I think it would be wrong of me to just leave the blog at just getting on the plane in Venice without some kind of conclusion.  I also think that it would be appropriate to leave some kind of advice for people who want to do interrailing in the future, because it is one of those things that a lot of people think of doing and never build up the courage or time to go ahead with it.  As our Lonely Planet concludes, “all you’ve got to do is decide to go and the hardest part is over. So go!”.  I will therefore aim to sum up what I think I have gained and what might be helpful for those wanting to repeat Overlord.

Cost
The biggest issue for most people is cost.  Daniel and I both had to save up for most of the year leading up to the trip in order to have enough money to cover it.  Our first budget put the trip at £50 per day plus flights, the interrail ticket and the Grand Prix - approximately £1800.  This seems like a lot of money, but it is not impossible to save up - both Daniel and I managed to save up the £4000 required for Costa Rica last year and neither of us have extraordinary financial circumstances.  We both have part time jobs and are good at saving and that is all that is needed.  Central Europe is a lot cheaper than the west and I would assume that Eastern Europe is cheaper again.  As somebody who is massively retentive I kept an extensive budget of the trip and came to the conclusion that everything - hostels, food, flights, the Grand Prix and all other bits and pieces (except my new passport) cost about £1430.  This also includes things like new clothes, so I will take them out for the sake of argument  - just make sure that you don’t split your only pair of trousers on the first day when you travel.  This works out at about £50 a day for everything - a fair bit under what we expected.  The costs per city broke down as follows:

• Amsterdam (2 nights)  -  £55.75 per night
• Brussels (1 night)  -  £47.35 per night
• Belgian Grand Prix (2 nights)  -  £41.65 per night
• Luxembourg (1 night)  -  £36.48 per night
• Frankfurt (2 nights)  -  £15.17 per night
• Munich (2 nights)  -  £39.35 per night
• Berchtesgaden (2 nights)  -  £35.35 per night
• Salzburg (1 night)  -  £48.73 per night
• Vienna (2 nights)  -  £37.99 per night
• Bratislava (2 nights)  -  £34.39 per night
• Budapest (2 nights)  -  £49.06 per night
• Ljubljana (2 nights)  -  £42.99 per night
• Venice (2 nights)  -  £68.65 per night

There are obviously some discrepancies in there.  Frankfurt, for example, was so cheap because we were lucky enough to have some very generous friends.  This isn’t a moot point however - if you have friends in European countries, do your best to stay with them as it dramatically reduced costs.   Also it seems like the central European countries were more expensive, but this is because there was more scope for us to splash out here.  The three best hostels were in Bratislava, Budapest and Ljubljana, because we felt that we would get more for our money.  Also we felt more at ease going to places such as the Hungarian baths, or tipping well for the Bratislava walking tour because we didn’t feel we were being ripped off.  If we had lived as frugally in central Europe as we did in the west the costs would have been far reduced.

Accomodation
On the subject of accomodation, I would say that all of ours was good quality.  There were some however, such as Munich, where we paid well over the odds.  The advice I would offer for this is that in Western and Central Europe at least, a cheap hostel is not necessarily a bad one.  In Vienna we paid £10 each per night for a room that was far better than the one in Munich that we paid £24 for.  As long as you book through a respectable website - we used www.hostels.com, and check out the ratings, I would suggest going as cheap as possible.  Also, don’t be afraid of booking dorms rather than privates.  If you are a group of say four, and book a four person dorm, chances are you will have it to yourself anyway.  Tom booked himself into a 12 man dorm in Bratislava and ended up only sharing the room with 5 other people.  We didn’t do it as much as I had hoped, but dorms are a great way of meeting people.

