Traveling means three things really – looking at great buildings and overeating and taking pictures of good food we eat. We got a suggestion to go to the Beer House for a good traditional Czech dinner and that is what we did. The beer is brewed in houses in a dizzying array of crazy […]
We are wasting no time sitting around in the hotel. About 15 min walk from the hotel is the Prague Castle, the Charles Bridge, Old Town Square, the Jewish Quarter, and Petřín hill. At almost 1100 years old this city is full of treasures which we are eager to find, explore and experience. It promises to be a great weekend. […]
After a short 2.5 hour drive, and a couple of traffic jams we arrived in the centre of Prague at out hotel. We have a little apartment in a small boutique hotel, which will serve as our home base for this weekend. We are looking forward to going and exploring this lovely city.
We are heading out for the weekend as part of Europe exploration tour.
German efficiency and precision are legendary – that much is true. How Kabel Deutschland, our provider of imaginary internet, ever became a German company is beyond my comprehension. We are still waiting for them to find a conduit in the building, to find out why our cable does not connect and why we still don’t have […]
The children have been in school now for almost 3 weeks. So far the school experience is very much different than in Canada. Here are some of our observations: Only one glue stick is needed for the entire school year – finally! Our supply list was about €40.00. No copy paper, no Kleenex and no […]
Somehow after almost a 2 hour walk we did not get a picture of all the stuff we collected.
On house is surrounded by two parks, one large and one small. The larger park has water canals, with beavers, ducks and other fowl. Being sunny and dry we set out to take out some of the stale bread from the house and feed the ducks on our walk to the park to collect some […]
Close to the underground movie theatres is the public library. Today, on the way back from the Altstadtfest, we circled around the library to get signed up. The service is free, you are allowed to keep stuff for 4 weeks and if you are late the penalty is € 0.10/week for each late item. There is […]
Another weekend and another festival. We have two festivals going at the moment, this one and Volks Festival. Just another excuse to get out, eat, drink and wonder around.
Nuremberg’s only remaining large late Renaissance merchant’s house shows a brief history of Nuremberg. It’s modern and sleek and newly opened. The building is still undergoing a major renovation on the outside but the inside is ready to explore. One of the best exhibits here and the starting point of the tour is a […]
After a great dinner we headed home for cakes, coffee and presents. This was a great birthday and while we could not have everyone we would like to have here it was still a happy day for Boris.
Big day. Boris is turning 14 today and his wish was to spend time with friends and family at L’Osteria. I think everyone was only too happy to oblige. We still love the pizza and the atmosphere there, and so does everyone we take there. A great place with amazing food.
Our cousins that came and went are back from their holidays to Poland and Austria and are here with us on a quick 4 day stopover before they go back to Canada. The weather is not cooperating much, it’s raining a fair bit but we are making the most of it. After all there are […]
It is true – we are those people that photograph our food before we dig into it. But not all of the time. We only do this when it is absolutely exceptional. We found this little place, on the side street in San Gimignano. It turns out, La Mangiatoia, was featured in Bon Appetite magazine as […]
Another favourite of ours from last year was Siena. Siena is famous for a lot of things. The two main ones that impressed us the most are the Piazza del Campo, and the Siena Cathedral. One famous for its annual horse race, and the other for it beautiful black and white marble architecture. There is also a great […]
Getting off the beaten path can be so rewarding. We found this place on one of the side streets in San Gimignano. La Biscondola, has great service and even better food. Off the menu, we tried the goose liver pate and the bruschetta as appetizers, wild boar ragout with white Tuscan beans in wine, truffle mushroom […]
We are back to Italy to our favourite city we visited last year. San Gimignano know as the Town of Fine Towers had, at one point 72 towers in the city built by the rivalling families. San Gimignano has a number of fine restaurants and a gelato place which won the best gelato in the […]
Its morning and we had a good long rest. We are now venturing out to see what this place looks like in the daylight. 2 minutes later we fall in love. We sit down by the pool and start planning our next trip here. This place is perfect, it’s in the middle of nowhere, it’s […]
We are off to Tuscany. We were hoping to make a quick stop in Monaco but because of the late start and a long drive we are heading straight for our hotel just outside Sam Gimignano – our favourite and the most beautiful city we saw in Italy last year.
Just as we thought that the Roman aqueduct was the be all end all sight we were going to see on this trip, we were soon proved wrong. Quarries of Light is an extraordinary site. It was once a bauxite quarry in the bowels of the awe-inspiring landscapes of the “Valley of Hell” that inspired Dante, […]
We got home really late but still had a bit of time to snap some night pictures of our pad for the night.
Perhaps one of the most awe inspiring and jaw dropping structures we have seen to date is this ancient Roman aqueduct bridge in Vers-Pont-du-Gard near Remoulins. Built in the 1st century AD, the Pont du Gard is the highest of all Roman aqueduct bridges and is the best preserved. Standing almost 49m high and spanning […]
Perhaps equally as stunning but much more less opulent are the city defence walls with its 7 gates and 36 defence towers as well as the Pont Saint-Bénezet bridge of which only 4 sections remain. Numerous palaces, churches, a theatre, the city hall, many old stone houses, and narrow streets that connect them all is what […]
Today we are exploring Avignon – the city of Popes. While not as large as Lyon, Avignon has a different more medieval charm. Actually it looks more like an Italian city than French but this could be due to a huge Roman influence on its development. First on the agenda was the stunning Papal Palace […]
In the next village, Villeneuve-lez-Avignon, about 6km away is a little bistro which is set up in the old olive oil press shop. This place was suggested to us by the couple who run the chateau. They did say that this is not a gastronomic restaurant but a bistro not knowing what this really means […]
The island in the middle of Lyon is interesting. The tip of the island where the two rivers confluence is a place of modern architecture that is simply as breathtaking as any of the old 1000 year old cathedral we have seen.
