Helsinki: When do the sea wobbles stop?

For once we didn't have to be up at the crack of dawn to catch our transport, instead we had the temptation of the free breakfast that was offered to everyone, which was definitely worth crawling out of bed for! After stuffing down more than we could manage we had the long walk, carrying 2 backpacks each, 50 minutes across Stockholm to the Viking Line terminal to catch our ferry to Helsinki. After a 2 hour wait to board we got to exploring the ship, which was rather large and had a cafe, nightclub, music bar, casino and video games room, which Charlotte informed me I was too old to enter. Fortunately, due to some forward thinking when we booked the ferry, we'd made a reservation at the Viking Buffet, which was a a smorgasbord (nice Swedish word there) of local and international foods. Well, if we thought we were full from breakfast, we were pretty much overflowing from dinner and the unlimited beer and soft drinks on tap didn't help! Afterwards we waddles to our piccolo (small) but cosy room. We had to forget about sleeping though, the weather had closed in and we were hurtling straight though a rain storm, which made for a very bumpy and wobbly ride. We found it impossible to relax, so got up and headed back out for another couple of circuits of the ship, eventually going back to the room and forcing ourselves to sleep about 2 in the morning. How we kept our dinners down is unknown to me but somehow we made it with full bellies and very wobbly legs.

The hostel we had chosen was only a 2 minute walk from the ferry terminal, so it was nice to stumble off and into some comfort. Unlike most hostels we've been in so far, we've had to wait for check-in but despite only being half past 9 in the morning, we got our room straight away and headed straight up for a much needed lie down on dry land. Not for too long though, as we were keen to get out and explore the city.

We headed through the bustling Market Square, which has a daily market selling food, jewellery and souvenirs. And located right on the seafront. After, scouring the shopping streets and close by sights, followed by a chance meeting with THOSE Spaniards from our room in Stockholm, we headed back to our room for a much needed afternoon nap, which then turned into a full blown sleep. 5 hours later, we woke in the early evening, so just had time to head to a supermarket and pick up dinner, chilli and rice but nowhere near as nice as our mums make. After a quick evening stroll and some hankering for a sweet treat we picked up 3 Mars bars, which we hastily ate when we got back in. With Independance Day on the TV we had a quiet evening in.

Having lost most of the day the day before, we wanted to be out early but couldn't resist the lie-in and the peace and quiet that our private room gave us. Eventually, we got out on the streets of sunny Helsinki, still with our sea legs, at 11 o'clock and headed to the furthest attraction, which was the Olympic Stadium used for the Olympic Games in 1952. It probably wasn't worth the walk, as there wasn't much to see in the area and the stadium was quite old fashioned and closed up. So we headed through the Central Park and past a lake where the locals were out Paddle Boarding. We stopped off in the main centre to pick up some lunch, an apple, a mandarin each and a large bar of Finnish made Milk Chocolate to share. After lunch, we walked up to the very impressive Rock Church, which is pretty much just made from rocks and glass. We went in and listened to a man playing piano. When he finished a piece I thought I only whispered "should we applaud?" to Charlotte but the lady infront seemed to find it quite funny and said "you can but your not supposed to". As the evening approached we headed to Kaivopuisto, which is a park located in the city, with a sea wall to walk along. Here we watched as people took part in Bungee Jumping and took photos of the Helsinki skyline across the water. All that was left was to head home and cook up our Chicken Curry for dinner and get a good nights sleep after a very busy day.

With not a huge amount to see in Helsinki, we had almost done it all so somehow we ended up with what was pretty much a free day. Still, not wanting to waste it as it was our last, we got up, had the biggest bowl of cornflakes ever and headed out. After a thorough browse through the market where nothing really took our fancy, we meandered through the streets in the blazing heat. With not much else to do we headed back to the hostel, caught up on our huge pile of washing and had a local Finnish beer in the hostel restaurant. To keep the day simple, we had our most basic dinner yet, noodles with a rather expensive French stick and garlic butter.

Although Helsinki doesn't have a huge amount to offer, I know Finland does as a whole and we both can't wait to come back and enjoy the Arctic winter.

We now head out of beautiful Scandinavia and into the Baltic States. Tallinn is first up.

