15th-19th October - Lisbon, Portugal

Had to get up at 5am after catching 3 hours sleep due to this crappy cold.  It took until 1.30pm to make it to our Lisbon accommodation but overall the travel was fine.  We stayed in a small AirBnb apartment on Rua de Lazaro for approx $85 AUD per night.

Apparently I was still feeling pretty rubbish, but it was shorts & thongs weather so we headed to the Barrio Alto district for dinner.  Apparently this was 'the' place to go out at night but we found it all a little touristy.  Was still feeling sick so went home after dinner.

16th: Went to Cascause for a day trip! a 40-minut, $4.30 Euro return train ride from Cais do Sodre.  Started off with some Piri-Piri Chicken, that was awesome!  Visited a vape shop & went sight seeing to the Santa Maria Lighthouse & Boca de Inferno (Hells Mouth). Everything is within walking distance and by the time we got back to the town centre we spent some time writing & reading & looking for some little mementos for the trip.  Encountered some loud Irish women disturbing the peace before getting some Santini Gelato & catching the train back to Lisbon before it got too cold!

Returned to Lisbon & the apartment to smash some 50c beers we'd purchased earlier from the Pingo Doce *supermarket).  Then travelled down to Martim Moniz square for a kebab and another beer or two.  This square was great on a Friday & Saturday with lots of food options & cheap drinks.

17th:  A day to do some touristy things in Lisbon.  STarted off walking to the main square & Arc de Triumph before stocking a map from tourist information.  Visited the covered markets which ahd HEAPS of 5-star food options with plenty of places to sit.  We went with a Prego each, portuguese steak sandwich, and had to stand at the table to eat because the place was so popular.  Laura spotted a nice rug in a strange store inside the market & we couldn't say no!  Took it back to the apartment & swigged on a strong Portuguese Coffee & Pastel de Nata (bruned caramel tarts) for some ridiculously cheap price at a local cafe.

Next is was off to the castle at the top of the hill, we were feeling lazy & thought we'd take the famous No.28 tram up.  That was until we saw how long the line was to get on!  must can been 4 trams worth of people.  Decided we weren't that lazy after all and walked up.  Got to the top after a little bit of grumbling about the climb to find the castle closed due to the wet & windy weather conditions.  Continued down the coastal side of the hill to look at the very solid cathedral.

In the main square Laura was busting for a toilet & found one that cost a euro to use.  It had some advertising out the front slating it was the sexiest toilet in the world? Laura came out very confused.  Apparently there were different coloured rolls of toilet paper available for use as well as benches inside the cubicles.  We can only assume the toilets were actually for having sex in, although we weren't in the kind of mood.

After a few Estrella in a small little bar close by we returned to Martim Moniz & smashed some dirty burgers, then went home to polish off the wine we'd purchased earlier!  I managed to torrent The Martian movie on my phone & get it playing on the TV streaming over wifi so we had a movie night with a bottle of wine!

18th:Today we completed all the transport & accom bookings for the rest of the trip!  From now on we just have to follow the calendar and enjoy the ride!  Had a little time to kill before watching the Aus vs. Scotland rugby match so went for a walk to a park north of us and got a great view of the city.  Also slammed a massive kebab but we weren't overly proud of ourselves for that.

Caught train to the British Pub aptly named 'British Pub' and watched Australia undeservedly win against Scotland in the final minutes with a penalty kick.  Laura found us a great tapas house with good house wine before we called it a night.

19th: I woke up feeling like a giant bag of snot.  The best cure is usually a hot shower to clean you out so off I went.  Got some gunk out as the shower was slowly filling with water due to a clogged drain.  Gunk was just floating around my feet.... Coughed up more gunk, started to dry-retch, too much, eneded up spewing up last nights dinner.  Now standing in pubble of snot and spew, had to get out and let it drain.  Definitely one of the worst showers I've had...

Ended up staying the the apartment all day I was so ill.  Spent most of the time sitting on the toilet and wiping my bumhole until it was raw.  Pretty sure the chicken kebab I had was to blame as it was the only thing Laura didn't eat.

