Less than a month after coming back from Amsterdam, we were off again. We had talked about doing a road trip, maximising countries whilst keeping costs down. We wanted to see cool things, but knew there’d be a lot of driving. The main concern was the kids being in the car for long periods. They had always been good in the car, traveled well for a couple of hours at a time. We wanted to plan the journey so we would drive for two hours, do something, drive for two hours, then stay in hotel or wherever. This nearly worked, but not quite. We ended up completely missing out Czech Republic from our planned journey (sorry Czech Republic, but we will return). This was mainly because Germany is MASSIVE and takes ages to drive across! So, revised plan, whilst on the road, was this:
UK – France – Belgium – Luxembourg – France – Switzerland – Liechenstein – Austria – Germany – The Netherlands – Belgium – France – UK. 8 countries. 8 days. Lets do this.
UK – France – Belgium
We did the ferry thing again. DFDS. They were always the cheapest. Ferry every 2 hours I think. Also, if you turn up a bit early, you can get on the earlier ferry sometimes! We did that a couple of times. Book the later crossing for cheaper, but turn up at the more expensive crossing! Sorry DFDS! Went to Dunkirk, drove to Ant’s house in Brussels.
We did more in Brussels this time we stayed than the last, saw some more sights. We saw the Atomium, which I think is the Eiffel Tower/Colosseum/Big Ben of Brussels. It’s a bonkers building which was built as an exhibition hall in the 50’s. It’s a massive representation of an Iron Crystal, magnified 165 billion times. Imagine doing one of these before Google was invented!? I could have made anything up there couldn’t I? Yeah, it was originally supposed to be a pyramid, but the builders used the wrong cement, and it collapsed and just ended up like that. Like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but a lot worse. Thanks Google, you got my back. We got soaked in the rain, had ice cream and had a nice family day. We stayed with Ant for a couple of days, and then set off on road trip XXL.
Luxembourg
Drove south to Luxembourg, which I have to check the spelling each time. I did just spell it wrong. Thanks spell check. Where better to go when in Lux (gonna shorten it) than Lux City! Not really sure where else there is to be honest. Even in Lux City, not too much going on. It’s clean, quiet, has an All You Can Eat Chinese Buffet, some posh shops, and a McDonalds. Best of all though, it has free wifi in the streets, to Google all the things that there isn’t to do there! Wouldn’t go again.
Oh hang on, I just went through the route and remembered we did do something of note in Lux! We went to Vianden Castle, which is about 45 mins North of Lux City. It was an impressive castle, right on top of a mountain, proper fortified. Got out, had a walk around, and then went to the soul-less city of the aforementioned country. If you are reading this and you are from Lux, I’m sorry!
France
Carrying on south, we went to Thionville. We hadn’t heard of it either. It was just in the right place at the right time on our journey. Cheap hotel as a stepping stone to the next place. The hotel was in a bit of a shoddy industrial area, but was really nice inside. It was Hotel Premiere Classe if you’re interested, which tells you straight away it’s a great hotel. It was like an Easyjet hotel, but nice, not that I’ve stayed in an Easyjet hotel. We went to sleep, we woke up, we carried on our journey.
We drove to a French town called Colmar, which is ace for 2 reasons. Number one, it has a ‘Little Venice’, a beautiful area with a canal, lovely shops and boats, which are almost like gondolas. Number two, it was a mother flipping Statue of Liberty replica! Ok, it’s a lot smaller, and it’s just plonked on a roundabout, but it’s there. My wife, who is from Birmingham, calls a roundabout an ‘island’. I do now call it an island sometimes, but it’s a roundabout isn’t it? Anyway, turns out the chap who designed or built the actual Statue of Liberty was from Colmar, so this was done in his memory or something like that. We spent about an hour in Little Venice. Walked along the canal, had some biscuits from the shop, and a hot chocolate in a cafe thing. Really nice place.
Switzerland
Before getting to Switzerland, home of cuckoo clocks, chocolate and Roger Federer, I saw that you had to pay road tax to drive in, so we did that. We also saw that they don’t use Euros, but Swiss Francs. On the border, I just used my card to buy the road tax, which was 40 francs I think, about £30! No wonder they are so rich there. Had a nice drive through Basel, good motorways. That money is well spent to be fair.
Next stop after that was Zurich. Big city, quite nice. We had found a zoological museum to take the kids. Parked in a hospital car park, and went in. It was an ace museum, free to get in, all interactive and kids loved it almost as much as I did. Had an hour or two in there, then headed back to the car. Drove to Lake Zurich, which was really pretty. Just started to rain, so didn’t spend too long there. Me and Amelia got out, had a picture, and got back in. Oh, she had a teddy she had brought from her pre-school, one the kids take out on days out and that. She wouldn’t let go of it!