James and Charlotte

Stockholm: If it's not the Germans, it's the Spanish

Another early start beckoned for our 5 hour train ride North to Stockholm. Why we got to Copenhagen Central Station so early is beyond me as we spent half an hour dodging pickpockets and an hour sat on the platform getting rather chilly. Eventually the train pulled in and we settled down for the ride in much better comfort than a Eurolines coach. It was a rather uneventful journey apart from the impressive Oresund Bridge that passes between Denmark and Sweden and the 2 young girls next to us throwing up half the time but the time soon passed. We arrived in a rather grey looking Stockholm and had our first directions related issue, fortunately Charlottes's trusty compass came to the rescue.

The supermarket was the first port of call as ever and if we thought Denmark was expensive, Sweden was even worse. After 45 minutes trying to come up with different dinner ideas then shunning them for their expense, we eventually plumped for beef burgers, pasta and a funny, round sweet bread thingy. The pouring rain kept us in for the rest of the evening.

We spent our first morning catching up on washing and writing up the Copenhagen blog. Eventually emerging into daylight around 1 o'clock. We headed to the tight and touristy streets of Gamla Stan, which is the old town of Stockholm and spent a good few hours in and out of souvenir shops to find a suitable pin badge to add to our ever growing collection. We lunched by the quayside on a ready made panini and a massive bag of crisps which definitely filled a hole. We trawled along the waters edge for a few miles looking for a place to grab a beer but everywhere seemed far too upmarket for us commoners. Fortunately we stumbled across a suitable watering hole, had unfortunately, a non-Swedish beer and speculated who the man on the big fat boat infront of us may be. We carried on along and took a huge diversion through affluent suburbs of Stockholm. By the time we got back to the hostel it had turned into a beautiful evening, we cooked up our pasta and baked beans and prepared our cheese sandwiches for the next 2 days under the watchful eyes of a horde of Germans playing cards. An evening stroll was on the cards for us, so we wandered down to the waterside and watched the sunset. During the day, our room had had 5 new arrivals, in the form of a group of Spaniards, who decided to get in at an ungodly hour and wake the room up.

After being surprised to see the Spaniards up so early, we crawled out of bed and out into the morning rain. Not letting this dampen our spirits we headed down to the harbour where we caught a ferry to the island of Vaxholm. With the ferry costing 75kr (£5) per person one way, we were happy to risk the trip even though we weren't sure what there was to do on the island. 70 minutes later and after a smooth ride, we arrived in Vaxholm. Still raining. We weren't sure where we were going, so as we do best, we just picked a road and headed down it. We picked a placed by the sea to eat our sandwiches and biscuits, which was nice in the sun, to see all the small boats coming and going from the tiny, floating station. We saw one young girl get off and meet up with a boy but not until her parents, who had dropped her off in the boat had moved well out sight. It was quite amusing later, on our walk around town to see the young girl being introduced to the parents. We moved on and followed the waterside looking for the tourist information but got distracted by a sign for mini golf but we were put off by the lack of adults playing when we arrived. Just past the mini golf was a park, which had a roundabout powered by pedals, this we couldn't resist despite the fact that this was obviously for kids and both jumped on to have a go. With the small town covered we headed back to the harbour to catch our ferry home, just hopping on the next ferry we thought would be the same as the one we arrived on. How wrong we were, for some unknown reason the fare had increased to 110 kr!! We decided to head back to the hostel for the early evening to try and beat the huge gang of Germans to the kitchen, however when we got back, the kitchen was empty but we stupidly didn't use this to our advantage. Instead, putting the photos up on our previous blog. We then battled through the waves to try and cook our beans and noodles, which we eventually did despite the mess the kitchen had been left in. Another broken sleep ensued, due to the Spaniards fancying another late night.

We headed out the next morning to Djurgarden which is a huge island, covered pretty much entirely by a park. We headed through the rather disappointing beginning which houses a large theme park and the ABBA museum and into the peace and tranquility of the countryside in the centre of the city. After eating the remainder of our cheese sandwiches sat on a log in the scorching sun, we circumnavigated the sea wall which took us a good few hours. After a long day in the heat, we picked up a couple of pizzas for dinner and went for our now regular evening walk to see the sunset again.

Our final day was a cold and wet one. We walked to the Viking Line ferry terminal to get our route for the following day and then headed back in a big circle over a rather large bridge, which wasn't Charlotte's favourite thing we've done so far! We had a cozy evening in reading our books while the rain lashed down outside

We had been hoping that the Spaniards would leave before us but they checked out the same morning, the only consolation we took, was that we would never have to see them again...

We were really excited to catch the ferry to our next stop, Helsinki.

