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Avoiding the heat EU tour

September 2023 - January 2024
A 127-day adventure by Bec & Phill Read more
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  • 130footprints
  • 18countries
  • 127days
  • 2.1kphotos
  • 141videos
  • 68.6kkilometers
  • 40.9kkilometers
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  • Avoiding the heat EU tour
    1
    Day 149

    Epilogue

    January 30 in Australia ⋅ 🌙 19 °C

    Well, it's been a few weeks of being home and starting back at work, and we must say - real life sucks! To be back on this journey would be amazing.

    We have compiled a little bit of a summary to close off this adventure, but we would like to thank everyone for joining us every step of the way. It was such a wonderful experience and I hope we can bring you all along with us for the next one!

    Transport stats
    - Total countries visited: 18 with 14 explored
    - Total step count: 4,377,654 (approx.)
    - Longest time spent in a country: The UK with 49 total days
    - Shortest time in a country: Denmark with 4 days
    - Highest (recorded) day temperature: 31c in Greece
    - Lowest (recorded) day temperature: -4c in England
    - We took a total of 5 plane trips, and drove ourselves around for 36 days
    - Went on approx. 15 bus tours (minus our week long Greece bus tour)
    - 1 activity canceled due to weather

    Fun facts
    - Got engaged on the 19th October
    - Received 70 cat photos from our house sitter
    - Bec ate at least 1 pretzel everyday we were in the country of Germany
    - We acquired or bought 30 souvenirs
    - 1 hairdryer broken from drying wet shoes
    - Our most expensive spending month: November
    - 1 Border control incident
    - Phill got a total of 4 separate French citizens drunk in different countries
    - The only item that we lost was our camera lens cap, nothing was stolen
    - Ordered 10 Toogoodtogo meals, 5 of which was Greggs
    - We received 1 fine
    - Witnessed 1 crime
    - We celebrated 4 NYE's

    In terms of Accommodation, we:
    - Stayed in 32 hotels
    - Stayed in 12 hostels
    - Stayed on 2 seperate boats overnight
    - Slept on 1 overnight Flix bus
    - Camped for 2 nights
    - Stayed in 3 airbnbs
    - Occupied 2 castles
    - Slept in a van for 10 nights
    - Stayed in 2 university student accommodations
    - Had to cancel 2 accommodations

    Seeya next holiday 👋    Read more

  • Avoiding the heat EU tour
    13
    Day 126

    That's all folks!

    January 7 in England ⋅ ☁️ 3 °C

    We woke up for our final breakfast before doing a quick and dirty pack of our bags and checking out of our accommodation and walking back into the centre of London to take the tube to Heathrow.

    It all went off without a hitch, the morning was lovely and cool but without a cloud in the sky! After 40 minutes or so on the train we arrived at Hayes & Harlington station and decided to walk the 60 minutes to our accommodation. Mostly because we had no other plans and it seemed like a nice walk!

    The surprise bonus for us was that we stumbled across the last of the large supermarket chains that we knew existed but never saw when travelling around the UK: ASDA (Yes it's a bit sad that we're excited about seeing UK supermarkets, we have a supermarket bingo that we wanted to complete)

    So we had a look around inside and it was quite nice! Kind of a mix between our Kmart and a supermarket. Nice!

    We finished our walk to the hotel and were lucky enough to be able to check in immediately. We then relaxed after our long walk since we still want to recover as much as we can before the flight. We do feel a bit better today, which is great!

    For dinner we decided to get ourselves some pizza delivered and then sat in the room watching Judge Judy, of all things.

    This marks the last of our European footprints! We'll probably attempt to send another while we're mid trip since it's looking to be about 25 hours travel... Otherwise:

    Cya in Australia!

    Step count: 11.6k

    PS enjoy a short video outlining a summary of where we've been/stayed, it doesn't involve day trips and only had a short clip from each country.    Read more

  • Avoiding the heat EU tour
    2
    Day 127

    There's no place like home

    January 8 in Singapore ⋅ ☁️ 24 °C

    While it technically is over a day since we got up to leave (30 hours at time of writing.) We've been on a journey that spanned half the planet! Unfortunately for us, 22 of those hours were us being locked up in a metal tube whizzing over oceans.

    Check in for London went very smoothly, we decided to end the trip in the same way we started: The Emirates Lounge. It was as lovely as last time, and was a nice and calm way to end our trip.

