Monday 19 March 2007

amsterdam

Out the front of our motel
Amsterdam tourist spot at the Museum
Richard on the sign!
Bronte on the sign
In the Heineken factory House boat museum on one of the canals

Well we arrived in Amsterdam on Friday and found our accommodation. Once we booked in we decided to have a look around the town. Had dinner and then decided to go for a walk around the red light district for a look. Had a bit of a laugh doing that and then went back to the motel.

Saturday we did a tour of the Heineken factory which was much better than I thought it was going to be. It was really very interesting and you got 3 free beers. Three for free!!!! We then decided to go on a canal cruise so we could see all the houses and canals and get some perspective on the city. Had a bit more of a walk around the city and then went back to the motel.

Went out to a night club at midnight and it was really a good night. Will have to elaborate the night club in person............????? But it is Amsterdam :-)

Sunday was our last day and we went to the Anne Frank house for a look, which was kind of weird knowing what happened to the people who were hiding out in there. We also went to the houseboat museum which was interesting to see how 2500 people live in Amsterdam and what they call home.

At 5.00pm we headed for Schipol Airport in Amsterdam to get our flight to London, it was 2 hours late leaving which was crap! Anyway we are right now in Singapore waiting for our connecting flight to Sydney. Not long to go now.

Will catch up with you all once we return. See you soon.

Friday 16 March 2007

rotterdam

The Euromast in RotterdamView from the mast over Rotterdam
Bronte on the ride in the lift to the top of the Euromast

Today we stopped in Rotterdam on our way to Amsterdam. We only spent around 3 hours in Rotterdam. Enough time to have lunch and the visit the Euromast (another tower). The tower was really different as it had a lift at the top viewing platform that took a whole section of the platform an extra 85 metres to the top of the mast. This section similar to the giant drop in Dreamworld also rotates to give you a 360 degree view as you go up and then at the top it continues to rotate so you get a good view of the entire city. It was really very eerie as there were glass sections in the floor and it looked as if you were hanging out over the road below at 185 metres looking straight down. We left Rotterdam and arrived in Amsterdam at around 4pm and made our way the the hotel. Went into the city for a look around but we will do some more tomorrow and post it separately.

brussels

Place Royale, in the front of the Royal Palace
The atomium built in 1958
The little boy pissing statue.

Wednesday we arrived in to Brussels and it was fairly late so we got some dinner and went back to the hotel. The hotel was in a fairly swish area with snobby clothes shops and restaurants.

We got up and went to Grand Place which is the centre of Brussels with really nice old buildings and the Hotel De Ville. Just down from the Grand Place is the Little Boy Pissing Statue. The statue is only really small, about 56 cm tall and it was a bit of a let down considering it is the catch cry fountain for Brussels.

We then headed for the "Expo 1958" Park where the atomium is. Wow it was amazing! We paid and went inside, you could go to the very top in the elevator and it was a very bizarre view. When you came back down you could also walk to 4 of the other spheres which was also a strange feeling. It was hard to believe they built this back in the 50's. As with other world expo structures it was meant to be temporary and dismantled after the expo. They have just recently spent millions of Euro's and 2 years restoring it.

We did not see Kim Klijsters or John Claude Van Damme while we were in Brussels but we did see lots of smog.

Finished the day off in the Royal Palais Garden opposite the Royal Palace eating chocolate waffles. Friday we head to Holland.

dresden

The Transparent Volkswagen Factory
This is the actual production line throught the windows, if you look closely.
Paul, David, Bronte and Richard in Dresden.

We left Berlin on Tuesday morning and headed for Dresden. Once we arrived in Dresden we caught up with some friends from Adelaide, Paul and David. We spent the day with them and they left in the afternoon for Prague. We tried to do the factory tour of Volkswagen but the tours were not running at the moment and they advised us by email that the factory tours were closed for the week. Well we decided to go and have a look anyway and it was worth it. The factory is called "The transparent factory" and yes it is made of glass and you can see the cars being made from through the glass. It was very interesting and very very clean and organised. The people making the cars wore all white and looked more like doctors.

