And so the journey begins....

The train to Eger was delayed, as an incoming train was running late. A guy that we had met yesterday on the way to the castle was possibly going to be coming to Eger the same time as us. And as the late train pulled in, he jumped off and onto our train. Eger was amazing. It has a lovely city and the best of all it has plenty of red wine and the local speciality is Bull's Blood. It was very tasty. They have all these cellars one after the other all along the a street just north of the city, easy walking distance. This place you could just stay in for a week or more, it is so relaxing. Oh yeah, my luck with the weather has improved, it improved while I was in Denmark and since then I have had nothing but blue skies! touch wood of course...
After spending a few hours there and many glasses of wine later, we headed back to where we were staying and continued to drink. The best bit about these cellars, is that if you take an empty bottle, want ever size, they will fill it with the local drop for just about nothing. And it is well worth taking a couple of litres away with you. The next morning the boys and I headed to Budapest, the other guy was going to spend another night in Eger, he hadn't had enough wine yet. We will probably see him in Budapest. We arrived in Budapest and an elderly man helped us find the metro and where we were on the map, and he gave me a book of metro tickets for nothing, it had 8 tickets in it. So we got to ride for free...beauty! That afternoon we headed out to have a bit of a look around. We came acrosee the protestors, they were camped outside the parliament building, there were speakers and music, and kids running around playing, it was completely peaceful. A few streets away the police had a few streets blocked off. There was an old Soviet Monument still there and the people of Hungary want it gone, so they were there to protect it from damage. Budapest is a great city, there are cool bars. One we went to was in a sort of old factory. It was wicked. There are beautiful parks and heaps to see. Budapest really surprised me, it didn't know what to expect, but it is well worth going to. From Budapest I headed to a little place on Lake Balaton called Keszthely. Now this place is beautiful, I went down to the lake early in the morning, it was just glorious. I will come back here for sure. The lake is about 100 kms long. It is a really pretty area. I wish I had more time up my sleave, I would have liked to seen more of this area. Next time. Now I am on to Slovenia.

A quick stay in Slovakia. I got on the bus to Slovakia in Zakopane, just as well I got there early as the bus soon filled up. It was only a little 20 seater bus and no room for bags, the bags were just chucked in where ever it could fit. The bus stopped a short time later and more people got on, now there were people standing for this 2 hour trip over the mountain. We got to the border crossing and mine was the only passport that got taken into the hut to be stamped. Everyone else was from the EU. But at least I got to get two more stamps in my passport, I do have to say that my passport has seen better days and every customs officer looks at it with its multiple creases. It definately doesn't lie flat anymore and to open it you first have to bent it this way and that. Ok back to my travels. We get to Slovakia and an hour earlier then the time table said. There were a britsh couple sitting behind me on the bus and they were heading to Levoca, that is where I was planning on heading to. And a couple of guys were at a bit of a loss on where to go, so they came as well. We missed the first train there, because we were on the wrong platform. We were on the one that looked like a platform, the one that looked like it was still under construction was the one that we wanted. We got to a town near where we wanted to be, and then took a taxi from there. Levoca is a little town with a nice main square, there isn't that much to see there, but that is the point, it is old Slovakia still kicking on the today. After walking around the town and having a couple of beers, we headed to a local bar that we had seen earlier. This place looked like it use to be an old cellar. It was full of locals. And it wasn't long before one of the guys got pulled into playing a game of cards. With very little english we managed to pick up the rules of the game. It was a good night there, the locals had a good time with us, shouts of drinks going back and forth. I left the guys at around midnight, just as the straight spirits were coming out. The next day the boys were a little slow in rising, and we headed off to Spisske Podhradie to see Spissky Hrad, it is the largest castle in Slovakia. It was a very cool castle, well worth seeing. That afternoon we made the bus to Kosice with plenty of time to spare as it happened. We ran down from the castle and then did a quick march to the bus stop with our packs. The bus ended up being about 20 minutes late. We got to Kosice and no one was in the mood for a big one that night. In the main square that afternoon we saw tradtional dancing and singing. That was pretty cool to see. The next morning we headed to Eger in Hungary.

