Munich

Oops, I'm getting worse at keeping this up to date...

Friday 1st August
I arrived in Munich and had a wander around, I already love this city... such cool architecture & so much to see and do!
I started with a 'Munich by night' tour, not the best way to get the lay of the land (in the dark) but it was an entertaining tour full of myths & stories. Got a bit of extra entertainment too when the drunk Americans made a scene because the guide called them out on the fact they were late!

Saturday 2nd August... HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM!
Got a better understanding of the city with a normal walking tour this morning. Munich has so much history and it is so interesting. 

My run of perfect weather ran out as a storm suddenly appeared... of course about an hour before my booked bike tour! I think I am officially cursed when it comes to bike tours, every single one I've done has either been cancelled due to bad weather or has been very wet! But it was fun just the same and we got a good show with the river being massively swollen and raging due to the very wet Summer they've been having (apparently the river is usually clear & calm). 

Sunday 3rd August
After 3 tours in 24hrs I was a bit toured out so had an easy day today and went back to see some places in more detail. Of course the forecast was for rain so I went prepared and it was a warm, lovely day! I walked up through the English Gardens and lucked upon the big beer garden in the middle, I even embraced being in Germany & had a beer with lunch (well a 'radler' aka a shandy).

Had a dumb tourist moment & took the bahn (underground) back down to the city but walked the wrong way when I came out & ended back where I got on! Oops! Haha

I eventually made it back to the Residenz (the Royal Palaces). An extremely impressive building & massive... you can only visit about 90 of the rooms (ONLY 90!!) The Bavarian Royals have a long & interesting history and they definitely did not skimp on anything. For example the king's bedroom that was only for show for visitors, never actually used! Random!

A big walking day today, definitely worked off that beer ;)

Monday 4th August
This morning I visited Dachau concentration camp. Dachau was the first and the training centre for all of the others. It was, of course, horribe but moving to be there and very different from my visit to Mauthausen. (It was hot and sunny compared to the middle of winter in a snow storm last time). 

A much lighter night with the arrival of Melissa (from my Spain tour) and her Busabout friends! We had some drinks and went for dinner at the Augustina beerhall (mmm pork knuckle ;) ). It was lovely to have friendly faces around and they even sung me an early Happy Birthday :)

Tuesday 5th August
I figured I should do something a little special &/or memorable for my birthday so did a day trip out to Neuschwanstein castle (the castle built by 'crazy' King Ludwig II and the one which THE Disney castle is based on). Of course the weather was terrible again because part of the tour was a bike ride around the mountain on which the castle sits. It was fun anyway and such a beautiful area. We rode around Swan Lake (unfortunately no, not THE Swan Lake) which was just breathtaking. After lunch we hiked up the mountain (hence the very red face in the photo), to the castle. I had heard that the inside of the castle is pretty disappointing because there are only a few rooms that were ever finished but wow, definitely not disappointing! The rooms are exactly what you would expect inside the Disney castle and there's even a man-made cave inside! So random but very impressive.

During the day I met some cool Americans and so crazy, 3 out of the 4 of us all have birthdays this week! So it was a nice little birthday party for all of us. We continued the celebration at the Hofbrauhaus beerhall which was fun. Bit annoying that I had to leave pretty early as I don't have my own key for the Airbnb place I'm staying at so needed to be let in.

After the disappointment not being able to get on a tour and simply being away from home on my birthday it ended up being a really great day!! So glad I decided to spend it in Munich!

Wednesday 6th August
Time to say farewell to Munich, Germany and Europe as a whole as I head off to the UK!
I am staying with Barbara (another of Em's friends that I met in Wales) for a few days, looking forward to seeing another friendly face.

London

Thursday 7th August
Met up with James this morning and had a great walk around London. We saw the WWI centenary memorial being set up at the Tower of London (whwn it's finished there will be one poppy for each fallen soldier from the Commonwealth. From there we walked across Tower Bridge and up along the Thames, then back into the city and went up oto Primrose Hill for a great view across London. After we parted ways I visited the Tower of London and ended up spending all afternoon there.

Friday 8th August
Took an easy day today and explored the Borough Markets and just chilled out for the afternoon before catching up with Chanelle, Amy and Annaleise from my Spain tour who are all livng in London. Had a great night catching up with them.

Saturday 9th August
Spent some time this morning exploring the Camden Markets and then met up with Barbara and walked along the canals. It's a lovely area and nice to see a more chilled side of London. I tagged along with Barbara to a dinner with her friends which was lots of fun. It has been really nice spending a few days 'living', just doing normal social things (rather than being the eternal tourist), and catching up with friends. It is really reminding me how long I am away for and making me miss home though.

