That's right - the last 6 months have seen a significant change, in that we left our lives in Berlin at the end of March and officially became unemployed and homeless. Since then its been a constant series of travels - 2 weeks in Turkey, a few days in Albania, 2 weeks in Greece, a few days in Macedonia, a few days in Serbia, 5 days in Bosnia, a few days in Croatia and currently we're in Slovenia. There's more to come for these "End-Of" travels - Italy, France, Monaco, UK, USA and Canada are on the cards before we land in NZ and try and sort out moving to Adelaide, Australia.
Leaving Germany was both equal measure the right time to go but also hard to do. As much as I like to speculate what more we would have done, or seen had we stayed 1 more year in Berlin - I think Israel, Jordan and Egypt would have been definitely visited in the next year had we stayed, maybe even finally Russia and Finland - it was definitely time to go. I do think though we have done rather well with what we have seen, and what we will see before it is over - perhaps not as much as some in the same amount of time we've had, and there are definitely people we know who saw more in a shorter time than us. But I like what we did, why we did it and when we did it. So its about now that I go through and sum all that up! Which brings us to the travel summary part - like I did for the first 6 months (see here), for months 7-12 (see here), for months 13-18 (see here), for months 19-24 (see here), for months 25-30 (see here) and for 30-36 months see here.
Visited Countries
- Albania (Tirana)
- Australia (Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Adelaide, Victor Harbour, Goolwa, Gumeracha)
- Austria (Vienna x2, Salzburg)
- Belgium (Brussels x2, Louvain-a-Neuvre, Leuven, Brugge, Roeselare, Zonnebeke, Passchendaele)
- Bosnia (Sarajevo x2, Mostar x2, Neum)
- Bulgaria (Sofia)
- Croatia (Zagreb, x2, Dubrovnik x2, Podgora, Split x3, Plitvice Lakes, Stari Grad, Hvar, Krka)
- Czech Republic (Decin, Prague, Kutna Hora)
- Denmark (Vaduz, Billund, Copenhagen)
- France (Mulhouse, Strasboug, Saint Louis, Paris, Versailles)
- Gibraltar (Gibraltar)
- Greece (Athens, Olympia, Santorini, Paros, Meteora/Kalampaka, Thessaloniki)
- Hungary (Budapest)
- Ireland (Dublin, Cork, Cobh, Blarney)
- Italy (Ancona, Milan x2, Tirano, Bergamo, Lecco, Bellagio, Lenno)
- Latvia (Riga, Jurmala)
- Liechtenstein (Vaduz)
- Lithuania (Vilnius)
- Luxembourg (Leudelange, Luxembourg City)
- Macedonia (Skopje)
- Malta (Valetta, Sliema, Marsaxlokk, St Peters Pool, Tarxien, Mdina, Blue Lagoon/Comino)
- Montenegro (Budvar, Kotor)
- Norway (Narvik, Tromso, Stokmarknes, Svolvaer, Bronnoysund, Trondheim, Oslo, Flam, Bergen)
- Poland (Szczecin, Wroclaw, Warsaw, Wolsztyn, Swinousjcie, Zgorzelec, Krakow, Auschwitz, Wieliczka)
- Portugal (Porto, Douro Valley, Lisbon, Sintra)
- Romania (Bucharest, Brasov)
- Serbia (Belgrade)
- Slovakia (Bratisava)
- Slovenia (Ljubliana, Lake Bled)
- Spain (Islands of Corralejo and Lanzarote, Canary Islands, La Linea de la Concepcion, Algeciras, Ibiza, Seville x2, Madrid, Barcelona)
- Sweden (Stockholm x2, Gavle, Uppsala, Kiruna, Malmo)
- Switzerland (Zurich x5, Romanshorn, Basel x2, Jungfraujoch, Lauterbrunnen, Brig, Chur)
- The Netherlands (Amsterdam, Utrecht, Gouda)
- Turkey (Istanbul, Goreme, Pamukkale, Selcuk/Ephesus, Canakkale, Troy, Gallipoli)
- Ukraine (Kyiv, Chornobyl, Pripyat)
- United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi, Dubai)
6 mew countries in the last 6 months, which is not the most I've ever done in such a period - its not a new record. To add to that though is 5 countries which have been revisited in that same time period, which when added up does make for a new record - and so it should, for the last 1.5 months we've been solidly travelling and for the other 4.5 months we were still travelling when we weren't working.
So finally Greece and Turkey have been ticked off - Rome is still absent, but in the next fortnight it will be visited. There's more to come - however the rest of our travel period will not be 6 months long, so by November our travels will be over and I would hope, we are settled and have jobs. There will be one more of these posts when our travels end in August sometime - as a sort of ultimate summary of travels.
