Tim & Jo

After a night on the train it was good to stretch the legs, and after putting the packs in a locker we went for a wander. After some Maccas for breakfast we wandered down to the river and had a quick look. Not much to see here, lets move along then. We headed to the gardens and wandered around most of the way back to the station. On the way we dropped into a few shops and generally cruised. After getting some healthy Burger King and Subway for breakfast we got on the tram to head to the airport at around 1pm.

After finding the RyanAir section of the terminal we checked in and wandered through security, after confirming that Tim was neither a drug courier or bomb carrier we were allowed to wait for the plane.

Joining the queue for check in we stood for about 1 hour before finally our plane arrived 30 minutes late. After patiently waiting we were fuming when we finally got our seat, after the worst organised check in we've ever seen. People that walked straight past the queue and to the check in desk, pushing in, were served, and then after having us line up in gates , all the ropes were dropped and it was just a mass of people that swarmed toward the plane... ridiculous.

It's a short hop over to Oslo, and about 1 hour later we were walking through customs in Norway

We had a only slightly unintentional sleep in, and had a quick breakfast before heading out to go and visit the Dom. The hostel had a 12pm check out so we left our bags there so we didn't have to pay for a locker at the station.

The Dom is an absolutely massive structure, it stands directly over the station. As soon as you come out of the doors you can't help but see this huge building, it is apparently the largest Baroque building in the world and there'd be no point in arguing. The whole thing is covered in carved crazy faces and big arches etc, and the whole lot is covered in a layer of grime that makes it all look black

Inside your eyes get pulled upwards by the towering columns, even though they are really thick they give the impression of being quite delicate by the way they are shaped from a whole lot of thinner columns. There are massive stained glass windows which a really colourful with the light streaming through, and theres not anybody yelling and telling you to be quite

After wandering around down on the floor of the church we found the entrance to the stairs heading up to the belfry, after climbing a tiny spiral staircase that seemed to go on forever we arrived at a platform which another normal staircase had been built on which took us straight up and on to the top of one of the cathedrals needle like spires, the view was pretty good, fairly similar to the view off the top of the Reichstag actually. After negotiating an even thinner staircase spiralling down from the very top we made it back to the platform and headed back down the wider staircase, dropping in to see the bells hanging in the belfry on the way back down to ground level.

After grabbing the bags from the hostel and heading to the station we had got some lunch from in the station and went and sat in the sun on the steps in front of the Dom.

Jumped on the train at 2:45 and arrived in Brussels just a couple of hours later

Didn't get long to sleep in Heidelberg and we were up at the crack of dawn, we caught a bus back to the station, and yes this time we ended up in the place we had planned to After a short wait we were on our way to Mainz, and 45 minutes later we jumped off the train. After getting our bearings, well just getting a general idea which direction the Rhine was in, we took off in the direction of the cruise boat. We had 30 minutes to get there otherwise we'd have missed the only departure of the day...
With a last minute run we made it with only minutes to spare and climbed aboard.

To begin with the boat headed downstream past the industrial and cargo areas of the river, (there are more boats ferrying cargo along the Rhine than cruise boats) and after about an hour we reached the area of the river known as the Rhine Gorge. It is this area that has got UNESCO world heritage status.

As soon as you enter the gorge the castles on the hillsides begin, there seems to be one on every outcrop and in between there are little villages that have intricate churches that would seem to be able to house the whole population

Around 2pm we arrived in Koblenz which is the end of the Rhine gorge and the heritage area, though we had planned to stay on board all the way to Cologne (arriving at 8:20pm) we hopped off and walked around until we found the train station so we could catch a train to Cologne and beat the boat there by 4 hours. After a quick trip on the train we found the hostel really easily 'cause it was only a block from the station. We checked in, went and grabbed some supplies from the supermarket down the street, had a quick dinner and went to bed early

