Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Day 192 - Why is Switzerland so expensive?

Bludenz (Austria) to Rothrist (Switzerland) - Ibis Hotel

After breakfast (served on a beautiful outdoor terrace with a lovely view of the Austrian Alps) we headed back to Liechtenstein to recover our card. We finally spoke to someone at the post office who could help, but they said we would have to wait an hour! After some grumbling from K, they suggested they could post it to us - very useful! They eventually got the picture and opened the machine for us, after which we finally managed to leave the country we couldn't afford!

We drove on to the beautiful Switzerland city of Lucerne (no, we didn't see any hay). After walking through the town for a while, we caught the world's steepest cog railway up Mt. Pilatus, passing cows grazing the steep hillside with huge bells around their neck, it was all very reminiscent of Heidi, it would be amazing to see it with snow. It was a beautiful day, from the top we had the most amazing views of the Swiss Alps and Lucerne. There was snow on some of the peaks in the distance, but none where we were.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Day 191 - Into the clouds

Innsbruck to Bludenz - Schlosshotel Dorfinger

Innsbruck has hosted two Winter Olympics, so we had to visit the Olympic ski jump which wasn't far from our guest house, quite an amazing sight! We caught the funicular to the top, it was a little scary looking from the top and thinking how talented you would have to be to manage that slope - especially when the view towards town off the end of the jump is the town cemetry! We walked down and were very lucky to see someone practicing on the jump, it was covered in a plastic material and watered before use.

After that we headed into town and took the Nordkette funicular and cable car up the mountain. They view was fantastic on the way up, but unfortunately when we finally reached our destination we were in the clouds, so there wasn't much to do other than head back down the mountain.

Now finished with Austria (we thought) we drove into the tiny country of Liechtenstein, with a vague plan of spending the evening in Valduz. However Liechtenstein decided it didn't like the likes of us! First of all it was impossible to find any accommodation priced even close to what we thought was reasonable. We had two cups of coffee so we could use wifi to do some investigation on the internet - $12 later we realised that we wouldn't be staying in Valduz, instead we found some nice accommodation in Bludenz, not too far over the border in Austria! But Liechtenstein hadn't finished with us yet, while trying to get some money from the ATM it decided to swallow our card - meaning we had to come back the next day to retrieve it.

On the positive side though the accommodation we had booked in Bludenz was booked out, so we were upgraded to a 4 star hotel.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Day 190 - People really dress like that?

Salzburg to Innsbruck - Sporthotel Schieferle

We had decided that in order to see the best of Switzerland we needed a car. After much investigation we worked out that it was much cheaper to pick up a car in Germany and return it to Germany, than to hire a car in either Austria or Switzerland, so we caught the train from Salzburg to Rosenheim. On the trip we were really surprised at how many people were wearing traditional costumes, we expected that type of dress to be only to entertain tourists, but we saw lots of people wearing it, even teenagers. It's very cute on the girls but the shorts on the men...well that's something else!

We picked up the car and drove back into Austria, this time heading to Innsbruck, where (after a short walk around town) we stayed in a guest house not far up the mountain.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Day 189 - The hills are alive .....

Vienna to Salzburg - Hotel Garni Evido

Back on the train again, this time to Salzburg - birthplace of Mozart, and also where the "The Sound of Music" was filmed. The town was quite pretty, with many Mozart related sights. However neither of us are into classical music or have seen "Amadeus", so "The Sound of Music" related attractions were the order of the day.

First stop in our mini Sound of Music tour was Hellbrun Castle. The tourist map we'd been given implied it wasn't far from town - but after walking around Salzburg Castle and then heading in what we thought was the right direction, we worked out we still had about 4km to go - those tourist maps have a bad habit of not being to scale! So we hopped on a bus and eventually saw the gazebo from the movie (which was a lot smaller than expected), as well as some very nice gardens in the castle grounds.

We then went to find Leopoldskron Castle (the house on the lake from the film) only to find that it was a private conference centre and visitors weren't allowed - a waste of time. Next were the beautiful Mirabell Gardens where they sang "Do Re Me". Although M has never seen the film (and doesn't want to), he did kind of recognise the song based on K's singing (if that's what you could call it).

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Day 184 to Day 188 - Who'd have thought we'd pay to see horses prance around a riding arena??

