And our solo adventure begins

As sad as I was that our top deck tour has ended, I am thoroughly enjoying being able to travel at our own pace and have the flexibility to do things like sleep in or eat when we are hungry versus eating when we have the opportunity.  It has now been close to 2 weeks since our tour ended and we have managed to cover some ground around the UK.  We have become so accustomed to bus travel, we thought why not stick with it and fill in a few weeks before Spain.  Our first destination was Sailsbury, the closest accommodation to Stonehenge, which is a beautiful little country town (big enough to still have a maccas) where the grass is greener than you can imagine and the people are so friendly.  I could definitely see myself returning here to work and live some day in the future.  Check out our cute little hostel that we stayed at, an old vintage style house, it was beautiful and had a lot of character.

It was time for our first real sleep in without an alarm before heading to the world famous Stonehenge.  I am sure it is no surprise to you that we didn’t really do any research before planning when we would visit Stonehenge.  It turns out that we missed the Summer Solstice by one day, the only day of the year you can touch the stones!  We didn’t let that dampen our spirits and took in the view of the amazing stones.  It really is just some massive stones in the middle of a paddock, but the history behind them is probably the more interesting part of the landmark than the actual landmark itself in my opinion.  We took the opportunity to pack our own lunch (turkey, avocado, cheese and spinach sandwiches) and sat on the grass to take in the view while eating.   It was a beautiful day and I thoroughly enjoyed the hour or so we spent there.  We also stopped in at Old Serum on the way which is home to the kings castle from I couldn’t even tell you how many years ago.  It was a lot of broken down stone but the views were so amazing and I even got to see some sheep!

After making our own dinner again (being able to cook again I was in heaven I tell you!) this time a chicken pesto salad with some fresh produce from the Sailsbury market we headed to a local pub to watch some more Euro cup, Englands last pool game.  We had also been to a pub in London when England were playing Sweden and I was much happier to see that the crowd was more tame than the mob that we watched with in London!

We headed off to Bristol the next morning to spend the day with my travel buddys family.  They took us on a driving tour of the city and we saw the famous suspension bridge and river avon.  I was very surprised that the tide was so low that you basically just saw mud with a little water laying on the bottom.  They cooked us a devine home cooked meal and was a very welcome change to be in a house where people live permanently!  We had planned a lovely bike ride to the historic town of Bath for the next day, but of course our good intentions of getting in a bit of exercise was ruined by a downpour of rain.  We took the opportunity to have another sleep in and then head out for brunch before catching yet another bus to Bath.  We went to a little cafe on the waterfront where we saw not only the water in the river, but the downpour of rain around us to fill another river!  I decided that as we were having no ride today I should opt for a healthy option and I choose a capra burger which was a vegetable falafel burger with goats cheese , grilled capsicums and caramilsed onion.  My mother would be pleased to know that it was on wholegrain bread too!  It was probably the most delicious vegetable burger I have ever eaten, and I do like a good vegie burger from time to time.  The goats cheese was strong in parts but the onions balanced the flavours perfectly and if a vegetarian meal was that good all the time, I would seriously consider being a vego.  We both enjoyed our meals so much that we even went back there for dinner where I tried out some fajitas!  My spice crave had kicked in again so it was just the fix I needed!  I realise I have completely skipped over our afternoon at Bath, but with the weather being so horrible we basically spent the afternoon hopping from shop to shop to avoid the rain.  We did manage to see that famous Bath houses and also the cathedral before heading back to devour dinner and then an early night in.

The next morning we had some time to kill before heading to Birmingham so we wandered through the markets and did a little more shopping, well more browsing as my pack is too full to actually buy anything!  By the time lunch had rolled around we were a little bit over aimlessly wandering to pass time as the weather was continuing to dampen our ability to do any real tourist sightseeing so we decided to take the opportunity to try something neither of us had experienced before, a full on sushi restaurant with a sushi train.  Don’t get me wrong, I have tried sushi before (or what Aussies call sushi, hand rolls, which is actually just one type of sushi) and I cannot stress to you how much I love a good californian roll so I was super excited to give this a whirl.  You can either order something off the menu and see it be made in front of you or you can take something off the train that continuously loops around in front of you.  There are certain things that are so popular they never make it around so I ordered a californian hand roll to start with.  I was keen to see if this was going to live up to my expectations as I had heard that the sushi in England was horrible compared to the majority of Australian sushi.  Luckily for me it did not disappoint and it was obviously super fresh and was most importantly delicious. I think the main difference is the nori was not moistened to complete the joins and admittedly it did feel a little like I was eating paper when I was getting to the ends with no rice.  I tried a couple of other dishes off the train including a noodle dish and a salad.

