All posts filed under: Travel

Berlin to, Annecy via Geneva

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A very early start today, courtesy of a 7am flight to Geneva. Up at 4.30, taxi out the front at 5, airport by 5.30. Diabolical coffee and stale croisants had us reminiscing already of the great coffee culture Berlin has. That and a wonderful U-Bahn system, funky culture and a love of drinking beer…everywhere and anytime! Berlin has been great, too short, but tremendously interesting. We got Geneva at 8.30 and met Rachael’s brother, Declan, or universally know as Specks, and went down to the lake to have breakfast, with another weird coffee concoction. Our bus was 40 minutes late, and border passport checks caught out one miscreant, further delaying us another 30 mins, so we were very pleased to finally get to Annecy at about 3.30. Time to meet up with another of our trekking group, Cards, and a quick beer before our apartment was ready, and what a place it is. Right on the canal in the middle of the old town. Brownie points galore for moi! The girls, Kate, Rachel, Maddy and …

One more dash around Berlin

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How quickly it rushes by, before you know it your time is almost up in Berlin! We’re re-covering a bit of territory today, and hoping to just wander a bit. First call is coffee and breakfast, then by U-Bahn to our first drop, Topographie des Terrors, which tells the story, in all its chilling detail, of the rise of the Nazi Party. Housed on the block where Nazi Germany’s most feared instituions – the security services, the Gestapo and the SS once stood, it is a sobering reminder of what can happen when democracy does astray. The remains of the former torture cells are used to mount an exhibition chronicling Nazi war crimes, especially against the Jews. Somber stuff, the whole place is jam packed with information, quite overwhelming in its detail. Pretty essential viewing! Keeping the theme going, we traveled to the mainly Jewish centre, formerly Spandauer Vorstadt,  just north of centre. Walking the streets we passed the Grosse Hamburger Memorial to concentration victims, right outside the rusty gates to the old Jewish Cemetery, …

Potsdam

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Time for a small detour out of Berlin today, some 30kms away to Potsdam, summer vacation jaunt for the Royals of days gone by. But first one must fuel the fire, so another cafe for breakfast, and a ripper at that. We are quickly discovering Berlin’s love for coffee, and have found another beauty just up the road from home. Plus, parked out the front has to be the crappiest car in Germany. It fair dinkum looks like its just been pulled from the river, covered in mold, grit and grime. Remarkably, it still drives, evidently! We didn’t witness this miracle, but the staff assured me it does in fact start! There’s an article about it on the counter inside, but our waitress was Dutch and couldn’t read it, or explain this wonder of modern mechanics! Anyway, breakfast was fabulous, so much so the wasps attacked in number. Germany is in the grip of drought and wasps are in plague proportions, dive bombing anything sweet. Evidently they dont like croissants, which is reassuring! Fueled, we …

Berlin, time to get arty!

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A great sleep in was rewarded with a run! Yeah I know, go figure! After 6km’s huffing and puffing around the canal next to us we finally quit and had breakfast at a great little cafe in the posh part of Kreuzberg. Coffee and healthy stuff like muesli…and croissants. We are quickly discovering Berlin has caught the coffee bug. Today is planned around a bit of culture, mainly on Museum Island, called as such because most of the significant museums in Berlin are on an Island on the river Spree. Island is probably a bit of a stretch, as you wouldn’t know it as you arrive over a bridge, its just another block in town which happens to have a bit of water around it! We did the abridged version yesterday, today we attack!! The main museums of interest are the Neues (new) and Pergamon, which both specialise in antiquities. The queue to the Neue was shorter, so we joined that and shuffled to the ticket booth, bought a museum island pass, and walked straight …

Berlin Day 2 Fat Tire City Bike Tour

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Well rested after another great nights sleep, we headed into town via coffee & breakfast, jumping off the train at Alexanderplatz and finding Fat Tires office almost straight away. We have used them before in Paris, bike tours being a great way to see the sights and gain orientation of the city, all whilst learning a bit of history along the way. Our tour goes for about five hours, covering off most of the important landmarks and sites of historical significance. We meet our tour guide dude Randall, who hails from Brisbane, get kitted up, and away we go. Most of the ride covers the old Eastern side of Berlin, which seems to have more interest, starting with a great example of how not to marry up buildings which survived the bombings of WW2…soviet style styling!! Down to the Bebelplatz, site of the Nazi book-burning madness of 1933… Through Potsdamer Platz, And on to probably the most significant site of the Cold War, Checkpoint Charlie. Even though the checkpoint is only a replica, the real …