Managed to leave the apartment for an hour to walk to a partk where these strange Turducken animals roamed about.  Only spent $2.41 between us today on a supermarket pizza for dinner.

With my newly acquired phone-torrenting skills we were able to watch Inside-Out and Southpaw.

10th-14th October - London

After Oxford we caught a morning train to London.  Before we knew it we had arrived at Waterloo Station where Mike met us and took us to his apartment.  Mike was kind enough to let us stay at his apartment whichwas just awesome.  OVerlooking the London Eye & Big Ben, this place was one of the best locations in the city!

Once we'd had a shower & put on some clean clothes we got taken on a personal guided tour of London. We saw the changing of the horse-guard, Trafalgar Square, Bond Street, Picadilly.  I was loving being able to cross off so many Monopoly board positions.

The tour had a strict timeline as we all wanted to watch the Aus vs Wales Rugby World Cup match.  No tries scored by a good game overall that Australia probably won purely by luck.

That's where Mike left us for the day & we retired to the apartment with some fast-food chinese & a few beers while watching Jason STatham & Tropic Thunder on the telly.

11th: We were meeting Mike & Viv at 12 today so they could take us to Greenwich, so had a little time to kill in the morning which we filled by going for a swim in the apartments pool & then walking down the Thames to get a closer look & The Eye, Big Ben & Government House.

Mike & Viv met us @ the apartment and then proceeded to take us back down to the Eye where the ferry, The Thames Clipper, leaves from.  It's worth noting that from Friday to Sdnday there is a great food market open alday just down the steps from Festival Hall in Waterloo.  The ferry was sweet, we flew along the Thames seeing clear views of all the famous London skypscrapers & buildings while Mike * Viv argued over which version of history was correct for each building!  Between the two of them I reckon we may have gotten the equivalant of a paid guided tour!  Whether the information provided was accurate is yet to be determined.

In Greenwich we were treated to some cheap Pie & Mash before walking up to the Royal Observatory.  I'd told Mike previously about my interest in seeing some of the chronometers designed by John Harrison, in particular the H4 which won the Longitude Challenge many hundreds of years ago.  Laura& I spent a few hours in there looking at all the watches & clocks & the prime meridian *where time begins!) while Mike & Viv chilled out somewhere.

Had a beer at a bar called 'Meantime' (great), while Mike smoked out a family of children with his stinky pipe.  Luckily Mike had just recieved an e-pipe in the mail which he was quite reluctant to advise me of the price while Viv was around!

Finished our beers then Mike & Viv showed us their true Londoner colours by pushing past a queue of people to catch the ferry back to the eye!  We slow Australains have a lot to learn about jumping queues apparently.  Early night again, this time with homemade pizza's @ the apartment.

12th: Today was our museum day, a time to spend all our day in some of the larger museums, mainly the Natural History Museum & the Science Museum.  We decided we would walk the 3 miles rather than take the tube, which was exhausting!  After 1.5 hours walking and a detour around Buck Palace due to some massive parade we finally made it to the Natural History museum.

We a bit too lethargic after the walk so had to make a quick stop in the French Quarter for a baguette first.  Delightful sangas @ $14 pound all up!

The best part about the natural history museum was the building, cool patterned bricks with individual animal sculptures everywhere.  Unfortunately the museum itself did not live up to expectations.  Dusty displays, faded animals and generally run-down interior made it a very sorry sight.  You coudln't even see the stripes on the Tazzie tiger anymore!  I'm sure the kids still enjoy it but the realitry definitely paled (get it!?_ in comparison to what my imagination had initially conjured up.  We did find some things we liked; for Laura it was the technical drawings of plants & animals.  For me it was a room full of some of their most precious gemstones.  Of no use of course but so very very pretty!

That place tired us again so we went for a coffee @ Le Pain Quotidian.  What a shit experience.  Jerk waiter treated us with disdain, coffees were uber expensive, then he had the nerve to add a 70c Service Charge ($2 AUD).  What I should have said is 'Do you get paid extra for being a prick?', but we just paid and got out.

