Ending of Summer - Home Sweet Home

Last Sunday was the hottest day recorded for the year in Holland. At 32 DegC it was unusual as this Summer has been relatively mild with temperatures well below 22 DegC.

That Sunday the Dutch (and lots of Germans as well) thronged Schevenigen, a long stretch of beach in the Hague, in huge numbers, estimated to be around 290,000 people, creating massive traffic jams around the Hague. This picture was taken back in April when it was less crowded - imagine nearly the whole population of Brunei now sitting in there.

It has been exactly a year since we arrived here. This tuesday we will fly home for a 3-week stay.

Covered 4000 km in 10 days

Alhamdulillah, the 10-day tour went well. The biggest worry was whether the 7 kids in the group could cope with the journey. The 10-day tour totalled up to 2775 km of driving and about a thousand km on the train. There were also considerable milage on foot especially on the many city walks - some up to 4 km a day.

If there have been no traffic jam, total time driving should have been some 31 hours. But easily we ended up driving up to 45 hours.

In terms of fuel consumption, it was about 300 Euro per car. Hotel costs for 2 rooms for 9 nights per family amounted to about 1300 Euro.

Innsbruck - the Winter Sport Capital

This is one of the most beautiful city in Europe with its location between high mountains. The mountains also serve as an ideal place for skiing in winter with several ski resorts around Innsbruck itself. This is definitely worth a visit during winter time.

Just to prove the point, the Olympic Winter Games have been held twice here. From Innsbruck we stayed overnight in Munich before heading back to Holland. From Munich, its a distance of just over 800km taking about 10 hours to reach home.

Passing through Austrian Alps

The journey from Mestre to Innsbruck was supposed to take 3 hours. Because of traffic jams, it took 6 hours. It seems a lot of people were also heading home from holiday. This route through the Alps is more scenic than the one through Switzerland.

We noticed the motorways have comparatively more uphill and downhill driving and less tunnels to go through.

It Rains in Venice

Piazza San Marco, or known as St Mark's Square, is the main square of Venice, extremely popular with tourists, photographers and pigeons. A remark often attributed the Piazza "the drawing room of Europe".

During the late 13th century, Venice was the most prosperous city in all of Europe. At the peak of its power and wealth, it had 36,000 sailors operating 3,300 ships, dominating Mediterranean commerce. Venice traded with the Byzantine Empire and the Muslim world extensively. During this time, Venice's leading families vied with each other to build the grandest palaces and support the work of the greatest and most talented artists.

Romantic City of Venice

We never realised that Venice is actually located on an island. Venice is world-famous for its canals. The islands on which the city is built are connected by about 400 bridge. One of the most elegant way to travel along the canal is to use gandola - a bit too extensive though!

A boat ride from the bus station to the Piazza San Marco which is the main converging point for visitors costs 6 Euro. It takes you on a ride along the main canal, giving excellent views of the buildings lining up the canal.

Hotel Venezia

From Rome we went back by train to Milan and picked our cars. From there we drove eastward to Venice. The journey took us 4 hours, delayed by a number of traffic jams along the way.

We stayed in the city of Mestre on the mainland - the city of Venice is located on an island within the lagoon in front of Mestre. Venice is connected by a 5-km causeway to Mestre. We stayed in a hotel called Hotel Venezia, a lot cheaper than staying in Venice. There is also free parking. It costs 1 euro for a 20 minutes bus ride from the hotel to Venice.

World's Most Colourful Army

The Swiss Guard functions more for ceremonial purposes than anything else. They must be the most photographed army in the world.

Originally in the 15th century are Swiss mercenary soldiers who served as guards. But nowadays as long as you have a baby face and can stand up for a few hours should make you eligible to be recruited as one of them.

St Peter Square

Vatican City is located within the city of Rome, at 109 acres is the smallest independent state in the world. It is dominated by St Peter Square where a tall obelisk is located at the centre. It is said the obelisk dates back to the 13th century BC in Egypt before been moved to Rome.