James and Charlotte

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Copenhagen: 2 'greats fires' are better than 1

Well surprise, surprise, another early start, for another bumpy coach at another bus station. Somehow we were first on in the stampede, having been the only 2 to bother checking in first. There was me thinking the Germans were efficient.

After what was a much better ride than the previous debacle, we arrived in a scorching Copenhagen eager to explore. We stumbled into our tiny 4 bed dorm to be greeted by what was pretty much a shelf hooked on to the wall, with no safety barrier and a noticeable slant in it from all the porkers who have slept in it over the years. Charlotte called bottom bunk! As ever, our first port of call was to hunt down a supermarket. Having been to Norway before and knowing the reputation of Scandinavian countries for being ridiculously expensive, this wasn't really something we were looking forward to. we were pleasantly surprised, with the Pound being worth 10 Danish Krone, it was pretty simple to work out how much we were spending. we splashed out on some fresh chicken and cooked up a curry at our hostel. That evening, we strolled out around town to get our bearings and check out the picturesque and bustling Nyhavn. This restaurant lined canal is home to some of the oldest buildings in Copenhagen, with number 9 dating from 1681. To keep with tradition, an early night was on the cards.

Rudely awaken by our strange, departing roommates at 3:30, we managed to have a nice peaceful lie in. After a quick diversion to the tourist information centre to pick up the mandatory city map, we headed in the direction of the statue of the little mermaid. there were a few fountains and statues to see along the way, as well as the very impressive Amalienborg Palace, which is home to Queen Margrethe II of Denmark and the Crown Prince and his wife. We arrived just in time for the changing of the guard but with huge crowds we decided to move on. Eventually, we made it to the statue. Its impressive how such a small statue of a fictional character can be such a huge draw in a City with as much to offer as Copenhagen. We were greeted by more swathes of tourists eager to see what has become a symbol of the city. It is a nice statue but what is a disappointment is the industrial scenery behind it, which makes it quite difficult to obtain a good photo. By this time, we were hungry but with eating out a costly pastime we tried to hunt down our supermarket from the previous evening. Impossible!!! We went in circles for ages but just couldn't find it anywhere. Eventually, Charlotte plucked up the courage to ask a traffic warden where we could fine one, right on the main square of the city! We lunched on bread rolls, salami, a massive packet of crisps and a banana in the homeless ridden Town Hall Square. We then rolled back to the hostel to browse the map and decide on our next activity, it was definitely Beer time. We just had to decide where to have it, Nyhavn seemed like the logical place. At least until we sat down and saw the prices. It was still a lovely place to sit and enjoy a beer and watch the world go by, while it poured with rain. Clearly it's not just England that has indecisive weather! We managed to get some much needed fresh veg for dinner for the first time on our trip. After what was a very busy and filling day, our beds were calling.

As much as we like the big cities, we do enjoy getting out and seeing the quieter, more relaxing areas of the countries we visit. Today we headed to Roskilde, which was the ancient capital of Denmark during Viking times. It's huge twin spired Catherdral is where many of the ancient kings are buried. After a quick stroll through the town, we headed to Roskilde Fjord where the Viking Ship Museum is situated. they excavated 9 Viking ships in the area and rebuilt them in the very interesting and informative museum. Some had been built as far away as Dublin. Highlight of the day though was heading out on to the fjord in a Viking boat that had been built on site by hand. The first part we rowed, which was a nice experience, apart from the lady behind me who was absolutely useless and the Americans who took control. After a short while, we hauled up the sails and cruised back into port. while we really enjoyed this experience, we would have preferred rowing the entire way but some people just can't hack that! We lunched the same as the day before in the deserted shopping street of Roskilde, seeing as everything but the supermarkets were closed by 3pm we headed home.

Sunday so far has been our relaxing day, so we used this miserable day to our advantage by finishing off the Hamburg blog and Skyping our parents, which put a spring in our steps. We also sorted out some travel bits, like booking a flight from Perth to Adelaide, it seems so far off! Spanish Chicken for dinner followed by a late evening stroll down the canals, typical that we got caught in an unforecasted shower.

