The final post

The view from the Singapore Flyer.


Singapore under construction, it looked like a meccano set from up there.


Speaking from experience we would not recommend a 17 hour stop over in Singapore. It is a nice place but after 30 hours without sleep we could have been anywhere. The view from the Flyer gave us a good idea of the size of the place and the incredible number of developments that are currently in progress.

We are now back in Adelaide catching up on sleep. Looking forward to seeing everyone soon. Thanks for visiting our blog and for your comments.

Goodbye, au revoir, arrivederci, na svidenje, doviđenja, szia, sbohem, auf wiedersehen and goodbye.

Frankfurt

Rundle Mall in Offenbach.


Our hotel/slaughter house


Our last stop in Europe was of course Frankfurt. Apart from the Klingspor Museum (museum for international book art, calligraphy and typography) it wasn't the most exciting place, full of big buildings and suits, not a bad place to be flying out of! Our hotel, located in Offenbach a few km out of Frankfurt, was an impressive yet creepy old building. As we checked out we asked the hotel receptionist about its history and his response explained a lot. What could be more creepy than a disused slaughter house!

Berlin

A back lane bike park (sometimes there are more bikes than people on the streets of Berlin).

Matt in the Jewish Holocaust Memorial.

The Berliner Dom.

The Reichstag dome (at the top of the German Parliament building) at night.

Part of what still remains of the Berlin wall.

A typical back street in Berlin - bikes parked randomly, a little bit of roadworks, an interesting monument in the distance and a building covered in vines. On the corner of the street is also a cafe.

A stop on the bike tour.

If we were a city we would be Berlin. There are more bikes here than anywhere else we have been (mostly `mad fixies´), designers are treated like gods and there are great cafes on literally every corner. It was the perfect `icing on the cake´ and already we want to go back!

Highlights: everything we saw on the city bike tour, the `modell bauhaus´ exhibition, the view from the top of the TV tower and the cafe across the road from our hotel that taught us: Das leben is kein ponyhof.

Lowlights: we stretched our stay and extra day but wish it could have been longer.

Forget all that stuff about puppies. Caroline gives Berlin an unexpected score of 9.5/10 (you were right Carol, there was a tie breaker at the end).

We are now in Frankfurt/Offenbach for a day before heading home via Singapore.

Prague

Matt walking through another tunnel.


View from prague castle.


Caroline with guard outside Prague Castle - one of the non-moving/non-smiling kind of guard but he was struggling.


Old town square.


View from lesser town tower.


View from petrin tower (mini eiffel-but actually it's 3m higher because they built it on a hill).


Matt on his way to a long wait for the Metro.


Night shot of Prague Castle.


We spent longer in Prague than most places but our time there just flew. There was so much we loved about Praha that couldn't be photographed - mainly because it got eaten too fast. With the best selection of vegetarian retaurants that we have seen so far and yet another damn good icecream shop we were always well fed.

Other highlights: Old town square and hall (including it's fancy clock), The Mucha Museum and the views from Pragues' many viewing towers.

Lowlights: this is tough....well we had to wait ten minutes for the metro once.

Thanks to Michelle for her Prague recommendations. Miss Sophies was awesome. The tea house had more teas than we have ever seen and the vege restaurant Lehka Halva was our favourite.

Scoring is getting so hard, it's like choosing a puppy from a really good litter. Caroline gives Prague a score of 9.25/10 (sorry Carol, I know it's annoying but I just can't pick a favourite). A special mention goes to the Kn, even better value than the HUF.

Budapest

Matt is so excited about the bikes (right) that a tree has popped out of his head (no really, this wasn't a set up). There is also a Hungarian statue in the background.


Caroline on the Fishermen's Bastion (a lookout from Buda over to Pest).


Parliament house, as seen from our cruise on the Danube.


St Stephen's, a beautiful Basillica and sometimes concert venue where we went one evening for a (music) performance.


The view of Budapest from the top of St Stephen's Basillica.


Matt is delirious after our amazing breakfast at the Four Seasons Hotel (infront of The Chain Bridge).

