Bucharest bound

     We really are rubbish at getting up early ! Thankfully Ian knew we would be needing a lift into VT for the car and chased us up , it still cost us time because we weren't packed for a night away so we drove back to get organised and check the coupe for oil and water , we put some oil in but she was looking good for having now done 2198miles in just over a week definitely needing a wash and a Hoover though ! We packed for one night away and set off for Bucharest, Cammy driving first it's a really cool road out through VT you drive through some tunnels with the city sitting above and around them , it was a beautiful sunny day and we were happy to be on the move , we had a quick emergency stop to pull over and kill the wasp that was flying around the car and then when 20 mile out of town I remembered !! PAssports ! We had to turn back Rumania and Bulgaria are both now in the EU but we would definitely be needing passports , that cost us an hour of wasted time driving back , I took over the driving Cammy took big country off and put James on the stereo we were off again , the roads all around this area of Bulgaria have lots of memorials to people that have been killed in traffic accidents they put up proper tombstones , but the lonely planet guide book says driving in Romania is sheer lunacy take public transport if you can ,we were going to find out 

           The Danube is the border between Bulgaria and Romania we were going to cross it by the bridge ( takes to long to go on the ferry ) the bridge is ancient and in serious need of repair or even better just replacing , the inevitable happened for us the bridge was down to one lane for road works ! There was only two lanes so we had to sit for ages to get our turn , once over the bridge the roads were terrible , the passport control was surrounded by packs of stray dogs , and so was the service station where we stopped to buy the Romanian road tax , you have to buy at least a weeks worth of tax but I could buy it with my card along with some snacks, Cammy took over the driving I put never mind the bollocks on the stereo and let Cammy take the stress of the Romanian roads all the way to the front door of our hotel in Bucharest 

         We were in the double tree Hilton it was 6pm local time , Scotland were playing Australia in the rugby World Cup quarter finals , I used the hotel ATM and we walked to the old part of town to find a bar to watch the game , using my guide book and a bit of common sense we found the busy bar area of town , it really was an excellent bar area loads of busy bars restaurants strip joints etc , we chose a bar called Oktoberfest as it was showing the rugby on loads of screens the Irish bar didn't have it on ! The game itself was nailbiting to watch for a Scotland fan and with 5 minuets to go it really looked like we were going to put Australia out ! But Scotland carries zero luck in sport and we lost by one point in the closing minuets of the game , it was a busy bar and not one other person was watching the rugby we must have attracted a bit of attention shouting at the TV heads in hand ! We went for a steak dinner to cheer ourselves up , and The rest of the night we strolled round having beers in a few of the bars in the area , it was a good place for a night out with your mates and we ended it buying a takeaway pizza for the hotel and spent the last of our Romanian money on a taxi at nearly two am   , 

            Leaving the hotel in the morning we got to witness the chaotic roads and driving first hand as we weaved our way out the city , it was a beautiful day and the autum colours of the trees were lovely on the drive to the bridge over the Danube , the traffic was ok as we approached the bridge toll we remembered we had spent the last of our Romanian money we only had Bulgarian lev ! It was 13romanian lei the man at the toll wouldn't accept Bulgarian and kept repeating pay euros he was very unlleasant and unhelpful and ended up confiscating our passports and car documents and telling us to park up ! In the end I had to walk way back past all the stray dogs that roam around here untill I found a money changer who gave me 40RL for my Bulgarian 20 I bet that was a great rate I got but fortuneatly we are only talking pounds it was the hassle and harassment that bugged me most ! Both sides of the toll accepts euros or their own currency ,it's just stupid for two countries that are now in the EU together , I didn't let it ruin our drive back to Bryan's house the weather and scenery couldn't have been nicer , and there was a mother and daughter guests staying overnight with us at Bryan's house 

It's not over yet !

