There are a lot of interesting things to see in Amsterdam. Amsterdam is perhaps not the city best know for its landmarks like Paris or London but Amsterdam has its own jewels and charm. Amsterdam is the capital city of the most populous city within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Its status as the Dutch capital […]
I AMsterdam
We got off to an early start. By 10:10 am we were already in Amsterdam, parked and looking for something to do. First thing on the agenda was to orient ourselves, find a good boat to get to places fast and to find a place to have a breakfast. We are quite impressed because the forecast […]
Van Der Valk
We are staying just outside Amsterdam. We had a choice of staying in a nicer hotel and driving to Amsterdam or staying in a worse hotel and not driving. We decided to stay in a nicer hotel that is quiet and close to the city rather than staying in Amsterdam. I think this will be […]
On the Road
The drive down to The Netherlands was not bad. The drive through Denmark was easy, and uneventful. The drive in the initial part of Germany was good too. The drive on the west side of Germany was excruciatingly painful. We got stuck in a 5km traffic which by the time we cleared it grew to […]
The Netherlands
The adventure continues. Today we are saying good bye to our great hosts the Mozejkos and setting off for The Netherlands.
Goodbye Friends
Today we said our goodbyes to our dear friends Mozejkos, whom we had a pleasure of seeing 4 times on this trip. Twice we were guests at their home and twice they came to visit us in Nuremberg. We always have a great time with Mozejkos and we are already missing them. Thank you again […]
Summer in Denmark
The weather forecast has changed from sunny with a chance of showers to pouring rain with a chance of deluge. It was essentially raining sideways for most of the afternoon. Despite our rain gear, by the time we walked from the Little Mermaid to the shops, we were absolutely soaked to the bone. The only saving grace was […]
Cafe Petersborg
Well, it started to rain, so instead of going to see the Little Mermaid statue we decided to take an early lunch. Henrik suggested a great place that serves traditional open face Danish sandwiches, with just about anything you can imagine on them. There is 40 thousand types of herring, from pickled to curried, eel, meatballs, chicken […]
Tall Ships
After the Changing of the Guard at the Royal Palace we decided to walk towards the Little Mermaid. We decided to walk along the wharf to see the display of tall ships which were anchored there. The wind had picked up at this point and it looked like the weather might be taking a turn for the worse. Undaunted, we […]
Changing of the Guard
After visiting Ørestad we drove to Fields, which is a massive shopping mall, to park the car and take the metro to the old town. The driverless metro decided to have some issues today so we were running late, and risked missing the show at the Royal Palace. We rushed from the metro station to […]
Playground
A place like Ørestad could not possibly have an ordinary playground. Located in the grassy field across the canal is a massive park. In the park, there is a massive ship which is about 80m long with steps, benches and a playhouse and a bunch of rocks to climb on. Not far from the ship is a […]
Ørestad
Ørestad is an ultra modern and ultra sleek part of Copenhagen – think of it as Architectural Digest award-winning designs built all in one place. Ørestad is a developing city area in Copenhagen, on the island of Amager. It is expected that 20,000 people will live in Ørestad, 20,000 will study, and 80,000 people will be employed […]
Off to Copenhagen
We are off to Copenhagen. It is about 1.5 hour drive across the famous Great Belt Bridge. It is a beautiful and sunny day but there is a chance of rain in the afternoon for Copenhagen so we have a Plan B just in case.
Viking Museum
This is our third visit to the Viking Museum in Ladby, and every time we come here we have a new experience and there is always something different to see. Today was no different. Because this is our last visit here for a while, we spent a lot of time in the gift shop […]
Relaxing with Ice Cream
Today we are taking a day off to relax. In a typical Danish style, when we visit here, it’s raining. Great day to relax, catch up and do nothing. After dinner we decided to check out a different ice cream place to see how it compares. There is a 7 scoop special on the go […]
Diabetes Special
This post should really come with its Health Warning – this treat, which is about the size of a small polar bear, is a lot easier to order than it is to finish. Vaffelhuset is the famous ice cream shop in Kerteminde. During summer it is open until 11 pm. Day or night, rain or […]
Kerteminde Beach
After a light dinner, we set off to Kerteminde, which is a sea town about 12 min drive from Odense. Kerteminde has about six thousand inhabitants and one very famous ice cream shop. It also has a newly renovated seawall where people come to hang out if they don’t feel like walking to the beach which […]
Hello Odense
We have arrived! It was a nice drive and relatively uneventful one as well. 900 km, 18 construction zones, 3 accidents, luckily on the other side of the road, 3 stalled vehicles and one road side fire, also on the other side of the road and one OMG slam the brakes emergency stop.