No French town would be complete without the Sunday flea market. Since stores are closed on Sundays, people flock to these things to find their treasures. This flea market happens to be the second biggest flea market in France. While 80% of what we saw was junk, and 20% were little treasures, we managed to […]
Another great find in Lyon is the ancient Roman amphitheare – or rather its ruins. In its glory days this place used to seat about 11,000 spectators now the shows hosted here sit about 4500 people. Despite its age, the world wars and time which has taken its toll on the buildings, this place still […]
It seems every large French city has its own rendition of Norte-Dame. The Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière is perched on the Fourvière Hill in Lyon, it seems that no matter where you are in Lyon you can see it towering over the city. Being on time budget we took the funiculars to the top […]
We are exploring Lyon, the second largest city in France after Paris. The city is equally as busy and beautiful and charming as Paris. From Roman times to modern times there is bit of of something for everyone here. We managed to see both rivers, and a few churches, the opera house, the Roman ruins, […]
We have arrived in Lyon just a bit past four. The drive was not very enjoyable, that is to say it was not as fast as I thought it ought to be, but we are here. We checked in and decided to take the rest of the day off and relax before we set out […]
With the whole family here we do a lot of walking around, not just to get ice cream either. We keep going around and finding new things to explore and look at.
It’s been a while since we visited our favorite pizza place. It’s still as good as it was the first time we were here!
Dokumentationszentrum in Nuremberg is a museum which houses a permanent exhibition called Fascination and Terror. The exhibition traces the history of National Socialism, Nazi Germany and the rallies held in Nuremberg which was considered to be “the most German of all German cities” by Hitler and his supporters.
This is where the famous Nuremberg Trials took place in 1945 after World War II ended. The Courtroom 600 is still used today as a functioning courtroom. This room was remodelled for the trials and after they were finished it was restored to its original form. Upstairs, from the court room is a very simple […]
We are really trying to get through the museums in Nuremberg. Today the Train Museum, right around the corner from the house.
We are still exploring this great little city
A lazy Sunday. With Kozluk family here for a visit, we set out to show off bits and pieces of this great city starting with the old town and a couple of its main churches. Both of these churches were greatly damaged in the war and rebuilt but what they have in common is a […]
When the night is this beautiful – its hard to resist going out to the old town for a little stroll. We did exactly that, a nice walk to get some ice-cream in the old town.
This then is the middle of nowhere we were looking for yesterday. A desolate country road cutting across the villages and vineyards of Burgundy. Peppered with family run Chateaus on each side of the road – each making their own great wines. We stopped at a quiet restaurant at the edge of the vineyard where […]
After Strasbourg we pointed out Alfa Romeo in the general direction of Dijon. Both of us visited Dijon in 2001 and remember it very fondly. We wanted to get lost in the French country side. Take the secondary roads and stay off the highways, just like we did last time. Endlessly drive through […]
We finally had a moment to get out of the house and explore the neighbourhood today. We wanted to size up the two parks we have on either side of the building, the many canals and also to find out where the closest bakery and shops are to get some groceries. It turns out, […]
So, a short distance from Garmisch is the famous Neuschwanstein Castle. Last year when we visited the site the castle was covered in scaffolding as it was being renovated. The renovations are done now and that only means one thing – the tourists are back with a vengeance. By the time we got here at […]
While these are not going to replace the sweet, sweet sound of my Focal, PrimaLuna and REL – this is a vast improvement over having to listen to the mono speaker on the Mac Mini while watching TV or listening to music.
We have assembled the house and actually moved some furniture around today to get that new minimalistic look we are hoping to achieve here. Basically no one is carrying any more boxes upstairs and no one is interested in assembling anything anymore. We are in a travel mood. After 10 days of hard graft, it […]
There are no more boxes to assemble. There are no more boxes to take down. The home assembly I now completed. We are officially open for business and the dates are going fast. Our first guests were the Great Danes. Our first guests from Canada are arriving on the 25th of August and we are […]
L’Osteria again, finally everyone manned up and ordered a pizza today followed by ice cream followed by – what the hell were we thinking eating this much… Luckily we are walking home to get some pretend exercise.
Other than Legoland I think Pottenstein is the kids second favourite place in Europe. Although Boris has mentioned that it is time we visited some bigger cities, like Paris, London so he can promptly get the equivalent Lego architecture set to assemble. As per usual we still like photographing all the great food we eat. […]
The little Dane is turning 13 today. We went out to one of out favourite sausage restaurants today and followed it with a cake at home. It is true that we have moved in to our new apartment but for now we still have more furniture in boxes that we have furniture that is assembled. […]
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