And just like that, our Europe trip is over.
The last 10 days of our Europe travels went by so fast that we barely had any time to process where we were going or what we were doing. But we’ll do our best to catch you up. We left off our last post when we were on our way to Venice, so that’s where we’ll pick up from. Get ready, cause it’s gunna be a long one.
Days 69 – 74
What was supposed to be only two days in Venice, turned into five. We fell in love with the city and just felt like two days wasn’t enough.
We spent our days wandering the canals, getting lost down all the tiny little streets, sipping cappuccinos while watching locals and tourists go about their business, eating gelato, and searching for the best Italian good we could find. But it wasn’t until Burano, a small island about an hours ferry ride from the main island of St Lucia, known for its colourfulness, that we finally found the quality food we couldn’t find else where.
Burano was probably the highlight of our time in Venice. The island of Venice itself is very very touristy, even though the scenery is amazing, the atmosphere looses a bit of its touch. But on Burano that’s not the case. It does have it fair share of tourists but all in all it just felt a lot more, like we were in Italy.
Days 74 – 77
From Venice we jumped on a night bus to Zurich, Switzerland. It was only an 8 hour bus ride, which to some might be long, but by taking a night bus it saves us money on one nights accommodation, plus pretty much gives us extra days in places because we get there early in the morning and leave late at night.
Our plan the whole time was to spend at least a week in Switzerland, rent a car and drive around. Buuuut, things don’t always go to plan, as we all know too well, so we only ended up spending two days in Switzerland and those two days were in Zurich.
{ It may not look like much, but these were hands down some of the best meals we had on the whole trip. Left: Zurcher Geschnetzeltes with potato rosti, Right: Local beef dish with a curry sauce, we can’t remember the name of. }
The only reason we really went to Zurich was to go to the Open Air Festival to see Mumford and Sons. Yes, that’s a long way just for a band; Yes, it was a lot of money just for a band; Yes, it was totally worth it!
They were amazing!
{ Sorry for the crappy iPhone photo }
Anyone who knows me well knows how much I love Mumford and Sons. Considering how little they do concerts (especially in Canada), its safe to say i’d consider travelling around the world just to see them. So jumping on a night bus just for the festival really wasn’t a question at all.
It’s definitely in the Top 3 as far as highlights of the whole trip go.
{ Before Mumford and Sons and During Mumford and Sons }
Sadly, after I wrote this, there was a problem with Will’s phone when we took it to Apple to be fixed and we ended up loosing all of our footage and photos from the show (as well as photos and videos from our time back in England and our travels to Canada). All that’s left is the few photos that I saved from our Instagram story 😦
Days 77 – 79
The morning after the festival we jumped on another bus, this time heading to Munich. Again we were only there two nights but caught a night bus out, which gave us about three days in the city.
We were in Munich last year for Okotberfest and absolutely loved the city and we really wanted to go back before leaving Europe. Plus my friend Jackie, who I met in Australia, was living close to Munich and we wanted to catch up while we were in the same area.
Oh, and Will really wanted one last Pork Knuckle.
Days 79 – 83
After Munich we headed for Amsterdam via another night bus. Like a broken record, we once again only stayed two nights, but because we were catching an over-night ferry we basically had three days.
Amsterdam pretty much brought us full circle on our Eurotrip. It was our last stop before we headed back to England and put us back in Western Europe.
Taking the ferry from Amsterdam to Newcastle was actually the cheapest way for us to cross over. But it was no where near as cheap as it was for us to get from England to Europe. In the end we actually came out even because Will turned 20 Euros into 120 Euros on roulette in the casino on the ferry.
The ferry crossing was extremely smooth, considering it is notorious for being quite a rough journey. We arrived into Newcastle at 9:00 am on August the 29th, making the total trip 83 days.
So there you go, our big trip of 2017 is finished. We lasted 83 days, visited 11 countries, 23 cities, 7 islands, crossed 19 borders, took 17 buses, 11 ferries, 5 trains, 1 flight and crossed 4 things off of our Bucket List.
Take Me Travelling 