After stuffing our stomachs we headed to Birmingham to meet up with a friend.  As we arrived fairly late we headed back to her apartment and an early night before a jam packed day.  We decided it was time to visit our childhood years in ways that we cannot in Australia and went to the ice skating rink for disco Saturday!  It sure was an experience but I am pleased to say that I did not fall over once and got around the ice quite a few times. It was bit of fun before a quick tour around Birmingham.  We visited Birmingham City football stadium before driving into the city centre.  Apparently Birmingham is well known for its bulls, although I am not really sure why, but in the middle of a shopping centre there is a large bull made out of jelly beans.  It was amazing and was for sale, if only I had somewhere to store it!! 
As my friend is originally from Nottingham we then drove the 45mins or so to spend the night with her friends.  It was a great change to attend a house party and meet some new people and was a lot of fun.

Before heading back to Birmingham the next day our friend was very adamant that there was no way she was letting us out of her custody without us trying Jamaican food.  When she lived in Australia she said this was the one type of take away cuisine that she missed the most.  So as always we gave it a try from a shop called Mr Cool, apparently the best take away shop in Nottingham.  The meals are HUGE and my travel buddy and I opted to share a small chicken curry.  The container was filled with at least half rice and the remainder curry, they even wrap the container up in glad wrap as its overflowing with food.  The curry is more like a stew and the meat has obviously been cooked for a long time as it was so tender it just fell apart.  Similar to an Indian style curry but with less spice the flavours were delicious and so filling that between the two of us we didn’t get close to finishing it all.  It was delicious though and will be something that I try again when I have the opportunity, apparently the mutton soup with dumplings is a must have. 

We are now in back in London after catching another bus and staying in Hammersmith the night before heading out to Gatwick to stay one night as we have an early flight to Spain on Tuesday morning.   Apparently it will be 43 degrees when we land so we have reorganised our pack and arranged to leave all our winter gear behind with some friends.  Time to get some sleep now as we have finally got our runners back that we left behind in London before going on tour. We are planning on our first run of our trip to get back into the swing of exercising to work off some, if not all, of this delicious food I have been going on about xx

Sadly my topdeck life has come to an end

I am sad to say that my topdeck life has finally drawn to a close.  After visiting 13 countries in 24 days we are now taking some time to chill out and explore a little, which is perhaps why it’s taken me 5 days after finishing tour to even think about pulling my laptop out!

We are now relaxing in the cute little town of Sailsbury for two nights before heading to Bristol, but I will venture back to Amsterdam to fill you in on the final leg of our trip.  We arrived early afternoon where the weather was a chilling shock after spending so much time in shorts and t-shirt we all quickly changed into long sleeve tops and jeans.  A quick bite to eat, noodle box style and man the broccoli was a refreshing change, before hitting the town to see the red light district.  While a little disturbing at times, it was not as tacky as I expected and a short visit was enough before heading home in preparation for our bike ride in the morning.

Amsterdam is well known as a cycling city and if you don’t have a bike, you are not a local.  Every bike looks the same (except the bell!) and there are bikes lining the streets, chained to anything possible and people ringing their bells for pedestrians to move constantly.  I was unaware of how much of Amsterdam was surrounded by water before visiting.  Similar to Venice, the city is surrounded by canals but unlike Venice has bike tracks, some narrow roads for small cars and trams through the city.  We had the opportunity to blend in with the locals and go on a bike tour around the city and all I can say is wow...I fell in love with Amsterdam.  I think this was probably the highlight of my trip as I love a casual bike ride (I may also have fallen in love with my amazing old school owl bell that went off every bump I went over) but the views were magnificent and I found it such a relaxing way to see what the city has to offer including some amazing lush green parks, the oldest windmill still standing and a number of amazing canals. 

