mybigadventures.com

We decided to visit Slovenia again, having not been since our Big Europe Adventure in 2007. We had really enjoyed our time in Ljubljana so we made our way there first, to spend a few days there, and then go onto Lake Bled, which we'd heard a lot about but hadn't got as far as visiting. 

It was a little dreary when we arrived, with drizzly rain. But it soon stopped and the sun came out. It was lovely to re-visit places that we distantly remembered - we spent our first day moseying around the old town centre, wandering around the streets and even locating the hostel that we stayed in when we first came. We looked up at the castle, saw the dragon bridge, walked back and forth over the three bridges, and just generally wandered. On another day, we visited the zoo, quite an impressive collection of animals and with only about a handful of other visitors, so very quiet! A real treat was seeing some baby marmosets, clinging onto their parents, and also a gorgeous red panda, who seemed quite camera shy and kept to the back branches of his enclosure. But not out of reach of the Ben's zoom lense!

On another day we went on an adventure a bit further afield. We hired a car and went to see Postojna caves and Prejama castle, about 45 minutes outside of Ljubljana. It was possible to see both on the same day but only if you hired a car - seemingly, out of season, public transport doesn't function and you can't get between the two sites and it's just too far to walk. So the car worked out a treat! We went to the castle first, as the cave tours were full for the earlier part of the day. The castle is veyr impressive, built into the cave wall and involving a cave system of its own. It has survived many a siege, and due to secret passageways between it and the local village, managed to sustain forces for months way back many centuries ago. There wasn't a lot of original fixtures and fittings to look at, although there were a few recreations to look at. But there was a detailed audio guide that explained all about the construction of the different sections and what it was used for. From there, we went to the caves. The tour was about an hour long and it started on a little train, that went along through several kilometres of caves. It was huge down there! And enormous stalagnites and stalagtites that were centuries old. All in all, we were told that we had traversed about 10 kilometres deep underground. Once back up on the surface, we spent quite a while trying to take photos of some swallows that were diving for insects above the weir outside; we did get a few quite good pictures, but the were so fast!

And from one castle, to another - we also revisited Ljuljana castle. It has had a lot of work done to it since 2007 - a lot of it has been re-roofed and rebuilt and it looks considerably more solid now. It has also become a bit more of an 'event' location, focusing a little too much on weddings and other events, rather than catering for tourists. Food options were quite limited and pricey, so our plans of having lunch up there fell by the wayside. Instead, we ended up getting an ice cream from a lovely ice cream palour we've discovered, called Vigo. We've been there a few times - Ben always has chocolate, but I like to try various things. It's delicious!

From Ljubljana, we headed to Lake Bled. We got the bus, as it's the most direct route and only takes about 90 minutes. It was a very scenic journey and avery busy bus, with people having to stand for part of the journey as it was so full. It was straightforward with only a minor hold up and we made it to Bled early afternoon. We checked into out hotel - quite an expensive place but when we got up to our suite (!) and saw the view from our balcony, it was completely worth it! It was glorious. We spent the rest of the afternoon just sitting and looking out over the lake - something which became something of a habit throughout our stay. When we did tear ourselves away from the view, we visited Bled castle, perched high above the lake on a rocky outcrop - a bit of a climb, but a lovely place to visit and great views. We also spent time walking around the lake, seeing a pair of kestrals nesting in the rock face and some very recent ducklings. And we couldn't be so close to the lake without rowing on it! We went twice, to mess about on the lake! Lovely sunshine and relaxing activities - an excellent holiday!

Just added a few photos from my break in Bruges with Mum and Dad, while Ben was gadding about in Berlin. We had a lovely few days, wandering around the cobbled streets, meandering along the canals, and exploring the sights and sounds of the city. 

Amongst other things, we went to admire Michelangel's 'Madonna and Child', had a boat ride on the canal and were jostled along the cobbles in a horse and carriage. We enjoyed some tradional Belgian cuisine and, of course, a hot chocolate!

Hope you enjoy the photographs - let me know what you think!

It's October half term and this year we decided to take our parents on holiday again. Mum and I went to Berlin, Germany and Dani and her parents went to Bruges, Belgium.