    I woke up with that thirst you only get after a night on the beer ! There was no bottled water and I was unsure if I could trust the tap water for a drink , we were planning a rest day so at 09:30 it was still early but I needed liquids and some carbs , I grabbed some clothes it was strange putting on clothes that smelled of cigarette smoke ! I think it's strange for us now seeing people sitting at the bar smoking , not all the smokers here do it some do stand outside the bars , I went for a walk up the street from my brothers house having actually no real idea where I was ! but Bryan's house is in a little village on the outskirts of a town called drynovo which is also just a town on the outskirts of the city of velinka tornovo , it's a pleasant short walk to his local corner shop , the woman that works in it must be about 80 and can't speak a word of English , we spoke slowly to each other making lots of silly hand and head movements but my attempt to buy milk failed ! Still I had cheese and coffee sachets , we would have more luck in a bigger shop in the town , once we got to drynovo we went for lunch back at the pizza bar because the other cafes we looked at didn't have anything writte in English that we could choose what to eat or drink ,and at the shop we still didn't see milk black coffee it will need to be , there's lots of coffee machines at the street corners around here and those are reasonably tasty , I should maybe install one at polmont Main Street ! It was a Friday night and we weren't staying in to watch tv ,so we thought we would sample the bars in Bryan's village we tried a few bars in drynovo but it was too quiet for us there , so we drove into valenka tornovo (VT) we parked up for the night and just hoped the car would be alright , I was happy as I had my lonely planet guide for Bulgaria so we knew where the best bars and restaurants were and we opted for a cellar music bar called melon , the band were just about to kick off but we left before they started as it was too small and crowded we ended up at a bar called rock n rolla which was good and we got an excellent big pizza to share , we enjoyed our night out in VT and it was after 1am when we got into our tiny yellow bubble cab for the 12mile taxi ride home for 16lev (£6'ish) 

       We never heard Ian chap our door at 9am ! but I phoned him at 11for a lift into town to collect the car ,thankfully it hadn't been stolen clamped or towed away and we could set off right away on our planned journey up the shirka pass ! It was a beautiful day and the 45min drive to the shirka pass was lovely it's a long winding road through the woods with excellent views over the wooded mountains and valleys , it all went great until we gained altitude and we were then driving in fog (low cloud) , our plan was to visit the budludzha the UFO like building built be the communists , it's a wreck of a shell now and actually closed to the public and not shown in guide books , it sits at the top of a mountain at around 1300mtrs , the access road to it is being left to rot ,so the last 6miles of our approach to it was very slow and bumpy through thick woods shrouded in mist , there was so much fog we never seen the huge structure until we walked up the steps right in front of it ! There's a hole burst in the side wall to a stairwell and this is shared you crawl and climb through to get in , I had brought torches for us to get a good look round , it's an amazing impressive site and a real shame it's being left to rot , it was well worth the effort to go there and such a shame we never got some sunshine to see it in its true glory , we were really hungry by the Time we started the drive back down shirka pass we decided to just get changed and head out for dinner , 

        A bit more cautious with our parking this time we got a good space near the centre and discussed our options for the last few days over dinner and beers at the city bar a British biker style bar in the centre of VT , there's a big ex pat biker group here called the old bastards and they meet here at city bar , our options over the next 2,5days were ! stay around VT untill we go to the airport on Tuesday or have a night in Bucharest Romania Sunday or just have another day in V T and then have a night in Sofia before we fly home ? ! Cammy made the decision quickly apparently he was missing the road and wanted to go to Bucharest and he got on my mobile phone app and booked and paid the Accomodation , so we couldn't change our mind , by this time we were at a bar called vogue and my phone went ! it was Craig otherwise known as ju jitsu Jeff one of my brothers ex pat buddy's we were to go back to the city bar for beers with the old bastards , which was a laugh but that crew were heading home earlier than us they had been on the beer much longer than us and had a party to go to ( they did invite us ) we went to rockn rolla bar there was a band on in there and it was mobbed and good , then we went to piano bar to end the night with a kebab for the taxi home 

