Category — Travel

Oh dear – we’re in Italy and I still haven’t yet written about Spain.  Definitely time for an update!

Our Spanish journey started in the north at San Sabastian where I was thrilled to dig out the bathers from deep within our van so that the kids could have a dip in the ocean.  It was the first time we had got the bathers out, and the first time in a long long (long) time that the kids had been to the beach and they loved it.  Here’s the proof!

We then headed straight for Madrid and proceeded to spend several days enjoying the sites and sounds of our campsite.  As I mentioned last time I posted we were well and truly exhausted after a huge month of travelling and needed some time out.  We did manage to make our way into Madrid on our last day there and do the bus trip we do when we need a quick tour of the major sites and haven’t the time/energy to do it ourselves.  It’s kind of like reading the annotated version of a great novel, but that double decker has served us well on more than one occasion (and Richard managed to stay awake for the whole tour this time!).

After Madrid we made our way to the south coast to try to recreate the magic of the beach at San Sebastian.  Unfortunately we hadn’t factored in the grey rocky nature of the beaches in the area, and the first beach we went to was so rocky we could drive our car all the way up to the water.

Needless to say we didn’t get our bathers out again that day.

We did however get the camera out to snap this rather bizarre sight.  See if you can recognise these trees:

That’s right, they’re our very own gum tree made nude by an over zealous Spanish pruner.  Apparently it was to let the winter sun into the campsite, but it all felt a bit wrong, and we left the rocky beach and naked gum trees the next morning in search for a sandy beach.

With the help of Google satellite photos Richard led us to Marbella which he told me was not only where the rich and famous hang out, but has white sand.  If I were creating a tourist website I’d add this photo:

And probably leave out this one (which was taken just a few metres from the first one):

As you can see the beach was rocky and grey, but luckily we’ve hardly ever taken our kids to Australian beaches so they didn’t know any better.  You’re also probably wondering whether the famous people are all living in that lovely building. Well unfortunately they weren’t staying at the campsite end of Marbella, and apparently it’s all a bit has-been since Sean Connery moved out in the 90s anyway. We went soft and stayed in a bungalow at Marbella and were very lucky to meet up with the lovely Rose and Victor from Northern Ireland who very kindly gave us a tour of their ‘rig’ and gave us some much appreciated adult conversation.

On our way down to the south of Spain we had driven through Granada, hoping to see Alhambra, the Moorish palace dating back to the 13th Century. Unfortunately we made a bit of a wrong turn along the way…and if you can picture a van making it’s way along an old goat’s track on a cliff top dodging pedestrian, motorcycles and the occasional oncoming bus then you will get a good idea of our visit (by the way you can also picture a screeching wife swearing at her navigator for an hour or so after the event if you want the spirited version). After 5 nights at Marbella we felt strong enough to try it all again and we did finally manage to see Alhambra before spending a night in Valencia on our way to BARCELONA.

I put BARCELONA in capitals because really only capitals can do it justice. We abandoned our van for my brother’s most wonderful apartment in the middle of Barcelona and we were completely smitten by the city (and the apartment!). We went to art galleries, parks, shops, cafes, and at every turn some amazing piece of art/architecture/landscape would jump out at us. Here’s just one example of our Hamish in front of a site we stumbled across when putting our van into a long term car park.

My little man also turned 7 in Barcelona and although he had spent the whole trip worried that a birthday in Europe would not be as good as one at home, he proudly declared this birthday the ‘best birthday ever’. A mum’s gotta love hearing that. Here he is with his cake:

And here’s a cute shot of Zoe just because I love her:

We’ve seen a lot since we left Spain so I must update again very soon to catch up. But for now I’m going to go to sleep to the sound of rain on the van roof in Pompei.

It’s been too long since I updated here, but as I’ve said before, travelling Europe keeps us very busy…and we’ve done some pretty impressive travelling lately which has kept us busier than usual. Let’s see…last time I wrote we had just arrived in London. Here are a couple of the sites we enjoyed there:

The changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace (which we couldn’t actually see, but hey we got a glimpse of the guys with funny hats as they marched back to wherever they came from).