After our ride, it was time to recharge and have some lunch in the town square where I opted for a ceaser salad as I knew what sugar hit was going to come afterwards, the famous Holland waffles.  There are so many options to have with your waffles including nutella, berries and all kinds of choc or syrups but I opted for white chocolate flakes and caramel sauce. It was heaven in my mouth, the waffle was hot out off the press and had just the right amount of sweetness to mix with the crisp dough.  I don’t think I can ever have another waffle from any other country as nothing will ever meet the expectation I have now set for this sugary treat.  Before spending the afternoon shopping (which by the way to add to its already amazing appeal, the shopping in Amsterdam was fantastic), I had to stop into a little take away shop to check out the world famous vending machines.  The locals got sick of dealing with people who have the munchies, so they invented vending machines with hot food so they didn’t have to serve them.  I could not believe how large they were and they literally took up an entire wall in the shop.  An amazing invention which I am surprised has not spread to other part of the world, even though the food did look a little old and I would not be trusting what was dispensed out of that thing!

As our final night of tour approached we headed to a floating restaurant on a canal for our final meal together.  As the restaurant is surrounded by water, which apparently has amazing seafood swimming around down there, I was expecting to sample some fish but to my surprise we arrived at a Chinese restaurant where we had a buffet type meal.  The food was tasty but much like all Chinese cuisine was extremely filling.  Time to head for a canal cruise to say goodbye to the crew before joining the locals to celebrate after Holland played in the Euro cup.  As the munchies set in on our way home, there was one last opportunity to sample another of Amsterdam’s well known snacks, Vlaamse frites. A paper cone shape filled with chips and covered with any sauce you can imagine. I opted for curry and sweet chilli, a surprisingly tasty combination.  The curry sauce was a similar taste to curry powder mixed with either cream or sour cream and was so much better than I expected, something I might try mixing up myself the next time I am making some chips with some spare curry powder to use up!

After limited sleep, some vegemite on bread (as the crazy Europeans apparently do not believe in toast in the morning, I think this was about the 5^th backpackers we visited that did not have a toaster) and a 7am departure, we were back on the bus heading ‘home’ to London.  We dragged the trip out as much as possible and had a stopover in Belgium to try out some famous Belgium chocolate as it was some Belgians that invented filling chocolate with anything and everything you can think of.  I purchased a mix bag as I had no idea what to try and so far the majority of them have been smooth and delicious, however I do not think it is as good as the Swiss chocolate.

We have now had five days in London where we have spent a lot of time eating salads, yoghurt and fruit while catching up with both friends and sleep.  We did however manage to fit in an Australian and New Zealand musical festival called Homelanz on Saturday where we spent the day relaxing on the grass listening to some tunes.  It was a lot of fun and we took the opportunity to devour some pizza shapes and gosh we didn’t realise how much we missed them until we ate the box in about 5 minutes flat!

I am now sitting on a couch in Sailsbury after having my first opportunity to cook a dinner myself, where we opted for steamed vegies and chicken, watching Croatia V Spain (with a bunch of high school Spanish exchange students so it’s a little crazy you can imagine) in the Euro cup.  Tomorrow we are getting back into the sightseeing and heading to Stonehenge for the day.  We have now been out of the country for over a month and reflecting on the things we have already seen and done is a little mind boggling, but after some much needed r&r we will be back on the road sampling some more of Europe’s cuisine, more than likely Spanish tapas, to tempt your tastebuds into coming over and visiting me xx

The only way to escape schnitzel is a trip to India!

After what can only be described as an epic night in Prague it was time to hit the road again and head to Germany.  I have been really looking forward to Berlin as I have studied a lot of German history in my schooling years.  It was a short drive from Prague to Berlin so we were able to break the drive up with a stop in Dresden.  We seem to have a knack for stumbling across events on this trip! This time there was a marathon of some kind on (as everything was in German, we couldn’t actually work out what the marathon was for!) so there were a lot of locals having a Sunday afternoon stroll with their families and supporting the runners.  We took the opportunity to sit down in the town square and have some lunch.  As Prague was leaving its imprint, it was time to try out a chicken burger with some chips.  It was served with three different condiments; mayonnaise, corn relish and tomato sauce. The burger itself had tomato, onion, lettuce and BBQ sauce, however I found it very odd that the onion was raw brown onion, not something you would normally be served in Australia.  It did however hit the spot and I was very happy with our lunch decision.

