My Journey 踏路四方。。。。: Summer Grand Tour (Benelux): Netherland

Summer Grand Tour 夏之壮游 (29 May - 25 June 2008) - Benelux + Germany + Scandinavia

During 2008 summer, I started my summer grand tour, travelling about 1 month to 9 Europe countries: Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands & Luxembourg), Scandinavia (Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway), Germany and Estonia. A tremendous trip I ever experienced.

I started my journey by taking Eurolines bus from London to Amsterdam, then proceed to Brussels. After visiting a beautiful town, Brugge at the north of Belgium, I continue my journey to Luxembourg. The fourth country I visited was Germany, I just made a short break at Hamburg before proceeding to Copenhagen. After staying 2 night there, I took a train to cross the border to Sweden's third largest city, Malmo. At there I found out that the night train to Stockholm already fully booked. So, I figured out that the alternative solution was to take a short distance train to Halmstad town and stayed overnight at the train station in order to catch an early train to Gothenborg which enable me to transit to Stockholm.

At Stockholm, I met my 2 travel buddies from Taiwan, then we took the cruise cross the strait to Turku and proceed to the capital of Finland, Helsinki. There, we took an opportunity to visit Tallinn, capital of a small Baltic country, Estonia. After staying 3 days the Helsinki, we continue our adventure to Santa Claus' city, Rovaniemi, the first city above Arctic Cicle I even stepped on. Then we continue our long journey to Nordkapp, the northmost land of continental Europe. After watching the midnight Sun, we took a flight at Alta to Bergen, the second largest city in Norway.

At Bergen, we took join the express boat journey to experience on our own eye on the amazing fjord, Sognefjorden before staying at Flam, a paradise that just lay at the seaside of the fjord. From Flam, we took the Flamsbana train, one of the train journey with world most beautiful scenery, to Mydral and then transited to Oslo. At Oslo, I stopped the join trip with my Taiwanese friends and resume to backpacking alone. I backed to Copenhagen with short break at Gothenborg.

After staying 2 nights at Copenhagen (in between I took a day trip to Anderson's hometown, Odense), I continue my last grand summer tour at Berlin before I took my return flight backed to Bristol.

Benelux Part 1: Netherlands (荷兰）