Hamish on the London Eye (i.e. the giant ferris wheel) with Big Ben in the background:

Ok, so we saw heaps more than that in London, including two fantastic visits to the British Museum where we saw amazing Egyptian and Greek artifacts, but that will have to do for now because internet access is harder to get hold of than ever and there is a queue for the computer.

To get get into London from our campsite we needed to catch a good old double decker bus for an hour each way, which gave me an opportunity to catch up on some knitting. Here is one of the front cardigan panels with a knight poking out of the pocket. It’s my first ever pocket – I’m very proud

After London we drove our van onto a train which took us under the English Channel and 30 mintues later we were in France.  I was convinced that we would park the car and then move into a passenger carriage, but no – we just sat in our car all the way.  Luckily I had stopped off at a supermarket just before getting on the train so we could munch our way under the Channel! This is the view we had – not quite as inspiring as the ferry would  have been, but significantly faster which is why we did it.

On our first day in Paris we went to visit another monument that just happens to be on the list of 10 most diasppointing tourist attractions in the world. The only thing I found disappointing was the fact that it was so windy that day the top story of the tower was closed, so we have left it for our return at the end of the trip.

Here’s the clan eating their baguettes in front of L’Arch de Triumph. I don’t think it made it on to the top 10 list….

We then met up with my sister and her beautiful family for a day together in Paris.  Believe it or not we didn’t set this photo up – the kids were being cute all by themselves:

After a few days in Paris we were feeling a little too cultured so we took the kids to DisneyLand.  I could write a comparative essay on the merits of DisneyLand as compared to LegoLand, but lets just say the kids had a blast (and we didn’t have too bad a day either).

I have to thank Richard for this gorgeous shot as we arrived in the morning:

Here is my snap of the boys in front of the Disney Castle:

And here are my two beauties in front of something more authentic.  After Paris we did some sightseeing along the Loire and as you can see we had the most stunning weather for it. This is Le Château d’ Azay le Rideau:

Let’s see….next up we went to visit the lovely Benasli family with whom I stayed for 10 months as an exchange student 18 years ago. We shared plenty of good food and good memories (and of course a few embarassing ones) and were treated to a real bed for the night. The family now live at the seaside and after buying winter jackets in Paris and sending summer clothes home with my sister the weather turned balmy. Here’s Hamish at the beach building his sandcastle inspired by some silly rocks somewhere in England:

We continued on to La Rochelle and then Bordeaux, and I was quite simply gobsmacked by the beauty of the city of Bordeaux. We only stayed one day but have added it to our list of places that need to be revisited in the future. We then drove straight down to Spain, which is where we are right now. We’re in Madrid to be exact, although we haven’t made it out of the campsite yet. We all needed a day off, so we’re soaking up the sunshine and catching up on emails/Lego building etc. I will post photos of Spain in the next post – this one is quite long enough already!

Well wasn’t that worth the effort?  We may have nearly killed ourselves on a speed tour of the UK, but this morning at 5am we crowded around the laptap on a hotel bed to watch a live stream of the AFL Grand Final and low and behold the mighty Hawks won!  Who would have thunk it?! We celebrated with a trip into London on the Underground although to be honest a big nap in the luxurious hotel beds would have been my first preference. Here’s hoping the mighty Hawks repeat the triumph next year so that the boys can go to the MCG to see the match.

Richard and I have been having a joke all around Europe about an article he read listing the ten most disappointing tourist attractions (as voted for by tourists). In the top five was Stone Henge, and we both agreed that a few old rocks on the edge of a busy freeway may not be quite as awe inspiring in real life as it is looks in the tourist brochures, and after our exhausting tour of the UK we very nearly decided not to drive the extra hour or so out of our way to see it. In the end we made the journey and we were so pleased we did. Here is Miss Zoe showing us how much she loved this ancient monument (although just to show that the article wasn’t complete rubbish Hamish was quite puzzled about all the fuss over a few rocks…).

Speaking of Miss Zoe – I couldn’t help but show this shot of her on her way to the toilet after just rolling out of bed. Ben Nevis – the tallest mountain in Scotland is somewhere there behind her (we never could work out exactly which one Ben was).

And here’s a shot to show why I don’t take many photos. This is the family in action in London today photographing squirrels. I think most of the time 3 sets of photos is enough, but I like to take a few shots of the family (that is when I can catch them without cameras in hand!).