Back on the bus to Berlin we headed straight into a driving tour to see the sights.  Our first stop was the Berlin wall and it was breathtaking.  The artwork is amazing on the longest stretch of the original standing wall, the only section that has such artwork.  After a short trip around the city we headed back to the hostel to have an organised dinner.  We first started with soup which was a traditional potato and wurst (sausage) soup.  Similar to the consistency of potato and leek, the flavour was amazing however the sausage was awful! Imagine tiny little frankfurts cut up and added to your soup, then imagine the frankfurts being the worst you have eaten, hopefully you can understand why I only tasted one piece of wurst and then avoided the rest!  Time to move on to main and the look on my TopDeck trip leaders face was priceless when they served us another pork schnitzel.  I must admit the look on everyone’s face, mine included, basically said “really....another schnitzel!?” But being the hungry travellers we are that sure didn’t stop us from digging in.  This was probably the worst of the three schnitzels (or perhaps I am just sick of them!) as it was very rubbery and seemed rather heavy.  The salad was great but perhaps a little less dressing would have been better.  It was time now to try one of Germany’s famous dishes, apple strudel.  Apparently it is meant to be the best in the world, but you can imagine my confusion when it was served cold.  Perhaps not a great start to German cuisine, but I am putting it down to the fact that it was a hostel restaurant and there were three top deck groups to feed, meaning around 150 hungry people.

A night to catch up on emails was just what I needed to prepare for our walking tour in the morning.  Our guide took us on a Third Reich walking tour to see a large number of the historical sights around Berlin.  The tour was approximately 2 hours where we saw the Brandenburg gate, the Reichstag, the Holocaust Memorial (which is an amazing stone block memorial with 2711 different shaped and sized blocks representing unique individuals), Hitler’s Bunker, Tapographie of Terror, more of the Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie to name a few.  Our guide was very good and provided us with a lot of history around the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Berlin which I found very interesting.  We ended the tour at Checkpoint Charlie where we took the opportunity to have a snack.  It was time to try out some cheesecake as I am yet to try this in another country and it did not disappoint. 

I must also comment on how soccer or ‘football’ mad this country is.  All of my photos have some kind of scaffolding or speakers in the background as the set up for the Euro Cup was amazing.  The streets are all blocked off and large screens are placed in town squares and parks for the entire community to come down and watch the game together.  I would have loved to have been in the city when Germany played as I am sure the atmosphere is amazing, however they played the night before our arrival.

We spent the remainder of the morning and early afternoon going back to some of the major sights and had a packed lunch (ham and salad rolls) overlooking the Berlin Wall. We then headed back to the hostel for a well earned nap before heading to our themed ‘I love Berlin’ night.  Before we began the night, we needed to recharge our batteries with some more food!  With the risk of being served another pork schnitzel too high, we decided to leave Europe for an hour or two and head to India and wow this was sure the right decision.  The amount of food is always overwhelming but the flavours were amazing and possibly one of the best Indian restaurants I have been to.  I opted for chicken jalfrezi and it was delicious, the chicken was cooked to perfection and melted in your mouth and the spices were a well needed change. I have however never been served cauliflower in an Indian dish before and it was surprisingly nice.  We of course washed down all of this food with a few refreshing cocktails which was served with fresh fruit making it seem a little healthier.  All of this food as well as a cocktail cost us less than €15 each and I could probably rave about this meal for weeks but when I return to Germany I will need to try a few more traditional dishes including the famous currywurst, which is served all through the street at hot dog type stands, or some of the 4000 different types of breads that Germany is known for.

As our trip is drawing to a close we are now heading along the world famous autobahn where there is no speed limit, yet the traffic is at crawling pace, with our final destination of our TopDeck tour being Amsterdam, Netherlands.  Time to grab some shut eye x

The Flavour of Eastern Europe

So I seem to have fallen a little behind with my blogging over the past couple of days.  I have been a little sick and have therefore been utilising my bus time for sleeping instead of blog writing so I am going to try and catch up and bundle a bunch of Eastern Europe together as evidently its basically all the same food I have discovered!