Berlin day One

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After a 12 hour sleep, I reckon we might actually be back on track, and what better way to kick start the day than with coffee? We wandered around Hamburg looking for something open, checking out the graffiti as we went, which is plentiful, until we found a small cafe which ticked the boxes. Then back to our hotel to grab our bags for the train trip to Berlin. I mentioned earlier the hotels history as a water tower, and the interiors are impressive solid blocks of stone and brick, which were the foundations for the tower, and make a vivid first impression, and in our case a last one as we bid goodbye. We got to Hamburg Hbf early, and fortified ourselves with another coffee as we waited for our 12.50 train The train trip to Berlin was an uneventful two hours passing through flat lands made over mainly to crops and low pine plantations, interspersed with wind farms. A taxi from Berlin Hbf to our digs in Kreuzberg, and we were settled in …

Hamburg

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And we’re off again, mixing this trip up between ‘us’ time in Hamburg & Berlin, frolicking in the French Alps with a bunch of Aussies, then to Paris again, moving to Brugge and finishing in Amsterdam. We are super excited about this trip, for which the planning started two years ago when we paid our deposit for the tour du Mont Blanc, having to get in that far in advance to secure our time slot of September 2018. It’s only a short walking season, so slots are precious, and popular. We can’t thank Maddy enough for having it on her ‘bucket list’, thus forcing our hand to join her on what promises to be an epic walk through, what appears to be, a spectacular countryside. We have heard nothing but glowing reviews on this walk, and we await the start with eager anticipation. The great thing about doing this walk is it enables you to add on travel before and/or after, which is what we have done, visiting Germany, Belgium and Amsterdam for the first …

Lukla to Kathmandu for 3 days

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Last night was hilarious, a celebration of the end of our trek, with us shouting our crew a few beers after a successful trip. For days now we have been hearing about Suba’s (one of our porters) prowess on the dance floor, and we finally got to see him in all his glory jiving away, with a few beers under his belt, to the intoxicating Nepalese beats! What a groover! The rest of the boys didn’t hold back either, especially after lubrication, hitting the dance floor at the lodge till the bar was shutdown, thankfully at 10 as our bar tab was getting substantially inflated! Great to see everyone in relax mode, especially the porters who have a tough job lugging our gear for 17 days, and deserve all the beer they could down, which was A LOT!! Credit to them though, they all crawled out of bed at 5.30am to farewell us at the airport, especially Mingma who looked decidedly wobbly! Only Dawa was flying back to Kathmandu with us, the rest live in …

DAY 16 Phakding to Lukla

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Our last day of walking, and a nice easy three hours at that with only one hill near the end to remind us of what we will be missing! As we walk we see reflections of ourselves going the other way, all fresh and eager, chatty and excited, still smelling like roses unlike our own slightly grubby, well worn and worn out fragrance! The closer we get to the finish the slower we seem to go as the magnitude and scope of what has gone before dawns on us. The culmination of 15 days battling both the elements, the environment, and our own mental demons (especially the Chola Pass, thanks very much!) is just at the top of the hill, through the arch we gathered at to date stamp the start of our trek….and soon, the end. Our final destination. But, it’s not the destination, but the journey we celebrate. At times it was hard, bloody hard, but for every tough climb, a moments rest was had to bask in the satisfaction of being here. …

DAY 15 Namche to Phakding

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We are truly on the home stretch when wake up is 7.30, and we don’t need to leave till 10…so, some random thoughts/insights on our fellow trek warriors. 1. They come in all ages, male & female equally, and in varying states of preparation & condition. 2. Dinner conversation in luxury apartment (anywhere in China)… “What do we want to do for our next holiday? How about a nice stroll in Nepal?” Next week!! “Better prepare by getting the best gear, must be organised”. 3. Re point 2, a lot of mainly Chinese, but not exclusively, seem very ill prepared physically. The pain on some faces at the start of a climb, and the agonising, crawling pace makes you wonder if they will ever complete any days trek, let alone the whole thing! 4. Lots of chirpy banter on day one, less so day two, almost none by day five! 5. We saw some spectacular outfits, from the stunning crocheted poncho, ultra wide brimmed hatted, monster sunglasses ensemble; thru to the parasol shaded gent staggering …