Breakdown No. 1

Day 1:

We make it to London and do a 'drive by' past Buckingham Palace..... everything going great until 20 miles from Dover.

The camper splutters and then dies on us. We get a brilliant RAC man who diagnoses the problem as the ignition amplifier.... luckily we came prepared and have a spare, we get back on the road.

We take the 7pm ferry and then drive to the outskirts of Brussels.... We sleep happily in the knowledge that everythings going great so far!

Gareth & Lloyd in Brussels at the Manneken Pis (unfortunately someone had dressed him up!).

Day 2:

Another day, another breakdown! This time a disaster and somewhat unexpected.

We arrive in Brussels and as we are leaving a tunnel on the ring road we lose all the gears! Stuck on a hill at 9am on day 2 with no gears and a lot of angry Belgians beeping (and swearing) at us was not the plan!

We call on the RAC again and get a very cheerful Belgian repair man, he takes a look and his first words are ''Not good''.

It turns out that the gear linkage has fallen apart. He manages to bodge it all back together but tells us that it probably won't hold ..... he laughs as we tell him we plan on driving to Moscow.

We spend the day working out what to do and decide it may be wise to go on without the camper, both to preserve the camper and the trip! We take the overnight bus from Brussels to Berlin....Sadly the camper is left in Brussels (will it be there when we get back?)

The challenge is now partially failed but we are now going to try and get to Moscow using only buses and trains, we suspect the challenge may now be a little more difficult.

At the Brandenburg Gate with our bikes.

Day 3:

We wake and get off the coach on the outskirts of Berlin. We catch the train into Berlin centre and we come across a bike hire shop. We hire bikes for the day (a brilliant way to see Berlin).

We book ourselves on the train from Berlin to Kiev for tonight (a 24hr train ride). We leave at 21:36 and settle down into our sleeping carriage, at 21:45 we are booted off the train at Berlin East station by a very angry ukrainian guard. On close inspection of the tickets it turns out that we have been issued tickets for tomorrow, despite buying tickets for today.

We get back to the ticket office at Berlin Central just before it closes. They admit error, change the tickets and tell us there's a train to Warsaw in 5 Mins..... We wait on platform 14 for half an hour only for a train FROM Warsaw to role in. A guard asks for our tickets and asks where we are going..... after a moment he mutters those all familiar words ''Not good''...... Stranded in Berlin with no trains going anywhere until the morning.....

About the most interesting photo we had of Warsaw.

Day 4:

We awoke in Berlin ready to do war with the tickets sales desk in Berlin central station. Luckily we were well rested for this after our stay in a great hostal that gave us rooms for a lower price than usual and allowed us to stay up until 3:30am playing pool (apart fron Matt who wasn't feeling well and slunk off to bed early).

The lady at the ticket sales desk didn't look like she understood us and so she got help.

After a bit of calm talking we got a refund of our original tickets, a promise of a refund of our hostal costs and tickets to warsaw for today. With this in mind we hung around the station and boarded our 6 hour train to Warsaw. Warsaw is grey..... very very grey!

We decided to leave Warsaw as soon as possible to get us back on track after our Berlin fiasco. To keep inline with our original plan we journeyed off to the city to seek out famous sites and take some pictures.

With surprising ease we completed this and decided a meal in the newly opened Hard Rock Cafe was in order. Our meal came to a whopping 123 zloty (about £20).

We footed the bill and caught our overnight train to Kiev, hopefully this time we won't be booted off!

One of the very steep hills of Kiev.

Day 5

We arrive in Kiev at around lunchtime and quickly settle in to one of the local hostels, after a quick scrub up we set off to find somewhere to eat and absorb the local culture. With our trusty bible (the lonely planet guide to europe) we set off. We trek our way across Kiev up steep hills and dangerous
roads until we eventually reach our destination.

We saunter in, the bar/restaraunt is full of Soviet memorabilia and old soviet movies playing in the  backround. We are greeted by wenches (no really, the waitresses were dressed like wenches) who served us throughtout the evening, we tried local delicasies from Chicken Kiev to fried cheese. The food was excellent, we then retreated to our hostel ready for another day in Kiev before our 18:00 train to Moscow.