Who would have thought that my dream would come true of vegies and nutrition! On arrival to Poland our first main meal that was served was pork schnitzel (yep another one) steamed potatoes and coleslaw.  I could have eaten a bucket of that coleslaw and potato as it was so refreshing to have something that was not deep fried, dripping with fat and may have had some nutritional value to it. Another early night to try and kick this cold I have got before heading off to discover Krakow, although we did not realise it was a public holiday in Poland (Corpus Christi, celebrating the tradition and belief in the body and blood of Jesus).  This meant that all of the shops and some museums, including the Schindler museum, were closed as well as what seemed like all day Mass in the town square and castle districts.  This limited what we were able to do and see in Krakow, but it was great to experience the culture and see firsthand how strong the catholic beliefs are in Poland.  We managed to walk around the Jewish quarter and see some amazing history before we needed to have a snack.  I decided to try a hot chocolate and chocolate cake for a little snack.  I was surprised to see that the cake was more like a slice and had an orange taste to it and the hot chocolate was almost undrinkable! The drink is basically pure chocolate and about half a cup of cream.  Apparently this is normal for hot chocolate in Europe, but wow, hello sugar headache. 

We then did a little more site seeing and checked out the castle district with the fire breathing dragon and had some lunch in the town square.  Time for another healthier option so I had salmon with potatoes and steamed vegies which was delicious.  While they were just boring vegies, there were amazing and complimented the salmon well.  It was a little dry, but the lemon gave it a nice freshness and was a delicious lunch. We then spent the afternoon at a salt mine which was something a bit different.  Very interesting to be approximately 400ft below the surface and see chapels, carvings and chandeliers made purely out of salt.  It looked similar to marble sculptures and would love to show you some photos but unfortunately we were unable to take pictures. We also arrived in Poland at the launch of Euro Cup 2012, a European soccer tournament and were lucky enough to stumble across the Netherlands team at the bus parking.  This has got everyone rather excited for the cup and have been watching matches ever since, the only decision we now have to make is who we are going to barrack for.

We had a sombre start to our next day with a visit to the Auschwitz and Burkenau concentration camps.  Having studied this all thorough high school I was very interested in this and words cannot describe the atmosphere that these places still have today.  While the tours are very confronting, I am so pleased that we did this on the tour and certainly brings new appreciations to the world that we live in today.  After a 3 hour tour we were back on the road on our way to Prague.  Once again arriving late at night we went straight to dinner at the hostel before we even unloaded our luggage off the bus.  For entree we had some potato pancakes with tomato sauce and mayonnaise dressing. They were a little rubbery but not too bad and reminded me of a slightly worse version of my Grandma’s mock fish!  For mains we then had a traditional Czech meal with lots of meats to choose from including sausage, pork and chicken with some cooked potatoes and capsicum.  Chicken was a very welcome change to the pork overload I have been having but most of the meat was very salty.  A little disappointed that my salad and vegie stint at Poland was already over, but time to fit in some more soccer watching and watch the home country Czhec v Russia at a local pub where the sunset on the walk was amazing before hitting the hay for a walking tour of the city in the morning.

Prague is a beautiful city and I took the opportunity to relax a little as the pace of the last few days was starting to take its toll.  Relaxing also meant that my food tasting of the local cuisine was out the window and not only did I eat nothing traditional, I also failed to take any pictures of the pasta and pizza that I ate today!  I did manage to check out a few of the sites, including changing of the guards at the castle (which was more exciting than Buckingham palace as I could actually see it this time!) before a small spot of shopping and heading back to the hostel to have a relaxing afternoon as we had quite a night planned where we ended up at a five story night club for some Prague style partying.

Another bus day and we are now in Berlin with a stop at Dresden for a couple of hours.  Very excited to be spending some time in Germany and look forward to updating you on the adventures as our journey is drawing to a close (only 4 more nights with the top deck crew!)

Keep holding your breath people as I will give you a little insight as to what to expect from our first nights dinner...yep you guessed it...SCHNITZEL! xx

Man Vs Food Budapest Style

It was time to tackle the boarders of Europe and drive through three countries in one day.  Another early morning as we bid farewell to Austria with our first stop Bratislava, Slovakia for a lunch stop over and our final destination Budapest, Hungry.  We arrived late in the afternoon and started our visit with a driving tour of the city.  It unfortunately started raining just as we entered the city, so we spent little time out of the bus but ducked out to check out some amazing views overlooking the Danube River.  We also visited an amazing castle and would have loved to have had the chance to look around inside.

