Sorting and uploading all the photos from all those countries will take too long time and I know some of you are very curious of how our very long road trip went, so better to start with this summery with conclusion in the end.

10 Countries were visited by us during this Europe road trip: Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Austria. We have now been to at least 30 countries together since 2004.

I’ll start with the good things, so if you don’t want to know the bad and the ugly, you can skip the middle part and jump directly to the end of this post and click on the link to see our photos so far.

The Good with the European road trip

Except from the useful travel experience, which always are great to have, and lots of great times here and there, I’ll list the absolute highlights of our European road trip below, not in any particular order.

1. Meeting a lot of friends were one of the main reasons for us to go on this trip from the beginning, a meetup once again in the French Riviera at Claudie and Pierre’s house with the Norwegian blog friends, but also to meetup with several other online friends along the way. Many of them which we never had met before, but that was no problem – very pleasant meetings all of them!

2. To visit the Champagne district and especially Moet Chandon wine cellars & gorgeous vineyards is of course a must when going to France for us Dom Perignon Champagne lovers and it did not let us down as a terrific travel experience.

3. The Netherlands lovely countryside at first and then the west coast with long, gorgeous beaches and actually 2 different blogger friends meetups turning out really good despite quite windy weather conditions.

4. The French Grand Canyon recreation area with it’s marvelous Emerald green lake which we definitely will go back to some day to stay for several days or a week. Also the fantastic French Alp views is really worth exploring more even in the summertime I tell you!

5. The Austrian Alps, gorgeous even in the summertime, but maybe we will even go back there some time in the wintertime even though I normally don’t like the winter. It’s very special with the Alp tops and the people. I did miss any yodeling though… ha ha…

6. The International Sandsculpture festival with incredible sculptures, quite big ones, but actually not as many as we thought there would be, but still worth visiting. Fantastic artists involved from many countries.

7. Certain hotel’s or B&B’s we had booked were surprising us with being even better than we had thought they would be. You never know until you see them in real life!

8. Trying different beer or wines that are not even available in our home country. Every day was a party!

I’ll come back in later travel blog posts, to write more about the different highlights in separate posts and divide the different places into separate photo folders too, making it easier for you to have a look at the special travel experiences.

The Bad with the European road trip

There was too little time and a too small wallet. We spent too much time on the roads, some of the hotels did not match their description or our expectations, some places were not really worth spending time within (like the Rhine Valley in my opinion).

The promised WiFi at too many of the hotels were not working well – if at all, making us unable to keep in contact with people as well as unable to upload photos even from the iPhone many times. That was something we did not like at all and worth thinking of if going on a trip.

The food creation around Europe is in bad shape, it’s really too much french fries to every dish with very little variation, too little vegetables served in the meals, not creative enough if you go to normal restaurants and not the real gourmet or classy ones. I can’t call them budget restaurants since they’ve not really budget prices nowadays.

We had packed two big suitcases which really didn’t fit for the too many steep stairs in the hotels we had booked (or our disk problems), so we had to rearrange a bit, taking out clothes in advance and put in smaller bags to be able to cope during the driving around. It was quite a puzzle sometimes, ha ha!

We had not really great summer weather on this trip, making it very difficult to take photos. It was either unusually cold and gray or way too hot to be outdoors, nothing in between until we did reach Denmark in the end. (We were unusually white this summer actually…)

Both lucky and unlucky: in the end of our trip, when reaching the south of Sweden again, hubby suddenly got ill with dizziness which forced me to do some heavy things I shouldn’t which made my back crack again, which created severe problems when continuing up in Sweden.

We stopped to sleep half ways home in hubby’s childhoods summer home and went home from there the day after that, despite that we had plans to continue our journey within Sweden. It was not meant to be obviously – it has been unsteady weather since.

