Then came a curveball - work were sending me to Munich suddenly for an overnight trip. My boss told me to take the train there and back - so this meant I could catch the ICE's. Although the timings for my work in Munich narrowed the range of trains down I could book, I was also told to book a full-priced ticket which meant I could catch any train at any time on those days if for whatever reason I finished up early or needed to catch a later train back. Suddenly the Bible was infinitely valuable! And so I made my way to Munich on a Wednesday morning departing Berlin on an ICE1 - and not only that, the very-recently Duplo Chocolate liveried ICE1. It didn't go over 200km/h however (ICE1's have a top speed of 250km/h), even on the new high-speed section which was the same as the ICE-T train Sasha and I had taken to and from Nuremberg on the same section. At Nuremberg I changed onto an ICE3 set as per my timetable as it got there quicker - and that train got just over 250km/h, which was the highest so far but still short of the ICE3's top 300km/h speed.
At the beginning of the year there were a few train things I was beginning to lament I hadn't been able to do and didn't see much opportunity to do in the time left. Mostly these revolved around the ICE high-speed trains of Germany - namely that I had not travelled aboard an ICE1, the original kind of ICE train which are slated for retirement in the next few years; that I had not travelled any faster than 200-230km/h by high speed train in Germany, when the maximum some of them can go is 300km/h; and that I had not been able to see the Prototype ICE locomotive, which holds Germany's speed record and was in a museum in Munich (407km/h) - which I only found out as we were at Munich airport when about to fly back to Berlin after Oktoberfest, our last trip to Munich. All three of these things I have wanted to do or see ever since coming to Europe - 3 years later I had not achieved them, although I had ticked off many other ICE-related things! Remaining chances to ride on ICE's were slim - but we were planning our Western Germany trip, and possibly one to Leipzig. Being able to go faster than 200km/h, let alone 300km/h seemed remote but being able to ride on an ICE1 should be possible - if I can work out which trains are ICE1 and the others. This was largely accomplished by finding some (slightly out of date) listings in the back of a book about ICE's, and also visiting Berlin Hauptbahnhof one lunchtime - German trains almost always visit the same platforms, so the large stations have a board on each platform showing each long distance train that will stop there and a diagram of where each carriage will stop on the platform. Although it never actually stated what type of train it would be, the diagram was enough since each ICE train type was a fixed formation and I could work it out from that. I put this into a spreadsheet and called it the "ICE Bible". Then came a curveball - work were sending me to Munich suddenly for an overnight trip. My boss told me to take the train there and back - so this meant I could catch the ICE's. Although the timings for my work in Munich narrowed the range of trains down I could book, I was also told to book a full-priced ticket which meant I could catch any train at any time on those days if for whatever reason I finished up early or needed to catch a later train back. Suddenly the Bible was infinitely valuable! And so I made my way to Munich on a Wednesday morning departing Berlin on an ICE1 - and not only that, the very-recently Duplo Chocolate liveried ICE1. It didn't go over 200km/h however (ICE1's have a top speed of 250km/h), even on the new high-speed section which was the same as the ICE-T train Sasha and I had taken to and from Nuremberg on the same section. At Nuremberg I changed onto an ICE3 set as per my timetable as it got there quicker - and that train got just over 250km/h, which was the highest so far but still short of the ICE3's top 300km/h speed. As for my work in Munich, it was quite productive - to the point where I ended up with spare time on the Thursday where I had the opportunity to go visit that prototype ICE train in the Museum, which as it happens is located across the road from the Oktoberfest grounds! The day was raining and not nice, and the Oktoberfest grounds area was just a wide open plain of concrete and shingle/mud - the only building existing was the Police and Lost & Found building, there was nothing else at all, not even the Beer Halls/Tents and no real sign that they were ever there! The Museum itself was fairly interesting with a large collection of transport items, not just trains but it did have what was either the original, or a replica, of the first Electric train in the world which was German - but I cannot for the life of me establish whether it is real or not. Afterwards I was able to head to Munich Hauptbahnhof and catch an earlier train back to Berlin - an ICE3, which was billed as one of the "Sprinter" trains on this line. Sprint it certainly did, and I hit the magic 300km/h quite a few times on the way back! Visiting the museum in Munich reminded me that I needed to go back to the Berlin Technik Museum to finish it off, as the one time Sasha and I had gone there not long after arriving in Berlin we had to leave after a number of hours due to Sasha's hayfever medication making her drowsy (and she promptly fell asleep when we got home for a few hours!). So on the weekend we made the visit there - and discovered that its definitely not a Museum you can do in a single day really! Although there are many trains to be seen (including a research train for the ICE's, and either a replica or the original of that same first Electric train that I had seen in Munich) there is an extensive collection of all manner of things, including vehicles (and some from Daimler - which makes them the fist cars or motorbikes ever made) but also communication equipment, computers and Science-aspect stuff as well. We saw a helper robot running around one building, played with many science experiments and there was an interesting take on digital espionage - relating back to the spying done by the East German Stasi and giving examples of it in the modern day world. It flies under the radar but its there and its prevalent, the Russians being big perpetrators of it. Lastly there was one more train thing - Sasha decided to surprise me and take me to a Cocktail bar that is located in a former S-Bahn suburban train, so we had a few here before we headed home! So, thank you work for sending me on work-related travel - something I'd been hoping for for a while, and in the process allowing me to complete all 3 of my outstanding ICE "wishes". It also means something else - this extra visit to Munich means I have now visited the city 5 times, which brings it into 1st-Equal with Zurich as the Most Visited City. It doesn't displace Zurich from the top spot entirely, and nor is it planned for it do do so... that would require something quite extraordinary to happen. However its quite possible, maybe even likely, that before we reach Oceania that another city at least will join Munich and Zurich at first-equal spot - but I don't see any other place potentially moving into 1st place by itself. We shall see however!
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Way back when we caught up with Denise and David in Liverpool for Denise's 30th birthday, we all broached the idea of doing something for Christmas together - and the idea was that we try for a White Christmas somewhere in Europe, as Sasha and I had yet to have one and this was our last opportunity for a while. That premise is easy - the reality ended up being anything but. In fact I would say it was the hardest trip to organise yet. To cut a very, very long story short it turns out trying to find somewhere in Europe that was guaranteed to be white at Christmas which we could all get to without difficulty and within the timeframe Denise & David could get off from work was not actually possible. We spent months looking at all options - and there were few places that were guaranteed to be white at that time of year, but plenty of places that "have a good chance" of being white. I spent ages trying to work out all the permutations that would result in visiting a place that would be guaranteed white, but could not make it work. So focus shifted to the "had a good chance" of being white places. In the end we came to the conclusion that the best place that "had a good chance" of being white, and was going to be easiest travel wise for everyone was in fact Scotland - basically where Denise & David were living. Denise & David still liked the idea of going away from Edinburgh though so we set to looking at places in Scotland we could go which maximized our potential for snow. Loch Lomond was suggested, but we ended up hitting upon a place in Aviemore in the Cairngorms National Park - if ever there was going to be snow in Scotland, it would surely be here as there were skifields nearby. Transport links were good to, and we found an Airbnb which would comfortably house us. Finally it was all coming together and we were about to book when we were hit by a curveball! Much earlier at Sasha's suggestion I'd contacted my cousin Ellen and her husband Matt to see if they had Christmas plans - but they were going to have Christmas in Wiemar, Germany with Matt's Dad. Literally just as we'd all agreed to book Aviemore, I got a message from Ellen saying Matt's dad was going to be in Brazil at Christmas and they were willing to host Christmas at their place if we wanted. We brought Ellen and Matt into the fold and pitched Aviemore to them - the place we were looking at would accommodate 6 so there was no need to re-plan anything, I think they were a bit taken aback how far along our planning was but agreed they wanted to be a part of it all so we booked it. All of the above sounds very simple when I write it like that but it wasn't, it really wasn't - trying to get 4 people (and then 6) all on the same page and in agreement took a while. Not because anyone was disagreeing as such, but more we all weren't so crash hot at replying in the affirmative to things in a timely manner! Everything else fell into place after that, with food and drink organised and coordinated, getting to Aviemore figured out and anything else logistically and practically. On these latter points I have to thank everyone for picking up the batons and running with them once we'd locked in Aviemore. Sasha and I also worked out what we were going to do post-Christmas and for New Years, making a holiday out of it and securing the extra leave necessary on my part (with Sasha having finished up work, it wasn't a problem for her). It was going to be a family Christmas in Scotland - with our fingers crossed for snow! I'm going to do this a bit differently, instead of day-by-day which might make sense, I'm going to split it into two parts - Christmas itself, and then the post-Christmas travels. Part 1 - Christmas in AviemoreSasha and I flew from Berlin to Edinburgh on the evening of the 23rd, on what was the same Easyjet flight Denise & David had taken a few weeks earlier and like them, we discovered the terminal was completely empty - certainly no Christmas rush this night! We stayed at Denise & David's with Denise collecting us from the Airport and taking us to David's workplace The Salt Horse for a drink en route. The next morning we went and had breakfast at a favourite place of Denise &David's before we caught a train from Edinburgh Waverley to Aviemore, which was about 3 hours. David had a massive suitcase just full of beer and drink - it was heavy and when we got to Aviemore we discovered we had to take it across an overbridge crossing the train tracks and of course, it only had stairs! However we managed to power lift it and found our way to the campground where our Airbnb was. Our accommodation unit was what is called a "Static Caravan" in UK parlance - it is a single storey holiday house of fairly fixed dimensions, individually owned, and usually parked in rows with other Static Caravans. It will stay on a plot in a campground for many years and will almost always have a deck and sides built around it which invariably hides the trailer frame and wheels that allow it to be transported when necessary. They are always plumbed up and connected to electricity like a house too but being a "Caravan" allows them to be exempt from various things. They are very popular in the UK, and we thought 6 might be a squeeze inside it but the layout was very efficient and in fact it afforded a lot of room! Matt & Ellen had the room with the double bed, Sasha and I had the room with the two single beds (which we pushed together) and Denise & David had the pull-out sofa bed in the lounge. Matt & Ellen arrived in their car, and for dinner we headed out to a local pub for their Christmas Dinner menu before going back to our Airbnb. Christmas day was fun but relaxed - a great breakfast of bacon, eggs and allsorts was cooked up by our master chefs, presents were dished out, family was Skyped, Cards against Humanity was played with considerable hilarity, much cheese and drink consumed as well as David and Denise doing a superb job with the Roast Chicken Christmas dinner. All very laid back but a hell of a lot of fun, and we never felt cramped or lacking for space - nor did we feel cold despite how freezing it was outside. It had snowed on the hills around us, but not down to ground level - and so we didn't get the White Christmas that we hoped for, but it was still great nonetheless! Boxing Day we all parted ways - Ellen and Matt drove back to St Andrews, while Denise and David caught a bus back to Edinburgh (booked through Megabus but it wasn't a Megabus bus). A fun filled, chilled, family Christmas - could not have been any better in my opinion, though if it had snowed that would have been the icing on the cake! Part 2 - Scotland HolidaySo Sasha and I stayed on in Aviemore for an extra night, though we stayed in a different Airbnb. While out for dinner that night at a place called The Winking Owl it started snowing, ever so lightly but it kept it up. While we had our great dinner (and tried Cullen Skink soup for the first time - ours had a Scotch Egg in it also!) and sampled some of the beers from the Cairngorms Brewery, we watched as it slowly settled. The ground was a very thin layer of white by the time we headed back to our accommodation. The next morning we discovered it had snowed more overnight and there was a nice snow layer on the ground. We headed to the train station to catch our train - a steam train on the Strathspey Railway, where they