We have one more night at this lovely hotel and then we’re back to the van. We will stay at a campsite in London for several more days and then we are all very excited to be heading to France. Croissants here we come!

View Larger Map

So what do you do at 11pm at night when you’ve been driving all day? Fiddle with Google maps of course. I’ve been having a bit of fun making this map because I get to work out exactly where we’ve been after a long days drive (hubby navigates so this is the only map I ever see). Then I found out you can add little notes and pictures, and now I just can’t stop fiddling. I’ve linked to the map on the left tool bar so drop in every few days to see where we’ve been.

We left Scotland today and we all agreed that the rugged beauty reminded us a lot of our beloved Tasmania. Hamish declared it his favourite country so far (well it was a tie with Denmark but I think it had an unfair advantage what with Legoland being there and all). Here he is showing us how much he loves the place:

Zoe told us that Germany was her favourite country because you can drive as fast as you like on the freeways there. A future racing car driver perhaps?!

I guess this sums up where we are, or at least where we’ve been, because that was in England, and we’re in Scotland now. I have managed to skip any photos of The Netherlands entirely which is due to the fact that I finally succumbed to the campervan illness curse and developed a fever on the evening we arrived there. Lucky for me we were staying with the most wonderful friends who looked after us and I was able to fight the fever from the comfort of a real bed (as opposed to poor hubby who had to do it from the top of a campervan). I managed to drag myself up for a couple of hours each afternoon for a small amount of sightseeing but I don’t have many photos to show for it.

We are doing a speed tour of the United Kingdom in an attempt to a) make it to London in time to watch the Hawks play in the AFL Grand Final (which was a good compromise to the initial suggestion of flying home for the weekend), and b) meet up with my sister in Paris before she returns home to Melbourne. The fast pace means that my knitting is coming along much slower than I would like, but I hope to catch up when we get to France and slow things down a little.

We are only managing to find internet access every third day or so, so I apologise for the brief post and promise to catch up again soon.

Ahh yes, the van of ill-health became too much for us (well for the ill part of ‘us’ which was everyone except me) and we took the soft option in Denmark by staying in accommodation without wheels.  Actually in Copenhagen we took an option so soft it came with a bath   We absolutely loved Copenhagen but sadly we only spent a few hours there and again the best sightseeing we could muster was a bus tour around the city (and even then hubby slept for half of it).  It is definitely on my list of places to revisit one day.

Here are my cheeky monkeys in front of the Little Mermaid:

Hamish with Hans Christian Anderson:

A shot of Nyhavn Canal from the bus window:

And here’s the Legoland version!

That’s right – we could only spend an afternoon in Copenhagen because we had to rush off to the far more important Legoland. Actually with my trusty tour organiser so sick we worked out far too late that Legoland is in fact nowhere near Copenhagen which in part explains our short stay. If anyone has ever wondered where Legoland is then I would say imagine heading for the end of the earth, and then stopping a few hours before you get there. When we did in fact get there, after what seemed like weeks of driving, and saw a few odd Lego creations outside the front of a deserted entrance gate on a summery 14 degree day in the rain, hubby and I got a little nervous about the wisdom of our treck. Thankfully Legoland turned out to be every bit as good as we had hoped, and honestly just seeing the smile on Hamish’s face would have been enough. Here are a few photos of the little man and his lovely grin:

There are no pictures of Zoe smiling because she managed to develop a fever the morning we arrived and she hardly made it out of the pram that first day. She rallied for the second day which was good timing as the driving rain also stayed away the second day and we had a great time.

After a full day at Legoland we got into the van and drove back to Germany where we have stopped shortly on our way to Amsterdam. More updates soon!

I can’t believe we’ve left Germany already – it seems like we just arrived. I was just getting a handle on the most basic of German phrases and I had reached 140km per hour on the autobahn without breaking into a sweat. But move on we must, as Legoland awaits us, as does Copenhagen, Amsterdam and good old England. Actually I think Hamish is more excited about heading to England than he is to Legoland. He doesn’t much like not being able to understand a word anyone says. Me – I’m well used to being treated like a fool because I don’t speak the language. My ego has had a good toughening up and my years of studying sign language have come in extremely useful as I have mimed my way through the German countryside. The little lad has found it a bit more challenging.