Arrived in Munich really early on Sunday morning (6:20am...) every other sensible person was still asleep so after staggering past some homeless people packing up their newspapers and groups of punks cracking their first beer of the day we sat down in the only seats available, the waiting room. The night train from Dresden was pretty average, didn't really get any useful sleep and climbed off the train with cramps in pretty much every muscle. Next time we will pay for a couchette and at least get to lay down on something that is flat After sitting in the barren waiting room we shifted to Starbucks for a forgettable cup of coffee (at this stage places that make a real cup of coffee seem to be few and far between in all the countries we have been to... most of the 'cafes' make their 'espressos' and 'cappuccinos' with instant coffee from one of those coffee vending machines that we have in places like petrol stations :x )

We went to the Euraid office and managed to make reservations for all of our train rides throughout Europe. Now we have a big wad of train tickets that mean we won't be kicked out of a seat. We then whipped over to the train that was headed for Garmiche Patenkirchen which is the picture postcard alpine village that is at the foot of the Zugspitze (Germany's highest mountain) and is where the Winter Olympics were held in 1930.

After a wander around town looking for anywhere that had some sort of information that told us where to go for the ride to the top of the mountain (2962m) we managed to find the tourist office with the girl behind the counter dressed in traditional Bavarian costume (as were random people around town), she pointed us in the direction of the station for the funincular train up the mountain and let us know it was leaving in a few minutes. After paying the hefty ticket price of 47€ each (typical tourist towns ) we hopped aboard for the ride to the top.

The area was really beautiful with all the half timbered houses and barns for the cattle scattered all around the valley floor. The train heads through a tunnel for about 15mins and then drops you off at a transition point to climb aboard a cable car to the summit. It was at this point that we realised that everybody else was wearing hiking boots, trousers, jackets and hats etc... oh well its summer isn't it and whats wrong with wandering over snow and rocks in shorts, t shirt and jandels at 3000m? Did get a few strange looks and laughs though

Ordered something for lunch, we knew what the beer was, but the other part was a lucky turned out well though and enjoyed a soup with some still unknown dumpling kind of thing bobbing around in it, could well have been liver... and it tasted delicious

Hopped aboard another cable car that seemed to go down vertically for the ride back down, this cable car went right down to the valley floor so was a longer ride than the one onto the summit. Arrived back in Garmich Patenkirchen just in time to grab the train back to Munich.

Today (Monday) we got up and hopped aboard another train, this time heading to Dachau... yip heading for the concentration camp. Arrived in the town and caught a bus that we were 50% certain was the right one, it was, and we arrived at the camp itself. Wandered around the camp, looked at the barracks that the prisoners were supposed to live in. Saw the crematoria, this building is disturbing in how calculated the design was, imagine a long building with four 'ovens' in the middle section. Now on one end there is the 'waiting room' were prisoners were placed to wait for their 'shower'. A door opens across to the 'shower' room, there are fake shower heads so that prisoners didn't panic and refuse to enter. There are flaps so poison gas pellets could be added from outside, also there is a big ventilator duct that blows warm air in, it makes the gas get produced faster... Now another door opens to another bare room, this is where bodies from the 'shower' room were to be shifted to before the next group were ushered into the showers, and also where the bodies would wait until the backlog could be cleared in the central room the crematoria itself. On the other side of the crematoria was another room which was used to hold the backlog of bodies from the firing range, and other killings around the camp. How any human being could inflict such calculated, cold blooded killing on others is impossible to comprehend. Dachau was the 'model' camp which all others were based upon. SS members who had trained at Dachau were placed in positions of authority at as many other camps as possible to spread the 'Dachau Spirit', a hatred of the prisoners with no mercy or remorse. Almost unbelievable. The weather was suitably fitting for being in such a chilling place, the temperature has swung from being in the high 20's to about 8 degrees and drizzling rain with it.