Prague (Czech Republic) to Vienna (Austria) - Der Wilhelmshof Hotel

Day 184 - Being the now savvy European train travelers that we are we didn’t pay for a seat reservation, just plonked ourselves in the first available compartment and settled in - and of course they'd been reserved by someone else! Another lesson learnt, check the paperwork on the outside of a compartment before you enter! After hauling our luggage down from the racks we finally found a compartment with two unreserved seats. Every trip you learn something more!

We disembarked in Vienna a few hours later to a blast of heat - not what we had expected. As we had a few days planned here we decided not to venture into town yet, instead we just explored the local area near the hotel.

Day 185 - The temperature is to be in the mid 30’s for a whole week here, which we are told is unusual for Vienna and certainly makes sightseeing a challenge. There seem to be very few hotels, shops or restaurants in Vienna that have air conditioning, they probably don’t need it enough to warrant it but it makes weeks like this difficult.

Today we had planned to visit Schönbrunn Palace. We had read about the crowds and the long wait in the sun for tickets so we made sure we were there for opening at 8.30am, even then the palace was still surprisingly busy with tour groups.

After touring the castle and walking around some of the extensive grounds we left a couple of hours later glad we weren't part of the crowds now waiting to get in. When you go to these major tourist attractions you realise that the crowds must be like this day after day and you get an appreciation for how many tourists there are around

Back in the city we wandered around to see the sights, and we stumbled onto the Spanish Riding School, for which K has a ticket for Saturday's performance. We were surprised to find it right in the centre of town, though if we'd done some research we would have already known that!

We then caught the train down to the banks of the Danube (with some pretty uninspiring "beaches") and walked around until the heat did us in, arriving back to our air conditioned room about 4pm.

We are staying a few train stations out of the city and we had dinner at a pizza/pasta place around the corner from our hotel. Amazingly sitting at the table next to us were the couple we had shared the carriage with on the train from Prague – as this is such a huge city, it was an amazing coincidence.


Days 186 and 187 - Our lack of planning has started to uncover some some gaps in our future travels, so we decided we needed to spend some time figuring out where we'll go over the next couple of months. It's obvious we do not have the time to see everything we want, one of the reasons being that K can only stay in Europe for 90 days. As a result we have started narrowing down our list of highlights to see, as well as working out the cheapest way to get around. It also seems a good way to make use of our time at the moment and escape the heat of the day.

We did still get out and about though, just not as much as usual. We visited the huge park near our hotel called the Wiener Prater, which contains an amusement park. In the park is the Wiener Reisenrad, a giant ferris wheel that was built back in 1897, as well as many more modern rides - though we didn't go on any of them.

Day 188 - K had a ticket for the first performance of the Spanish Riding School since their summer break. The place was packed out and the show absolutely stunning. It was the young horses' first performance and there was lot of shying, some taking off and even some bucking thrown in.

The seasoned performers were as striking as you would expect. The riders all looked liked clones. There was only one female rider, the rest were all very long legged men with the most perfect leg positions you have ever seen. Everything you'd expect to see was in the show but K did wonder whether the one time changes on the long rein was appreciated by the audience, but as it turns out the applause was so huge that the trainer actually looked up and smiled at the audience, the only time any rider seemed to acknowledge that the audience was  there.

K had one of the best seats right near X in the front row. The head rider of the school came out for the last performances, quite a bit overweight and no one has obviously felt like pointing out to him that he is losing his leg position! For K, this would be the best show she has ever attended and she could easily go again tomorrow.

(M: I didn't go to the riding school, and I don't even know what any of this means so I'll just leave it as it is ....K tried to explain what a "one time change" is but I still don't get it .........).

Later in the day M went for a long walk in the Wiener Prater and guess what .... lots more stick walkers, most of them walking not very fast at all! From what we can tell though, they are doing something called "Nordic Walking", there's even a club in Australia (no, we won't be joining it when we get back).

Monday, August 22, 2011

Day 181 to Day 183 - So many bones ......

Berlin (Germany) to Prague (Czech Republic) - Clarion Congress Hotel

Day 181 - The train trip from Berlin to Prague was easy and comfy, train travel is certainly much less hassle than flying. As per usual, we had booked a hotel near a railway station. In this case the station was inside a shopping complex with the hotel attached, so it couldn’t be easier. As it turns out, when we made our reservation they were almost fully booked, so we were upgraded to an executive suite. Finally .... after 6 months of hostels and hotels it was probably about our turn!

