The Cube

Pre-travel
Breakdown of travel days and links to accommodations.


Belgium: Antwerp
Day 1: Lazing my day away in Antwerp before ending the night in Gent


Belgium: Gent
Day 2: Walkabout Gent before attending K&M's wedding
Day 3: Slept my day away but woke up for lunch and dinner... food is important.


Luxembourg / Germany
Day 4: A walk in the Grund and spending the night in a castle on Mosel.


Germany: Mosel
Day 5: First day in Cochem and a day trip to Beilstein
Day 6: Cabbing to Burg Eltz and hiking back
Day 7: The story book like Bernkastel-Kues and ended with Traben-Trarbach


Germany: Rhine
Day 8: On a Rhine River cruise from Boppard to Bacharach
Day 9: Day trip to St Goar, Oberwesel and Koblenz


Germany: Heidelberg
Day 10: A 'stopover' at Heidelberg


Germany: Black Forest
Day 11: First stop in Black Forest - Gutach
Day 12: Charming towns in Black Forest - Alpirsbach, Schiltach and Triberg
Day 13: Another amazing town in Black Forest - Gengenbach
Day 14: Unfruitful commute to Baden-Baden and Germany's sunniest city, Freiburg
Day 15: The two lakes around Black Forest - Titisee and Schluchsee


France: Alsace
Day 16: Enjoying the beautiful Colmar
Day 17: Riquewihr, Hunawihr and Ribeauvillé on the Route des Vins d'Alsace
Day 18: Strasbourg on a Sunday


Switzerland
Day 19: Luzern in a day
Day 20: Classic Rigi Round Trip and travelling to Gimmelwald
Day 21: Jungfraujoch, the top of Europe
Day 22: Gimmelwald, Mürren and Lauterbrunnen plus Zermatt
[Note: Gimmelwald, Mürren and Lauterbrunnen were done across day 20 to day 22]
Day 23: Last day in Zürich plus Rheinfall



Side note: Hey Europe, thank you for being awesome. May we meet again soon. :)

Years back when I visited Belgium the first time with my sister, we went to Brussels and Brugge. At that time, I caught up with K in Brugge but she was already living in Gent. Ha! To think that we could've met her in Gent as we had to commute back to Brussels from Brugge anyway. Anyway, I have remedied that as I was in Gent was 3 nights this round as K and M's wedding were held in Gent.

A regular visitor to Gent does not need to spend 3 nights in Gent. I arrived on Thursday but decided to walkabout in Antwerp because none of my friends was going to be in Gent till evening time anyway. Friday was K and M's wedding day and Saturday was to spend time with my friends. That, was the plan but it didn't happened as I was sick again. 3 times in Europe and I was sick all 3 times. -_-" It was only second day of the trip and I was already sick. Not exciting, though, one of my friends is a physician and I was a happy beneficiary of some medications that she brought along. So I pretty much spent Saturday in Gent sleeping except walking out to grab a quick lunch and dinner.

City Hall

I roomed with my friends at NH Gent Belfort, which is across the road from the City Hall to make it easier to get to the wedding venue, Novotel. Novotel was much pricier comparatively so 2 minutes walk had our winning vote.

Gent is a beautiful canal city and charming buildings at almost every street you turned. As you can probably guessed, the only plan I made was to keep my days in Gent free. We walked where we felt like, ate what we fancy.

Gravensteen

I flew out of Melbourne on a Wednesday noon, reaching Amsterdam on a Thursday morning. Aside from a minor delay on my second leg of flight due to thunderstorm in Singapore, it was a pretty good journey. I was impressed with the responsive and efficiency of the flight attendants who worked on board.

The plan was an easy one, reached Amsterdam and took a train to Antwerp where I need to change my train to get to Gent anyway. I've only been to Brugge and Brussels before this, so Antwerp it was, besides my friends were only going to be in Gent later of the day. Initially I wanted to do the comic trail walk that is found on the official website of Visit Antwerpen but I was to meet up with A in Antwerp. She isn't big on comics plus I am open to just walk around, being lazy after a 20+ hour commute.

Upon reaching Antwerp, I headed to the Tourist Information, grabbed a map and dropped my fat backpack in a coin locker just behind the Tourist Information office. There is a coin changer machine at the entrance of a toilet nearby if you don't have or don't have enough coins.

