I have wanted to do some travelling for a long while now, and had earmarked October this year for travelling around Eastern Europe with John. We hadn’t planned anthing until two days ago when we sat down and figured out some plans. We found that it took around one hour to plan each day’s trip, when you are looking at planes, trains and coaches, hostels etc. around an aread.

Later today we are flying out of Liverpool Airport to Stockholm (Sweden), staying there a few days and then getting the ferry across to Tallinn (Estonia) to stay a few days there. After Tallinn we are moving on to Vilnius (Lithuania) and then onto Riga (Latvia). Anyone looking at a map might find this order strange, but the coaches worked better having longer journeys as it allowed a sleeper coach (~9 hours) rather than a ’short’ 4 hour hop which is inconvenient. Additionally, the coaches from Vilnius to Warsaw (Poland) went via Riga anyway, and Warsaw is our next destination. There we are spending a night before moving onto Vienna (Austria) for two nights.

From Vienna we are travelling by overnight coach to Split (Croatia) where we are going to hire a car for four days. Croatia is supposed to be a beautiful country, and from the pictures and stories that I have come across it looks amazing! We will be travelling all over Croatia by car, including staying at Zadar, Rijeka and Zagreb. Hopefully we will get time to climb some of the hills in Croatia too, as the scenery looks stunning.

From Zagreb we are travelling by overnight coach to Munich (Germany) where we are staying with a friend for a couple of days. Whilst there I really want to see the Olympic park. I have seen it on Google Earth and think that from a structural engineering viewpoint it looks really interesting.

After Munich, we are travelling across to Baden, which is near Zurich in Switzerland to see another friend. Hopefully whilst there we will get to do some hiking in the Alps and see some of the amazing Swiss countryside.

Finally, about a month after setting off I will be heading back to Liverpool airport from Basel airport. John is continuing on to Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Liepzig, Prague and some other random places before returning to Belfast via Birmingham. I would love to carry on, but I thought that four weeks was pushing it as I’m supposed to be working!

When I return I hope to have lots of photos and stories which I can share, but now I need to go and pack!