VISITED PLACES IN THE UK
- England (London xM, Brighton, Bletchley, Folkestone, Hythe, Dungeness, Birmingham x3, Kidderminster x2, Bridgnorth x2, New Arlesford, Alton, East Grinstead, Sheffield Park, Lincoln, Carlisle, York, Bath, Windsor, Salisbury, Luton xM, Gatwick xM, Stanstead xM, Liverpool x3, Ryde, Shanklin, Ventnor, Newport, Portsmouth, Loughborough, Ascot, Didcot, Oxford, Weston-Super-Mare, Dover, Southend, Brooklands, St Austell, Penzance, Lands End, St Ives, York, Scarborough, Pickering, Grosmont, Whitby, Cambridge, Henley-on-Thames, Southampton, Nottingham, Newark, Newcastle)
- Northern Ireland (Belfast x2, Bushmills, Giant's Causeway)
- Scotland (Inverness x2, Drumnadrochit, Fort William, Mallaig, Edinburgh x4, Aviemore, Aberdeen, Glasgow)
- Wales (Swansea, Porthmadog, Portmeirion, Caernarfon, Blaenau Ffestiniog, Cardiff, Merthyr Tydfil, Pant, Torpantau)
VISITED PLACES IN GERMANY
- Germany (Dortmund, Hanover x2, Wernigerode x4, Friedrichshafen, Stuttgart, Speyer, Sinsheim, Nuremberg x2, Dresden x3, Freiburg im Bresigau, Cologne x2, Koblenz x2, Brohl, Linz am Rhein, Nordhausen, Munich x5, Berlin xM, Potsdam xM, Meiningen, Hamburg, Hohenschwangau/Neuschwanstein, Füssen, Bremen, Frankfurt (Oder), Heringsdorf, Zinnowitz, Peenemünde, Weisswasser/Rakotzbücke, Gorlitz, Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Quedlinberg, Wuppertal, Trier, Frankfurt)
THE RAILWAY STUFF
Excursions - 60009 London-Lincoln-London, UK - 46233 London-Carlisle-London (diesel hauled out of London and via Settle-Carlisle), UK - 35 1097 Dresden-Nossen-Dresden, Germany - Ra 846 Gavle-Uppsala, Sweden - 45407 Fort William-Mallaig-Fort William (Jacobite), UK - No.1 and L150 on London Underground, UK - 76079 Grosmont-Whitby, UK - 03 2155 Berlin-Wosztyn-Berlin, Germany - 0186 Regua-Tua-Regua (Douro Valley), Portugal | Railways - Bluebell Railway, UK - Mid-Hants Railway, UK - Severn Valley Railway, UK x2 - Romney Hythe & Dymchurch Railway, UK - Harz Mountain Railways, Germany x4 - Weisseritztalbahn, Germany - Great Central Railway, UK - Didcot Railway Centre, UK - Kasbachtalbahn, Germany - Tyseley Locomotive Works, UK - Ffestiniog Railway, UK - Welsh Highland Railway, UK - Brecon Mountain Railway, UK - North Yorkshire Moors Railway, UK - SteamRanger Railway, Australia - Wolsztyn Steam Parade, Poland - Strathspey Railway, UK | Other trains of note that I have ridden - ICE High Speed Train, Germany xM - Eurostar x3, UK/France/Belgium - HST/IC125 xM, UK - IC225/Class 91, UK - Virgin Pendolino tilting train, UK xM - Javelin High Speed Train, UK - London Underground xM - Docklands Light Railway xM - Swedish X2000 HST - AVE High Speed Train, Spain - Glacier Express, Switzerland - Bernina Express, Switzerland - Jungfrau Mountain Railway, Switzerland - Berlin U-Bahn Cabrio - Paris Metro, France - Flam Railway, Norway - Wuppertal Suspension Railway, Germany - Cross Country Voyager train, UK | Railway-related Museums Visited: - National Railway Museum, York, UK x2 - DB Museum, Nuremberg, Germany - Cite du Train, Mulhouse, France - London Transport Museum, UK (and their Acton depot) - Science Museum, London xM - Thinktank Birmingham, UK - DB Museum Koblenz, Germany - Swedish Railway Museum, Gavle - Trainworld, Belgium - Deutches Technik Museum, Berlin x2 -Meiningen Railway Workshops, Germany - National Railway Museum, Adelaide, Australia - Dutch Railway Museum, Utrecht, The Netherlands - Science & Technology Museum, Milan, Italy - Deutches Museum Verkehrszentrum, Germany - Slovenian Railway Museum, Ljubljana |
Summing Up
I won't say much more this time - partly because I'm hogging Sasha's laptop in order to do this post, as my Laptop has had a serious failure and I'm trying to fix it but am not sure I can. This is mainly why the blog has seen no updates for a while and if the laptop cannot be fixed, it might well be the blog has to go on pause until the end of our travels. Wait and see on that one!