So having just broken up from school, mum and I set off on the Saturday morning arriving in Berlin just after 11am local time. We were staying at the Melia, in Mitte (central Berlin) which turned out to be a great location. The hotel was really nice and is walking distance to many of the sites. It's also just a couple of hundred metres from Freidrickstrabe station and the nearest underground.

The hotel let us check in early which was great and after dropping our things we walked along the river to the Reichstag building and just a little further on, the Brandenburg gate. Being autumn all the trees had started to turn and the yellow and orange leaves looked quite striking against the historic buildings. From the Brandenburg gate we also took a walk down to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. It consists of large blocks of concrete of differing heights set in rows across a large site in central Berlin. We had a short walk around before heading back to the hotel. Later in the evening I walked back out to look at both the Reichstag and Brandenbuurg gate lit up and to take a few night photos. 

The next day we headed to Schloss Charlottenburg (Charlottenburg Palace) dating from the 17th century. The palace was relatively easy to get to from the hotel, travelling on the S-Bahn from Freidrickstrabe station and then getting a bus from the zoo. Travelling around is a little different to London when you have to swipe in and out with oyster at every station. The system in Berlin seems to run on a honour system with inspectors that may intermittently check you have a valid ticket. We didn't encounter any inspectors but bought the zone A-B day tickets for 7 euros each to keep things simple. We went inside the state rooms which were pretty grand and then explored the outside. I was a little disappointed to see the main tower of the palace clad in scafolding, there seemed to be quite a bit of scaffolding about (perhaps ramping up for the summer?). Aside from the scaffolding, the palace looked amazing set against the autumnal gardens and the sunny blue sky, we had a bit of an explore of the gardens before heading over to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church (nicknamed the lipstick and powder lipstick by Berliners due to its distinct appearance). The old church contains a cross made from nails from Coventry cathedral whilst the new church is spectacular inside as the walls are made from of small squares of blue stained glass. Later in the evening we walked down the river from the hotel in the opposite direction to the Reichstag building. We walked through a number of market stalls selling antiques just outside museum island (a number of large museums - again clad in scaffolding) reaching the Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathederal) about 10 minutes later. The cathedral looked quite fantastic from the outside and there was a free viewing point just across the road where you could get a little higher and see a bit more of the Berlin skyline.    

Monday was our last full day so we started by heading over to the Eastside gallery, a large stretch of Berlin wall that still stands and is covered in colourful graffiti art. I think they're in the process of developing the area between the wall and the river as part of a series of developments to raise awareness about the history of the wall itself. We then headed over to Potzdamer platz a large commerical area in central Berlin that became available after the fall of the wall and is now home to ultra modern sky scrapers including the Sony building and Deutsche Bahn headquarters. On the way back we stopped off at the Brandenburg gate to look inside the nearby DZ bank. Designed by Frank Gehry, from the road, it is quite an unassuming building but inside there is ana amazing atrium and silver coated shell containing a main hall. definitely worth a visit!

On our last day we again headed over to Potzdamer platz to look at the nearby GDR watchtower that was used to monitor the border between East and West Berlin. It is quite well hidden, but would appear to be on the route of a number of tours (that turned up whilst we were there). You can apparently go in, but it wasn't open whilst we were visiting unfortunately. We also checked out a nearby spy museum which had some fantastic exhibits including an original German enigma machine. We finished off the day with a trip over to Alexandra platz which is much more of a shopping district. Had a wander through the shops before it was time to head off.

Overall a fantastic trip!  

Hello boys and girls, this is it, the adventure is over, we are back in the UK after a flight from Paris that set off and arrived at the same time (Weird). We are already busy rushing between Sheffield and Coventry catching up with family and such like. Again apologies for such a long time since our last blog, we splashed out a bit and stayed in a hotel in Paris so no computer facilities I'm afraid.

Anyways how was Pairs I hear you ask? We had a very busy time fitting in all the sights, starting on Monday with Disneyland!!!! Mickey was on top form and we had an awesome day with the sunshine holding out right up until 20 minutes before the park closed. Tuesday we visted the Palace of Versailles which had some splendid artwork, architecture and gardens - get me, cultured! The next two days we did the full on tourst thing taking in the Eiffel Tower, Saint Chapelle, Sacre Coeur (Very Tasty and a fantastic view), The Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame, Moulin Rouge and dropped in to see  Mona at the Louvre. We also found time to eat, sleep and shower suprisingly (Including a final meal to finish off the trip at a little restaurant near Sacre Coeur - they didn't serve cheesy cottage pie - gutted)!