Pit Stop
Gas, bathroom, coffee, tea and delicious ice cream. Our car is so overloaded we have to drive relatively slowly which is fine as we are doing great.
Vacation Time
Right then, we are setting off on our last holiday on this trip so we will make it a proper one this time around. This is the only holiday which we actually planned months ago, booked hotels months ago and got it all planned out – all months ago. We are all looking forward to it. […]
Friends
We don’t get to see Volker and Kasia very often. Kasia is always either in Vienna or Warsaw and we are almost never here on the weekends. Today we finally got to sit down with both of them for a nice meal on the balcony. The kids, all 3 of them, were not interested in hanging […]
Happy Arrivals
So the plane was 9 minutes late. This does not seems like a huge amount of time but at an airport like Frankfurt that makes a lot of difference. At the same time arriving at Gate E were four other planes, two from Russia and one from Middle East plus one more. All four of these planes […]
Music Festival
Our city is playing host to World Music Festival. The entire old town is filled with stages, musicians, buskers, visitors, people and in true German fashion a lot of beer and sausage stands. There appears to be more people here than there was for the Christmas market. It is warm, the atmosphere is great and […]
Eltz Castle
Eltz Castle is a medieval castle nestled in the hills above the Moselle River between Koblenz and Trier. It is still owned by a branch of the same family that lived there in the 12th century, 33 generations ago. The Rübenach and Rodendorf families’ homes in the castle are open to the public, while the […]
Cochem Imperial Castle
The Reichsburg Cochem had its first documentary mention in 1130. In 1151, it was occupied by King Konrad III, who declared it an Imperial castle. In 1688, the castle was overrun by French King Louis XIV’s troops in the course of the Nine Years’ War and the following year was destroyed. The castle complex lay in […]
Cochem
Cochem is a small town of 5000 people which dates back to early Celtic and Roman times. In 886, it had its first documentary mention as Villa Cuchema. Cochem is famous for its wines and vineyards as well as its history. It was ruled by bishops, and dukes and princess, it was under Roman and French […]
Breakfast
For some breakfast is the first meal of the day, that does not mean that immediately after it you can’t have some delicious gelato to really kick start the day – properly.
Morning Calm
This morning at 8:00 am sharp Lotta, Astrid and me set off for a lazy walk to the next village to pick up the cars we left at the Loe Fuchs Winery last night. The sun was out the river almost sill, truly a beautiful morning.
Schloss Petry
After a long day out, a well deserved dinner. We sat down for a dinner at the Castle Hotel Petry where we are staying to have a nice and relaxing dinner. Good food, good company – good time.
Leo Fuchs Winery
We sat down with the owner and the wine maker of Leo Fuchs for a bit of a chat and a bit of fine wine. All wines we sampled today were white. There was one Chardonnay, one Sauvignon Blanc and the rest of them were a bewildering variety of Rieslings. These are not the Rieslings we remember drinking back […]
Gelato Break
Between the two wineries we had a quick stop in Cochem a small town along the Mosel to get some gelato. One of the most interesting flavours being served here was basil lemon gelato. It was so good and refreshing! We might need to stop by here and have it again.
Vineyard Tour
This morning after breakfast we met up with Astrid and Klaus and their friends Lotta and Daniella. On the agenda for todday was a walk though the vineyards from Eller to Bremm which are nested along the Mosel River. These two small villages are separated by about 2.3km from where we parked to where we sat […]
Treis Karden
The drive here was simply put – hell. Traffic, construction, delays, rain, you name it we had it. It took us well over an hour longer than it was supposed to take. However, when we got off the highway we were rewarded with sunshine, beautiful vistas and an amazing road. This then made the effort […]
Road Trip – Treis Karden
We are setting off on a little road trip north west of Nuremberg for a little trip through the German countryside. We are going to meet up with a couple we met in Italy at Agriturismo Villanova. They invited us here to show us one of their favourite spots in Europe.
