Category Archives: Europe

09 Jun 2011 · 9:00 AM

A Mighty Great time in Dublin

Dublin is a fantastic place, just the fact that the main tourist ‘attraction’ is heading to the most authentic Irish pub you can find for a pint if the black stuff, should explain why Dubliners are so much fun. We had not been in Dublin fro two hours when we went for a walk and ended up in the middle of the Bank Holiday marathon. Thousands of women filled the streets and it made for quite an interesting day! In the evening we met and mingled with the Dublin student crowd at the local pub down the road.

We were lucky enough to be staying in Trinity College, a 400 year old university modeled as a continuation of the “Oxbridge” universities in England but now is Ireland’s premier tertiary education and research institution. Amandine, my very good friend from school days, put us up in her front court apartment on the top floor so we really got to see what student life here is like.

Trinity College Dublin Front Court

Her boyfriend, Barry, is also an excellent guide and he gave us the ’10 Euro’ tour for free with all the interesting facts thrown in. For instance, the two Oregon Maples in the front courtyard of the college are the oldest trees in Ireland! I wish I could remember more of the facts. The buildings at Trinity are amazingly beautiful, and quite majestic too. One building in particular that stands out is the building which houses the Long Room and the Book of Kells. The Long Room room holds over 200 000 of the oldest books owned by Trinity and is somewhat like a ‘book cathedral’. As you walk in the room you are overcome with an ‘old book’ smell and the beauty of the room with its dark oak bookshelves and vaulted ceilings. We snuck in at the last minute, as the guard closed off the one side of the Long Room, to see the original charter for Trinity College signed by Queen Lizzy the elder (QE1 for short). Of course, the Book of Kells is also really interesting to see as it dates back to the 8th century and is amazingly well illustrated for that period. What is most amazing is that in the 8th century Ireland was probably a pretty inaccessible rock in the middle of the Atlantic, so the fact that some of the red paint used to illustrate “the Book” came from a species of beetle native to Persia, is pretty remarkable. (Photos are not allowed in the Long Room but click here to see a 360 degree panoramic view of the room!)

An Excerpt from the Book of Kells

One of the main attractions that Dublin had for us was to visit the place where Arthur Guinness started brewing Guinness Stout. It’s a vast facility that includes a step by step explanation on how the beer is (and has been) brewed for 252 years as well as displays on the Guinness advertising through the years, a tasting lab and most importantly… Somewhere that you can pour your own REAL pint of Guinness. The Storehouse, as it is known, is in the shape of an enormous pint glass of which the atrium stretches 5 storeys and to top it all off is a 6th level called the gravity bar offering not only panoramic views of the whole of Dublin but of course… more Guinness! It was excellent!

Trist loves Guiness

On the North side of Dublin is the GPO (General Post Office) building where you can now get your stamps, but used to be a stronghold for the Irish Republicans in the war of independence in 1916. The building was shot at and heavily shelled at the time and you can still some bullet holes in the columns in the front of the bulding.

The GPO on the North Side of Dublin

In true Irish style we headed to the Porterhouse Brewery after dinner yesterday for a pint or two and some local music. Well, we certainly got more than we bargained for at this really great pub in Temple Bar – the name comes from a time when Jewish temples were banned in the area. Firstly, as you walk into the smallish front area and head for the bar you realize that above you are 3 other levels also housing bars and tables and even a stage for live music. The pub used to be a micro brewery and still has the copper boilers, pipes and brewing equipment running throughout the place, and on the walls there are hundreds of bottles of beer from all over the world. The best part about it was the live music, an Irish guy and his guitar. Needless to say the girls were melting at the sound of his voice and even the boys were singing along to his Bob Dylan and Counting Crows covers. Check Kris Finnerty out on iTunes to hear some of his original stuff!

Kris Finnerty at the Porterhouse Brewery

Dublin has a great small train system called the Dart, nothing quite like the maze of tubes in London or the trams in Berlin, but we took it out to a small town called Killiney (Kill-eye-ney) that was suggested to us by a good friend Mike G back home. Dublin is a pretty small city and within about twenty minutes we were on the seaside and in forty five had reached our destination. The village is well known for being a haven for the wealthy, some notable celebs who have houses (or castles) there are Bono of U2 fame and also the celtic singer Enya who really does have a castle on the hill. Not knowing where we were going, we just went up and up with a goal in mind of reaching the monument on the top of the hill, which we did by walking up ancient passageways slippery with moss and the occasional but persistent shower. See pics!!!!

Passageways in Killiney

Killiney from the top

We stopped at the Druids Chair, a pub almost at the top of the hill, for a pint and some Wifi (that didn’t exist) and almost fell asleep because it was so cozy. Deciding that is was a good idea to go to another Dart station instead of the one that we arrived at was in fact a mistake and after walking for what seemed like hours we finally found Station Road and a completely different station that we had passed through a while earlier on the way to Killiney… great sense of direction on our part! We had a plan to stop in Dun Laoghaire (Dun Leary) for some fish and chips but it turned into a hunt for some public loos as the pints from the Druid came back to haunt us! No luck in the fish and chips department resulted in a rather disparaged couple of saffers jumping back on the train and straight to Temple Bar where we knew that we’d find some reasonably priced supper, incidentally also fish and chips, to bring us back to the happy place!

