldn't check in till 11, and it was only 7am. But we were allowed to wait in the bar. The bar thankly had long bench seats which we immediately turned into beds. For the next 4 hours we slept, amongst the many guests having breakfast and checking emails. We finally got to check into the rooms and promptly went to sleep. We were so tired after the flight that our eyes were burning when they were open.

Madrid is a late night party town, the restaurant downstairs only opens at 10pm and closes somewhere around 3am. Where we were staying ended up being on the border of the gay area, so there were plenty of things going on and parties everynight. Recommend staying in that area. It has everything you need there and more.

Checked out the sites of Madrid, doing the typical museum run, they are free on Sundays. Thankfully as I am not an art buff, it was cool to see it, but not my cup of tea. The palace is huge and the parks would be great to hang out in Summer. A tad to wet and cold in Mid March. The El Rasto markets on every Sunday was ok, it pretty much was a brick & brack market. Nothing that I hadn´t seen before.

We ended up spending a week in Mardid, it was the end of the joint tour of my friend Bri. She was heading off to meet up with family and so was I.

We spent the rest of week hanging out with people we had met and going to clubs. Where most of the time we monopolised the dance floor.

Next stop Czech Rep.