So what now? Well with plenty of time on my hands this website will no doubt be changing. The plan is to allow you lot to upload your photos, post blogs, have your own members with email updates, all the things we've had essentially, there is also another website on the way where we shall be publishing our trip journal and all the bits that are currently stuffed inside it.

Besides all that we have much sorting out to do after unceremoneously dumping our stuff in Sheffield before running off for 3 months, so that should keep us busy. We will off course be making a few visits here and there so hopefully see you all soon . . . . . . for now though this is it, I'll turn off the email updates and in a while you'll have the chance to opt back in and recieve future news and blogs (I bet you can't wait)

Cheerio and ta ta everyone, thanks for tuning in xx

PS Paris photos will appear in the next couple of days!

. . . sadly folks the end of the trip is fast approaching, much faster than we had infact anticipated and now we find ourselves with just Paris to go. This is only a short one as we still have packing and showers left to go and checkout is in an hour . . . oh we're in Bruges (Belgium) by the way - I'm sure you'd all like it here - its very nice. We have now uploaded the rest of our photos including Strasbourg, Amsterdam and here. Hope the sun is as shiny there as it is here. Catch you all very soon, xx

. . . hello from Amsterdam, today we went to the Heineken Experience where we got the chance to see how a beer bottle lives. Looked awesome! Lots of rattling, zipping around conveyer belts, and then wiggling into boxes where you get to sleep for a while, then you get cracked open to momentarily enjoy the party before getting tipped down some drunkards throat, awesome no?

Anyways Amsterdam is rather nice, and the weather hasn't let us down with lots of sunshine again! Its very scenic here with lots of old buildings and such like. Tomorrow we go to Bruges in Belgium for a few days before finishing off the trip in Paris hopefully including a trip to Euro Disney! For those that are familiar with the planned route you may have noticed a few changes, we were supposed to finish in Amsterdam but accomodation has been a bit troublesome.

Anyways that'll have to be all, internet time is heavily limited here, see you all very soon - only 9 days left I think .  . .cheerio ta ta

Where to begin . . . . we are now in France, Strasbourg to be precise close to the German border, it seems very nice so far although we have sadly spent much of the day indoors due to some bad weather, I guess the rain had to catch up with us eventually. You're going to have to bear with me as this keyboard is a bit hazadous to get on with as these French types have cleverly re-arranged all the keys making it an uphill struggle to type anything remotely coherent - phew.

Over the last few weeks it's been a bit of a nightmare to add any updates as the tinternet has been rather expensive and time has become a little pressed. Over the last few days we have tried to catch up a bit and have added some much more recent photos, so if you haven't checked back in a while you should find lots of new albums from Copenhagen, Berlin, Prague, Heidelberg and Interlaken.

We've been having a fantastic time and on the whole the weather has been fantastic too, although we have been caught out a couple of times - particularly in Heidelberg when we got caught half way back from, the castle and ended up seeking shelter in a random portaloo we stumbled across whilst running for cover (much to some onlookers amusement).

Talking of Heidelberg we must thank Horst and Petra again for inviting us to stay in their very nice house, not to mention all the food and local beer. It was really great to see you both and Lena and hopefully we'll see you again soon! Whilst I'm doing thankyous I should also say thanks to Lowe Alpine for my shiny new bag - for those that didn't know mine broke and was being held together by some crafty stitching by Dani since Vienna!

Right I really better tie this up, enjoy all the new photo's. We've tried to include a few more of us for all the people that complain there aren't enough - although why you would want to look at our, ok my ugly mug is beyond me. Right everyone, Cheerio ta ta, Much Love as always  - PS I hope Di, Mel, Kim and whoever else was going enjoy(ed / s) the Hen party in Paris, don't wreck the place before I've seen it xxx

we are in Interlaken we have 24 seconds internet left and counting. FIN

I actually have very little to say but thought I'd make an effort to make more regular blogs. We are currently in Prague on what feels like a very flying visit. We only got here on Tuesday night and we're off again tomorrow to Heidelberg. Prague has been fantastic, the weather has picked up again and we've had to delve deep for the suncream thats been buried at the bottom of Dani's bag since our tour of Scandanavia!