We had a special request from one of our avid blog readers, Uncle Viv, to take some photos in Saint Patricks Cathedral, and although we didn’t go in, as it was 4,50 Euros each, we got some photos from the outside in any case! If you would like to see something specific in a place that we are visiting, let us know, we’ll be happy to explore it for you and send the photos!

D+T x

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06 Jun 2011 · 12:45 AM

Last weekend in Geneva, then off to Dublin we go.

Friday morning was spent in bed, Thursday’s events had left us all pretty tired (especially the ride to Lausanne – headwind all the way) so some extra sleep was called for. Once up though there were some home improvement tasks to accomplish and this meant a trip to Migros a shopping centre that is in fact a small town, well not quite but you get the drift. The result is that the shower curtain no longer attempts to suffocate you and there is now enough light in the bathroom too! In the evening we wandered around the city finding out where the Genevans hang out on a Friday night. Of all the spots available we finally settled on the edge of the lake with some drinks and did a bit of people watching :) Dinner was a Lebanese assortment from La Caravan Passé in Paquis, an establishment sporting authentic decor and incredible food.

Lebanese in Geneve is not out of the ordinary, not much is!

If one is looking for a decent night out in Geneva, and this person should have access to many Swiss bank accounts, Rue de Paquis is the place to be on a friday night. This road is party central and, if you are inclined, it also houses Geneva’s Red Light District.

The plans for Saturday were set in stone, CERN, Patek Philippe and Grazia!!

Dom’s understanding of what goes on at CERN:

- CERN is a magical place where they have invented massively important things such as magnets and the Internet!

Magnetic pull too much for Dom

At one stage this was the only WWW server, pretty unbelievable!

- There is a 27km long tunnel underneath Geneva and the surrounds which is used to accelerate particles and measure their reactions when they collide… Using experiments at different places around the tunnel they can discover the different nano-particles that exist in the universe. Complicated but that’s the just of it.

- Everyone who works there is SUPER brainy! :)

Cosmic Rays

If you are in any way interested in Particle Physics (there are other people like me, there must be) then CERN is the centre of your universe. It is too much to fully explain but in brief, the facility houses the world’s leading minds in nuclear and particle physics studying the very building blocks of what makes up the world around us. Our guide for the morning was Aidan, one of the thousands of researchers employed by CERN. He gave us an enthusiastic tour of the exhibitions as well as a sneak peek the of control room for
one of the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) experiments known as ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS). Click the links for explanations!

The Patek Philippe museum is the largest collection of time you can imagine. They have an extremely large collection of watches from the most early methods of telling time, right up to the present day and everything in between and I mean EVERYTHING! Cameras and cellphones were banned so no pictures unfortunately… There were sundial watches, royal watches, wooden watches, enamel painted pieces, every precious metal known to man and these were encrusted with stones and diamonds of every colour. Possibly the most interesting was a watch known as the Calibre 89 (made in 1989 for PF’s 150th birthday) that weighed in at just over a kilo. It also is currently the worlds most complicated watch with over 1700 components and the following functions (all run by clockwork… no batteries involved):

  • Day of the month
  • 12-hour recorder
  • Day of the week
  • Hour of second time-zone
  • Moon phase display
  • Winding crown position indicator
  • Century decade and year displays
  • Leap Year Indicator
  • Power reserve
  • Month
  • Thermometer
  • Date of Easter
  • Time of sunrise
  • Equation of time
  • Star chart
  • Sun hand
  • Time of sunset
  • Split second hand

Check it out is pretty impressive! They say that Bill GAtes bought one of the four watches made for the measly sum of $6 000 000! Small change…

The evening was spent in Rolle with a friend of Trevor’s, Grazia, at her home on the hill. An incredible meal of veg soup, beef fillet and roasted spuds combined with red wine, great music and thoughtful conversation was had. Had we not gone for the two hour walk through the area before hand we would have all croaked, not a bad way to go though as Grazia is a maestro in the kitchen! The walk was quite a thing in itself, taking us straight up the most incredible hill only to surprise us with a view for miles over the lake and on to Les Alpes in the distance all covered in snow.

An idea of the landscape not 30 mins from Geneva!

Most of the area is covered in grain fields, wheat and barley, but there are some small pockets of natural forest dotted over the countryside… similar in size but not in colour to the villages that all the meadows belong to. At one point we came across a field of cows all clanging their bells while they grazed on dandelions and grass. The perfect picturesque view to be put on a chocolate wrapper :)

Simonsberg??? Not quite!