AirBnB
We then got to where we were staying that night. We had booked our first ever AirBnB, mainly because the hotels are proper expensive! Found a nice chalet in a place called Herisau. As I hadn’t used AirBnB before, we ended up booking a communal thing, which looking back was the reason it was a little bit cheaper. We had a big room to ourselves, in the floor below where the owners lived, but shared a bathroom and kitchen with the other guest, who we only saw once. He lived in a room next to us. Our room had a massive double bed, and 2 singles. As Stan was still a baby really, we had his travel cot with us, which we popped up in the room. We had to go to the pharmacy because Amelia had an earache and she was so upset as it hurt so much, especially when she lay down. Few drops in her ear, and she was fine after a couple of days.
That evening, we went to a restaurant, and as we walked down it started snowing, which was nice. In the morning, it was a proper white over. Kids loved it, but couldn’t play for too long as I was packing car, and it was blinking freezing! When we left, I had to drive proper slow down the mountain. I wasn’t used to the roads, and there was snow everywhere. It didn’t help that there was a dude in a van right up my backside. One bit, I genuinely thought we were going to die. Going down a hill, doing about 15 mph, corner coming up. I touched the brakes and it all locked up! I had no control over steering, it wouldn’t turn and the car wouldn’t stop. The edge of the road, heading over into fields below us was coming ever closer, but somehow, just on the bend, I got grip again and we were saved. Nothing to do with my driving, just a lucky piece of luck!
Liechtenstein
Another giant of a country. I think my comprehensive school was bigger than this country. I’m sure we had the 6th biggest school in Wales I think. Pretty sure that’s not a made up stat. We went to the capital, Vaduz, and had s troll around. Saw the football ground on the way in. England played there once apparently. Capacity of 7,000. Currently ranked 182 in the world. Town centre was small. Went to a cafe, had a bit of food, which was ok at best. Bought a magnet and left.
Austria
Planned to just get through this nice country as quick as we could, as we were supposed to pay road tax if we drove on the motorway, which we did, a little bit. We ended up in a place called Dornbirn. It was well pretty there, rural town-like, full of snow. We drove down a lane and ended up at a Rolls Royce museum. Classic British cars in a massive warehouse. I went in just to use their wifi! A quick Google of ‘things to do in Dornbirn’ threw up 15 things. Rolls Royce was number 4. Only other thing of note was a science museum, called Inatura. We were sold. Another interactive museum place, with stuffed animals, and you were encouraged to touch and explore everything. Split into 4 zones, like science, nature, the body and something else. Really good fun. Only bad bit was the restaurant. Well expensive. Kids shared a bowl of pasta! After this, we left for Deutschland.
Germany
Drove past Munich and went to Regensburg for the night. It looked nice, and was a stop-gap to Nuremberg. I know this is Hitler’s old stomping ground, steeped in history, but we went just for the polar bears! The zoo is pretty good, with the big white bears being the main attraction. Really nice enclosure. After the zoo, we drove to Frankfurt, in a generic chain hotel. It was late, so kids had room service. We decided I’d go out to get food for us 2 when kids were asleep. The trip took about an hour and half as I couldn’t find anywhere open! So strange. I could drive around with my eyes closed now! Got pizza in the end. Win.
The Netherlands
Next day, we drove to Aachen, the most westerly town in Germany. It was from here we did something pretty cool – 3 countries meet in one point, called Drilandenpunt. Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. There is a nice monument thing where you can put one foot in Belgium, one foot in The Netherlands, and your willy in Germany! I didn’t do that though. There is also a massive tower you can climb and look out across all three lands. Me and Stan went up and it had a glass bottom at the top.
Belgium
Drove to Antwerp which is beautiful. Famous for diamonds and that, but a really pretty place. Munched some pizza, and after, I took Amelia to this cool place sort of under the river. Well, it was under the river, it was a massive tunnel. St Anna’s Tunnel. She sounds ace. I just found out that Anna was the grandmother of Jesus! The Virgin Mary’s mam. Bet she was well proud of her! Did Mary have any more kids? Or sex? Was she always called ‘The Virgin Mary’? Bit harsh like. Anyway, back to the tunnel – either end there is an amazing old wooden escalator from the 1930’s.
Got back to Char who was not happy, as Stan had cried for a fair bit and she was getting evils from all the Antwerpians! We then drove back to Dunkirk, got on a ferry, and came home. This was quite a trip. Loads of driving, I still haven’t worked out how many miles we did. Kids were so good in the car. Watched the same Peppa Pig DVD about 50 times and that, and books and snacks. We are lucky that they travel so well, and just take it all in their stride.
I decided that if we ever did this type of trip again, that we wouldn’t! We did say we wouldn’t do as much driving, and stay in places longer to see more of it, and would defo do it differently if we did it again. Spoiler alert: we do do another one!