Todd and Hannah's European Road Trip

8536km and a few pounds worse off we arrived back into pound spending, English speaking, left hand driving Great Britain. It’s not really home but it did feel a bit like home as we pulled back into an overcast dreary London day. First stop – Grind for a decent flat white, second stop – Headmasters, Todd was desperately in need of a hair cut!

We had a fantastic two and a half months in Europe. It has only been in the last few days that we have had a chance to flick through all the photos and remember everything we have done. Here are a few of our highlights...

• Favourite country – CROATIA – for the crystal clear water, beautiful sunshine and fresh seafood.

• Least favourite country - BOSNIA (but to be fair our only impression is the very scary border control man). We will have to go back sometime for a better look around.

• Best travel companions – The Damianos (however they were our only travel companions so they win by default).

• Best quote of the holiday – Lucinda to Todd ‘You want to have a go at my bacon?’ (literally asking Todd if he wanted a taste of her entree but perhaps not the best choice of words).

• Funniest moment – Marco dancing on the Podium of a Contiki party in Rome surrounded by 20 year olds and sporting the ‘Dick of the Day’ shorts (see below for definition).

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Dick of the Day shorts (origin) – A few months ago Todd and I headed to the gym for a Sat morning workout. We took our stuff into the changing rooms and said we would meet in the gym in a few minutes. I got downstairs and started on a cross trainer. 10 mins later Todd still hadn’t appeared. I thought it was a bit strange but kept going. Next minute I turn around and he is on the cross trainer next to me in the most hideous multicoloured striped shorts I have ever seen.

• ‘What are you wearing?’ (Hannah)

• ‘I forgot my shorts, picked up these babies in lost property’ (Todd)

• ‘No wonder they were in lost property, I would try and lose them too’ (Hannah)

After the gym we met Katie and Dobbo for a coffee at Grind at decided that we would take them to Egypt over Xmas and they would become the ‘Dick of the Day’ shorts to be worn by the traveller who managed to impress the most through stupidity. They didn’t make an appearance Egypt in Dec (but then neither did we) so they got their first showing in Europe where there were a few opportunities ...

• There was Todd swearing at the drivers who were on the correct side of the road (Italy)

• Hannah trying and failing to interpret the road maps in Avignon (France)

• Lu translating the waitresses English to ...ah English (Italy)

• Marco (well Marco just volunteered to wear them out one night – that’s stupidity in itself!)

Somehow I think they might get a bit more wear in South America – they have Miss Katie Routledge written all over them!
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We have now had a few days back in London and have been running around organising stuff for South America. We fly out next Thursday so we are getting very excited. Team leader Katie and our Spanish translator Luke arrive back from Borneo late Tuesday night so Team South America will be reunited at Heathrow Airport on Thursday morning. We are not going to use travellers point to blog in South America as it is fairly time consuming and requires lots of good wifi however we will upload plenty of photos using picassa and will send emails of all our adventures. Let me know if you want to be included in the email group as I don't want to randomly spam people (immediate family don’t have a choice, you get spammed by default).

Thanks for following our travels through Europe and for all your comments.

Take care and adios,

Love Hannah and Todd xx

Sunshine at last! We should have known France would deliver. We have been without rays for 7 whole days so were in need of some Vitamin D. Leaving Switzerland we ventured north and found ourselves in the little town of Troyes, home to Lacoste, Petit Bateau and outlet shopping galore. Poor Toddy was dragged from La Creuset to Villeroy & Bosch to Petit Bateau (at which point he nearly cracked it – too many screaming children....sorry Jules, I didn’t even make it through the front door, let alone to the newborn section!)

Champagne seemed more his style. We stopped for a night in Epernay, capital of Champagne country and spent a lovely afternoon at Moet and Chandon trying a bit of the local produce. They have 26km of cellar space – that is a copious amount of bubbles. We did wonder if they would notice if a few bottles of Dom Perignon went missing especially when we got upstairs to the shop and found some of the special editions were worth 3000 Euro!