Dresden received bombings from the Americans in WWII and being part of the old Eastern Germany, nothing was fixed and a lot of the town was left in ruins . It is only recently, as in the last 5 years that they have rebuilt some of the buildings. The town was really nice and quite well organised with public transport and shops etc. They are still doing heaps of work.

Off to Brussels on Wednesday, a 9 hour train trip!!

Sunday 11 March 2007

berlin

Brandenburg gates

The Berlin wall that stills stands today as a memory

Our New Berlin tour group leader

Check point Charlie

Well we are finally in Berlin after a 7 hour train trip from Stuttgart. Arrived late in the afternoon so we just managed to find a hostel, book in and have some dinner. We also got some flyers from the hostel for different tourist stuff which included a free walking tour. We decided to go on the free tour which started at 11.00 a.m. The tour was fantastic. It took us to some of the most visited and the most important places that form part of the German history. The tour guide "Chris" as pictured above made the tour even more enjoyable. He was really like an actor and was quite funny to explain the rather serious stories of the past.
Once we finished the tour we headed to the TV tower for a look, it is 368 metres tall and the observation deck is 203 metres. This gave us a good look over the city and a bit of perspective on the size of Berlin.
After the tower we went to a part of the Berlin wall which has been preserved for memory and tourists I would imagine. It really makes you know how lucky you are to be brought up in Australia.
Tomorrow or Tuesday we are heading to Dresden for a look, it's just a short trip south of Berlin. We are trying to organise a tour of the Volkswagen factory. This is the factory that makes prestige VW's. The ones that cost about $150000 that Australia does not get. These cars are hand made in a factory purely for them and the factory is only about 4 years old. Apparently it is a day outing kind of like Sea World without the rides. We'll see!!







Friday 9 March 2007

stuttgart

Mercedes Benz museum
Famous Gull wing roadsterMerc's every where

After leaving Geneva we headed to Stuttgart, Germany. Home of Mercedes Benz and Porsche. It was a very long train trip and we didn't get into Stuttgart till 10pm.
On our first day we went to the Mercedes Benz Museum, it is a bit out of town and €14 for entry but worth every penny. The building the Museum is in is a modern marvel. It is seven stories high. The museum tells a story, not only of Benz but also of what was the world was like at the time. We thought that it would only take an couple of hours but it took nearly all day, we also got there early enough to get our names on the Engine plant tour. Inside the Museum is every sort of Benz you could imagine, right from the first car ever made through to the modern cars. There were also truck, buses and Benz's used as taxi's etc. In the engine plant we got to see the 2,0 litre Kompresser engines being made, it all looks very simple as it goes together step by step.
Porsche Museum tomorrow..... or maybe not as Richard is all Car'd out.


Geneva

Peugeot´s new limo, yes the grass is real.

Shiny chrome Toyota Auris (our next Corolla)

A very economical Hummer H3

This fountain is over 135m tall

After leaving Interlaken we decided on going to Geneva. We changed our minds on where we were going to head about 10 times. The main reason we wanted to go to Geneva was because the 77th international motor show was on, it is suppose to be the best in the world and a lot of car makers leave it until Geneva to release new models. We saw lots of new release models, some nice and some irrelevant to us in Australia. We spent 5 hours at the motor show and still didn't see every thing, the place is huge. The car makers spend heaps on making their stands the biggest and the best. My favourite was the Jeep stand with a really cool water feature, I have a short movie on my phone for those who want to see it when we get home.
The hostel we stayed at in Geneva was good, it also had cooking facilities that we used as the restaurants and take away were still expensive, (we thought it may have been cheaper in the bigger city)

Tuesday 6 March 2007

interlaken and jungfraujoch

About to get on the Jungfraubahn.
Snow in our hair on Junfraujoch -11.2 degrees Jungfraujoch from train station.
Our hostel that we are staying in