The ferry across to Poland was sweet as, I had booked a cabin, so that I could get some sleep. You wouldn't haven't even known you were on a ferry except for the humming of the engines. This ferry was huge, it had a restaurant, a cafe, a night club, two shops, a jacuzzi and three bars. What more do you want for a 12 hour boat ride? I got into Poland at 08:00 in the morning. I managed to follow the wrong crowd of people and ended up outside the terminal building with out having gone through customs, I managed with a couple of other people to get back inside to where we needed to be and went through customs. The custom guys looked over my passport photo, and then me and then the photo, me, photo, me, photo. Eventually he let me through, I guess I look nothing like my photo anymore, in the photo I have short blonde blonde hair (it is over 6 years old) and now I have shoulder length blonde brown hair. Any way I had a look a my stamp and that is when I noticed that the custom guy on the Copenhagen side had stamped my passport with the wrong date, according to the stamp I had left 2 days ago. opps. Glad that wasn't picked up by the friendly Polish customs guy. From here I was able to catch a train to Warsaw. It ended up being an 8 hour marathon trip down there, so by the time I was there, I had had enough of the slow trains. Warsaw is a cool place. That evening a whole buch of us from the hostel headed out to an ice bar, yes a bar made of ice, everything there was made of Ice, it was wicked, one of the guys was convinced that the seats were plastic, that was till one of the girls took a bite out of it. Proved him wrong. The next day I headed to the History Museum with a couple from the hostel, they have a great film at 12pm daily in English about life in Warsaw before, during and after the war. WOW!!! That movie was well worth going and seeing, it was amazing what the Germans did to that city and how amazing the Polish were to come back and rebuild their lives from the rubble that was now their city. The rest of the museum was great as well, it was huge!! From outside it looks small, but it isn't! The old town, well it isn't really old, it was all rebuilt after the war, is just amazing. I am so glad I came here. While I was here I tried finding where my Dad's father came from, we know that he was born in place just outside of Warsaw called Galomin. I found out that it has a population of less than 200 people. Trying to get out there was proving to be too difficult without a car, and even if I had a car, it wasn't on any of the maps. This journey will have to be saved for another time here. I ended up spending another night in Warsaw, a friend of mine that I met on my trip to Antarctica was going to be there the next night. We caught it, it was great seeing her again. We hope to catch up again later on, hopefully Croatia. From Warsaw I headed to Wroclaw. Another slow train there, only 400 kms and it took 8 hours, and it was late to boot! I found the hostel after walking past it 3 times. Once I got there, I found out I wasn't the only person that missed it. I headed for something to eat with a couple of guys in my dorm, one was from Ireland and the other from South Africa. The next day the South Africa, and I headed out to see the sites Wroclaw by day. After spending a couple of days here I headed to Krakow, the South African was heading the same way, so we travelled there together. Krakow, well I don't know what all the hype is about, I thought Warsaw was better. Krokow is nice and there is a fair amount to see, while I was here I headed to see Auschwitz, that is worth going to see, just to see how big the place was is mind blowing. From Krakow we headed to Zakopane.
Zakopane is just beautiful, the forest, the mountains and the village. I could have spent a week here, there are heaps of hikes to do, we did just one, and did a traditional raft down the gorge the other day. Hindsight I would have prefered to go and do more hiking then the rafting. If anyone is coming to Poland, make sure you headed to Zakopane for a few days. Next stop Slovakia.

I found out how the train does over water, it gets on a ferry of course, yep the train was put on a ferry. Just one word of advice, do not go back to the train early before it has docked on the other side, the rocking motion of the boat plus the rocking motion of the trains suspension, it is enough to make you feel a little green around the gills. The train was late getting into Copenhagen, first delay was that a train had brocken down at one of the stations in front of us and the second hold up was that a guy had decided to run out onto the tracks and police were trying to catch him. WELCOME TO DENMARK!!!