What we ended up doing instead was walking towards the historic centre with as many stops along the way as we like. Haha.

At Grote Markt

There was a nearby castle, short walk from the historic centre if it interest you... 

It was quite an epic holiday, in the sense that the reason for this travel was to attend a dear friend's wedding. Eight of us have known each other since primary school and only one could not make the travel. So after years of leaving school and living in different cities (except A and I are in Melbourne), we met up again in Ghent. The rest commute in from Alor Setar, Singapore, Athens and London.

If you realised from the map, I have put the starting point as Amsterdam because I landed in Schiphol Airport but took a train straight to Antwerp. Sorry Amsterdam I don't have enough time to pay another visit. The rest of my friends planned the wedding in the middle of their holiday but I started my holiday with it. Four of my friends took a train to Amsterdam and spent a few days there after attending the wedding in Gent. I was the problem child and wandered off to Germany by myself. I was with my friends in Belgium but there after I was commuting by myself.

Here's the breakdown of the travel days and a HUGE THANK YOU to Paul who keeps an amazing blog where I pretty much shamelessly copied his itinerary on Germany and Alsace.

On hindsight, if I crossed to Strasbourg from Gengenbach, then down to Colmar before crossing back to Germany (Freiburg), this would save me one trip between Strasbourg and Colmar (instead of a return trip). In addition, trains from Germany to Switzerland are cheaper than from France to Switzerland, at least from where I got on the train.

M = morning, A = afternoon, E = evening

31/05, Day 00 - On flight*
01/06, Day 01 - Antwerp, Gent* (NH Gent Belfort)
02/06, Day 02 - Gent*
03/06, Day 03 - Gent*
04/06, Day 04 - Depart to Alf* but spent a couple of hours in Luxembourg (Burg Arras)
05/06, Day 05 - Depart to Cochem* in the morning. (Weingut Gutsschänke Rademacher)
06/06, Day 06 - Cochem*, day trip to Burg Eltz
07/06, Day 07 - Cochem*, day trip to Bernkastel-Kues, Traben-Trarbach
08/06, Day 08 - Train to Boppard, then boat to Bacharach* (Haus Irmgard Orth)
09/06, Day 09 - Bacharach*, day trip to St Goar, Oberwesel and Koblenz
10/06, Day 10 - Heidelberg* (Steffis Hostel)
11/06, Day 11 - Depart for Gutach* in the morning (Rommelehof)
12/06, Day 12 - Gutach*, day trip to Alpirsbach, Schiltach, Triberg
13/06, Day 13 - Depart for Gengenbach* in the morning (Schwarzwald Villa)
14/06, Day 14 - Gengenbach*, day trip to Baden-Baden but I ended up in Freiburg
15/06, Day 15 - Depart for Freiburg* in the morning (AirBnB)
16/06, Day 16 - Depart for Colmar* in the morning (Maison Martin Jund)
17/06, Day 17 - Colmar*, day trip to Riquewihr, Hunawihr, Ribeauville
18/06, Day 18 - Colmar*, day trip to Strasbourg
19/06, Day 19 - Depart for Luzern* in the morning (Backpackers Luzern)
20/06, Day 20 - Depart to Gimmelwald* in the afternoon (Mountain Hostel Gimmelwald)
21/06, Day 21 - Gimmelwald*
22/06, Day 22 - Interlaken* (Interlaken Youth Hostel)
23/06, Day 23 - Depart for Zurich* in the morning (Courtyard by Marriott)
24/06, Day 24 - Morning flight* out to Melbourne, transit in Singapore
25/06, Day 25 - Landed in Melbourne in the evening.


Side note: I am a creatureof habit!

To get to the sights in Brussels requiring us to cross the Grote Markt again, and of course, time for more picture taking. This is a big square and there were a lot of tourists.


There is a tourist information at this square but not very informative. Pampered by very knowledgable staffs working in tourist information centre in Amsterdam, the one in Brussel was quite a let down - especially the one located in the Grote Markt. We stumbled upon another tourist info centre while walking back to the B&B the night before and decided to give it a go, this other tourist info was much better.

