Dearest blog,

I appologise for our absence in updating you, it has been many a long day since we sat to document our travels.

Last time we met we were in munich, a vibrant city in which we spent the majority of our time locked in our hotel room trying unsuccessfully to get a stream of afl finals action onto our iPad. Not successful! Demetriou and his band of overpaid execs have successfully managed to monopolize any tv or radio broadcasts onto their website which is incompatible with iPad. Not happy Jan. This resulted in me taking all my afldirected anger out on the city of Munich slightly souring the taste of 1l steins handed around by busty barmaids to the sound of oompah lumpa bands ( not sure if that is their official title). Anyway nice city and we packed our bags crammed it all into our car (named jane/ who is also the voice to our gps) and headed to the country!

First stop was dachau concentration camp, which was incrediby interesting and very moving and a solemn reminder of germanys terrible not so distant past. A must if ever near Munich.

We then drove through the majestic German alps own to a tiny town called konigsee. This is to be the site of the bobsled etc for the winter games ? In 2018 in which mountains tower above crystal clear glacial lakes. Seeing the slope of the bobsled course reassured me to stick with indoor cricket as my midweek activity. It really was a stunning area though with boat trips, walks to ice caves and stunning scenery. There was also a rather large brown trout that was so uninterested in humans I could almost pick him up. It was going to be my greatest catch, bear grills style a 10pound brown with my bare hands, then nic intervened hitting it in the head with a rock enough only to scare it off and leave me without my prized catch and wiener schnitzel back on the menu. it was a great few days relaxing in the stunning great outdoors which we really didn't expect in Germany and a great last stop before moving on to austria.

Salzburg was next on the menu and after doing some research I found frauline Maria's bicycle city tour which was number one on trip advisor. I was under the belief this was your averAge bike trip but i was soon reminded Via a rendition of the entire soundtrack to sound of music that it was here that sister Maria frolicked through the hills doing her thing. I had unfortunately confused sister maria with sister mary clarence (from sister act) and i was now heading for an all singing all dancing sound of music tour of salzburg. Tragedy soon struck and Our dreams were dashed when we found out frauline Maria's bicycle tours were booked out :(... does sarcasm convey in written word? Anyway we managed to find most of the pivotal sites and recreate them in our photos.

We stayed for a few nights and headed up through the lakes district to czech republic. A long 45 minutes into our drive we stopped off at a small town called St Wolfgang. It was on the edge of one of the large lakes and what was supposed to be a coffee ended up in two nights swimming, boating and relaxing in the sun of the popular Austrian holiday spot. We were incredibly lucky and on the way back up to the carpark from coffee found an apartment right on the spectacular lake for an absolute bargain, we couldn't leave, although if our Czech b&b place asks we were held up with a mechanical issue.

However it was not all lazing around, picnics and beers on boats etc and We almost didn't make it out alive after the 'great austrian passenger ferry vs small electronic boat debacle'. I had the greet idea of hiring an electric boat to have a picnic Out on the crystal clear water. It wasn't exactly a pleasure cruiser. It had a 300 watt engine, no oars or anything else in the boat for that matter, I had to beg to get a rope thrown in. I asked when leaving what to do if it broke down and was reassured when she said as she pushed me off 'don't worry about it I'm pretty sure I charged it last night'. Anyway we headed off and all was going well as we cruised along half falling asleep in the refreshing sun when we almost jumped off the boat as a fog horn sounded just behind us. We looked around to see we were directly in the path of a 200 foot pedestrian/car ferry that was hurtling towards us. I stepped on the gas ( there was 2 speeds) and at an astonishing speed of 2 knots we veered to the left just being missed by the ferry. My driving priverliges which had been earned in the previous few days were again suspended and it would be back to the navigating seat for me. A few anxious moments but all returned to calm and a very pleasant day on the water.

We then headed to Czech republic and the popular tourist destination of cesky crumlov. Equipped with high expectations it was a bit of a disappointment. It is a great city but was overrun with tourist buses and tourist shops. We were staying at the number one b&b on trip advisor, it was described as 'position perfect'. I'm not sure how many Czech beers these people had consumed as we may as well have been staying back in Austria. The short and picturesque walk into town was an uphill slog along there biggest highway with a well positioned dirty river below that could have easily hidden your body as an angry Czech took your cash and tossed you in. This is a bit of an exaggeration but we did have a laugh about the creative licence some people had taken. Anyway we wandered (in pouring rain) around their castle, surrounded by bears!!!, and their old town but the highlight was eating in their cave restaurants with fantastic meat cooked on a roaring fire. I successfully regained my manhood by destroying a 1300g pork knuckle, not sure where in the pig it comes from but it was awesome!

Next was Prague and after some mixed reviews we were unsure of what to expect. It really didn't disappoint. We were lucky as our apartment was right in the action to explore the many sites of the old town. There was heaps to see even for us who tend to avoid going into to many museums, galleries etc. And we probably needed another day or So.

We were then France bound but on the way stayed a night at rothenberg which was a huge surprise very old but lots to do and see around town.

We then entered France in a village in the Alsace region, very picturesque and lots to see. It was again a debacle with the footy as I was assured the place had wifi so I could watch the pies. The place did have wifi but the owner didn't know the password... We tried to explain that if people cannot connect to wifi it doesn't really count, I went into her office and there were about 9 guns on the wall so we retreated to our balcony for wine, cheese, sausage and some friday night lights. It was a bit of a saga but in the end the footy would have to wait until the champagne region.

We Arrived without a reservation which proved our undoing in the champagne area as it happened to be a sat night. Anyway we ended up in an independant champagne producers hotel overlooking veuve's grapes and I settled in with a bottle of champagne ( from the minibar) and watched the pies epic against the hawks. Lucky there was no one else staying in the place as there was some rather loud barracking going on. I was ecstatic to get away with that one but was so stressed after the match that with the minibar empty I had to go out to the car and get our last bottle of wine to settle me down.

We thought we would drive around through the villages and sample some local champagnes the next day. We were surprised to find that despite 100s of champagne houses no one was open! We couldnt believe in the champagne region we couldn't find a glass of champagne! Not only that the villages didn't have restraunts, cafes or even shops it was a bit weird! Anyway was all made up in the next few days as we visited the bigger cellars- moet with 28 km of cellars and probably approx 500 million bottles stored there. We have also embraced the choc couisants, baguettes and French food in general although I'm still chasing the illusive choc mousse, nic has already crossed off snails but I think I'll stick to the former.

With the car packed with champagne, somehow we ended up with rAther a lot, we had 2 days to burn so headed toward chantilly north of Paris. Nic got us on to a chateau which We thought would be fun. it was in the neighbouring town senlis. I certainly didn't expect when we arrived to have the chateaux, in the middle of town over 12 acres, all to ourselves. We felt very royal as we sipped champagne at our chateau. this then changed as we had kebabs for dinner, not sure the former owners would have approved. We visited the famous chantilly chateaux and stables today, but unfortunately no races there today. We are now planning for Paris tomorrow for the usual sights and a dose of spring racing at the arc.

Hope all is well back in aus or wherever this finds you. Keep an eye out for some photos from the trip so far the favorite being in Munich beer garden with a nun sneakily drinking 1l beer stein, are they allowed to do that?

Farewell for now, go pies

James and Nic