were running a Mince Pie and Mulled Wine train special. Eating the warm mince pie and drinking the mulled wine inside our steam-heated carriage was rather nice, as we watched the snow-covered landscape go by and it started snowing again quite heavily during the trip. This was quite funny as the steam loco being used was a Scottish type which did not have a back to the cab, so the crew must have been a bit exposed! Afterwards we got some food from the nearby Tesco for lunch and caught our train to Inverness while it snowed, a journey just under an hour. The landscape was white right up until we arrived at Inverness - if only the weather had done its thing 24hrs earlier, we would have had a white Christmas! After checking into our accommodation we wandered around Inverness, discovering an enormous 2nd hand bookstore in the process - it looked like something out of Harry Potter and it had the most massive selection of train books I have ever seen. They were all UK books though and none that I needed, but Sasha found a book she wanted and got it. After a rather lovely breakfast at our accommodation, we had most of the day to wander around Inverness. We decided to go to the ShipSpace Museum because it sounded interesting and had a large Titanic model there. Which it did, and interesting it was but not in the "this is a really good museum" way. It distinctly gave you the impression that it was some guy's hobby that got turned into a museum - and kind of lost the "ShipSpace" idea and focussed almost entirely on Titanic. There were laminated news articles from when the Movie came out on the walls, the movie posters and magazine cut-outs, in a "viewing room" where some bicycles and other things were also being stored there was a small computer screen in front of a (presumably not working) wall-mounted screen showing "Ghosts of the Abyss", which is film footage of Titanic underwater. Downstairs in an old rowboat was a speedboat arcade game, and outside were a number of small preserved boats or replicas of boats under construction. As well as the large Titanic model - its so large that you can do inside parts of it, with one part meant to represent the bridge, one the boiler room, and one the Palm Court cafe - which also had a small kitchenette where it seemed you were able to make yourself a cup of tea or coffee and sit in the cafe. This model has a sign on it saying it is not complete, but it is also unfortunately falling apart as well with a collapsed section on one side of it. The whole thing is a neat idea, but the execution is, well, interesting. We walked along the Caledonian canal, to a point where we could meet the River Ness and walk back up that into the city. This involved a lot of walking on as well as avoiding ice, and we also had another wander around the part of the city we had not yet been through. We had pretty much now seen all there was to see in Inverness, so we got some dinner supplies to eat on the train and headed to the train station, and caught our train to Aberdeen - a 3 hour journey in the darkness, and our hotel was across the road from the station which made it easy to find! When we explored Aberdeen the next day there seemed to be a theme - Grey. Everything was made of Grey stone, the sky was grey, the feel of the city was... well not exactly grey but because of everything else it kind of felt like that. We had a great breakfast consisting of a bap and coffee for £2.50 (the extra 0.50 was to add avocado!), a visit to the maritime museum (very interesting considering Aberdeen is the hub for the North Sea Oil Rig fleet), a visit to their still-going Christmas Market (and an obligatory Mulled Wine was had), wanderings of the city and a visit to the Winter Gardens in Duthie Park where we managed to shelter out most of the afternoon rain. That evening we caught a rather full Scotrail train from Aberdeen to Edinburgh, where we were met by Denise who took us to the Salt Horse for a drink and then we went back to their house. We then had 2 days in Edinburgh - finally a chance to explore this city outside of the busy Fringe Festival time, although I can't say it was much less busy at this time of year as Edinburgh is home of Hogmanay, the Scottish New Year festival and is known to be quite packed for it. One of the major things I wanted to do was visit the Britannia, the former British Royal Yacht which thanks to the Queen having reigned so long only ever served Queen Elisabeth II and her family before it was retired in 1997. It's quite a decent visit - a lot of history, a lot of easy-to-follow explanations and there was a lot of bar's on board - at least one for the family, one for the officers, one for the crew and another for someone else! The top deck has been modified a bit to incorporate a restaurant and we had club sandwiches, as well as tea and scones for lunch here! One thing that particularly struck me was that there were a lot of photos of Queen Margaret around the ship, and apparently her favourite spot to sit was in a sun lounge in a seat that was handily close to a bar which held a lot of liquor! oh and one last thing - apparently the Royals played Trionimoes aboard the ship! We also visited the Scotch Whisky Experience, which is the Scottish equivalent of the Irish Whiskey Museum that we did in Dublin. Sasha had done it before but I was keen to see it and see the difference between the two museums - I think this one on the whole was better polished than the Irish one. We had a ride in an automated cart which told us about how Whisky is made, learned some differences between Scotch Whisky and Irish Whiskey (before the introduction of the Continuous Still and blending, Scotch Whisky was much more fiery, nowadays Scotch Whisky is considered more "flavourful" than Irish Whiskey). Throughout our travels so far we'd been trying Whisky along the way - I had some in Aviemore, in Aberdeen Sasha and I had gone to a very local Whisky bar and gotten a flight of Highland Whisky's to sample. There are 5 whisky regions of Scotland, all with different characteristics - the Lowlands (most "brand" Whisky's seem to be from here), the Highlands, Speyside (the region around Aviemore & Inverness), Islay (which is reknown for its peatyness) and Campbelltown. The tour included a tasting of a Whisky from a region of our choice, so we both went with Campbelltown since that was the hardest one to find and for me, the only kind I had not had yet this trip. They also had a huge room with a massive Whisky collection - some bottles less full than others, not because they have been drunken but because Whisky naturally evaporates in bottles anyway, known as the "Angel's Share". One bottle was empty, and our tour guide said that was the Angel's favourite! There was also a huge shop with a massive array of Scottish Whisky for sale, and just before we were about to leave something made me think to check for Loch Lomond Whisky - this is a Whisky brand which features in the Tintin books which was ostensibly fictitious, but there really is a Whisky distillery with that name. We found it - we thought it was Lowlands but its a Highlands Whisky, and I got 3 little souvenir bottles of it that could easily be transported. We also watched the kick-off of the Parade for Hogmanay, which is a ticketed event where you carry a flaming torch and march towards Holyrood which is where the Scottish Parliament is. We weren't participating but watched as masses and masses of people lit their torches and marched down the Royal Mile, it looked all a bit like an angry mob on their way to cause havoc! We then went and visited the Christmas Market by Waverley Station, saw some fireworks for Hogmanay near Holyrood go off about 8pm from a bridge by Waverley Station before making our way to Denise's work for a drink and to our surprise got to hang out with her a lot - and she came off shift while we were there so we all walked home together! New Year's Eve saw Sasha and I go find Voldemort's Grave in the graveyard behind the cafe where J.K. Rowling "invented" Harry Potter. Its the grave of someone called Tom Riddell, not Tom Riddle but apparently its where she got the inspiration for the name and also the school next door was apparently the inspiration for Hogwarts. Then up to the Castle for a visit, only to find thanks to the strong winds the Castle was closed! So we instead went and got lunch at a Wagamama's, followed by a visit to the National Museum of Scotland where we saw Wylam Dilly (2nd oldest locomotive in the world, behind Puffing Billy in the Science Museum in London) and also Dolly the sheep, the world's first clone. New Year's for us was celebrated at a ticketed event at David's workplace, where for the ticket price we got 6 beers and dinner included as well as an exclusive venue. David would be working, but would have the opportunity to hang out from time to time with Denise, Sasha and myself. It was actually really great, the beer selection was quite wide, varied and well picked out - I had an Apricot Sour first up (delicious), then a Beyond Modus 3 which was a "Wine tasting porter" as I kept calling it, very tasty but it was also 8%. My plan was to go back to an Apricot Sour before it ran out but I was too late! The beer came in 2/3 size or 1/3 size - in the other half of the bar (David was manning our half) they had a few more beers on tap so Sasha and I got a 1/3 of a "Christmas Cake" beer and a 1/3 of a Mexican Biscotti beer, these were 10-11% each. Despite the rest of the range and even despite trying all of them I kept going back to the Beyond Modus, and at midnight Sasha and I went outside to one of the bridges adjoining Waverley Station, joining the masses watching the fireworks go off at midnight and singing Auld Lang Syne. Then it was back to the Salt Horse to continue on - and we got a few beer tokens extra thanks to people abandoning theirs. We had a great night, and made it through to closing time actually! New Years Day for me especially, but for all of us, was spent recovering from the excesses of the night before. All I wanted to do was sleep it off, but about 2pm in the afternoon Denise & David mobilised to leave the house, visit the Sainsbury's and get some pizza for us to recover with. We visited Denise & David's favourite pub in the later afternoon where we played rounds of "Avengers Uno" which is the regular Uno card game with some special cards which changes the strategy, and also we learned how to play it properly according to the rulebook - as kids it turns out we were doing it wrong all this time! I didn't drink any beer but stuck to soft drink, while Sasha had Ginger beer and Denise & David had a few small beers. David had a beer event to go to that evening, so after he headed off the rest of us went to a nearby restaurant where we had a reasonably healthy but definitely filling meal - if anything it definitely replenished all the nutrients which might have been lost from the night before! The day after New Years is not a holiday in Germany nor most of the UK, so this was an ordinary business day for my colleagues but also everyone else in Edinburgh. Sasha and I were departing Edinburgh today though, for Glasgow - in our planning we'd discovered flights on the 2nd were extremely expensive, early morning flights on the 1st not as expensive but less ideal; but from Glasgow on the 3rd they were dirt cheap. Glasgow was on our list of places to visit anyway, so it was a very logical way to visit the city without having to backtrack. I'd booked all the trains in consultation with Sasha for this trip, and on one or two I had wanted a different train than she had - either earlier or later, but had gone with the one she wanted. For this last train though I chose it - instead of the myriad of Scotrail services to Glasgow Queen Street, we were going to take the train operated by Cross Country to Glasgow Central which happened to be closer to our accommodation anyway. Not only was it cheaper, although a bit later than Sasha suggested being the ideal time, but we could get first class for cheaper than 2nd class on Scotrail. Not that we got anything for it apart from wider seats, but as it was an hour it was quite pleasant. After checking in at our accommodation (literally adjacent to the station) we ventured out into Glasgow, wandering around the city and making our way out to the Necropolis which is mostly a large graveyard on top of, and inside of, a hill. The weather was rather moody in between showers and bursts of sun, which made for some interesting photos! Nearby we also found Dr Who's Tardis, or at least a blue-painted Police Box - we knocked but the Doctor didn't seem to be there at the time, probably trying to solve some mystery elsewhere in Glasgow! The science center we knew was closed today so we decided to catch the Glasgow tube to the transport museum, only to discover when we got there (like many others!) that it too was closed. Turns out the 2nd is a public holiday in Glasgow at least! For dinner that night we went to a place called Rab Ha's which while it sounds Indian but is named after a local Glaswegian vagrant from the past. One thing which particularly caught my attention on the Menu was the Grey Squirrel stew, Sasha was going to give this a go also but it turns out it wasn't a real item! Our last day was pretty much just travelling back to Berlin. We found our way to the bus station, found the not-fast bus to the Airport that was much cheaper, and rode that the 80 minutes it took to the airport as we had the time. In hindsight though given the jerky and winding path the bus took, maybe the faster bus may have been better! Our flight was with Ryanair so we got our boarding passes visa-checked which we had to do being outside of the Schengen Zone, but other than that our flight was fairly standard on our way back to Berlin. We caught the express train to Ostkreuz and went home - and had the evening free to unwind and unpack before having to go to work the next day! Summing UpWhile Scotland might not have been our first choice of destinations for Christmas travels, it certainly turned out to be brilliant - and I could not have wished for a better Christmas trip! Certainly Scotland was on our list as a place we wanted to visit and see a lot of, with a grand tour in mind as part of our big travels once we leave Berlin but we also knew we wanted to pop over and see Denise & David before then. This trip allowed the visit to see Denise & David in Edinburgh, hang out with them, see Edinburgh and Hogmanay but also allowed us to see parts of Scotland that we were thinking of visiting as part of the big travels - meaning we would now have more time to spend seeing the other parts of Scotland when we do those travels.