After a driving tour of the city, hungry was the word on everyone’s lips.  We were warned that we should not snack through the afternoon, but little did I know we would be walking into what should be a Man Vs Food challenge.  For those of you that have not had the pleasure of watching this amazingly disgusting American TV show, the idea of the show is to take on some kind of food challenge (such as large quantities of food or seriously spicy dishes) around America to see if Man or Food will win.

Before arriving to the restaurant I did a little research (aka I asked my Hungarian tour guide) on some traditional Hungarian cuisine as I again had no idea what type of food to expect.  It turns out that Hungry is the home of many cuisines including Paprika, a spice used in many dishes, stuffed cabbage with ground pork, beef goulash and a deep fried bread called Langos just to name a few.  Arriving to the restaurant we began to read the menu that explains the meals are as big as a plate, this little warning did not do the size justice.  Weiner schnitzels are apparently one of their most common challenges so a large number of people ordered these.  The schnitzels were served on a round chopping board and were literally the shape and size of a large pizza.  Amazingly six (three of which were girls) of the crew managed to finish the whole thing.  I however opted for a traditional dish, stuffed cabbage topped with Hungarian paprika sausage, bacon & sour cream.  I had no clue what to expect and was served a saucepan sized pot that looked to contain a lot of shredded cabbage.  After some digging around, I found two ground pork stuffed cabbage rolls similar to a sausage roll, but the outside is cabbage leaves.  The paprika sausage was delicious, but the scary looking bacon was not at all tasty and not what I would call bacon.  The sour cream really made the dish easier to eat but it was definitely cabbage and paprika overload. It was surprisingly nice for a while but then became too much of the same and I therefore failed the Man Vs Food challenge (as you can see below in the before and after shots!)

It was time to try and digest this mass food overload so we headed to a bar for a few ciders.  The bars are very quirky and have many rooms, nooks and crannies as well as a very relaxed atmosphere.  We were all a little jealous of one group of people playing cards as they sipped on their beverages, an idea we wish we had come up with ourselves and was more acceptable at bars at home.  It was time to head home to get a good night sleep as we were all very excited to get our one and only sleep in for the entire tour.

Budapest is well known for its hot baths and this was our main destination for a relaxing day.  After our sleep in, we walked into the city centre to get ourselves some lunch from the food market before heading off for a long soak and massage.  The markets were two levels with the bottom level mainly comprising of meat markets, paprika stores and fruit and vegie stands.  The meats were amazing to see with paprika sausages and salami hanging everywhere but my main aim for the market was to try out the traditional Langos bread.  The bread is a pizza like base however it is deep fried, making it more like a doughnut consistency.  The bread is traditionally served with sour cream and cheese on the base topped with paprika sausage (yes this stuff is everywhere), spanish onion, capsicum, tomato, cucumber, jalapenos and feta cheese.  The flavour was amazing but this was possibly the hardest thing I have ever eaten as the sour cream makes the middle soggy and it falls apart everywhere.  It was worth the 2200 Hungarian Forint that it cost me (Hungry has a crazy currency!) but I don’t think I will be eating it again unless I am allowed a plate, knife and fork!

Time to head off to the hot baths which was certainly an experience.  There was minimal English speaking people working at the baths and it took us about half an hour to try and hire a towel.  In the end we accepted a free sheet to use as a towel as we were sent from one desk to the next and back again.  A very funny and overwhelming experience but my advice to you is to take your own towel!!  After finally getting into the baths, we rested in the 36®C water for a couple of hours.  I then headed for a 20 minute massage to finish off the visit.  It was wonderfully relaxing and even with our interesting start it was well worth the visit.

