Monday, December 1, 2014

European Road Trip

Our 3 weeks in Europe was amazing! Most of the time was spent in Prague with Mal and Judy, but we managed to sneak in a little road trip in the middle of our holiday.  I'm so glad we did!

Sam hired a car from downtown Prague and managed to get himself a traffic fine before he even left the street! haha - apparently driving in a 'no-pedestrian zone' is not allowed!


Driving on the opposite side of the road, in Prague, on windy, narrow streets, is a little hair raising! And when your GPS device decides to run out of battery  only an hour into the trip (after taking you in the wrong direction) it can get a bit frightening.  However, we managed to secure a map before long and were on our way....in the right direction!



Sam had the driving under control once we hit the autobahn.  The speeds had me holding tight, but I finally relaxed...on the second day :)

First stop - Frankfurt, Germany


We had time for a quick walking tour of Frankfurt.  We found the Theater and some dinosaurs!  There was also a fun fair on in town but we didn't have time to stop and enjoy.  There was so much to see and so little time.

Next stop - Cologne, Germany

We weren't in love with this city, but perhaps we were staying in the wrong part of town.  We had some time to explore the Cathedral and visit the Lindt factory :)  YUM! Dinner here was great - Hamburgers!



Destination - Rotterdam, Netherlands

We arrived early afternoon in Rotterdam and it was beautiful.  It actually reminded me of home for some reason.  We stayed with friends here for 3 days in their tiny apartment which they had only just moved into 2 days before! So kind of them to let us stay.

We took a trip by train (45 mins) to Amsterdam.


It's such a fun place to visit.  The weather was gorgeous and the scenery amazing! We wandered aimlessly for lunch and settled on a cafe serving open sandwiches.  It was pretty nice.  The markets were happening in town but in our haste to find lunch we didn't spend time there.  They looked amazing though! (Turns our Rotterdam had their own AMAZING markets that we went to the following day, so we didn't miss anything).


We found some delicious ice-cream too! My advice, if you see a store you like, STOP!  You'll never be able to find it again. :)

Rotterdam

We took some time to go to a local park.  It was AMAZING! so green and open and huge.  It even had a Petting Zoo, but we arrived too late for that.  The kids had fun playing on the nice green grass with NO ANTS!


We loved our time in Rotterdam with Bonnie, Damien and Harry.  It was sad for us to leave.

We had a long drive today and took advantage of the fact that the girls were very tired and willing travelers today!.  We drove 9 hours with only one stop!  Brilliant.

Final Stop - Dresden, Germany

If we had known how beautiful this city was we would have arranged to stay longer.  Thank goodness for long summer days and daylight savings! We had time to explore for a few hours.  We found an overpriced restaurant for dinner, with sub-quality food, but other than that, LOVED Dresden.



 
From Dresden it was only a short drive back to Prague, where we still had about a week left to enjoy!