This time itโs only for 14 days rather than 14 months, but still, we enjoyed writing about our big trip so much that we thought weโd bring back the blog for a limited time only. Before we get started on our plans, itโs probably a good time to introduce the newest member of the crew…
Meet Alexander!
Alex turns five months today, so after some practice trips to Lyme Regis, Canterbury and a beautiful Somerset wedding (between two of our favourite blog readers Katie and Dan), we decided it was about time to leave the UK and go on an adventure. My brief was to find somewhere exciting but with a relatively small time difference, so of course I immediately got carried away and started planning a trip to China. After a particularly bad nightโs sleep with Alex, we realised that a seven-hour time difference was going to be fun for no one, so we settled instead on Iceland, a country that neither of us have visited previously. We concluded that it had enough active volcanoes, ice caps, bubbling mud and epic vistas to keep us busy for a couple of weeks, not to mention that itโs a country full of hot pots, which sounded awfully similar to my favourite hangout: the Japanese onsen.
Reykjavรญk, the northernmost capital in the world
Oli and I are travelling very light, but Alex didnโt get the memo and is taking up half of my bag and half of Oliโs! To ensure that we can take good care of him while on the road, weโve brought along some extra kit, such as a pop-up travel cot, a cold-water steriliser and an all-weather cover for our baby carrier so we could skip the pram.
Testing some of Alex’s kit in the wilds of Camden
With careful packing, these all fit into our two suitcases – just about! We have made some concessions, though, including hiring a very sensible family car so that we have more control over our schedule rather than relying on more carbon-friendly public transport. We will of course still track our carbon emissions as we go and offset the total at the end of the trip.
Our chariot for the trip
Our rough plan is to begin in Reykjavรญk and follow the ring road that circles the country, with a healthy number of detours, including to the beautifully-named Snรฆfellsnes Peninsula, the frozen north and the Eastfjords. The ring road itself is 1,322 km even before adding our detours, so we’ll be doing a fair amount of driving (and by we, I mean Oli – Alex and I plan to nap and eat chocolate, respectively).
So, with Iceland’s ‘summer’ long gone and its harsh winter just around the corner, we set off on our next adventure. Weโre looking forward to sharing it with you!
Going To The Sun in Glacier National Park ๐บ๐ธ
Over a million acres of beautiful mountains, lakes and bears beginning in a remote corner of Montana and stretching all the way up into Canada, accessible on the iconic Going-to-the-Sun Road.
Ice skating on the world’s highest rink in Almaty ๐ฐ๐ฟ
Kazakhstan in general was a lot of fun and as always, watching people wobble around on ice skates didn’t disappoint, but this was also a truly spectacular setting in the mountains above Almaty.
An afternoon exploring a spa town full of crumbling sanatoria near to Georgia’s second city, Kutaisi. Fascinating and unnerving in equal measure, and totally different to anything else we did on this trip.
We loved exploring these precariously-perched monasteries in mainland Greece. The area is apparently one of Greece’s biggest tourist destinations (except that no one seems to have heard of it!).
(Please forgive the shoehorning of the letter X in here – if only we’d had the foresight to do some xylophoning on our trip.) We do love a free activity and Singapore’s supertree light show didn’t disappoint.
Japanโs rail network has got to be the best in the world, and boarding a Shinkansen felt more like getting on an aeroplane than a train. What a way to travel!
We experienced way, way more than 26 highlights during our nearly 13 months away
Fitting even 26 highlights neatly into alphabetical order was really quite difficult!
But you might also notice that there’s very little mention of food here – we had to make this a rule, or else all 26 entries would have been about what we ate! We might just have to write a food highlights post too. It’s making me hungry just thinking about it…
In one long travel day, we made the journey from Cologne to London by train (although when I say long travel day, I should probably clarify that most of our time was actually spent in Brussels, eating waffles ๐ง and drinking beer ๐บ). We’d previously taken the Eurostar many times but had only really considered it a feasible option when our end destination was in the same country as where the Eurostar terminated, but actually, the whole journey was remarkably straightforward and I’d definitely choose this over flying to most places in Europe in the future.
โฐ 09.30: Cologne HBF to Cologne Ehrenfeld
We joyfully packed up our bags one last time, with me telling Oli that I finally felt like I’d nailed my speedy packing in the last few weeks. He brought me down a peg or two by pointing out all the things that weren’t in my already-zipped bag and I realised that actually I hadn’t got better, I’d just become more cavalier!
A quick walk to the station and a pretzel later and we were ready to board our first train: a quick hop from the central station to the out-of-town high-speed station. Here, we waited patiently while our long-distrance train was nowhere to be seen – either on the platform or any of the departure boards. At least we weren’t in a hurry – another British couple approached us for a chat and they were on edge because their Eurostar connection left them only 35 minutes between trains, and check-in closes 30 minutes before departure. We made our best attempt at sympathy, but seriously, who would book that tight a connection?!
โฐ 09.55: Cologne Ehrenfeld to Brussels Midi
The InterCity Express arrived in the end (only 10 or so minutes late) and we hopped on. We’d decided to save a few pennies by not reserving seats (this costs extra in Germany), and although the train was busier than we’d hoped, our bet still paid off when we found seats near one another. We didn’t need to chat, anyway – trains are strictly for blog writing or napping! Less than 2 hours later, we pulled into Brussels. It was such a smooth journey that there’s not much to mention other than the train’s impeccable 10/10 toilet score!
โฐ 11.35: Waffle and beer consumption
We thought we might as well give ourselves an afternoon in Brussels before boarding our final high-speed train of the trip, so we left our bags at Brussels Midi station (making sure to get an XXL locker so that we wouldn’t jam the lock with our bag straps – our debacle in Seoul still haunts us!) and hopped on a local train into the city centre. After much Googling, we think that this journey was included in our Eurostar tickets, but as no one checked we never found out for sure!
Once there, we paid a quick visit to the Grand Place (beautiful but no match for Salamanca’s amazing Plaza Mayor) before getting onto the serious business of eating and drinking.
At my request, our first stop was Le Roi de la Gaufre for a Belgian waffle. We knew we’d come to the right place when the lady asked if we had a few minutes so she could make us a fresh one, despite having a huge pile of cooked waffles in front of her. She then smothered it in dark chocolate and it was well worth the wait – as you can probably tell from the picture below, I was quite excited!
At Oli’s request, our next stop was Delirium Cafรฉ, which is a Brussels classic where you can choose from a literal book of beers – over 2000 of them! Sadly, we only had time for one round so we didn’t get too far through the menu, but there’s always next time…
โฐ 18.50: Eurostar to London St Pancras
We then headed back to Brussels Midi with plenty of time to spare to wrestle our backpacks from the storage locker and find something convenient to eat on the train for dinner. Then, we headed through security (where the Swiss Army knife was scrutinised one last time but ultimately returned to us), exited the Schengen Area and passed through the UK border before hopping on the train. In less than 2 hours, and after 389 days away, we were back in London!
โฐ 19.45: Gah! A rail strike
We still needed to cross London to reach Oli’s parents’ house (aka Thomas’ billet ๐) so we were delighted to learn that there was a rail strike in progress ๐ฉ. At least this gave us an excuse to take the Elizabeth Line, which got fully up and running while we were away, but the long and busy bus ride was less welcome.
But really, the journey was all worth it when we arrived back and were greeted by our best friend in the whole world, Thomas. He was home alone as Oli’s parents were away on holiday, and we were relieved to find he hadn’t forgotten us at all in the year we’ve been away. What a little legend!