The science museum asked for a %5 pound donation before entry, didn't pay, still feeling ripped from coffee!  this museum was in much better condition than the last.  We raced through teh seam engines & space room & headed up to the area designed for kids to learn about science.  Was pretty cool, nothing like interactive science displays.

On our way home picked up some AWESOME milkshakes from a place called MEATMarket in Covent Square.  Cooked more pizzas at home & headed out to Soho to see some blues jamming at a bar called 'Aint nothing but blues'. We got there a little late though and there was a slow line in so went to a bar called 'Red Lion' for the cheapest pint in London (sub $3 pound!).

Managed to get into the blues bar afterwards and had a ball.  random musicians getting up and jamming together in a tiny little bar that everyone squashed into.

13th: Spent most of the early day planning for Portugal before going to meet Mike & Tom at the Tate Modern.  I was sad & angry half the afternoon coz I felt battered by all the things that annoy my travelling companions; deaf, lack of confidence, walking style, driving style, etc.  Get it, but had enough of it that day.  Times like that made me ready to go home.

Met Mike, no Tom.  Raced around Tate Modern as we wanted to make it to St. Pauls for Evensong to get inside for free.  The Tate was alright, would have liked to have spent a little longer there but ah well!  Walked across Millenium bridge for a good view of the Cathedral & went in.  Gorgeous. Huge. Cavernous.

I then went to meet Craig Smith while Laura met Jen from her work.  Met Craig at Garlic & Shots in Soho and smashed some beers & garlicky food with him & Sophie his GF.  Laura caught up with us a bit later after some struggle getting in contact with each other.  Lauras session with Jen went for longer than thought, and she was unsure I would still be at Garlic & Shots.

Meatmarket was so good for Milkshakes we returned for a burger & chips.  Delicious but super unhealthy.

14th: Pretty slow start again today because be could!  Picked up a bottle of Jura 10yo & prepared a few e-cig juices for Mike as a thank you for having us gift.  Hopefully appreciated & used in times of need!

Laura had an interview for a compay that was based in Aus, so I left her to concentrate on that and visited the NAtional Gallery & Portrait museum.  The great thing about these museums is they're all free, so if you're not enjoying it you don't have to stay and get your monies worth!  I surprised myself by quite enjoying the National Gallery but had had a little much of paintings by the time I reached the Portrait Gallary so didn't stay there long.

I liked the look of Soho after spending some time there yesterday so went that way looking for a place to chill & drink a coffee.  A lovely young lady approached me on the street to enquire if I was looking for 'Business', only $20 Pound! I politely declined & found a coffee.  No sooner had I got my wifi & coffee, Ryan *who was by chance in London @ the time) was wondering how long til I could meet him at a pub I'd chosen earlier (Bunch of Grapes).  It wasn't exactly around the corner so I picked up my coffee & double-timed it to The Shard.

3 miles & an hour later I made it, looking very sweaty mind you!  Spent the night drinking with Ryan, Adam, Adams dad (roberto) & Laura.  Went to Jamie's kitchen for dinner, we were all a bit haggard so departed.  I started to get a blocked nose & flu.

7th-9th October - Oxford

After our top sleep at the hostel we walked through the London streets to Liverpool station.  Got to briefly see St. Pauls, the Gherkin (dildo) building, the financial district and the tub!  Mnaged to get caught in peak hour crowds while the tube dealt with signal faults.  Still ended up making it to Oxford by about midday.

Visited a food market a short walk from the station and the Ashmolean museum whichwas recommended by Mike.  The museum was packed with soo many artefacts from all ages & all continents.  We decided it was just too overwhelming and ended up walking rather briskly through some of the floors.

We wanted to go to the movies but it was too pricy at $13 pound each ($30 AUD), so ended up cooking and having a few drinks in the hostel.