The Ugly at the European road trip

The highways in Switzerland were the most boring part of our road trip and I think from all our earlier road trips too. I have never seen such a boring motorway ever. I don’t know if it were the fact that we had been on the roads for so long, but the highway never seemed to end…

Our look after being exhausted made me not wanna be on the photos… ha ha… We were looking so darn worn out both of us, like 10 years older suddenly. Our photos and videos, ugly ones I tell you!

Surprisingly enough, we had hard time finding interesting things or beautiful views to capture. We do have lots of interesting photos, but also uninteresting ones and too many deleted ones to be honest. Normally we always find so many things to photograph, but not at all as many as usual on this trip, strange enough.

Conclusion of European roadtrip

If going on such a long road trip, you need at least to double the time (and your wallet!) to get a more satisfying experience. We did know this before we went, but we had no choice, this was what we could manage at this time, so we had to take it or leave it.

We’re satisfied with our experiences as we thought about it as a tour to look around and get a quick view over a lot of countries, to know where we want to go back again in the nearest future. We now know that we want to go back to The Netherlands, The French and the Austrian Alps for sure.

I would not recommend going to the French Riviera in August when it use to be too hot and crowdy and we would never have gone there at this time, if it were not for the fact that our hosts had vacation then and the meetup there with our friends from Norway.

Since all Europe’s holiday period occurs in August, there use to be lots and lots of holiday people out on the roads normally, but we were lucky this year: no severe traffic jams in the directions where we went – only in the opposite directions all the time. Maybe also the economic crises has left some traces, making people staying home more.

Continue to keep an eye on Lifecruiser Europe roadtrip 2012 Flickr Photos, there will be new photos uploaded there now and then until I’m done with them all.

©Lifecruiser Love European Roadtrips

Earlier posts about Lifecruiser Europe Trip 2012:

Ending a long Europe road-trip
Europe roadtrip: in the Alps
Europe trip: leaving the Champagne district to go to Provence
Europe Road short update
Europe Road: leaving Bruges
Europe trip: blogger meet in Wijk aan Zee and IJMuiden, The Netherlands
Europe Road Trip Day 2-3 Goodbye Germany Hello The Netherlands
Europe Road Trip Day 1-2
Europe 7500 km roadtrip start!
 

Photo by Doc Searls of the Gornergrat ski slope above Zermatt 2009

Of course that depends on how late you’re waiting to get here. Have you checked spring prices for a ski vacation? Have you ever been skiing in the spring? It’s really the most enjoyable time, especially if you don’t even have any snow any longer at home.

In Sweden it’s very common to take ski vacations during the winter season, but also in the spring. Almost every family who can afford it, takes at least one ski holiday per year. Most of the ski travel destinations is situated in the north part of Sweden, naturally.

Though many Swedes also take their ski vacations further away in Europe. The Austrian or French Alps are perhaps the most common and especially if going to a more luxury ski travel destination.

Have you been to any luxury ski holiday? Been to the most famous ski destinations as Chamonix, Courchevel, Zell am See, Bad Gastein, Davos, Verbier, St Anton – or Zermatt with it’s 3800 m – Europe’s highest?

I would not mind at all going there with my family, renting a more luxurious chalet for us. They would love to relax in the evenings together in a sauna or swimming pool. My wife would probably stay in the spa all day…

I’ve been to Stubaier before, 3210 m high, in Austria. I went up with the Gletscherbahn with stunning views and awesome Midsummer skiing at the top in June!!! That was in the early 80′s though and now I’ve not been skiing since 2002, so I better start getting in shape if thinking of going there in the future.

Of course, I don’t have to be skiing in the same way as I did before when I was younger, there is easier skiing to do too, but I know how it is: when you’re there, it’s so fun that you easily overdo yourself…

©Lifecruiser Love Ski Destinations
 

As you can see on the map picture, on the way down in Europe following countries are involved: Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France. On the way back home it will be through France, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany, France (yes, again!) Germany, Denmark, Sweden.

From the beginning we thought that we should drive down pretty much right down to France and then when passing the French border, go west along the whole west coast of France. It turned out to become over 1000 kilometers longer way than to take the way right down… So we skipped that idea – for this time.