Day 7belgrade to BA's house

     Continental style breakfast was just what we needed at the hotel ,theres a nice bar area with a self service beer tap unusual for breakfast !but We were driving no beer for our breakfast , the receptionist was lovely and I pulled out my wad of notes to pay the 600 dinar tourist tax , we had a big drive ahead of us ,so we got going at 10am with 1640 miles on the clock , we got a ticket for the toll road and it was all good motorway and lovely sunshine for two hours , when we got to the toll exit the woman at the window said €6 I pulled out my wad of Serb cash -7notes of various sizes of notes a100 a 50 4 20's and two 10's I required 730 so after a quick count ! I used my card to pay the €6 toll , it was still all nice motorway until we got to 1780 mile , abruptly the motorway stopped and we were on proper back roads that were almost alpine in appearance with lots of tunnels weaving through the mountains ,Then at 1840miles we crossed the border from Serbia back into the EU Bulgaria ,no problems at either sides passport controls ,But we required petrol and a toilet you have to buy a vignette to drive in Bulgaria ( it's like road tax you display ) I read you can buy a vignette at the borders petrol stations so I pulled into the first , the solo attendant was approaching our petrol point as I got out the car he asked if I wanted benzene ( petrol ) I said yes I hadn't opened the petrol cap door yet , so I opened that and he took the cap of and he started pouring in the petrol, cammy spoke to me about the toilet we had no Bulgarian money and I asked the attendant if we can buy a vignette on a credit card showing him the card , he pointed at his wee notice that I had'nt seen declaring no cards cash only I told him to stop pouring in petrol ! Which he done but by this short space of time he had already put in 22.2 Ltrs  !! I only had €20 euros stashed , they love euros he just wasn't for believing me I only had €20 and I was beginning to think the only English he knew was pay in euros , he got out his old calculator punched in some numbers and said I owed him €37 , after a fair bit of two and throw the swindler got my €20 in notes plus €6 in change (I rummaged in my change bag for some coins  )and he took the last of my Serb cash to pay for the petrol only and we still had no vignette , I was a tad upset at my first impressions of Bulgaria for this trip ! There was a further two petrol stations within half a mile of the border the first wouldn't sell us a vignette on a credit card ,but the third one was no problem a nice modern looking shell garage , so we bought a toasted sandwich and coffee along with the vignette there on the credit card, the road didn't improve much either and we passed two people who had just been stopped by traffic police ! it must be a wee money spinner ripping of travellers at this border 

           It has been 6years since me and cammy were last in Bulgaria together,  it seemed like a lot longer , we had a great ski holiday here in 2009 at bororvets and that's now tainted by the fact I got my walkie talkies stolen by baggage handlers on the way home , the road into Sofia was an old one and didn't show the city of at its best , we drove straight through the capital and onto the road we must have been on the last time here from the airport to bororvets ski resort ,all those years ago , I had a slight memory off the mountain tunnels , we had my chemical romance playing after the strokes the Beatles and the proclaimers had been on also today with our usual daily Johnny cash hit ! So I suppose it would be inevitable , cammy put on some hard core boy racer music boom boom boom raise the roof boom boom boom! ! I think it was a plan so as he could take over the driving and I could take over the CD player , and after a short while this worked , we switched seats and I put on the view again , 

        Somewhere close to valenka Tărnovo we done 2000mile on the trip meter we didn't notice until 40mile later when we were sitting at the town centre trying to phone my brothers friend Ian to find out how to get to Bryan's house , we had arrived nearly two hours earlier than we expected but that was because the sat nav changed the time for Bulgaria and our clocks watches and phones were all behind ! So it was a pleasant surprise when cammy shouted we are here ! 7days 9countries 2040miles not including sea miles and we had arrived at our destination , now all we had to do was find Ian and get to Bryan's house wherever it was , we eventually got through to Ian on his phone and made arrangements to meet him on a road outside of the town ,he would be waiting in a Chrysler me and cammy drove past a Honda ( it was Ian's son bret and his girl ) Ian phoned us to say we had drove right past the meeting place , so we turned around and went back this time to be met by Ian and his wife in their Chrysler , we followed them to a nice restaurant by the river called the old monastery and had dinner with Ian his friends their girlfriends and family , after dinner cammy followed Ian's car ( I had beers with dinner ) and parked the silver bullet at its destination the wee car had made it to Bryan's house and done it in style we had really enjoyed our drive across Europe with the coupe but it was time to park her up for the night and get dropped in town by Ian's wife at the pizza bar , 

