Wednesday 29 August 2012

AMSTERDAM


We arrived in the Netherlands at about 8:00am after the overnight ferry. In hindsight we should have done a day ferry ride (which is cheaper as you do not need to pay for a room) and enjoyed the facilities of the ferry which was like a cruise ship and included bars, cafes, restaurants, cinema and a night big open deck. The ferry cost about $150 each and despite the fact that it was night time, was a good way to get to the Netherlands.

Once we arrived at the port we disembarked to the train station and caught the train north to Amsterdam. We had to change trains and one stage on the trip and just jumped on the next train to Amsterdam (without knowing it was a more expensive high speed train). We discovered this when the conductor checked our tickets but he was very nice about it and even told us which trains are cheap and which are not and let us off on this trip. We had anticipated a 2 hour train to Amsterdam but it ended up taking about 40 minutes which got us there a lot earlier than anticipated!

Once in Amsterdam we caught a tram (for the first time on this trip) out towards our hostel, which despite the lacking directions from HotselWorld, was quite easy to find. We arrived about 10am and check in was 2pm so we left our bags and headed out for an early lunch followed by some relaxing in the hostel common room.

On our first day in Amsterdam we headed back to the main train station to meed up for a bike tour that we had booked the previous night with the same company that ran the Edinburgh Tour that we really enjoyed a few weeks earlier. The bike tour basically went for 4 hours and took us all around the canals and various city areas of Amsterdam and included frequent stops with some good information from the tour guide. Amsterdam is riddled with bike tracks and lanes so it was definitely a great way to see the city! One of the highlights of the bike ride was going to the I Am Sterdam sign to get a few photos... 

After the bike tour we headed to the Anne Frank house where we spend some time wandering around the rooms and learning about her amazing story. Bec had just finished reading the book and was especially interested in the information and photos that were on display.

When we arrived back near our hostel we found that the next building down the road was actually on fire! There was a fire truck and the building was roped off and billowing out black smoke. Unfortunately we decided to grab a quick takeaway dinner and when we went to go up to the hostel we found that more fire trucks and police had arrived and that our building had been roped off! They had not evacuated people out of the building but were not letting anyone else up. The building was huge and we were at the opposite end to the end close to the fire and had to wait in the cold (and some rain) until about 10pm before they let us back inside! By this stage we were exhausted and happy to get to bed!

Day two in Amsterdam and we headed back to the centre of the city to get a cruise around the canals which is the typical sightseeing way around Amsterdam. Unfortunately after such a good bike tour the day before this was quite disappointing and the staff were not very nice. For anyone who goes there I wold advise to do a bike tour rather than a boat tour! The bike tour is a bit more expensive but is twice as long and more than twice as good!

From Amsterdam we had planned to catch a bus to Belgium but unfortunately by the time we got to the bus ticket shop  we were too late for the last bus and ended up having to take the train which was twice as much (42 Euro rather than 21 Euro Amsterdam-Brussels) but ended up being very comfortable and a lot faster!

We arrived in Brussels late in the afternoon and headed to our hotel called Martin’s Central Park Apartments which we had booked to have a bit of a relax after a few days sleeping in bunk beds!

Our big ferry from London

Tram lines everywhere

Bike tour

One of the bridges

One of the many dutch windmills

Jewish monument

Bec on the two sisters bridge

I amsterdam

d for Doug

Bec made her way onto the 'r'



Bec trying to be skilled

Me being skilled

On the boat

On a canal




Wednesday 22 August 2012

London - Take two

We arrived at the QE Hostel mid-afternoon and basically rested the afternoon. It was a fair walk from the nearest metro station, but it was cheap which the main concern for us was! Our first night there we walked back towards the metro and found a pub for dinner where we got some amazing (but expensive) steaks and Magners Pear Ciders. The only thing we really did that night was purchase two ‘London Passes’ for our sightseeing over the following two days. The London Passes were nearly $100 each for two days, but when you take into account the entry fees for sights in London, it works out very cost effective!

On our first day sightseeing in London we headed to pick up out passes in Piccadilly before heading to Tower of London. The Tower of London should really be called the Castle of London as it really is a castle rather than a tower per se. We spent a good part of the morning walking around the tower walls and looking at the crown jewels and watched some good footage of the queen’s coronation. Was worth the visit, but without the London Pass it would have cost us $30 each!

Our second stop on the first day was the Tower Bridge which really is an iconic symbol of London… much more so than the London Bridge! We both always thought the Tower Bridge was the London Bridge, but it is in fact the next bridge along the Themes which is really plain! From the bridge we walked along the Themes and boarded the HMS Belfast (the huge war ship docked in the Themes) and had a look around. It was the largest war ship used in WW2 and lived up to its size. The corridor when on forever and the facilities were amazing. You could see how a thousand people could stay out on these ships for long periods of time!