The route is not that strange, except for that ‘finger’ pointing into Innsbruck, Austria and back again. We have a tour back into France again there, just because we wanted to visit some special places and forgot to add them in our first plans. From the beginning we also did consider going up through Hungary, Slovakia, Poland as mentioned before.

An important thing to be aware of when making a road trip through Europe is fuel cost, which is different in different countries, so it do matter where you fill up your tank. We’ve counted that if our car consumes gas in the way it use to do, we end up with at least 7500 SEK (€842 or $1101) in fuel cost – of course it will increase for every detour we make… and they might be many!

It’s now we’re very grateful that our new car is very petrol economical, only 0,60 liters per 10 km (and will become even more economical when the engine it’s not so raw any longer).

Also the many toll fees can be rather expensive at some roads, so we plan to avoid most of the toll-roads when possible. The tolls really can become considerably expensive altogether (hundreds of Euro!). We have not counted in the toll fees in our costs yet.

Besides that: how fun is it to drive on motorways all the time and not really see anything of the places you passes along the way? No thanks!

We will stay away from home for almost a month, not being on the roads all the time, but pretty much. We will tell you more soon in another post, so stay tuned!

Considering we will be away for a month before that too (at our summer island) with only one day at home before we leave for the Europe trip, it means 2 months away from home this summer…

©Lifecruiser Love Europe Travel

Earlier post about Lifecruiser Europe Trip 2012:

Planning our Europe trip 2012
Routes and stays booked for our Europe trip 2012
 

We’re taking our own car, departure from Stockholm and continue down in Europe, passing through a lot of countries along the way.

On the way down in Europe: Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France.

On the way home in Europe: France, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany, France (yes, again!) Germany, Denmark, Sweden.

We did discuss the possibility to drive through Hungary, Slovakia and Poland too, but decided not to. It’s enough, we can’t take in more in this short time span, then we would have to stay away for months rather than weeks… lol…

On the way down we have some stops to make – having meetups with Ginnie and Astrid in the Netherlands and maybe Gattina in Belgium, to finally get to the planned meetup in Provence with Claudie and Pierre, and the Norwegians: Tor and Anna, Renny and Diane.

Since it’s in Europe’s high summer holiday season, we decided to actually make bookings in advance for once, to plan a bit ahead where to stay and what to do there. Some places we stay a couple of days to explore more.

It takes time to draw the perfect route on the map, to research for places to stay overnight – not too expensive, not too cheap – and in the right places along the route. Many days of fun seeing all those fantastic places and you wish you could stop at them all!

We will tell you a little bit more soon when the route is completely done – almost anyway, because a trip route never can be completely done in my point of view…

©Lifecruiser Love Travel Planning
 

Why and When to go to Austria?

For many centuries Austria was at the heart of European history, ruled by the Hapsburg dynasty for 600 years and undergoing the turmoil of war and uprisings throughout those centuries. Beyond its historical heritage, today Austria is a popular destination for cultural visitors. Throughout the spring and summer months, its outstandingly beautiful natural landscapes reveal the towering peaks of the Alps, giving way to luscious green valleys and fields.

Noted for architectural wonders and musical festivals, between December and April Austria displays yet another face, becoming a winter sports paradise. Here is a selection of must-see attractions when visiting this fascinating country.

Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna

One of the great Baroque buildings of Europe, the former summer palace of the Imperial Hapsburg family gives a unique glimpse into the capital city’s history. Explore this vast complex, with beautifully ornamented rooms, exquisite furniture and Bohemian chandeliers. After a tour of the palace, visit the Palm House for botanical treats or take a stroll in the park before getting up close with the wildlife in the world’s oldest surviving zoo.