On the right of this photo you can see the 'Rodina Mat' (The Defense of the Motherland statue) in Kiev. She is affectionately known by locals as 'Tin Tits'.

Day 6

Awaking early with lots to do and see before our departure, we walk across Kiev towards eastern side of the city and the large park that runs along the Dnipro river. Along the way we encountered uplifting milteryesc music playing throughout the streets...we realise its Victory Day. The park is
alive with colour and people out for Victory Day.

As we try and navigate ourselves around the park we are acosted by some Ukranian football fans. After 20mins of standing talking to them they invite us for a beer with them. After buying us a beer we spend a bit more time talking football and learning some new football chants and colourfull
Ukranian phrases. Gareth tries to buy the next round of beers, unfortunatly he is barged out the queue by our Ukrainian friends who refuse to let us pay for anything.

Explaining that we were sight seeing they insist to show us round. A freak rainstorm drives us into cover. Naturally we wait it out, although our Ukrainian friends see this as a chance to dissapear off into the nearest shopping centre to buy vodka and gerkins (surprisingly this works). Treated to this it is with heavy hearts that we depart company with our new friends
as we go to photgraph the sights and they go off to the football.

We take our pictures and taxi our way to the train station as we board the train we're all genuinally sad that we are leaving what has been the most welcoming and friendly city so far.

The truely amazing St Basils Cathedral.... When building was completed in 1561 Ivan the Terrable had the architects blinded so that they could never build anything of comparible beauty.

Day 7

Having taken the overnight train into Moscow we arrive in a run down station. Gareth having eaten something that disagreed with him proceeded to run around the station looking for the toilets. His accounts of the toliets he found are not favourable, i will quote one word "hole". With Gareth
feeling a little better we set off for into the city centre looking for Red Square and the Kremlin. Throughout the trip we had noticed it was getting hotter and hotter, today was no different. Through the swealtering heat we trek to the centre of Moscow, we step up to the gate to enter the Kremlin, the guard stops us....."the Kremlin is closed, come back tommorow". I
believe our next words were "not good".

After a small rest we start to skirt around the Kremlins imposing walls, Matt paying carefull attention to (in Matt's mind) the vast amount of KGB agents he could see. As we round one of the corners we behold a magnificent
sight, St Basil's Catherdral. A multi-coloured buliding of stunning beauty.

We continue into Red Square, unfortunatley due to the previous days Victory Day celebrations we couldn't enter Lenins Tomb as the area was cordened off.

Feeling like we should inform you good folk back home of our amazing exploits we went in search of an internet cafe. After 2 hours of walking around we eventually find our internet cafe...its shut down. To consoul ourselves we go looking for a bar to waste away the rest of the day before our next train journey. All in all we found Moscow to be like an expensive
London where no one was particually freindly (Kiev was friendlier, cheaper and more people spoke english surpisingly).

Our next train journey...."not good"....a 38 hour trip down to Budapest!!

The 38 hour train journey!

Day 8

Well, not much to highlight for day 8 as the entire day is spent in a very small sleeper cabin on our train to Budapest. We sleep for the majority of the journey, although we are unsure if this is because we were tired or that Matt's feet gassed us out (possibly the worst smell in the world EVER!!!!).
Perhaps the most interesting part of the journey was a game of Chess with a Russian aquantance, he spanked us but at least it eased the cabin fever for an hour.

A view over Budapest.

Day 9

We finally depart our train at about 9am and venture forth into sunny Budapest. We set out to find a hostel, unfortunately we end up walking a large portion of the city due to the fact that all the hotels and hostels are full. On the plus side by the time we find somewhere to stay we've seen all of the sights...... including the Castle caves. If any of you visit Budapest with the urge to pay money to look around an empty cellar then the
Castle caves are the place for you!

We freshen up and go out for food and a few beers. We watch some of the Eurovision Song Contest much to the disgust of the locals in the bar..... they keep asking us if they can turn the TV over and so after a few hours we give in and find a club to dance the night away in. I get the feeling that they'll be some sore heads in the morning.

Bratislava castle (funnily enough it's in Bratislava).