Travelling

The completed interail pass

I will get the “don’t lose your passport” point out of the way first.  Though actually if you do lose your passport it isn’t actually the end of the world - the embassy in Ljubljana was really helpful.  It is, after all, their job to help out British citizens in need abroad.  As regards train journeys, getting around couldn’t be much easier.  The trains were a lot better in countries like Germany, but we didn’t spend ages waiting around on platforms in Slovalkia or anywhere like that.  For those of you who are like me and aim to plan a trip to the last detail, trains offer a fantastic way to know exactly where you will be and at what time you will be there.  For those of you who like a bit of flexibility, most trains are repeated every few hours or so.  We found out that major engineering work normally occurs on a Sunday evening - twice we travelled on a Sunday and twice we ended up having to get a bus for part of the journey.  Also some friends of ours found that some trains require a reservation or a small extra rpice.  This is definitely the case for sleepers and high speed trains, but also sometimes the case for longer journeys.  The interrail website is very helpful however and all the tourist informations at the major stations have english speakers there.  Don’t be afraid of journeys that last a long time or that have a lot of changes - sometimes its quicker and easier to catch two fast trains from a to b to c than to get a slow train from a to c.  Some of the nicest moments of our trip were on the massive train journeys.  If, like us, you get interail tickets that have a set limit of journeys over a number of days - we could travel on 10 days in 22, don’t use up a day on a tiny journey.  We actually travelled on 13 days, but the journeys from Amsterdam airport to Amsterdam, the Grand Prix to Luxembourg and Berchtesgaden to Salzburg, were so cheap that it wasn’t worth putting them down and losing a day. 

Sights
There is a common misconception I think that most Central Europe is a backward place with not much to see.  Having been lucky enough this year to not only go to Slovalkia, Hungary and Slovenia on Overlord, but also Poland, Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia, I can honestly say that they are far more interesting to go to than the standard holidays I have done to Spain, Italy or Germany.  To prove this I will compare some of the sites I have seen in the west with some of the sites I have seen in central Europe.  Firstly, as pretty as St. Mark’s Square in Venice is, I don’t think that it is a million miles away from the Market Square in Krakov, Poland.
 

Market Square, Krakov

St. Mark’s Square, Venice

As stunning as the views that we had when we went to the Bay of Naples in Italy a few years back, they were as good, if not better when we went to the Bay of Kotor in Montenegro in the summer:

Bay of Naples, Italy

Bay of Kotor, Montenegro

While Paris may always be the original, Budapest, the Paris of the east, has a lot to offer for a fraction of the price:

Paris, France

Budapest, Hungary

While Amsterdam and Venice may be the original canal cities, Ljubljana is a pint size city built on a tiny canal sized river and it doesn’t have an abundance of prostitutes or fake bag sellers.

Amsterdam, Holland

Ljubljana, Slovenia

While some readers may say that these cases are bad comparisons (and I agree some of them are), I believe my point that the rest of Europe has as much, if not more, to offer than the tried and tested west, still stands.  Italy isn’t the only place that offers good food, Paris isn’t the only place with class, London isn’t the only place with history and Spain isn’t the only place where the sun shines.  As a conclusion then I would encourage people to travel to countries that they know less about.  An exotic name doesn’t necessarily mean an exotic price tag - in most cases quite the opposite is true.  This trip has inspired me to do my utmost to do a complete tour of the European countries by the time I am 21.  At the moment I stand on 23 nations and as a result will hopefully do another interrail trip next year to the real Eastern Europe.  Watch this space for Operation Barbarossa, my tour of the east and Russia.  After all, fortune favours the brave.

Venice, the last of the Overlord cities, was designed to be a bit of a treat to round off.  None of the four of us had ever been there before and it is a city that generates so much hype that it would be impossible to miss it out on any tour in the vicinity.  The journey from Ljubljana was interesting - four trains, a bus and a walk across the border, taking just over 6 hours in total.  This was perhaps our most complicated journey, but a particularly apt way to finish our time on the railways.

Arrival at Santa Lucia station in Venice is an experience in itself, as we travelled to it across a bridge over open water.  Upon exiting the station we were thrust immediately into the unique feel of the city, with the Grand Canal, and one of the only three bridges that traverses it, directly in front.  Our hostel was a five minute walk away from the station.  It was nothing special, but it soon became evident that in Italy’s most expensive city, even the distinctly average is extortionately priced.  After dumping our bags in our room, we headed out for our evening meal.  I have to be honest, that I was more alert when searching for somewhere to eat that in any other city.  It was clear that everyone was just trying to rip you off - restaurants with menus that were more expensive that they advertised outside, people standing outside trying to lure you in, an array of hidden service charges and just a general feel that no matter how hard you tried to act to the contrary, you were going to end up being a sucker.  We settled on a restaurant down a side street and had a selection of Italian dishes.  Daniel started on his great pizza crusade that would see him eat nothing else until England.

