After an awesome few months of unorganised and fun travelling with Isaac it was time to part ways as Isaac headed for Italy and I continued north through Germany. Its definitely going to be great to sit down back in Melbourne and enjoy reminiscing about all the funny stories with a great mate.
Heidelberg Castle
Rob & myself at the top of the castle (geees i need a hair cut!!)
Great views from the top of the castle
The Old Bridge of Heidelberg and the castle on the hill in the background
Cobblestone streets of Heidelberg
Walking blindly into the sunset down the main street of Heidelberg
My next stop in Germany was Cologne/Koln, another cool city about 2 hours from Heidelberg.
The trains in German may be extremely punctual and fast but they are also super expensive which certainly didn't agree with my budget. Isaac's cousin had recommended a website to me called mitfahrgelegenheit (rideshare.co) which is basically an organised hitchhiking site where people who are driving to a place and have spare seats offer a ride for a reasonable offer. After a bit of stuffing around on the internet and a few text messages I had myself a lift to Cologne for about 20 euros cheaper than the train. I was picked up by a very goodlooking German girl in her schmick VW and along with another German lad we hit the autobahn at 160kms and basically flew to Cologne!
Cologne has this amazing cathedral right in its city centre and to me this was one of those most amazing buildings I have seen in Europe. It is just massive and basically impossible to fit inside your camera screen! Everyday I was in Cologne I found myself just stopping and staring at this magnificent building. And best of all you could climb up it! I also managed to visit a weird statue park, walk over a bridge that is covered in love padlocks, reach the 28th floor of an observational tower, meet more bloody Australians, enjoy currywurst and multiple Kolsch beers with Ute Schnute (one of Geoffrey's German friends).
The Cologne Dom/Cathedral - Wow! Impressive Gothic Architecture.
The top of the Cologne Cathedral
Yup.... I couldn't stop taking photos of this building!
Hohenzollernbrücke bridge with millions of love padlocks!
The view from the 28th floor looking at the Cathedral and the bridge with the love padlocks.
One of the weird sculptures at a very strange sculpture park
After having success and saving lots of pennies with this organised hitchiking I organised myself another lift onto a smaller town/city called Bremen. This time it was me with 3 other German lads in an oldschool Mercedes. Once again it was back onto the autobahn and goodness me this lad liked to drive fast! We hit 220km an hour and on average stayed above 160kms for most of the very quick trip! I checked into a brand spanking new hostel in the quiet city of Bremen and had a whole dorm to myself :) I promise you I didn't try and time it but Bremen had also decided to have a beer festival for themselves, just like Munich and Stuttgart. Ahhh my liver thought it was getting a break but after meeting a local German lad who was staying in the hostel we ventured over to Freimarkt (which means free fair in English) and enjoyed some hot mulled wine followed by 1 litre Maß (stein) of weizenbier (wheat beer). Bremen the home of Becks beer was a pretty chilled place with some beautiful architecture, friendly people and fantastic German pretzels!
The City Hall of Bremen
Sculpture of The Town Musicians of Bremen - quite a funny story - check it out in wikipedia.org
The view from the island looking back into the city of Bremen and St Peters Cathedral
Freimarkt Festival - The same as Oktoberfest and Volksfest but alot smaller and definetly only a few wandering Australians!
After a bit of a trim to my ridiculous fro I organised another lift, this time on someones train ticket to Hamburg. The 2 guys and 2 girls who were also part of the 5 person ticket were probably the nicest people in the world and gave me a full rundown of what to do in Hamburg and even tried to score last minute football/soccer tickets for me. Unfortunately my luck didn't run that far! However I found Hamburg to be a another great city with plenty of bridges (the most of any city in the world), stunning buildings and a buzzing nightlife. The Reeperbahn is a famous strip in the St Pauli district of Hamburg where the red light district is situated. There's even a street only for men called Herbertstraße. Apart from the eager prostitutes there are plenty of great bars including some that the Beatles became famous in. After meeting a few guys in the hostel we joined onto a pub crawl to see the nightlife of Hamburg. It was a bit of a laugh as 25 lads showed up and not one single female! A rather big night was had and I managed to keep awake/upright until the early hours of the morning in order to catch the famous Hamburg Fischmarket which kicks off at 5am on every Sunday morning. This market is rather massive with all sorts of fruits & veg, handicrafts, clothes, coffee, pretzels, currywursts and yes you guessed it... more beer! At the end of the market there is a big beer hall where live bands pump out some classic tunes for the night/morning to continue. I have to say i was completely exhausted and at 7.30am i pulled the pin and returned to the hostel in need of some water and serious Zzzzzzz's. Whilst in Hamburg I managed to squeeze in a free walking tour and also catch up with Sonja, another of Geoffreys friends. She showed me a bit more of Hamburg which included an underground tunnel under the river, a ferry ride and of course a few beers at the local Hofbrauhaus.
Water, water, water everywhere in Hamburg
Getting chilly as the trees were looking a touch naked
Except for this bright red one!
The Chilehaus office building in Hamburg which is shaped like a boat. Very cool!
The Warehouse district of Hamburg
I was now on the final leg of my 3 week trip through Germany and I once again decided to use the rideshare website to get myself from Hamburg and into the amazing city that is Berlin. So far there hadn't been any hiccups with this organised hitchhiking thing... but my last leg was the most interesting..... The guy was 30mins late, very dodgey looking and rocked up in a big white beaten up VW van. Hmmmmm this wasn't the only thing... He'd organised to fit 9 other rideshare people in this bloody thing which could really only fit 6 comfortably! I think this may have been his idea of self employment/becoming a private taxi! After a few angry conversations between the rather large Germans, a few laughs from the American and a big smile on my face we all crammed into this beast and set forth for Berlin. Lets just say no top speeds were set on the autobahn this day and a stray spring decided to poke at my back for the snug journey. About halfway into the drive it was clear the old VW was struggling so a 30min rest stop was apparently what it needed! Ahhhhhh finally we were approaching Berlin and....... just what i thought might happen...... the car started to shake and splutter and finally it just died right in the middle of a busy road into the city! 7 of the others jumped out angrily and bailed with some paying and some not! I put my backpack on and with another guy we gave the dodgey looking lad a hand to push his car into a safer part of the road. He was extremely happy that we had helped him and gave us both a few euros back. Lucky for me there was a train station close by which whisked me FINALLY into Berlin.
Berlin was a pretty damn cool city and it was made even cooler by the fact that my housemate from Edinburgh - Geoffrey Dawson was in town! It was great to catch up, relax at the hostel with a few beverages, eat some good food apart from currywursts and reminisce about both our adventures through Europe. We managed to fit in a free walking tour of the historical city, visit a Jewish monument, enjoy the city of lights festival, visit a few pubs and tag along with an alternative pub crawl which was made up of 10 or so ridiculously drunk and annoying Finish people who all ended up not so healthy.. After a sleep in and some fried eggs for breakfast it was time to say goodbye to the legendary Geoffrey Dawson, Europe and the freezing cold weather (6 degrees) of Berlin and catch my afternoon flight to a much, much, much warmer and chaotic country - Egypt.
Ampelmaennchen - the famous little traffic light man used in the eastern part of Berlin
The Berlin Dom post rain shower with a rainbow over it. Another beautiful building I couldn't stop looking at!
One final festival in Germany - The city of lights festival where all major buildings are lit up.
Even the trees get lit up... So simple yet so nice.
Germany= Big thumbs up for food, beer, buildings, people & fun!
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