19 August Ladenberg to Paris

I phone Ma and Pa as we cross the border into France. Apparently  France are not happy with the influx of people from other EU countries into theirs and their border now has police on it. This goes against the EU convention but they do it anyway.  I don’t like French drivers – inconsistent and flitty. We pass them, they pass us and over again. The countryside smells bad too – must be silage or similar somewhere close.

We start to get excited just out of Paris and it hits us that this is it. We have driven 13,000km to get here from Beijing. We have had no problems with the landrover, the average fuel consumption of the landcruiser has been 8.5km to the litre. Mine will be slightly better as I always fuelled up with less at each stop.

I haven’t touched about 70% of what I packed. Mainly parts, oils and camping gear. I definitely am going home with more I came with.

We are staying in The Marriot Rive Gauche. They park our cars on the pavement outside – good advertising I geuss.

20 August Paris

This is it, we made it! The official end of our tour.

We get up early for a photo in front of the Eiffel tower before the traffic gets up. It is a magic morning and we decide to take a couple of spins around the Arc de Triomphe for a laugh. But alas a police car sees us and turns on his lights and chases us around. They then pull out their batons and wave them  at us… uh oh we’re in for it. Then they pull up next to us and… they are all laughing! They wave us off with good wishes. Bastards.

We head back to the hotel to spend our last day together sightseeing. We go to the Paris Catacombs which are just up the road from our hotel. There are some 4 million souls buried here. Their bones have been stacked in the old limestone quarries under the roads. This is where they quarried the stone for the buildings up top. It is pretty macabre but very interesting and well worth the visit. The air is rank still with rotting bones. I have a coughing fit when we hit the warm air at the surface. 

We then  take another “death by a thousand paper cuts” bus tour. Slow and hot. But we get a quick glimpse of the major sights. Lunch on the riverside under the Eiffel Tower watching the thousands queue to go up.  We even see a couple of maori and stop to say hello. The first we have seen in months. Our last dinner is without Uncle Maurice as he has hit the town to see a Moulin Rouge type show.

18 August Prague to Ladenburg

Heidelberg

Off to Germany today. The countries are flying past and we have difficulty remembering where we have been from one night to the next.  We drive the autobahn although apparently it now has a 130km speed limit. The roads are good though and the traffic well behaved. They are good drivers, no sudden changes and they don’t push in like Russia, Mongolia and China. All the cars are late model with mostly Mercedes and VW. Skoda was the car of choice in Czech Rep of course. We see about 4 defenders today and they all wave out – makes the landcruiser boys jealous – perfect!

We stop at the Sinsheim Car museum just out of Heidelberg. Wow, an amazing collection of planes, cars. We are interested in the Ferrari display – they have a ex rally Audi Quattro Coupe similar to what I used to have. Wish I didn’t sell that car. We have 2 hours and we rush through. Plenty of time for us but the boys probably could have done with longer.

Heidelberg is the most picturesque town on the banks of a river with almost gothic fairytale homes on the hillsides. Apparently it was a nazi stronghold during the war. It is now very expensive. We are staying just out of town in a village called Ladenberg. The Hotel  Leonardo is our bed for the night. We have 3 spiders in our room and they are yuk looking. Think crucifix spiders – all legs. We thought they were dead and I got Murray to have a look for me. They moved…. Ooo.  Obviously no one has been in this room for a while. Have dinner in the town square. Small and surrounded by tudor looking buildings from the 1400’s. Georgia is aiming to get drunk as she thinks there is no drinking age limit here. We give her 2 beers and watch her face go rosey. She starts pulling faces and slowly slumps down in her chair. We all give her our words of advice for drinking in later life! She hides in the bushes and gives Murray and Maurice a fright on the way home – hehe, good night.

17 August Prague Sedlec Ossuary

We are keen to drive 70km east of Prague to Kostnice to see the Sedlec Ossuary. A church where some dirt from the holy land was sprinkled hundreds of years ago. Subsequently some 40,000 were buried here as it was seen as prestigious. When it got too full they dug them up and arranged the bones for display. It takes us about an hour to get there. I borrow Gregs gps and it doesn’t take the most direct route but it works. Ooo... I also drove the wrong way around a roundabout today. There were no other cars around. I’m surprised how quickly you can revert back to driving back on the left! The bones are impressive but I’m not sure if they are worth the drive out here.

Back at the hotel, the boys have had a day of walking around town. We try to find a clothes shop called New Zealand Auckland. They tried to hire the defender for a photo shoot in Queenstown last Xmas but I was too busy. They have some cool clothes all with NZ insignia on it. There are some 300+ shops in Europe but… it is not sold in NZ! We cant find it and I’ll try again somewhere else.