After the meal, we decided that we would follow another lonely planet suggestion and get lost.  We had no map and the warren of side streets and alleys meant that in no time we had no idea where we were.  We remained this way for several hours, though it was a nice night and we didn’t feel at all worried or threatened.  Eventually deciding that it would be unwise to get TOO lost Het asked a local for directions back to the station and within an hour or so we were back at the hostel, via a quick stop off for me to watch the highlights of the Man United match in a bar.

The next morning Het got up early due to over excitement and had seen two churches before the other three of us got up.  The first place that we went was the San Geremia church which was the namesake of our hostel and the square that they were both situated in.  This church included what Het called a “shrivelled saint”.  I don’t know if this is a technical term, but it was, rather grotesquely, the shrivelled corpse of the saint who the church was named after.  Apparently there are a lot of these in Venice - having seen three of John the Baptist’s hands this year on my travels, I have to admit I was slightly sceptical.  From there we headed for the station and the terminal for all of the waterbuses.  A lot of people who had been to the city before told us that the best way to see the Grand Canal, and therefore the core of the city was on a ‘bus’. Unfortunately a lot of other tourists had obviously been given the same advice and we were packed into the bus to the point where people couldn’t get off at the stops they wanted.  We didn’t have this problem however as most of us were heading for the same place - Piazza San Marco (St. Mark’s Square) which I would guess is one of the most famous tourist attractions in the world.

We approached the square from the canal and amazingly found that there was no scaffolding. Eager to make the most of this before the builders turned up, we headed up the Campanile (Bell Tower) for views across the city.  This was fairly epic - the skyline and surroundings of Venice are so unlike anything anywhere else in the world.  It is a city that defies any kind of logic and I guess that is its charm.  We managed to time the climb to coincide perfectly with the ringing of the bells at midday.  We watched in horror as the bell slowly started up no more than a metre above our heads and had to put our fingers in our ears for the minute or so that the ringing lasted.  Quite an experience, but gave a headache.  The next stop was the Ponte del Sospiri (the Bridge of Sighs) and it was here that the builders had moved in - perhaps in the most amusing piece of scaffolding on the trip, we found that they had left a tiny bit left showing as a “taster”. Sigh.  It was at this point that Het went off to the Accademia, Venice’s world famous gallery, and Ellie, Daniel and I realised that we didn’t know what else Venice was famous for.  We went for lunch and then came to the conclusion that unless you were an art buff, there isn’t a lot to look at beyond the canals and St. Marks.  I think it is similar to Amsterdam in that it is the city itself that is the attraction, rather than any particular sites.  We spent the afternoon vaguely wandering around the city, going back to the hostel to catch up on the blog and get ready for dinner.

As it was our last dinner of the trip, we decided that we would just go for somewhere nice, regardless of price.  The food was very good, but it meant that my entire budget for the day had been spent on food.  Perhaps appropriately therefore our most costly day had been the last one.  To give an indication of just how much things were overpriced, the legendary litre beers that we had enjoyed in Munich for €6.50 cost a massive €12.00 in Venice.  Daniel and I couldn’t resist however and we introduced Ellie to what is definitely a major event in a person’s life. 

The next morning we got up and left the hostel at 10, knowing that we had 8 hours before we had to head to the airport.  Our first stop was the station to check out our link with the airport, and after this we found somewhere for a kind of all day lunch.  We settled on a pizzeria which had “maxi” pizzas.  These were so incredibly epic that we had our photos taken with them.  We were able to spend several hours in the garden of this restaurant finishing off the massive pizzas and in doing so completely wearing ourselves out.  Once we had finished and recovered a bit we headed for the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa del Frari.  I had read about this church in the lonely planet and Het was very keen on going there.  I figured that it would be a crime not to properly visit one of Venice’s major churches, though Het very nearly refused me entry after I pronounced Titian (whose most famous painting is found here) with two hard ts.  I have to say that as a complete Philistine when it comes to art, I was quite impressed by the inside of this church.  It included a lot of ornate tombs (including Titian’s) and some epic paintings.  I think I vaguely remember reading that the largest oil painting of all time is found there, but I didn’t see anything confirming this.