    Eventually we had to get on our plane, so we said goodbye to Europe and hopped on. We had 3 flights in total, more or less divided into equal thirds.

    The first third was to Dubai. It went reasonably quickly. We lucked out because our emergency exit chairs didn't have a 3rd chair, so it was just the two of us. Lovely! There were a few babies around though, less lovely.

    Some hours later we arrived in the UAE and walked around very briefly (and grabbed a bag of lollies) before switching to a different plane.

    We were sat in a very similar spot on the new plane, and were waiting with baited breath for the doors to be shut. This new plane did have a 3rd seat next to us but the minutes ticked by and no one seemed to be coming! Eventually the doors were closed and we were able to take the small win of having another leg of the trip without a stranger! The flight itself also went off without any hassle. This time we landed in Singapore.

    The final stopover was to let some new passengers on. They kicked everyone off the plane to give it a clean, so we stood at the terminal for an hour and a half before eventually getting back on.

    The same thing happened as the previous flight. We were sitting waiting for some new annoying stranger to come and claim their seat... But they never did!! So all three of our flights we had (relative) space company to everyone else. Lucky us!

    Eventually we landed back in Melbourne, quite tired and neither of us had slept. Our thinking is that if we stayed awake then we'd be able to avoid jetlag by getting home and going to bed.

    It took what felt like ages for customs to allow everyone off the plane, but once they did, it was a pretty easy journey out of the airport and back home!

    We arrived home to a lukewarm welcome from the cats. They were alive and happy to see us, so that's good! The unit isn't in the best condition, but nothing major. That's a tomorrow problem!

    Step count: Abysmal

    PS: We'll probably do one more post over the next few days, with a brief summary of things    Read more

  • Avoiding the heat EU tour
    21
    Day 125

    Tea time

    January 6 in England ⋅ ☁️ 4 °C

    This morning started with another included breakfast and then going back to the room for a while to rest. We're feeling a bit better today but still are on the road to recovery (which is rapidly shrinking...

    We only ventured out once today, for our last afternoon tea! It was a bit of a walk away, so we got to enjoy some more of London's scenery. The cafe was near the famous Baker St from Sherlock Holmes, so we gave it a quick look on the way to our lunch/dinner.

    We went to a nice place called the Potting Shed, which while not being in an actual shed, was under street level, which was a bit novel for us!

    The afternoon tea itself was good! While their little sandwiches were a bit of a letdown, the scones, cakes, and of course, tea was really good!

    After leisurely eating, we took an equally leisurely stroll through Regent's Park before getting back to our room to continue our recovery!

    Step count: 10.9k    Read more

  • Avoiding the heat EU tour
    1
    Day 124

    Bring us a shrubbery!!

    January 5 in England ⋅ ☁️ 6 °C

    Today didn't go as expected. We had planned on exploring the natural history museum as we had missed it last time we were in London, but as mentioned in a previous entry we have both been feeling pretty average and Bec woke up this morning feeling (and looking) like death.

    So we enjoyed the included breakfast in the cafeteria - we're staying in yet another student uni accommodation, went to the room and relaxed until we scrounged up enough motivation and tissues to go for a little walk outside.

    We didn't go anywhere in particular, just wandered and got lost looking around this enormous city.

    After a while we got back, drank some tea while watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail and relaxed.

    We made a quick trip up the road to Boots for some medication and then proceeded to walk around the halls as it was raining to hit our step count.

    Step count: 10.1k    Read more

  • Avoiding the heat EU tour
    3
    Day 123

    Platform 9 3/4

    January 4 in England ⋅ 🌧 8 °C

    We awoke early this morning and said goodbye to Edinburgh which had been our faithful home for the past 2 weeks. We boarded a fancy train which gave us breakfast and some hot drinks on our 5 hour journey to London.

    After arriving at Kings Cross we headed across town to drop our bags at our current accommodation as we couldn't check in yet and went on a journey for lunch.

    We stumbled across a Amazon Fresh which was a grocery store linked to your Amazon account and has no checkouts, it just tracks where you are in store and what you pick-up, it was a surreal and scary experience after we left getting an email pointing out that we had been in the store for 3:41 minutes and charged for the one thing we bought.

    We stopped off at a ramen/soup shop where the server thought Bec was deaf and Phill was signing at her, whereas he was just being a bully.

