Month: June 2015

Day 12 was spent exploring Berlin – a free walking tour from the hostel, a bus tour, A Visit to Checkpoint Charlie, a fabulous dinner thanks to Yelp reviews and a cruise on the River Spree. I also went to the top of the TV Tower, or Berliner Fernseturm. It is the tallest tower of its kind in Europe. I had a Night Owl reservation, which was a sale deal on Viator, and was as far as I am concerned the best way to see the city from up high – as the sun is setting. It was beautiful. I have just a little time to write this morning, as I am headed to a tour and plenary lecture at the Reigchstag building, where the Bundestag, or parliament meet, so I am uploading the pictures, but will add comments and more info later.

Today Jackalie and I went to Bratislava, Slovakia. If you had asked me what I knew about Bratislava 6 months ago, I would have know nothing- not its location or anything. Bratislava is about an hour away from Vienna, and Vienna and Bratislava are among the closest capital cities in the world (less than 34 miles apart). Both cities lie on the Danube, and both have a long, and in many cases, painful history related to the occupation of the Germans and the Russians. Another cool fact is that Bratislava is the only national capital that borders two independent countries (Austria and Hungary).

It was gorgeous, and Jackalie and I had such a spectacular time exploring – our timing could not have been better. We started with a bit of a parking adventure (The Cyrillic alphabet made for quite an adventure) and then wandered into a church we saw in the immediate area.

We knew we wanted to visit the Hrad, or Castle on the top of the hill, but to get there we had to navigate the public transit system – without a map – but by asking for some help, we ended up meeting friendly Slovak who guided us on our way, and we were headed to the Hrad. The Hrad has a neat and unique history, and has recently been reconstructed following a fire that left it in shambles for many years. The building is now used as the Slovakian National Museum, and we were both impressed that it survived the tumultuous history and continued occupations that have shaped Slovakia.

When we got to the Hrad, we enjoyed spectacular mountaintop views of Bratislava on both sides of the Danube – It was amazing!

We bought our tickets for the Hrad, and discovered that there was a display of Historical Church Paraments. The church geeks in each of us were quite happy about that.

We spent HOURS in the castle, and had a wonderful time!

After exploring the Hrad, we started the decent down the hill on a cobblestone path that was, well, just a little steep:

We stopped at the bottom for an Original Budweiser and some water, and we enjoyed the spectacular view of the old city walls.

Moving on from there we explored the church where they held the coronations for the Austria-Hungarian Empire, and it was stunning.

We continued our explorations by wandering around the town center – and we stumbled upon a music festival, so we had a beautiful soundtrack to our explorations and lunch. At lunch I decided to try a traditional Slovakian dish. It was a sweet dish, but very yummy – here is the menu and a picture of the Slovakian meal – It was really good, but sweet.

We wondered a bit more, then we headed back to Vienna.

We enjoyed sitting outside and chatting on a lovely Vienna evening, and then to further my culinary exploration, we went to an Afgani Restaurant. It was excellent!

It was a beautiful day, and I was so glad Jackalie had suggested Bratislava months ago when we were talking about my visit. 🙂

Better late than never – on Day 9 I had more fun in Vienna.

My day started with heading to the Museum Quarter to explore some of the statues and buildings. While I was there, I got some great pictures of scenery, and did some great people watching. The most entertaining were these street performers – I will just leave this here for your enjoyment.

It was pretty funny!

I did enjoy the other scenery and parts of town. Here are some images from my exploration.

After that, I decided to go to the Museum of Technology in Vienna, or the Technisches Museum Wien. It was so informative – I loved the displays of transportation, technology and innovations, but the most cool room was a hidden, climate controlled room that featured some pretty spectacular musical instruments – It was fantastic – from the organs to the rare string instruments and the different typed of pianos. I really loved the recordings they had of famous musicians playing the instruments featured – I felt like I had stepped back to those historic places as I listened.

I spent hours here exploring, and really only scratched the surface.

Interior of a train simulator

I was shocked – Pallets are different sizes everywhere!

I thought this was so neat and different!

I loved the recorded music, particularly from the organ.