We have dinner in a swanky neighbourhood outside a synagogue. We watch some cops put a clamp on a rabbis car then take some money off him to to release it. Then we hear them absolutely laughing their heads off that they got cash out him as they drive away!

16 August Krackow to Prague

Prague is a beautiful city. We are staying in the old town again which has its pros and cons. Pros – Beautiful old cobbled streets, close to restaurants, character hotel. Cons – no parking, no air con, noisy. We arrive late in the day and dine at the hotel. I’m still feeling crook so retire early for a big day tomorrow.

15 August Krackow Salt Mine

Dammit, I’m getting crook. My voice is croaky and I feel like a bag of s**t but……. I’m still going to the mines today! We get there early – it’s only a 15 min drive from the hotel.

We walk down into the mine down 374 steps. It is tight and you wouldn’t want to be claustrophobic. But it is a constant 15 degrees with good ventilation and lighting. It is a pretty slick tourist operation. Our group of 40 odd have an English speaking guide and we are very professionally led through the chambers to the main cathedral chamber. 7000 people came through here yesterday! The salt is grey not white as you might expect but still very impressive. Some of these chambers are from the 1600’s. There are souvenirs shops along the way and a restaurant – you can even have weddings in there if that is your thing! I’ve been wanting to go here for ages since talking with Paula who had been some years ago.  Yu do get a ride back to the surface in a cage that is Tight! It fits nine but we were like sardines! A lot of frottage going on I tell you.

I retire for the rest of the day to recuperate and George joins Maurice for an evening with The Royal Chamber Orchestra in a small church in the town square. She enjoys her night.

14 August Auschwitz and Krackow

We set out early as weekend traffic builds quickly. The day starts with thunderstorms and clears by the time we arrive at Auschwitz in the early afternoon.

It is very busy and we file through the gates. There is no charge at Auschwitz and the guides are freelance. There has been a memorial here today and we pass many people who had relatives here.

It is eerie here. The solid stone stairs in the barracks are deeply worn from the thousands/millions that have dragged themselves up and down. We see piles of glasses that were salvaged and tonnes of hair including childrens plaits that were shaven from the bodies to be used for things such as collars of the SS guards. We are taken into the gas chambers were 3,000 were killed at one time. I am reading I was Dr Mengeles Assistant by Miklos Nyiszli who was a Jewish coroner that was the main assistant to the camp Dr for all his bizarre experiments.

Apparently when they opened the chambers after 5 mins they would all be dead but not on the ground. They would be in bizarre piles as they clamber higher to get away from the gas pellets. There would be babies and small children on the bottom, eldery next, then women. And the men on the top.

It is sickening and depressing. There are many people wandering around crying. I take photos for Georgias school project later this term. But when we get to the childrens barrack with photos on the walls etc. Suddenly no one is taking pictures anymore. We shuffle through quietly.

Georgia and I opt not to take the second tour to Birkenau. We buy books and sit outside and wait for the others.

Tonight we stay in Krackow. A beautiful old medieval town with a large town square. It is very busy with families and diners wandering the streets. We take “the scenic route” home. Ie we get lost, go round in circles and eventually get where we want to be an hour later. No worries, it is a nice night and we are all now counting down the days – I think sadly – to when we go home.

13 August Warsaw Poland

We start the day as always with a hop on hop off bus tour. These are a quick way of seeing most that a city has to offer and then you choose what you want to go back to see. George and I find the bus tour and commentary quite depressing considering the history of this city. Tomorrow we visit Auschwitz and it will only get worse. We have been warned to take tissues.

We take a quick walk through the palace. It is Saturday and the area is very busy. There is not a lot to see in the palace and we wander back via some shops. I note that there are more beggars here. At lunch a gypsy lady plays the accordion outside then sends in her cute 3 year old to collect money from the restaurant patrons.

 

Tonight we dined at an English pub and our cultured group member Maurice asked for the steak tartare. He then tells the waitress that he would like it done medium rare…. We all laugh and he looks bewildered. The waitress tells him it is a raw steak dish and he switches to fish and chips. Nice dinner – we tried some famous polish dumplings and they were delicious!

12 August Villinus to Warsaw

It is a long drive today as there a couple of big detours due to road works. The scenery is changing to pretty small lakes with farm houses and rolling hillside. We keep stopping for Maurice to get photos of storks in their nests on the roadside. We arrive about 6pm at the Novotel in Warsaw.  The time is going faster and faster and we work out that this time next week we will be in Paris at the end of our trip! George and I have a week to tour further and are still undecided as to go to Italy / Switzerland or across to Ireland.

11 August Tallinn to Villinus

So Georgia hears gunshots in the street in the afternoon. Screaming and someone yelling Go go! We hear nothing further and think nothing of it until we get to Villinus and find that there was a hostage taker in town. He was killed that day….Hmm.