Still no pictures I'm afraid, they're certainly starting to stack up and we shall endeavour to do something about it (soon(ish))! On the off chance that Mike, whom we caught the bus here from Berlin with, and spent the day with today checks . . . . welcome to mybigadventures.com! Please feel free to spread the word . . . and that goes for the rest of you too! Right thats all for now, cheerio ta ta!!

Hello one and all contrary to popular belief we are still alive and well. Sorry about the long pause in updates, tinternet access has been a bit of an issue so we've only popped on a couple of times to check email and book hostels. I'm afraid this is only a short one as we have to go out and get breakfast and get on with the day. We'll see if we can get some pictures and what not uploaded soon, but these computers appear to be locked down so might be a little while yet. For those that have lost our progress, we are now in Berlin, Germany having been to Solvorn in northern Norway, Oslo (again) and Copenhagen, Denmark since the last blog! Hope everyone is well, cheerio ta ta for now! xx 

. . . . OK so we have a full 30 minutes left of internet time, and seeing as we've paid for it, we're gonna use it! We are in Oslo at the moment but only until tomorow morning when we catch a 6 hour bus to Solvorn to have a look at the Norwegian fjords. For those that are interested . . and those that aren't we are staying in a very small village in a hostel called Eplet bed and apple (they have a large orchard and you can stay for free in the summer if you pick fruit for them!). We are there for 3 days before catching the bus back here to spend some more time enjoying Oslo which is rather nice, if a tad expensive!

Today the weather started out fantastic and we went to the Vigelandsparken where there is a large collection of statues by Gustav Vigeland. Sadly our days of sunshine seem to have ended and so we took ourselves to the National Gallery for a little bit of indoor time. The gallery was my favourite price - free and had some rather awesome works including a few pieces by Picasso, Monet and Manet and a large collection of Edvard Munch including the famous pieces 'The Scream' and 'Madonna' although a couple of our favourites were his self portrait and a portrait of his sister Inger.

Anyways time is ticking on, we have just booked ourselves a place to stay in Copenhagen and a flight to get there (takes only an hour rather than 8 by train and costs less - awesome). Hope everyone is well cheerio ta ta . . . and keep up with those comments . . . x

 . . . So there you go fact fans . . and in case you were wondering if it's true . . . www.youwontbelieveit.eu/pages/index.php

Unfortunately we didn't actually see a blue cow, in the flesh so to speak, although I did see a stork on the bus to Riga which is nearly as good . . . right?! Anyway this is just a little note to reveal our new photos of Riga, and to give a sneaky preview, here's one...

We are now in Sweden, in Stockholm, and unfortunately the weather is not quite as great, so although Stockholm is awesome, the next lot of pictures will be distinctly greyer (No rain - just grey so not all bad). But by way of compensation, there will be photos of a 17th century ship that we visited which was really quite splendid. And of course the usual mug shots of Ben and myself.

Anyways, think that'll do as I'm feeling a wee bit tired, so its cheerio from me. and me (Ben). xxx

OK, not going to dribble on too much here, just a little blog to let everyone know we've been busy with some updates. You will now be able to browse through three new albums featuring Warsaw, Helsinki and Tallinn. No Riga pictures just yet, we still have another day and a half before we leave for Sweden (An epic 17 hour journey without a cabin!! - We aren't just being tight they didn't have any left for the day we wanted to travel and we didnt want to postpone). Riga is very nice as was Tallinn, the old town in both places are on the world heritage list and deservedly so.