We are now on our way out of Hungry to Krakow, Poland where I am hoping, yet not holding my breath, that their traditional cuisine is salad and vegetables as I am in desperate need of some healthy greens! xx

Schnitzel Time

For all of you fact lovers here is a little one I learnt, wiener schnitzel derives from the word Wien, the German meaning (which is the native language of Austria) for Vienna.  So on first arrival at Vienna, we had to try the traditional pork wiener schnitzel.  First of all we had a little salad in a bowl as entree, followed by some noodle soup, then for the big schnitzel!  It was a little bland as it’s just a hunk of schnitzel and some chips, totally could have gone with some gravy! They did at least have some tomato sauce and my goodness it was the biggest bottle of tomato sauce I have ever seen.  My Dad would have been in his element with this bottle even though the photo below does not do its size justice!

After sleeping off the huge chunk of meat we were again up early to do some sightseeing.  We were in Vienna on a Sunday which is a day of rest in Austria.  No shops were open and the locals were all off to church except for a small market running outside the churches.  We decided to try and get some rest and head to a park to eat our packed lunch that we may have packed from breakfast at the hostel to save ourselves a few pennys.  We did however stop at the market on the way to get a taste of some pastries cooked right in front of us on the street.  We purchased a cheese filled croissant type pastry and it was delicious.  The melted cheese was amazing and well worth the €2.  I must also comment on the size of pretzels in this country! I have never seen a pretzel so big and done in so many different ways with some examples being cheese and ham in the middle.

After eating our lunch in the park, we decided to blend in with the locals and have a bit of a snooze on the grass.  It is obvious that there are no beaches nearby as people are just sunbaking in their bikinis in the middle of the park. After a couple of hours of napping, we then headed off to a family run schnaps factory to get a bit of an insight as to how the famous schnaps are made.  We also had a couple of taste testing shots, one being a red rocket (a chilli schnaps which burns the whole way down your stomach) a lovely way to finish off the afternoon before gearing up for the fun park at night.  Before heading off to what was basically a version of Luna Park, there was time to fit in one more traditional dish, sacher torte. The torte is a type of chocolate cake, kind of like a sponge, with an apricot jam filling in the middle.   It was nice, but I was expecting it to be more like a mudcake but something I had to try. It was fun park time and after the amount of food that I had eaten I decided to only go on a couple of rides, one being  similar to a superman style ride where you lay on your stomach and get turned and twisted around.  It was fun, but I admittedly had my eyes shut most of the ride!  I am glad this was the most adventurous that I choose as there were a few people that were not so well after a couple of the rides if you get my drift! One more thing I must comment on was the merry-go-round.  Never before have I seen real horses as the merry-go-round!

Well I am in Budapest now and time for me to go check out the baths and perhaps get a massage.  Will fill you in soon on the shenanigans of Hungry and the GIGANTIC meals we have already eaten here in the 12hrs since we arrived xx

The land of pizza, pasta, gelato... otherwise known as the land of carbs!

Where to start with Italy....This is the longest we have spent in one country and probably one of the most famous types of cuisines that is mimicked all over the world.  I therefore have so much to write about over the last 5 days that I apologise in advance for the length of this blog and the amount of attractions I am squeezing in between the food!

Our Italian journey began with a quick stop at Pisa on the way to Florence.  We did the normal tourist thing and took a few funny photos, or at least we thought so, of the leaning tower before jumping back on the bus to continue our drive.   Arriving again late at night we had an organised dinner by the backpackers staff.   There were 2 other groups staying at the hostel, so with approximately 150 hungry stomachs to feed we had a delicious antipasto platter followed by salad and a few different grilled meats, the most amazing being a sausage.  The only downside of writing about these types of dinners is that you have no idea what you have actually eaten, so we made it into a bit of a guessing game to try and figure out what we are eating.  We went with pork for the sausages and they were a massive hit with everyone.

After a little sleep, we woke up bright and early to have a guided walking tour around Florence.  I almost instantly fell in love with the culture in Italy after seeing cute little old ladies in their best skirts riding around the streets on an old school push bike with bells and baskets attached, not to mention the beauty of the streets where many of the houses are bright and colourful lined with flowers on their window sills.  For our short time in Florence we saw a lot of the sights including the Statue of David and Ponte Vecchio, which is a cute little bridge known for the shops built alongside it.   After a lot of sightseeing we were super hungry and had sat down for some lunch overlooking the beautiful Piazza della Signoria the main square in the city.  I was in desperate need for some healthy food so I opted for a salmon bruschetta with some cherry tomatoes.  It was delicious smoked salmon on crisp bread and was a great start to Italian food.

