Year: 2011

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Auckland, New Zealand

Zzzzzzzz !!

Berlin, Germany

Xandra and Sebastian collected us for breakfast. What a feast!!

They planned an amazing day for us. In other cities I’ve found interesting buildings etc to photograph, but today our city experience was so much richer. These 2 East Berliners had so many tales to tell about when the wall came down and all the renovations that have happened and new constructions that are now in progress.

We were very spoiled all day.

The population of NZ is in Berlin, yet there are still wide open spaces and many trees. It is bustling and vibrant and we just loved it.

We had the Berlin equivalent of Fish and chips for lunch – Curry Worst. Very good! Not like our curried sausages at all as the curry sauce has quite a tomato taste.

We were dropped off at the airport, checked our luggage through to Auckland and braced our selves for the long haul home.

So it’s auf wiederseh from us or should it be Tschüss

What a holiday it has been!!!
We will treasure many memories for a log, long time.

Berlin, Germany

So now we know the literal meaning or Eurocity – let’s find as many places between Wien and Berlin and go there. It’ll only take 10 hours!!!
It was actually fine until we thought, where are we? From the billboard advertising we figured it must be Czechoslovakia – www……………cz

Xandra met us at the new main station in Berlin – best train station we’ve been in! (We have been in a few)
Sebastian and Xandra drove us through the CBD with all the lights on, on our way to dinner with Xandra’s parents in their part of the city.
They chose the place because it was typical German food – it was so good! The riesling slid down well too. We enjoyed the food, company and atmosphere of the evening. A perfect end to a long day.

Then Xandra announced that they had organised an apartment to stay the night. We felt quite humble by their amazing generosity.

And we slept well to

Vienna, Austria

After not much sleep, (surely not too much food last night), we headed for the station for the trip to Vienna.

Hotel Prinz Eugen is delightful.

Tonight we were off out to dinner and a Strauss and Mozart concert in the Stadt Park. We had expected it to be a bit ‘cheesy touristy’ but as with many of our experiences over the past few weeks, we were surprised.

The 4 course dinner was superb!

The concert was full of fun, with a small (13 piece) orchestra, 2 ballet dancers and 2 opera singers. However, the music was pretty good! We noted that most of the audience of about 500 people were aged 50+, so were thrilled to see that 4 of the musicians were probably under 30.

We heard pieces by Johan and Josef (his younger brother), Mozart and Puccini.

So what is Vienna like? Well, we only got glimpses from taxis, but the theatre we went to was magical with winding staircases and huge chandeliers.

Tomorrow, it’s off to Berlin to meet Xandra.

Gute Nacht!

Innsbruck, Austria

It has poured with rain all day which is such a pity as we are in a wonderful place.

I had some shopping planned for the morning, so we ventured out with umbrellas as we did not have far to go.

Also did our usual routine of working out which platform we need tomorrow to go to Vienna.

Of course we found a coffee shop and looked longingly at their goodies. So you can guess where we happened to go for afternoon tea!

We’ve just dashed out as there has been a break in the weather and joined hundreds of other tourists shooting away.

We’ve come back really hungry as the smells wafting from all the eateries was really quite cruel.

Stepping back into the hotel, even more yummy smells wafting from the kitchen. I’m glad we are staying in tonight to sample this ‘famous Tyrolean chef’s’ fare.

Just as well we are doing lots of walking – we’d be the size of houses with all this great food!

Innsbruck, Austria

We have arrived in Innsbruck to a fabulous hotel in the ‘old town’. It is a wonderful end to a not so wonderful day.

It was too wet and miserable to venture far with the sight seeing this morning, so after a quick recce of the nearby streets and to work out how to get to our platform without using stairs, we set off to the railway station. We bought lunch at a bakery, packed it and the brollies into the backpack and headed up the escalator. We got separated on the escalator but both arrived at the platform together. I was aware of a guy who had pretended to help me on the escalator, hanging about, so was wary of him. Next thing he appears asking Gray for help to read a sign, just as another guy steals the backpack. I saw it all, so just yelled my head off – “Thief, thief!!!” You probably heard me.
The guy pretending to want help, then hung about hoping Gray would give chase. As if he would, leave me with all the luggage for a backpack. As the guy with the backpack ran down the stairs he was waving a wallet still trying to get Gray to chase him. By now the whole of Geneva knew what was happening and both guys disappeared, especially after Gray whipped out his iPhone and said he was phoning the police! (He didn’t even know the number!)
Next thing a security guy appears with the backpack, which had been dumped as soon as the hullabaloo started.
Little did they know the backpack contained my iPad, wallet with cards etc.

