A new continent!

4/5 – 19/5  Munich & London

After the long journey around the globe, including a great stopover in Sydney where we managed to get into the Etihad first class lounge (wow!) we arrived in Europe. Our first destination was Munich. It was great to see a familiar face when we arrived, with Rachael very kindly meeting us at a central train station, Marienplatz, to help us, change trains and find our way to her and Joe’s apartment.

When we arrived at Marienplatz, my first thoughts were yep we are definitely in Europe. A wide open central square, with tall old buildings and a clock tower. After making ourselves at home at Joe and Rachael’s we headed out to Nymphenburg Palace, where we had a big walk around the palace grounds. We also stopped to look at the water wheel that did something exciting – or so Mark says.

Minor jet lag - still smiling

That evening Joe and Rachael took us for our first taste of Bavarian food at a local restaurant. It was spargal – white asparagus – season. Apparently the locals go crazy for this vegetable so I ordered dinner from the special spargal menu. Mark was very excited at the meatfest that is Bavarian food after two months of noodle soup in Vietnam.

The following day we headed to the Deutsches Museum, the world’s largest science museum. There was plenty to keep us entertained for the best part of the day as we wandered the massive museum.

Once we reached the weekend, we got to experience Munich local style. Joe and Rachael took us to a couple of beer gardens around the city. We were completely sold on the beer gardens as a concept, great big open spaces, full of tables, where you sit in the sun socialising with a few drinks. You can bring your own food or get food there - giant pretzels, fries and pork knuckles were the order of the day. Mark fit in just like a local. [M- also you dip the pretzels in a sauce made of cheese, butter, and cream mixed up with onion & flavour. What a country! -M]

Mark's favourite things - giant pretzel, giant beer, and leather pants.

We had read good things about walking tours of the city so downloaded a route and we were ready to go. Not to be deterred by the moderate rain we continued with the plan. One of the first churches we went into was the most impressive. From a small door in the wall, such that you can barely tell it’s a church, you open the doors and you are in amongst the most beautiful carvings. We also saw many other big old buildings with grand architecture. Most of the time Mark played the – is this building older than NZ? – game. Generally the answer was yes. [M- and occasionally older than even Maori occupation of NZ -M]

Moderate rain - still smiling

On our final day in Munich we went to the NS Dokumentationszentrum museum. This was a history of the rise of the national socialist party (Nazi party) predominantly in Munich. It was a pretty unflinching look at the history and contained lots of information to digest. [I'm a bit of a WWII geek, so thought I had a pretty good handle on all this already. But there was still tons that was new to me here, and the museum did a great job of making the rise of the Nazis seem like a really natural and logical, almost inevitable, thing that happened to regular people in some slightly unusual but still recognisable circumstances. It really made it a real thing that you could imagine happening again. -M]  We spent the best part of the morning there before heading to the airport. We were on the move to London!

On our first day in London we headed out to cram as much sightseeing as we could in one day. It was pretty awesome, we saw so many famous sights that you hear about as a kid and it was so cool to see them in “real life”. We walked through Hyde Park and saw Kensington Palace. We picked up “Boris bikes” the bikes which are located all over the city and are easily rentable. We cycled from Hyde Park to Buckingham Palace and had a photo with the Queen. Then we crossed the Thames and walked around the waterfront before finding Big Ben. Phew!

Oh and this too...

The NZ memorial.

She's in the third window from the left. Probably.

Tower of London.

Having explored as many landmarks as can be fitted into one day the following day we went to the British Museum. It is massive and there are so many things to look at. When we got to the Egyptian mummies section I let out an involuntary “whoa”. The history is just amazing in that place. We spent the next day at the Science Museum, once again there was so much to look at and we barely scratched the surface. Mark spent a long time looking at a something which was really interesting, or so I’m told.

He worked it out eventually. [M - it was a triple expansion steam engine feeding top to bottom with all the pistons on a single rod, and same with all the valves, it was hard to visualise how it worked since I couldn't actually make it move. -M]

As we were staying with locals (thanks Sarah and Andy!) on Saturday evening we got shown around the sights. We went to Ten Bells, a bar which was in the area that Jack the Ripper frequented before being taken to experience the local cuisine – buffalo wings and salted beef bagels. Delicious. And on Sunday a traditional roast lunch at “The Narrow Boat” overlooking one of the canals. A highlight for Mark (and Andy) was getting to see how locks work – the boat kind not the key kind.

I have not persuaded Frank that we should live on a narrowboat.

We went to the West End and saw “The Book of Mormon” a show which came highly recommended and which we can now highly recommend. Another day and some more wandering, we wandered around the exterior of the Tower of London and crossed over the Tower Bridge – yet more of those wow am I really seeing these things moments. We also visited the Natural History museum, there was an amazing collection of dinosaurs along with many many stuffed animals. 

Mark and his dinosaur friend

After enjoying the hospitality of Sarah and Andy it was time to move on. We have been lucky enough to borrow “The Cactus Hotel” from friends of Sarah and Andy. This has opened up a whole lot of Western Europe that we thought we were not going to visit on this trip. (Thanks Rob and Kat!) We slowly made our way out of London. Tonight our destination was Newhaven. It’s not a very noteworthy place but it was where our ferry to Normandy was leaving from in the morning. We spent the night in the campervan parked down a quiet street. Tomorrow we were on our way to France!

Our first taste of #vanlife.