So after picking cherries, talking, walking, eating (and drinking) far too much and talking some more. We jumped back on the train to Geneva and straight to bed!

Our journey takes us West to Dublin before really getting traveling on the way to India and beyond! Guinness here we come!

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03 Jun 2011 · 9:30 AM

Geneva…this elegant city

Its so rad being in a place for more than a couple of days, so much so that we have been spending as much time out as possible… resulting in a definite relaxation of the need to blog… but for you guys, anything!!

Geneva has been super relaxed, after our incroyable (in a French accent please) adventure to the wine country on Saturday we spent a couple of hours exploring the North side of the lake. Walking down the promenade to the gardens bordering the United Nations HQ, we watched the Geneve locals make the most of the beautiful weather. There were barbeques (it’s not a braai when its not in SA) on the go in the park, people tanning on the pier, and even a roller skate party with music and beer, oh yes, the pink panther and superman had even made an appearance! We finished Saturday off with drinks and snacks on the Bain de Paquis pier at sunset.  Sunday was much the same, we took a walk down to visit the Jet d’eau, a jet of water in the middle of the lake reaching up to 115m into the sky, and on the way back we joined a great party on the pier where everyone was having a grand old time.

Party on the Pier

The Jet d'eau in Lake Geneva

Since then we have been sleeping in, spending the afternoons sightseeing and the evenings hopping from restaurant to bar and getting to bed after midnight. Geneva is an interesting city, there is definitely a work culture, but only during the week…on the weekends, Genevians spend their time on the promenade, tanning in the park, and eating out in cafes all over the city. At least when it’s sunny, when it’s raining and cold like now, they disappear into cafes and restaurants and close the doors :)

Geneva’s history stretches back many centuries when Geneva was a centre of early Protestant reformation (a self-expulsion from the doctrines of Catholicism), Jean Calvin who lived in Geneva was a major motivator of this movement. In order to protect themselves from attack by the Catholic church who wanted to re-reform Geneva to Catholicism, they built monstrous walls and trenches around the city and barricaded themselves in (an unbelievably detailed model was built showing what the city looked like in the 1880’s and it stands on the 3rd floor of the Maison Tavel in the Old Town). The city was originally built around one end of Lac Léman (Lake Geneva) and served as the most strategic and defensible location from Medieval times (Thanks to T for explaining all of this to me!). Obviously, when times changed and the city began to grow, a brave town planner suggested that it was time to demolish the walls and build out into the countryside. Eventually, this is what they did, and there lies the distinction between what Genevians call the Old Town and…what they don’t! :) You can still see some places where the wall once stood. In fact, some years back when developers tried to dig underground to build an underground parking garage, they came across the ruins of a small part of the wall. So they stopped building and excavated as much as they could, and there it still stands today, modern parking garage on one side and centuries old wall on the other.

A piece of the original city wall in Geneva

Whilst exploring in the old town we found, thanks to T’s dad Trevor, that there are so many hidden parts to Geneva that you would never find on your own. There are secret pathways, gated up for your own safety, that were used by the monks and also some used by soldiers to escape the enemy. Once a year, on the closest Sunday to the 11th of December (the original day of “L’escalade”) I am told, they open up the gates and let the people explore the city and see Geneva from a different side. Also in the old town is the Cathedral St. Pierre which is beautifully old and full of character, going up to the top towers we found the most spectacular views not only of Geneva but also of the mountains in France! However, beneath the church lies an even more spectacular find, an archeological site displaying 10 centuries worth of ruins that have been built upon over and over again. The museum, worth the entrance of about CHF8, gives a description of the site showing the ruins from each century in a different colour making it incredibly interesting to see the history that lies in front of you.

More treasures we found in the old town include the botanical gardens with activities like giant chess and a sand pit for the kids; the Reformation Wall describing the history of the constitution and religion in Geneva; the longest park bench-stretching almost 100m; an antique shop full of

The World's Longest Bench

scientific and meteorological apparatus such as barometers, telescopes and microscopes; Clementine, the statue of a women who has become the listener to the protesting people of Geneva; beautiful cobbled streets; water fountains (with drinkable water) sprouting flowers of all different colours; and quaint squares like “Bourg-de-Four” where locals enjoy long drinks in the sun after work and on the weekends.

Although these may seem like a lot of sites, you can actually see most of them in one day. Once you’ve seen them all, you start to make up your own interesting stories such as “…and this is the fountain under which the General buried his favourite horse”…(you never know?). So as you can see, eight days in the Geneva city itself can become a bit much, unless you’re content to hop from café to café drinking and eating all day (not a bad plan-if you’re a millionaire). For the more adventurous types, such as us, cycling trips around the lake and day trips to the surrounding towns are a good way to see Switzerland!

The weather was so lovely on Monday that we hired a couple of city bikes and we went for a ride (yes you read it right, I rode a bicycle) along the Quai du Mont-Blanc all the way to the Geneva plage (beach), past the UN headquarters and the chair with a broken leg which symbolises opposition to land mines and cluster bombs, and acts as a reminder to politicians and others visiting Geneva.