We now had a few hours before our bus to the airport left, so we went for one more stroll around the city, ending up at its most northern edge overlooking the expanse of water which surrounds it.  This was in the less touristy Castello district and it was nice to see what Venice was like without masses of people being around.  The major site was the church where most of the Doges (Kings) of Venice were buried.  I had the embarrassing experience of partially slipping into a canal when Het asked me to see how cold it was.  The steps were ridiculously slippery and I got water up to my shins.  As with most anecdotes it was greated with a “that can go on the blog”.  After our last drink of the trip we headed back to the hostel to pick up our bags and then went on to the airport.  As we were flying Ryanair we had to go to “Venice Treviso” which is a long way out of time.  It is a really horrible pokey little airport and was full of a lot of grumpy British people as most of the flights were delayed.  After a delay, a lot of standing, a scary aborted take off and more turbulence that I had ever experienced, we were airborne and on our way home, 22 days after the trip had begun.  Venice was definitely worth a visit, but in the grand scheme of the trip, it has stolen a lot of limelight from some other European gems.  We landed at about midnight GMT and made our way back to see our families.

Having enjoyed Bratislava far more than we thought we would, we now headed for Budapest.  This was the city I was looking forward to most - I have heard it nicknamed “Paris of the east”.  However before describing the city itself, I have to talk about the journey between the two.  Bratislava station was in the communist sector of the city and was pretty nasty - the kind of place where a British person is mobbed by beggars.  There was a MASSIVE police presence around our platform, we think due to the large amount of interrailers who were doing the same journey as us. It was our first train trip that wasn’t with a German or Austrian company and the difference was very clear.  We were in compartments, which was nice - especially considering that one of the doors wouldn’t shut.  Tom was particularly interested in being on a train with an open door, and his curiosity got him whipped in the face with an 80mph branch.  Very amusing.

It started raining on the journey and was absolutely pouring down on arrival in Budapest.  The station here was actually really nice - like a pint size Kings Cross.  For reasons I can’t quite remember, we decided to walk the mile to our apartment, rather than get the metro.  I say apartment, not hostel, as this was the only Overlord city where we had decided to rent a flat.  This was due to the amazing price - 24 euros a night each.  Once we finally got there however, we were told that our apartment was being renovated and that we had to go to a replacement one.  This put us on edge a bit, as we were led through Budapest by a random guy towards what he said was an apartment. Having remained on our toes, we arrived at our flat safely.  It had clearly been a massive upgrade - it was a really lovely building, with enough beds for 10 people, 3 bedrooms, a living room, 2 bathrooms and a kitchen.  All for the above stated price.  Our thoughts immediately turned to extending our stay, but we thought we would figure that out later.

I will be honest with you and tell you that it is now midnight in Bratislava and I have just done the posts for Salzburg and Vienna.  As a result, this post may not be the most exciting, but I shall do my best.  We left Vienna on Tuesday morning and arrived in Bratislava, capital of Slovalkia at about lunchtime.  It may have been the rain, but our first impressions were pretty dire. It later became clear that the reason for this was that the station was in the ex-communist section of the city.  Just for your general information, and with no political bias whatsoever, pretty much everything bad in Bratislava came as a result of the communists.  And we found ourselves slap bang in the middle of the concrete jungle.  We got the bus (it seems you don’t have to pay to travel in Slovalkia, or our first act in Slovalkia was to break the law and dodge the fare), to the hostel.  The room was nice, but had been decorated for a five year old.  Complete with pictures of ladybirds, deer and a giant canvas leaf.  To sum up our first impressions of the city, I will upload the view from our window.  It was in fact the only photo I took that day, as the rain and Soviet architecture meant that we didn’t feel like leaving the hostel.  Apart from to find food.  In all honesty, we were starting to think about going to Budapest a day early.

LUCKILY the next morning, the sun was shining, so we decided that we would give the city a second chance, starting with a walking tour.  This was actually really superb - it was taken by an Aussie student who had studied Czechoslovalkian history at Prague and, while it was for the most part a recap of our school’s overly 20th century based history courses, we all enjoyed it.  He divided the tour into two parts - the old town and the new town.  The old town was for a long time the capital of Hungary - twelve Hungarian kings were crowned in the cathedral, and was based around ornate buildings and pretty squares.  Unfortunately, the Hitler/Stalin double team managed to ruin much of this - the Soviets actually building a highway through the old town OVER what Hitler had left of the Jewish quarter.  This highway was so badly planned that the vibrations from the traffic were causing the cathedral to collapse, so once again we had a great view of the scaffolding surrounding the spire.  It became evident that, according to our guide, Prague tended to steal a lot of Bratislava’s thunder.  This was most evident when we were told about the Prague Spring of 1968 - the iconic photo of the local man baring his chest to a Soviet tank was in fact taken in Bratislava, not Prague.  Unfortunately the photographer had to remain anonymous - for obvious reasons concerning his safety, so the location was credited to Prague.  Today, major publications still get this wrong, so to prove that our guide was right, I shall show you the original photo, and show you a photo of the location today. Other sites on the tour included the little blue church - quite possibly the bluest building I have ever seen, the Slovalkian Parliament, the old route of Hungarian coronations and several other churches.  Amongst other things.