After exploring the museum, I headed back to Andy and Jackalie’s flat to start on our next adventure. On my tour yesterday, I had discovered that Vienna was home to the worlds oldest ferris wheel, and as you will see in a moment, a very unique ferris wheel with very different, but cool ferris wheel cars. It is called Das Wiener Riesenrad. When I realized they were open late, we decided to go this evening and check it out. The views were STUNNING, and the entire experience of the Prater (or amusement park area) was a ton of fun! Andy had fun with the bumper cars and Jackalie and I certainly had our share of entertainment looking at the park rides and sharing why that in no way looked like fun to us! They were certainly not the safest of rides – think 1960’s carnival rides. It was a delightful way to spend an evening strolling through a historic part of Vienna.

After all of our strolling and people watching, we realized that we should probably grab some dinner, but finding somewhere open at that time of night proved to be a bit difficult. We found a great little restaurant in the Stefenplatz area, and had a very enjoyable meal.

Vienna – just wow!

Today I had my first experience exploring in a country whose primary language I am not very familiar with, and think it worked out ok – now, that being said – most people here I find do speak english, so there is a “crutch” available. I was quickly able to decipher the important words I needed to navigate the transit system, and with a map from Jackalie and Andy I was on my way!

I decided today that I was going to explore Vienna to get a better grip on what I wanted to do – so I headed to the Schwedenplatz area, which is off of the the Ringstrasse (Ring Road). This circle is the site of the old city walls, and the location of many of the most famous sites in Vienna. I enjoyed exploring a bit on foot, then decided that a bus tour was a great way to learn more about the city (I do love the facts they share) – So i found a kiosk and bought a ticket. The tour I purchased also gave me a River cruise, so I enjoyed many sites today.

The City Tour

I am a sucker for these tours – I think they are a great way to get an overview of a city and learn some cool facts, all while beginning to get a feeling for the layout and navigation of the city.

The Danube Island (and watching the police speed trap)

I decided to hop off the tour here and explore the park before heading to the pier for the boat ride. It was a very cool park, full of locals picnicking, playing games and just hanging out. It is a lovely manmade island between the Danube River and Old Danube (a meander that broke off).

This was such a lovely area, and they were in the process of setting up for a huge festival.

While I was here I grabbed a quick bite from a Greek kiosk – that may very well have been the best Gyro I have ever had!

When I left and headed back to the bus stop I witnessed a Viennese speed trap – they had it down to a science, and I must have seen 14 tickets handed out while I was waiting on my bus.

The boat ride

I headed to the pier for the boat ride. It was lovely – even though it started raining and they closed the top deck – the scenery was amazing – and I loved navigating the locks from the river to the canal – so cool!

Hanging out in Schwedenplatz

At this point I decided just to hand out in the Schwedenplatz and enjoy a nice coffee. It was neat watching the locals commuting home, shopping, and even just hanging out themselves, as well as the myriad of visitors trying to understand and navigate the transit system – which by the way is FABULOUS! I absolutely love the Tram system in Vienna – It is convenient and so easy to use!

Dinner and Vienna by Night

Jackalie, Andy and I went to dinner at a lovely place by the Belvedere Palace called Salm Bräu. It is a brewery restaurant located in old wine vaults – It was a lovely restaurant, with great food and good conversation.

After dinner, it was late, but we detoured a bit going home, and I am so glad we did, because I got to see some spectacular sites in Vienna all lit up – Vienna truly comes to life at night when the buildings are all lit up – they just shine!

The Rathaus all lit up.

The National Theater

The Hall of Justice and surrounding statues

More fun tomorrow – I am off to bed!

Day 7 was a long travel day.

* If you wanted to see pictures from day 6 (Claridges and the Science Museum) they are now posted on the day 6 post.

I started on the Ferry crossing between Dover and Calais. Seeing Dover lit up at night was very pretty, and you could see some of the white cliffs, which was nice.

The crowd on the night ferry was an interesting one, and made for great people watching. Because the ferry is on international waters, they could sell items duty free – so there were plenty of folks stocking up. The crossing took about 2 hours, and then we boarded the bus to roll on off and continue the journey. I slept a bit at this point on the bus, and was thankful that the guy that had been sitting next to me found a new friend to sit with and I am sure share more drinks, So I was able to sleep without as much interruption.