First impression of Denmark, apart from it was a hell of a lot colder here, and yes before you ask, the foul weather is still following me, was that there was so much rubbish on the ground, it was a huge difference from Germany where it looks like they scrub the place clean everyday. That afternoon I just relaxed, I had no intention of doing anything, it was going to be my lazy day. The next day I went for a bit of a walk around and then headed to the train station to meet my friend. We spent the next day having a bit of a walk around and we headed out to find the social community of Christiania. Copenhagen is a nice place, not overly exciting, but a place that you could easily live in for awhile and get to know some of its quirkier aspects. The next day we headed to Frederikshavn in the North of the country, it ended up being a fairly long day of travel, not by distance, just time, the trains don't move that fast here. Once there we headed up to Skagen. It is a village on the most northern point of Denmark, from there you can walk out to the tip. It is a pretty area. Well worth getting there, as along as you can get back. Once we headed back into the town of Skagen we waited for a bus to turn up, there was ment to be one, well a few, according to the bus schedule, and we throught there were meant to be a few trains as well, but weren't a hundred percent on that one. So we waited and waited and waited. A bus came but didn't stop, and it headed the wrong way anyway. After too long sitting waiting, I headed to a nearby pub and asked them to call a taxi. We got a taxi back to Frederikshavn, he dropped us back at the train station. We went in to see if there were trains that were ment to be there, and there were according to the schedule trains running till late at night, and sitting at the station was a train going to Skagen, but the strange think was that it was there when it wasn't ment to be. We had no idea what was going on! Oh well. We got back all the same. The next day we headed down to Ribe via Arhus. Arhus was having a festival and I was hoping there would be something happening during the day, but it looked like it was only going to crank up in the evenings, during the day there were performances for kids. We arrived in Ribe to find the hostel fully booked but he gave us a, basically, a classroom with a couple of matteress on the floor. In the evening they run a night watch mans tour of the city. It was fantastic, probably the best city tour I have done, definately the strangest. He spoke in Dutch and then English. Ribe is a really cool little town. From Ribe we headed to Odense, this is home to Hans Christian Anderson. We had a walk around that afternoon and tried to recall what stories Hans had written, we were able to name a couple, but they were more lucky guesses. The next day we went to his museum and to the house that they throught he grew up in. From Odense we headed back to Copenhagen. We did a day trip from there back to Roskilde, where there was a viking museum. Copenhagen has a fair ammount of things to see. One of the last nights there we headed to Trivoli Park. This is an ammusement park in the centre of Copenhagen, it has been there since before the war. It was great fun, I felt like a little kid again. Did most of the gut churning rides! Even some scared me, like the free fall one, at the end you swear that you will never do it again, but after awhile you want to go again. My last day in Copenhagen was spent running around trying to work out how I was going to get to Poland. I eventually managed to book a ferry that left that night to North of Poland. I have to say that I would come back to Copenhagen, and I would like to see some more of the Zealand area, but next time with a car, the trains are too slow.