A massive thanks to Sasha, Denise, David, Ellen and Matt for all of what Christmas entailed; and to Denise & David for their hospitality in Edinburgh around New Years, it was great. It was also good to visit Aberdeen and Glasgow as new places (as well as Aviemore!), and for me to revisit Inverness - and I saw different things this time than I did the time previous, as well as some things the same. Overall this trip I don't feel like we were rushing to do a lot, it had a slower pace which suited me just fine! Obviously given what I have written above, we'll be back to Scotland once more before the OE is over. Edinburgh will definitely be revisited, but Glasgow, Aberdeen, Aviemore and Inverness are unlikely to feature on the next trip. This is fine though - the next time is not likely to be our last visit to Scotland ever, but we're very much looking forward to the parts of Scotland that we will visit next time such as Isle of Skye. Who knows, maybe sometime in the future post-OE when we visit Scotland it might be an independent country by then - although I was opposed to its seccession at the time of the independence referendum, as time has gone on and having actually lived in the UK and seen how it works I am now firmly of the opinion that the best thing Scotland could do is unshackle itself from the Union and forge its own course, particularly in a post-Brexit environment. Hell, had it become independent during the last referendum and made visas available as freely as they said they were going, it could well have been that instead of Sasha and I moving to Germany when we did that we went to an independent Scotland. It is a very nice country - and while we didn't get the snow we hoped for at Christmas itself, the whole holiday was a blast! Scotland - we'll be back soon, but we have some more adventures to be had in the meantime... October had a lot going on, as you would have seen - and November started off that way too. This time rather than individual posts about each thing, I'm going to do a combination post. The Burning Hell My friend Kevin came to Berlin again on yet another Europe trip - this was the 3rd he'd done since I have been away from NZ, but only the 2nd one where we managed to catch up (though we'd caught up with him in NZ when we popped back at Christmas). The original idea was just dinner, but then he threw in the suggestion of going to see a concert for a band called The Burning Hell that he'd been listening to recently and just happened to be playing the only night he'd be in Berlin. Although skeptical at first, Sasha started playing some of their music for us to listen to and we found that it was actually not Heavy Death Metal as you might presume, but actually quite catchy and pleasant songs (and they're Canadian, not from Germany). So we said yes, I got the tickets, on the appointed day we caught up for dinner at a neat German pub near Jannowitzbrücke and then went to the concert venue. The venue was not large, but was intimate - it would hold maybe 100 people max, and on the night it was maybe 2/3rds full. There was a warm-up act called Construction and Destruction - to me and Sasha they were not great at the start, but got a lot better once the two performers switched places. The main act though, The Burning Hell were on fire - turns out having listened to their songs on and off over the last month, I actually knew most of the songs! The concert finished off with the first song of theirs we'd heard which is pretty much their signature song (you should listen to it yourself - www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfITqXD6koo). An excellent night out when all is said and done, and a big thanks to Kevin for accommodating us in his schedule and also for the concert suggestion! Sasha's Girls trip to Spain Our friend Nicole, who came to stay with us in Berlin (see that post here) was doing a bunch of travels around Europe before heading back to Australia and invited us to meet her in Spain (specifically, San Sebastian) at the beginning of November. I had no leave left, so I couldn't do it - but Sasha did. I encouraged her to go without me, as it would be the last chance for her to hang out with Nicole and have some "girl time" with her on this side of the world. What I think was originally going to be a 2-3 day trip ballooned into 5 because of transportation - San Sebastian only has a domestic airport, the nearest international one is Bilbao which is where Nicole was flying into the day before going to San Sebastian and it worked out best for Sasha to do the same. For coming back Sasha couldn't find decent priced flights, but Nicole was travelling from San Sebastian to Madrid and then further on around Spain and I suggested to Sasha to look at going with Nicole to Madrid and check out flights from there - much cheaper, though it would mean another night away from home. That was fine by me - Sasha had the time and the opportunity and she should take it as far as I was concerned. So after seeing Sasha off at Tegel Airport for her flights to Bilbao (via Dusseldorf, on Eurowings) I was without her for the rest of the day and the following 4 days. It was Sunday - what to do by myself in Berlin on a Sunday? I'd looked up a variety of ideas, even venturing outside of Berlin but nothing that would work or appealed. So instead I decided to wander around the city as I felt like it, with my camera getting some various photos. I decided to go visit the Nartupark Schöneberg, which I'd been meaning to go to for ages. I didn't realise it was a former railway yard now turned into a nature reserve, a bit like Gleisdreieck where we first lived in Berlin - and I unexpectedly found a steam train in the park. At the nearby Sudkreuz Railway station I got a bit distracted taking photos of trains for a while - and to be fair a lot of the rest of the photographs taken this day ended up being of trains. I was trying to be a bit arty with some of these, but a lot of the others were more "standard" and I'll spare you from those. I visited a market in town near Museum Island but it was a bit lame on this day, I took some more photos of trains but feeling uninspired and a bit aimless I headed for home. The bus from the Ostbahnhof got held up near Boxhagener Platz near home and it turned out there was a parade/march/demonstration/celebration to mark the Centenary of "Red October" - the October Revolution in Russia, 1917 when the Communists led by Vladimir Lenin took power. I was able to hop off the bus and get a few photos of it, before it got sequestered in a side street (don't know why) and then I carried on the 2 blocks to home on foot. Interestingly the centenary was not celebrated in Russia - internal revolution is not a word the Russian Government want to bandy around at the moment lest it give people ideas. Berlin had quite a few things to mark the occasion, interestingly enough. So that was my day - and I had work to occupy my next few days until Sasha got back! Next time I must actually have a plan when venturing out with camera by myself as aimlessness didn't really work! The First Christmas Market of the Season A bit early, but the Potsdamer Platz Christmas market kicked into life at the beginning of November. It was in many ways a twin of the Alexanderplatz one - its not great, its full of crappy touristy stalls but it has Glühwein and food. Sasha and I went to see Thor 3 at the Potsdamer Platz Cinestar cinema (which screens almost all movies in "Original Version" - i.e. in English, not dubbed over with German as the German's love to do with all TV shows and movies! so before the movie, we visited the Christmas market and got ourselves a Glühwein and a Currywurst basket with an edible bowl - just like we'd had in Alexanderplatz on our first trip to Berlin. Thor 3 by the way was fantastic - Taika Waititi's first big budget movie and that Kiwi humour laced all through it was just so funny. Can't help wonder though, how much of that humour and subtlety would be lost in the dubbed German version - did someone try and do Maori-accented German for the character of Korg, or did they try and do some other kind of accent - Turkish maybe? Also The Sony Center building where the Cinema is looked fantastic all lit up. Little Big City and the MeMu Ages ago we got some opening offer tickets for a new attraction called "Little Big City" that was opening in Berlin. Its an attraction owned by the Madame Tussauds group who also do all the Life Aquariums and Life Zoo's, or the Dungeon attractions. Normally we don't go much for those but the Little Big City seemed different, because it would show different aspects of the city in miniature and over time. In most cities that might be ho-hum, but considering Berlin has changed a huge amount in the last 100 years let alone prior to that, it becomes more interesting. So we finally decided to go and see it. Its actually not bad. Its not amazing - certainly not Miniature Wonderland standard, but the variety of things they've touched and the way they've managed to encapsulate the history works extremely well. Berlin prior to the 19th Century, and then Berlin becoming a powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution; to an electrical innovation and cinematic center between the wars; the Nazi period with the Reichstag Fire and the Book Burning, the bombing of Berlin into smithereens at the end of WW2, and then The Wall period - showing the standoff at Checkpoint Charlie that nearly ignited WW3, JFK's "I am a jelly doughnut" speech, the 40th Anniversary celebrations of the DDR which basically triggered the events for The Wall coming down (those Celebrations always get me - celebrating 40 years of East Germany and looking forward to 40 years more, except the protests sparked by it and events led to a situation where the country didn't even exist before it could turn 41!). I don't know how a Little Big City would work exactly for London for instance, or any other city but it certainly works for Berlin. The Little Big City was right next to the MeMu, somewhere I've been wanting to go to for a while so we decided to do it afterwards. Its proper name is the Menschen Museum. Menschen translates to People - the People Museum. Its not a museum about people though, its a museum OF people. Yes, that's right. Of people. As in, there are dead people in the museum - plastinated, so that their bodily tissues have turned into plastic and then displayed in various poses or without various parts. Basically if you're squeamish, don't go here and certainly don't look at the photos below. This is the last part of this post, so there's no need to scroll down any further unless you're interested in this museum. I didn't personally know how I would handle visiting such a place - Sasha had seen such a thing in Australia in a travelling exhibition before, but this place was a fixed museum. Its a bit controversial, sure - is it ethical to do this? the people on display donated their bodies to be used in such a way and are not identified in any way as to who they once were, but still. One thing that I discovered - the actual human bodies were actually few and far between, with a number of them missing for maintenance, but although there was animal bodies also, mostly it was about showing off the organs and how they fit together, what they look like in isolation by themselves, or in some cases all that's left is the network of blood vessels with the rest of the body, tissues and bones removed - which in itself is quite fascinating. We could even take our own blood pressure at one stage, which proved to be a bit funny because as it started gripping tightly on Sasha's arm she started to panic but the end reading was below what she thought her resting heart rate was! Would I go to something like this again? Maybe but I've done it once now and thats probably enough. Even though you could now create all of this with 3D printers and not need actual people or organs, there is something about knowing the difference between "Oh so thats what it is supposed to look like" versus "That's actually what it looks like because that's the real deal - natural colours and all". So that's the Miscellany complete for now!