We caught the train in to the centre of the old city for the evening and were surprised by the number of people around. The huge old town square was full of tourists, and it was also very warm, so there was a great atmosphere, and with the lighting on the old cathedral it was quite a sight.

Day 182 - Today we've been on the road for 6 months - it has gone so fast, and we are well behind where we thought we'd be by this time, but we've also changed our plans a number of times along the way (because we can!).

After enjoying the walking tour of Berlin we decided to try one in Prague. This time we signed up for a free one, they bank on large numbers with tips at the end, plus the upsell to their other tours.

It started off much more disorganized than the previous one. It took 45 minutes to get started and there were about 50 in our group alone. Our guide was perhaps a little on the young side (though at least he was Czech) and at times over the top and repetitive but we still saw a lot of the sights (clocks, cathedrals, churches, town squares, headless statues, 400 year old mummified arms ....) and also heard some of the interesting history, including the events after WWII and the Velvet Revolution.

After the tour we decided to continue on with the paid tour of Prague Castle (so the upsell worked!) and this time had a guide more to our liking (who also happened to be Australian). As we walked around she filled us in on more of the medieval and communist history of Prague.

It was a long day and we both felt we'd had enough by the end, but we had seen and learnt a lot - plus our attitude to group tours seems to be changing!


Day 183 Today we caught the train to Kutná Hora, a small town about an hour from Prague. From the station we walked into town, and it was really warm, the whole week's forecast was for mid 30’s.

After seeing the town sights (including St. Barbara's Cathedral) we caught a local bus to the Kostnice Ossuary. This place is famous for its human bone collection. About 40000 bodies were dug up and arranged into all sorts of shapes, including pyramids of skulls and a coat of arms complete with a bird. However the grand display is a chandelier hanging from the ceiling made from every bone in the human body.

We finished the day desperately trying to find reasonable accommodation in Vienna with air con. We failed miserably and ended up spending much more than anticipated as we are leaving tomorrow - and K needs her air con!

Friday, August 19, 2011

Day 177 to Day 180 - All in all it's just another brick in the wall

Dresden to Berlin - Best Western Hotel City Ost

Our next stop after Dresden was Berlin, so this post summarises our few days there. Overall we found Berlin to be one of our favourite cities in Germany, due to the amazing history and its more cosmopolitan nature (and the fact that there were some decent restaurants near our hotel that didn't just offer schnitzel, bratwust or pizza certainly helped)!

Day 177 - Just as we were getting the hang of speeding along the autobahn it's time to hand the car back! On our way to Berlin we visited the nearby city of Potsdam. The most impressive sight there was Sansouci, the old summer palace of Frederick the Great, where we spent a little time wandering through the gardens.

Sans Souci, Potsdam
Driving into Berlin was a bit of an ordeal, the fact that we were in peak hour traffic didn't help, nor did the route the GPS selected, as it seemed to take us past (and even through) every tourist infested attraction in Berlin! We needed to get to our hotel, drop off our luggage, return the car and get a train back to the hotel. Three hours later we had finally achieved it, M ended up with a headache, and K was totally stressed and she wasn't even driving!

Day 178 - Against our normal way of travelling we signed up for a walking tour of the city. We'd read it was rated very highly. and as Berlin is so big and there is so much history we thought we'd try going with the experts, and at least it would save us all the hours that we usually spend lost.

We found the tour great, the guide was entertaining and informative. We walked by all the major sights from Checkpoint Charlie to the Brandenburg Gate and we learnt so much about the whole post-WW2 period when the Berlin Wall was erected. It was also surprising to hear that Berlin is a poor city with unemployment at 14%, with all the wondeful buildings it gives a different impression, though we did encounter a few pushy beggars.

Even though the majority of the wall has now gone the route has been kept at road level marked with different cobblestones, so as you wander the city you cross the line in the street umpteen times which reinforces so well the path that it took. We also saw a wonderful WW2 memorial which was a sculpture of a mother with her dying son in her arms, the skylight in the roof above her is not covered over so when it is raining it appears as if the world is weeping with her and when it snows her cloak is covered in a dusting of snow. On a different note the tour finished opposite the hotel where Michael Jackson dangled the baby from the balcony. The rest of the day was spent revisiting some of the areas we visited earlier that had piqued our interest during the walking tour.