        

Tallinn appeared to be putting on a show for us whilst we were there - the day after we arrived we found a ski slope had popped up overnight, right through the middle of town to host some sort of competition. There was also some sort of musical thing going on through town hosting a number of different acts and finally on the day we left, a brass band played us out of town - awesome! Ok better wrap this up, as always people waiting blah blah, been on here too long. A quick hello to everyone . .  . yes that includes you (hmm suitably generic). Ta ta for now! Oh quick note - there's also a couple of new pictures under Krakow! Fin

As usual this is only a quick one but I thought we should keep our avid readers up to date with our progress! A quick thankyou to Andrew for all the publicity - visitors have rocketted to sometimes more than 2 a day! We are now in Tallinn (Estonia) having visited Warsaw and Helsinki since our last post. We had trouble getting to Vilnius from Warsaw and so got ourselves a cheap flight to Helsinki instead. Incidentally did anyone else realise its the eurovision song contest from Helsinki this weekend?! We didn't! There was lots going on there anyways and lots of tv crews - we seem to have been attracting them the whole trip!

Anyways thats all for now, we need to eat and sort out where we're going next - Sweden or Latvia. Internet access has been a bit sketchy and expensive so photos will go up when we next find somewhere thats free! Hope everyone is having fun! Will try and give more details about said places next time. Lots of Love xxx

Hello, good morning, and greetings from Krakow.

We are on our last day here before heading to Warsaw later today. Krakow is fantastic and definately worth a visit. We have been staying in a great little hostel right in the middle of things. We arrived at about 6am on Wednesday and the hostel very helpfully let us check in early without any extra charge. Whilst here we have had a day trip to Auchwitz concentration camp and the world famous salt mine. Auchwitz was very moving there was a lot of information and we had rather a long day there, getting one of the last busses back.

       

There are now a few photos now on the site from both here and Budapest. Budapest was a very  beautiful city and I think we might have to arrange a return trip as there was just too much to fit into our tight schedule. The 10 hour train journey between here and Budapest turned out better than expected as we had a compartment to ourselves so we managed to get some sleep laying down on the seats.

Thats about all for now folks, we're going to do a bit more sightseeing around here before our train at 4.30. Enjoy the pictures and feel free to add some comments! (you just need to login and you're away! Click on the comments link under blogs or pictures and let us know what you think!).

OK, so this is only a very quick one so that there's something to read on the front page of the website! We are now in Krakow having arrived here at 6am this morning after a 10 hour train journey. I think we're off to Auschwitz tomorrow, but will let you know next time. Hope everyone has a fun May bank holiday, but hopefully will fit in an update before then. Keep coming back!!

Thats pretty much it for now folks, bed beckons! I've added a few comments to the more recent photos so that you might have a clue what they are of. Catch you all soon!

. . . and today was that day. Although it was a pretty weak effort on the weathers part, more of a dribble I would say! So we are now in Budapest, on our last day no less. Tomorrow evening we leave for Krakow in Poland, arriving at about 5am. Not so much of a sleeper train as an annoyance! Fortunately the hostel in Krakow is letting us check in 7 hours early without paying for the night - awesome!

Today we have mostly been pottering around Buda having looked at Pest on Friday and Saturday. We shall hopefully fit in a fair bit more sightseeing tomorrow! In other news we've just uploaded photos from Bratislava, they're listed under Slovakia so why not take a look! Budapest photos should appear in the next few days possibly although we have quite a lot planned for Krakow.

Hello and welcome to all our new members, it seems certain family members have been putting the word out! Dani and I are both having an awesome time and hope you are all enjoying the site. Thats all for now boys and girls, catch you again soon lots of love xx

. . . . at just 40sk (or 80 pence to the rest of us) is Bratislava home of the cheapest 0.5L of beer in Europe? Bratislava has been great, would definately recommend it. Not silly cheap but certainly a lot cheaper for some things. We found a little internet cafe on our travels today and so you can now find the remaining Vienna pictures that were missing from the last post.

      

You will now also be able to find pictures from our time in Slovenia - another fantastic city! Tomorow we travel to Budapest at 7.09am so its going to be a bit of an early one in the morning. Not much other news really . . so will leave it at that . . . oh found a shop called 'troll' so will be emailing the picture to a couple of people from work sometime soon . .right thats really it, think there's someone waiting to get on the internet, cheerio ta ta

OK, so I couldn't think up anything imaginative for the title of this blog, its late and this computer is not being very helpful. We've just uploaded some of our Vienna pictures, we still have Slovenia pictures to upload and will try and get round to it ASAP. Unfortunately this computer is very slow and like the best of us can only manage to do one thing at once . . and thus it has taken about two hours to sort out and upload the 5 photos you can now look at


Above you'll see one of them so now you only have 4 to look at HA! Will try and fit some more updates in when supplied with the equipment neccessary for such an undertaking.

