From Luxembourg we made our way to the Netherlands, where both of us have family connections. First stop was Maastricht where Jansen's Dad's family hails from. We made sure to visit all the spots we know of with specific relevance, which were really nice to see. The town itself claims to be one of the oldest in the Netherlands and has a number of ancient Roman fortifications surrounding it with parklands and a picturesque central area. Being on the smaller si...

Summer is now well and truly ramping up in Europe. There seems to be a public holiday once per week, accommodation prices are rising and the weather is warming. We didn't expect at any point in Europe for the heat to pose a problem, particularly after 40 degree days in Thailand, Europe would be a breeze, but for the first time since Asia we found ourselves uncomfortably hot, in Luxembourg. Perhaps Europe's mild weather has softened us, but the forecasted tempe...

Belgium, the land of beer and chocolate, was our next stop after Germany, and we started in the capital, Brussels. One thing they are not shy of there is giving out free samples in the many chocolate shops around the city. You could make yourself sick of the stuff if you wanted to just by visiting each shop and having one of the free samples they thrust in your face the moment you walk in the door. Free Belgian beer was also provided when walking through a ran...

We had heard from other travellers on our trip so far that Heidelberg is a nice place to visit in southern Germany, a student town that was pretty much untouched from the war so it had retained much of its old world character. This, combined with the fact that Sonja has a friend from school living in the town meant we were always going to pay Heidelberg a visit. Sonja's friend, Doro, kindly offered for us to stay at her place for the three days we would be ther...

Berlin has been at the centre of a number of significant historical events over the last century, so it wasn't a huge surprise for us to find that it is unlike any other city we've visited in Europe so far. It's the largest city by area in Europe (unless you count London as part of Europe), which gives everyone so much room to move but also makes it difficult to see everything. Also, understandably, it has very few old buildings that survived World War II so Be...