Both Buda and Pest were great places to visit, we would have liked to stay another day or two. In Hungary we could afford to be a little bit more extravagant and enjoyed living like kings for a few days.
Highlights: Castle Hill, cruise on the Danube, concert at St Stephen's and breakfast at the Four Seasons Hotel.
Lowlights: many sad buildings in need of some TLC.

Caroline scores Budapest 8.25/10. A special mention goes to the plum Retes (not quite better than Ma's but close).

Pecs

Caroline in front of the main street in Pecs (under construction).


A back street in Pecs.


The Crypt at St Stephens Basillica.

Pec is a sleepy little town, especially on Sundays. It was a relaxing change from some of the tourist packed places we have been so far. There was a lot of construction going on and many of the museums were 'temporarily closed for technical reasons' but we enjoyed exploring the town. Highlights: Biggest church organ so far, Raffaello ice cream and the value of the Australian dollar.

Zagreb

The main train station in Zagreb (the only part Matt really saw).


Street markets selling fruit, vegetables and lots of cane baskets.

One night in Zagreb turned into a night and a day...
Lowlight: Matt spent the whole time in Zagreb driving the porcelain bus.
Hightlight: Caroline found a 24-hour pharmacist that could speak english.
Luckily the hotel was that best we haved stayed in so far.

Bled

Lake Bled in the evening. To the right is Blejski Grad (Bled Castle) and in the centre of the lake is Bled Island and Cerkev Marijinega Vnebovzetja (the church).


The local church (on the mainland).


Trees at Vintgar.


River at Vintgar Gorge.


Looking up the steps towards the island church as we rowed back to the mainland.


Rowing out to the island was the most fun we had in Bled.


Matt did most of it, Caroline laughed and directed.


Matt loves bikes. We rode a lot in Bled, including along Radovna Valley through the mountains - beautiful.


This is the traditional Bled cake (custard and cream slice). Everyone here loves it, but we found something even better. It is Cherry Pie (front right) and the best dessert we have ever tasted (Sorry banana cream pie).


The view from Ojstrica lookout. It was our steepest hike yet, but so worth it.


Bled is a beautiful place with so much to do. No photo or postcard can do this place justice, you just have to experience it for yourself. Slovenian is impossible to understand but luckily most people speak good English. Our only negative experience was with wasps (and flies). The worst incident was when one hid in Matt's shoe and stung him on the toe while he was riding his bike.


Caroline scores Bled 9.25/10 - equal best. It also gets a special mention for its sweet food. The Cherry Pie was incredible and the cinnamon icecream was the best so far. Matt has reverted back to scoring and gives Bled 9/10, 1 point was taken off for the Wasp incident.

Venice

A train of Gondola's as seen from our hotel room window.


Afternoon tea at Piazza San Marco (St.Mark's Square), thanks to the Palmer family.


Matt in the self proclaimed most beautiful bookshop in the world (It uses Gondola's and Bathtubs for shelves).


A local busker in a tunnel, somewhere in Venice - we were lost.


Looking out over the Grand Canal towards St Mark's.


St. Maria Della Salute, as seen from the top of Campanile (the bell tower) in St. Mark's square.


Doge's Palace, but more importantly, Caroline's first ever tan - or as close as she's ever going to get.

The boat park outside Santa Lucia train station.

Us on a bridge over a canal.

A canal view in the evening.


What's not to love about Venice? No cars, great sights and still no gypsies. Well there were a couple of things... mosquito's (with a taste for Caroline's right leg), temperamental ATM's and very confusing to navigate - even with a compass! But all of these minor flaws seemed insignificant. Those t-shirts are right, we heart Venice.


Since arriving in Italy Caroline has been searching for Ginger Gelato. It took 10 days, seven cities and thousands of flavours but on August the 2nd, in a small gelateria in the back streets of Venice we found it. Ginger Gelato is no longer a figment of Caroline's imagination, it is real and it was... spicy.


Matt has reverted to non-scoring but Caroline gives it 9.25/10 - best yet.