So for the first of the long weekends in October, we went to Portugal. There was really only ever one contender for the 2nd of the two long weekends - Norway. For a while, we'd been wanting to go back and visit Oslo and Bergen, two of Norway's most important cities and I really wanted to do the "Norway in a Nutshell" - a trip between Oslo and Bergen (or vice versa) which crossed Norway in a day but also encompassed the Flam Railway, which descends from mountains into the base of a fjord and was supposed to be very spectacular (or so the DVD Uncle Kevin gave me and Grandad showed). The other part of this idea was to see Norway when it was "green", i.e. not covered in snow like we'd seen the last time we were there. We'd looked at doing this trip other times, and I reckoned we needed a minimum of 3 days - that allowed for a single day in Oslo and Bergen, which seems very token-gesture-ish but I didn't think there was much to do in either of these cities. We had taken an extra day off next to the 3-day weekend allowing us 4 days. That gave a bit more time, but how to use the extra day? what to do? Sasha discovered a bunch of the hiking trails were near or accessible from Bergen, but we discovered we were going too late in the year to be able to do those. This was a disappointment because Sasha had really liked the idea of doing them when we realised they could be a possibility - so perhaps we'd be best not to do Norway now at all and save it as part of another trip post-OE, or in our end-of travels? But if so, where to go for this weekend? Finland perhaps - it would be just as pricey as Norway to be there, but the flights there and back were also very pricey and at least one direction would not be direct, with long layovers. Estonia? cheaper to stay in, but flights were just as bad - these two countries are a ferry ride away from each other so a day trip to one or the other would have been possible too. Can't do Russia without getting a Visa and can't do the non-Visa way thanks to timing; Iceland? again, flights were expensive and/or indirect, and besides Sasha has a want to hire a car and drive around there in summer for a week including the interior, something you can't do this late in the year. Where else? where else is left, actually - Morocco? Georgia? Moldova? no, none of them work either with flights. What about if I plug into Skyscanner "Everywhere" as a destination for those dates and see where the cheapest flights to anywhere outside of Germany are to... Norway. Norway was actually the result - specifically, Oslo and Bergen (and actually might have been cheaper than flying to somewhere else in Germany too). How about that, huh? That pretty much settled it, and in fact the flights better aligned for those dates than any of the other dates we had looked at - and helped dictate the order we would do it all in, which we hadn't been sure of. We'd fly to Oslo the Friday night, and fly back from Bergen on the Tuesday afternoon - giving in effect 3.5 full days in Norway to play with. Everything fell into place rather easily after that! Day 0 - To Norway on NorwegianOur flight departed from Schoenefeld at 8pm, which means you're supposed to show up at the airport at 6pm. We'd already checked in online, printed our tickets and we weren't checking bags so we could be a bit flexible with this - nonetheless I did get off work a bit earlier and we made our way to the airport on the Regiobahn train, eating the food we'd bought from the supermarket on board as an early dinner. We were flying with Norwegian, whom we've flown with a few times now - but this would be the first time using them to or from Norway, which was where the airline is from! This is the low-cost airline which is the least restrictive, makes you feel like you're flying something a bit better than a low-cost airline and also is the only airline I know of anywhere that provides WiFi internet for free on board their planes in flight. The internet is never especially fast, and tends to drop out a little sometimes when flying over water (funny that!) but its certainly useful. After landing at Oslo's Torp airport (one of 3 for Oslo - but the only one actually in Oslo, the rest are rather far away) we got ourselves tickets for the train into the city - not the fast train that takes 20 minutes, but the slower train that takes 30-40min at half the price as we had nowhere to be in a hurry and Norway being Norway, the trains were not especially cheap anyway - but everything is relative, the bus wasn't any cheaper either. Once we arrived at Oslo's central station, we walked the few blocks to our accommodation. I was quite glad to be inside once we arrived - the weather over the course of the month had decidedly changed, and the prolonged summer across Europe (which enabled us to experience 30+ degree temperatures in Portugal at the beginning of October) had come to an abrupt end and now we were in Norway where the temperature outside was a balmy 0 degrees. The weather had taken such a turn over the month that we were not even sure if we would get to see Norway "green" now - winter was definitely on its way and with a vengeance at that. Our accommodation was rather nice, ultra clean and comfy - but was basically the fanciest private dorm room with 2 bunk beds that we'd ever stayed in! Day 1 - Exploring OsloOne big aspect about this trip was we knew Norway was expensive, so the idea was for us to try and minimize any costs as much as possible but still enjoy ourselves. We were economising as much as possible, hence the bunk beds - but one thing our accommodation also included was breakfast. If there is one thing that Scandinavia does really well, its their buffet breakfasts and this one was no exception. Lots of cooked items, lots of cereals, cold meats & cheeses, breads, sweet cake-like items and even the "Health Shot" which we'd first seen on the Hurtigruten Ferry. We filled ourselves up with as much as we could handle, and of course we were cheeky and made ourselves a sandwich to have for lunch later on! We then headed out to the square in front of the Central train station, next to the statue of a big Tiger, and waited. This was where the walking tour would begin, in about 10 minutes - there was already quite a large crowd around, but no-one identifiable as belonging to the walking tour company which was unusual. The time for the tour came and went, the crowd grew bigger, and still no-one. About 10 minutes later someone showed up and apologized for being late - but just 1 person, whereas there was a crowd of 50-60 people which under normal circumstances you'd expect to be split up into 3 or 4 groups, each with a guide. The guide, an American student living in Oslo, had a loud voice which helped - but even with a group this size it was difficult to hear, and also difficult to walk around. We walked around various areas of the inner city - to the waterfront where we saw the Opera house and a glass sculpture of a sailing ship in the water (both horribly backlit by the sun, making photos very difficult); the old city area including the area where public executions used to happen; the Town Hall, an impressive 1930's-style structure and also the Aker Brygge, the former shipbuilding area which is now the trendiest part of the Oslo waterfront and also where the ferries now leave from to the various nearby Islands; before winding up outside the Stortinget, the Norwegian Parliament. Although the tour guide had tried given the trying circumstances, it had not been the greatest free walking tour and we had another problem - we literally only had massive Krone notes on us which we hadn't managed to get broken up into more manageable, appropriate amounts. So, for the first time, Sasha and I elected not to leave a tip with our tour guide. Sasha also discovered a problem during the walking tour - that she'd forgotten to put her SD card back in her Camera, and didn't have a spare. I discovered the only spare I had on hand was the 8Gb one I keep in the GoPro - so I gave her that for the time being, but it already had photos and videos on it and it would not last the trip. So after the tour, we headed back in the direction of the central station looking for a shop to buy an SD card from. This actually was not easy - we found very few in fact. One had 8 & 16Gb MicroSD cards available with an adapter, which is what Sasha generally uses but the price seemed a lot, and Sasha has two MicroSD cards - one works with her camera, and one does not. I for one did not want to risk buying a MicroSD card at some expense only to find it didn't work in her camera, so we carried on. The 2nd place had some actual SD cards in 16Gb size, but again the price seemed a bit much. The 2nd place suggested a place we might be able to find some for cheaper, so we went there but they in the end were about the same price as the 2nd place - but they had a 32Gb size as well. This was the better investment prospect, so that is what we bought. We also visited a supermarket in the station to buy some additional snacks for the next few days, and also we collected our tickets for the Norway in a Nutshell the next day. Having also gotten ourselves a day pass for the public transport, we then set off to Frognerparken on the tram. This is a park with a range of different statues - the Vigeland Installation, which are a series of about 200 statues depicting a variety of things to do with growing up and growing old. Some of them are humourous, some are sad. Almost all, except for the big stone ones surrounding an Obelisk, are made of bronze and have turned green. Wandering through here in the subtle sunlight with the leaves of the trees all bright yellow was quite pleasant. After the park, we caught the tram back to the Aker Brygge area as I wanted to wander around and see if there was some decent water views to be had of the city. This area was very neat and quite stunning in a "new architechture" kind of way, but the views across to the Fort were not as great as I might have hoped. But we had a great walk around the area nonetheless. On our way towards the Mathallen on the tram, Sasha remembered a swan scuplture she wanted to see. A quick google showed that it should be in the same general area as the Mathallen, but not a specific location. We knew it was in the river - so as soon as our tram reached the river, we got off and started walking along the river towards the Mathallen. Sasha's colleague Marisela had told her about this sculpture, and that the river reminded her of Berlin - but this river was nothing like the Spree in Berlin, the Spree is wide and straight while this river was small, narrow and winding. However we soon discovered what Marisela meant - the area along the river became quite "Grungy" with spraypaint artwork or graffiti on the buildings adjacent to the river, there was different kind of art sculptures suspended over the river or in the river, and before long we found the swan. Swan though is a loose term - while it resembles a Swan, it also resembles, well, something else. We called it Richard the Swenis. Then to the Mathallen - a large market hall, where we intended to have dinner and we were particularly keen to try some fresh Norwegian fish which would be on offer. We had a wander around the Mathallen and discovered that rather than being a proper market hall like many others which we've encountered, it was more a collective of cafe's/restaurants with some selling their wares in adjacent stalls but the overall place was not large. In fact, far from Norwegian with a lot of the food too - Pizza, Pasta, Sushi, Mexican, and one lone Fish place that did sell fish like a fishmonger, but also had a restaurant across from it. Not quite what we were expecting and from a glance at the menu, the food at all of these places was far from the price you'd expect to find at various markets. We checked out the restaurant downstairs which did Norwegian beer and a sharing plate of sausages and cheeses, which although would be something we like, is not what we came for - we were wanting Fish. So back upstairs, took another look at the Fish place and found some things on it that we could have - the only problem, all seats (there weren't many!) were taken or already reserved. But Sasha spotted some free spots down the far side of a counter in a nook at this place, and we secured our spot. This place, Vulkanfisk, made everything fresh and the food portions were quite large - Sasha had the Fish Soup, and I had the Mussels. If there is one thing that can be said about Norwegian cuisine is although it might be a bit pricey, the quality is outstanding and this was no exception! Following dinner we headed back along the river to have a drink at a bar near Richard the Swenis, and then from there into the city where we wandered around and saw it lit up at night, before heading back to our accommodation as we had an early start the next day... Day 2 - Norway in a NutshellIn order to catch the train we needed from the Central Station, we needed to leave the accommodation at 8am. The problem? Breakfast is served from 8am, so we'd miss out. We'd planned for this, buying some breakfast supplies as well as lunch from the supermarket the day before, however when we got down to check out at 7.55, we asked if breakfast was being served already - yes - and could we quickly nip down and get some - yes. So, in the space of 10 minutes we smashed down breakfast, and made ourselves sneaky sandwiches again before we made our way to the train station - with enough time to pose with the Tiger outside. Norway in a Nutshell is less of a tour, and more a transport package. There is no dedicated transportation taking you all the way, nor a tour guide - it is a heavily promoted, and also very popular, travel route run by NSB the Norwegian Railway Company. What it means is you're given the tickets, your connections are outlined and you're given the brochures and maps of what to see and do along the way - but you're on the regular means of transport available. So, our first train - the long distance train to Bergen - left at 8.25, and we hopped aboard our carriage and found our seats. It was a nice sunny day outside, so we got to see a lot of the scenery en route as we started climbing up towards the mountain range that divides the two sides of Norway. It looked a bit cold outside, but at least it was green - until at one point we could start seeing the snow caps on the tops of mountains, which started getting progressively more covered in snow until we went through a particularly long tunnel