We tipped the guide well and then found a Slovak pub for lunch.  This was really cheap and seemed kind of authentic, so we were happy.  There is a real culture/price difference between Bratislava and Vienna, which is only 50km away. After getting on some warmer clothing, as the sun had gone in, we split up and headed in the vague direction of the fortress, with the intention of taking some photos from its strategic position over the town (it was one of very few cities that managed to resist invasion from the Huns).  We had been told that the fortress wasn’t very attractive, but in its own way it was interesting in a minimalist way.  The fortress, on the north bank with the old town had a good view over the Danube, which we crossed as we headed towards perhaps the most major impact the communists had had on the city - the “UFO” bridge, named because at night, its bizarre architecture means it looks like an alien spaceship.  The views from the top of this - we got student discounts, was EPIC.  The city is actually really small, so from this high vantage point we could see the countryside in all directions.  We waited up on the open air viewing platform as the sun went down and the city lights started to turn on, taking photos, before heading back to the hostel via a quick meal at McDonalds (it is actually quite a useful traveller’s tool, honest), ready for our weekend in Budapest.

Alex has finally allowed someone else to write something else on the blog, and i apologise if this post is not as good as any of the previous ones but i refuse to spend 4 hours on each city redrafting each paragraph about 7 times before finally deciding to click ‘post’.

We got our first high speed train on the trip from Salzburg which had the rather fitting name 'Railjet’ that allowed us to reach Vienna at around lunchtime. Our hostel, which was spectacularly named the 'Do Step Inn’, was located just around the corner from the station. However on leaving the station a rather well built security guard standing outside a multi-storey car park approached us and asked whether he could help us, clearly not that many backpackers went out of that exit. However as soon as we started asking for directions he kindly pointed us on our way.

Now i should explain before i go any further that this hostel was the cheapest on our trip and the room was described as a 'basic basement dorm’. So we really didn’t know what to expect. As it turned out we actually got a lot for our money and it may well be the best hostel we will stay in.

We had a free afternoon so we had decided on the train to make full use of our interrail tickets and had decided to try and get a train to the Czech Republic. So after dumping our bags we ran back to the station and found a train we could get, it was going to be tight though, we needed to get to a different station the otherside of Vienna. So we jumped on the U-Bahn and hoped. It was looking hopeful, a train that would take us to the other station turned up just as we jumped down the last few stairs so our spirits were high. However we didn’t make the train, by 2 minutes. Shame.

This unfortunate occurrence allowed us to get lunch and we headed back to the hostel to sort ourselves out.
The main problem we had were wet tents from the weekend. So we set about making ourselves a 'den’ hanging things from any hook or nail we could find. This created quite a spectacle that resembled some sort of Guerrilla war camp.

Once we had made the room more 'homely’ (including putting the Union Flag up on the mirror) we decided to head out and make the most of the weather, we haven’t had much sun really. We laid on the grass outside the National Library with a drink and icecream whilst we were waiting for the last members of our trip to arrive in Austria. Hunger got the better of us so we headed into the city for a traditional meal and another local beer to add to our list.

We met the girls at the airport and got the S-Bahn back to the hostel. Quite an exciting day really. However as this is not my blog i feel it only fair that i leave the core of Vienna to Alex. I seem to have waffled on quite a bit now so i apologise.

Daniel


Okay this is Coles again and I have redrafted Daniel’s section - he spelt the word “decide” with an x.   The girls - Het Kelly and Ellie Fitzakerly, for those of you that hadn’t gathered, arrived late last night - Emma had left Salzburg yesterday morning.  Having spent yesterday pretty much waiting around for the girls, we had a lot of sites to cram in today.  They had arrived the night before to a room COMPLETELY covered in wet, smelly tent, we decided that we would try and keep ourselves on their good side by having the unheard luxury of going out for croissants for breakfast. We started by walking down the main shopping street - Mariahilferstrasse, towards the city centre where the palaces and museums were located.  Unfortunately having spent yesterday afternoon lying in the sun amidst said palaces, it was now raining.  Luckily we had taken pictures of the Hofsburg Palace, Natural History Museum and National Gallery in the sunshine yesterday.