This morning headed to Munich with an Aussie girl that I met in Liechtenstein. That evening was just spent relaxing. The next day I planned on going down to Fussen to have a look at Lugwig's Castles and she was going to join me. The castles were terrific and well worth heading down there for. That evening we caught up to go to a beer hall, a few guys from my dorm were going, so we all headed off there. It ended up being a big night. The next morning we were all feeling a bit sorry for ourselves while we were doing a free city tour, this time this one was free. Munich is pretty cool and the beer is terrific! From there I headed to Regansburg, a little town I was meaning to visit while I was living in Bamberg for the month. I am glad I came here, the place has a great feel about it. One thing that you notice in Germany that everything is so clean!! There isn't any rubbish or anything like that one the streets. I had a lovely afternoon just walking about and then had dinner and a few drinks with an Aussie guy that was staying in my hostel. The next stop was Wurzburg, the weather is dead set against me, it poured down rain while I was out and about. This town is confusing, I got so lost, not the best time to get lost when the heavens have opened up, but you can only get so wet can't you. Anyway when I first arrived there there was a festival of sorts going on, the streets had food and drink stalls everywhere and people were carrying bunches of flowers. I guess all the festivities ended when the rain started. I was kind of glad only to spend a night here, the city is just to confusing to get around in, I would have preferred to stay in Regansburg for 2 nights. The next stop was back to my old stomping ground of Bamberg. I got there on the right weekend, they were having their major festival for the year that weekend. I caught up with a couple of friends that I went to school with there and with my host family. It was good to see them all again. On my last night there, the host family took me out to the festival, I had been there the night before and it was crazy. We had beers and listened to music. A great night. I don't need to got the Octoberfest, this was much better and the beer was still cheep! From Bamberg I headed to Berlin. Berlin is a great city, but it just didn't do much for me while I was there, there are some great sites and I went to the Pergamon Museum, and that was amazing. But I felt a little disappointed in Berlin, I guess I was expecting more. Where I was staying was in the trendy old east Berlin side. It was full of art galleries and musicians... very cool place to be. After a week there I left, minus my fleece jacket...managed to leave it in a pub somewhere..opps, I headed to Schwerin. When I first got here, I was thinking what the hell I am doing here, the place wasn't very appealling. Later that afternoon after finding some accommodation I headed out to have a look at the old square and what was around. It must be the time of year but there was another food festival with copious ammounts of beer and wine. I headed down to the castle. As I turned the corner, there it was, I just stopped dead in my tracks. It was a fantastic castle, built on an island and surrounded by a lake and park lands. I had gotten down there just in time for the setting sun to make the castle glow. I had a walk around the parks for a bit, I could hear a music concert going on some where, but couldn't find it and it was starting to get dark and I didn't have a map with me, so finding the place I was staying at was going to be difficult in the dark. The next day the weather was just beautiful! Blue skies at long last! I got to the train station to find it was packed! Which was strange as it was a Sunday and early in the morning. As I got closer and the noise more audible, it was soon revealed that it was football fans that had obviously been on a all night bender and were now on their way home. There were police everywhere and some with riot gear, there would have been easily a couple of thousand drunk football fans, and only a handful of police. I felt sorry for the people on the train to Hamburg, for this was the train that all these people poured onto and continued to dance, chant and drink. My train wasn't half as exciting as I made my way to Lubeck, my last destination for Germany. I arrived in Lubeck and the weather had beaten me there, it was over cast and looked like it was going to rain. I spent the afternoon looking around and the next morning as well, that was till it decided to pour down with rain. After two nights there I headed for Denmark, I was taking the train, I would be interested to see how it was going to cross the sea. I guess I will find out.