Day6 Budapest to Belgrade

     The shower wasn't the hottest! and as we were a bit later getting up ( cammy is as bad as me getting out of bed in the morning ) they were starting to clear up breakfast at 09:40 when we got to where breakfast gets served , one of the reasons we booked this hotel was for its free parking when I checked out I showed reception our parking ticket ( I didn't want a repeat of Berlin ) she said it was ok , we had already had a discussion about where To go next and had decided on Belgrade . So we took advantage of the hotel wifi before leaving to book a hotel in Belgrade and left to get the car , our wee silver bullet is starting to show signs of being part of a European road trip inside and out ! We cleaned some stuff out the boot and from the around the  seats then drove to the exit surprise surprise we had to pay for the car park as this was not hotel parking ! Last nights taxi driver got the last of our Hungarian money but fortunately I had a €5 note and funnily enough that was exactly the price the man at the gate required ! 

       So with no cash left we hit the road out of Budapest without properly seeing the sites , next problem of the day was our beloved sat nav ! it just wouldn't accept the address of our next hotel no matter what we tried to put in for the address , so we opted for just Belgrade city centre for now , the sat nav said we should arrive there at 15:30 ,we were off again , we both brought a box of CD's but now after so many hours all our favourites have had a double play some even a triple the proclaimers libertines Johnny cash oasis franz Ferdinand the vaccines feeder the Beatles the view twin Atlantic  ! 

       It was a reasonably pleasant uneventful drive with two toll roads which we could pay for in euros €2 each which was better than using my card ! I specifically got a card that gave no European charges for this trip , At 1505milles we were at the Hungary Serbian border , this was much like what I had imagined it would be after all this was us after all leaving the EU ! We stopped at the hugarian side got our passports inspected and I was asked to open the boot and asked my destination and we were through , a quick drive across no mans land show our passports again get them stamped this time for Serbia open the boot again asked if it was just luggage where were we going and we were through into Serbia , it's great that we can drive such huge distances over so many countries without this kind of border crossing , but there's also something a little exciting about a proper border crossing you feel like you deserve that passport stamp , we weren't in Serbia long and the skies really opened up for a proper downpour the road quality wasn't good and with the occasional Aqua plane I had slow right down , until at 13:30 we required a petrol stop Serbian dinar is around 160 to the pound so watching the numbers go round when you fill up is entertaining ! We got a toasted sandwich and coffe switched driving duties and the sun came out for our pleasant drive into Belgrade with the Beatles playing again , when we entered the city we found somewhere to stop the city centre traffic was bad and our sat nav still did not have our hotel ! It just wouldn't give us a route no matter how we tried to put the hotel in eventually we got it by puting in its GPS co'ordinates , so after a wee bit weaving in and out of trams and auld bangers we were parked up in front of our hotel for 4pm 

            The hotel we picked for £41 was very good our apartment had a for each of us and a big shower room very spacious and clean with secure parking and breakfast , the auld boy at reception scanned our passports and gave directions to an ATM we got some cash and waved a taxi down to go into town , normally I've got some sort of guide book for arriving in a city like this my prefered opption being lonely planet , I had a lonely planet for Romania Bulgaria and Poland but not for Serbia and finding the bar area of town. Was tricky to start with , but we found a bar called the black turtle which is one of a Belgrade chain of bars which sell craft beers , the barma was very pleasant and helpful we tried a few of the ales then cammy wanted a bottle of cider the barman was not impressed and not for the last that night cammy was called a girl for choosing bottles the next two harken also laughed at him for it , we moved onto an Irish bar where we met andrey a Russian born American now living in Belgrade who took us to the main bar street and helped us pick a restaurant , it was a bit bizarre sitting 3blokes together in a posh restaurant being serenaded by a traditional band a singer accompanied by double bass fiddle squeeze box all for us ! After dinner we had a walk up the street chose a bar but by 11pm I was shattered , taxi back to hotel cost 850dinar it was strange peeling of loads of notes to count out a throw back to the days of pound notes ! Reception was locked another guest past by and we got him to open the side window and we climbed in , another good day 