Sunday 10th August
Today Barbara took me exploring around her side of London (East). We started with an awesome brunch (breakfast is the 1 meal I haven't been eating out for, I do miss a good cooked brekky!). Then we walked through Brick Lane, the flower and food markets and around the area. We saw this cool art exhibition where this lady has set up a little corner store where absolutely everything is made of felt. In the afternoon we were invited (through a friend of Barbara's) to a birthday celebration for the owner of a small local restaurant. It was a fun evening with great food and even some dancing with a lovely community atmosphere!

Monday 11th August
Off to Edinburgh today... 9hrs on the bus... so not much to write!

Athens

While on my Greece tour I had been trying to get onto another tour (either Eastern Europe somewhere or Scandinavia) however wasn't having much luck at the last minute and it was a slow process going back and forth with tour companies. With my birthday fast approaching I really wanted to be on a tour to ensure I had some company for it.

Very long story short, I wasn't able to get onto a tour so I had to figure out what to do and where to go. Melissa from my Spain tour is also travelling around (on Busabout) and she was going to be in Munich on the night of the 4th so I arranged with her that we would catch up and Munich was my next destination.

I didn't do a lot more in Athens but took the opportunity (while waiting for tour companies to get back to me for example) to take a couple of days off from 'travelling', relax and actually managed to skype a few people and catch up after over 2 months!

A quick recap of the few things I did actually do though...

Monday 28th July
The Opera last night was incredible, such a cool experience. Luckily they had catered for the tourist crowd and had both Greek and English subtitles (the Opera was in Italian) so we could follow what was happening in detail.

Tuesday 29th July
Visited the Lycabetus Hill, the highest point in Athens. It was a bit of a mission to get there but after the cable car up, I was treated to the view of pretty much all of Athens, right out to the water.

Wednesday 30th July
Travel planning day after having finally given up on tours.

Thursday 31st July
With my next plan sorted (for the most part) I thought I should do something touristy so took a day trip out to 3 of the smaller islands not far off the mainland, Hydra, Poros & Aegina. On Aegina I was able to complete the triad of Temples... the Temple of Athena (the Parthenon), the Temple of Poseidon (at Cape Sounio) & here, the Temple of Athea, form an equalteral triangle over the cape (noone knows if it was planned or is a crazy coincidence!). It was a nice day, met some locals doing the tourist thing in their own backyard, saw (& did) some Greek dancing and enjoyed my last bit of sun & water for a while.

Greece

Wednesday 16th July
Arrived in Athens and met up with Christos. So nice to see a familiar face! Christos showed me around the central Athens area and gave me a lot of tips which was fantasic. Enjoyed my first Greek meal... yum! I'm going to have to do a lot of walking in Greece...

Thursday 17th July
Spent today retracing our steps from last night a bit and finding my way around in the daylight. Saw a lot of the city and found all the main ancient monuments (didn't go in as I start my tour tomorrow and not 100% sure what we're doing then). Walked up Filopappos Hill and got a fantastic view of the city as well as the Acropolis.

Met my tour in the evening, 29 people, all but 1 Aussie... the % is getting more and more every time. Although we do have a couple of guys this time at least (albeit only 5). Our tour leader is Svetlana from Russia... that is 1 thing Topdeck does have a wide variety of, I've had very different leaders for each tour, all of which have been good, I have been lucky.

Friday 18th July
A proper walking tour of the city this morning, thankfully taking a different route to mine yesterday so saw a few different things. Also got a lot more information (and had a few flashbacks to high school Ancient History lessons).

In the afternoon some of us did the optional extra to Cape Sounio. We drove down the coastline from Athens, stopping for lunch and a swim. Nice to actually be at a beach, the water was perfect, so clear and calm. The cape is famous for the Temple of Poseidon (the Pathanons 'sister temple' so to speak). Amazing views!! Greece is just beautiful!

Our official welcome dinner tonight back in Athens, complete with traditional Greek dancing!

Saturday 19th July
A very early start this morning to make our way to the island of Mykonos! The island is beautiful with the traditional white & blue buildings. It surprised me to see how baron the land is but it makes sense that it wouldn't exactly be green and luscious in the Greek climate in July!

We had a relaxing afternoon at the beach/pool and enjoyed the start of our island adventure. We did our walking tour of the main city area at sun set which was just gorgeous. (Again sorry, the photos are on my camera.)

Sunday 20th July
Today's optional activity was a trip to the Island of Delos, a basically uninhabited archeological site. It was really interesting to see the ruins of a city from approx. the 3rd century BC and how sophisticated they were before everything was destroyed. It reminded me that I enjoyed ancient history at school and how interesting it all is! I love how Greek history is a mixture of facts and mythology intertwined.