The journey there wasn't too bad, I had to a change of trains once I was on the border of France and Switzerland, the customs check there was look at your passport ask where you are going and you are on your way... no stamp though The custom/guard was a little taken back when he asked where I was going to and I said Liechtenstein. I guess it isn't a place that most people go to. The next train couldn't make it all the way there was something wrong with the tracks, so we were all shuffled onto a bus for the remainder of the trip. the country side in Switzerland is just amazing, we travelled along side a lake for awhile, it was just breathtakingly beautiful. I will have to come to Switzerland, but not this trip. I got to Liechtenstein and found the hostel. This place is small. That afternoon I walked into the capital...village... I guess it is too small to call it a capital city, it only has about 5000 people in it. The next day I headed out with a couple of Aussies I met at the hostel, they were from Noosa area in good old Queensland We headed up to have a look at the castle were the royal family still lives, unfortunatly the bad weather is still following me and it was very overcast and threatening to rain. After that we headed into the town to get a tourist stamp in our passports... for a price of course. Liechtenstein is expensive, they were telling me that they went to MacDonalds for dinner, thinking it would be the cheapest thing around, it cost them nearly 30 Swiss Francs, that is over 30 aussie dollors for a couple of Big Mac Meals. The rest of the afternoon I decided to just chill out at the hostel and read a book and hope that the weather cleared up some what, but the weather forecast was meant to be that the weather was going to get worse. The next morning the sun was shining and I took advantage of this to head to the South of Liechtenstein and walk the entire length of the country. And I am happy to say that I manged to do it in 5 hours, the country is about 25 something kilometres long. I think I gave the bus drivers a of a giggle, as they were all waving to me as I was walking, they all passed me atleast a dozen times while I was doing this. A few kilometres from the end I wanted to call it quits, my feet were hot and it looked like it was going to rain. Instead I headed down to the Rhine river and stuck my feet in there for a bit. The water so incredibly COLD!!! It was that cold it didn't even feel like water running over my feet, it felt more like thick gel, it was a really weird feeling. My feet were happy to be cooled off a bit and happy that I didn't subject them to the cold any more then a few minutes. I made it to the border. Well what a disappoint that was, I was hoping for a border crossing or something, but there is just a sign showing that it was the end of the town I had just walked through and that it was the start of Austria, and it was written in German Osterreich. Good thing I did that German course otherwise I would have missed it :P That evening I was quite happy just to relax, tomorrow I am heading back again to Germany.

I headed back to Germany to see my cousins that live near Kehl. They were so happy to see me again. They took me up to a place called Baden Baden, it is a lovely place with heaps of shops and cafes, really pretty. They fed me so much food, they kept telling me I wouldn't know when I would eat next so I might as well eat now. And boy do they eat, in the two days there I ate enough to feed me for a week! It was only a short visit here as I had to keep moving on, no more staying in one place for a month or more My cousin drove me into Strasbourg train station. I went to buy my ticket, I asked for a ticket to Schaan Liechtenstein, and she said yes but what country?, to which I said Liechtenstein, and she replied, yes but WHAT country? my reply, Liechtenstein is a country, it is near Switzerland. She gave up and sent me to someone else. I eventually managed to get a ticket and now had about 5 minutes to find my platform before the train left, in the rush I forgot to validate my ticket, which is manditory in France. The conductor quizzed me and I got away with just a sorry and an apologetic face. I was on my way to little Liechtenstein.

It was a short stay here it Luxumbourg in the city of Luxumbourg, only 2 nights. There isn't much to say I basically came here for 2 reasons, the main one, was that I was so close, so why not check another country off the list and the second reason, someone I met along the way said that it was worth seeing. Well I would have to disagree, it isn't not worth seeing, but it isn't worth seeing if this is the only place in Luxumbourg you are coming to, the rest of the country is meant to be beautiful. The cities location is pretty amazing I do have to admit. It is surrounded by deep gorge, making the place look like a fortress. No wonder invading armies had a hard time here. The day I decided to leave the weather was bitterly cold in comparison to what I had been getting. So much so that I had to pull out my fleece jacket, and was contimplating pulling out gloves as well. While I was waiting for the train, I plonked myself on the ground, as there were no seats any where because the train station was undergoing a face lift. A conductor came along and muttered something to me that I didn't understand and he repeated it in English, saying that the ground was not very good to sit on, I pointed out that there were no seats to sit on. And with that he when into his hut and came back with a big black leather executives chair for me to sit on. So there I sat on the platform in the most comfortable chair around. My train was heading back to France, Strasboug, but I would only be there for an hour or two till I couple get a bus over to Germany where my cousins live. So back to Germany again.