Salzburg Festival

One of the greatest classical music festivals in the world is held in the charming town of Salzburg, the birthplace of the musical genius, Mozart. The program features opera, drama and music, drawing many of the most famous orchestras to perform each year. As well as attending the summer festival, it is worth exploring this historic city and its stunning surroundings. Mozart’s residence is packed with historical information about the composer, while the many delightful restaurants and coffee houses, which are situated by the river, offer moments of peace and relaxation, with good food and of course, excellent beer.

Fortress Hohensalzburg, Salzburg

Dominating the city of Salzburg is a superb stronghold originating from the twelfth century, a towering landmark that became one of Europe’s greatest castles. Visitors can ascend the mountain on the ‘castle lift’ and explore the Regency chambers and Fortress Museum before dropping in to see the world-famous marionettes in the Marionette Museum.

Innsbruck

Noted for being one of Europe’s ski capitals, Innsbruck is bordered by the Alps and has hosted the Winter Olympics twice. A playground for winter sports enthusiasts, Innsbruck offers skiing, snowboarding, tobogganing, cross-country skiing, bobsleighing and ice-skating; all are part of the seasonal sporting mix. Visit the city in the summer and the hills and mountains become a hiker’s paradise, with mountain biking, climbing, rafting and canyoning being just some of the outdoor activities available.

Getting Around

Although Austria has excellent public transport, including efficient railways, underground systems, tramlines and buses, essentially Austrians are car-loving people and there is a very good road network. Car rental offers a great way of experiencing some superb drives amongst the magnificent Alpine peaks and visiting traditional Tyrolean villages. Remember, no trip to Austria is complete without a cable car ride up the glaciers; they run year-round and provide spectacular views of the mountains and valleys. Try the Kitzeinhorn at Zell am See or the ride up from Bregenz to Pfaender, for a thrilling aerial experience.

Lifecruiser Love Austria (and we plan to go there again when we’re at our European road trip later this year – too much to see there to cover it in one trip only!)

One particular type of these resorts that is growing in popularity, are the ones which offer tennis camps. Over the past decade, tennis affiliated resorts have attracted thousands of enthusiasts, however, only a few have gained distinguished notoriety. Such tennis resorts include:

Bio-Hotel Stanglwirt

To say that this resort is nestled in the hills of Tirol, Austria would be an understatement. The stunning Wilder Kaiser mountains create the backdrop for this resort, however, the view is hardly why hundred flock to the resort each year. Since 1978, Peter Burwash International has taught tennis camps at the resort which features 14 courts. In addition to housing some of the most successful tennis camps in the world, the Bio-Hotel Stanglwirt has 6 indoor tennis courts and a multi-lingual staff.

Club Med- Sandpiper Bay Florida

Club Med has long been specializing in tennis, and the Sandpiper Bay all-inclusive resort has the leading Club Med Tennis Academy. The resort has classes for both children and adults making it a great choice for any family, and even offers programs for children as young as 4 months. Among the list of tennis programs are free daily clinics, day camps, and professional training which can cater to any skill level from novice to advanced. Guests who choose to stay may also choose the resort’s all inclusive option.

Roy Emerson Tennis Holidays – Gstaad, Switzerland

The Gstaad Palace is the host of the Roy Emerson Tennis Camp, and is one of the most renown hotels in the world, as well as a prized historical marker in Switzerland. The resort only hosts the camp annually and only has four courts, however, guests can expect to be coached by the famous Roy Emerson himself. For six days, guests receive intensive training – there are 5-hour-a-day clinics held each day – and can expect to play several double matches.

Lifecruiser ♥ Tennis

Those different experiences from trips that for different reasons stays in our memories until eternity, for totally different reasons.

Not necessary so remarkable, just the ones given us most pleasure right in that moment. Often it is the mood you are in that defines a success, right?

