The Final Weekend

And so, like all good things, the Odyssey has come to an end. We have driven over 49,000km, visited 46 countries and slept in 119 different beds. 

It was fitting that we were to say goodbye to the grand tour of Continental Europe in the city in which it all began, Amsterdam. But this time it had snow!

Actually, we also went to the Hague for an afternoon, which we'd visited briefly in April. But this time it had ice!

We were joined for the final weekend by our favourite Scots, Yonah and Campbell. Here is a photo of their reflection, inside the M. C. Escher museum, inside an M. C. Escher print.

While in Amsterdam, we took a canal tour

ate some cheese

visited Yasmin's Dutch family (actual relatives not pictured)

and spotted one of the city's thinnest houses.

But most of the time we just drank coffee, beer and mulled wine to stay out of the cold.

It wasn't all fun and games. We had to say goodbye to our favourite panda, and release him into the wilderness from whence he came.

He has seen things other cars wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. He's watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to say vaarwel.

Hmm.. nice photo

Having flown from London to Amsterdam to start the Odyssey, 447 days later we flew from Amsterdam to London to finish it. We now look forward to our future in London and beyond.

Stay tuned for some Odyssey highlights in the coming weeks. 

Thanks to all for following. It's been emotional.

Homer Returns to Holland

On December 21st 2011, we took our first drive in Homer from Amsterdam to Cologne. Exactly fourteen months later on February 21st 2013, we took our final drive in Homer from Cologne to Amsterdam.

But before we get to that, let's see what Nuremberg has to offer. From 1927 onwards the German Nazi Party held huge rallies at the city's parade grounds.

Unfortunately the grounds were closed for renovation so we looked at a nice partly-frozen lake instead.

After the war, the city became famous again for the Nuremberg Trials, in which many high profile German political and military leaders were indicted for their crimes against humanity.

And of course, the town has a pretty medieval heart, having been central to the Holy Roman Empire and home of Albrecht Dürer.

The Schöner Brunnen (Beautiful Fountain)

From there we returned to Cologne. When we were there 104 blog entries ago, it was our first experience of  love locks. Having seen them all over Europe, and having become a little bit European ourselves, we couldn't help but finalise our trip by padlocking our love to a bridge.

 And with that we arrived in Amsterdam for the final time.

La bohème; Act 2

And so we continue North-West towards our proverbial Ithaca. We sojourned in Szeged, a university town in Southern Hungary with some great neo-Baroque buildings including an incredible synagogue. It was an especially nice sojourn because we were shown around by Yasmin's cousin Dany who has been studying there.

But the main course of today's blog entry is one of Europe's greatest cities, Prague.

We saved something special for the end of our trip, and despite it being our 39th capital city, Prague was super duper from the very moment we arrived to our botel (half boat, half hotel). 

Prague's medieval town is unchanged from the glory days, as it was mostly untouched by either world war.

And it looks just as good at night.

Josh accidentally poured himself a traditional Czech beer. i.e. with lots of head.

A particularly tasty veggie meal

Another night we went to see Slavia Prague beat Kladno in a game called "Speedy Violence on Ice". (We only took one of the photos below)

Charles Bridge

The view from Prague Castle

St. Vitus Cathedral, inside Prague Castle

The fancy things inside St Vitus Cathedral

A rare untouristed street

A quirky self-portraitist

Prague's Jewish quarter is still in tact due to a Nazi decision to maintain a museum to an extinct race. We took a tour to see several synagogues including the oldest active one in Europe, the Old New Synagogue.

The Jewish cemetery of Prague has seen possibly 100,000 people buried within a small space, such that some graves are twelve people deep.

A stranger way of remembering the dead, however, can be found in the nearby town of Kutná Hora. The Sedlec Ossuary contains the bones of between 40,000 and 70,000 people.

And so, we close another chapter in our story, and say goodbye to Eastern Europe.

Josh and Yaz go to White City

Having visited all six/seven of the former Yugoslav countries, it was fitting that our final destination here would be the former socialist republic's capital, Belgrade*.

It was also fitting that we stayed in an apartment that didn't seem to have changed since the days of socialism.

Belgrade is beautifully situated on the confluence of the Danube and its second largest tributary, the Sava.

Due to this strategic location it has been the site of 115 battles throughout recorded history. The fortress, originally built by the Romans, has thus been destroyed and rebuilt by every civilisation that happened to be passing through town.

The Military Museum within the fortress did its best to tell the story of all these battles.

The city was attacked four times in the 20th century. Shelled by the Austro-Hungarians in 1914, bombed by the Germans in 1941, the Allies in 1944, and finally by NATO in 1999.

The military headquarters, bombed by NATO during the Kosovo War.

But Belgrade is by no means, all ruins and military history. It is a modern, growing city with a lot going on.

We went out at night to some kafanas (traditional bistro/pub) in the Bohemian quarter, but no pictures are available. So here is the parliament building instead.

Another night we went to see Đangova Osveta the new film by Kventina Tarantina. It was cool to see it in Belgrade cause it cost $4, and cause when you go into the movie theatre in Belgrade, you can buy beer. And we don't mean in a paper cup either. It's the little differences.

The Cathedral of Saint Sava, which may be, but probably isn't the world's largest Orthodox Church.

The grave of Josip Broz Tito, leader of Yugoslavia from 1943 until his death in 1980, described by many as a benevolent dictator.

We stopped in at the house of Belgrade's smartest and most electromagnetic citizen, Nikola Tesla. The museum was far more interesting than this photo.

So as the sun continues to set on our adventure, we say farewell to the Balkan Peninsula. 

* In the local Serbian, Belgrade is Beograd†, which literally means "White City"

† Incidentally, Beograd when translated into Croatian, is "White City" ‡

‡ To quench your scholarly curiosity, it should be learned that "White City" in Bosnian is in fact Beograd §

§ Beograd when translated into Montenegrin is (not by coincidence) "White City"