Monday 21st July
Off to Paros Island today. Paros is relatively new on the tourist scene so it is immediately relaxing. We did a quick walk through town on the way to our hotel. The town is a cute little town full of shops and our hotel has the most amazing view over the ocean!

We had another relaxed afternoon, primarily by the pool followed by the most amazing sunset and dinner from our hotel.

Tuesday 22nd July
Another island, another optional... today was around to the north of Paros. First we visited the 'Church of 100 Gates' and then we went up to the fishing village of Naoussa. It was a cute little area, we climbed the remnants of an old fort with amazing views of the ocean and enjoyed greek frozen yogurt (when in Geece ;) ). Then it was to a cool beach surrounded by rocky cliffs... the beaches here are definitely different to ours at home.

Wednesday 23rd July
Woke up with an extremely sore throat (there is a lot of coughing going on in the tour) but no time to be sick as today we're off to Santorini!

After getting settled we drove to Oia to watch the famous Santorini sunset. While it was of course beautiful, there was a lot of humidity and therefore mist on the horizon so I think the sunset in Paros trumped it. Oia is absolutely gorgeous though... the traditional Santorini view.

Thursday 24th July
Our optional here was a boat trip to the volcano of Santorini. An extremely hot hike up to the top we saw the little bit of smoke escaping from one of the craters. They reckon the volcano will erupt again in the next 50 years or so... I think it's got a long way to go before that happens. Our boat then took us around to the hot springs where we swam. Pretty cool to swim at the base of a volcanic island! Then it was back to the 'mainland' for our token Santorini donkey ride to the top! The donkeys were a bit crazy but I think that made it more fun. These things are always questionable when you think about how they treat the animals though.

We were back in Fira in the early afternoon so a few of us made the most f our time here and headed down to one of the famous black beaches, Kalmari (?). You couldn't really get anymore different from our whute sandy beaches... the beach was black pebbles! It was great to see and so nice to chill out for a little while after our hectic morning.

Tonight is our last real night of tour (as we'll be travelling tomorrow) so we had our farewell dinner in Fira with an amazing view and got to see another beautiful sunset.

Friday 25th July
Explored a little more of the town of Fira this morning before our 8hr ferry ride back to Athens.

No idea what I'm going to do after this tour though. I've been researching tours to get onto another one in time for my birthday but Topdeck seem to be the only company that has last minute availability. After multiple emails back and forward I just missed out on a tour through Scandinavia and am still trying to get onto one in Eastern Europe. I still need to see the main historical monuments in Athens, so I'll spend a few more days here until hopefully I figure out my next move.

Saturday 26th July
After saying our tour farewells and sorting out some accommodation for the next couple of nights, I started my monument visits at the Temple of Zeus. It is so ridiculously hot and humid here, I definitely can see why people say to avoid Athens in August, I don't think I could do it any hotter than this and it seems to be getting hotter every day! So next it was to the Acropolis Museum (the aircon was calling) before I met Alana and Lauren (from tour) to visit the actual Acropolis. The museum is relatively new but they have built it on top of ruins with a lot of glass flooring so you can still see it, nice touch! The actual Acropolis is very impressive, although the magic of it is a bit ruined by the amount of scaffolding on the Parthenon and the crane in the middle of it! After surviving that (in the heat), we headed back to the main part of town and got some dinner. It was still ridiculously hot on my way home at almost 10! Definitely think it's time to start heading north!

Sunday 27th July
Off to see some more historical sites today: Keramikos (ancient cemetery), Ancient Agora, Roman Agora, Hadrian's Library. Had lunch over looking the Ancient Agora with the Parthenon in the background... you know, just an everyday lunch ;)

Tonight we (Lauren, Alana & I) are off to see Otello at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus (a legitimate ancient Greek theatre)!

Croatia

Friday 4th July
Arrived in Split, Croatia for my Topdeck Croatia Sailing tour tomorrow. Explored around this afternoon and saw the 'palace' that most of the city is based on. More Roman history, this time with a bit of Egyptian influence. Split has become very touristy, being the port for most of the sailing tours as well as the main ferry connection between Croatia and Italy. Between Topdeck, Contiki, Busabout, Sail Croatia, Fanatics, Yacht Week, not to mention the private yachts and island ferries, the place was pumping!

Saturday 5th July
Sailing time! My excitement to have 1 place to unpack for a whole week was short lived when I saw the size of my cabin (I would have struggled unpacking if it was just me let alone with a roommate). It was cozy but fine, can't ask for too much on a boat. We had a relatively small boat as we only had 14 on our tour. Not sure how Topdeck works that because there was 4 tours doing the same route but all the boat numbers were different. Randomly we had a group of all females + our male tour leader. Tours generally have more females than males but that was a bit ridiculous! Thankfully everyone got on well and it ended up being a nice, chilled week.