Bob and Margaret
Our family is departing today. This is the fourth time we see Anna’s cousin on this trip. Because we were always tricked into speaking Polish with them, we decided to give them all an English names and just spoke English to them this time around, for the most part anyway. Today they are setting off to […]
Orangery and Garden
The Residenz Ansbach has a massive garden and an Orangery which today serve as a backdrop for concerts and music festivals. A garden was first mentioned in the 16th century in the herbal accounts of Leonhart Fuchs. Between 1723 and 1750, it was designed as a Baroque garden. Severely damaged during World War II, it […]
St. Johannis
The church St. Johannis (St. John) in Ansbach in Middle Franconia is a Lutheran parish church and a concert venue of the Bachwoche Ansbach. The parish was first mentioned in documents in 1139. It was given by the Bishop of Würzburg to St. Gumbertus. Construction began in the second decade of the 15th century. The church […]
St. Gumbertus
The church St. Gumbertus is one of the central city churches of Ansbach, together with the neighboring St. Johannis. Located in the old town of Ansbach, St. Gumbertus, now a Lutheran church, was originally the church of a monastery that was founded by St. Gumbert around 750. Today it serves as a venue for concerts and […]
Ansbach
Today we set off to Ansbach which is about 40km from Nuremberg. Ansbach is the capital of the administrative region of Middle Franconia with about 45,000 people living in the city. The city started off in the 8th century as a Benedictine monastery, it later became the seat of the Hohenzollern family in 1331. Later […]
Alfa Romeo
We bought our car last year July 19th. It has now been a year since we owned it. We don’t drive the car in the city, sometimes we don’t drive it for a week, sometimes we drive it once a week just to the store. Most of the travel we do is when we take […]
Celebration
Truth be told we did not have a lot of time to celebrate Germany’s win of the FIFA World Cup. We finished watching the game, we grabbed out suitcases and went downstairs to catch the cab to the airport. The city has gone absolutely mad. I am glad we were going to the airport and […]
Antalya at Night
Tonight we set out to see the Old Antalya at night. At night Antalya comes alive. It seems that as the temperature drops down to a more manageable and cool 28C at 10:00 pm everyone comes out to enjoy the city. The shops in the old town are open until 11;30 pm, all cafes and restaurants […]
More Beach Time
The sea is quite calm today so we all got out for a swim to the huge floaties that are set up off the pier and the beach for all hotel guests to play. The beach is private so only people from the resort can go there and for those lazy enough to walk the […]
Exploring Antalya
Antalya, after Paris and London, is the third most visited city in the world by international arrivals. When you are out and about or even at our hotel you can hear just about every language being spoken. There are people here from everywhere, each corner of the world seems to be well represented. Antalya which is located […]
Old Antalya
Old Antalya called Kaleiçi: the historical center of the city is the equivalent of the old town in a European city. There is a number of very old and famous landmarks that we got to see other than the Mosques. Some of the old monuments include the ancient City Walls, Hıdırlık Tower, Hadrian’s Gate (also […]
Saturday Bazar
No visit to Antalya would be complete without a visit to a traditional bazar which is where a lot of people come to shop for everything from fruits and vegetables and spices to clothing, purses, glasses, dishes and just about everything else you can imagine. There is a lot of yelling and haggling. Just about everything you […]
Mosques in Antalya
There are a lot of Mosques in Antalya. The ones in the Old Antalya, Kaleiçi, are old and quite famous. There are mosques and churches which date back to 2 A.D. One of them is the Kesik Minare (Broken Minaret) standing in the streets of Kaleiçi. Ulu Cami (Grand Mosque) with a 38 meter minaret, originally decorated […]
Hadrian’s Gate
First stop on our tour of Antalya’s old city is the Hadrian’s Gate. The gate was built in the name of the Roman emperor Hadrian, who visited Antalya in the year 130. It has three arched gates and used to be a two story structure. According to the legend, Sultan Belkis, the Queen of Sheba, is said […]
Sand Castles
After a rather disappointing dinner at the Ottoman restaurant, mainly because of bad service, we set off once again for a bit of a stroll across the beach. Not only to take in the great views but also to enjoy a bit of the summer breeze coming off the Mediterranean, perfect for cooling off after a […]
The Pier
Another part of the complex where we are staying in Antalya is a huge beach with 2000 loungers, beds, and cabanas. The best part of the beach though is the pier. The pier itself is on two levels with lots of loungers and a bar that serves refreshments from dusk to dawn. It is always […]
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