Summer is meant to be hot. You expect to able to wear shorts all day, eat outdoors, and enjoy drinks with ice in them. Feeling a little let down by the British impersonation of summer we plan a long weekend trip to Madrid and Toledo, smack bang in the middle of Spain. They can’t be missing out on summer, right? Our welcome to Toledo, after the 30min high-speed train journey from Madrid, instantly justifies our holiday destination. As we step out into the mid afternoon sunshine there’s a warm dry heat and a sign saying it’s 16:08 and 38 degrees. Hello [View Full Entry]

---

---

At the start of the year we wrote up a list of countries that we wanted to visit in 2008. We’ve ticked off some, but one on the list that we hadn’t visited yet was Wales. So the plan is relatively simple - hire a car, drive west, stay overnight, and then drive back. We only need one navigator, one driver and one researcher to know what to do and see when get there. So with Sally visiting we have the team we need for our first international road trip… First stop, Shrewsbury, Shropshire. Try saying that three times fast! It [View Full Entry]

---

---

‘So it’s your birthday on the weekend and I thought it’d be a good idea if we went away for it.’ ‘Wow, cool. So where are we going?’ ‘Ahh, it’s a surprise.’ ‘Really? Can I have a clue?’ ‘Uhh, OK. We’re catching the train after work on Friday. Make sure you finish on time.’ So, backpack equipped we arrive at the station in time to catch our five o’clock train. ‘You know how I said that we’re catching a train, well we’re actually catching the bus to the airport because we&rsq [View Full Entry]

---

---

Our first glimpse of Edinburgh from the air is of green fields, hills and the Firth of Forth with its two impressive bridges stretching across it. These are some of the few hills that we’ve seen in Britain, and by far the largest bridges yet. Already, we have an inkling that Scotland is going to be a very different place to England. We notice from our double deck bus heading into the city, that the red brick homes with white window frames (which we have grown so accustomed to in the Midlands) have been replaced by stone houses, most of which [View Full Entry]

---

---

Good Friday. The alarm sounds at 4:30am. We’ve got half an hour to make it to the bus to East Midlands Airport. Of course we’re not so sharp at this unpleasantly early hour so the planned 10 min walk to the bus stop transforms into a (backpack equipped) 5 min run! But we make it. Our research isn’t as thorough as normal so upon arriving at Amsterdam central station by train from the airport, our first port of call is the TIC. Our Lonely Planet guide claims it is on platform 2. Really? How strange. Sure enough, there it is. And [View Full Entry]

---

---

With most holidaying Brits choosing to take to the ski fields or soak up the warmth of the Med we decided to find some middle ground (and cheap flights) for our festive getaway. Waiting outside the Bratislava airport in Slovakia we are immediately impressed by the evidence of recent snowfall and the locals wearing fur hats. Before long we are out of the cold and on a bus heading towards our intended destination, Vienna. Of all the European cities we’ve visited so far, Vienna could very well be the grandest with elaborate architecture everywhere we look. Our lonely planet guideboo [View Full Entry]

---

---

From the moment we stepped off our 1p Ryan Air flight we were greeted with clear skies and friendly greetings of ‘Hola!’ Even the customs officials were welcoming (asking if I was Spanish as there are a few variations of the name Ariana in Spain, then looking slightly disappointed when he realised I couldn’t understand him very well, let alone return the conversation with much more than ‘no- gracias’). My language skills improved as the days went on however and the few words and phrases I learnt in Spanish classes while studying in Japan came flooding back (albe [View Full Entry]

---

---

We’ve been fairly good at keeping everyone up date with our travels to Continental Europe, but we’ve been a little slack with posting stories of our travels within the UK - so here’s our West Midlands blog! Three weeks ago Mark and Fiona, mates of ours from Newcastle, came to visit us. During their time here, Mark was keen to see a castle and with Warwick being just a short train ride away from Nottingham it was the clear winner! On a sunny autumn morning we took some annual leave, scored a bargain group rail fare and headed off to Warwick. [View Full Entry]

---

---

Next stop on the itinerary- Salzburg, Austria! This leg of the journey was going to be an all bloke affair with Ariana heading back to the UK for work. James and I soon found ourselves on yet another train starting in the suburban surroundings of Munich which then gave way to fields, forests, lakes, and finally the looming shape of the northern Alps appeared as the train ascended towards Salzburg. After checking into the backpackers we strolled across the river Salzach into the old town. Narrow streets, cobblestones, brightly coloured buildings, all in the shadow of Salburg’s for [View Full Entry]

---

---

After cheering your team to victory, what do you feel like most? A beer I hear you say? Well that’s exactly what we were after. We caught an early morning train from Bordeaux, negotiated the Metro across Paris and found ourselves on a high speed train bound for Stuttgart, Germany. After a full days travel we reached our destination where the streets were orderly, the bread was heavy, the pretzels were huge and the beer was served in 1 litre steins!! Stuttgart itself was leafy with wide streets and relatively new architecture for a European city. In the early evening light [View Full Entry]

---

---