Our bike ride in the park

The Broken Chair

Unfortunately, the weather did not stay as perfect as it was and Tuesday morning was overcast, and it rained, a lot. However, off we went to Gland and to Nyon for the afternoon. In Gland, which is basically just where the International Union for the Conservation of Nature has its head offices, we visited T’s dad’s offices and then went off to find some lunch-a sandwich on the only dry bench we could find.

Roman Ruins in Nyon

In Nyon, our next stop, we enjoyed walking around the originally Roman town and finding the last pieces of history. There is an Amphitheatre there that was found, also by accident, and is currently being excavated. It is said to be from the original Roman ruins. I am sure Europe is full of those historical reminders of the past, I find it very fascinating to think that those ‘storybook’ people lived here so long before all of these modern cities were built. Eventually the rain got too much for us and we headed back to Geneva to get dry. It rained so much that day that T’s shoes were soaked right through, and we ended up heading to H&M for a quick replacement pair.

The following morning we woke up to a large layer of snow on the nearby mountains! Beautiful as it was, it caused the average temperature to drop

The snow on the mountains

by about 15 degrees Celsius, although at least not as much rain as the previous day. We headed off to meet my parents and show them around the Old Town, as they are in Geneva on holiday too! After the grand tour we ended up at the Museum of Art and History, a great collection of artifacts and paintings showing centuries of European history and culture-and the best part about it is it’s free! We also found the Russion Orthodox Church was having an Ascension day service as we were walking past, complete with incense and a beautiful choir filling the air. With its gold turrets on the outside and black and deep red décor on the inside, it was a magically moving experience. Its rare to find such a specific denomination celebrated in such a majestic way.

We caught a glimpse of the sun for the first time in three days so T and Trevor took advantage by cycling from Nyon to Lausanne. They wound their way down the Lake, passing small villages and breathtaking scenery. I took the train to Lausanne and meet my folks for lunch. It was a fantastic afternoon, being a public holiday, and all the Lausanne locals out in the parks and along the promenade. Of course, there was as usual lots of beer, chocolate and local food involved and everyone got home happy and exhausted from all those hills!!

Amazing Swiss Chocolate

I hope that this (very long) post has updated you on our week so far, as you can tell, it has been busy and full but also really relaxed. Check out our Photo Gallery page, where you can view a selection of our photos from the last couple of weeks! Also, if you read our posts regularly, why not subscribe to our emails, if you’re not already! :)

x

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29 May 2011 · 1:08 AM

Caves Ouvertes in Geneve

We started our trip to Geneva off with a bang, wine tasting in Russin and surrounding towns for FREE! Okay so there was a CHF5 charge to buy the glass, but aside from that we wined and dined on complimentary cheese and bread until our heads were spinning and our stomachs full! The Caves Ouvertes (or Open Cellars) happens only once a year around the last Saturday in May… so we could not have arrived at a better time. The views from the area were spectacular…if you don’t believe me, check this out! (not photoshopped I promise)

Apparently, we were only a few kilometres from the French border, which is so incredible coming from Cape Town where we are so far away from everything! It blows my mind that you can just hop on a train and 10 minutes later you’re in France :) Besides the really great wine, and cheese and views, the people we met were so interesting and it was great to share a day with people from all over the world and with so many different professions. I could go on and on about the sunshine and the music and the bustle of people around us…but I am sure you are all jealous enough already ;)

All in all, it really was an amazing day!

Have you ever heard of/been to the Caves Ouvertes? What did you think?

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28 May 2011 · 2:32 AM

An Adventure in Venice…

The first thing you notice when you arrive in Venice, is the absence of cars, bikes, scooters, buses, trains, pretty much anything with wheels (apart from the odd goods trolley or wheelbarrow)… that’s because Venice is one of the worlds only pedestrian cities. So how do you get around without any wheels, well as most of you know, by boat! There are water taxis, water buses, gondolas, ferries, you name it, they have a boat for it. It’s quite an interesting experience I must say. That’s not to say they don’t have trains and buses to get out of the city of course, but any goods transported within the islands of Venezia is put onto a boat and delivered like a lorry would normally deliver things.

Traffic at 6am

The second and most important thing you notice is the beauty of the place. Venice is unbelievably beautiful, and when I say unbelievable, I mean it is so picturesque, you would think it was a movie set. For this reason, after the first few hours my photographs all started to look the same… like this:

Stunning huh?

We arrived in Venice, after very little sleep on an uncomfortable bus ride, at about 6am on Thursday morning. A bit disorientated and rather grumpy, we finally found the train station at Mestre, a little walk from the bus station, and boarded the train to St. Lucia in the heart of Venice. From there we had to find a day pass, challenging when its very early and you’re hungry and don’t speak Italiano, but we managed and soon we were on the boat to Guidecca where our Ostello Venezia awaited. Once we got there pretty soon we worked out with the help of the nice receptionist lady that in our confusion, or stupidity, we had booked the hostel for the previous night, Wednesday. Luckily, they had a couple of beds available, and she did not charge us extra for the “no show” the night before. We couldn’t have a nap because the check-in had not officially opened so instead we just had a quick shower and breakfast and felt human again.