In other news we are now in Bratislava, we've just come from Vienna and for those that don't know we didn't actually make it to Croatia. There was nowhere to stay on the Friday and I didnt fancy kipping on the street so we skipped it and went straight to Vienna where we stayed 4 nights and a splendid time. The weather has been fabulous to date (touch wood) so fingers crossed it'll stay that way for a while yet. We're here for 2 more days before moving on to Budapest. Thats about all our news for now. Hope everyones well, talk to you all soon. Feel free to text us . . . we probably wont reply but its always nice to receive a message. OK cheerio for now I guess . . Love Ben and Danica

Here we are in Ljubljana, Slovenia for a couple of days, and I have finally found somewhere where my name does not cause confusion! I have even been told what it means - the first star of the morning or something similar...

We really like it here so have decided to extend our stay for a full extra night! So far have been to the castle, up a rather steep hill and taken lots of pictures whilst battling with the wind from the castle tower, and we've had a mosey round the town. We have also bought our tickets out of here to our next stop - Zagreb (Croatia)! For the bargain price of 11 euros each. Slightly less than the journey from Nottingham to Leicester I believe! Not bad for an international journey!

       

We've just uploaded some pictures from Venice. It was really fabulous there - very picturesque and there are lots more photos to see on request.... more of the same pretty much!

. . . when I say some, I mean us! There was helpfully a train strike in Italy on Friday, unfortunately the very day we were headed for Venice - Fortunately the Strike ended at 5 in the evening so it wasn't too late to get here. Since the last update we have been to Florence where we saw Michalangelo's David, the Duomo and had a walk along the Arno River. We also enjoyed a lazy day at the campsite in Tuscany which mostly consisted of slothing about for the day eating ice cream and sitting in the sun.

Venice is splendid and the weather has been awesome none stop sunshine the whole time we have been in Italy - touch wood! We'll stick some more photos up at the next place with any luck - they have free internet!We're heading to Slovenia (ljubljana) for a couple of nights so will try and fit in some more updates then! Hope everyones well! Ciao!

OK so we didn't quite meet him, but we went to mass with him on Easter Sunday and he waved to us . . . and the other thousands of people all there to say hello.

          

We've had quite a busy week all in all, we made it to Pompeii (there are some pictures under big adventures on the right), and then travelled back up to Rome which is where we have spent the last few days. We've seen lots of sights including the Colusseum and Vatican City although the real highlight had to be seeing the pope on Easter Sunday. We travel again tomorow this time to Florence where we'll be spending a few days visiting Florence and the surrounding area. I think we're at a camp site for this one which should be interesting. Unfortunately my time is about up on the internet so going to have to cut this short.

Hope everyone else had a fantastic Easter, I'll try and get some descriptions up of the pictures soon (thanks Jim for pointing that out), and tell you a bit more next time, until then . . . ciao!

Hello everyone,

Its official, we have left the country. We are sat here in Naples on day two of our big europe adventure. Day one went off to a bad start with a delayed flight - we sat on the tarmac at East Midlands Airport for an extra hour and a half because the pilot was unhappy with the paper work apparently! That could have been an extra hour and a half in bed, which would have been nice given we got up at 3am, but nevermind!

We walked out of the airport in Rome to find we were surrounded by armed police and army with a couple of fire engines chucked into boot. Having waited around for about 40 minutes and heard a very loud bang possibly gun shot, the authorities dispersed and we got ourselves a bus!Long story short about 3 hours later (including an hour and a half wandering without a map before conceeding and buying one) we arrived at Hostel 1 (Gullivers House). Unfortunately our one night booking had been cancelled and thus we ended up at the Roma Inn - seemingly a work in progress given the bare wires and workmen.

Today is an awesome day by comparison - very little carrying of heavy bag - living the dream! Train and Metro and a local with dog (that spoke no English - the man not the dog) got us to our destination at La Controra in super quick time. It is really quite tasty - and breakfast is included ;-). Not sure what's happening tomorow - possibly Pompeii - tell you next time I guess!