After an hour on the Belfast we continued along the Themes to the London Bridge where we did the ‘London Bridge Experience’ which we initially thought would just be some historic stuff about the bridge, but turned out to be a mix of historical information, comedy and horror show! The last part of the tour was a walk through the ‘catacombs’ where numerous zombies jumped out at you in the dark and we got chased by a murderer with a chainsaw!

From the London Bridge Experience we headed back toward the Tower of London pier and boarded a River Themes cruise boat (also included in the London Pass) and headed down the river towards Westminster with the aim of going to Westminster Abbey. Unfortunately when we arrived the Abbey was closed for the afternoon, so we headed back to the hostel for the night after a huge day out in surprisingly sunny London.

Day two in London and we stored our bags at the hostel and headed back out to make more use of our London Passes even through what we had done the day before had already paid them off! Our first port of call was Westminster Abbey were we spent an hour or so wandering around the amazing building and seeing the burial sites of a number of famous people including Charles Dickens. From here we headed Trafalgar Square, at this stage not really knowing what was there, but enjoyed seeing the massive copper lions around the square and getting some good photos climbing up to them like all the other tourists there! After a quick visit here we had another lunch at a Whetherspoons pub before heading off to Kings Cross to find Platform 9¾! From reading up where it was, we discovered that J.K Rowling actually stuffed up in her book and described another station but called in Kings Cross, so there is no brick wall area between platform 9 and 10, but an area near at the terminal has been renovated to provide this tourist attraction and they have put a trolley half into the wall under the sign.

After a 5 minute visit to Platform 9¾ we headed off to the Winston Churchill Britain at War exhibition which gave some good history about the conditions of Britain especially during the time when the cities were bombed. Not a very big exhibit and was totally empty when we were there, but it was quite enjoyable. I would only go there if it is included in the pass, as it probably was not worth the once again exuberant entry price!

Saint Paul’s Cathedral was our next stop and by this stage we were fairly exhausted, but I persisted and climbed the 560 painful stairs to the top of the cathedral to get an amazing view over the city. Once I was up the top I thought it was worth the climb, but after a long day it was quite exhausting! I would suggest doing it early in a sightseeing day rather than towards the end! There were quite a few people struggling with the climb.

From the cathedral we headed to Abbey Road to get a stereotypically photo crossing the road. Unfortunately the road was quite bus and there are no lights at the crossing, so we saw several near accidents and some angry drivers who had to stop while tourist walked out one at a time to get  photo crossing the road! It would be annoying to have to drive along that road as there would always be tourist there!

After a long day we headed back to the hostel via Portobello Road to grab out bags before our 7:30pm train to the harbour where we caught an overnight ferry to Amsterdam.

Tower of London


Throne?

Inside the tower

Bit blurry - one of the crowns




Westminster Abbey






Fountain in Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square

Entry to Platform 9 3/4 

Bec heading to Hogwards

St Pauls Cathedral

View from St Pauls

View from St Pauls

Bec on Abbey Road


Abbey Road





Sunday 19 August 2012

Driving Wales and England

We picked up the car in Brighton around midday after checking out of Kipps Hostel (and using their internet to download the GPS Free app on my iPhone). We made sure we got a car with USB input to the stereo and to keep the phone charged so we could use it as a GPS. This app turned out to be excellent and seemed a lot more reliable than any of the GPS units I have used over the past few years… and it was free!

Our first stop was the Brighton Marina which we had seen from the end of the pier previously and we fund here a large ASDA store where we stocked up on food for the next few days. We ended up with a heap of blueberries, raspberries and strawberries and a few snacks for the driving. At this stage we had no idea where we were going to go next, so we spend half an hour in the carpark deciding on where to drive! In the end we picked the name of a random town in the south-west which was the general direction we wanted to go and started driving! We passed through a number of towns with Bec searching Agoda and Hostelworld during the drive to see if there was anywhere to stay, and ended up in Bournemouth (which neither of us had heard of before) and checked into a hotel called the Britannica Roundhouse which cost us around $40 for the night… cheaper than many of the hostels in the UK. We found that the hotels were a lot cheaper around the countryside away from the popular tourist destinations which we would have been staying at if we had have taken trains rather than hiring a car.

The hotel we stayed in was large and had fairly good facilities despite its age. We once again managed to find a Whetherspoons Pub for dinner and had the $6.50 chicken burger with a pint of Thatchers cider, a meal that I would have at Whetherspoons a total of 6 times in 2 weeks in the UK!