Day 179 - We are getting to the stage where we have stopped visiting the insides of every church, palace and museum but rather choosing just the ones that appear special. In Berlin we chose the Pergamon Museum. The ruins of Pergamon are close to Troy, which we visited in Turkey. The museum is designed brilliantly with the friezes and temple pieces structured to the original building sizes and plans. Exhibits included the Pergamon temple, and the Ishtar Gate from Babylon. Despite the amazing number of people there it was brilliant a place to visit, but once again we wonder why some of these artefacts are in Berlin and not in their home country (then again, it would be quite difficult to see the Ishtar Gate if it was back in Iraq ....).

More revisiting after that, including a closer look at the Berlin Wall and the nearby exhibition, as well as a bus ride to one of the main shopping areaa where we watched a pole vault competition in the square.

Day 180 - We decided we needed a break today from sightseeing and to catch up on some chores. The internet in Germany has been appalling even though we have been booking hotels that advertise free wifi it never seems to have a decent enough signal to maintain any reasonable connection, but finally in Berlin we have good wi fi. This meant we could do some banking, answer emails, finally get our tickets booked for Carnival in Rio next February, as well as arrange a train and accommodation for Prague, and of course do some catching up on the blog.


Also, as we are preparing to now leave Germany, there a few German oddities that we would like to mention:

1/ Every bakery has wasps swarming in the cabinets over the food. They don't seem to have any way of controlling them so it's just normal. They seem completely harmless, but every now and then you see someone violently trying to shoo one away.

2/ They have a really odd way of making the bed, and weird shaped pillows. The pillows are like massive floor cushions and the bed is made by folding up the doona and placing it in the centre of the bed, and we've encountered very few real double beds, they are usually two single beds pushed together. Also instead of chocolates on the beds they place little bags of soft lollies.

3/ There seems to be a ridiculous custom of using hiking sticks for just walking down the street (this was quite common in Bavaria). We found it hilarious to see people walking along paved footpaths with a pair of hiking sticks. Now we have nothing against the sticks and they were helpful when we were gorilla trekking through impenetrable forest - but why does anyone need them to walk down the street (we've even seen someone using them to walk inside a railway station!).

4/ Finally we can confirm it isn't a myth, but some Europeans do wear socks with their sandals - generally black - which is such a charming look, especially on young children!

Monday, August 15, 2011

Day 176 - More great buildings

Nuremberg to Dresden - Quality Hotel Plaza

Before leaving Nuremberg we visited the old Nazi Parade Grounds (Reichsparteitagsgelände), and learnt a little more of the history of the Nazis and their involvement in Nuremberg. Some of the old films and photos at the Documentation Centre were especially interesting, as we could recognise some of the buildings we'd visited the previous day.

We drove from there to Dresden, checked in to our hotel, and caught the tram into town. The architecture here was amazing, more and more we are realising what a young country Australia is and how we have nothing that really compares to these old cities. Even though nearly everything was flattened in WW2 they have rebuilt nearly all of the beautiful buildings. As in most other European cities, all the sights are quite close together so it makes it easy for walking around and Dresden's are set quite close to the river. Every time we think we have seen enough for a while we find the next city better than the last.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Day 175 - Next stop Nuremburg

Munich to Nuremberg - Sorat Agneshof

We arrived in Nuremburg to find our hotel was right in the town centre - tiny cobblestoned lanes with heaps of tourists walking about and car parks the size of matchboxes! These towns are not built for cars and they do their best to keep them out. On the plus side our hotel had its own car park (it was one where they stack the cars vertically) so at least we were close to everything.

We wandered around town, as usual checking out the churches, city walls, town square, statues, bridges, etc. We also took a walk around Nuremberg Castle, though we were there at the end of the day so we couldn't get inside.

The old town centre was lovely to walk around, and relatively quiet too once the streets were cleared by a sudden downpour. The buildings were so authentic, and there were some great sculptures in some of the squares, certainly not what we'd expected given what we'd known of Nuremberg's history (Nazi rallies, etc.). We were also interested to find an "Australian" ice cream and chocolate shop, selling chocolates with aboriginal designs on them, but from what we could tell the chocolates were made in Germany!

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Day 173 to Day 174 - Concentration camps and glockenspiels

Oy-Mittenberg to Munich - Kings First Class Hotel

Day 173 - After a lovely night we again braved the autobahn to head to Munich, we were a bit nervous at the prospect of driving in a big city for the first time. By now though we've got the hang of driving on the wrong side of the road at 150kmh, but even then we are in the slow lane most of the time.

