Today is day 45, exactly halfway through for us.  We’ve finally got some photos available so I’m going to share a few here.  An internet cafe isn’t ideal for putting pics on here, but I’ll do my best.  Click to see them full size.

This is a goat we met at Zeeburg camping, in Amsterdam.

This is me getting my juggle (and stupid expression) on at Lowlands Festival.

This is a typical view from Lowlands Festival.

This is us, cooking in the kitchen.

This is the result.  You may be disturbed to know we took this picture because we were proud of our fried eggs.

This is some art in some city, I dunno.  I am hiding in it.

Martyn is feeding a duck in  a camp site near The Hague.

This is flies being rude on top of the car.

This is Lanette.  She lives on my knee

This is an extreme close up of Martyn.

Stupid expressions all round here, and I’m fashioning my little head wound.

The mighty Cologne Cathedral.

Currywurst: One of the best take away meals I’ve had, truly delicious.

A view of Berlin from the top of the Victory Tower.

Our friends Taehyeang, Kalam and Younghyo.

There’s not much this picture doesn’t say for itself…

Spongebob Schwammkopf.  It made us laugh so we took a picture.

The Jewish Holocaust memorial.

Just before the Blue Man Group show started.  Gav will be pleased to see his shirt being worn, it says “Dave and Martyns European Tour 2007″ and I like it.

I love this.  This is in the station after our wonderful night out that Martyn couldn’t quite complete.

A warning sign at reception.  This is still in Berlin.

Looking suspicious in the church before the string quartet arrived.

Nathan and a massive can of beer, literally as big as your head.

Just looking at this photo brings back the morbid feeling of Auschwitz.

This is a pretty typical scenario - eating sarnies in the car while we wait for it to stop raining.

Martyn chilling in Bratislava, I believe.

I’ll let you guess why this picture was taken.

The dimples on the air bed keep popping, and it’s slowly developing a massive lump.

Here we’re posing with The Alps.

Here we’re posing in the alps.

That concludes my photo special! My hour on the internet is about to run out, I hope you’ve enjoyed it.  There’s a hell of a lot that’s been missed out here, and I haven’t seen about 75% of the photos myself yet.   Bye for now, leave some comments!

It rained torrentially all the way to Munich, easing off temporarily just in time for us to park in the city for an hour to go to Tourist Information to find out where the Thalkirken camp site is (as recommended by the Aussies). When it stopped raining we pitched the tent and headed back into the city for a little wander round.

Hofbräuhaus am Platzl

We found our bearings, checked our emails in the same internet cafe I’m writing this from (on day 43), and had a couple of beers in a little bar. We checked out Hofbräuhaus am Platzl too, a giant beer hall (which serves beer by the litre), but it was absolutely full, not even a place to stand. This is probably in light of the upcoming beer festival, Oktoberfest, which starts on Saturday and is already getting the city buzzing.

Well, that concludes my 2 hour blog-a-thon.  For reference, day 42 was Tuesday 18th September, five days before the start of the beer fest.

Now I’m off to go find some Aussies to hang about with.

We woke up early to Martyn’s annoying phone alarm and set off for the nearby Werfen to visit the ice caves we’d read about. We weren’t prepared to be driving to a height of 1,100m into the Alps. My poor little Sköda only managed to get out of first gear a couple of times. The view was absolutely magnificent in the sunshine from this height. I daresay the most amazing sight I’ve ever experienced in person. I’m slightly scared by heights, so that probably contributed to it taking my breath away too as we stood at the top of a sheer cliff face (slight exaggeration, but it was steep and rocky).

Ice Cave

A 20 minute walk, a 3 minute ride up a very steep ski lift, and another 20 minute walk later we were at the altitude of 1,557m and at the entrance to the ice caves waiting for our tour guide. We were the only English speakers in a group of around 30 people, but the tour guide was patient and translated everything for us. I know it makes sense that ice caves are going to be cold, but it suprised us just how cold they were. The hour long tour seemed to turn our toes into ice blocks that took some time to thaw even once we got back outside.

The caves themselves were awesome though. We walked into the first kilometre of 42; the kilometre stetch of ice, making it the biggest ice cave in the world. The sights were awesome, the ice being lit up almost eerily by our oil lanterns.  I can’t really explain anything the picture doesn’t, so click it to see it full size.  Incidentally, most of the pictures we put on here should be clickable from now on, so you can see them in their full-sized glory.

On the evening, we had a little walk around Salzburg, nearly getting the car locked in a parking garage when we couldn’t find our way back to it, closing on 10pm.  We got a bit lost driving home, picked up a few beers on the way back and sat on a bench in the camp site drinking them before getting some kip.