It was walking through this district that I made perhaps my biggest mistake of the trip thus far.  When approached by a man dressed in traditional Baroque clothing (Het says this is the technical term), instead of running away, I decided to hear him out, and several minutes later when my brain re-engaged, I found that four of us had tickets to a “classical” concert.  But more on that later.  From here, we strolled through the Spanish Riding School towards St. Stephen’s Cathedral - the main cathedral in Vienna.  For those who are avid followers of our “European scaffolding updates”, you will be delighted to hear that once again, we couldn’t actually see the full building.  We could however go inside and take photos.

From there, our stroll continued past the Austrian Parliament.  For a relatively insignificant country (no offence to our Austrian following), it was clear that Vienna was hugely out of proportion as a city to the country itself - living off a lot of former glory.  After a drink in a cafe and a MASSIVE lunch - Tom and Het had their meal served in a shovel, the group split up.  Tom and Daniel, who had been defeated by Germanic carbohydrates, went back to the hostel to sleep.  Ellie, Het and I however went to the “Belvedere”, a fancy palace that had now become a gallery.  Unfortunately, looking back, I didn’t actually take any photos here - me and Ellie were too busy calming Het’s excitement about going to a gallery, so if you want to see what it was like, you shall have to google it.  As a relative art phillistine, it took me about half an hour to cover the three floors of the gallery, after which I sat in the cafe waiting for Het, who arrived an hour later. She seemed to have enjoyed herself.

As I have mentioned earlier, our evening entertainment was to come in the form of a classical concert.  My original plan had been to go to an opera at the National Opera House, but the tickets to this were very expensive, so when a man in a funny costume approached me and told me that he was selling tickets to a “best of Strauss and Mozart” concert, it seemed ideal.  Unfortunately upon arrival, it became clear that we had been completely ripped off.  Instead of a concert hall, we found a cross between a school hall and a hotel lobby.  Instead of an orchestra we found a quintet.  Instead of a glorious opera singer, we found a chubby woman with scary eyes and instead of a full ballet cast, we had some kind of weird brother and sister leotard display.  To conclude, I died inside.  I shall try and sum my pain up in the form of a photo.  Tom, the only sane member of the party, who had stayed at home, turned up with a massive grin on his face, having seen the last five minutes through a crack in the door.  The only option from here, was to sample the Viennese night life, so after a few clubs and bars, we headed back to the hostel.

In the morning, onwards through the Iron Curtain to Bratislava.

I have to admit I have been a bit lapse the past few days with the blog - technically I am now in Slovalkia rather than Salzburg.  However, remembering back (each day is so crammed full of stuff that they have a tendency to mash together), we started D-Day plus 12 in Berchtesgaden.  As had been the case at pretty much every stage of our ill-fated Alpine trip, it was raining, so we headed to the train station to leave that accursed neck of the woods and head for the rolling hills of Salzburg.  For those of you are interested in the technicalities of our trip, our interrail pass entitles us to 10 days of travel.  Our plan includes 13 days of travel however, so we have had to pay for three of the journeys.  Berchtesgaden to Salzburg was one of these journeys and with bus tickets a third of the price of train tickets, we went by road.

Luckily I had had the foresight to book a relatively comfortable room in Salzburg, in the knowledge that we would have just been camping.  As a result, the three guys used the en-suite shower as quickly as possible, before heading out into town.  I have found when writing this blog that I have more time to analyse a city when we don’t do as much there - and Salzburg was one of these cities.  Having arrived on a Sunday afternoon, I have to say that there seemed to be very little going on.  As has been the case in most places, we invented our own tour based on visiting as many of the highlighted sites on the free hostel map as possible.  These included some gardens, some palaces and the castle.  However, in a way that is similar to Amsterdam, I think that it is the general ambiance of the town that makes it a tourist sites - all of the buildings are immaculate and ornate and the skyline (viewed from the castle) is spectacular - the city is small enough for the countryside to be clearly visible.  After a few hours sampling the sites, we headed out for dinner.  Having been relatively cultured and basing our evening meals around the local cuisine, we decided to have a Vietnamese meal this evening.  This was worth it, just to hear a Vietnamese man speaking German - a real fusion of cultures.  We were tired after the ordeal of Berchtesgaten, so spent the evening washing our clothes.  This was more stressful that necessary due to a combination of our incompetence at washing stuff and the insistence of the Americans in the hostel to jump the washing machine queue in front of us.  Anyway, after what was actually a fairly uneventful day, in a city that at the time seemed very quiet and laid back, we got an early night ready for heading off to Vienna and meeting with the next members of the Overlord team.

