Another sunny day... in Cambridge

We are now in Cambridge for the day, taking a 'Sunday-like' stroll through the town. We've been blessed with another beautiful, sunny day. Took ourselves down to the river, and watched the ducks and swans. Not too many punters today.
Its a bustling town, with great little shops and loads of eateries. Fed ourselves at a pub and then spent some time in a book store. I hope Jane Eyre will be a good read....
Tim (Kerryn's house mate) met us on Thursday night when we arrived at about 6.30pm. It had already gotten very dark by then. At first, it didn't feel as cold as Cesky Krumlov did, but the wind can get very bitter! It sort of snowed yesterday (more like rained). We had a small Australia Day Celebration courtesy of the Martin House crew (Tim, Martin & Pez). Certainly a great way to get introduced to the beer drinking London lot!
The London Eye was too pricey for us. But we did walk miles around the city, from Big Ben to Trafalgar Sq and Oxford St, down Regent St to Piccadilly Circus. It was peak lunch hour by this time. Talk about human traffic!! Then we headed to Buckingham Palace, Harrods and, of course, for a well-earned refreshment(s) at a pub.
We will post photos soon....

Ange & Rich

From Cesky Krumlov to Vienna

Here are some photos from Cesky Krumlov and Vienna. We were lucky to get a free ticket whilst lining up for a concert! It cost 30 Euro!!! Anyway, we listened to a string quartet. So beautiful!
We have met a ton of Aussies hence the group photos are of our fellow mates.
Anyway, very short cos running out of time. AAaaagh! More later....
Ange & Rich
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Photo descriptions (May be in order):
1) Ange scoffing a sacher tort at the Cafe Sperl in Wein
2) Sideways photo of the Blue Light Jazz Bar (odd name). Very cool place tucked away near Charles Bridge in Prague
3) Ange & Rich drink tea in Cesky Krumlov
4) Shot of Cesky Krumlov from the castle. Beautiful blue skies with chill factor of about -10!
5) Us with more Aussies! (from left to right: Justin, Nick, Kate & Tom from Sydney)
6) Ange's head - at a string quartet recital at the Musikevein - Brahms Saal (room) in Wein

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Prague is beautiful, Cesky Krumlov is better!

Once we set foot into Cesky, we were instantly taken by this beautiful town. Prague is great too, but too commercial for us. The winter time is so much quieter than we thought. There is hardly anyone around at night.
We're staying at Hostel Krumlov House. So warm and cosy; we love it!!! Thanks to Monica for this excellent suggestion. We have a whole apartment to ourselves, complete with a little kitchen and our own entrance! Its so homey, we might just stay here forever :)
Got up to some mischief last night with some (surprise, surprise) Aussies from Sydney. Went ice-skating at this lake, feasted at the Two Marys and had shots of Absinthe and vodka and lots more beer.
On this beautiful sunny and very cold day, we will discover the castle and more.

Ange and Rich

Last thoughts of Germany

Its our last night in Berlin before heading over to Prague. We have been very lucky to have stayed in such a fantastic place as Dirk's apartment. As i write this, its started to snow again! We have enjoyed our time here and have learnt much about the history of this Country thanks to Dirk and Aimee who have filled in the blanks on what we think we know, and what we have had no clue on. We have had lots of time to write in our blog for Germany as we have had broadband internet to play with!

Here's a quick summary of the last few days of our trip.

Tuesday:
After a slow start to the day we met up with Aimee for lunch in Potsdamer Platz, the business district of Berlin. After what was breakfast for us, we headed over to the Jewish Museum for a slice of Architecture and history of Jewish persecution through the ages. Makes us think how lucky we really are.

I started snowing as we left the muesum and didn't stop till the next morning.

Wednesday:
Woke up to snow covered Berlin, yay! We headed South of Berlin to Potsdam, about an hour by train. We passed picturesque snow covered forests, lakes and towns to reach the summer palace of Frederik the Great. The snow covered palace grounds felt like something out of a fairytale. We took a tour of the New Palace situated a short 1.5km walk from the Sansoucci palace (i think it was another of his palaces. He has a few, i believe).

Later that evening we headed out with Aimee & Dirk for a bit of Vietnamese food (I had to try beef noodle soup over here - pretty good. I think the water makes the soup taste different). It was quite cheap for such a atmospheric resturant. Anyway, after dinner we went bar hopping to a few bars and ended the night at a bar with a beer menu of 100+ varieties.