Ostello Venezia

The day passes enabled us to travel freely on the waterbuses, known in Italian as Vaporetti, but gondola rides (more for fun) and water taxis are hellishly expensive, so we avoided those. The vaporetti stop at a bus-like station on the water, and “conductors” dock the boats with ease by a quick flick of a rope around the metal bollards on the “bus-stop.” Each vaporetto is numbered and the routes are displayed – much like the subway maps in London – on boards around the city and on tourist maps. Getting around was pretty easy then, as long as you got on the correct numbered boat and the one going in the correct direction!

Us on the Vaporetto

To tell you the truth, I actually could not tell you all the places we saw and what we did in those (almost) two days, it was a blur of tiny little passages full of boutique shops, gelateria, and pizzeria. The city is very old, but not dirty or sad looking, just full of character. Almost every street, lined with washing lines and window boxes full of colourful flowers, leads to another small passageway, or a square, or a dead end, or a bridge crossing one of the hundreds of canals between the buildings. The cartographer mapping Venice must have one major job on his hands, especially since people change buildings and canals from time to time!

 There are old churches every few blocks, each with their own treasure of paintings and murals dating back hundreds of years. The first one we came across by accident, the Chiesa San Zaccaria, took us by surprise…inside the silent church we found many beautiful tapestries and mosaics under a dome of marble and gold. Many of the churches are free to visit, they just charge for admission to the Crypt or the Treasury, all they ask is for a bit of respect and appreciation.

A Church in San Marco

Venice is pretty crowded, and I’m sure it didn’t help that they weather was perfect the whole time, if not a little too hot. Therefore, we tried to avoid the really touristed places and find our own way around the city. We didn’t have a guidebook, except our handy Let’s Go e-book on Europe, which we used to read up about the sights, but eventually we bought a map because you could get lost for hours in that maze of roads, and we did… OFTEN. The first couple of hours we wandered down alley after alley, across bridges, down busy streets, along the river and into many churches (there are about twenty per island). At lunchtime we found the yummiest looking Bruschetta with mozzarella, basil and tomato; and a Panini with prosciutto and cheese and guzzled it down overlooking the canal leaning against the outer wall of a Chiesa (church).

Bruschetta!

Highlights include the Gondola Ferry trip (traghetti) we took (0,50 Euro for a 30 second crossing of the river) where the Gondolieri sang their way across as they rowed; sitting in the park people-watching; coming out of a row of alley-ways to find ourselves breathing in the sea air in the North; and watching an enormous cruise ship pass through the canal not 100m from where we sat, with the orange sun setting behind it. Oh, and the gelato… we sampled a lot of gelato :)

Venice at night was also a sight to behold, with the lights glittering on the canals and the domes of the churches lit up like halos. We took a little trip across the canal to San Marco on Thursday night and even at midnight the city was still bustling.

Venice at Sunset

The hostel was clean, cheap-ish and included a good breakfast of cereal, rolls, Nutella and jam. The beds were comfy, just a bit squeaky, and the view was incredible as it is right on the bank of the main canal. Unfortunately, because we showered before check in, we left our towels hanging on our beds to dry, and they were stolen, so not as safe as we thought although they do warn to leave all your valuables in the provided lockers…but TOWELS… Come on?? Also, the hostel’s wi-fi was not free and not very reliable (seems to be a theme), however, VeniceConnected – a wi-fi service available throughout the city – was fast and worth the €8 fee.

The time in Venice felt like days, and we spent much of our time wandering aimlessly through the city. So much so, that we almost missed a few of the important “must-see’s” from the guidebook. Friday morning we headed off with the intention of crossing those off our list. After a short stop at San Giorgio, another beautiful and underrated church, we headed to the more famous Basilica San Marco.

Cannareggio

We stood in the queue together only to find we were not allowed to take the back pack inside and had to drop it off at the Left Luggage office down the road (probably for a hefty fee), so we made a decision and I went inside while T sat outside with the bag. Inside I found an awe-inspiring golden mosaic covering all four domes of the 40-plus metre tall church, packed full of tourists and not very silent. It was magnificent, but certainly not as humbling as chancing upon a quiet chapel and being one of three or four people wandering around in silence. From there we took a boat up the canal to the siestera (neighbourhood) of Cannareggio and to the area that used to be the Jewish Ghetto. We aimed in the direction of the main synagogue in the area and went too far… this was great as what we found was the Northern shore of Venice and the fresh sea air! Such a grand change from the suffocating heat of the small streets and bright sunlight (as if those things could be bad…). At this point we decided that a trip out to Murano would be a good idea but not before making a beeline (and sure of it by checking the map) for the Synagogue Square. This took us through some of the quietest and most authentic residential streets of the city and it was lovely to be out of the constant tourist buzz that occupies much of Venice.

