The Wacken Open Air festival itself is from July 31 to August 2… but we’d be nuts to fly halfway across the planet and not visit anywhere else. Plus Dave isn’t allowed to set foot inside the continent of Europe without visiting his relatives in Poland. I don’t even want to think what the consequences of that would be.
So, the plan of action is thus:
Monday 14th July: leave Perth at around 4pm. 2 hour stopover in Singapore (just enough time to stock up on extra memory cards and various other electronic necessities)
Tuesday 15th July: arrive in Frankfurt at an ungodly hour of the morning. Hang out in the airport for 3 hours and then board plane to Krakow. Arrive Krakow at 10am, refreshed, rested and ready for our holiday (yeah right).
We’re spending 6 nights in Krakow. Apparently this place has more pubs per square metre than anywhere else in the world. As well as giving Dave some time to catch up with his relatives, we hope to visit some of the local attractions (like these insane salt mines), eat much of the local food (pierogi anyone) and hopefully catch some authentic Polish death metal. So if anyone is reading this and knows where to find out about upcoming gigs please let us know!
Monday 21st July: fly from Krakow to Munich to catch connecting flight to Ljubljana, Slovenia. From here a friend of Dave’s is gonna pick us up and drive us to his home town of Jesenice, where we will drink volumes of the local beer which I’ve heard is excellent. We may even have time to look around at what life in a small town in Slovenia is like.
Wednesday 23rd July: fly from Ljubljana in the early afternoon to Vienna then onto Rome that evening.
We’re spending 5 nights in Rome. We’re essentially going to walk around looking at old stuff and eating. Saturday is Al’s birthday so I imagine there’ll be drinking as well. Also if there’s any metal to be found, we’ll be onto it.
Monday 28th July: An afternoon of flying, from Rome directly to Hamburg.
Hamburg is our last stop before Wacken, so we’ll be mentally preparing, doing some liver conditioning, and stocking up on things we may need (sleeping bags, booze, snacks etc). Then on Wednesday we’re hiring a car and driving the hour-odd to Wacken, a tiny village of (normally) around 1800 people. Approximately 65,000 other people will have the same plan, so it should be fun.
The festival starts on Thursday 31st July and goes til Saturday 2nd August, so we’ll be camping four nights from Wednesday for whatever sleep we may need (probably not much). We’re going to bring a big-arse Aussie flag to attach to the car somehow so we won’t get too lost (hopefully).
Then on Sunday 3rd August in the morning we’re packing up and driving back to Hamburg to stay the night, where we will need to shower several times each I’m sure. Another day in Hamburg, then Monday night we fly back to Perth with another 3 hour stopover in Singapore (it’ll be Tuesday 5th August and very late at night when we get in). I imagine we’ll be too broke to buy anything by then.