and everything was covered in snow. Would the fjord we'll be cruising in be covered in snow also, or will that be green? Myrdal was where we needed to get off, in order to change to the train of the Flam Railway. Myrdal was covered in snow, and more than that - it was snowing lightly! Our first snow of the season - much earlier than we had expected, and also had hoped for. However it did seem like Myrdal, being so high up probably has snow for 3/4 of the year, and some of the areas we'd passed through just previously over the highest point on the journey looked to be snow covered all year round. Not long after, the Flam Railway train arrived, we piled on and found ourselves some good seats on the side that most reviews said would have the prettiest scenery. The Flam Railway was once an independent railway company, but now is part of NSB - but is still operated largely as a separate entity. We would be descending towards Flam, down into the Fjord rather than up away from it. At first, the views were on the other side of the train, but then they were out our side - it kept alternating between sides, and for the most part everyone was fine with letting people switch sides to poke cameras out of their windows for photos. Until some Spanish guy, who had been sitting opposite us, intentionally butted Sasha's head out of the way with his camera in order to get a photo rather than ask. Sasha let her displeasure be known, and fair enough too - we made sure he wasn't able to use our window again, but we let those who asked were able to. Also not very far into the journey, the train stopped between two tunnels - with the locomotives at each end still in the tunnels - and we were allowed off for 5 minutes to photograph the Kjosfossen Waterfall. On the whole I think the prettier views were indeed out our side, but only just - it actually doesn't matter which side you sit on, the view is spectacular. Once we arrived at Flam (which by the way, is said "Flom"), the small town at the head of the Aurlandsfjorden we had half an hour before our boat left. There was not a lot to do in Flam - we got some postcards and a magnet, and while Sasha visited the bathroom I had to go ask at the counter in the station building where the boat we needed to catch would leave from because there was no information about this whatsoever in our booklets, on the tickets or on any of the signs! Turns out the car ferry sitting outside at the wharf was the boat we wanted. 5 minutes before departure, we were able to board and we found some seats in a sheltered enclosed part of the upper deck at the end of a table, but not inside the cabin itself (which was reasonably small) as we figured it might be far too cold to stay out in the main open exposed deck. In the end we did spend a lot of time out on the open deck and a bit wandering around the rest of the ship too. It was not quite as cold as we thought as we sailed down the fjord (with the fjord being green, with white caps!), though was brisk. At one point I was contemplating getting a hot chocolate or coffee, when I spied someone who appeared to be carrying a lidded plastic cup with red wine in it. Sasha was somewhere else taking a photo so I went to the servery, and I got the two last red wine ones - the price was about the same as getting a coffee! Sasha was surprised when I brought it to her, and the lid meant that you could turn the cup upside down and not spill anything (handy on the gently rocking ship). Sasha ended up going and buying two White's for us also, partly for the wine and partly for the cups - they were quite robust and would be useful on future travels. At one point we turned into the Naeroyfjorden, which got progressively narrower as the sun went down and we arrived at Gudvangen in moody blue twilight. We'd been talking briefly to someone on board who happened to be from Australia, and he was doing the route by himself booking the different parts of the journey individually. I'd looked at that too in case it was cheaper, but had come unstuck trying to find out how to get from Gudvangen to Voss - the Nutshell takes a bus, but that's all I could find (hence we booked the Nutshell Tickets). I mentioned this and he said he'd found the same, but was hoping he'd find details of a public bus when he got there. It turns out the part from Gudvangen to Voss is the only part where transport is specifically arranged for the Nutshell people, and there were 3 buses labelled for such and you had to show your tickets to get onboard. A few other buses came and went - all with tour groups on them, and no sign of any sort of public bus being available. We got on one of the buses, and rode the hour through the dark to Voss where we boarded a local train from Voss to Bergen. At Voss Station I noticed that the Australian we had been talking to was buying tickets for our train - he must have either talked his way onto a Nutshell bus, or managed to sneak on. Arriving into Bergen just before 10pm, our accommodation was a fairly short walk from Bergen train station. Our room was a lot more roomy than our Oslo one had been, and we settled in and called it a night - exploring Bergen could wait until the next day. Day 3 - Exploring BergenOur accommodation was not staffed, it was one of these places where you got a code that unlocked a keystore and you got your key. So, not surprisingly, it did not come with breakfast. So our first port of call for the day - find brunch. We went to the waterfront area near where we were staying, which we figured would surely have something and there was apparently a Fish Market there too. We found the Fish Market - it was indoors, was similar to the Mathallen although did look to be exclusively about fish and seafood, and also, it wasn't even open yet. Around that area, there was nothing - even the McDonald's didn't open for breakfast! However we had passed a cafe on our walk so we backtracked, found it and had some coffee's along with some freshly made strudel and a hefty panini which we shared. This cafe was very cosy but also charming - they had various books (in English) which you could read, including one called "A Child's First Book of Trump" - yes, about Donald Trump! They also had power bricks that you could use - take it out of the holder and charge your phone at whatever spot you wanted, you did not need to be near a power socket. Neat idea! After this, we caught the cable car up to the Floyen, a park and lookout area above the city. The weather was not meant to be great this day, cloudy turning into rain but we found when we got to the top that the sun started poking out and lit up the scene below. We had a big wander around up through the Floyen, and even stumbled across some goats being called to be fed! Once we'd had enough, we walked down the hill and started wandering around the city, getting caught in the rain in the process, getting all manner of photos. During our wander we also visited a supermarket to get supplies for breakfast the next day as well as lunches - they sell whole, shrink-wrapped fish in Norwegian supermarkets we noticed (and no, we did not purchase any of these!). After returning to our accommodation to dump our gear and clean up a bit, we again headed out - for dinner this time. We wanted to have a decent dinner out somewhere, and in particular have Reindeer if we could - our friend Nicole who had visited us in Berlin a fortnight before recommended a place in the Bryggen area where she'd had a delicious meal of Reindeer on a work visit. Needless to say, a decent meal out in Norway is pricey - and this restaurant, although very highly rated was up there. Sasha found another place, also as highly rated which did Reindeer and was not as expensive - so we opted for this place instead. Called Spisekroken, here we had the "Aquavit Platter" to share - 3 small starters accompanied by 3 appropriate shots of Aquavit. We both ordered the Reindeer for the main, which was simply delicious - I've had Reindeer before, but this was the most succulent and tasty I ever remember it being. This was also accompanied by half a carafe of the house Red wine, which was quite a decent tasting number. We elected not to have dessert or anything else, having very much enjoyed all of what we'd had here so far but also mindful of the fact it was not going to be cheap. All up, our wonderful meal cost the equivalent of about €100 - imagine how much more it would have been if we'd gone to the other place! Day 4 - Bergen and Back to BerlinToday we had the morning free to do whatever we wanted to do - and what we wanted to do was explore the Bryggen area, a group of really old wooden buildings down by the harbour. Although looked after and restored, they are a bit like the Amsterdam houses where they are all tilting a little and leaning on one another. They extend quite a way back as well, making for quite a rabbit warren of paths and areas to explore, with a lot of shops housed in them. We spent a bit of time looking in a 3-storey Christmas Ornament store, souvenir stores, and just around these buildings themselves in general. After a further wander around the city we ducked into the Fish Market - we'd had a peruse the day before but I had found out that there was often Whale for sale there and I was interested in trying to find it. Whale is still hunted by Norway, who has never recognised the moratorium on Whaling (unlike Japan, who instead tries to get around it with its "Scientific Studies" ruse) and supposedly the whales they hunt are not under threat or endangered. However Whale meat is apparently not common, especially nowadays because most people don't like it. Apparently it is at its best when its fresh - but its caught in the North of Norway, and the population is in the South so to get it to them before it perishes it either needs to be smoked & cured which changes the flavour immensely, or frozen which destroys the flavour and texture. Most Norwegians only know the smoked or frozen kind of Whale and so don't like it at all. I found Whale in the fish market - only one place was selling it, it was smoked and it was almost black in colour because of it. It was also €70 a kilo for some large chunks, or even more for it sliced and pre-packaged! I'm usually pretty keen to try eating lots of different meats and flavours. Whale is probably one of the few meats I am hesitant to eat - but I would want to know what it actually taste like, and that wasn't going to happen with this smoked Whale. So I was happy to have found it - and happy not to try any. With a bit of time to kill, we went to a waterfront bar which had a lot of beers on tap and got a beer each to while away some time. Like anything in Norway, alcohol is not cheap - but this is intentionally so because Norway used to have a problem with alcoholism. In fact the Government heavily regulates the supply of alcohol, and the only place you can buy it from outside of pubs, restaurants and the likes is the Vinmonopolet - literally "Wine Monopoly" which is the Government-run Liquor Stores. It is heavily taxed, and accordingly the price of a beer usually hovers around 80-100 NOK - or €8 to €10, or NZD$14 to $17. That's quite a bit, however this place had a lot of craft beer and for only another 10 NOK more you could choose a beer that was a lot more flavoursome and higher alcohol percentage than your normal stock-standard beer. So we did just this, making sure we were also getting Norwegian craft beer as a lot of the stuff on the menu came from Germany or Denmark. To get to the airport, we knew we could catch a bus that went there direct, or catch a tram. The tram seemed to be new as there wasn't a lot of information about it, but we knew how much the tram should cost to the airport. While the bus was heavily promoted and you could even book online, nowhere did it say how much it was, and the pickup points listed were not convenient to where we were. On our walk to the tram we found one of these buses at a bus stop collecting some people (not at one of the listed pickup locations!) so Sasha asked the driver how much it would cost - a lot more than the Tram it transpires. So we stuck with the tram, and had a fairly pleasant, if somewhat quiet trip to the Airport on the tram (it only took about 10 minutes longer than the bus anyway). Bergen Airport is interesting in the respect that technically we've been there before, but it doesn't count - the last time we were in Norway we were on a plane which landed there, dropped some people off, and took off again with us staying on board the entire time. By no measure at all does that count for anything, but still interesting nonetheless! Checking in at the airport for Norwegian was easy, as was going through security - although there were quite a few people trying to bump their way up the queue, one was a group of middle-aged men who got put back in their place by the staff, and some were two girls who's domestic connecting plane had been late and they had just 10 minutes to get to their gate. The duty free was interesting however - lots of everything, but particularly alcohol which without the Norwegian tax on it brought it down to decent prices. There was a box full of Somersby Cider cans, with two flavours we'd never seen before and the price per can worked out to be €0.90! So Sasha proposed we get some to have at the airport and on the plane, which we duly did. We drank one in the waiting lounge, but actually never had the one on the plane so that made its way back to Berlin with us! It made quite a change arriving in Berlin before dinner time, and having the whole evening free to relax and unwind after the trip. And with that - trip over and done! Summing UpIt was a good trip all told. Sure it was pricey, sure it was cold, sure we got snow and sure we didn't do a hell of a lot in Oslo and Bergen - but we managed to limit our spending, we had our cold weather gear with us, we did see most of Norway under green conditions and we did all of what we wanted to do in Oslo and Bergen themselves (or all that was possible at that time of year anyway). To be honest, I had the perception before going (as mentioned) there wasn't a lot to do in either of these cities, and now having been there, that perception is largely correct. They are nice looking, picture perfect cities but they lack a certain vibrancy and there's not a huge amount beyond the facade so to speak. This is arguably true of a lot of Scandinavian cities and towns - maybe Stockholm excepted - and can also be applied to various German cities and towns in my opinion.