Murano, the “Glass Island” was our next stop and the last on our whirlwind tour. The island is most famous for… you guessed it, glass! Some

A Murano Glass Creation

reading this may be familiar with the name Murano but I must admit, before today we had no idea it was in Venice! Boy do they make a lot of beautiful things on this small island though, its art! The problem with Murano is that its pretty far from everywhere in Venice and the vaporetti don’t really travel that quickly, in fact they’re pretty slow add rush hour to the mix and this slows things down even more. Leaving two hours to spare before catching our train at twenty past 4 seemed more than sufficient and those were our famous last words.

15h00: We left Murano and boarded the vaporetto #42 in the direction of the Hostel, this seems simple but in fact we had to circumnavigate the entire East side of San Marco which is quite a trip, something out of Gulliver’s Travels. Were also soaked through the open window as some frisky venetian sped his water taxi past the bus!

15h28: Alighted at Zitelle and legged it to the hostel to grab our stuff.

15h38: Packs front and back (20kg) we ran to the catch vaporetto #2 and boarded in the direction of San Marco to catch the #1 up the Grand Canal to the train at 16h20… That was the plan anyway!

15h45: Arrived at the San Marco vaporetti stop to find it so full up with tourists that we couldn’t get on to the boat (countdown begins). Busses arrive every 10 minutes and this was 10 minutes we DIDN’T have! Major inset of panic at this point… tears streaming and many looks from people on the square, we considered taking a water taxi but were absolutely astounded when the chap asked for SIXTY euros!! Run it was! We ran and made it by the skin of our teeth onto another bus at the next stop and started making our way painfully slowly (as it is when you are in a mad rush) up the Grand Canal.

15h50: Finding out that we had 30 minutes of journey left and only twenty minutes to make the train we realised that if we didn’t run across the shortest part of the city we weren’t going to make it! In fact we were pretty sure we weren’t going to make it anyway! So off we got at San Tome.

15h55: Started running… winding our way through passages without a map was risky (we had given it away to some Aussies at the hostel!!) but luckily familiar from our wanderings the day before.

16h10: After a mad 15 minute run, sweating like pigs and dead tired we arrived at Ferrovia Statione…. And we made the train! Phew!

What a day it was! We are now in Geneva and really looking forward to a proper bed at Trist’s dads house and a good nights sleep.

x

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26 May 2011 · 3:03 PM

Czechlist destination number 3! (with assistance from the lovely Dom)

I’m sure the lame joke in the title has been used a million times, but truly and honestly I didn’t know when I wrote it down… promise! Jokes aside, it has really become a bit of a checklist for us (and as boring as that sounds, it’s really not), but we already miss all the places we’ve been to. London for its vibe, chilling with Rich and making new friends! Berlin had its sausages and incredible history, all amazingly shown to us by Chrissy!!! And now Prague is also behind us… *sniff* and what an incredible city it is!

Our visit to Prague can be segmented into the various (and diverse) quarters of the city, one of them only discovered on our last day… but more about that later.

The Hostel Elf is a worthwhile, clean, friendly and all round fantastic spot to stay in Prague. Breakfast was included in the price of the hostel and they even hosted a free ‘barbeque’ where we could have sausages and bread – Czechs have everything with bread! Thanks Kotzes for finding it online when we couldn’t get wifi in Berlin! And this was our home base, not 10 minutes from the most important sights that the city has to offer. However, their Internet (wifi) connection leaves much to be desired… Internet addicts that we are, and obviously the importance of keeping you lovely people up to date with the URT, meant our first stop after dumping our kit in the (freely available) lockers was to find a spot of grub and a decent Wifi connection! We found this a short walk up the road along with a rather petulant man who may well have been some sort of Saint as he carried golden liquid in large quantities to me!! Happy place! Needless to say that after a couple of the local (and by this I mean the unpronounceable) beers, heads hit pillows in a big way!

The first day was full up with sights as we explored the city. Prague has 4 main sections/quarters: the Old Town, New Town, the Jewish Quarter and on the opposite bank of the River Vltava, the Little Quarter. Furthermore there is the Prague Castle district that is the oldest surviving contiguous castle in the world according to our informative Irish guide Brian on the FREE tour we took on our last day in Prague. So on the first day we meandered around the Old Town from the Powder Gate to the Old Town Square with its Gothic, Baroque and Art Nouveau architecture. Ravaged by various wars from the Middle Ages to WWII, Prague has built and rebuilt itself over the years. But it still has the feel of an old European city with medieval influences all over the place, think Gargoyles, pennants and Coats of Arms! We were half expecting a horse guard to arrive announcing some nobleman’s arrival.