Day 5 aushwitz

    9am rise felt to early but we would have been wiser getting up early , we went down for breakfast then back up to the room to shower and pack , we knew it was going to be as busy long day so we headed straight out of Kraków and just as we got its outskirts the trip on the odometer reset to zero we had drove a thousand miles from polmont 

    First stop was auswich I was driving , it was back the way we came for a stretch then through some back roads and villages to get to the museum car park , we had read the lonely planet guide on it and thought we were reasonably clued up on what we had to do to see all the sites ,there's really strict security to get into attempt first aushwitz camp and set timings for tours of different nationalities it was nearing midday our only option was 3pm which we felt was too late ! So we tried to blag in with a 3pm ticket security weren't having it ! Go to birkenau and come back so we went on the shuttle bus to the birkenau camps , I had been previously so I could tell cammy some of the stuff , but to be fair on him he had a very good grasp of the history of these death camps and how they were operated , he certainly impressed me with his knowledge we had a right good march around this huge site reading all the information boards strategically placed around the camps, when we got the shuttle bus back to aushwitz we were very conscious of our time ! it wasn't yet 2pm and we had a really long drive to Budapest to do , so I tried to charm the girl at security for a second time  the outcome of which was I could pretend to be a polish person and buy a ticket for the polish tour time IE now , so off to the ticket office we went and bought two tickets for the polish tour , back to our friendly security guard who told us to march through and speak to no one , after going through airport style metal detectors we were into the camp , it's really a horrific spooky place and even having seen it now for the second time the scale of an industrial way to torture and murder people is shocking to even the hardest of hearts , the displays of hair ,spectacles , and shoes etc have to be seen to be believed , we felt a little guilty and privileged to go back to our car filled with luxuries that those poor murdered people could not have dreamed possible 

           Cammy was taking the next spell of driving , we had a long way to go the sat nav said we would not arrive at our destination until 21:30 ! And it doesn't calculate in any stops to refuel or eat,  it was a long trek on back roads before we hit the motorway and headed for Czech Republic border the weather was overcast and drizzly a bit too dreich for site seeing really ,but at 10087miles we crossed the Czech border with no krona ! Hopefully if required we can use some unspent zlotys or our stashed euros and pounds , I was worried about cash for tolls and any road tax , and at 1137miles we could do with fuel and something warm to eat and drink we pulled into a Czech service station it was reasonably busy but the plan was to ask the girl about taxes buy the food and petrol on my Visa card and use the toilet ,I put in 34ltr of fuel which was going to cost 1451.20 Kronas I asked if she spokdenglish she nodded her head which I took to mean she did ( some Eastern European countries a nod means no a shake of head means yes the opposite of us ) , she didn't speak English and I ended up just paying the petrol on my card no food or water and no knowledge of road taxes , we were still hungry and after a few more miles seen a sign for a KFC ! Now I'm no lover of the Americanisation of the world but you get good toilets a nice coffee and can point at a familiar menu and pay by cArd it was a no brainer in we went , at some point in our fast drive through the check Republic I drove straight past one of there point of sale road tolls but thankfully we got away with it and at 1283miles from home we drove into Hungary , I was getting tired of driving cammy had taken a snooze and was ready to take over for our last stretch we seen the point of sale sign this time and pulled over to pay our road tax , it was possible to pay by card or euros I chose card as I wanted to keep euros for changing if required , it was 2975.00 HUN whatever that was in £'s it's about 375! To the £ , from here it was an easy drive straight to the hotel over one of budapests lovely bridges ,it looked like a lovely city , the hotel we picked had free parking and after what had been a busy long day so far at 21:40 we were ready to park up and go for a beer it was 1397miles now ! We had done just over 400 mile today but had stopped a lot so had been on the go for nearly 12hrs 