From Munich we travelled into the Bavarian alps, to Berchtesgaden which is famous as the alpine retreat of Adolf Hitler.  It is also well known as one of the most spectacular areas in Germany.  We arrived at about midday and then went food shopping.  For some reason they didn’t have carrier bags, so we had to get the bus back to the campsite with a box full of food (and wine)  We arrive at our campsite at the nearby village of Konigsee in the early afternoon.  For those of you who speak German, you will know that this translates as “King’s lake” and it was actually really epic - a glacial valley with steep alpine slopes either side.  After setting up our tent and having a traditional meal at a local restaurant we went down to the waterfront and hired out a rowing boat.  By now the sun was coming out and we had a pleasant 4km row round the lake.  There were lots of tour boats out, and many of them would play trumpets to demonstrate the “Konigsee echo” - the steep rocky sides meant that sounds would repeat 5 or 6 times up the valley.  At the top of our journey we dropped off Tom, who wanted to jog back to the campsite, while Daniel and I rowed back as quickly as possible to avoid paying for another hour of boat hire - such is the traveller’s logic.

Our evening meal was the trangia friendly spagbol, which was cooked by Daniel while the rest of us pretended to be of use.  We had bought some beers and wine, so that evening set up a campfire and sat around talking about the glory days. And such.  It turned out that the German wine we had bought was poor - Tom told us that the only Germans he knew that drank the stuff did it to keep the business afloat, so we ended up using it to douse the fire. That’s what you get when you set yourself a 2 euro wine budget.

That night it rained really heavily, so when we woke up we found that everything was a bit wet.  Our plan for the day was to climb to the Eagle’s Nest which was at the top of a 1900m mountain.  There was a bus service to the top, but as it was expensive and unadventurous, we decided to go on foot.  The story, and it is an epic one, began pleasantly as we caught the cablecar up the first 800m of the journey.  The weather was nice and we got some lovely views of the Konigsee and valley.  From there however, things deteriorated.  For a start, it coulded over and began to rain.  Then, Emma decided that the going was too tough and (as it turned out very sensibly) chose to turn back to camp.  The three of us guys then ploughed on, with the footpaths getting worse and worse.  Eventually, after several hours of torrential rain and cold, it became clear that the paths we were following were made by deer rather than humans.  As if to prove this, we found a bottle in a clearing, which we think came from the 1930s - quite possibly the last time anybody had got so lost in that section of the Bavarian alps.  The going underfoot was now ridiculously hard - we were pretty much climbing up sheer rock faces, in the rain - I was wearing suede shoes believe it or not, as I didn’t think that we were going to be doing any major walks.  Without a shadow of a doubt, as the weather continued to deteriorate and we continued to climb without any visible paths, this was far more dangerous than any of the hiking we had done in Costa Rica.  Eventually we decided it was right to turn back and luckily came across the road again.  In hindsight if we had stayed out much longer it, the dark would have set in and we would have had no choice but to phone mountain rescue.  Once on the road again (by now we were relieved that we were all alright, rather than gutted at missing the Eagle’s Nest), we headed back into Berchtesgaten for a well earned hot chocolate.  Our spirits through the entire ordeal were actually surprisingly high - when you are lost on an alp, cold and saturated with rainwater, all you can really do is laugh.  Eventually we made it back to the campsite. Emma, who had spent the afternoon relaxing and had showered, found the site of the three of us, soaked to the skin and having not reached the Eagle’s Nest, quite funny.  The four of us decided we couldn’t face cooking on the trangia in the rain, so treated ourselves to a massive meal in the local hotel on the lakefront.  This meal, after such a day, was so epic that it deserves a special photo on the blog. So here it is:


In the morning, onto Salzburg. And a shower.