Our final day, we headed for the free walking tour, which is a great way to see a place when you are on such a tight budget as we are. Despite having been in Copenhagen for 4 days the tour took us to a couple of places that we hadn't yet stumbled across, such as Christiansborg Palace, which was the original home to the royal family but now houses the parliament and the Prime Ministers office. We stopped for a break at a cafe and plumped for a Hot Chocolate each as we'd got quite chilly on the tour. Best decision ever! The idea of sticking real chocolate on sticks and melting it in hot milk was genius, just delicious! As always, we were hungry and were struggling for ideas of what to scoff, so we googled 'Danish Food' and were given the answer of Smørrebrød, which is an open faced sandwich, with all sports balanced on top. We found a placed that specialised in them and ordered a one with Roast Beef, gherkins, onion and what seemed like piccalilli with giant bits of cauliflower in it (believe it or not mum, I ate all of it) and a Chicken Salad one with bacon, mayo and greenery. Mine was certainly a little experimental than Charlotte's but we both thoroughly enjoyed them. It was nice to finish off with something so traditional to Denmark (we'll just ignore the fact that we had beans on toast for dinner).

Probably our favourite place so far, so much to see and do in an easily accessible city.

Next up, we head further north, to Stockholm.

James and Charlotte

Hamburg: Just don't insult the swans!

After another painfully early start (I thought we'd got away from them after finishing work) we had a nail biting journey on the metro out to the edge of Amsterdam to catch our coach to Hamburg. Having made it by what we thought was the skin of our teeth we proceeded to sit idle in the coach for 50 minutes, needless to say we weren't impressed! From the outside it looked promising, it said it was "business class" and also provided free water, free wifi, toilet facilities, free newspaper and a plug socket. Actually it had none of these and the hapless drivers, of which there were 3 for a 7 hour journey seemed absolutely clueless about what they were doing.

Anyway, we eventually arrived and fortunately our hostel was just a stones throw from the coach station. We ran the gauntlet of homeless people and made it safe and sound. We headed out into the dull and dismal Briish-style weather to find some food and where to better to go in Germany than to the bakers! We plumped for the local treat, Franzbrötchen, which is only really found in Hamburg and is sort of like a cinnamon bun but nicer. We then headed up to the 2 man made lakes, the Alster and the außenalster, dodging more homeless people along the way. Our tummies were rumbling again  so we tore ourselves away from the peace of the lakes to hunt down a reasonably priced dinner. When staying in a hostel without a kitchen, this can be quite a hard task! What better to have in Hamburg though than Hamburgers!! As ever with these early starts, it meant an early night.

We awoke to yet more dampness and drizzle so decided it was a perfect morning to catch up on some laundry as we were down to our final t-shirt each. With the German tumble drier deciphered but not really drying our clothes we headed down to join the walking tour, which we'd actually missed by half an hour. Instead we decided to make our own way through the city, along the banks of the Elbe and up to the area of St.Pauli and Hamburg's infamous red light district, situated along the wonderfully named Reeperbahn. This area seemed a lot seedier than what we had seen in Amsterdam so with a quick walk up and down and a brief visit to a Lidl plonked right in the middle of it to pick what we thought was still water (it wasn't it was sparkling) we headed of in search for sights. After another stop at a bakery for yet more Franzbröchten, we headed to the Außenalster, which is a huge man made lake right in the centre of the city. This place was a joggers paradise and when we weren't admiring the views of the city across the lake or the wildlife that it was teeming with, we took great pleasure in spotting which runners had made it all the way round the lake, which were doing laps up and down and discussing everyone's running styles. The walk was about 7km, which took us about an hour and a half (including a diversion for a quick go on a swing!) and was probably one of the best things we've done so far. We skipped the stress of deciding where to eat and went for the same place as the night before, you just can't go wrong with a burger!

The next morning we actually made it in time for the free walking tour. It was fortunate we'd missed the previous day's one as it was a beautiful warm and sunny day. The first fact of the day was about the swans, it is said that as long as there are swans on the river Alster, then Hamburg will be a free and prosperous city and that it is actually illegal to eat, hurt or even insult the swans (damn those swans!!) First stop was St. Peter's church, which has the oldest known artifact in the city of Hamburg, which is a tiny little bronze door handle. It was used when 2 people wanted to agree a contract, they would hold on to the door handle, if they agreed, the would both let go and shake hands but if they disagreed one would hold on to the handle until an agreement was reached. Next up was the building that was used to manufacture gas for the gas chambers of the concentration camps, a pretty morbid stop but quite interesting. The people who made the gas were taken to the UK and tried for their crimes but they denied them, claiming that they sold it to the nazis without knowing what they were using it for, but they were caught out when it emerged that they hadn't been adding a smell to the gas which was normally used as a pesticide and thus had an odour added to it. Who'd have thought this blog would be so educational? The church of St. Nicholas followed which was almost completely destroyed during World War 1 and the Bridge of Solace, which is where prisoners were given their final blessing before being marched to the docks naked and hung. From here we got our favourite fact, that there is more bridges in Hamburg than in Venice, Amsterdam and London combined, which having been to all 3 is quite hard to believe! Finally we went to the warehouse district and the brand spanking new HafenCity which is still being built. The warehouse district are huge red brick buildings that were used to house the massive amounts of cargo that flowed through the busy Port of Hamburg but are now home to tourist attractions like the Hamburg Dungeons and Miniatur Wunderland. Finally we went to HafenCity which the biggest new housing project in Europe and home to the detested Hamburg Opera House, originally planned to cost 75 Million Euros but has already cost the city 1 Billion Euros and it's not even finished yet!