     The room was on the 8th floor and had a nice view over the city , we changed €30 for Hungarian cash at reception , then worked out how to get into and use the underground while standing with our city map in hand looking like a right pair of tourists ( which of course we were ) it was raining in the centre of town we found a couple of bars had a couple of beers and when it was 00:30 we decided to get a taxi back to the hotel ,the taxi fair came to exactly how many Hungarian notes we had left from our €30

Day 4 the road to Kraków

      The first job of the day after leaving bed and the hotel obviously ! Was to get the car out the car park I had spilled a little coffee on the ticket and somehow I think that stopped it working , the man in the car park exit office in his broken English thought I had been keeping it beside my phone so we eventually got out the underground car park for €26 and parked at the side of the road to get a signal for the sat nav to work us out a route to Kraków Poland , I had got a good deal on a night at the Sheraton Kraków which is very central , but we couldn't get the address into the sat nav so opted just to Kraków city then try again when closer this worked out fine 

     617.5mls the odometer read when we set of at 10:00 when we got onto the autobahn on the sous jets of Berlin the sat nav showed we were to stay on that road for 350mile ! Cammy drove the first section it was a lovely day and roads were excellent we stopped for petrol and something to eat (good old German sausage and mustard ) I stupidly just put in €28.50 as it was pouring real fast and clicked off making me think it was full , I took over the next section of driving heading for the polish border we were looking forward to be border crossing and shouted yeh when we crossed the border , this celebration was very short lived I've never drove on a road like this ! Right from the border for at least 50mile the surface of this road rattled the wee Hyundai to almost death , our wee cars suspension was definitely not designed for a bumpy cracked surface like this , even the noise the car made bumping along this road was deafening , eventually we hit a decent road we let out a cheer to get back on smooth Tarmac and I didn't grudge a single toll after that road ,  we had 3tolls to Kraków one was 26 zlotys two were 10 thankfully I had brought some polish money I bought from Gary, that saved a bit of stress another fuel stop this time to properly fill up at that point we had done 845miles from home and 51,5lts cost me 265 polish zlotys around £47 at this point cammy took over the driving again he got good roads all the way into Kraków , which was just aswell because it started to snow and the snow was landing we couldn't believe it early October we are well over 1000mile South from home in Scotland , and we are having to drive in snow , the petrol stations in Poland sell a huge selection of tobacco and alcohol and some of them have have machines for checking if you can pass a breathalyser ! 

     The trip meter showed 989mile as we parked in the a dragons underground car park this meant we had drove 371.5 mile from Berlin , it had taken us from 10am and it was now 17:30 so 7.5hrs driving time for a relaxing swim and sauna before going out for dinner , the Sheraton is a lovely hotel it has a roof top terrace bar with lovely views of Kraków castle and the surrounding city , we decided to go up to this bar have a beer and enjoy the view and wifi while I booked a hotel for tomorow night in Budapest , but the terrace bar was shut due to it being covered in snow and freezing cold ! So we had a beer Downstair where a girl was playing a harp for the guests , hotel for tomorow booked time to walk into the centre for a some dinner , it was cold Luddite but Kraków is a beautiful city and the snow on the roof tops enhanced the scene with big clumps of snow smashing to the ground of the church roofs , it's been nearly 9years since I was last in Kraków and it's even more beautiful than I remember it being we walked to the main square and had a beer in a jazz piano bar , the main square of Kraków is supposed to have over 1000 bars in a very small area more bars in that space than anywhere else in the world , we moved on to  a sports bar where cammy toot his footy fix and I got the blog done while we waited on our pizza for two to arrive , and what a lovely pizza it was we stopped at one other bar before heading back to the hotel , on the way back a beautiful polish girl tried to get us to go into her club which was all red velvet covers I said to her is that a strip club she said yes , I said this is my son I'm with its no right to take my son into such an establishment she just laughed and said of course you should ! She was that lovely I think cammy agreed with her ! We had a beer in one of the hotel bars that had a pool table and cammy beat his dad at pool for the first time before we went to bed 