Today we drove across Austria through the heart of the Alps, to Salzburg. This was some of the best driving we’ve had so far. SatNav Jane told us we had 260km to drive on one road, the sun was shining, very few roadworks, and we had truly picturesque hillside on both sides. For once, we both actually wanted to be driving instead of reading in the passenger seat.

Austrian Alps

We nearly got our first clean sheet finding the camp site, but literally as I said “Wow, this is our first clean sheet finding a camp site”, I missed the turn for the camp site. Okay, so it only cost us about thirty seconds, but it’s principle. We de-shirted and laid on the mat in the sun for a bit. I practiced playing my now-finished song, Sweet Wrapper, and we did absolutely nothing in the best way possible, until the sun disappeared behind the mountain looming over the camp site at 5pm and turned things cold.

No worries though. We made some jelly again, and another cornflake cake. We’d been to Lidl and bought more squirty cream and jam too, so, we put it all together in a bowl and made a trifle that is capable of making all your teeth fall out. It was jelly on the bottom, then cornflake cake, a layer of jam, and squirty cream on top. I’m not sure now why it was named Urban Trifle, but it was awesome.

Early nights are now becoming our thing, but it really helps to be able to get up in the morning to get a decent day out the following morning.

Stephansdom

We got the Metro into Vienna and did the usual wander around. We visited the awesome Stephansdom (cathedral) and took a tour of the catacombs. Another dose of seeing human bones chilled us once again, this time accompanied by a musky smell to complete the experience. The bones were moved from the cemeteries during an outbreak of the Plague, and we were told how prisoners were made to clean and stack the bones. This time, we were looking at parts of the remains of 11,000 people.

 

Danube Tower

We also took the underground across Vienna to Donaupark where we were met by the Danube Tower. Standing at 252 metres, it has two revolving restaurants that we didn’t want to queue or pay for, and offers a 152 metre bungee jump, if anyone fancies that. For comparison, the bungee jump me and Martyn did last year was under 50 metres, and that was fucking high, let me tell you.

Sadly (ha!) the bungee jump wasn’t running today, so we sat in the park, relaxed in the sun, and watched a Saturday afternoon volleyball game. After that we travelled back to the camp site, stopping at an internet cafe to fruitlessly research rock clubs in Vienna.

Bratislava is full of sexy girls.

That’s what’s written in my diary, and it’s true, every girl there seemed to be well dressed and in good shape. From the sexy receptionist with the cute accent (who was amused by my camping note) to the girls riding bikes around the city.

I don’t want you to think I find every city I visit beautiful, I don’t give it away that easy. However, Bratislava is another very good looking city, reminiscent of Prague when viewed from up on the hill where the castle is, and in the other direction it overlooks the river Danube and the edge of the alps where the city abruptly ends and the countryside begins.

An unusual sight

We were both glad we went to Bratislava, we almost didn’t go after the crappy evening finding a camp site in the dark and the rain. A quirky but fun addition to the city was these metal statue men placed around the place, doing things such as climbing out of a manhole or peeking round a corner taking a photo. I don’t have time to research them at the moment, but I’d like to know more.

We left the parking garage and set off for Austria, camping in Vienna for about 7:30pm after getting annoyed at SatNav Jane once again.   It took us around 3 hours to find the camp site.  It did take us up into the Alps though where we got an awesome view over Vienna.  There won’t be a photo of it sadly, we were too frustrated by being that high and still miles from our destination. When we got there, we just hung around the lifeless camp site, making some food and beginning writing another song, Sweet Wrapper.

Luckily, the two mistakes I made cancelled eachother out (I worked out the cost of the camping wrong, and spent some of the money put aside for it) and we paid the camping with 8 wangers spare, so we bought some beers and got on the road.

Driving from Krakow to Bratislava took us all day, especially as the SatNav lady was being a cow and kept inventing roads that didn’t exist and forgetting ones that did.  When we finally got to Bratislava we couldn’t find the camp site, and we had no currency to pay for it with.  We found a 24 hour Tesco and got a thousand wangers each from the cash machine.  Risky move really, since we had no idea what the conversion rate was, so we just picked the third button down on the cash machine, which is usually about the amount we need.

After that, we went on to work out where the camp site was, but reception was closed when we got there.  I made a note with pictures on it to compensate for the lack of Slovakian (thanks to Jessie and Lindsey for the flash card idea).  We slid it under the reception door and pitched the tent.  It was dark, cold, and the camp site was a bit smelly, so we got another early night.  Also, I finished reading Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress.  Good book. (I’m not here to review it, okay?).

We went into Krakow and had a look around the city. For once, we managed to avoid eating in McDonalds! We got a kebab instead. Then went to McDonalds for a drink. Oh well.