From Bournemouth we headed relatively north which took us past the Stone Henge which was ideal as it is out in the middle of nowhere at the intersection of two highways! Not a very easy place to get to unless you have a car. It was during this day that we discovered the meaning of some of the road signs in the UK (should have probably done this earlier…) We discovered that a white sign with a black cross means the last speed limit no longer applies and you have to work out the speed limit based on what the road is (ie; separated dual carriage way = 70mph, joined single lanes = 50mph etc). Not too sure why they can’t say what the speed it!

The Stone Henge was impressive (but actually a bit expensive at around ($25) just to look at the stones from a distance, but we paid and it’s definitely a must to when in the UK! They do provide you with an audioguide that tells you the history of the site which makes it a little better, but they must make a killing off the amount of tourists that go through there in a day! It is a little surprising how it is basically at the top of a hilly area and there is nothing but fields in every direction around it!

After visiting Stone Henge we resumed out trip north and headed north to a city called Bath. We arrived here about lunch time and took a picnic down into one of the city parks. We were surprised that we had to pay about $2 each to get into the “public park” but it was worth it was a sunny day and the ark was beside the river, had comfortable deck chairs and was full of birds! From here we drove further north through the little windy roads towards a town called Western-Super-Mare… lame name I know! We basically only went there because it had a weird name and it was in the right sort of direction, but it ended up being a really nice beach side town with some big piers and great buildings. Unfortunately the tide was well out while we were there but we watched it tart to come racing back in over the massive sand flats. We thought about staying in this town but decided to keep heading north to stay the night in Cardiff which was perhaps another hour north over a massive toll bridge over the bar (expensive toll as well! Was about $12)

We spent one night in Cardiff and had a bit of a look around the town area but did not do much sight-seeing as it seemed like just another big city! The hostel we stayed at was cheap and fairly comfortable with a big kitchen and bar but not the sort of place that we would stay for more than one night! It was so not memorable that neither of us can even remember the name of it!

Our next stop after Cardiff was Liverpool. We spend the better part of the day driving up here but it was a relatively easy drive. I had been warned but a few people that driving in the UK is crazy but I found it relatively easy (easier than driving in Sydney at least!) The only annoying part is the fact that next to no one in the UK used their indicators! It’s crazy! Left turns, right turns, intersections, round-abouts…. And nothing!!

We enjoyed our short time in Liverpool and spent the first afternoon and the following day in the city centre having a look around the shops, visiting the Beatles Street (where the club the Beatles first played was) and even managed to see the Dark Knight Rises at the cinema. All up a good day and a great break from a few days of driving! Late in the afternoon we drove the hour trip across to Manchester to stay with Bec’s friend Kim and her family.

At Kim’s we stayed in their spare room and had some great pizza for dinner. The supermarkets over there (ASDA and Tesco) have pre-made pizzas that you can buy, just like Coles etc. back home, but they also have a section where you can tell a worker what you want on your pizza and they make it up for you then and there! Perhaps this will be something we can look forward to seeing in the next few years in Australia!
We stayed most of the next day in Manchester and went walking around a big lake in the sunshine with Kim, Simon and their 18 month old daughter Lexi. It was good to get out and not have to drive anywhere for a while and it was an exceptionally nice day!

In the afternoon we started the drive back south and decided to stay one night in Coventry in order to make it back to London by lunch time the next day to return the car. We stayed once again in a Brittania chain hotel for about $45 and once again were extremely happy with it. Not only was the room great, but we purchased a voucher for dinner and breakfast. Dinner was amazing with three courses including roast pork and veges and a heap of deserts. We essentially stuffed ourselves and followed it up again the next morning with a buffet breakfast of bacon, eggs, hashbrowns, mushrooms etc.

Our last morning with the car and we headed back into London to battle with the massive amounts of traffic and the annoying Olympic Lanes! The first part of the trip was pretty fast but as we neared the car depot we spent an hour to go a few kilometres! After about 1000 miles we returned the car and headed off on the metro to our accommodation which was an old pub converted to a hostel near Chelsea called the Queen Elizabeth Hostel. Here we based ourselves for three nights to do some London sightseeing.

Driving round Brighton

English countryside

Little pub in some little town


STONE HENGE!!

Bec and Stone Henge

Us and Stone Henge... Lady offered to take our photo but was special and only got in half of Stone Henge...

More countryside

Birds at Bath

Bath. 

The park where we had lunch

Relaxing in Bath

Hedges along the roads... notice the line along them from peoples mirrors.

Western-Super-Mare

The boats left high and dry

Bridge to Cardiff

Random place we stopped

Liverpool

Cavern Pub

The Cavern Club - where the Beatles first played

Me and Lexi in the car

Kim, Simon and Lexi on our walk

The lake we walked around