1. Most spectacular: Wet kiss at Iguazu Falls
2. Best beach water: Elafonisi, Crete
3. Biggest beach: Monte Gordo, Algarve, Portugal
4. Best B&B: Steinway playing, Scotland
5. Best hotel: Hotel Vanity Golf, Majorca, Spain
6. Best hostel: Wombats City Hostel, Vienna, Austria
7. Most unique roadtrip: 4620 km roadtrip to Spain
8. Dearest memory: French Riviera blog meetup
9. Biggest blog meetup: Oslo blog gathering, Norway
10. Best tour experience: Iceland excursions
11. Love memory 1: Proposal in Paris
12. Love memory 2: Honeymoon, Crete, Greece
13. Winner: Our engagement beach, Gotland, Sweden

You might wonder why the engagement beach are a winner?

It’s impossible to beat a fabulous island beach like that, especially deeply in love, in February changing rings in minus degrees, very windy with sand blowing into the Champagne glasses, totally alone under the stars – it felt like we were alone in the universe!

Recently we also made a Lifecruiser Travel brief list where you can have an overview over Lifecruiser trips we’ve done before.

Lifecruiser ♥ Memorable Trips

The winners were voted for by over 800,000 customers worldwide, who have stayed there and reviewed the hostels for their character, security, location, staff, fun and cleanliness.

In the leading top are three hostels from Lisbon (Portugal) and the fourth one is from Cardiff (Wales), which also were voted as #1 for best staff.

I’ve just put down Lisbon and Cardiff on my list to go now…

Best Hostel chain were Wombats (Austria,Germany) – no surprise to me as it’s EXCELLENT.

Remember my post about Wombats City Hostel Vienna?

Lifecruiser ♥ Hostels
 
 
Source: Hostelworld.com
 

The over all impression of Vienna that we did get by our trip there in September, is that it’s a marvelous travel destination with so much culture, architecture and fun pleasures that you need plenty of time to savor.

I felt right at home the moment I sat my feet on Vienna’s ground, getting of the catamaran that brought us there o the Danube river. That feeling stayed during our whole stay there.

It’s actually so rich of places to explore that you need much more than the 5 days we spent there. I’d want to see much more than we managed to do.

Many very big museums in the Museums Quarter and in other places lots of galleries or shops to explore.

I’d not mind going there some day again and I’m not saying that about all the other places we’ve been to.

Very often I feel like it’s enough, now I wanna go somewhere else next time, curious as I am.

It’s very easy to get around with public transportation’s in Vienna and I always find it’s so interesting to see the locals on their way to or from their work. It tells a lot of both them and the place.

Though we were walking the city for hours and hours and we did have terrific weather, maybe even too hot, it was 30-32 degrees Celsius, so it demanded a lot of drinking…

We walked so much that my feet really was sore. I had one big blister under my foot that took 3 weeks to vanish!

…and this is how one of my toes looked liked after all the walking! *giggles*

It might not show properly in the photo, but it was doubled size and I have no idea from what, because I had my open sandals, so there wasn’t anything to get blisters from!

So to avoid looking like that you might consider taking this:

You’ve already read how pleased we were with our Hostel, Wombats, so you might wonder about the hotel we stayed at one night too?

That was Hotel Graf Stadion (***), which turned out to be a very standard hotel, not very appealing to us actually. The location were good, which was what we we’re looking for, but we would rather have stayed at Wombats if we could!

Here you can see some general city photos:

Lifecruiser Vienna 2008 Photos (for specific Vienna objects, see the posts below!).

All Lifecruiser Vienna trip posts:

To book a cheap trip to Vienna
Twincityliner Danube River Trip Bratislava – Vienna
Stephansplatz in Vienna
Wombats City Hostel Vienna
Vienna Shop windows Odd Mix
Vienna Delicious Budget Food
Vienna Schonbrunn Palace – World Heritage Culture Site
Vienna Prater Fun Fair Scare
Vienna Danube Island Festival
Vienna Spanish Ridingschool Performance Hofburg Palace

Lifecruiser ♥ Vienna
 

The main reason for us to go to Vienna were my birthday gift from hubby, something I’ve always dreamed about since I were a kid: to see the gala performance of the Spanish Ridingschool at Hofburg Palace.