Oslo was nice - probably nicer than I expected, but I don't think there was anything more I wanted to do there that we didn't already do and as nice as it was, in general I don't think I'd make a point of going back there. I always expected Bergen to be nicer than Oslo, and that it certainly was - Oslo perhaps had more "personality" than Bergen, but Bergen had the looks and the activities. I could see us going back to Bergen sometime on a future trip post-OE - for the hiking that can be done near there, and also there is an interesting steam train railway that runs in Bergen during the summer months (though that one is hardly essential and would not be top of my list of train things to do - but certainly, if we were around and it was running, would be worth having a look/ride). As for the in-between - the Norwegian countryside is quite spectacular, and reminds me in many regards of travelling through the heavily forested areas of the Southern Alps or Fiordland National Park back home. The scenery doesn't change as rapidly as it does in NZ though - certainly that's one thing that's been true of any travels I've done through Europe. I'm quite glad to have done the Flam Railway and seen its pretty views, I'm quite glad to have seen but not eaten Whale meat, and I'm glad to have eaten tasty Reindeer once again - though my friend Debs ended up telling her children that their Christmas presents might not come this year because Sasha and I had eaten one of Santa's Reindeer! Would we go back? its possible in the future some time, but I don't think Norway would be a priority country to go to. We have covered quite a swathe of it, and really aside from some of those hikes there's not much left unturned of the country for us and what we would want to do. Actually I just remembered, that's not true - the island of Svalbard high up in the arctic circle would be a place we'd like to do, a place we've looked at a few times and in particular would be a good place (maybe even the best place) to go see Polar Bears before they become extinct. But for Norway, I would say its definitely a "never Say never" country - perhaps next time we will go in the middle of summer when its guaranteed to be green and warm, and have long daylight hours? Apparently June is a good time to go and see Polar Bears in Svalbard because that's when the little baby ones are around... So since I've been in Berlin I haven't done much foaming. I haven't been inclined to do much - I do get the occasional bouts, and its usually done during a lunchbreak at work if I'm in the right area and have my camera. But I haven't been travelling around to get photos of trains specifically, and there's not been much interest on my part to be doing such things. Our friend Paul, who I went to Cologne with back in 2015 to photograph trains (see here) often comes to Germany to take photos of trains. A lot. Not just Germany but elsewhere in Europe too, moreso than he ever does in the UK. One of his jaunts brought him to Berlin where Sasha and I caught up with him in the evening for dinner and a few drinks; he headed off in Germany for a couple of days afterwards but ended up coming back to Berlin on the Saturday, to go to a loco shed Open Day at one of the yards. This was in a place called Seddin, just south of Berlin and not too far from Potsdam; and there was only the barest information about it online. However we both decided to catch up and head out to it - Sasha wisely opting not to come out. Basically we got there, we accidentally wandered through the still operational train yard to the depot rather than through the main entrance to the Workshop and saw a lot of trains in the process; then wandered around the official display, which was nice but there wasn't a lot. We worked out that it was essentially an open day for the families and friends of the workers and others who lived in the town - a kind of community get-together rather than an actual Open Day for railway enthusiasts. We actually did get a look through the still operating repair workshops there after fortuitously bumping into someone who through our garbled German told us the workshops were out of bounds unless we went on a tour, or we signed a waiver, so we signed the waver. Afterwards, and rather hungry by now (there was soft drink, but no food or beer on offer) we had to hoof it back to the station to catch a train back to Berlin - so we weren't stranded in Seddin for another hour before the next train would come! Afterwards Paul and I had a few beers and some food in Hackesher Markt, before we went our separate ways and after reconvening with Sasha we went out and had a great night out in Berlin with a friend from London and some others for her birthday. So here's a bunch of photos from the foaming trip, just because. This was before we'd even gotten there - we had to change trains for some reason, and while we waited we saw a work train (on the left) potter around, seen here being passed by a suburban S-bahn train The train yard, where it transpired we weren't meant to enter through. We weren't the only ones here though! A line of shunting locos, of different types Inside the actual "grounds" of the Open Day - a very large shunting loco (they look mean as!), a diesel Vectron (very rare, only about 6 or 8 of these have been built compared to hundreds of electric ones) and the weird thing in the foreground is a remote control battery-powered shunter that can also drive on the road! This was Paul's favourite - a yellow "Ludmilla". I think he said its the only one which is yellow? Inside the still-active workshop building - two more Ludmillas. The one on the right was on the wheel lathe, actively having its "toes trimmed" or the steel on its wheels shaved off to make them perfectly round again. In a sea of red, this orange loco made a bit of a splash!
That will do, because the rest are much of a muchness. Was fun, and probably the last opportunity I'll get to do this in Germany before leaving! In Berlin, the Underground train system is called the U-Bahn. Unlike London, it is not very far below ground when underground; like London, a sizeable proportion is above ground also (and even then, elevated above street level!). Its quite efficient, is not anywhere as jam packed as the tube in London and in general is a reliable system - you don't get signs telling you there are delays on this line or that line like you do on London. One day, not too long after we'd started living in Berlin, Sasha was catching the U-Bahn home to where we were living at the time and we were chatting on our phones while she waited for the train to show up. "A train just came through" she told me as she interrupted our conversation topic, "its not like the normal trains". I responded that it might be one of the maintenance trains and she said no - it had people on it in open topped carriages with hard hats on and they all looked embarrassed to be sitting there. She also said there was signs on the side of the carriages with a name beginning with C. This all sounded most bizarre, I couldn't think of what it might be - some kind of engineering inspection train? people seeing the system as part of some Engineering conference? Then I found the website about it - it was called a Cabrio tour, and it was a tour of Berlin's U-Bahn system by open-top train. You would never be able to do this in London! It only ran once a month, in the evenings and only in the summer months - it wasn't cheap either, at €50 but guess what - there was only 1 more trip for the year and it was sold out. In fact, advice online seemed to indicate it would sell out in short order as soon as tickets became available, typically in January. So, in January, I managed to book two tickets near the end of May to ride the Cabrio - it was the last date where I could book the earlier of two evening trips before we potentially might be leaving Germany. Quite a long way into the future to plan, but that was the way it had to be! Eventually the Friday in question rolled around - it just so happened to be the same day that we needed to move house, from Janine's where we'd been for nearly 3 months into our friend's Sandra & Christian's place where we were house sitting for 6 weeks while they holidayed in America. That move was accomplished a lot easier than we expected, and we showed up at the designated station to take our Cabrio ride around the Berlin Underground system over the course of 90 minutes. We got hard hats, a booklet, earphones and recievers so we could listen to a commentary, which was in German and we knew this - but the person talking was talking very fast, and it was impossible to even try and begin to infer what he was saying so we gave up on listening to it pretty quickly. We had also chosen our seats specifically at one end of the carriage, which happened to put us virtually at the middle of the train - this meant we got fairly good views in both directions. The entire route we were travelling was on the higher-numbered U-Bahn routes, which have wider trains than the lower-numbered ones and it also was a "rain-safe" route - meaning entirely underground, which was a bit of a shame as it would have been quite neat to do some of the above ground sections although it might have bade things a bit colder. It was interesting to see that most of the U-Bahn tunnels had lights on the side, so we were not in total darkness - and the underground complex of trains and tunnels was also quite vast and well, complex! you never get a proper sense of scale of it all when riding a normal U-Bahn train. Perhaps one of my favourite bits - passing through the ordinary U-Bahn stations on our journey, complete with people waiting on them for the next U-Bahn train on their way home, going out for dinner, or going out on the town. Sometimes we had to stop at these stations as we were following U-Bahn trains which had to stop at the station ahead each time, and other times we just breezed on through. Every time, on the platform there would be people looking at us with confusion, people looking at us with amusement, others trying to take photos of us or video's and other's waving at us. I don't think however we all looked like we were embarrassed to be there though! It had been quite warm in Berlin and although we expected it to be cooler in the tunnels, it wasn't as cold as we expected it might be. We had a stop halfway along the route where people could go to the bathroom or get a drink and bite to eat, which was also a good opportunity for me to get some photos of our locomotive at one end and the "Guards Van" at the other end - interestingly though each time we changed direction, our driver had to change the ends of the locomotive so when the loco was pushing the wagons, someone in the Guards Van must have been either directing the driver over a radio, or they were controlling the train from the Guards Van but the locomotive was not set up for reversing and the driver had to enable the direction each time. Only in the last part of the journey did we venture through some tunnels where it was pitch black with no lighting, and it was colder in these tunnels too. After it was over we went and got dinner at a nearby restaurant, one of the little no-more-than-5 tables kind that Germany seems to specialize in and you wonder how they keep afloat but it was really nice. It was fun - we'll probably never get to do something like that again, aside for perhaps the Mail Rail in London but it was certainly a different way of travelling around Berlin!
