Today started well with a great breakfast at the hotel,(continental today so much healthier than yesterdays fry up!!) we arrived late last night in the dark so it was surprising to see such amazing views of the Alps surrounding us when we got up today.
We drove through the south of Germany towards the Austrian border with the mountains just to our south, some of them were snow capped and looked fantastic! Crossing the border was as uneventful as all the others, I don’t know why spies like James, Jason and Tom (now there’s a challenge, first 2 are easy who’s the third??) have so much trouble with it! The roads in Austria are not so good and the mountains have gone as we head a bit north to cross the country!
Andy won’t let me listen to wicked today, I am allowed ‘selected songs’…….. WHATEVER, if you can’t listen to the whole thing there is no point!!
Erm … day’s taken an eventful turn. Hilarious time in Vienna. Beautiful city, lovely architecture, enjoyed a fabulous cheese and ham toastie in the plaza. On the road again heading for Budapest. Oh, slight delay due to cunningly arranging for the police to tow car out of disabled parking bay and deposit in impound for us … parking’s such a chore on the continent!
Arrived finally at Budapest. Hotel room is hilarious. Its an apartment with a mezzanine second bedroom, fully equipped kitchen and 2 lounges.
Having a nightmare with electricals today (laptop wont connect to the wireless internet and this kezboard is a pain … the kezs are in zer wong plöce)
Off out for some tea now before an early night and our 1000 miles tomorrow from Budapest to Istanbul.
Over and out
Thursday, 13 September 2007
Day 1 – Wednesday September 12th 2007
Well, here we go off on our big adventure and what a great start, we had to leave London at 6am, and at 6.01 am we departed, all the planning, organisation and focus had paid off, we were off……. We had a great drive down to Dover, made it in about an hour and a half, averaging abut 81 mph…… One small hitch, we had not planned to be at the ferry terminal 45 mins before, of course we knew we had to be, but hadn’t planned to be, so we missed the ferry we were booked on as we only got there 10 mins before sailing…… Oh well, apparently there is more that one ferry a day so we managed to get the next one, an hour later!!!
Crossing went off without incident, yummy breakfast, lots of coffee and a nice sea view!!!
So, we landed on the continent like proper British travellers with nothing more that a passport and a credit card….. Setting up all the new gadgets was fun….. I now know how Paul feels on our road trips, sat with the laptop DJ’ing (i.e. playing the wicked sound track), via an FM transmitter, keeping taps of progress on auto route, uploading from memory sticks……. ahh happy days!!
German motorways are brilliant, there is no speed limits on big chunks of them, Andrew is driving as I am typing this, its quite tricky as he thinks he is a cross between a F1 driver and a go cart racer….. apparently no one else on the road knows how to drive!!!
And then there was traffic jams, its 4.30 our time and the traffic around Frankfurt is a little ‘heavy’!! We are down to 20 mph and lost 2mph off the average all because some silly German decided to break down!! How selfish!! Not that bad though because we were under the fight path of the airport and so got to watch the planes land!
Well, we finally got to the hotel, what a quaint little place, just south of Munich, the old dear on reception was waiting for us, we were the last to check in at abut 9.00pm. she also doubled as the waitress in the restaurant, kindly she brought us the English menu, but then unfortunately would not let us order anything other than her recommendation which actually turned out to be quite good! (Shane would have been right at home, waitress recommendation ruled supreme).
Its now 23.12, and we have retire to our lush room, (split level, with bedroom area, living room bit and dressing room bit with a cool bathroom), with a bottle of red!
Sleep well……
Countries passed through today England, France, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany!
Distance travelled 10hr 8min – 715miles
Average Speed 69mph
MPG = 45.9
Top speed = 129mph (silly diesel!)
Crossing went off without incident, yummy breakfast, lots of coffee and a nice sea view!!!
So, we landed on the continent like proper British travellers with nothing more that a passport and a credit card….. Setting up all the new gadgets was fun….. I now know how Paul feels on our road trips, sat with the laptop DJ’ing (i.e. playing the wicked sound track), via an FM transmitter, keeping taps of progress on auto route, uploading from memory sticks……. ahh happy days!!
German motorways are brilliant, there is no speed limits on big chunks of them, Andrew is driving as I am typing this, its quite tricky as he thinks he is a cross between a F1 driver and a go cart racer….. apparently no one else on the road knows how to drive!!!
And then there was traffic jams, its 4.30 our time and the traffic around Frankfurt is a little ‘heavy’!! We are down to 20 mph and lost 2mph off the average all because some silly German decided to break down!! How selfish!! Not that bad though because we were under the fight path of the airport and so got to watch the planes land!
Well, we finally got to the hotel, what a quaint little place, just south of Munich, the old dear on reception was waiting for us, we were the last to check in at abut 9.00pm. she also doubled as the waitress in the restaurant, kindly she brought us the English menu, but then unfortunately would not let us order anything other than her recommendation which actually turned out to be quite good! (Shane would have been right at home, waitress recommendation ruled supreme).
Its now 23.12, and we have retire to our lush room, (split level, with bedroom area, living room bit and dressing room bit with a cool bathroom), with a bottle of red!
Sleep well……
Countries passed through today England, France, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany!
Distance travelled 10hr 8min – 715miles
Average Speed 69mph
MPG = 45.9
Top speed = 129mph (silly diesel!)
Tuesday, 11 September 2007
Day -1
Last day of work! Horray!
Sun is shining here in Uxbridge, which is good as I have a mountain of washing to do and get dried before 5am tomorrow.
Yes, an early start tomorrow; eta to Calais is 11am (FR time). Then from there it's 600miles to Munich. From there we're heading to Budapest (580miles) then to Istanbul.
Istanbul to the south of Turkey will be the most interesting leg.
A week resting in the villa will be badly needed methinks! Then we're off to Igouminitsa (Greece) to catch the ferry to Bari (Italy). From there to Rome, then to Florence, through Switzerland and home via a couple of vineyards in France.
Here's a map:
Monday, 10 September 2007
Day -2 (and Counting)
Hello All, (testing, testing 1, 2, 3..........)
Only 2 days to go before we are off...... still a few last moment things to sort, like the route and where we are staying but we have the keys to the apartment now and a tent (thanks Steve) so things are looking up!
Sam
Only 2 days to go before we are off...... still a few last moment things to sort, like the route and where we are staying but we have the keys to the apartment now and a tent (thanks Steve) so things are looking up!
Sam
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