Epernay was a nice wee spot and we stayed in a very cute little B&B where our hosts were so lovely. They had only recently bought the hotel and so were doing their utmost to impress. They were therefore horrified when their gorgeous wee dogs left a deposit outside our room which we both managed to tred through. Was quite funny the owners were so apologetic but the dogs thought it was a great joke!

Further north we decided to head for the Belgium coastline for a few days at the beach before we hit the UK. I’d read that the local language was Dutch and that people got very offended if you spoke French to them so I couldn’t understand it when we arrived and everyone was talking French, It took us about 3 hours to work out that we were actually still in France, about 100m from the border but in France all the same. It has worked out for the best though – we are so close to the border that they serve both waffles and crepes!!

Our European adventure is drawing to a close. From the beach here we can actually see the English coastline. One of these days we are going to have to cross the channel however it’s not so tough when you know there is a flight to South America on the other side. Better study up on that Spanish.

Adios,

Hannah & Todd xx

A few pics

We haven't actually taken many in the last few days. I didn't have much to chose from so there are only a few....

Moet & Chandon

100,000 Bottles of Bubbles behind me!

Aging Dom Perignon

Last dose of Mussels and Frites

We have been all over the place since our last post. After leaving Salzburg (and returning the next day to pick up Todd’s cell phone) we spent a night out in Lofer, a little village out in the Austrian mountains. It was very pretty and we had a great day but the black clouds moved on in at 5pm and so we spent the rest of the night dodging rain drops! Still the little tent held up and we were grateful to be dry the next morning! A brief stay in Germany the following night gave us a chance to see Lake Constance and explore the surrounding villages. The area was pretty with vineyards and orchards everywhere but we were not so keen on the weather forecast and so decided to keep moving into Switzerland.

Someone needs to let Switzerland know that it is summertime. It was so cold that for the first time in months we had to delve into the bottom of our bags to find jeans and long sleeves. While it didn’t provide much sunshine, it didn’t let us down when it came to the scenery. We stayed in Interlarken but loved the whole Jungfrau region. Lauterbrunnen is the place to stay for anyone heading in this direction. It has everything one would expect from a buzzing little ski town – spectacular mountains (of course), ultra green valleys and the best wee cafe this side of the English channel.

We spent our days walking, had a few gondola rides, explored the little hilltop villages, saw lots of waterfalls and drank a fair bit of coffee. It was up there as one of our favourite spots of the trip although we couldn’t stay too long as it was killing the budget. The franc is so strong (and the pound is so weak) that even a brief stop at McDonalds set us back about $50 NZD! Ouch! Nevertheless Lauterbrunnen is on the list of places to come back to once our bank account recovers from this trip.

From Switzerland we had planned to head back up through Germany but after a few days of rain we are chasing sunshine and France looked like it was more likely to supply some rays. I didn’t tell Todd that the change in route also meant a detour through the best factory shopping in France and then of course through the centre of Champagne (what a shame)! He is going to be stoked when he works that one out!

Only a week left in Europe so starting to get organised for a busy few days in Londontown – can’t wait to catch up with all the Londoners

Au revoir,

Love H&T xx

Photos...

Austria

Camping Austria

I'm not sure the wee Golf fits in around these parts...

St Martin - Austria

Walking Austria

Lauterbrunnen

Trummelbach Falls

Under the falls

Views of the valley from Murren

So this is how I spent my Wednesday...

I am not quite sure how Todd convinces me to do these things but anything that requires a harness and a helmet should ring alarm bells fairly rapidly!

After very sadly saying goodbye to Croatia, we headed north and spent three nights in Lake Bled, Slovenia. With a bit of a Queenstown/Wanaka vibe, Bled is set around a beautiful lake and seems to be the centre of adventure tourism in Slovenia. It was another action packed few days which saw me stumbling down mountain bike tracks, struggling to cycle up mammoth hills, abseiling down rock faces and jumping into icy cold rock pools.