In front of the square is the Basilica of Saint Peter, the most prominent building inside the Vatican. It is said to be the largest church building in the world and can holds over 60,000 people. Inside however is swamped with tourists.

Colosseum in Rome

Recently, this structure was included as one of the New 7 Wonders of the World. According to the info, the Colosseum was built in 72 AD dedicated to gladiatorial combats. Its hard to imagine that this structure once holds up to 55,000 spectators, that's like Old Trafford a couple of years ago. However the structure did not last the test of time with a number of calamities like earthquakes continuously threathening the structure.

In a way it was quite disappointing to see what is left to be seen inside.

Hot Summer

This beautiful fountain, located infront of the Milan Castle or known as Castello Sforzesco, is a nice place to relax and cool down in the simmering summer heat thats hitting Southern Europe right now.

While Northern Europe is experiencing a wet (too wet in UK) and pretty cold summer, Southern Europe is experiencing a heat wave with forest fires everyway. Temperature in Milan was 36 DegC. In Hollad it was hovering on average between 15 to 20 DegC in July.

This is WAGS territory

This is one of the landmark not to be missed in Milan called the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in the Piazza Duomo, claimed to be the world's oldest shopping mall.

Completed in 1877, the covered double arcade, named after the first king of united Italy, is actually a street covered over by an arching glass and steel roof, typical of the design for nineteenth-century shopping malls. Nowadays famous brand shops like Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Ferragamo line up the 'street'.

TomTom brought us to Milan

With TomTom which is a GPS car navigation system, it is quite easy nowadays to travel. All you need is set your destination and TomTom come up with the optimum road journey for you.

In Milan we stayed in a hotel close to the Central Train Station and left our cars in a nearby garage which charges around 18 euro per day. There are at least a couple of halal restaurant around the station. You can also take a metro to reach the city centre.

From Milan we took a fast train (EuroStar) down south to Rome, costing about 40 euro each way. It takes about 5 hours to reach Rome.

The City of Fashion

Switzerland and Milan are world apart. It is as if every morning the ladies in Switzerland sweep their land and dump the dust in northern Italy. Milan is just that - dusty and a bit run down - apart from the high streets selling all the famous brands.

In fact Milan is also renown as one of the world capitals of design and fashion.

Driving through the Alps

After spending a night in Ibis hotel just outside Zurich (city hotels are expensive!), we set off driving through the Alps on the way to Milan. It took about 4 hours. We also passed through a number of lakes such as this one where the city of Lucerne lies on the bank.

The drives along the winding road along the mountain valleys are really scenic. What also helps is the number of tunnels built to make the roads safe and easy to drive. In all we passed through 47 tunnels before reaching Milan - the longest was called St Bernard tunnel which is 17 km long!

Zurich

Next stop is Zurich. It took about 4 hours to reach from Strasbourg. You have to pay for road tax to enter Switzerland and costs about 27 Euro.

Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland, slightly larger than the whole population of Brunei. Zurich like all the cities in Switzerland is famous for branded watches. Interestingly watches here are cheaper than what we found in Holland, contrary to what we have always been told.

Strasbourg

Strasbourg is the seat of several European institutions including the European Parliment. The city is clean and infrastructures like the tram are quite modern.

One of the most stunning view is the Central Station when viewed from our hotel at night. This is an excellent infusion of modern structure to lightened up old building.

European Summer Tour

On 26th July, we (2 families)set off in 2 cars for a 10-day holiday by road southward to Italy. The journey brought us to 8 countries - Belgium, Luxemburg, France, Switzerland, Italy, Vatican, Austria and Germany.

The first day we drove through Belgium and Luxemburg before reaching the European City of Strasbourg in NE of France. The jouney took about 7 hours including a stop. Strasbourg is situated on the Ill River, where it flows into the Rhine. The city is located near to the Vosges Mountains and the famous Black Forest. As this is the holiday season, there were significant number of Dutch cars on the road heading to sunny south - as if the whole country is emptying.