Topdeck Instagrams

Back to London

As mentioned in my last Topdeck post featuring Bruges, it was the last day of my tour and we had just left Bruges to head from Belgium into France to Calais.  The drive from Bruges is little over an hour which seemed to fly by way too fast. Soon we were off loading our beloved Topdeck bus for the last time. Making sure we had everything as we would never see it again.

In Bruges

The morning of the 24th of April was very hard. It was the dawn of our last day of the tour. I had been hanging around with all these lovely people for sixteen days. I could have done with 16 more. We left our hostel, making our way through the quiet streets as we headed for where the bus was parked waiting for us.

Lunch and a Goodbye Dinner in Amsterdam

After the bike tour, Josie and I headed back to the Vondelpark so that we could have lunch at the Blue Teahouse inside. We enjoyed all the tulips the park had to offer as well as some interesting sculptures. There were a lot of people lounging about the park enjoying the sunshine and it would be a very nice place to have a picnic.

Biking tour of Amsterdam

Our large group was off to do a bike tour. We were using Mike's Bike Tours. I got paired with the beautiful Purple Rain which was to be my ride for the day. All the bikes had equally cool names. We saddled up and headed out in hopes of not dying. That was big on all of our lists of things to do that day.

Morning Walkabout in Amsterdam

The big event of the day was to be the bike tour happening later on in the morning but after enjoying breakfast in the hostel I wandered out to explore some of Amsterdam on my own. Enjoying the stillness of the canals, the beauty of the buildings and the chiming of bicycles.

Amsterdam!

Amsterdam, Amsterdam! How your beauty overthrew me! I had no idea how much I would enjoy Amsterdam and I must say that I will be going back. Not sure when but hopefully soon. It is a beautiful city. The canals are gorgeous. I cannot wait to get back and explore it more.

Berlin Zoo with Shane, Whitney and Pat

After the morning walking tour a group of us decided that we would pay the famous Berlin Zoo a visit.  We managed to find the nearest metro station by Check Point Charlie and bought tickets which was a bit of a struggle. After we all successfully had tickets in hand we boarded the metro and headed to the zoo. Not paying much attention when we exited the metro we missed the large giraffe telling us to head left. We headed right, wandering around a bit before turning around and managing to find the zoo.  I had gotten a small 10% card from the hostel so I was pretty excited. Finding the zoo entrance, we joined in the line of people queuing to get inside. The line moved quite quickly and we paid the €13 to get inside.

Berlin Walking Tour

In the morning we all woke up, enjoyed a quick breakfast before getting on the bus and heading into central Berlin so we could enjoy a walking tour. Our walk was hosted by Original Berlin Walks and we went on their Third Reich Tour.  Berlin is full of so much history from World War II and full of some iconic buildings.

Soviet War Memorial

After visiting Dresden, our next destination was Berlin. We stopped at the Soviet War Memorial in Berlin's Treptower Park before entering the city.

Dresden, Germany

Our bus left Prague on the 20th of April to head towards Berlin. Our bus would travel through the 800 year old city of Dresden on our way and we were happy to stop for a few hours and check it out.

Prague, Czech Republic

After arriving in Prague after driving from Krakow it was getting later in the day so we headed for a walking tour of the city in the night time. We got on the metro system and due to some issues with one of the lines we had to get off at Muzeum and walk a bit further. This wasn't a problem as the walk down the hill was quite enjoyable.

Wieliczka Salt Mine

On the 17th our optional for the Topdeck Tour was to go to the Wieliczka Salt Mine which is located in Wieliczka, a small town suburb of Krakow.  The mine was built in the 13th century and produced table salt continuously until 2007. It is one of the world's oldest salt mines still in operation.  They stopped commercial mining in 1996 due to low salt prices and mine flooding. It's one of Poland's official national Historic Monuments and 1.2 million people visit the mines each year.

Krakow Day 2 and Schindler's Factory

We were super lucky with the weather on our second day in Krakow. It was so beautiful!  We left the hotel at 9 am and headed on the bus into the city back to Old Town where we had been the night before.

Krakow, Poland! First night

We arrived in Krakow, the second largest city in Poland and one of the oldest. Our hotel was a bit further from the city centre so we were driven to the castle.

Journey to Krakow

Budapest Zoo!

As I take too many animal photos and my day in Budapest was full of adventures. This is a completely separate post dedicated just to my day at the zoo.

Budapest Day 2

It was our free day in Budapest and I was going to make the best of it. I crawled out of bed, headed downstairs after dressing and fed myself. Hostel breakfasts are either good or very very bad. This one was good but just barely. I made sure I had all my necessary items; wallet, camera, map, phone, ipod. All there. Good to go.

First night in Budapest, Hungary

After the drive from Vienna with the quick stop in Bratislava we had reached Budapest. This was the home of our guide Betti so she was very excited to show us Hungary and it's beautiful capital.

Bratislava

We left Vienna at 8 am on the 14th of April. Our final destination was Budapest, Hungary but we would be travelling through Slovakia to get there. This would be the shortest driving day of the entire trip at four hours. Our stop in Slovakia was its capital Bratislava.