8th: Hired a Fiat 500, a gas-guzzling, gutless shitbox.  Thrashed it over to Bletchley Park to visit the National Museum of Computing.  Got to see the Collossus, a machine designed by Alan Turing to quickly decipher encrypted messages from the Germans in WWII.  Wasn't just some metal & wires, it was fully functioning!  This place had more computers & servers than you could poke a stick at.

The next town was STratford-Upon-Avon, a pleasent place with a picturesque river running through it.  We picked up a 4-pack of Fosters & sat by the river eating some chicken wraps.  Once that was done, headed to the theatre ran by the Royal Shakespeare Company to watch Henry V.

I've never seen a Shakespeare play before but this was awesome.  Really well done and kept everyones attention for the full 3 hours.  Think we will have to organise a few more when we get home!

Got back to the hostel around midnight.  Had a turkish guy in the room who spoke loudly while everyone was trying to sleep, followed by another snorer and a loud yawner.

Had a pretty good final day in Oxford.  Had a boost-bar shake to die for, visited the science museum that had a chalkboard with calculations pencilled by Einstien himself when he visited many years ago.  Delish pie & mushy peas at Pieminister. Then used all that pie-energy to visit a few of the colleges with their lovely green squarews that no one is allowed to sit on!

Had a pint at the Bear Bar which was the first pubin Oxford, opening in 1242.  Then changed hostels to the Oxford Backpackers because it was a bit cheaper than the YHA.  Another dodgy hostel.  Stoned-looking inhabitants sleeping on the couches & gangster-wannabes smoking pot in the hostel entrance.  All good though, we got a bed and we slept!

Before sleep though we met an Aussie bike rider named Phil who'd been riding all over Eastern Europe. Then we visited Turf Barem, the place where Bob Hawke skulled a yard-glass of beer in 11 seconds, entering the guinnes book of records.  Also the place where Bill Clinton supposedley smoked a joint 'but didn't inhale'!  Really low roof in this bar too!

Well those weren't the only crazy things that happened in the bar.  While we were sipping pints Laura was distracted by a familiar sounding voice.  After a few minutes contemplation and Facebook stalking it turned out Laura was right, the voice was that of friend Fiona whom Laura hadn't seen since high school 12 years ago!  Apparently she was in Oxford while her husband studied some crazy religion-affirming course.  We spoke with them for an hour before everyone went home.  We made the mistake of buying the worst chips, cheese, gravy I have ever eaten.

4th-6th October - The Hague (Den Haag)

Took about 3 hours via the trains from Gent to The Hague.  We stayed in StayOkay Hostels & got a room to ourselves with ensuite & balcony for the same price as a dorm room for two!

We walked around the town aimlessly but happily and found a Sunday market & some tasty sandwiches before catching up with Phil Topsahalidis, who'd moved there a few months prior for a eftpos security job in Delft.  Had a great time catching up over 9% beers & chuckling at S.Cathies recent adventures!

Before we let Phil go home I forced him to find me a coffee-shop to buy a joint.  I had that 'When in Rome' feeling, until I started smoking it of course!  Was still good though but said our goodbyes and bought some Capsalon before bed.  Capsalon is basically the innards of a kebab served on a bed of chips.

I was really keen to go to the Escher museum the next day until we realised it is closed on Mondays...  So instead we bought the strange 'sausage' rolls with sauce inside them & headed to the beach on Tram 1.  Spent the afternoon walking the beach, headed back to city centre where Laura instantly got hungry and couldn't find something healthy to eat.  Sorted that out and sat with a beer reading The Martian (great book).

Afterwards we met my old Europe pal Avnert @ his favourite pub 'Huppel the Pub'.  Stayed out til 11.30 with him and his friends before going home.  Pub was great, lots of specialty beers on tap and we'd arrived on 'from-the-record' night where locals come & play their favourite records.

On the 6th we said goodbye to the mainland, or maybe that should be 'see you later'...  Anyway, caught a ferry from the Hook of Holland and made our way to London via a train, train, ferry & bus.  Took about 10-12 hours all up.  Got to watch Antman in the ferry-cinema, pretty average, corny superhero movie.