After leaving Lucerne we hopped onto the Panoramic view train to Interlaken, all the carriages were the normal except the carriage that we chose. It had the glass curve up over us as the ceiling. The train trip was great with a fantastic view of all the snow covered mountains and the most beautiful green-grey lakes you have ever seen.
We found our accommodation very quickly which was good and it was only a 10 minute walk from the train station. The backpackers hostel is the best set out we have been to since we have been in Europe, it is called Hostel Sonnenhauff. It has a great kitchen as well, which is good as food is very expensive, so we are cooking our meals.
Today we went to Jungfraujoch and that was awesome, the view from the top is spectacular, it is the highest mountain in all of Europe it is 3571 metres high from the viewing platform. You can see for a really long way from the top. It was basically a full day tour starting at Interlarken and doing a big circle to come back at around 5.00 p.m. We went outside on the glacier and the wind was about 45 km/h and it was blowing snow over us and gave us white hair. You could only stay outside for a short time at -11 degrees and then we had to come back in. Anyway tomorrow we are leaving, we are actually unsure at this point in time where we will go to. So for now we will say bye and chat on the next blog.



lucerne

The chapel bridge
Bronte being a child in the snow!!

At the top of Mt Pilatus
Our attempt at a snow man
The sleeping lion monument

Well we arrived in Lucern in the afternoon and we headed straight to the youth hostel. Once we got our room organised we headed out to get lunch. We had a bit of a look around the town and went to the tourist information centre to get some ideas on what to do.
We went to the tourist information at 9.00 a.m. the next morning and got tickets to go to Mt Pilatus. It was fantastic, the day was awesome and the view spectacular. You had to catch two gondolas that were small ones with just us in them and then one really large one that holds about 30 people to go the last 5 minutes. The last one goes really fast and really steep and you feel like you are going to die. Alas we did not!
It was -3 degrees when we arrived on the top but the sun was out and I even managed to get sun burnt. We spent about 2 hours up the top before we decided to come down.
Tomorrow we head to Interlarken, and I hope we get good weather for Jungfraujoch.




Saturday 3 March 2007

venice

Bronte at the Rialto Bridge
In Burano very colourful
In a Venetian canal on a Venetian bridge


Well we arrived in Venice and booked into a dodgy motel that some guy at the train station talked us into. It actually turned out to be really quite alright and as cheap as the YHA.
Venice is really amazing and unique and has to be one of the better places that we have been to so far. It is just so different to any other place in Europe. It is hard to believe that you can live without cars and have all the deliveries brought to shops on boats and sack trucks. KFC delivery drivers would hate it.
The first day in Venice we went to Murano and saw all the glass stuff being made and every shop sold glass and they all became the same after a while. We then got the boat to Burano (thanks Nicole). All the houses in Burano are painted really bright colours and it is just a really nice little place. Burano is known for it's beautiful lace work.
The second day we spent just walking the streets of Venice trying to get lost. That was easily done. We went to San Marco square and climbed the clock tower via elevator. The view over all of Venice was beautiful and you could see for quite a long way.
We have since left Venice (today) and have just arrived in Lucern Switzerland. Are planning on seeing snow tomorrow. Bronte has not seen snow yet and is a little excited.



leaning tower of pisa

Bronte with his big boy beard pushing over the tower
Captain Richie saving the tower

We left on the early train from Rome (7.25am) headed for Pisa, there is only one thing you go to Pisa for and it is for the coffee... na the leaning tower. Our train arrived at 10.57am and we caught the bus to the leaning tower.
The tower is fabulous considering they started to build in 1173. We had to climb the tower so we went to the ticket booth and handed over our €30. The tower is actually quite weird to walk up, its like an aerobics class, really easy for ten steps then really hard for 10, it feels as if the tower is going to fall over. The steps have all worn funny from where people walk close to the outside then close to the inside as they walk around the circular staircase. After we finished our tour of the tower we had to take the typical tourist shot of us either holding the tower up or pushing it over.
After finishing at the tower we caught the train to Florence, to catch the connecting train to Venice. The train to Florence was late, leaving us only a few minutes to catching the connecting train. We arrived in Venice at 7pm very tired as we had been up all day.

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