It quickly became clear to me that with the planned stop in Ghent I was not going to arrive in Brussels in time to catch my early train to Vienna, but at that point the bus wifi was no longer working – so I was just going to have to figure it out in Brussels.

In Brussels, I had my first moments of “language shock” as I figured out what things meant on the station signs. I was able t decipher, and headed on the next train to Brussels Noord, because I knew that was the station that the trips to Frankfurt (which would take me to Austria) would depart from. Once I got to Noord (at around 7:30) I realized that the next train I would be able to catch wasn’t until 10:30, which would but me in Vienna about 9:30 – so only about 4 hours behind schedule. I sent Jackalie a message that I would be late, then had some time to kill in the Train station. I found a small deli/shop with wifi (and a place to charge my phone) and had a croissant and coffee and just hung out there for a bit then boarded the train.

I cannot say enough about the train – it was comfortable, and because I am older than 26 I had to purchase the 1st class rail pass, so it was really almost luxurious. The seats reclined, had pillows, and I had plenty of room. I had to change to another ICE train in Frankfurt, so I used that opportunity to get some refreshments and a small picnic for the remaining long journey.

The scenery on the train was fantastic!

                When I got back on the train in Frankfurt, I had the opportunity to FaceTime with Mandy for a bit – they wifi wasn’t the best connection, but we talked for a bit, and that was fun.

After that, I dozed off, read and walked around the train. All in all not a bad way to travel, and upon my arrival in Vienna both Jackalie and Andy met me at the train station – I enjoyed their overview of the transport system and catching up with them as we ventured to their WONDERFUL flat. I was able to take a nice shower after 24 hours of travel and then just enjoyed catching up with them both.

As of today I have traveled approximately 5,332 miles on airplanes, trains, ferries and buses! 🙂

I went to bed without writing the blog post, and slept in a bit, and now I am off to explore Vienna.

My last day in London. There were many things I wanted to see, that I didn’t get a chance to do (my plans may have been a bit ambitious). What I didn’t get to do, this trip, that will certainly happen on a later trip – because I will be coming back, are:

• Visiting Greenwich, the observatory and standing on the Prime Meredian.
• Visiting the Museum of Natural History.
• A few other Museums (V&A, Tate, British Museum)
• Touring the Tower of London
• Going to the top of Tower Bridge

Even without doing those things, this trip to London has been fabulous, and I think a great success!

Packing

Because I knew it was important to get at least one good night’s sleep before I had to sleep on a bus tonight, I let myself sleep in. One of my Australian roommates at the Wombats hostel and I had made plans to go to the Science Museum together, but we both agreed that we wouldn’t leave until check out time (10:00AM), then we would take our luggage to the held luggage station at Victoria, then we would head to the museum. It took some finagling, and I learned some important lessons bout re packing my bag, but I did eventually get everything repacked in the same luggage! We started the journey with out luggage to the station, dealt with some rerouting issues on the tube, and then we headed to the Science Museum.

Science Museum

I know that everyone is SHOCKED! that I went to a science museum, but it certainly made my geeky, STEM teacher and technology geek heart happy. The exhibits were awesome! The history of computers, history of math, transportation, innovations that have changed the world and artifacts were just fabulous.

Claridges

When I decided that I would be stopping in London, I knew high tea would have to be on the agenda, and after doing some research I decided to splurge on High Tea at Claridges. It may very well be the most expensive meal I have in Europe, but WOW, it was so good! 🙂 the building is absolutely gorgeous, and quite unique. I enjoyed the , and it was a great way to end my London Experience.

Validating Eurail Pass – a stroll through London 

I knew I was going to be tight making my train in the morning, I decided to go ahead and get my rail pass activated to make my transfer easier, so I walked from Mayfair at Claridges to the Eurail Aide office on Piccadilly. It was a neat walk through a very ritzy shopping district – Rolex, Coach, Tiffany’s – you name a fancy retailer, and I passed it. The buildings were lovely, and everyone of the jewelry stores had a guard outside. It was a very pretty stroll, and much needed after the excessive amounts of fabulous food at Claridges. I validated my railpass with no problem, then I caught a bus to Victoria to begin to bid London goodbye.