We arrived into a rainy London & to our YHA Hostel near St. Pauls Cathedral which had about 100 Matthew Flinders students blocking every corridor & stairwell.  Laura & I both copped loud snorers in our rooms.  Mine was so bad at one point around 3AM an English fella yelled 'For FUCK's SAKE would ya SHUT IT!!'.  On he went snoring.  The beds in the hostel were also stacked wierdly so most people didn't know how to get in and out of bed (see image below).  Also had an Irish bloke ask me the time @ 7.30am using his outside voice haha.

Thank god we were only staying there until our train to Oxford the next day!

1st-3rd October - Gent, Belgium

Before catching the train to Gent, we picked up some Printen, a local baked good very similar to ginger bread but usually covered in chocolate.

We had a connection in Brussels that we missed because border protection was in full force.  Was ok though as Laura found anothe train heading the same direction 20 minutes later.  I made eye contact with a strange looking Belgian bloke on the train who turned out to be quite friendly & offered me one of his cans of beer!

Gent is another (!) one of those cities that when you first arrive it just blows your mind how pretty it is.  The hostel we stayed in was inside a building built in the 1500's!  Within sight of the front door are 3 old churches, a bell tower & a canal overlooking the busy part of the city.  Picture perfect from all directions.  Also a university town, the locals buy beer from the supermarkets and take them down to the canals to drink & eat on the stones (while getting stoned).  We followed suit before heading to an all-you-can-eat vegan buffet.  It was Vegetarian Thursday, a Gent thing where everyone only eats veggo each Thursday.  They also call it the vegetarian capital of the world, with over 200 vegetarian only restaurants.

On the second day we checked out a flea-market which was mostly 2nd hand junk but I managed to find a cool scarf for $1 Pound.  Laura was very jealous.  Also went on a free walking tour which was guite good.  Passed through & explained many of the buildings & monuments which we had seen the previous day.

After the tour we settled down on the canals again with veggie burgers, beers & frites.  Frites being a national dish of Belgium.  I believe we had enough frites to last us a month.  Samurai sauce was the bomb.  Laura found a pub playing free live music & it ended up being pretty good!  3 of the 4 bands were great, which one of them being from the Isle of Lewis in Scotland, the same place as the old rascal John Davies from Kirkby Stephen!

At some point during the free shows these three Rebels without a Cause waltzed in and danced merrily right up against the stage whilst zapping their little hand lazer about.

The 3rd was AFL Grand Final day back home and we found an Irish Pub that said they would play it for us!  In Belgium the game started at 7am so we got up early and headed down only to find the pub didn't open until 8am :(  Managed to at least see the last half so it ended up being fine.

Purchased some waffles to show Laura what they are like.  Devoured...  More frites were had & we also argued over something stupid because we were both pretty tired.

Went back o the hostel to get a beer before the rugby, ended up joining this drunk disorganised group of hostel-stayers who, by the time we finally left the hostel, walked around aimlessly like a bunch of zombies for 20 minutes.  As luck would have it we stumbled into another free gig with an insane Zylophone player.

Oh we also walked a very long way down to a park earlier in the day where we sat reading for an hour or two.  The park had two large abandoned uildings, one of which used to be a casino we were pretty sure.

30th September - Aachen

The 3 days actually riding the bikes seemed to go so fast.  After so much bother buying them, transporting them and fixing them it seemed a real shame to sell them but we had no plans to use them further and they cost too much to keep putting on trains.  So todays main goal was to palm them off whatever the cost.

We made a crude sign in English & German

[insert sign here]

Starting at the train station holding up the sign got some interest but no buyers.  Some locals suggested we try selling at the University which was our next plan, so we headed there and set up in front of the main Uni Cafe.

It wasn't going great at the uni for the first hour until some students advised we should post on the Uni's trade/sell facebook page.  I found some wifi, posted on the group, tweeted it and had HEAPS of responses.  Another 45 minutes and we sold both bikes within 5 minutes of each other!