We decided to go via the Dachau concentration camp. The camp is a massive place, and held about 200,000 prisoners over the time it was in use. We watched a short film, then wandered the displays in the old factory building reading about the history of the camp, and the inhumane treatment of the prisoners (which included being kept in a standing cell, which was so small that the walls on each side your elbows and the walls in front and behind touched your legs so there was no other option but to stand). Many of the old buildings still remained, though most of the sleeping quarters had been demolished.

After that sobering visit we drove to Munich to find it quite quieter than we expected, at least as far as driving went, so it was a breeze finding our hotels car park.

We walked into the city centre which was crowded with tourists, and spent some time checking out some of the old buildings and other sights (cathedral, city hall, various town squares, etc).

Day 174 - Today we headed off to the Deutsches Museum, the world's largest museum of technology and science. It was an extraordinary place with the the most amazing exhibits on every type of subject, from tunnel building to robots, DNA labs to nanotechnology. We both enjoyed the visit enormously, it would have been well worth a second visit.

We made it back to the Marienplatz (central square) to see the Glockenspiel in the tower of the city hall do its thing at 5pm, which was quite cute. We then walked down to the English Garden, and managed to see the nude sunbathers (though that's not why we were there .....). Apparently it is quite a Munich thing to do to head to the park and take off your clothes to get that full body tan - can't see it catching on in Melbourne though.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Day 172 - Fairytale castles

Augsburg to Oy-Mittelberg - Hotel Gasthof Ratskeller

Today we drove to the end of the romantic road to visit the castles that Ludwig II of Bavaria built and lived in, the most famous one being Castle Neuschwanstein, which is supposed to be the inspiration for the Disney castle that we remember from the credits of the old Disney shows.

On the way we stopped at Landsberg Am Lech for lunch, another one of those villages on the Romantic Road, but this one had a nice view over the River Lech, so we skipped the quaint buildings and bakeries and went for a walk along the river instead. The countryside along this part of the Romantic Road was beautiful, green fields, picturesque farms and villages, and the German Alps in the background.

So far we have found the tourist crowds in Germany to be quite reasonable, so we think we've made the right decision to bypass France for now. We had read that the castles were very popular, but we certainly didn't expect the crowds that were there! We were lucky we didn't arrive at the castles any later, we joined the queue for tickets to Neuschwanstein around 2:15pm, and just managed to get into the last English tour at 6:15pm!

We had more than three hours to wait, so we wandered around the town of Hohenschwangau for a while, then headed up to the castle and took in some other walks to fill in time. The views were great, it really is a picture postcard place!

The inside of the castle was amazing, incredible paintings all over the walls and even a man-made cave where Ludwig would sit and listen to Wagner! However we did feel the tour could have been better, we were rushed through what is an extraordinary place and we feel we missed so much. By the time we finished it was around 7pm, so we headed off to our hotel in a village not too far away.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Day 171 - Seen one, seen them all ....?

Steinsfeld to Augsburg - Best Western Dasing Augsburg

We continued our journey along the "Romantic Road", stopping at the towns of Dinkelsbuhl and Nordlingen along the way. It's probably bad form to say this, but these medieval towns are a bit like English villages, once you have seen one, you know what to expect - city walls, cobbled streets, Christmas shops, bakeries and cake shops, breweries, nicely painted houses, town square with a Rathaus (town hall) ....

Having said that however, we thought Nordlingen was quite nice, we spent some time walking around the streets, one of the good things was that it is much less touristy than Rothenberg, and a lot more like a town where "real people" live, and not just a tourist destination.

We booked into a hotel near Augsburg, and then headed into Augsburg for the evening. Augsburg is quite a large city, with a very large square, is more like a "modern" city than other places we've visited on the Romantic Road.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Day 170 - Romance is in the air?

Heidelberg to Steinsfeld - Hotel-Gasthof zum Schwan

We picked up our hire car (a one way rental dropping off in Berlin in a week's time) and headed for the Romantic Road. Our trusty GPS helped us a lot - it's bad enough driving on the wrong side of the road, at least we didn't have to worry about getting lost.

Our main destination for the day was Rothenberg-on-der-Tauber, a medieval walled city that's very well known, the old walls are intact, and the old buildings are very well preserved (apparently it has also been used for a number of movies).

