On Tuesday and Wednesday we continued our journey up the Baltic coast by visiting the two historically significant cities of Lubeck and Kiel. While much has been done successfully to keep Lubeck's medieval charm, Kiel has had much of the city centre redesigned in the 70s and 80s by what seems to be the same people that designed Milton Keynes... The first stop on our way into Lubeck was the mighty Holstentor which is one of the medieval gates out of the city. Housing a free museum, and impressive cannon on each level this was an impenetrable bastion. It is a shame therefore that when Napoleon attacked in 1806 he chose the undefended south of the city to attack through. A surprising feature of the Holstentor was this peculiar door handle. On further inspection this was a part of the Nazi renovation's, curious how there was not recognition of it... Surprisingly enough, or not so for people who pay attention to packaging, Lubeck is a capital of marzipan production. With up to 200 h...

Now thoroughly in the last stretch of our journey, we headed up to Szczecin on the Baltic to work along a string of cities all the way up to the Danish border. Our first stops were Szczecin on Saturday, a chill day on Sunday, and Rostock on Monday. Szczecin, the one Polish city on our journey, was littered with nice historical buildings, free museums, and a killer water park. What's not to like? Taking one of our increasingly rare chiller days after the hectic-ness that was our travelling since Leipzig, we spent the day playing board games down by a lake just inside the German border. On Monday, we arrived at the first of our chain of Hanseatic cities: the cities that formed a powerful north German trade alliance from the 13th century until its decline in the 17th. As a result much of the history in and around the city centred on its role as a port including this funky GDR naval flag. A super cool feature of Rostock is the town halls many styles. The pointy façade you can see in th...

Arriving in Berlin on Tuesday ahead of schedule meant that we had just over 3 days of exploring the city. Since we were able to park Moira up in the Tiergarten, we also gained a bonus evening on the first day. While this city was new to Danni, I had been here 4 times before and knowing where many buildings and amenities were for the first time in more than 2 months gave the city a sense of being home. Day one: Quick wander through one of the most recognisable sites of the city: the Brandenburg gate.  The quadriga on top was taken to Paris following Napoleon's occupation of the city and returned when Napoleon was defeated. The seat of power, and a pointy tower. Day Two: We started with some cheery, sort of, history of resistance to the Nazis. This was set in the building where in 1944 a coup, Operation Valkyrie was organised against Hitler. Although Tom Cruise was nowhere to be found... Further descending into Nazi history, it seems increasingly difficult to avoid now we're in B...

Our final stop before arriving at Berlin itself was the significantly smaller but still very significant Potsdam. Being the city of palaces, lakes, and parks, Sanssouci park seemed like a perfect place to start with the very fancy Schloss Sanssouci. Despite Berlin being the administrative capital of Prussia and later the German Empire, Potsdam always remained the home of the court of the Hohenzollerns. Just behind the Sanssouci park was the far less busy Roman ruins. Obviously fake since the Romans never got this far, they were built to look ruined. This led to the amusing situation where they had to be rebuilt to their ruined stance after being bombed in the war. Still working our way through the parks in Potsdam we stopped at this English inspired royal residence. This was the home to the Potsdam conference which led to, amongst other decisions, the establishment of the UN, the division of Germany, and the decision to bomb Japan with nuclear weapons. Having had quite a nice day so fa...

Unable to outrun the Easter weekend forever we settled down to two days of more chilled travelling despite our necessity for speed. Committed to nothing being open on Easter Sunday we instead enjoyed some sun, chocolate, and board games in a very pleasant little forest between Dresden and Leipzig. Back on the road on Easter Monday we were pleasantly surprised to find many of the museums in Leipzig still open during the day including the impressive contemporary history museum. This included such gems as this DIY tank made out of an east German Trabby car by some ingenious, albeit war-hungry, school children. Outside we were treated to a lovely easter market complete with wooden hand-operated rides, wood working classes, and plenty of trinkets. That burger didn't even stand a chance. Upstairs in the stadtmuseum we found one of the most unique museum experiences yet. With the sounds of bombs raining down, and photos and videos of the bombing of Leipzig, we were immersed in the experie...

Still being pressed by our deadline of only 3 weeks in Germany and with an easter weekend looming we ploughed on, and on Saturday visited the city of Dresden, once so picturesque that it was named Florence on the Elbe. Waking up in perhaps not the most glamorous of locations we were greeted with the view of this substantial mosque-looking building but with the curious Yenidze written around the top. The helpful stadtmuseum later informed us that this was a cigarette factory masquerading as a mosque since it was illegal to have chimneys so close to all the enlightenment palaces nearby. A chimney disguised as a minaret though was completely acceptable. Arriving in the centre of Dresden we were confronted with these imposing but sombre-looking palaces, Cathedrals, and civil buildings.  The blackened facades were not, as I initially thought, the result of the firestorm created by WW2 allied bombing, but actually the stone used blackens over time. This did have the effect of making all ...

We absolutely loved our time in the former Austro-Hungarian empire but were excited to be back in Germany at the start of this week. That however didn't stop us from wanting to spend a bit of time in Czechia as we made our way north. The drive from Nuremberg to Prague was a formidable one at 4 hours and we didn't particularly fancy doing it in an evening and missing everything along the way. Instead on Thursday we opted to do the drive with a few stops to enjoy some of the Czech countryside. Our first stop was at this abandoned Church since, if you couldn't tell, we love a good ruined building with no museum staff around. The main stop of the day however was at Pilsen. This city is the home of the famous Skoda works, the pilsner beers, and plenty of Austro-Hungarian architecture. Being the main city on the trading routes between Bavaria and Prague, Pilsen grew as a city to be the third largest city in Czechia. Further into the city we came across yet another easter market b...