Seriously though I am a bit sad to be leaving Germany so soon. The history is so vast and so rich – and at points so recent. in Berlin you don’t have to conjure up images of princes from long ago – you can see the photos from just 20 years ago of a reality so vastly removed from our own. Sadly with all the sickness going around we spent more time in our campervan in Berlin than we did actually seeing the city, but hubby managed to rally on the last day so that we were able to see some sites (even if many of them were from a sightseeing bus!). Here are a couple of snaps I took. The official photos will have to wait another day or two.

Zoe at the holocaust memorial in Berlin:

That tiny spec at the front is Hamish outside the glass dome on top of the Reichstag building:

Updates from Denmark soon!

We had a bit of a sick day yesterday, hanging around the van, giving everyone a chance to relax and recover. We gave the kids a computer each and an awsome quiet descended on the van. Hamish got a chance to catch up on his beloved footy stats, and Zoe had a play on her favourite website. I got to knit…here’s how the first cardigan sleeve is coming along so far:

We then headed into Berlin late in the afternoon. Here we are at the Brandenburg Gate:

We had a great time in the city and had the best Vietnamese food we’ve had in years for dinner (which would have been quite cheap too had we not fallen for the ‘bottled water’ to drink which ended up costing us 6 Euro…that’s near enough to $10!).

Unfortunately it turned out that today was the real sick day as hubby broke out in a fever, so we didn’t get to see any of Berlin at all today. All was not lost – I got to do more knitting whilst Zoe drew pictures. Here is the view looking out from our van:

And here is Zoe’s picture of Santa delivering presents:

The boys hung out upstairs listening to Buddy kick his 100th goal for the Home and Away season:

I know it looks so picturesque, and it is…except for the low flying planes that roar just over our head every 20 minutes on take-off from the local airport. We figure we could be stuck sick in worse places and hope that tomorrow we will get to see a little more of Berlin before we move on to our next home.

I know I said I would make some more order out of the photos but I’ve decided to give up on that idea as everyone uploads at different times and as computer time is scarce it’s a matter of grabbing whatever photos I can when I get the chance. So here are a few more moments in Germany:

Zoe outside the Frauenkirche in Dresden:

Who would have known she was about to throw the most God awful tantrum whilst in the said church which I’m sure the people of Dresden are still talking about today? This Cathedral was quite recently rebuilt after being destroyed near the end of World War II (Check out this picture of the ruins taken in 1991).

Here’s Hamish in Heidelberg:

And Zoe eating ice-cream in Munich:

OK, time for bed. Here’s hoping everyone is feeling better tomorrow!

Well technically we’ve been in Germany for over a week now, but it took us that long to translate the installation instructions for the USB modem so I apologise for the delay in logging in.  There’s already a lot to share, but there’s never much time in the evenings as by the time we’ve set up camp and put the kids to bed we’re dropping off to sleep ourselves.  I’ll start with a few random photos of our travels and hope to build up some coherency as the trip progresses.

Hamish in Frankfurt with his first packet of Gummy Bears:

Zoe pretending she’s a princess at Heidelberg Castle:

A knight’s armour in a museum in Rothenberg:

Neuschwanstein Castle in the Bavarian Alps:

And the view from outside the castle:

Munich Olympic stadium:

A subway station in Munich:

And what do the kids think of all the travelling we’re doing?

It’s not often that your children beg you to put them to bed but these poor guys have been sick from the moment we arrived and they are exhausted by night time. And as I mentioned so are we – so I’ll leave it here tonight and work on uploading our pictures from Dresden tomorrow. By the way we’re in Berlin now – just arrived this afternoon. Yeah, we get around pretty fast – but that seems to be the German way. Man you should see those cars travel on the Autobahn. And I always thought that was a bit of an urban myth!

Ok, so once we’d got the passports, booked the tickets and organised the campervan it seemed obvious that something was missing.  What kind of self respecting computer geek (and his wife..that’s me!) leaves home on a 5 month adventure with kids who have no blogs?  Not this one (or his wife).  Thankfully the problem is now rectified Check out Hamish and Zoe’s blogs (who are 6 and 4 respectively) – and don’t forget to keeping dropping back in to follow their journey around Europe.

The kids are trying out their new sleeping bags ready for the trip. 2 more sleeps!!!!