Market Square

We didn’t really do much in Krakow other than look around really. It had some awesome buildings, as did each city we saw in central Europe. It also had a lot of horses wandering the streets, which you could smell long before you could see. I got my ears pierced too, and we headed back to the camp site for about 8:30.

Back at the camp site, we decided to do the usual and loiter around the cooking area. I took the guitar and had a little strum about and Martyn made some food. Some fellow travellers, Jessie and Lindsey, heard my beautiful tones, or something, and came to say hello, each armed with their own guitar. They had some flour, we had some eggs, and together we made pancakes (look for that as a lyric in my next song). We shared the jelly we had in the fridge, and sang some songs. Of course, I performed My Arse Went To Belgium, which I can now sing without needing to look at the lyrics.

We thought we’d done a lot of miles, but they’d travelled nearly twice as far as us in nearly half the time, and Lindsey was doing all the driving alone. It made me feel a little spoilt for complaining about driving for a few hours straight when she was knocking out eight hours at a time. They shared some knowledge of music, and in return we gave some tips for starting Uni.

Everyone had an early morning ahead, and we retired sometime in the small hours. The camp site didn’t take credit cards and I’d accidently spent 15 wangers of the camping money, but we put it off til the morning and went to bed.

Check out their site - www.takeittothebridge.co.uk

Today started with a fairly short drive to Oswiecim (Auschwitz) to see the Museum of the old concentration camp. Having done part of my dissertation on Schindler’s List a trip to one of the main locations of the movie and to a site of extreme historical importance was a great opportunity.

I was totally expecting it to be a downbeat affair, but I don’t think I was quite prepared for how eerie and haunting the place was. It was a horrible experience in my opinion, but one I am glad to have experienced. It brought home just how easy we have it nowadays. Especially in the West. It made any problems we go through look pathetic.

The museum itself was very interesting, and very informative. It was free to walk around, or you could pay for a guide. We decided to walk around on our own, and take it at our own pace. There were signs around everywhere explaining everything anyway! I learned alot of things I didn’t know, and a lot of things I maybe would prefer not to know. But it was an eye opening experience that made me very apprechiative of my privalaged life.

After Auschwitz we headed for Krakow, it took us ages. What was meant to be a 1 hour drive turned into a 3 hour trek! To be fair we stopped for a while so Dave could post something, and promptly ran into the biggest language barrier we have encountered so far. It was a stand off between us and the Polish post office workers. We didn’t speak a word of Polish, they didn’t speak a word of English. Luckily there was a young Polish chap who spoke a little English and managed to help us out.

We finally arived in Krakow around 6pm and camped at a site recommended by the Aussies, Camping Smok. We got sorted and decided to head out for a lavish meal after having a restaurant recommended to us by, you guessed it, the Aussies. We didn’t find the restaurant they recommended, but we found a nice one all the same and had a big arse meal and desert. If I had been in a less classy joint I would have unbuckled my belt and my top button to give my overfull stomach some breathing room.

We retired to the tent, to prepare for a full assault on the unknown quantity that is Krakow, tomorrow.

Monday saw us heading towards Poland with the goal of getting camping close to Oswiecim (Auschwitz) which we planned to see the next day. We had a long drive ahead of us, SatNav reckoned 5h 30m at the least so we braced ourselves and headed off. First in the direction of Kutna Hora, a small town about an hour away from Prague.

Bone Chandelier

The reason we were heading to Kutna Hora was the Aussies had told us about a church in the town which housed the bones of 40,000 people. The bones had been dug up by František Rint in 1870 and arranged in various ways. “The macabre result of his effort speaks for itself. Four enormous bell-shaped mounds occupy the corners of the chapel. An enormous chandelier of bones, which contains at least one of every bone in the human body, hangs from the center of the nave with garlands of skulls draping the vaults. Other works include piers and monstrances flanking the altar, a large coat-of-arms, and the signature of Rint, also in bone, on the wall near the entrance.” Thank you Wikipedia for that. (See the full page here)

Coat of Arms

We caught up with some of the Aussies from the Prague camp site and walked around the church together. We swapped numbers and talked about meeting up sometime in another city, because our travelling routes were very similar. Then we were off to Prague. The drive was long and by the time we crossed the Polish border, still with an hours travelling to go, it was dark.

We arrived at our campsite at around 9pm and pitched the tent in the dark. We are getting pro at this now. I think by the end of the 90 days we’ll be able to compete professionally. Anyone who thinks they can pitch a 4 man Halfords tent faster, give us a call.

We had a wash. Had a read. Had a chat. Had a sleep.