How it all started: I decided to, on a whim, call Alaska Airlines last summer (!) to see if there were any way to get 4 mileage tickets to Europe in July. The ONLY possible way for us to get from Kodiak to Europe was to fly into and out of Amsterdam- with three weeks on the ground. Of course I said yes, since tickets to Europe from Kodiak have been $1500-2000 per person the last few times I'd checked. But we weren't really interested in Amsterdam (after looking at the cost of housing there) and where we REALLY wanted to go was Hvar, Croatia for a week-long spell of relaxing on the beach with my college friends Ana (whose family has a house there but works in Sarajevo), Naomi (my flatmate in Scotland and who lives in Edinburgh now with hubby Bojon, also a friend from St. Andrews, and their baby Nadja), and Terri (also a flatmate in St. Andrews- who now actually WORKS as an art historian in LA).
So we started running scenarios: Taking trains everywhere and going through the Champagne region of France on the way to Croatia, flying to Croatia and spending the entire three weeks in the Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia region, traveling to Northern Europe and flying to Croatia and back, and finally we decided that the part of Europe that none of us had really experienced was Eastern Europe and rather than piecing together flight and trains and hauling bags everywhere, we'd just lease another car and drive from Amsterdam to Croatia and back. Going the 'eastern route' from eastern Germany through Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Bosnia only entailed 20-some hours of driving and with two weeks in which to get from Amsterdam to Croatia and back again, it seemed doable. So... We got started running numbers on the driving website Viamichelin.com which allowed us to plan driving routes and we looked for stops between 2-3 hours away from each other, and let fate lead us to our stops:
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| Musicians of Bremen sculpture |
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| Peugot 308- our home for three weeks. Only about $1400 to lease a brand new car for the entire three weeks! No fault, zero deductible insurance- awesome! |
-Bremen, Germany- Bella and I had read the Musicians of Bremen story and she really wanted to see the sculpture. It ended up being a 3.5 hour drive from Amsterdam, so... there we go... AND it also ended up that there are rumors of Alutiiq kayaks in Bremen! Kismet. Then:
-Ahrensburg, Germany for a few days to stay with some of Sven's colleagues there and to rest up for the big drive. Then:
-Prague!
-Budapest, Hungary
-Pecs, Hungary
-Sarajevo to stay with Ana
-Mostar, Bosnia to see the historic East/ West town with the 500-year old (restored as it was destroyed in the war) Turkish bridge.
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| Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina |
-Split, Croatia to Zagreb, Croatia
-Zagreb to Linz, Austria
-Linz, Austria to Frankfurt, Germany and finally:
-Frankfurt to Amsterdam!
This is what our life looks like (and although it doesn't look like it, it took a HECK of a lot of work!):
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