Ever since we moved to Berlin, I've been keeping the occasional eye on the website of the local steam train group who run excursions on the main lines. Some are interesting, some are not, some happen when we are already away. One though for this year piqued my interest - a trip to Wolsztyn for the Steam Train Parade. Long time ago, way back in New Zealand the name Wolsztyn was very familiar to me - it was quite legendary in train circles that you could go to Wolsztyn in Poland and spend a week driving steam trains pulling real freight or passenger trains on the main line as part of something called The Wolsztyn Experience. My friend Dion and I even made tentative plans to do this during January 2016, when it would be cheapest (because it would be bitterly cold, in the middle of winter) and we were drumming up interest for the two other places - because you had to book it as a group of 4. But around the time I left NZ for the UK, Wolsztyn changed and instead of being a week it was now 4 days; it still cost the same or thereabouts, and they were dictating when it could be done on rather than you book any given week that you chose. This was much less appealing and then probably 6 months after I arrived in the UK you could no longer do it in any shape or form. This was because not enough had been spent on keeping the steam engines in working condition, so they became unreliable or needed major work, until all of them one by one fell into both of these categories and there was no money with which to fix them up. The passenger train services were replaced by modern railcars, and many doubted despite noises that they were working on trying to salvage the operation whether it would ever happen again. The operation was being underpinned by a British organisation, who somehow managed to let it go to pot but they dug in and got to work fixing it up. They announced that they were getting two steam engines fixed up and would be holding the Steam Train parade at the end of May. I was skeptical, but as time went on it seemed that it might just be true and certainly this excursion was running. Not only that, other excursions were going there too - and by going on this excursion it would tick a few boxes for me at once - namely a steam excursion from Berlin; an excursion that travels across an international border; and getting to visit Wolsztyn, the place and see this parade. So, we went. This was our steed - locomotive 03 2155, which was designed to pull fast passenger trains and this was one of the few excursions booked for this year to use this locomotive over the slower freight locomotive the train group also had. This is our train pulling into Berlin's Lichtenberg station, where we were hopping on the train - at a fairly early 6am in the morning! After blasting our way out of Berlin in the rising sun and with fogged up windows due to the rather effective steam heating, The train had a fairly long stop in Frankfurt - not Frankfurt am Main, the "main Frankfurt" that everyone knows about but Frankfurt Oder, the "other Frankfurt" on the Polish border. It stopped here to take on extra water. We wandered out of the station to get a look at the town, but got sidetracked by finding the locomotive taking water nearby and we were able to wander up to it and get photos with it without any trouble! After Frankfurt Oder we crossed the Oder River, which spans the border between Germany and Poland. This is the view of the train coming off the bridge, so the front half of the train is in Poland and the back half is in Germany - that stripey pole in the photo demarcates the border! As we got closer to Wolsztyn, there were a lot of lineside photographers taking photos of our train although the scenes they were taking must have been pretty average and most were going to places I would not have, and few were going to places I would have. At Wolsztyn there was a lot of action - a few local trips coming and going, and the arrival of another excursion from Cottbus in Germany headed by the world's fastest working steam locomotive 18 201 and a slower locomotive 35 1019. At Wolsztyn, there were a lot of market and festival tents - it was interesting to see that lots of people were clustered around some tents and very few at others, and it turns out all the ones people were clustered around were selling model trains or train-related items while the ones that few people were at were your candyfloss or slushie type food vendors! All of these tents were alongside or among a long line of derelict locomotives in various states - some had run in the recent past but were laid up, some were stored awaiting potential future overhaul and others are probably destined to be sources of spare parts. This one was a bit rusty - most were a bit better kept than this one. Just as the name of the event says, there was a parade - first of all the locomotives went past one by one or in groups of two, then they coupled into groups of 4, before lastly they all did a run-past together. The runpasts were quite a sight - and also sound, as the video's surely attest to! By now it was raining and it was not quite so much fun standing in the rain, with a cold breeze blowing as we waited for all of this to happen - and it all happened about 30mins late, which meant 03 2155 and 18 201 did not partake in the final parade runpast - they had to go off somewhere to turn I think, as the turntable at Wolsztyn was not big enough to take engines of their length and they couldn't afford to hang around. After the parade we got a hearty lunch, with a beer to go along with it and then wandered more around the festival market tents and around the Wolsztyn yard. There was quite a bit going on in the yard area - engines in the shed or on display out in the yard, including the locomotive in the bottom-left photo above which is called "Beautiful Helena" but in my opinion, that name is rather ironic as its not a very aesthetically pleasing loco! There had been no real guide to how many locomotives were going to attend nor where they were coming from - apparently the previous year's parade had a grand total of 3, but in the past it has been as many as 14. I had done some research and estimated at least 7 or 8 working locomotives would attend, but the actual number was 10. I didn't expect this Czech loco to be in attendance though, but was rather glad it was! Of the engines in attendance, there was this Czech loco, 3 German locos and the rest were Polish. This Polish loco was one of Sasha's favourites - there was a smaller green loco who's whistle went "Pip" and this one had a bit of a shrill to it, so we called the little green one Pip and this one Squeak. It was running shuttle excursions to a nearby town and back throughout the day. This is Wolsytyn Station nearer the end of the day - from right to left, one of the Shuttle Train excursions from Wolszytn; a Polish excursion train that was preparing to head back to its home town which I think might have been Poznan; and there are two rakes of carriages on the left, both belonging to the different German excursions including our one. We were due to depart about a half an hour after this photo was taken, but there was no sign of our locomotive nor 18 201 which was to head the other excursion back to Cottbus alone (35 1019 was staying the night at Wolsztyn). About an hour later they showed up, by which time Sasha and I had already hopped on our carriage in the yard (as had many others) since it was warmer taking shelter in there than being outside. The lone photo I have of our return trip - after 03 2155 and 18 201 arrived back in Wolsztyn facing the right way, they both needed water and coal (or oil in 18 201's case) and 18 201 was the first to depart with its excursion, ours being the last away some 2 hours behind time. When our loco coupled up to our carriage (we had been at the back of the last carriage on the way there, so now we were at the front of the first carriage on the way back), there was a collective sigh of appreciation when they coupled up the steam heating to the carriages from the locomotive! So as we headed across Poland we enjoyed a rather nice sunset, and then it was pitch black the rest of the way. There was also a stop at Frankfurt Oder again for water, but we didn't leave the train and our arrival back at Berlin's Lichtenberg station was just on midnight - it had been quite a long day to say the least!
A big thank you to Sasha for indulging me with this trip, which was a bit more of an endurance than even I expected and we were both solidly worn out at the end of it. But it was quite a trip and quite an event, I finally got to visit Wolsztyn and not only that, when there was steam trains running there. I'm glad I got to go - who knows when I might next see 8 working steam locomotives all coupled up together in a parade? It could very well be never... Usually, when Sasha and I compare countries that we had been to, her list has countries that I haven't been to - at least not yet. However there was one that I had been to - a number of times actually - that she hadn't. This country was Switzerland. She actually wasn't alone in this state of affairs - a lot of our friends who are also doing their OE's and travelling around had not been to Switzerland, or if they had it had just been Geneva or Basel. Both are fairly nice enough places (Geneva I have not been to so I'm just going by what I've seen and heard) but I knew there was some spectacular country to be seen and experienced in the Alps. There were a few things of both railway and general interest I wanted to try and do in Switzerland, and Sasha wanted to go and see what there was. When my parents last came over to Europe in 2015, we'd gone on a family trip to Basel and some early ideas which we considered, but rejected because they were too costly and also would take a lot of time to get to and from. Among these ideas was to go up the Jungfrau, where the train goes inside the mountain up to what's called "The Top of Europe", but also was an idea to visit Liechenstein, for no other reason than it was another country to visit - but we had no idea whether it was even worth visiting or what there was to do there. Sasha and I had done a mind map listing all the countries we still wanted to visit or visit again, and what we wanted to do there. On this list, Sasha had put Liechtenstein (and Luxembourg, which *technically* we've already been to) because it was yet another country in Europe and not one many people tend to go visit. Liechtenstein is really tiny and borders Switzerland and Austria - and in doing a paper study one day trying to incorporate a number of Swiss things I wanted to do, I found that it would be possible to visit Liechtenstein quite easily in the course of this. This added impetus for a trip but kind of helped formalize the plans - in order to get from the Jungfrau to Liechtenstein, it made sense to cut through the Swiss Alps and it just so happened Switzerland's "Premier" tourist train The Glacier Express travelled that section. It would also allow the possibility of doing the Bernina Express, the less famous but apparently more scenic train journey through the Alps. It also became pretty apparent that it made no sense to do these things in stages over the course of a few weekend trips - some of them were a bit difficult to get to from major entry points, but were readily accessible from one thing to the next so really it all had to be done in one trip. We figured on 4 days, and built up a plan together that built on the paper study I had originally done but changed things around to suit. When going through everything and using Zurich as the logical departure point Sasha asked how much time we would have there. Not a lot was my reply, besides there's not much to do there. Was I sure about that I was asked. Mostly, but not 100%. Sasha wanted to see Zurich for herself, and the only way to meaningfully do that was to add an extra day - so the trip now was 5 days. We were going in February in the hope that we would see snow on the Alps but even if there was none, it should be pretty scenic. This trip would not be cheap either - Switzerland never is, but all the stuff we were doing was not altogether cheap either. However if we were to do this, we might as well do it properly, right? With the outline decided upon, everything researched and then booked, we were going. Day 0 - Travelling to ZurichOur trip started on the Friday evening rather than the Saturday, because Saturday was the Jungfrau - and wherever it was possible for us to fly into, we would still have a trek to the Jungfrau ahead of us and we wanted to maximize as much time at the Jungfrau as possible. Hence it made sense to get a head start on the Friday night rather than add the flight times etc to Saturday, even if it cost us an extra night's accommodation. After looking up all the flight options, the cheapest was for us to fly to Zurich of all places - the same place where we would end the trip, but for this part it would simply just be an entry point and overnight stay with no time to see or explore the city. Our airline was Air Berlin, again - and again the flight left a bit late! Switzerland is not an EU nation, but it is a part of Schengen which means we did not get any stamps in our passports for having visited. Our accommodation was near the airport too - a short bus ride and short walk, we were there (although we had slight trouble finding our way