Pooh's Corner

Baggage at Heathrow

2006-12-30T18:02:00.000+10:00

Baggage at Heathrow Terminal 1. When we arrived back from Prague, Terminal 1 arrivals was full of baggage. Our baggage was a bit late, so we walked around looking at who had lost their bags for Christmas. Warsaw, Edinburgh, Paris - many people had missing presents and clothes. In a way it was funny, but you had to feel for the people. Most of the baggage was due to the fog delays of the previous

Leaving London

2006-12-30T02:00:00.000+10:00

Packing up to leave London. It is with a twinge of sadness that we pack our three suitcases, two backpacks and two daypacks (!) with the remainder of our gear from London. We have had a great time living in London and being able to travel and see parts of Europe. There are things that we will certainly miss, and things that we won't. And, right on queue, it started drizzling as we left Dave and

Prague

2006-12-28T07:00:00.000+10:00

Weary after two weeks on the road we hit Prague. It was relief to find our 4-star hotel (our Christmas treat) after all of the hostels and pensions on the way.Christmas in Prague:No snow just cold - but we did see the snow in Melbourne on the newsChristmas markets - we are market old hats at this stage and nothing could surprise usWandering around the town - town hall, bric-a-brac shops, cobbled

Merry Christmas

2006-12-25T10:01:00.000+10:00

Merry Christmas to everyone from Prague!We are spending our Christmas Day in Prague, Czech Republic, just the two of us. Our white Christmas hasn't occured, but it is still below freezing. Quite different to Christmas in Brisbane and the rest of Australia, I'm sure.We hope that everyone has a great day and enjoy your time with your family and friends.

Cesky Krumlov

2006-12-23T22:37:00.000+10:00

Today we left Vienna and headed north west into the Czech Republic. We caught a train from Vienna to Gmund on the Austria-Czech border where we had to change trains. In Gmund there was a little coffee shop where we had some lunch and off-loaded what remaining Euros we could.Arriving in Cesky Krumlov by train leaves you with a 20 minute walk down hill to the town centre. It is no problem though,

Vienna

2006-12-23T01:01:00.000+10:00

Retracing our path to Bratislava, we catch a train back to Vienna. Surprisingly the train ticket on the way back is 50% cheaper. We have booked two nights in Vienna, however we end up staying for a third. Three nights in Vienna: The first night we arrive at the hostel at 7pm. There is a Christmas market and pub crawl advertised to start at 7, so we quickly drop the bags and join the crawl. On the

Bratislava

2006-12-20T09:12:00.000+10:00

The train to Bratislava leaves from south Vienna and takes one hour to get to Petrzalka, where we catch a bus to Bratislava old town. After finding the B&B we hit the Christmas markets to find some quick and cheap dinner of chicken burgers and gluhwein. And boy was it cheap - our total dinner menu equates to around 3 euros.Many of the things that can be bought in Bratislava are relatively cheap

Central Austria

2006-12-18T07:41:00.000+10:00

Salzburg to Vienna. Originally we were thinking of catching a train west to east from Salzburg to Vienna. Upon learning the price of two tickets however we decided to hire a car and drive, which ends up being the same price, including petrol.We get off the A1 at Mondsee, where we saw the Sound of Music wedding church the other day. The road winds around Mondsee and over the mountains between

Salzburg

2006-12-17T07:52:00.000+10:00

WednesdayWe arrived in Salzburg after a one hour train trip from Munich. After dropping our bags at the hostel we head for (surprise!) the Christmas markets. Much like the markets from Ulm or Munich these have Christmas gifts and decorations with food and mulled wine. Here we find dinner of corn on a cob, baked potato and Gluhwein.ThursdayWaking up in Salzburg. The breakfast for the hostel is

The Sound of Music

2006-12-15T06:15:00.000+10:00

The hills were alive... every night at 8pm in the hostel we stayed in. For the three nights and days that we spent in Salzburg I think that both Kelly and I were humming, singing or playing in our head the soundtrack to The Sound of Music. It didn't help that everywhere we looked in town there was a scene from the movie to be spotted. Movie repetitions aside, it was interesting to grit the teeth

Munich

2006-12-14T06:33:00.000+10:00

It had been cold for the last few days. Not so cold for the locals, but coming from sultry London it was cold for us. This morning we woke up to snow! For the morning there were extremely large flakes of snow falling, enough to dust the fields with a white coat. Driving down to Ulm we borrowed some internet to find out where we are going to stay tonight.Then we basically just drove to Munich on

Ulm

2006-12-12T06:25:00.000+10:00

A bit of a slow start today. With moving, finishing jobs and a week of parties and catchups we need to ease into this holiday. Carolin and Steven provide us with a great German breakfast with meats, little baby Jesus cheeses, eggs, spreads and breads. Once we did get going we all jumped in the car to drive around the eastern area of Baden-Wastermann, where there are a number of castles and castle

Dachau Concentration Camp

2006-12-11T06:20:00.000+10:00

Today we start our Christmas trip. Everything is packed and stored at Dave and Karen's and we leave with our backpacks on. The flight from Heathrow to Munich is a bumpy one, so much so that we can't even get a hot drink.We get a car in Munich and head straight to Dachau. Dachau is an industrial town outside of Munich. It has one of largest and first concentration camps used by the SS from 1936-

Respecting the Fallen

2006-12-03T00:00:00.000+10:00

This year we have walked many miles around London, the UK and Europe. Today, as we prepare to pack everything, respect must be paid to the fallen heros who won't be returning to Australia.These brave soles from the Colorado battalion have served us tirelessly.Well travelled shoe companions, we salute you!