    We went for a walk to get our steps up before finally checking in to our accommodation, where we rested as we're both still sporting lovely crackly coughs.

    A trip to Lidl was made for the next few nights dinners before relaxing and planning our day out tomorrow!

    Step count: 16.2k    Read more

  • Avoiding the heat EU tour
    Day 122

    Curse of the illness

    January 3 in Scotland ⋅ ☁️ 6 °C

    We started fairly slowly this morning, attempting to sleep in as much as possible since we both feel a little under the weather.

    Eventually our stomachs got the better of us and we went out in search of breakfast! As it's our last full day in Scotland we decided to go get a proper cafe brunch. This turned out to be a full Scottish breakfast and cheesy beans on toast, with tea to wash it down! It was excellent and was very efficient at putting us into a food coma.

    To get some steps in today, we then walked around a while and did some window shopping.

    Eventually we got back and did a load of washing since we had accumulated enough coins to make it happen (side note: it's so annoying that card payments are the norm now, yet most washing machines operate with coins... Where are they supposed to come from?!)

    While the washing was drying we went for another walk to stretch the legs. Then when we got back we had our dinner and then watched Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit. A great movie that still holds up!

    We ended the night with another quick lap around the block.

    Cya back in London!

    Step count: 11.8k    Read more

  • Avoiding the heat EU tour
    321222
    Day 121

    More stolen treasures

    January 2 in Scotland ⋅ ☁️ 7 °C

    This morning we got up and checked out of our accommodation and marched back up to the old town where our final beds are for Edinburgh. It was much too early to check in so we put our bags in storage and sat in the common area to plan the day.

    The decision was made to head to the national museum of Scotland. Fortunately for us, like the national Museum in London, it is also free to enter!

    We made the short walk, sat down for a coffee, then explored the building. It had many impressive exhibits, but the ones we spent the most time in were the natural history, as well as the science and engineering section, the latter of which had a lot of really fun interactive exhibits!

    Once we were done we walked around exploring some more random shops that were in the area. Then we went and checked in our room.

    Our plan for late lunch / dinner was to use our favourite app again and get a meal pack from our favourite store (Greggs!) But the saddest thing happened: when we were about to walk out the door they cancelled the order... Very sad.

    Instead we went to the supermarket and got ourselves a meal deal, came back to the hostel and then did some planning before relaxing the rest of the night.

    Step count: 11.3k    Read more

  • Avoiding the heat EU tour
    2
    Day 120

    New year, new walk

    January 1 in Scotland ⋅ ☁️ 3 °C

    Once we woke up, had a coffee, and laid about for a while, we decided to go for a walk and visit Dean Village. A suburb not too far from us which is described as a "bucolic village." I had to look the meaning for that one up. Apparently it means "relating to the pleasant aspects of the countryside and country life." Fair enough!

    It was a lovely area with a stream that cut through it. We walked alongside it for a while before cutting back in towards the city again.

    On the way back to the accommodation, we grabbed one of our favourite takeouts and watched the new Chicken Run movie! Let's just say they should have probably stuck to one. (To be fair, the movie was alright, just didn't live up to the original)

    We relaxed for the rest of the evening with a quick lap around the block before bed.

    Step count: 12.5k    Read more

  • Avoiding the heat EU tour
    1
    Day 119

    Happy new year!!

    December 31, 2023 in Scotland ⋅ ☁️ 4 °C

    This morning we took some time getting up, after lazing about for most of the morning we realised we agreed to meet our Aussie friends at a 'Oz bar' to celebrate Melbourne new year.

    After the Melbourne NYE countdown, we then stayed for QLD countdown, and finally Perth. We had one too many beers and no food for the day so we wandered over to the Beehive Inn where we enjoyed some chips and toasted sandwiches. We then parted ways from our friends as the new year celebrations for Edinburgh was still many hours away.

    We can back to our Airbnb and relaxed and snacked for a few hours until about 21:30 when we met up with the same people and squeezed into the street party where we listened to some questionable music and talked until midnight.

    The firework display was amazing, another thing they did was from 9pm the had a small firework show on every hour which was nice.

    After the fireworks everyone joined hands and sang Auld Lang Syne, which is tradition to bid farewell to the old year.

    Happy new year to everyone, here's to a great 2024!

    Step count: 10.1k    Read more

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