Todd has been eyeing up canyoning ever since he discovered the sport last month in France so no surprises when he saw the opportunity in Bled, he booked us in! This is one to add to the repertoire Graeme – I am surprised that neighbour of yours hasn’t had you out in search of canyons yet. Despite my reservations it was loads of fun and our guide ‘canyoning Bob’, somewhat of a legend in the area, was excellent. I managed all but the last 10m jump however there was only one person in our group daring (or stupid) enough to try that one... no prizes for guessing who that was! In summary we had a great afternoon, no broken bones but check out the stylish outfits below – sure to be the next big thing in fashion circles!

Ready for a change of scenery we decided to head up into Austria for a bit of culture in Salzburg. To my horror I discovered that Todd has never seen the Sound of Music. I feel that he has been deprived of a childhood classic – it’s just as well that I have seen it so many times that I could almost recite the whole movie to him (cheesy music included). I will make him sit and watch it sometime but for now my rendition will have to suffice.

We had a lovely day in Salzburg. The sun was shining and we spent the morning wandering around the sights of the city. Much to Todd’s relief I didn’t subject him to any of the Sound of Music tours however we did pass by Nonnberg Abbey and the Mirabell gardens, where it seemed every Austrian in town happened to be getting married. We spent a few hours of the afternoon in a beer garden soaking up a bit of sun, a few steins of beer (or lemonade in my case) and plenty of pretzels. It was a very pleasant afternoon in a very pretty city. We leave Salzburg today and are heading out to the Austrian lakes district. Will keep you posted.

Auf Wiedersehen,

Love Hannah and Todd xx

A few more photos...

Lake Bled

View from Ojstrica, overlooking Lake Bled

Hannah Lake Bled

Canyons

Fashion statement

Its so cold...

Loving every moment

Natural water slide

On the way home

Floating home

Waterfall - Vintgar Gorge

Walking in the Vintgar Gorge, Slovenia

Todd and Mozart

Beer!

Map of where we are

Travelling with Toddy is tiring work. I can usually keep him quiet for half an hour over breakfast but then it is a full on day until he stops for a beer at 6pm... ‘Do you want to go for a swim, should we rent kayaks, come throw the Frisbee with me, do you think they have boats to rent, rugby passes?? Just when I think I am going to be allowed to sit for 5 mins, he finds something else to do! This week I have discovered somewhat of a solution - ‘The Millennium’ trilogy. Its amazing, he is so engrossed that I then almost have the opposite problem – he goes from 110% to 10%! I am not sure which is worse!! We are back on the coast of Croatia, in a little cove Glavotok on the island of Krk. It has been an unexpected gem – beautiful swimming and the most picturesque camping of the trip so far.

Before Krk, we spent two nights near the Plitvice national park. The lakes are beautiful, such bright colours and clear waters. We had a day hiking around the lakes which was stunning. I left Todd in charge of the camera so we spent almost as much time taking photos as we did walking. I have been sorting through the photos this afternoon. If anyone needs photos of Croatian fish from Plitvice lakes I have quite a gallery.

The evenings were very relaxing sitting out chatting and cooking dinner. As new campers arrived and set up it was very entertaining trying to guess where they were from. The Italians are a dead giveaway – they are not even out of the car and the arms are flapping and mouth is moving a million miles an hour. There is a lot of talk before any action takes place. The Germans on the other hand have it sorted. They back the caravan in, check it is perfectly positioned then move with quick precision to set up in ultra speed. The few Spanish that we have encountered this far east take one look at the Germans and agree that it is far too much effort and so sit down and have a drink in the sun instead! It is very funny how accurate you can get using such mass generalisations.

Back in Krk, Todd has just got back from jumping off the wharf with all the other kids. I took a big gash out of my foot yesterday while climbing over some rocks so I was allowed to sit out the wharf jumping tonight. I might have to use the sore foot to my advantage over the next few days. It should take a few days to heal so I might not be able to participate in rugby passing or Frisbee throwing. Despite the action packed days, I can’t really complain... I am currently sitting watching the sunset, glass of vino in hand, live guitarist in the background (playing 70s classics typical of a Polson family gathering) and bear grylls is about to cook up some fresh fish on the frypan. Beats my standard day at the office!!

Ciao for now.

Love Hannah and Todd

Photos...

Where are we?