Thursday:
Today we went north to Oranienburg to visit the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. It was a bitterly cold day which made the trip even more chilling. It was a little interesting/odd to see residental estates right next door to a concentration camp, but in some ways, its good to see the people of Germany has matured to the level of acceptance for what has happened in the past, and treat this ground as a memorial for the fallen.

Now its on to Prague and more snow! Wish i penciled time in for skiing... Doh!

Rich

Autobahns are fun!

The weather has been quite cold at times. Today, the temperature dropped to -6 degrees! Wrapped up in our new winter outfits (I bought this really cool leather jacket for 45€, 70% off 150€!!), we're gradually blending into the European lifestyle. It's not as dreary and sludgy as we expected. The streets are clean and haven't seen snow in Berlin yet. Apparently, it might snow on Wednesday.
Today Dirk took us out to his hometown Leipzig. We hired a little VW Golf and flew along the autobahn at 180km/hr. Felt like we were on a rocket! So weird to see the driver on the left-hand side, driving on the wrong side of the road at break-neck speed! But so cool, at the same time, in a slightly scary kind of way.
Leipzig is quite an old German town, in Western Saxony, about one-and-a-half hours outside of Berlin. It is a trade fair city, holding major trade fairs here every year. I love the old buildings and brick roads. It was certainly bustling when we arrived, just in time for lunch.

We aimed to discover as much of the music history as possible in 3 hours or so. With this in mind, we headed to Bach's resting place: St Thomas' Church. Pity that one wing of the church outside was under construction, but nevertheless, we were in awe of the church. Before the magnificent altar is a plaque, marking the spot of Bach's remains. It was certainly quite an overwhelming feeling standing over it (for those who don't know, Bach was a prominent Baroque composer, and is revered in the music world for his major contributions to keyboard and sacred music. Can be difficult to play his works, but beautiful nonetheless). The church still holds services every Sunday and several concerts throughout the year. Definitely excellent acoustics for choirs and the Bach Organ!

The Leipzig Opera House unfortunately wasn't open to visitors, unless you're there for a concert. It was quite a modern and less ornate building. Very grand, indeed.
After getting lost for a bit and shopping (again!) it was time to go home. On the way, we visited the Battle of the Nations Memorial. It's a gigantic stone monument, standing at 95m high. It's where Napoleon lost his first big battle to the combined forces of the Prussian, Austrian and Russian armies, with casualties of apparently 100,000 men. Before the monument lay a large frozen lake. A few people were ice skating on it. It was certainly incredible to walk the entire length of it, having never seen or been on a frozen lake!
Ah! What a day. More to see tomorrow.....maybe the Jewish Museum for more history.

Ange

Winter sales to politics

We spent a whole day on Saturday in Berlin's shopping malls, making the most of their winter sales. Saturday does bring out the Berliners in droves! I guess it was warmer to be in a shopping centre than outside in the freezing cold.

Saturday night saw us head out to a couple of cool bars. Tacheles is situated in a really run-down building that has been decorated with grafitti all along its inner walls. It's an artists' haunt of sorts. One level housed a couple of cinemas and the next one up was something of a market selling several artists' works. Works ranged from bizarre to really funny and of course, several politically inclined pieces were also exhibited. The top floor was the tiny bar, Tacheles. Reminded us of a Brunswick St bar. It had a great view of the city via a very modern glass wall. The bar seemed like a popular haunt of the young in Berlin.

On Sunday, we took a piece of history with us. We managed to carve out a small chunk of the Berlin Wall for keepsake. There still remain parts of the Wall that hasn't been destroyed. However, most of these are being protected, so this small section was one that Dirk knew we could access without getting into trouble. A section of it in central Berlin has been made into a memorial park. It also includes the No Man's Land in between.
Dirk then took us to the Bundestag, the German Parliament House. It is such an amazing building, architecturally. It consists of 3 buildings: the Chancellor's, Committee, and the Administration. The buildings are lined up in such a way that you are able to see through into the other 2 buildings from within each one. They call this the Band of Unity. It symbolises the unity of the three levels of the decision-making within the parliament.
We were very lucky to have our personal guide. Dirk works at the Administration building in the Bundestag. Unlike all the plebs queueing up in the cold outside, we were able to enjoy champagne and chocolate in the warmth of his office!
One highlight was being able to climb to the top of one of the towers. We had to use a very narrow and steep route which was for the general maintenance personnel (it was hidden away behind a wall in a meeting room). At times it was quite dangerous, because part of the way we had to climb up was just an exposed ladder attached to a high wall. There was no protection if you missed your footing; just don't look down or away from the wall.
It was certainly well worth the effort. The views we got were breathtaking, albeit freezing!