After finished our errand of printing the flight itinery, I decided that it was time to get a new pair of shoes. It started with the worry of the shoe laces wouldn't hold till the end of the trip and that walking in puddles in the shoes during rainy days is taking its toll. Initially I thought shoes will be wet anyhow due to the heavy rain, but I was wrong, I was the only one walking in wet shoes... and it dawned on me that - it was due to the soles coming off.

Bought and put on the new shoes straightaway, we pay homage to the Mannekin Pis, a famous Brussels landmark of statue of a naked boy urinating. One of the legends revolves around fire being plotted and a boy urinated on it and saved the city. Many costumes were being presented to Mannekin Pis and on the day of our visit, the bronze statue was wearing an orange costume.


We roamed around the city...

St Hubert Gallery

and once again, had the famous waffle...


Belgium, of course, famous for their chocolates and you will see fine chocolate shops dotted the city...


...also is the home to Godiva


We got some yummylicous chocolate truffles (from Neuhaus, according to Kimmie has very good chocolate - totally agree). These choc truffles serve as excellent dessert on our simple, budget food days :P

pardon the photo, I was anxious to have a bite

We left Brussels, taking an late evening flight to Rome.

To me, first time in the Europe continent and flying in to Amsterdam gave a very good impression. Amsterdam is a lovely place, beautiful scenaries, safe streets, friendly and helpful people. Hours of train ride away, we reached Brussels. We were being warned to be careful of theft, some people are less friendly but maybe because of the language barrier but there are people who did try to help despite we don't speak Dutch or French, and they don't speak English. Rome? ... that's another story.


Side note: Finished those tables.. but...

Taking the second last train back to Brussels from Brugge, we were tired and sleepy (at least for me... after the food). To get to the B&B where we stayed, we had to cross the Grand'Place (Grote Markt). Despite sleepy, we wanted to take some night shots. No tripod and nowhere to put the camera... here's what I got.

Town Hall

Broodhuis (King's House)

We roamed Brussels the next day before taking a night flight to Rome. :)


Side note: Still working at the same tables.. uggh..

Had the most proper and good meal in Brugge since initial touchdown in the Europe continent. Not that we didn't eat, but it wasn't those sit down meal...if you get what I meant. Met up with Kimmie in Brugge and she brought to The Hobbit for dinner. I grabbed this photo from sis's facebook pic... I didn't take the pic, in fact my brother in law commented that why is that those food photos are always with me inside. Reason being I was the one assign to buy food and cos sis has this powerful lens we refer to as "food lens". She will bring out the food lens to take tempting picture of the dish.

Like this one....


There was also a chicken dish but I don't have the picture to show. After dinner, we took the train back to Brussels. I think it is way cool that they have a close heated waiting place at the platform :)

Have had the intention to also put up some Brussels night pic but this post is type using only the phone and I am stupidly sleepy.... will make another post. :)


Side note: night night

We missed the train by a minute. Lucky for us, the train ticket was an open ticket, we could catch the next one. Unluckily, the next train was an hour away.

Before running for the tram, hurrying in the train station to the platform, we had heated up the green curry we bought the night before. Now, its like this, this green curry with rice dish was pre-packed and covered with a plastic film. To heat it up in the microwave, we had to poke some holes on the plastic allowing the curry to flow up. With all the hurrying, it ended up quite a mess to eat... especially when there are no seat to be seen in the Amsterdam Centraal station. We stood against a pillar and had green curry for breakfast... while waiting for the hour to pass.

3 hours later, we reached Brussels. The plan was to check in, dropped the bags and take another train to Brugge. Sis printed out some walking tours from the tourism website and we combined the tranquil and city of monuments walk.


That's the Belfry Tower at the end of it. Sis said there was a murder movie with Belfry as the location. Not sure which one though. First stop was at the Markt (Market Square).



We went up Belfry (entrance: 8 euro pp) and this is the first of many steps-climbing-monuments. Up we went 366 steps for this one... but unfortunately it is under restoration (as is many of the monuments) and only 2 sides is open for viewing, instead of able to go round 360 degrees.

from halfway up the tower

Sis also said that Brugge is the place to get laces. I thought it was suppose to be Burano (as I was to research for Italy, and Belgium is done by sis). Anyway, so there's a lot of shops selling laces and despite that, it is not cheap.


One can also take a boat ride on the canals. Of course, we didn't forget to eat famous Belgium waffle.



Side note: I'm such an idiot!