No wonder I was jumping up and down of excitement when we went there and had a glass of Champagne before the performance were started. I was as bubbly as the Champagne – and giggly!

Every year they choose the best stallions for this fabulous performance, which has traditions dated back to as early as in the 16th century.

“The Spanish Riding School in Vienna is the only institution in the world which has practiced for over 430 years and continues to cultivate classical equitation in the Renaissance tradition of the haute école”.

That my dear friends, translated to none-riders means unbelievable jumps and tricks with the horses that only an extremely trained horse with very good hereditary factors can manage. You can compare it to an elite gymnast in it’s best shape!

The performance may look like it’s easy to visitors that’s not into horse dressage, but it takes many, many years to train both the horses and the riders to reach this elite level.

Perhaps I love the Lipizzan horse a bit more than others because I’ve been a part time owner of a Lipizzan gelding for a couple of years, back in the mid 80′s.

He was such a wonderful, really ALIVE horse with a very bubbling positive, fun attitude, but also quite a challenge to ride sometimes!

The horses at Hofburg really got some nice space there and they were so wonderful, just have a look at this youngster I did manage to snap a photo of. Quite unusual stable too.

The Gala performance is in what must be one of the most beautiful riding hall in world, the “Winter Riding School” at Vienna Imperial Palace Hofburg – main entrance Michaelerkuppel.

This part of the building is called The Michael Wing and is from the 18th century. I was so blowned away by this simply fantastic architecture!

Some of the most powerful people in Austrian history has lived in Hofburg Palace, including the Habsburg dynasty, who ruled the Austro-Hungarian empire. Currently it serves as the residence of the President of Austria.

It once was the Habsburg’s winter residence, while Schönbrunn Palace was the summer residence. Not to miss is the fact that the Palace even was the birthplace of Marie Antoinette in 1755.

At the entrance of the building is the most exquisite portal. In the photo you can also get a feeling of how tall the building are.

It was very difficult to take photos there, not only because there were tourist crowds, but also because of all the horse carriages running through there – I almost got myself run over when taking this photo below.

Looking up at the ceiling may not be the wisest to do when you’re in the middle of the traffic…. *giggles*

In front of the Michael Wing is also long lines with horse carriages offering you a nice ride, though as always quite expensive I guess. We didn’t have the time to take a ride.

For me it’s such a wonderful sight that I only saw the horses and actually missed to take photos of some of the other details of the architecture and statues, since I only had eyes for the horses!

So, what did I think about Hofburg Palace and the Gala Performance of the Spanish Ridingschool then?

Was it worth the bother and above all, the money for the ticket? (Cost SEK 1563 ($258 / €170 where €15 was postage fee).

Yes, without doubt was it worth it and especially for me or anyone else that’s interested in horses! I also love how easy it was to book the tickets using online ticketing software as I wrote about in the post To book a cheap trip to Vienna.

The architecture and atmosphere of this building is amazing and the Lipizzan horses are truly outstanding.

I have to add though that I really don’t think that it was as much Gala over the performance – don’t take me wrong here – it was an excellent elite performance, just not as much glitter and festive as I did expect.

I’d suggest that they skip to call it Gala to not wake up false expectations.

The only negative thing made me very sad: unfortunately you’re NOT allowed to take any photos in there during the performance, not even without the flash. That’s why I only have one photo.

They watched me like hawks as soon as I just moved my camera a bit, I had harsh hawk eyes on me. I saw others that did shoot lots of photos, but never got corrected by the guards. My bad luck…

I can understand that the flashes can bother the horses if you’re in the very front row, but in my case I don’t think that they would even have noticed.

So I’ll have the performance only in my memory. For the rest of my life for sure, who can forget those wonderful moments?

See also the overview of Lifecruiser photoset of Hofburg Palace & Spanish Ridingschool (42 photos).

Lifecruiser ♥ Spanish Ridingschool
 

Other sources of information:

The Spanish Ridingschool
Piber Federal Stud
Hofburg Palace Wikipedia
Vienna Ticket Online