Ange

Guten tag!

Berlin is quite a cool city. The buildings are a mix of new and old. Both as awesome as one another.
We took a free walking tour (New Berlin Tours) which took us around Central Berlin. Our guide, Chris was very well-informed, funny and interesting. He's an American who fell in love with this city 4 years ago, and hasn't left since. He's speaks fluent German and is very passionate about the history of Berlin. And there is so much history!
Throughout the tour, he pointed out several sites of significance, which were actually not very obvious to the tourist. For example, the site where Adolf Hitler spent his dying days in a bunker, is a mere grassy patch in front of an apartment block. We were in more disbelief than awe to be standing over it. Chris said that its insignificance was the aim, as this itself symbolised Germany's view of the past. They don't want to remember Hitler and his horrific actions but to memorialise the dead Jews and soldiers, and to move on. That was the message we got throughout the tour.
We visited the Brandenburg gates, the sister churches, checkpoint charlie, Berlin Wall, and the Humboldt University. In the square in front of the university was the site of the burning of 20,000 books. The Nazis burnt books that were contradicting their faschist views or were written by Jews. Authors of these books included Albert Einstein and Karl Marx, to name a few. The site is unmarked except for little glass pane built into the ground. We were told to stand over it and look into the glass. All I saw was empty bookshelves, which were capable of holding thousands of books. This represented the number of books burnt. And the reflection we could see of ourselves on the glass represents the current times. This was one interpretation offered by Chris. He said that this artwork was telling us to remember the past, which cannot be changed, as one cannot bring back those burnt books. We as individuals in the present can influence change for the future.
Another view offered by a tourist in a previous tour, was quite poignant. Apparently, she said that the empty bookshelves reminded her of the bunk beds in Auschwitz concentration camps.
The history behind the Berlin Wall is quite remarkable. It was confusing at first, trying to comprehend the events leading up to it (I got very confused about East/West Berlin/Germany; until I saw a map!). But Dirk showed us a video of the crumble of the Berlin Wall, and it all made sense.
Today, going to visit where Aimee works and probably do some shopping. Yay!

Ange

More photos from Paris

Here are a few more photos from Paris.

1) View from our plane from overlooking Western Australia
2) Ornate ceiling from the Opera house
3) View from Eiffel Tower - cool perspective
4) Eiffel Tower at night
5) Our view from our hostel - overlooking Sacre Coeur
6) Arc de Triomphe - at 7am in the morning. Not a single tourist in sight

Enjoy. Rich

Some photos of our travels so far

Some of my favourite photos of our trip so far...



















I´ll post a few more soon... Let me know if it takes too long to load.

Rich

Danke vil!

That means 'thankyou' in Dutch. Don't know if i've got the spelling right.....

Anyway, back in the Amsterdam library for some last minute emails, etc.

I have enjoyed Amsterdam. It's been a much more relaxed stay here, in terms of sightseeing. Haven't really rushed around too much, just been very happy wandering the streets.

Yesterday, we visited the Van Gogh Museum. We liked the museum building itself. Very modern and spacious. Not as awe-struck as we were in the D'orsay. But still quite brilliant paintings. We then went into the Heineken Brewery. Felt rather tipsy by the time we left. It was like a big theme park, and a huge homage to Heineken! Terrific beer too, although did taste different to the one in Melb.

We had a terrific (and filling) Dutch meal at this cosy little pub, not far from our abode. Lots of potatoes. I think i miss our fresh veg and salads. Our cholesterol levels must be hitting the roof! Oh well, we are certainly walking it off.

Next, is Berlin with Rich's sister and her boyfriend. Can't wait.

Ange

Monet... brilliant

Although Ange will be entering her blog today, i't doesn't hurt to add my thoughts.

We are sitting in the warm and comfortable Central Library of Amsterdam using the free internet kindly provided by the tax payers (God bless them). Outside is bitterly cold, but bearable. Our visit to the Anne Frank house was a moving experience, one in which we took the time to try to understand the situation the family must have faced in uncertain times.

Another experience which completely blew my mind was our visit to Musee DÓrsay (mind my spelling). The detailed scale model of the Opera house with section left me in awe. I thought the museum could not top that for me until we entered the Monet exhibitions. I would not consider myself an art critic, but I was completely fascinated with Monets works. I must have spent at least 1.5 hours just looking at each of his works close up, then stepping back to absorb his mastery. It just blows my mind to see (close up) his brush strokes of layered colour and texture, and then to stand back and see, what seems to be random colours thrown together, to melt into beautiful works of art. Brilliant.