We walked around the town and also along the walls, and into the castle gardens. The views over the river valley were amazing,we could also see far below a stage being set up for a music festival which was to feature Iggy and the Stooges - M was disappointed that we weren't going to be around for that, it would have been a great setting!

There were tourists everywhere, though it thinned out at one point when it started raining. For afternoon tea we shared a "schneebal" (snowball), one of the local pastries - they look tasty, but as it turned out it wasn't that nice, just some pastry loosely rolled into a ball and sprinkled with sugar.

We had booked accommodation out of town in a place called Steinsfeld, as we had a car we now had the luxury of staying in cheaper places out of town, especially as many of the older towns have very narrow streets and limited parking. However as nothing was open in Steinsfeld we had to come back in to Rothenburg for dinner anyway!

Monday, August 8, 2011

Day 168 to Day 169 - "Everyone's favourite German city"

Cologne to Heidelberg - Hotel Heidelberg

Day 168 - Another train trip (about 4 hours), we had paid extra for reserved seats only to find that there were people already sitting there. After some rearrangement we managed to sit down, but at a later stop someone else had exactly the same problem. Lesson learned - we won't be booking seats unless we have to.

For a change the tourist information office in Heidelberg was really helpful, they told us how to get the tram (yes, more trams) to our hotel.

Heidelberg is really pretty, it's on the river with hills around and is quintessentially German - well to our Aussie eyes anyway. In the evening we trammed into town, then walked through the Altstadt and along the river, noting points of interest to revisit tomorrow.

Day 169 - From Heidelberg we are planning to drive, so first task of the day was arranging a hire car for pickup the next day. We then took the funicular up to to Heidelberg Castle (yep another castle). The view from the castle was very pretty, and the castle itself had some interesting sections, including giant wine casks, a pharmacy museum, and a very nice garden area nearby.

After lunch we crossed the river and did the Philosopher's Walk, with more nice views of the river, city and castle. Midway through it started raining, we managed to stay dry by taking cover along the way, but as it turned out we ended up getting drenched later on when we had to get from the tram stop to our hotel!

Overall we have enjoyed Heidelberg, and its easy to see why it's known as "everyone's favourite German city".

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Day 166 to Day 167 - Why does Melbourne think its trams are so special?

Dusseldorf to Cologne - Park Inn Cologne City West

Day 166 - The train from Dusseldorf to Cologne required two changes which was not that difficult but when hauling your luggage it's a bit of a pain. Being the weekend we got a good rate at the Radisson as it is a business hotel and is only 10 minutes by tram to town. A small price to pay for a nice room at a cheap price according to us!

The more we travel the more we wonder why Melbourne is always pushing how special it is to have trams, we are finding trams very common place on our travels. Maybe Melbourne needs to get out more! One thing we haven't seen though is a city with restaurants of the quality, variety and value as Melbourne. When you are home you hear how good Melbourne's food is but it is only when you travel that you realise you take it for granted.

Anyway, back to Cologne! The cathedral is extraordinary, and we thought we were over cathedrals after our time in the UK and Amsterdam. Cologne cathedral is the highest Roman Catholic cathedral, and fifth tallest in the world.However it's not just the height (after climbing 530 steep winding steps to the top) but the sheer size and appearance that are so overwhelming.

Day 167 - Cologne is also the home of "Eau de Cologne" - we saw it in a few shops but its not pushed at all, rather it's more subtle, there in the background, but not forgotten.

We visited the Museum Ludwig, which holds one of the largest Picasso collections in the world. Along with other modern art pieces, it was similar in some ways to the Tate Modern in London, but we both much preferred the Tate. K had a few unkind things to say about Pablo's ceramics (being the critic that she is) - a continual mumbling about glaze fit accompanied with lots of head shaking.

We decided we urgently needed to do some travel planning, so we set up camp in Starbucks (not for the coffee, for the free internet!) during a big rain storm and made some bookings for Heidelberg, where we also hope to catch up with the lovely German girls we met on our train ride in Tanzania

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Day 164 to Day 165 - Why book?

Amsterdam (Netherlands) to Dusseldorf (Germany) - V.I.P. Hotel

Day 164 - We took the train to Dusseldorf in the morning - a nice easy trip over the border i.e. no border at all from what we could tell, that's the European Union for you.

On arrival we dragged our luggage the kilometre or so to our hotel, checked in, then went for a walk through town and along the banks of the Rhine where there were lots of people out enjoying the sunshine.

