We've been getting our Swiss on for the past couple of days and driving across some of the nicest roads we've encountered so far In far from our first board game shop, we came across this sleepy fellow who enjoyed a good stroke. Basel, our first stop within Switzerland, was a mess of these tiny streets and beautiful wooden shuttered windows. Finally getting to call the shots on which museum we went to, Danni decided on the Basel anatomy museum. Not sure that it was my favourite museum in the world and, almost fainting aside, I did find this humongous copy of Vesalius' book! After Basel we had a very pleasant drive across Switzerland to Zurich, where the pleasantness ended and the horrifying reality of trying to park near a large Swiss city sunk in, you'd thought we learnt from Geneva last summer!? Time for a nice wander around the city and a chance to see some classic Swiss architecture Very pretty and cool topographical map of Switzerland that I was clearly impressed b...

After a very hectic day in Trier we decided to slow things down again on our way down to Switzerland by stopping in Saarbrucken and Strasbourg. Saarbrucken wasn't the busiest town in the world but it was a nice little city to break up an otherwise long drive yesterday, plus it had the added bonus of this awesome display in the Warhammer shop! On arrival in Strasbourg we managed to find a stellar park up (that would have given Nigel Farage a heart attack) in the centre of European politics between the European Parliament (pictured), the European Court of Human Rights, and the Council of Europe. Although denying entrance to the Parliament to two British tourists in the morning for not having brought our passports probably felt a bit cathartic for the French security guards. On the way into the city we stopped by a remnant of German rule of Alsace-Lorraine from 1870-1919, the Neustadt: a quarter of buildings with German architecture, statues, and friezes. Going through Strasbourg we g...

 After a very quick start to the trip with 9 cities in the first week we decided to give ourselves, and our wallet, a bit of a break and meander down the Moselle to Trier to do a bit of classical Roman sightseeing. Trier being twinned with Danni's hometown of Gloucester and being a key case study in my degree made it an exciting destination for the both of us. For the first time in many months Moira enjoyed a good dry day with all her doors open, after some repairs here and there and a bit of bike maintenance we were ready to hit the road again.  Instead of the quick 1 hour drive from Koblenz to Trier we took the more scenic, and more wiggly route, following the banks of the Moselle with fortuitously beautiful weather and schloss a plenty! On arriving in Trier we went through, and inside, one of the most visible symbols of Trier: the remnants of the Roman gate Porta Nigra. In the medieval period this formidable imperial monument was turned into a monastery. The only reason thi...

Much against out better judgement we decided that we'd give the whole two cities in one day a try again today. We woke up in the old West German capital of Bonn then took our last drive down the Rhine for a few days to the city of Koblenz where we spent the evening before heading (only a little bit) on our journey down to Trier.  Our first stop of the day was to cycle up the Rhine past the city of Bonn (although we did stop to look through the UN campus, the old Bundestag complex, and an unexpected scale model of the solar system) to a remanent of it's Roman origins: this Roman crane. Operated by teams of around 7 men, this would have been essential in building the Roman fortification and civil colony that were the foundations of the modern town.  Not the most exciting picture but I'm sure the view of two very excited British tourists (or maybe one...) and their bikes taking a photo of a seemingly mundane street corner would have been amusing. This is in fact the centre of ...

Continuing the Rhine theme, we explored Cologne today, one of the cities I was the most excited to visit before we came up with this Rhine route. We had some good Roman, medieval, and modern historical vibes throughout the day (with some more boardgames bought from the classically great German board game shops) Starting the day strong with a view of the Bayentrum which translates as cool tower in German, probably... And my tulips in a very elegant van-safe vase Little cycle into the city in 18 degree weather which I'm still in shock about (cool view of the Cathedral in the distance tho) In a mad dash to find a toilet, apparently a rarity in German cities, we ended up in this enormous 3 storey underground U-Bahn station. We didn't see anyone else down there giving it a very cool bond-villainesque ambiance  Awesome example of a Roman Road in Cologne. I had no idea they were such large cobbles, considerably less nice to walk on than modern tarmac, what were these Romans thinking a...

 As you can tell from the title our German is coming along excellently (although the various Germans we have met will likely attest otherwise! We've been on the move a lot these past two days (albeit slower than the first couple of days) and gone from Tilberg to Eindhoven to Dusseldorf, to finally settle in Koln tonight. I think going forwards we might cut it down to one major city a day: the extra time reading and applying for jobs has been much appreciated!  Very chilly morning in Tilberg yesterday, I keep checking the weather app and while it was sub-zero here it was 11 degrees in Rome: comparatively balmy! Who knew the Dutch like to cycle? Cool unnamed wall under Eindhoven, I imagine its old to some degree...? who knows You can take the boy out of the Warhammer but not the Warhammer out of the boy (or something like that). Off to Dusseldorf tomorrow to start our journey down the Rhine to Bern although we have made a minor diversion plan already... details to come! First Au...

 Another busy day on the road! Think we might need a chill one soon with books and coffee shops instead of castles and driving! Worked our way through the rest of Belgium today and off out the other side to the Netherlands.  The castle of the counts which has the coolest castle name I've ever come across: Gravensteen! A very large cannon used to shoot what I only imagine is very large people Classic Belgian canal scene - it is insane the number of canals in the middle of Ghent (although some are actually the rivers Leie, Reep and more whose names are completely lost to me) Lovely little nature reserve by where we parked up in the night for Ghent (although lots of solid ice on the surface. Its things like this that make me wonder if we should have headed down to Spain first...?) After Ghent there was still plenty of day left so we hightailed it over to Antwerp and cycled into the centre. In lieu of bridges we had to use the cycling tunnel under the city equipped with the only w...