We couldn't believe our luck and were elated to have sold them before 2PM and have the rest of the day to ourselves.

After that we visited the Newspaper Museum with papers dating back to the 1300's all the way through to present day.  It was 5 Euro entry and was more a description of the journalist occupation & how media sways public opinion, however it was still nice to see.

That night Laura picked a cheap noodlebox takeaway joint for dinner.  We had Doner's instead because noodlebox was crowded with Bandido bikies & about 10 cop cars haha..  Chomped on Doners while drinking spanish wine in the town square.

27th-29th September - The Vennbahn Trail

So we knew the bikes were pretty average, but over the course of this bike ride we FULLY appreciated just how shit they were!

We caught the train from Lux City to Troisvierges (pronounced 'Twaa-vee-air'), that was easy because it was a sunday morning, also only cost us 2 Euro each for a ticket.  Troisvierges is where the trail begins (If you go the direction we wanted!).  It's a 132km rail-trail with a lot of history behind it due to the proximity of so many countries borders.  We had planned to ride approx 35-45km a day.  Should be a breeze.  no.

The moment we reached the start of the trail we hit a 10% gradient.  On decent bikes you'd piss up that without breaking a sweat, however we quickly learnt that Julie's bike (a fixie) was only mildly possible to ride on gradients up to 4%.

We lucked out though by riding the direction on the trail that was more downhill than uphill.

We pushed through on day one and after 35km arrived at our destination, St. Vith.  We stayed at the Jugendherberge (Youth Hostel) in which we were the only occupants.  This place was massive and built in a square formation with a grassy area in the middle, so it felt very creepy walking around at night.

Ate some Italian for dinner & treated myself to a Belgian beer when I realised we were in fact in Belgium!  Side Note:  It will be interesting to see how many times we eat cuisine that are not authentic to the country we are visiting.

Day two was a planned 42km trip to destination Monschau, it didn't look to harmful gradient-wise but still appeared to be the hardest day on our bikes made of bricks.  After about 12km, I realised that my front tyre was giving up on me.  The tread had ripped down the middle and the tube was bubbling out of the rip.  Consensus was to keep riding until the next town (Waimes) and find a bike shop.  No bike shops in Waimes, fuck.  Tyre blew up on the ride out of the town...  The only option left was to ride the remaining 28km to Monschau on a flat tyre, so that's what I did.

The banging of the flat tyre destroyed my wrists and loosened up all other bolts on the bike.  This forced me to do some bush mechanics, but in the end we made it to Monschau.

Upon arriving at our Monschau-Hargard Hostel, the owners immediately attacked the task of fixing my bike!  They ended up driving us to a bike shop, helped translate, buy the new tread & tyre, provide tools AND help replace everything!  It was just the best thing anyone has done for us all trip.  I would not have been able to fix it without their help.

The hostel was occupied by a school full of children but it was fine and I was too happy to let niggly things like that annoy me!  A note to anyone else wanting to stay there on the ride:  It's about 3KM off the Vennbahn trail, 1.5km downhill, then 1.5km uphill.  Hostel is also situated about 1km uphill from the town.

I forgot to mention the old bloke we met and asked directions off before we got to Monschau.  He did not speak a lick of English but proceeded slowly describing instructions to get to our accom.  He knew his shit.  I'm now led to believe everybody in this town is awesome.

Went down to the small but beautiful old shanty town for dinner & got a 3-course meal for 12 Euro!

We were ready for Day 3 (29th) of the ride, despite our really sore bumholes.  We knew today was the longest ride at 47km, and we knew we had a hard start uphill, but we also got about 25km downhill which was just awesome after the last painful 2 days.

We still arrived at Aachen pretty wrecked but we had made it!  This city was another good looker, it had Germany's first UNESCO world heritage listed Cathedral, a large university and a lot of cool streets, shops & buildings.  Had some Lebanese food at AKL.  Huge portions, cheap price.  Julie ate so much she felt ill the rest of the night.