St Paul's

2006-10-22T05:05:00.000+10:00

A pretty standard Saturday in London. First of all an early gym class, followed by the post office and then off to St Paul's.St Paul's is one of those things in London that both Kelly and I have walked or driven past nearly twice a day or more all year. And yet we have never stopped to find the time to walk into it for a good look, let alone climb to the dome. Today was different, as we have made

Pauline and Clem in London

2006-09-17T05:03:00.000+10:00

The last of the visitors. Liam's parents, Pauline and Clem, have arrived in London to begin their 5 week trip in Europe. Once again it is great to have visitors. Our 5m by 4m flat is once again full to the brim.Mum and Dad arrived on Thursday and made their way to Kings Cross via the tube. We met them there on the platform after taking the afternoon off work. That afternoon we did the truly

Hampton Court Palace

2006-09-11T05:02:00.000+10:00

Armed with our annual Royal Palaces pass, Kelly and I took a train out west to Hampton Court. The palace and surrounding gardens take up a large portion of land. It was a gorgeous day. We took a picnic lunch to have in the gardens before we completed the hedge maze.The Tudor, and later Renaiessance, style palace was home to Thomas Wolsey, Archibishop of York and Chief Minister of the King. Henry

Tour of Britan

2006-09-04T05:01:00.000+10:00

Tour of BritanPro-cycling made its way to Britan this week. The final stage ended in London with 20 laps around St James park, from Buckingham Palace, up the Mall, along Horse Guard's parade and Birdcage Walk.We didn't have plans for Sunday, so we made our way down to the park hoping to get a close look at the cycling without the crowds of the Champs Elysses.It was a fast paced 20 laps, with

Edinburgh

2006-08-30T07:45:00.001+10:00

Another long weekend. Fresh from our long weekend in the French Alps, we had a four day weekend in Scotland. On Friday night we flew out of London City airport (a first for us!) and into Edinburgh. August is Fringe Festival month in Edinburgh and we were arriving on the last weekend of it.We arrived in town around 10:30pm and found our accommodation. There was so little available when we were

Scotland Highlands

2006-08-30T07:45:00.000+10:00

Heading north out of Edinburgh we crossed the Firth of Forth and headed east to St Andrews. St Andrews is, understandably, a golfing town, but it does have a lot of history associated with it. The remains of a huge cathedral are atop one of the cliffs. This cathedral would have been incredibly large and would have had a prime position in the town. We stop in the town for some lunch and a look at

The French Alps

2006-08-21T06:56:00.000+10:00

For Kelly and I, July was spent seeing a few stages of the Tour de France and following the coverage on television. Seeing parts of the Tour was one of the things that we definitely wanted to do in our time over here.So when Dave floated the idea of a cycling weekend in the French Alps, we jumped at it. A weekend in the Alps was tempting in itself, but the opportunity to cycle some of the climbs

London Zoo

2006-08-07T06:57:00.000+10:00

Kelly has a soft spot for animals, I think that we all know that. We went to the London Zoo to have a look at all of the animals on show. The zoo is in north London, just next to Regents Park. We caught the bus there, with a packed lunch.Most of the old favourites were there: Giraffes, Zebras, Penguins, Meek rats, Butterflies, Kangaroos, Hippos, Birds etc, etc. We had a great day looking around

Tour de France - Stage 20 - Champs Elysses

2006-07-24T07:40:00.000+10:00

As we previously mentioned, we really wanted to see the Tour de France while in Europe. A couple of weeks ago we watched stages 7 and 8 in the Brittany region in western France. Now, as the tour drew to a close, we were in Paris to see the final stage.Without a real plan as to the best place to see the stage, we made our way to the Champs Elysses and found a place with a good view in both

Paris and River Cruise

2006-07-23T07:40:00.000+10:00

Kelly and I were going over to Paris to watch the last stage of the Tour de France. Since we had already had a trip to Paris we were hoping to take it easy. We flew into Paris on Saturday morning and went to our hotel. Kelly had seen the outside of the Opera house in her trip over with Karenlea and wanted to see inside, so that was our first stop in the afternoon.As you can see from the photos

Toast Festival

2006-07-17T07:38:00.000+10:00

The Toast Festival is a festival of Australian food, wine and entertainment that happens during the summer in London. This year it featured Roy and HG and Paul Kelly. Roy and HG commentated a sandwich making competition and Paul Kelly put on an acoustic set. Blair McDonough, from Neighbours and Big Brother, was one of the sandwich making contenders.Kelly, Karen and Dave went along to the festival