Headed back to Germany, on the way met a guy from England that was also heading to Cologne. I got there and found my hostel it was miles away from the centre. I had arranged to catch up with this guy that afternoon to do a bit of site seeing together. On the way there I managed to find a phone charger for my phone!!! So happy about that! The prospect of having to buy a new phone was not one that I wanted to deal with. Met up with this guy and he had brought along an Aussie bloke he had met at the hostel, Mr "I have been everywhere". We had a look in the Dom, it is very impressive from the out side, the Aussie guy was bored and headed off to sleep. The Brit and I wandered around the rest of Cologne. There isn't that much to see. From there I headed to Koblenz. This is a pretty place it is right on where the Rhine and Moselle Rivers meet. The weather hasn't improved, the rain is still following me around. The place I visited was Cochem, now this place is too cute for words, it is on the Moselle river, there is a castle preached on top of the hill over looking the village. The next afternoon I was heading to Luxumbourg, in the morning I did a river cruise down to Beilstein, at 10am in the morning I was knocking back wine, nothing like a liquid breakfast to get your day on the way. With a few under the belt I climbed up to the hill to the ruins of a castle. Not a bad view from there. That afternoon I headed back to the Cochem to catch my train, only to find that the ticket office wasn't open, so I bought a ticket to the last German town on the route and hoped I could buy the rest of the ticket on board. It all worked out in the end and I was on my way to Luxumbourg.

I arrived in Rotterdam, after having a bit of trouble trying to find somewhere to buy a ticket for the tram and getting nowhere fast with the a local shop keep, I decided to take the metro instead. With all the time stuffing around with the ticket buying and metro line, would have been quicker to walk there as it so happens. Oh well you live and learn. I got to the hostel were it is a themed hostel, every room has a different theme. Well I was in the Board Room. It was basically a large room painted in dark greens and with heritage type of wall paper in the centre of the room was a table with one huge wing backed chair and then other smaller chairs around it, I guess the wing back chair was for the chairman of the room? That evening I met a whole bunch of Aussies, a Candian and a couple of local girls. We spent the night chatting and drinking. The next day a few of us headed out to see the sites of Rotterdam. Well there isn't that much to see. We checked out the post-modern appartments. They were quite roomy for a square box. There were local markets going on as well, we had a good giggle at the porn stall, it was in amoungst the brick and brack old grannies were selling and various other stalls. We spent the rest of the afternoon chilling out and playing pool. That night our room took over the lounge room down stairs in the dungeon. It ended up that most of us were going to Amsterdam in the next few days so we planned on meeting up there later. The next day I headed off to Den Haag. This place is a really cool little town. Great buildings, heaps of art and cafes. Checked out Esher's Museum and his "4D" drawings. And another place that had a panoramic of the city back in the good old days. It was a 360 degree painting from standing on the sand dune and as you turned around it was like you were there standing on the dune itself looking around. They had put in sand dunes and and other bits and peices like old fishing nets, a deck chair, etc up to the painting and piped in sea sounds. It was pretty cool. From this town I headed to Amsterdam were I caught up with the people I met in Rotterdam. Once getting to Amsterdam my first port of call was to find a replacement phone charger, I accidentally left mine in Brussels and the replacement one that I had bought there had blown up in Den Haag and the phone was just about dead. I was unable to get a charger for my phone, no one in the Netherlands stock Sharp phones. It will just have to wait till I get to Germany. Any way I rolled up to the hostel that I had booked myself into. They told me the room wasn't ready but you are welcome to leave the bag in the room. I headed up the stained stairs along the coridor with the piles of sheets and rubbish to my room. Where on what is to be mine bed an ashtray overflowing with cigerette butts, beer cans everywhere and 5 guys passed out. One sat up stared at me. I asked him if he had a good night...he continued staring with glaced over eyes, I ditched the bag on the ground and headed out hoping that I would find my bag still there once I returned. What do you really expect from a hostel right next to the red light district. I caught up with my friends that afternoon and we spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the city. By about 1am I headed back the hostel to crash out for the evening. When I walked into my room it was like a fairy god mother had been. The place was immaculate!!!! I had to wonder if I had come back to the same the room. But there lying on the floor, where I had left it, was my bag. The next couple of days were spent catching up with my friends, checking out the sites and doing a "free" walking tour of the city (free as long as you don't tip) It was worth going, but 3 nights is too long there. I am now going back to Germany and hopefully a phone charger.