Housekeeping (Oyster Card and £ use)

Once I got to Victoria, I decided to go ahead and trade in my Oyster Card (they will refund the balance as well as the deposit you pay to get the card). I decided it was best to turn in, and just get a new one when I’m back. It worked out nicely, because I ended up with a refund of £10.00 put on my debit card. I had planned my cash use pretty well, but I still had about £15 in notes, and about £5 in coins. I decided to go to M & S in the station and buy snacks for the bus and train ride. (No cheese though – can’t export that!). I kept the coins, in case I needed to use the bathroom in the station, because no £, no entry – And, that, my friends could be bad.

Bus Travel

I had booked with Megabus.uk. It is the budget of budget travels – so my expectations were low, but we loaded quickly, and I was pleasantly surprised at the comfort of the seat. I was hopeful I would end up with a seat section to myself, but I ended up with “drunk boy” next to me. In the time it took us to get from London to Dover to catch the ferry – I am certain he drank a 6 pack of Budweiser (seriously – I’m in Europe – and he is chugging Budweiser?!?) in that time. We are about to get on the ferry – so I’m going to stretch my legs, get some fresh air and pray he decides to sleep (or maybe get a new seat?). In the morning I will be in Brussles and catching the trains to Vienna to see Jackalie & Andy!  Can’t wait. I have pictures to share of the tea, the Science Museum and more, but I am writing this on the bus, which has wifi – but it is too slow to upload pictures, so they will be a fun treat for you all later. 🙂 Off to the ferry!

Today I had my Isle of Wight Day Trip/ Tour. I had booked this as a Groupon on Groupon.uk, and wasn’t really sure exactly what to expect, other than a bus ride, a ferry ride, some time at the beach, and some time at the Osborne House. For this tour I had to be at South Kensington at 7:30. Normally this tube ride and walk to the station takes about 30 minutes, so I was going to be in good shape from my hostel to get there in time, but there was a problem – they were working on the rail line that I needed to take, and it was shut down between the Docklands (where I am) and Central London – and the alternative routes were all telling me it would take over an hour, and because it was Sunday the tube had limited service, so I wasn’t going to be able to go that route. The destination was 10K from me, so I was looking for other options. I ended up getting an Uber Cab, because I could schedule them, and the London Black Cabs are almost impossible to get at that time of the morning on a Sunday.

Fortunately, all of that being said, I did make it to the coach in time, and was VERY thankful I had made it a habit of looking up tube directions each night on the tfl website for the following day’s journey.

When I arrived at the coach, there was a line of people, a driver, and no tour guide. At 7:30, when we were supposed to be rolling out, we still had no tour guide, which was quite worrisome, because we had a long drive, and a ferry to catch in Southhampton. The driver let us go ahead and load up, and you could tell he was concerned we were not rolling out. The tour guide finally showed up at 7:50. apparently he didn’t check the TFL site, and had NO IDEA any of the tube lines were shut down, so he was late.

I am not sure what kind of magic the bus driver did, but we made it to Southampton just in time to roll the bus on the Ferry. I slept most of this ride, which was very needed. Busy days, Late to bed and early to rise was making this girl start to be a bit of a zombie!

Southampton probably sounds familiar to many of you. It was a very important port in American History – it is the port that the Mayflower left from, and is also the port that the Titanic left from, it is currently the buisest  cruise line port in the UK (Queen Mary 2, anyone?)

The drive through Southampton was lovely, and it is a place I would like to explore some other time, because of it’s long history and significance, but that was not on the agenda for today, or even this trip.

Once loaded on the Ferry we got off and went up stairs, to where they had a deck, but also a bar (at 10:00 in the morning) and restaurant. I decided I needed coffee and a scone, so I enjoyed those as the ferry readied to take off, then went to the windy, cool deck to enjoy the view.

The ferry ride took about an hour, so I wandered around the (quite small) ferry when I got too cold on the deck. The views were lovely, and I especially enjoyed the sailboats, as apparently the Isle of Wight is a huge sailboating community.

Some pictures from the Ferry Ride:

The Isle of Wight is fascinating for many reasons. It is the smallest county in England, at high tide, but at low tide it is somewhere else. It has smaller versions of chalky, white cliffs (Think Dover), and it is a fossil haven. Tons of fossils have been found in the cliffs, and much of the knowledge of prehistoric life in that area come from discoveries that were made on the Isle of Wight. In 2013, a 9 year old girl discovered a new dinosaur, that is now named after her. You can learn more here.