The New Town in stark contrast houses all of the modern niceties that one would expect of a European capital. Shopping streets, trams, busses, etc. So this part we sort of saw from the windows of public transport on the second day. Wenceslas Square however was a highlight of the New Town that is great during the day or night.

Wenceslas Sq.

Full of tourists but definitely worth it! For those humming a certain Christmas carol to themselves round about now, it’s spelt the same but has no correlation as Wenceslas was in fact the idle, drunkard, criminal son of one of Prague’s greatest Kings, Charles IV who built much of what makes the city what it is today. When you are fortunate enough to visit, his influence (and name) is all over the city, Charles University and the famous Charles Bridge to mention just two.

Charles Bridge

So that’s two of four districts, we touched on the Little Quarter briefly on day one when we walked over the 1357 bridge commissioned by Charles IV that carries his name. This was the bridge that displayed the heads of 27 Hussite men (forefathers of the protestant faith) who were arrested and executed for reasons most notably their religious differences with the Catholic Church and their habit of defenestration… i.e. Throwing Catholic politicians from rather tall towers. Their heads, Brian says, were on display for the discerning protester to check out for no less than 20 years.

Now (and this is the bit we only discovered on the last day during our free city tour) to exhibit how old Prague really is, the final district is the Jewish Quarter. A maze of narrow streets awaits you but also a number of Europe’s oldest Synagogues and a cemetery rumoured to contain the remains of up to 150000 Czech jews. Incredible! This feels like I’m writing a freaking guidebook!

This city has been such an eye opener as it has put up the first of our language barriers (Chrissy helped in Deutschland) and also has been the first city where we were entirely on our own. Great though because this is the part of the URT where we actually get to do some proper travelling, unguided and mouths agape at how awesome it is to have this opportunity!

Praha

Before I go, there are some things that you can’t miss when in Prague and you will see/hear/smell them when you do come here!
1. Trams – dangerous things that approach silently and always from the opposite direction to where you are looking!
2. Babies and/or Pregnant women – they are invading I tell you.
3. Super speedy escalators – twice as fast as anywhere else in the world, be mindful!
4. Snogging couples – probable the reason for number 2!
5. Trdelnik – Sweet Czech pastries that are rolled thin, rotisseried until brown and crispy and then covered in sugar and cinnamon, yummo!


6. Music – whether it’s being played (or sung like the a capello concert we heard in the Church of St. Nicholas, a definite highlight) or just the influence it has (statues of composers, every second person with an instrument) music fills Prague with an old school cultural atmosphere that we didn’t notice in London or Berlin.

Trist out!

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24 May 2011 · 2:09 PM

Country girl in the big city

On Saturday we started the day off with fresh strawberries in Chrissy’s flat, which by the way, overlooks a field of goats, bunnies and chickens! The train from her village (population 149 people), called Schape, to Berlin, runs only once an hour, so we took a walk down the road to her stables to pass the time. I have never seen such an incredible stable yard! I guess most of you would be saying, ‘it is just a stable yard after all, what can be so amazing’. Well, it looked like it came straight from an old English movie. The whole yard is a square, with towers on the corners and paved paths in the centre. They have a treadmill – i.e. Horse Gym – for the horses to train on, a Solarium so that the sweaty horses can dry quickly in the winter, and of course, an outdoor and an indoor arena so that they can ride all year round, even when it is snowing outside. There are about 65 beautiful sports horses in the yard, and many more mares and foals in the stud next door. Paddocks are big and some are grassed, but they all have troughs of lucerne and hay down one side. Needless to say, if I were a horse, this is the place I would want to be!

Stables at Rosencaree

Anyway, enough about the horses… We took the train to Berlin and started our day sight-seeing at the Prime Minister’s house, although we can’t remember what its called…

Beautifully landscaped gardens of the Schloss now occupied by the Prime Minister

There, we wandered the gardens for a while and made our way back along the river. Next up was Kurferstendam, a long road filled with expensive shops and global brands, much like the Champs-Elysees, Oxford Street or Orchard Street in Singapore! The final of the German Football league was held in the Berlin Olympic Stadium that day so everywhere we went there were scores of German tourists in their blue and white outfits singing and drinking in the streets. It was very festive, and the chants were pretty catchy too! We made a turn in at the Ka De We – Department store of the West – and marvelled at the millions of items sold in this 7-storey building. I think the most amazing was the Gourmet Food level. Here you could find food and drinks from anywhere in the world. From Sushi to Bratwurst to Ben and Jerry’s ice cream…you name, they had it. I was particularly drooling over the delicate cakes and pastries they had for sale, albeit I could never afford them!

After a refuel of Doner kebabs and Turkish pizza, we headed in the direction of the University building to see if we could get a free view of the city, but unfortunately they were closed.  Instead, we headed to Potsdammerplatz to get ice cream (Sooo good!), see the Sony centre (gigantic!) and view more pieces of the Berlin wall, one covered in chewing gum pieces.