Continuing our walking tour theme, we jumped back on the bus for about 3 hours and headed to Rome.  We then walked the streets to see the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain (which we threw the traditional three coins into the fountain in the hope of luck, love & that I will return to Rome in the next year) & Pantheon which is where Rapheal’s tomb lies, before stopping for a dinner break.  It was time for another salad as I knew what the next few days would bring.  We continued our walk to the Colosseum where we stopped and saw some of the ruins from ancient Rome.  It is amazing to see that a city has been built on top of another city and the only ancient buildings left standing are those that were built on hills at the time.  The buildings themselves are astonishing made out of marble and the majority are covered with mosaic artwork .  As the sun set over the Colosseum we headed back to the camping site to get some rest before dominating the streets of Rome.

First stop was the Vatican where we did a short tour including the Sistine Chapel.  The famous roof painted by Michelangelo was amazing but the chapel itself is much smaller than I imagined.  We were lucky enough to be in Rome on a Wednesday so we headed to St Peters Square to watch the Pope’s address of the public.  We were very lucky to be with a tour guide as she took as to one of the best spots in the square to get a glimpse of the Pope as he drove through the crowds.  It was a surreal feeling to be standing in a jam packed square watching the Pope drive by giving us a wave, I am sure he looked directly at me! Time for another food break so we headed back towards Trevi Fountain to sit in a little street and enjoy some more Italian food while watching the world go by.    Today I was keen to try enjoy some carbs, so I opted for Italian sausage pizza.  One of the main differences I have noticed is that all the pizzas are flatbread bases, similar to a pita bread, and have minimal toppings.  Amazing to think that this is the traditional type of pizza yet not at all what we are used to where we stack as much on top of a pizza as we can!  It was time to move on to dessert.  We had heard about a gelato shop, Della Palma, which has over 150 flavours so we went hunting and wallah we discovered some gelato heaven.  I opted for choc strawberry, mint and mango flavours and enjoyed every single mouthful of the amazing flavours. 

We then headed to check out the inside of the Colosseum and took a guided voice tour to learn a little of the history of the types of entertainment that took place.  The rubble of the building made it hard to imagine what it was like when it was functional, but the building itself was still amazing and I would recommend as a must see to anyone going to Rome.  Back to the camp site for some more delicious food by the Top Deck chefs.  More antipasto platters with cheeses, meats, salads, sundried tomatoes, breads and marinated tomatoes with fresh basil was probably enough for a main, but it was just the beginning.  Mains were traditional chilli penne pasta and mushroom sauce gnocchi.  The gnocchi was amazing and I am disappointed to say that I forgot to take my camera with me to dinner this night!

Back to the bus we go to head to Venice where we again had a stop midway through the journey. This time we stopped at Verona to see the mystical land of the love struck Romeo and Juliet.  We visited Juliet’s balcony which evidently has been built onto the original building for tourist purposes.

 We finally arrived at our final stop in Italy, the city surrounded by water, but had an early night before gearing ourselves up for getting lost the next day! We caught a water bus into the city where we first walked around and checked out some sites including a lace and glass factory.  Both were very fascinating as the amount of time and effort put into making any lace or glass products is incredible. As I am sure many of you know Venice is famous for its gondola rides, so being the tourists that we are, we jumped at the opportunity to take a ride through the canals.  It is so easy to see why this city is known for its maze like streets as the tiny little streets all look the same with over 400 little bridges that stretch across the canals.  We made our way to the rialto bridge after a quick bite of lunch.  Today I needed some more salad and tried an octopus salad with celery and a lemon dressing, nothing at all like the octopus salads I am used to, but it was very refreshing.  We ended the day by wandering through the markets for my first real taste of shopping.  The shops were amazing and I could definitely spend an entire day hunting down some more bargains, but it was back to the campsite for our final Top Deck chef dinner as there are no other camping sites along the way.  Our final meal was lemon chicken with roasted potatoes followed by Sunday ice creams and yes, mine was covered with chocolate sauce, m&ms and sprinkles!

We are now on our way to Vienna, Austria where the views are already picturesque and the country side is lush and green but sadly heading away from the warmer weather that we have been loving so far!