One we were on the island we headed to Shanklin beach. Due to some road construction, we didn’t have as much time here as we were supposed to have, so I decided to skip the Chine and just explore the beach. I had a nice stroll, go my feet in the sand, and even dipped my feet into the VERY COLD English Channel. The sand was rocky, and there was some very colorful seaweed – I took lots of pictures, and got some (small) rocks for my science olympiad kids to look at, because they were cool.

I did get some pictures of the White Cliff I could see from the beach as well. Shanklin was lovely, and I wished I had more time to explore the old village with its thatched roofs and other features, but there were only so many hours for the tour.

I did get to put my feet in the sand this summer after all!

The seaweed was VERY colorful. (and funky to step on!)

Our final stop before rebounding the Ferry and heading back to London was the Osborne House. The Osborne house was the Vacation Home of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The home was MASSIVE, and the decorations were unbelievable, but again, no photos were allowed indoors. The most striking room to me was the Durbar Room (designed by Rudyard Kipling’s Father). Victoria had a thing for Indian design and items after she became the Empress of India, and as a result much of the tour focused on her connections to India. The story was great, but the room was breathtaking. I couldn’t take pictures inside, but you can learn and see more here on the English Heritage Site.

I could take pictures of the outside and the Gardens, and they were SO LOVELY.

Another of the many facts I learned happened while exploring the Swiss Cottage (a cottage that Victoria and Albert had moved from Switzerland to be a “playhouse” for their children. The cottage was lovely (and larger than most people’s homes, mind you) but what was neat was the gardens. Apparently Albert was concerned his children (being royalty, after all) would not learn to be grounded or to value hard work, so he required each of them to maintain a garden and grow food, and in turn he would pay them for their food they harvested (which I thought was pretty impressive).

Here are some of my pictures from the Osborne grounds:

Unfortunately, I ran out of time here as well and didn’t finish exploring the Gardens, royal collection, or Queen Victoria’s private beach.

We loaded up the coach, got on the Ferry and started the trek back to London. I couldn’t believe th horrible traffic on a Sunday afternoon on the Motorway. We finally mad it back to London at 9:00 PM (about 30 mins later than planned), and then I had to trek back to the Hostel, with the still closed tube lines. An hour and 1/2 later, I was happily back at the hostel.

Tomorrow is my last day in London, and I have some fun things planned, so stay tuned! 🙂

So, today’s post will be a short on words, but image heavy  – It is 23:29 (now after uploading it is 0:42) here, and has been a fun, full and exciting day, and tomorrow I catch a early coach to go to the Isle of Wight, so I don’t have a ton of time to write. Hopefully I will be able to write more tomorrow when I am on the bus.

I started my journey early to Watford Junction to catch the bus to the Harry Potter Studio Tour, and then began my “magical” journey. The tour was very cool, but very crowded.

From the beginning entry onto the bus to Leavesden the Potter magic is everywhere. I loved the entry lobby, and especially the fact that they had Starbucks – so it combined some of my favorite things into one place, Harry Potter and Starbucks.

I made an interactive Panorama of the lobby minus the bajillion random people.

The crowd watching, as is the case at most Harry Potter events was epic, but it was very cool to have the chance to immerse myself into the world of the films. The props, costumes, artwork, character models, sets and vehicles were AMAZING to see.

The tour says it lasts about 3 hours, and I found that I spent about 4.5 hours, just taking my time, reading everything, watching the commentary and just really exploring. It was a one way tour, so you couldn’t go back once you had left an area. The most striking exhibit was last, the scale model of Hogwarts – IT WAS PHENOMENAL! The most anitclimatic was the Diagon Alley – and I blame that on the Universal Parks experience – because it is so big, and real there, the few shops and models in the “real film” Diagon Alley were just so similar and small it was hard to get super pumped.

Overall the tour was a wonderful experience, and I was so glad I decided to do it.

Because so many of my friends are Potter fans, I am uploading the entire album to this post for you to enjoy. I will caption some of my favorites and odd pictures later, and to help those that are not Potter people. 🙂