Heading for Salzburg tomorrow, can't wait to get back into the mountains just there for the day before moving on to Innsbruck for a couple of nights. Hopefully there will be less Americans that have just graduated from 'college' and tell each other about how they are having the 'oh my gosh, the time of my life' at 3 in the morning while climbing into bed in a room with 38 other people trying to sleep. Some of the hostels we have been at are full of these people that spend 4 nights in a city, when we ask them what they have been up to we find out that we have already seen all that they have, and we've only been there for the afternoon. At least we find out where the most tourist packed beer halls are and we know which to avoid .

Munich was a bit of a let down on what we've read about it, pretty much its full of tourists from everywhere who are here to drink beer, the thing is thats all thats here, true there are some old buildings and a big park, but the old buildings aren't as nice as those we've seen in Dresden and the Tiergarten in Berlin was a beautiful park...

Tschuss from Munich

Left Berlin on Friday morning, the weather here is super hot. The train down to Dresden was completely full (only worked out after wards that was the Friday of a long weekend...) Managed to get seats on the train, there were others that spent the whole trip walking up and down the train trying to find a seat

Arrived at Dresden Neustadt Bahnhof and wandered outside to blazing sun. After a few technical difficulties, ie Einbahnstrasse means one-way street and isn't the street name... we managed to find our way to the hostel. Dropped our bags and headed back towards town with a map this time. Dropped past the station for a beer to accompany our map reading and decided to head for the altstadt (old town). Wandered down through a street market and crossed Augustusbrucke (a bridge) and entered the altstadt.

This place is amazing, the buildings are so decorative, Germany must have so many stone people! Headed back towards the hostel after planning what to do the next day over a currywurste and another beer at one of the Imbiss at the market.

(Germany has heaps of these street stalls called Imbiss which serve various sorts of wurste (sausage) and always have beer available. It isn't unusual to see people having a beer mid morning )

Saturday we had all day to spend in Dresden, we left our packs in a locker at the Neustadt Bahnhof and walked back to the altstadt. We bought a day pass to the museums and checked them out. Saw a whole bunch of paintings by the old masters and also Dresdens crown jewels. Also went into a museum that had heaps of swords, suits of armour and old guns made out of ivory and stuff. Amazing how decorative all these things are...

About lunch time heard huge claps of thunder and it started pouring, cool thunder storm soaked absolutely everything except for us 'cause we'd put our newly aquired umbrellas in our daypack even so we did shelter for a while in the Dom (cathedral) This the cathedral that was almost entirely obliterated by the allies during the second world war and has now been completely rebuilt (as has a lot of the altstadt)

Guten Abend

We arrived in Berlin last night, Andreas meet us at the airport and that meant we got back to our hostel without any problems Managed to get a hostel for tonight as well. (only discovered we'd booked our Berlin hostel for June instead of May yesterday morning...). Went and had a beer on the Oranienburger Strasse when we arrived which was really good, the beer tastes so good here

Bought our gear over to our new hostel this morning and then hired a couple of bikes to whip round town quickly. Theres cycle lanes everywhere and on the busy streets the cycle lane is a lane of different coloured cobbles on the footpath, feels really safe riding round.

Went for a ride over to the Hauptbahnhof (Main train station) and validated our Eurail tickets and reserved tickets for all our night train connections. First station we went too the Frau behind the counter didn't speak a word of English and wasn't too interested in helping us, so we left At the main station they had a designated English counter which was a whole lot easier... and the guy actually wanted to help us

Had lunch in the Tiergarten which was beautiful and so peaceful compared to the streets, then we came back to the hostel and had a snooze for a couple of hours, was much easier making the beds in the light as well (had quite a battle putting a duvet into a duvet cover in the pitch black last night, whilst trying not to wake up the others in the room)

Just got back from visiting the Reichstag, and climbing up the glass dome. From there you can look down into the area where the German parliament sits, also get a really great view over the city up there. We were lucky 'cause the sun was just setting as we were arriving at the top.

Off to Dresden tomorrow, the train leaves every two hours so we shouldn't have to spend too long wandering around with full packs and nowhere to leave them.

P.S. Did you know that Berlin has over 50 McDonalds outlets? No we didn't either until a massive sign let us in on the secret

Tschuss