2023 Europe Trip: In Summary

I spent a month this summer exploring Europe with my dad. My goal was to blog as we went, but that clearly didn’t happen. Instead, you get this summary post!

In Numbers

In 28 days, we…

• visited 9 countries
  • England, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Poland*, Czechia, Austria, Liechtenstein*, and Switzerland
  • *We spent around 15 minutes walking around a small town in Poland and took a train through Liechtenstein. Debatable whether those count!
• stayed in 11 cities
  • London, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Munich, Innsbruck, Interlaken, and Frankfurt
• took 9 forms of transit
  • plane, inter-city train, subway, tram, bus, car, cable car, funicular, Ferris wheel
• took a combined 983,000 steps (approximately 487 miles)
  • Sydney: averaged 16.9k steps/day; 439k steps total
  • Scott: averaged 20.9k steps/day; 544k steps total

• took 1,667 photos
  • I’ve included some favorites here, but if you’re interested and know us personally, message me and we can add you to the shared album with all of the photos and videos.
• survived 4 travel nightmares
  • British Airways lost my suitcase on the flight from London to Amsterdam. Luckily, we were able to rescue it three days later at the airport before continuing on to Hamburg.
  • Our flight from Copenhagen to Berlin was cancelled at the last minute after we had gotten through airport security. We managed to book a new flight on the same night with a different airline.
  • We had an awful experience on a bus from Dresden to Prague. As a result, we changed our bus from Prague to Munich to three trains with very tight connections. A delay on the first train caused us to come nail-bitingly close to getting stranded in Cheb, Czechia. 
  • When going from Innsbruck to Interlaken, our train from Innsbruck to Zürich broke down just after crossing the border into Switzerland. We missed our connecting train by an hour, but managed to hop on a later train without too much trouble.

As we went, I put together a custom Google Map to keep track of where we’d been. You can zoom in and scroll around to see more details. Black lines represent flights, magenta represents trains, light purple represents busses, dark purple represents trams, red lines represent cable cars or funiculars, and blue lines with letters represent driving routes.

In Pictures

London

July 18th – July 19th

Amsterdam

July 20th – July 21st

Day Trip — Zaanse Schans

July 21st

Hamburg

July 22nd – July 24th

Airplane landing at Miniatur Wunderland, the world’s largest model railway!

Day Trip — Lübeck

July 23rd

Copenhagen

July 25th – July 26th

Berlin

July 27th – July 28th

Dresden

July 29th – July 31st

Road Trip — Basteibrücke

July 29th

Road Trip — Rakotzbrücke & Görlitz

July 30th

Prague

August 1st – August 3rd

Munich

August 4th – August 6th

Road Trip — Hohenschwangau, Neuschwanstein, & Linderhof

August 5th

Innsbruck

August 7th – August 8th

Interlaken

August 9th – August 11th

Frankfurt

August 12th

In Memories

Best food:

The best food we ate was a random chocolate chip muffin from a convenience store in Amsterdam Central Station. We had picked up a few snacks for the day but quickly forgot about the muffin, which was left smushed in the bottom of a backpack. When we pulled it out in Hamburg to eat as a late-night snack, we discovered that it was the best muffin we’d ever eaten, soft and chocolatey and perfectly sweet. Nothing else we ate on the trip came close.

Funniest situation: 

At our hotel in Hamburg, we were upgraded to a room with a pull-out couch. The couch was still in couch form, so they sent two employees up with sheets and pillows to convert it into a bed. Well, they tried. This was not a typical pull-out couch. They rearranged cushions and took everything apart and put it back together. They tried different configurations for at least 15 minutes, muttering about the strange design. Eventually, they made a roughly bed-shape surface. And then it wasn’t rectangular, so the sheets wouldn’t fit, and the duvet had to be put into the duvet cover (which was a struggle). It was not a comfortable bed, but it worked in the end, and we all had a good laugh.

Hiking memories: 

I had a knack for planning hikes on days when it ended up pouring rain. Halfway through a four-mile hike in Saxon Switzerland National Park, it started to rain. The rain eventually turned into a downpour. It was a gorgeous trail, but hearing the thunder echo through the mountains was unsettling. I’d only packed one umbrella, so we hiked the rest of the way squished together under it (and still ended up very wet). We had parked on the other side of the Elbe and needed to take a ferry back. We weren’t sure if the ferry would still be running with the rain and lightning. We turned the corner and saw that the ferry was running… and that we had just missed it and had to wait for it to return. 

One of our favorite hikes was a secluded trail above Schloss Neuschwanstein. We had already hiked several miles and weren’t sure the extra effort would be worth it, but the views over the castles and landscape were fantastic. Worth every step!

Most beautiful places:

Innsbruck was stunningly beautiful. The surrounding mountains, architecture, and milky-green water made for gorgeous views. One day we decided to take the seven flights of stairs to our hotel room to avoid the crowd waiting for the elevators. As a reward, we were treated to a great view over the city from a balcony connecting the stairs to the building.

The water in Interlaken almost didn’t seem real. It was so turquoise and opaque that it looked like glass, even up close.

While the award for most impressive cathedral goes to St. Vitus Cathedral (located in Prague Castle), Frederik’s Church in Copenhagen stood out as the most unreal. It looked like something out of a video game rather than a building in reality.

Most poignant experiences:

While many memorials we visited were emotionally powerful, the destroyed churches left as memorials and museums in Hamburg and Berlin were particularly poignant. They accepted fault and served as a stark reminder of how awful war is (for everyone).

Lessons learned: 

• The sound of rolling suitcases on cobblestones is annoying. There were a lot of cobblestones. 
• Umbrellas are surprisingly heavy! The backpack was significantly lighter and more comfortable without them. Of course, deciding that they weigh too much comes with inherent danger… 
• Heed advice from online reviews!
  • “Definitely buy your tickets for the Deutsches Museum ahead of time.” Or wait in line outside in the wind and cold for two hours. That works too!
  • “Don’t walk between Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof and the hotel, especially at night.” Or brave the walk and try to ignore the people while dodging the broken glass and vomit on the ground. 
• Do NOT attempt to park in the Dresden Innenstadt (inner city) on a Saturday afternoon in summer. We spent more than an hour circling before finally finding a spot in a garage a mile from the hotel.

Overall, we had a great time. It was exhausting and challenging and fun. I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity.