Paris

We were glad to escape from boring boring belgium. The only good things were the hotel which was very nice and the Leffe beer. We arrived at Andys friends house and settled in to our room. We told everyone the stories of our travels in French. We soon discovered the swimming pool and tennis courts near to the house. Sadly we let the side down with the tennis and lost to the French. However, I was happy that I beat andy at tennis even more comprehensively than i beat him at pool in Belgium! Evenings were generally spent eating and chatting (or attempting to chat in my case) in French.

During the days we took day trips, kindly driven around, a luxury compared to walking with backpacks and going on "free" trams and metros. We visited the Stade de France for a stadium tour and also visited the Louvre and Arc de Triomphe. We're not tourists though!

Today we had a lazy day doing a bit of shopping. Tonight we are going out for a meal and then on to a pub. Tomorrow Andy is flying back to the UK and im hoping on a train to meet my family and heading south to the west coast of france for a fortnight. I'm looking forward to this part of the holiday but am also a little sad to be leaving the backpacking behind.

Amsterdam

We arrived in Amsterdam early in the morning. Having only managed to get a few hours sleep in the airport, we had a lazy first day wandering the shops and sitting in the park. Were staying at a massive hostel that has its own basement bar complete with about 10 customers! Yesterday we visited the Amsterdam Dungeons and did more wandering in the town, through the markets etc. Today we are going to the Heineken experience and then catching a train to Belgium for a couple of days.

italy

we only have 3 mins!!

italy is really great, andy has had 2 flights and i have flown three. my fliying is coming along nicely. todi and the surrounding area is amazing and our appartment and pool is also great. the world cup final win was sensational and we also went to the umbria jazz festival the other night

will try to blog again soon

Zagreb

I dont want to complain because Zagreb is a really nice, picturesque town... but it is pretty dull here. None of the cultural features seem wonderfully interesting (we decided against bothering with the brass museum or the annual conference of museum managers yesterday). It is also very small, (smaller than Birmingham for example, let alone London). On a positive, the parks are really nice (we spent some time lying in the sun by the fountains today after Kate left). In the evening it gets even duller. Most of the bars are restaurant bars and close at around 9-10. We managed to find a rare open bar last night and sat in there with the other 3 people in Croatia that wanted to have a drink. Luckily we managed to find a late bar in the middle of the park and had a couple more beers before we went back to the hostel. We were told by the locals that as the tourists arrive in the summer everything moves away from Zagreb to the coast. Hopefully that means we will have something interesting to see during our brief stay at Zadar before we get the boat to Italy.

Budapest

From Bratislava we went to Budapest on the train. On our first day we went sight seeing and found our way around as usual in a new place. We went up to the church on the hill and looked out over the city. In the evening we went out to an open air rock club and danced with some Hungarian girls that we made friends with. The club was amazing. They used the money they saved on having no roof on arcade games and having moats around the bars with bridges over them! It was an excellent night and Budapest is another really nice place to visit. Sadly beers have gone back up to around a pound a pint... a little costly compared with Slovakia (a round for 3 people cost about one pound twenty pence).

Today we went to a traditional Hungarian bath house with hot pools, sauna etc. We went with an English couple who are staying in the hostel with us. They also came with us this afte and we all stood in the rain in the town sqaure to watch Sven put England out of the world cup. Tonight Kate is treating us to a meal before we head on to a bar.

Prague to Poland

Since last time, Kate arrived on Wednesday and we went out in the evening. We met a comedy drunken man called Robert in the Rock Cafe. We did some more sight seeing on Thursday and watched the Czechs game on the big screens in the town square.

On Friday we travelled to Krakow in Poland (8 hours on the train). We had a meal in the town square in the evening and tasted the local beer which is excellent! the computer has stopped letting me do full stops! and capital letters! today we have been wandering around being cultured! were heading to the jewish quarter now and are probably going to take a trip to auschwitz on monday as tomorrow is football day!

Prague Rocks

Im loving Prague more and more. Weve been watching the football in bars and eating and lazing around in the parks. We wandered up to the cathedral today. We are staying here for another day or two... any places you reccomend kev. I dont know how to do question marks on this keyboard. Were off to the airport soon to find kate, you would never guess, her flight is late though.

Prague

Slight change of plan, we are already in Prague. The game in Munich was excellent but Germany was busy and expensive. We've been here for about a day now and it seems like a really nice city. Today we have been mainly wandering around the town, drinking beer etc. We also visited the torture museum, which was interesting. Kate arrives tomorrow so the next blog will probably be late

Munich

We arrived in Munich yesterday afternoon and managed to get a spot at a campsite after a lot of queueing. After pitching the tent we met some Irish guys and went in to town for some beers with them. There is an amazing carnival atmosphere here. The Aussies are especially vocal! This morning we went for a stroll around the shops in Munich and also took in some culture at the cathedral. There are some great old buildings here, it´s a really nice city. In the next couple of hours we will hop on a tram to the game. Muchos excitement. More soon
Stefan

holiday plan

•Saturday 17th June – Fly from Bristol to Munich
•Sunday 18th June – Watch Brazil vs Australia in Munich.
•Tuesday 20th June – Head to Cologne for the atmosphere of England vs Sweden.
•Wednesday 21st June – Meet Kate in Prague (start of our inter-rail pass)
•Weds 21st June – 4th July - Czech Rep > Poland > Slovak Rep > Hungary> Croatia
•Friday 5th July – Travel to Italy, ferry from Zadar (Cro) to Ancona (Ita).
•Thursday 6th July – Meet LSU Hot Air Balloon Club and travel to Todi in Italy.
•10 days in Italy
•Monday 17th & 18th – Travel by car & train to Geneva, Switzerland.
•Wed 19th July 4:30am fly Geneva to Amsterdam.
•Weds 19th July – 23rd - Amstderdam
•Monday 24th July - 29th – Paris (Andy’s friends house)
•28th July – Stefan head West by train.
•29th July – Andy fly home.
•Stefan 1 week in central France.
•Stefan 1 week in La Rochelle.