Week 1. Saturday 15th July - Monday 24th July 2006.

Ah, the first entry. People have been harassing us for days for this. We´ve only been gone 10 days – have patience.We arrived in France on Saturday the 15th and headed to Dunkerque. This is where the trouble started. You can claim your sweepstakes now – we did in fact break down on the first day! One up for the lads. The next 5 days were spent in Belgium where we worked on the engine to change the gaskets in between travelling around the sights by bike and foot. We spent a night in Brussels soaking up the atmosphere on the Grand Plaza and meeting up with friends and toured around the First World War memorials, the military graveyards in Ieper and the surrounding area of Flanders. By the 22nd, the engine was sorted and we hit the road with a vengeance. We had to drive hard to make up the time we had lost. Sunday the 23rd we arrived in Luxemburg city having passed through France and Germany from Belgium. Luxemburg is a visually pretty city but there wasn’t much of a buzz and we toured most of the sights on the bikes within a few hours. We then drove down to Strasbourg where we went to see Notre Dame Cathedral. The exterior is impressive (though undergoing renovation) but the interior is dull….harsh but fair.
Back in the landy again and we drove into Switzerland to Lucerne.Switzerland is stunning and we spent a few hours exploring Lucerne and going for a swim in the crystal clear waters of the lake. We then headed into Liechtenstein to the capital Vaduz. This has got to be the smallest country in the world. Vaduz is no bigger than a large village. We continued our drive through the stunning backdrop of the Alps and crossed the border into Austria. Our first destination there is Innsbruck. The first week didn’t go exactly to plan but neither of us were very surprised. Our time had been very limited before we left so it was inevitable that faults would remain undiscovered until we travelled in earnest. Now that we are moving again we are looking forward to getting into Eastern Europe where the petrol and beer will be cheaper!