We moved on to the Miniatur Wunderland which is essentially the biggest model railway in the world and features replicas of the City of Hamburg, an international airport, Austria and the USA all in model form with moving parts, it  was certainly more interesting than I've described and for young and old alike.

That pretty much wrapped up Hamburg and though it wasn't the most picturesque city in the world it still had plenty to offer and has a great history.

Picturesque will be handled on our next stop, wonderful Copenhagen.

James and Charlotte

Amsterdam: Did somebody say cheese?

It was a nice, short 2 hour Train ride from Brussels to Amsterdam on the rather luxurious Thalys high speed train. We were greeted by hordes of tourists as far as the eye could see, fortunately our hotel was only stones throw away!

First order of business was to hunt for a supermarket to satisfy our rumbling tummies, which wasn't the easiest job we've had. Amsterdam is well supplied with souvenir shops, 'cafes' and fast food joints but not a Tesco in sight. When we eventually stumbled across one a couple of hours later we were confronted with its the tough decision of what to eat when our accommodation has no facilities to cook anything. Charlotte had a light bulb moment, cold beans on bread with salami. I know what you're thinking, Genius!! With that decided we headed back to feast and get an early night to head to Alkmaar for the cheese market the next morning. The one thing we didn't think off was that nobody else in Amsterdam fancied an early night.

After what was a broken nights sleep we stumbled to the train station to catch our train to Alkmaar. When we arrived, at 8am there wasn't much going on, with a few commuters pedalling their way to work. After a stroll to the town square and watching an Asian man take 1000 photos of the same thing 10am soon came around and the reenactment of the historic cheese market began. It was a very interesting and entertaining experience to see, from manufacture to retail. The whole show lasted 2 and a half hours, we didn't stick around for the entire thing but instead headed to the market stalls flanking the square to divulge our tastebuds in a bit of cheese tasting. Our favourite was the green pesto flavour. We broke off from the clamour to explore the rest of the town, which was beautiful, all canals and bridges, like Amsterdam but much quieter and calmer.

We got back to Amsterdam that afternoon and went out and about for our first real taste of the city. We forced our way through the crowds and the smells of the red light district and into the hustle and bustle of Dam Square. We treated ourselves to a cooked meal in the form of Burger King but that may be the last time as it didn't agree with Charlotte. That night we learnt from our mistakes and used the ear plugs that our hotel provided.

They didn't really make a difference. So after a deserved lie in we hit the streets again, this time in blazing heat. We headed for Vondelpark, which provided a nice area of calm and quiet away from the noise of the city. After a nice long stroll we were collared by an elderly Australian couple who asked us for an escape route from the park, which we gave them. This led to them shadowing our every move and even stopping and waiting for us when we paused to look at a cafe menu. Our hunt for food led us to stumble across the famous I Amsterdam sign, situated infront of the impressive National Museum. We tried to obtain a photo but the huge crowds prevented us. We lunched upon those famous Dutch staples of Burger and Chips and Fish and Chips. The rest of our day was spent walking the quieter, outside canals and admiring their scenery.

Our final day in Amsterdam was kicked off with a Starbucks, we didn't fancy risking one of those 'cafes' I mentioned earlier (I know, how boring!!). The rest of our day was spent wrestling with the Internet to upload some photos and update this blog. Maybe one stroll through the streets tonight just incase we missed anything.

We also we made our first attempt at using the portable washing machine but after 32 hours our underwear is still drying on our string washing line.

Looking forward to hamburgers in Hamburg

James and Charlotte