It was all pretty Hot really.

Gary and Dianne did a great job as tour guides and we really appreciated their great company and the effort they went to so we could see a bit of Europe from a Motorhome.

The original idea was to try for Estonia and back from the UK but once we got to Brugge from Calais, we decided it was going to be far too much driving and we simply wouldn’t see anything in 5 weeks for driving so we opted for a shorter course through Holland, Germany, a week in Prague, (Gary and Dianne lived here for 3 years) back to Germany to check out the Niesmann and Bichoff factory, Luxembourg, Northern France and back to the UK.

It was all good but from a picture perspective, probably Stow on the Wold and some of older Architecture in Prague and Germany. The villages in Northern France were amazing too.

After seeing Gary and Dianne’s new Arto 88 Niesmann and Bichoff, Gary was able to organise a tour through the factory which was fantastic as they are all built by hand with minimal automation.
The factory is in Polch, Germany which wasn’t far out of our way from the Czech Republic to France. In the end we decided to go through Luxembourg as well and have a look there too.

Ralph was fun but after 3000 odd km’s, I was starting to pine for something like Rafe as Ralph was hard yakka by comparison. I didn’t realise too when we hired it that it was flat out at 90 odd k so it slowed Gary and Dianne down too which was a bit of a let down but we had fun and everything worked. Its a classic case of if I was to do it again, I’d do it differently.

Click on the Gallery below for a Slideshow of the Hot images..
click the x at the top right hand corner to close.

At Paddington with the amazing roof

A visitor from Hawkes Bay checking out the Baker street sign

The Ministers tavern with the cathedral behind

The Shard behind the Tower of London

The Tower Bridge

Fiona outside Westminster Abbey

Fiona outside the Roman Baths

Hilary and Fiona in Bath

Gary and Dianne with the beast behind

Fiona and Dianne with the Hymers waiting to board the train.

Where are we. Fiona, D ianne and Gary looking for clues

Visitors enjoying the Canal

People getting together

Windmills on the river

Fiona and Dianne share a pair of Clogs !

Fiona with a big sample Diamond

Madame Tussauds in the Dam square

Drinks time

The wall

A happy Wurlitzer player at the Brandenburg Gate

You can see a persons head popping up through the concrete blocks at the Jewish Memorial

The outside of the cathedral. Note the dark stones on the left. The rest are new!

The inside of the Cathedral

The ceramic mural of past Kings and Queens

The old historic Trams

The old Town by Charles Bridge

parts of the Old Town with Prague Castle

Old Town Square and Tyn Cathedral from the rooftop.

The Castle above the town

The Grand Hotel Pupp looking back from the river.

The View from the camp to the town

A Panorama from the Castle

Koblenz square

Koblenz from the ferry

Outside Notre Dame

In the Echternach Village

Echternach now (After)

Gary, Dianne and Fiona outside a closed champagne place in Wez around the corner from the Pub.

Pastries and Free Wifi. Dianne, Gary and Fiona.

Fiona, Gary and Dianne getting into the shopping

Great atmosphere

Watching the action outside the pub

The camp

Fiona puts a poppy down at an unknown Soldiers grave on the way to Arras

The Marina Sands Hotel

Inside the Marina Sands Shopping centre

The pool and the gardens with part of the container terminal in the background.

The whole trip was over nearly 2 months and cost a total of about $16000 NZ so was a cheap holiday given that we saw and did so much. Ralph was NZ$7000 of that for 5 weeks so it was pretty good really.

I picked up a bug in the last few weeks which I’m still trying to shake which was a bit of a bugger but still it didn’t slow us down 🙂

Singapore was fantastic.

We always seem to be flying through here so it was nice to actually stop for a few days and see all the changes. Its a great city and we both really enjoyed seeing Chinatown, cruising up the harbour and all the new buildings. The Marina Sands area was amazing too.

Over the whole trip though, I can’t say enough about Gary and Dianne and their patience with us as they really were fantastic and we had a huge amount of laughs and fun with them.

Thanks heaps to you both again for everything and also storing Rafe in your XLI/Nibi shed while we were all away. We’re both looking forward to catching up with you both when you get settled with Nibi in NZ, or whatever you end up calling the new beast.