Day 10

We ready ourselves for more travelling and decide to catch the boat up the River Danube to Bratislava (the capital of Slovakia). Unfortunately owing to a late awakening we miss the only ferry of the day and hence we trek to the station to catch a train.

The train takes about 4 hours to reach Bratislava. Bratislava is a very small capital and it doesn't take us long to find a hostel. The plan is to catch the ferry from Bratislava to Vienna tomorrow lunch time, we're determined to travel on the Danube. Owing to the fact it is Sunday the city is dead so we
take an early night.

No Ferry today.

Day 11

We see the sights with extreme ease owing to the compact and bijou nature of this lively little city. We book our ferry tickets and look forward to moving on to Vienna by the mid afternoon.

Following the best meal we've had in the entire journey (and probably the cheapest) we head down to the ferry terminal. There is no ferry waiting for us, why?.... well apparently the ferry has crashed in Vienna. I guess we were due some bad luck as everything has been going like clockwork for the
last week or so. All ferries for today are cancelled and the tickets are non refundable, we are told our only option is to catch the ferry in the morning. We work out that in the grand scheme of things that should work out OK, hence we'll be spending another night in Bratislava.

Say hello to Beethoven.

Day 12

The bad luck continues, we arrive for our morning ferry only for it to be cancelled yet again! We insist on a refund and grab a taxi to the station. From there we catch the train to Vienna.

By the time we reach Vienna the weather has taken a turn for the worse. Yesterday it was about 30 degrees and sunny, today it's about 10 degrees and lashing it down with rain.

We venture out to the central graveyard, sounds strange I know but it's the resting place of famous composers such as Beethoven, Staus and Brahms. We amble around the cemetary which is absolutely huge. Once we've found our composers we move back into the centre of Vienna.

There we take in all of the sights, along with a cafe for a quick apple struddle. We decide it will be best to move on tonight although there are a couple of arguments on the matter. Our route is now being thrown all over the place as surprisingly Vienna has the some of the worst travel links we've come across. We finally agree to move on to Bern (the capital of Switzerland). We will travel tonight via Zurich.

One wonders if they would allow this statue to be built in England.... This ogre was clearly hungry and disliked children!

Day 13

We arrive in Zurich at 06.30 and catch our connecting train to Bern which takes an hour. The train journeys through Switzerland have been the most scenic so far, the rail line winding through the Alps, past huge lakes and through quant little villages.

Once in Bern we take a good look around, the intiguing statue of an ogre eating small children being the most curious of all the sights we see (although the old bloke in Speedos off for a swim in the river comes a close second).

We don't have long in Bern as our connecting train to Lumembourg is at noon, however we find the time to look around a swiss clock shop and buy a few gifts. The ticking and cuckoo noises still ringing in our ears we wander back to the station and grab the train to Luxembourg.

Luxembourg is small and we manage to see the city within a couple of hours, we head back to the station and catch the train back to Bruxelles. We finally feel like we're on our way home, we hope and prey that the camper van will be where we left it and unscathed and much to our suprise it is! With relieved smiles on our faces we set off for a service station to stop in for the night. We find one just on the outskirts of Bruxelles and put our weary heads down for some much needed sleep.

The sun sets on our way home..... and on the tour.

Day 14

We wake up at around noon, the decision now needs to be made as to whether we try and hit 1 more capital or whether we make our way home. Amsterdam and Paris are both possibilities but we all know that the chances are that we just don't have enough time.

With that in mind we drive back to Calais and await our ferry.

Once on the ferry and crossing back to the UK we reflect on the last 2 weeks and all we've seen and done. We are both happy and sad that the tour is over, happy to be on our way home to family and friends, sad that the adventure is over.

We disembark the ferry at around 8pm. We are running 12 hours early! We decide to drive back and surprise everyone with an early return. We fly by Buckingham Palace and then set off down the M3 and home. We arrive home just before midnight.

We depart each other with a big manly hug, I think we'll all be pleased of some time apart. 11 Capitals is our total, our goal of reaching Moscow achieved. It's a great shame that the campervan never made it but to have had our plans ripped up on day 2 and still achieve what we set out to do must be an achievement to be proud of!