We are in 3 countries today. We start in Estonia, drive through Latvia and stay the night in Lithuania

The drive to Villinus is on nice roads. We gas up and it costs about NZ$144 to fill the defender with 63 litres! We are definitely in Europe now – everything is much more expensive. 

10 August Tallinn Estonia

Walther P22 with silencer, Glock, GSE5 Rifle, M4, AK47, Desert Eagle 50 calibre pistol and a pump action shotgun. Murray, Ross, George and I had the pleasure of shooting all of these. It is definitely one of our highlights so far. We were taken to an old shipping yard and inside a locked training area is this wood enclosed shooting gallery. The back wall is made of wood blocks. The instructor and the driver seem serious and not crazy nuts as some these guys can tend to be.

The Desert Eagle is the worlds most powerful pistol and the kick back was so powerful. We hold it far in front as the power can jerk the pistol up and hit you in the head. Apparently it is the one they use on movies including The Matrix.

Suprisingly, George is a really good shot with nice grouping. The order of targets is George, Ross, Me then Murray. The session costs about NZ$165. Murray reckons it would be hard to cover the cost of the ammo for that in NZ let alone be able to shoot them all. Totally cool. We buzz all the way back to the hotel.

The one problem with being on the road is all the washing. We hand wash most stuff but it doesn’t always dry properly and hotel laundry is very expensive so we find a Laundromat in town and wander around while waiting. Once again a successful day shopping. We buy a bottle of cloudberry schnapps from the medieval shoppe, find some delicious antique rings and have a look at the military antique shop. Lots of stuff, but expensive. Dinner is at an Austrian Beer Hall and we retreat to pack for tomorrows 600km run to Villinus in Lithuania. Ps. met some kiwi farmers in the lobby downstairs – they are keen to do the trip next time!

9 August Helsinki

You all know how seasick I get and I have not been looking forward to today…. But, the ferry is Huge and even though the day is dull and there is a little swell – I can barely feel it. It also helps that there is a supermarket and dutyfree shop onboard to help me pass the time! My friend Mertsis  Mum was from Finland and I have always wanted to come here. She was an architect and we are told that Helsinki is one of the most progressive design hubs in Europe. 

There are lots of little islands as we come into port. Low lying with trees and beautiful little beaches. Small houses with their boats moored just outside. Apparently all boats have to be drydocked in winter as the harbour freezes. If it is a larger boat then they are taken south for winter. You can drive to some of the islands in winter and they cut the ice from the beach so that people can still take a swim after their sauna!

The city centre in a short bus ride from the port and it is full of design shops. Clothes, homeswares  etc. We see Marimekko, a textile store and mark it so we can go back. George and I are on a mission now and we shake the others and set off. First off – reindeer roll overs for lunch – so yum. We wander around the fish markets by the port.  Lots of fresh produce, some being sold directly from the boat. We have 3 hours before being due back at the ship. We are aiming for Stockmans. A large department store with the saying “ If you can’t find it at Stockmans then you don’t need it”.

We find reindeer skins at Stockmans! I knew I needed those! We also find gifts at marimeko and reindeer antler bottle openers and clothes and, and….. I better stop. Suffice to say it was a great day and we did Helsinki justice. We get into port late and arrange a late dinner downstairs in the cellar. When we get there Murray and Maurice have found a pamphlet on a deluxe shooting package out of town. Ak47’s, walther pistols – anything you like for a price. Count me in – but not George. She sulks and I relent. We won’t be back soon to get another chance. Can’t wait.

8 August St Petersburg to Tallin Estonia

It is our first shitty rainy day since starting this trip 6 weeks ago.  It is a short 1 hour drive to the border. We fill up on fuel before crossing as once we hit Europe it is about twice the price. We try to get rid of all our last roubles at the gas station – we buy some cd’s for a couple of bucks each but they are all shit. We had about $10 worth of roubles left that we just can’t spend – not bad. The exit out of Russia is good. There is a 500m bridge of no mans land to the Estonian border. Greg goes first with Maurice and paves the way for the rest of us. Last year they had never seen the new NZ passports and it took quite some time to explain to them that the Aotearoa printed on the front is New Zealand. We thought this might happen again so we put stickers over the Aotearoa bit on ours and we get through easy.

The scenery changes as we are close to the sea. The roads are better and the driving instantly changes to something a bit more like home.This is the first time we have seen the sea in 5 weeks. The drive into the old part of Tallin where our Hotel is is thrilling. The roads are cobbled and not very wide. There are people walking everywhere and we bowl in with our cars. We get a whole lots of stares and waves and even a salute from one guy! There are a lot of tourists here wandering this historical area. The Hotel – St Olavs is 13^th century. The rooms are small but gorgeous. There is no lift and we are on the 3^rd floor. It is like a rabbit warren to get there.

Am dreading the 2 hour ferry to Helsinki tomorrow……