What i've noticed through this trip so far is the feeling that many tourists just feel they have to race through everything in order to have their catalogue of their travels well documented and full of locations and events. Although i'm guilty of adding my status of "being there" and "seeing this'', I found i couldn't take a photo of Monets works. I just had to observe and respect. Just my opinion. Take it or leave it.

Anyways, my time on this computer will be up very shortly, so i hope you've enjoyed my brief insight to tourism and other thoughts.

Richo

Brussels to Amsterdam

We discovered Brussels on a beautiful winter's day. There was bright blue skies and not a cloud in sight. Not as monumental as Paris, but certainly has a quiet charm of its own. I noticed a lot of Turkish and Middle Eastern shops around. We even chanced on Little India! I think I was glad to walk around and not be slapped in the face with so many huge and ornate buildings for a change.
We wandered around past a huge version of "Lygon St" with its numerous Italian/Belgian restaurants with waiters urging us to go in. Finally entered this Cafe Arcadian. It looked very cosy and warm. Lots of little tables nestled close to one another. A bit like Tiamo in Lygon St, actually! I had a tart of tomatoes and mozarella and Rich had 1/2 chicken and chips (of course!). So yummy! The beers (Duvel and Leffe) were very reasonable too.
There was this cathedral we walked past that was chiming a very minor version of Ode to Joy. Had to laugh at how serious and morbid it sounded. Much more interesting than the one-toned chimes of Paris.
Amsterdam glowed red when we arrived! It was dark when we walked through the red light district. Skimpily dressed women in their glow-in-the-dark bikinis/underwear looked out at us with utter boredom. Sex shops glowed brightly, tempting us to enter. Maybe.... :)
Found our hostel with luck (this seems to be the method of late in our navigation of each city) - The Bulldog. Its quite a large one, like a YHA. Booked ourselves a couple of dorm beds for 2 nights. This should give us enough time to venture the streets and try their coffeeshops!
I noticed heaps of snacky places - one must get the munchies after a few joints! Anyway, I did fail to mention earlier, that the red light district does smell of one big spliff! There are lots of people wanting to sell some to you. But we decided to get some from a coffeeshop next to our hostel - The Bulldog Coffeeshop. These guys are like a huge franchise - they even have a pub further along the street.
Just visited Anne Frank's House. Very poignant. I just felt utter sadness when i was in there. It really makes you think about the nature of mankind and how we treat one another. We are so fortunate. I must read the book again.
Will blog again soon......

Angela

Au revoir Paris!

I can't believe that we're leaving Paris today. It has been several days of wonderful sightseeing. Soooo much art to absorb. We have so far seen Notre Dame, Musee D'Orsay, Louvre, Arc de Triomphe (at 6.30am and at nite!), Tour Eiffel and much of the streets of Paris. Our favourite so far is the D'Orsay. We were in awe of the paintings of Monet, Van Gogh and Toulouse-Loutrec.
Have met a tonne of Aussies here in this hostel. Doesn't really feel like we're that far away :)
Onward to Brussels and Amsterdam for more culture....
Ange

no time on internet!

42 to 2 in 24 hours

Well, this will be the first official post from Europe from us! As this is our first trip of this nature, we have been overwhelmed and excited and tired all at once.

We landed in Frankfurt yesterday and decided to head straight to Paris for our first official toursit stop. Our total travel came to roughly 30 hours of airplane and train travel. We felt a bit lost at first, but it really wasn't that difficult in the end.

We are now staying in a hostel called Le Village, located in Montmarte area near Sacre-Coeur. Yesterday, we had a quick visit to Sacre-Coeur and had a picture perfect sunset with clouds and all! (We will post some pictures when we are able to).

Today involved the Opera house & Musee de Lourve (sorry if the spelling is incorrect, i don't have the map with me). Ange and I spent the day in awe of the streets of Paris. We felt that some things were a tad gaudy, but we were still in awe nevertheless. The last half of our day we spent walking the Lourve on an empty stomach. Although we were a bit grumpy after 6 hours of walking the halls of the museum, it was a fascinating journey through the annuals of history.

I think i'm rambling, but you may have to apoligise as i am buggered... and its only our second day!

I'll have more to write soon.

Richard (and Ange!)

In the beginning, Bulleen was created

Our first post to our new and shiny travel blog. I have about a million tiny little pieces to organise before we leave, and i'm here wasting precious minutes creating a blog. Oh well, i think its lunch time soon...

Today Bulleen, tomorrow the WORLD! Yay!

Rich