Day 165 - The next day (with more lovely weather) we walked around town to visit the main sites, the Alte Stadt, cathedrals (including St. Lambertus with its famous crooked spire), some interesting sculptures, nice gardens, etc. On the Rhine there were plenty of cruise boats, including a couple of very large ones that seemed to be inhabited mainly by elderly tourists. In retrospect, even though Dusseldorf was nice enough, we could have skipped it and headed for somewhere a little more interesting as our first stop in Germany, but as we currently seem to planning at most only two or so days in advance, and our access to the internet hasn't been as good as we'd hoped, there are bound to be some missteps along the way.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Day 159 to Day 163 - Why is it so hard to find a coffee shop that sells coffee?

Amsterdam - Swissotel Amsterdam

Once again we're falling behind in our blogging, so this post will be a wrap up of our time in Amsterdam. Since reaching Europe we've actually had trouble getting decent free internet, it's hard to believe that it's been easier to get free internet in Africa and Turkey than in Europe!

Day 159 - On our first full day we took a boat ride through the canals, apparently something everyone does. We took one of the larger "tourist" boats, with a recorded commentary in four languages, but we saw a lot of people doing it in much smaller boats, which we think might have been a better way to do it. After the canal ride we visited Anne Frank's house, the queue was very long, apparently it is always like that. The house (which was in an annex of the building behing the business) was actually bigger than expected.


Day 160 - Next day was a cultural/museum day - we took in the Rijksmuseum (lots of Dutch art, many painters including Rembrandt) and the Van Gogh Museum. After seeing so many paintings we were feeling a little too cultured, so we took a walk through the streets and amazingly found ourselves back in the red light district, not sure how that happened..... The red light district is quite surprising as it is all quite in your face, the girls are literally everywhere standing in the full length glass doors with red lights over the door. We were a little surprised that most of the girls are quite attractive and young (but not all of them ....). The smell of marijuana is everywhere, but surprisingly less than 5% of Dutch use it, much less than other countries where it is illegal. It is also interesting how many families with young children do the tourist thing wandering the streets of the red light district. The whole Amsterdam city area is chock full of tourists making it quite difficult to walk down the streets.

Delft
Day 161 - Our hotel is in such a great position it is easy to become lazy and just wander around Amsterdam but today we decided we needed to go further afield. First up we were surprised to find the city square outside our hotel so empty, we are used to having to squeeze through so many people and bicycles, maybe everyone had a big Saturday night. We caught the train to Haarlem and wandered around the quiet streets, such a contrast from Amsterdam. Not sure how much of it was related to it being Sunday. Being only 15 minutes from Amsterdam it is easy to see why it is a cheaper, quieter option to staying in the city. The town was cute but hard to get excited about after the buzz of the last few days so we boarded the train again this time heading to Delft. Once again we were surprised at how few people were around but enjoyed having lunch in the large, pretty city square before wandering the canals and catching the train back to the big smoke. We had been told before we arrived that the canals could be quite smelly but we didn't find that at all.

Day 162 - The weather before today had been a little disappointing - overcast, and at times cold and raining. However, today when we left the hotel the sun was out! Amsterdam had been transformed into a gorgeous city for sitting and enjoying the sights and that's what everyone seemed to be doing - so we joined in. Lunch was some of the Vlaamse frites (Flemish fries), which are sold all over town in cone shaped containers, which must be what the "Lord of the Fries" places in Melbourne are based on. Today we decided to take in the Jordaan area of town and walk further afield however like everyone else we end up finding a nice place to sit in the sun and watch the passing parade of tourists.

Day 163 - Another beautiful day but we really must start moving on so we spent some of the day researching Germany. We decided to book a train to Dusseldorf the next day, which is just over the border. It was tempting to hire a car but petrol is so expensive and most citys so far are pretty much car free making it very difficult to get around, with parking also quite expensive. Transport in Amsterdam is mainly bikes and trams, so it is quite rare to see a car. The other thing that is tricky in Amsterdam is finding a genuine coffee shop where we can get a decent latte or cappucino, there are lots of "coffee shops", just not the type we are looking for! It is also interesting how often we are mistaken for locals and asked for directions, they must be disappointed when we say sorry but we don't understand. Quite a number of times on this trip we've been taken as Germans for some reason, so we will see if that is the case when we hit Germany!