     

     

Day 3 Berlin

   So cammy has been looking forward to seeing the sites of Berlin and for once was actually awake and in the shower before me ! Of course I had to make the coffee but it's great to be up and out the hotel nice and early for a full days site seeing , there's a subway right outside our hotel and Berlin has a fantastic public transport system ,we bought a day travel ticket each which was great value for money at  €6.90 we definitely scored with that pass even though nobody ever asked to see it and you were not required to show it going in or out a station ! First stop was Brandenburg gate ,my dad was station in Berlin in the 50s and my brother says there is a photo of him at Brandenburg gate in his uniform , I've seen a photo of him in his kilted uniform from those days but not with brandenburg gate ! I would have loved it if he was still alive to ask him what like this city was when he was there not long after the war with all the allied sections , even better I could have dragged him along on our road tour ! 

     It was a beautiful morning cloudless sky and sunny but very cold , Brandenburg gate was scenic but a bit like most modern European cities and so also was the reichstag , we wanted to see where the fuhrer bunker was and cammy had researched it before we left when we eventually found the site it was a bit of a disappointment , because basically it's only a car park now where once was this whole underground command centre , There was groups doing cycle tours walking tours and Segway tours I wanted to do one of these but cammy said no way am I doing that , next stop on our personal tour was checkpoint Charlie which I've been to before , it's very touristic but there's lots of interesting stuff to read and see we took some pictures and bought postcards with pieces of the wall in them to send to our mums , 

       By now we were hungry and had already seen a lot of stuff from our list of wants , thankfully cammy had done a fair bit of research and had a lot he wanted to see , so we had some brunch in a cafe and decided to look at the best areas to see the preserved Berlin Wall , we took the underground to nordbahnhof ( a very cool ghost station ) and got out to see some really well preserved sections of the wall , there's even a really cool viewing platform to look down on what used to be the walls and the watch towers plus no mans land , from there we went back to Alexanderplatz for a typical German lunch , in the centre of Alexanderplatz there was a mini Oktoberfest going on and we got beer and schnitzel spent the last of our euros , ate typical german food and beer spoke to some Aussie tourists ! After that we had to go back to the hotel to get cash ( we've spent a fortune for one day ) and some warmer clothes 

      We were only minuets at the hotel then back into the underground to make our way out to see the oberbaumbrucke ! ( the scenic bridge ) Berlin has almost 1000 bridges but this is the most scenic , we tried to have a beer and some dinner  near here But couldn't find a place that appealed to us both ,so we made the decision to head out to see kaiser willhielm memorial church it's a beautifully big gothic style church that the RAF bombed during the war , it has been preserved in its bombed state as a reminder of the devastation war causes , As we approached it the church bells rang out which added to the experience of the site , 

          It was approaching 7pm and we were losing delight and all the museums were shut so that ruled out the allies museum from this trip to berlinn ! But we did hopefully have time to see the Olympic stadium a few underground stops from where we were , The sun was setting right behind it as we approached from the station it was an impressive site for us in 2015 it must have made the German people really proud in the 1930's for the now famous Berlin Olympics , the Olympic Rings lit up as we took in the view the sun now gone the end of our daytime adventures , 

     Scotland where playing football against Gibraltar while Ireland were playing Poland and Germany were playing Georgia all in the same group for the Euro qualifiers ! Cammy loves his football that made the decision of where we were going now easy really , we knew where there was an Irish bar it would have the footy on and we got there just in time to get a beer and order some food before the 20:45 kick off , after the game we where still hungry so went to an old style German bar for some worst and sauerkraut supper