Very shakily we boarded the train and were glad to get out of Switzerland. In Italy, (Rome and Florence), we were aware of beggars and in Marseille we were aware of crowds of people milling about, but it was only when we arrived in Geneva that I felt uneasy. We ate very close to the hotel last night because I was not keen to walk down the ‘main street’ at night.

The first train took us to Zurich and we had 10 minutes to find the platform and board the train to Innsbruck. We were still finding our seats as the train slid away!! We climbed high into the alps and around St.Anton the snow was down quite low – in the streets.

However, now in Innsbruck, we can see snow on the high hills and it is cool, but not very cold. The streets around us a quite magical and we are looking forward to exploring them tomorrow.

Our hotel has a restaurant, but it is closed on Sundays, so we will try it tomorrow.

Geneva, Switzerland

It’s hard to believe that we were wearing summer clothes up till yesterday and now it is cold.
At Marseille station this morning everyone was in winter woollies.

We’d seen on the news last night that there were strikes etc with train workers, but normal services began today. We had reserved seats to Lyons, but from Lyons to Geneva we had to scramble for seats and everyone had luggage. We ended up sitting on pull own seats with everyone’s luggage around us. Fortunately it was only 2 hours.
The countryside was considerably greener than we’ve seen over the last 4 weeks.

It was raining as we arrived in Geneva, but our hotel is virtually across the road – an amazing improvement on last night!!

We’ve been out to have a little look-see, collected a map from the tourism office and planning a little boat trip on the lake in the morning – weather permitting.

We leave for Innsbruck at midday.

Marseille, France

This morning was spent with last minute washing at the Lavarie, having coffees and buying lunch from the bakery.
At lunchtime we headed off to Marseille to deliver the car and stay the night. The drive/delivery went pretty smoothly. We even found a petrol station to fill the car, after the station we’d programmed into the GPS, no longer exists!!

Then we headed off on the Metro to our hotel.

Now, as you know we’ve been living it up on the French Riveriera, so imagine how we felt as we walked into Fawlty Towers, Marseille style!

First, it is in the not so elite part of town.
Second, our credit cards did not work on their machine, so we pay cash.
Third, we are on the third floor and there are no lifts.
Fourth, we have a bed, a shower and a handbasin, but where is the loo? Oh goody, we share one with all the guests on our floor. (The place is full. Backpackers, mostly)

However, when Gray was out getting more cash from a hole in the wall, he spotted some possible restaurants. We had a super dinner, yummy and cheap.
And we slept really well!

I announced that when we went down to breakfast in the morning, we’d take our luggage as there was no way I was going up and down again unnecessarily!

Le Grau-du-Roi, France

Our preparation to leave is quite strange. Dawn left yesterday. This morning we had our last outing, driving to Le Grau du Roi, one of the villages we visited on the boat.

After coffees, we headed into the streets only to find it was market day. We bought only a rock melon as we were trying to use up food, not buy more.

I also bought a pair of shoes as my kiwi ones bought especially for walking on European streets have worn out! No I didn’t buy them from the Warehouse!!

We watched a movie, Cider house Rules and early to bed.

La Grande-Motte, France

Today was Dawn’s last day here. After breakfast we walked over to the laundrettte, then off to the shop where we’d seen the Le Creuset ware. Originally we’d asked the guy whether he could send a dish to NZ, but in the meantime we decided that we’d pack it in our luggage. So we bought it.

Had a coffee at the bakery then headed off to the tourism office to do emails etc.

We had lunch in a cafe near the apartment. Over the past few days I had seen people being served a small bucket of mussels and thought that that must be an enormous amount to eat in one sitting! No, it’s fine. They slide down very easily! Gray didn’t have a clue what he’d ordered but he really enjoyed it as Dawn and I tucked into our mussels.

We then drove Dawn out to the airport. She should be landing in Gatwick about now.

We’re doing some more writing for Liam, then a quiet night in.

Bon soir!