We started sailing straight away, off to Milna on Brac Island. We didn't see much of the island but we did do a quick wine tasting with a crazy little Croatian lady (she was lovely but funny, too much product sampling maybe)... the wine was pretty bad but it a nice way to start the tour.

Sunday 6th July
Sailing to Hvar today. Our days this week consist of swim stops and sun baking! A nice change of pace from exploring a different city every couple of days.
We did get into Hvar though and climbed up to an amazing lookout, then around to Hula Hula beach for cocktails before dinner and drinks... definitely a lifestyle I could get used to!

Monday 7th July
Today's journey is to Korcula. They believe Marco Polo was born here (a claim they fight with the Venetians) but they have gone all out and everything here is named after him. A nice little town and they have a cool bar in a fort where you sit on the rooftop and they bring your drinks up by pully. Not a bad drinking spot (but very hot).
This little town actually has quite a night life, the highlight though was at one of the main bars. The bar itself was terrible but outside they have a projection of a live camera feed from the dance floor. That has to be one of the most entertaining things I've seen in a long time! Until everyone caught on at least.

Tuesday 8th July
It ended up being one of those random nights that turn out to be the best ones. We got back to the boat not long before sunrise so decided to stay up and watch it while we set sail for the day. It was a slow process as we were hidden from it by the island cliffs but it was beautiful to watch the world come to life at sea.

We made it to Dubrovnik with time to explore the city. Again the main tourist area is within the old town walls but here it is all intact so you can actually walk around the entire area on top of the city walls. The city is beautiful and there is absolutely amazing views from the wall. They really know how to do destination bars in Croatia... in Dubrovnik it's the Buza Bars, set amongst the cliff front!

After dinner we headed to a bar to watch Brazil get humiliated in the soccer while drinking from buckets (toy sand pales - again they like their novelty drinks here... or the tourists do at least). Then we went to Revelin Club which is literally in an old castle!

Wednesday 9th July
The wind has picked up and we have had pretty choppy weather so our travel route is changing. Our next destination was meant to be Mljet however they don't think we'll make it to the following place if we stay there tonight. So we went there for a quick swim stop and then it was back to sailing, heading back towards Korcula. It actually ended up being a good thing because we had our Captains Dinner and actually stayed the night in a little cove offshore. It was a very quiet night but it was fun swimming off the side of the boat as the sun went down!

Thursday 10th July
We made it to Makarska today as originally planned. There are some other tours that are meant to be elsewhere here too due to the weather. One of those very almost capsized with a girl almost going overboard! Glad we had a conservative captain that avoided that!

Markaska is on the mainland and reminded me a little of the Sunshine coast, there was more families and resorts as there is actually a bit of a beach here.

Tonight we had our Pirate party (a theme that pretty much all of the sailing tours do) and went to the club Deep, literally a bar inside a beach cave! Croatia has definitely catered for tourists with all their novelty bars, clubs, drinks etc

Friday 11th July
Zip lining this morning! Our tour leader says this is the best one he's done around the world so had to give it a go. It was absolutely amazing, flying between the cliffs and across the river!

After the excitement of zip lining it was time to head back to the boat and make our way back to Split for our last night of sailing. This weekend in Split is the Ultra music festival (apparently one of the biggest in Europe) so most of the group got tickets for that. Not my scene though so the rest of us had a quiet night in the city. We found the nicer area of the city that I had missed before tour so I'm glad I saw that.

Saturday 12th July
This morning we had to disembark early so it was up for breakfast and farewells. A couple of the girls who weren't flying out early and I decided to do a day trip to Krka National Park which isn't far out of Split and is famous for it's waterfalls. It was a bit of a mission as it's easy to get there but of course not so easy to get back, especially for a specific time (the other girls had busses to catch). We made it though and it was beautiful!

Sunday 13th July
Now I have a few days to kill before I have to be in Athens for my next tour. It's actually impossible to get directly from Croatia to Greece so I decided to take my time and get the ferries down. The first one was an overnight to Ancona. So today I wandered down to the Split beaches but it was terrible weather after a morning storm.

Monday 14th July
Arrived in Ancona. There really isn't much here. Not a great travel day today, just walked around looking for something to do and failed. Also failed finding any decent or even half decent food... I was so excited to have 1 day in Italy to get some amazing food but Ancona disappointed me. I tried at both lunch and dinner without any luck. I never thought it could be so hard to find some pasta in Italy!

Tuesday 15th July - Wednesday 16th July
Had last night in Ancona and today have my next ferry down to Greece. 24hrs of travel time with not a lot to do = a very chilled day/s with lots of reading and a chance to catch up on this!