Really good ice-cream in Potsdammerplatz

On our way to our last tour of the day, we walked through the Holocaust memorial, a series of different sized concrete blocks forming a maze in the square.

We got to the underground bunker tour just after the last English tour left, so we had to do the German version with Chrissy translating. She did a great job, despite the grumpy lady moaning because she ‘couldn’t hear the man.’ However, the tour itself was very interesting, and rather chilling to think thousands of people lived and died in those underground rooms while trying to avoid bombings above.

Holocaust Memorial on top of the previously destoyed Hitlers' bunker

On the train we were having some fun with Mezoink, some of you may know the story… my mother collects pigs, so she gave me one to take with us around and take photos with him wherever we go! However, Mezoink enjoyed Berlin so much, he is still hanging around on the train to Schape and back! (We shall find a Mezoink (Merle’s Oink) the second at some stage.

We decided to cook dinner with Chrissy’s friends at the stables so we got some spaghetti and sauce and had pasta by the stable lights and to the sound of the horses nuzzling their hay. Fabulous!

On Sunday morning we took it slow, as you should, and went to Chrissy’s friends house down the road for breakfast. We enjoyed listening to them chat in German and putting in our two cents when we could :) The plan for the day was to head to Potsdam, which is another part of the city. We started at the Sanssouci gardens where there are many different palaces. The first one, Schloss Sanssouci, is a like a replica of Versaille, with sweeping staircases and fountains all over the gardens.

Schloss Sanssouci in Potsdam

Then, the Orangerie, which is bigger but slightly more modern, and what was once a working Citrus orchard, is now used as wedding and function venues for the grandest of parties.The last one we visited, and bare in mind we walked about 4km in between them, was the Neues Palais… wow did these blokes have large egos (must have been making up for something) the new palace was even bigger than the others and more adorned with Baroque beautification than all of the others (this was a difficult feat to achieve)!

Neues Palais in Potsdam

The town of Potsdam is pretty but also steeped in history, that’s what is so different about these places. The history doesn’t just go back to the time when Jan van Ribeek landed in the Cape but rather through Baroque and Renaissance times all the way into the Middle ages and in some cases BCE, thos Romans really got in everywhere!!!!

A quick blast down the Autobahn took us to the Bus Station on the outskirts of Berlin and about an hour later we were on our way to Prague via Dresden. Watch out for the next blog post on our first two days in Prague.

x

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21 May 2011 · 6:44 PM

Large and in charge!

The first thing you notice about all of the prominent landmarks in Berlin are that they are absolutely freaking GIGANTIC!!!!! To name but a few that we saw, the Brandenburg Gate, tall Romanesque columns supporting the most majestic and spectacular archways you have ever seen…

This enormous gate lies along the line where the division of West and East Berlin was!


The Parliament Library

Also the Berliner Dom, a cathedral that is the most majestic and spectacular thing you have ever…  hang on I’m repeating myself already! But on a serious note, these things are huge, from the Dom, to the Chancellor’s offices and residence (all pictured) this place is just full of incredible places, old and new, and as impressive and beautiful as each other!

The enormous cathedral in the city. It has bronze statues and domes.

Part of the German Parliament and in the background the Fernsehturm (the Berlin TV/Radio tower)

Its also warmer here, which means one thing… in fact it means two things, Shorts (yes yes yes) and cold German Brau, and you could drink beer the whole day and not have the same one twice (unless you really liked it). On this trip, we’re attempting to stick within a certain budget, difficult as this may be (especially in London) we’ve been able to enjoy ourselves a bit more here as the prices aren’t quite as exorbitant and therefore a sneaky bratwurst was not out of the question today with some great spicy German mustard. It also helps to have a great local guide in our friend Christin who not only showed us all of the great sights but also all of the local spots and where to hang out that isn’t too ‘touristy’. This is the best thing because its cheaper and most importantly its far more authentic!

So on our authentic local guided tour, we saw the biggest and best sights to see. The German Reichstag (Parliament), another one of the most impressive buildings that I have ever seen, as well as the part of the world famous Wall that once divided the West of Berlin from the Soviet East. This also in accordance with the situation of the time that found half of Germany under Soviet rule. The wall has become a sort of tribute to the struggle that was fought against the division of the city and the country.

Lunch was at the oldest ‘fast-food’ restaurant in Berlin (established in 1930) and the best Currywurst in the city according to Chrissy, with some potato salad and a Berliner Pilsener for me and a Bratwurst and Cola for Dom. This was preceded by a hour long cruise along the River Spree all the way past the Chancellery before turning at the Tiergarten (a massive conservatory full of indigenous forest and the Berlin Zoo) and making our way back to the dock taking in all of the sights (all of the aforementioned significant buildings are on the river).

Its an hour long train trip back to Schaepe where Chrissy lives and we dined by the light of a streetlamp on veal schnitzel and the area’s famous Asparagus! And that was Berlin (day 1) in a nutshell!

Trist out!

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