in!). Our accommodation was nicely appointed - it was a small apartment room with a kitchen, but we discovered that the plugs were not the usual Europe-wide ones but that they liked using the smaller version of them and my Belkin couldn't fit into them. Luckily we had one spare adapter which could fit, and charged-up battery bricks which would do the job for the night. Then it was time to get some shut-eye as we had a very long day ahead of us the next day! Day 1 - Top of EuropeAn early start back to the airport, but not to catch a plane - there was a railway station at the airport and from here we could catch our train as we headed towards the Jungfrau. It was the first day of our 4-day Swiss Travel Pass - a ticket which gave us unlimited train travel over almost all of the Swiss railway network (SBB), and on a lot of private lines as well (some for free, some with a discount against the normal price or others with a small extra charge). What it didn't do, however was tell us which trains we wanted to catch - so we had to research that separately and have that information on hand. Our train took us from the airport, through Zurich Central Station and onwards to Bern, where we changed to another train which would take us to Interlaken. At Interlaken, with most people on the train it seems we changed to another train which belonged to a private railway company and was heading to both Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald. We could have gone up via Grindelwald, but for the sake of simplicity for us we were aiming for Lauterbrunnen. Upon arrival at Lauterbrunnen, we had to head to the railway station ticket office as we had not pre-booked our train travel up to the Jungfraujoch. This seemingly risky move of not pre-booking was done for two reasons - firstly, we could not buy online a ticket for this train that included the 25% discount our Swiss Travel Pass entitled us to and considering the rather exhorbitant cost of the Jungfraujoch train tickets, we were not prepared to pay full price just for the sake of safety and simplicity; Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, we had decided that if the weather was not any good we would not go up the Jungfrau because to spend all that money only to be stuck in bad weather or a blizzard with no view was not worth it. If the weather was bad, we would not have another chance this trip to attempt going up the Jungfrau so it was a little bit eggs-all-in-one-basket - however the weather was actually clear and sunny, so just what we needed. Between our arrival at Lauterbrunnen and the next train heading up the line was 12 minutes in which to get tickets - in this time we not only managed to get tickets to go up to the Jungfrau and back down, but also board that next train up the line. Some people hopped off at Wengen, the next stop as that was the limit of their SBB tickets and they too needed to get new tickets to go up further, and when the train arrived at its end destination of Kleine Scheidegg we transferred to another train which would take us up to the top. What struck me was how few people from our previous train got on our new train - it seemed the majority of people going to Kleine Scheidegg were doing so to ski. It didn't take too long before we started travelling inside the Jungfrau mountain on the new train. Part of the way, just as Dad had described when he had done the trip during his OE the train stopped at a station in the mountain - partly so another train could pass ours on its way down, but partly so we could acclimatize to the thinner air. Here at this station was a set of glass windows looking out over the Eiger ice fall, which again harked back to a photo that I recall seeing as a kid where you could see the view of the snowy mountain expanse from the station. Back on the train, we made the final climb up to the top station (also in the mountain) and from there made our way into the main building at the Jungfraujoch. We completely and utterly missed the signs that led you on a loop around the building complex and tunnels at the top there, and made our way to the building through the interior tunnels and a lift to one which let you go outside out onto the Jungfraujoch itself (the saddle between the Jungfrau and Mönch peaks). There was virtually no wind which was pleasant, although slightly annoying when trying to take photos with a drooping Swiss flag! the snow made it all very bright out there and me being me with my fair skin, I started getting a bit wary about getting sunburnt as well. Once we had our fill of photos though, we went back inside and saw the arrows - so followed them around the correct way this time! we skipped a few things as we knew we were being taken back to the beginning so we started properly at the first thing, worked our way around and up the inside of the mountain through the tunnels (helpfully, travelators are provided in many sections), up to the top viewpoint, then back into the mountain to the ice tunnels, and past the restaurants and shops back to the start. Actually while passing the restaurants and shops, we took a break and Sasha went to the bathroom while I waited on a seat outside. When she came back out, she was about to tell me about how she had nearly dozed off while on the toilet - only to find me head-in-lap, dozing myself! the thinness of air was really noticeable and was making us feel tired. Once we were finished up the top, we took the train back down inside the mountain, changed trains at Kleine Scheidegg and rode back down to Lauterbrunnen - spending most of this time hanging out the window as it wasn't cold and you got a great view of the landscape and the train descending the steep, steep incline - but not only that, people were skiing from Kleine Scheidegg through some of the ski areas and then down into the town of Wengen, just skiing along the snow-covered main street and in many places pacing the train. What we didn't notice until much later when looking at my photos, was how much snow had melted in Wengen between the morning and afternoon - there must have been snowfall overnight or we caught the last of the snow generally covering the town for the winter. In Lauterbrunnen we checked into our hostel room, went to the supermarket and got some lunch plus general supplies and went back to the hostel room and ate a late lunch out on the room's balcony with a can of Swiss beer to compliment it. We also went for a wander around the township and to the waterfall that had sold Sasha on staying in Lauterbrunnen in the first place, but it wasn't heavily dropping water and I think because the sun wasn't on it, it wasn't as noticeable as it could be. It was kind of funny because you could see water lazily flow into the air over the valley edge, but then it looked like it evaporated - it was difficult to trace the waterfall's bottom, especially because the cliff behind angles away from the waterfall and so the water just falls through the air to the bottom. Because its winter and we were in a valley, the sun was already starting to fade and it wasn't too long before the valley was in darkness and you could see the lights of the trains to and from Wengen wind their way up the hill side. We went out for dinner to a nearby restaurant - we had scoped out the choices during our earlier walk, and although Lauterbrunnen is not big there were a few choices. We were a little bit early for dinner but we were hungry, and it turns out just as well we went when we did because the restaurant was not large, most tables were reserved and not long after we arrived they were turning people away! It turns out the restaurant was run by an Australian couple who had lived in Switzerland for over 20 years and we had a really fantastic cheese fondue there - but not only that, the price was very reasonable considering Switzerland is an expensive country. After dinner we wandered through the town in the dark to the waterfall again, but it didn't look like anything at night despite powerful spotlights shining on the waterfall and rock face behind. After a further wander down along the river's edge, we called it a night - it had been a long day, but a wildly successful one as we'd not only managed to get up the Jungfrau but had perfect weather for it. Day 2 - Through the AlpsWe had a reasonably early start, as our day was dictated by needing to catch a specific train. So from Lauterbrunnen, we went back to Interlaken, caught a main line train to Thun and changed there for another train that took us to Brig. The train to Brig was jam packed, and I think we were lucky to get a seat but once we'd burst out of the tunnel to Visp a lot of people left the train - mostly with ski gear, and I think they were heading to the ski fields near Zermatt and the Matterhorn. We had just over an hour in Brig to kill, as we'd elected to take the set of trains before the last possible ones we could have - just in case something went wrong, but the Swiss Railways ran like the proverbial Swiss watch. So we wandered around Brig, which was a nice largeish town nestled in between two steep hills. It was pretty similar to what I'd seen of Innsbruck in Austria in pictures, and remarked as much - pretty much the whole lead-up to the trip I'd been calling Interlaken Innsbruck by accident, and so for me to mention Innsbruck again got up Sasha's nose a little! We got a nice coffee from a local cafe, and then headed back to the station to catch our train - the Glacier Express. The Glacier Express is Switzerland's most famous train, it is certainly more widely known than the train up the Jungfrau and is perhaps best known for its carriages which have "quarterlight" windows in the roofline to help give a greater panoramic view. The Glacier Express was the first train to have these, and in NZ both the 3 Taieri Gorge Railway carriages built in the late 1980's and the new KiwiRail Scenic AK class carriages use this idea to full effect. The train runs from Zermatt, at the base of the Matterhorn to St Moritz, across Switzerland and through the Swiss Alps on a special narrow-gauge line so the trains are smaller than the usual main line trains. We were not doing it the whole way - we were catching it at Brig, and only going as far as Chur (said Kour) but we would head through some pretty spectacular country and we were hoping at least some of it might be plastered in snow - Brig certainly was snowless. The Glacier Express is also notorious for being expensive, and many people say don't bother with it but catch the regular service train on the route instead - which not only is far cheaper but you can wind down the windows and take photos which is something you can't do on the Glacier Express. However with the Swiss Rail pass that we had, catching the Glacier Express only required the payment of a seat suppliment to book a seat on the train and it wasn't much, only about 20 Swiss Francs (hereafter referred to as Chabbo's) each. But we thought that was well worth it for the greater panoramic view - we could still take photos through the windows, it would be cold and hopefully snowy outside which would detract from us wanting to open the window anyway and it would be a more comfortable journey. You could also book lunch to be served onboard for an extra 45 Chabbos each, but we decided against that and had brought our own lunch provisions. Because Sasha can get travel sick travelling backwards sometimes, if we have the option in choosing seats we choose seats opposite each other - one facing forwards, one facing backwards. This means no matter what direction the train travels in (sometimes the direction can change mid-route), Sasha always has the option of facing forwards but it also means we're not having to compete with strangers for the legroom between facing seats, and one other thing - it usually means we both get window seats. Such was the case this time, but we had no idea if the side we'd chosen would end up being the "best" side to see the scenery from. We also had a couple sitting in the seats next to both of us, and after a while conversation was struck up with them as they had overheard us talking and wanted to know what our accents were, and the rest flowed from there - turns out he was Swiss-Indian and she was German, and they were having an anniversary trip on the Glacier Express from Brig to Chur, and would go back on a normal train later that day. As the landscape started to show signs of being covered in snow, the waiters came round to take the menu choices from those who had ordered lunch and also drink orders, and Sasha and I decided to order a glass of Swiss wine each. Our selection came fairly quickly, whereas our neighbours (and everyone else around) had a bit of a wait before theirs came. All the food and drink options were fairly pricey but this wine that we chose was reasonable - and it turned out we got a much fuller glass than we were supposed to, so even better! The scenery was fully snow covered by the time we reached Andermatt, and although I didn't know a lot about the points along the line we were travelling I did know that things were going to get a bit more dramatic in terms of landscape from that point onwards and the railway would become super steep. Which it did, quite dramatically - so steep that the train was using rack rails in the middle of the track to help grip up the steep angles. The train dived in and out of tunnels, with us taking photos of the landscape that appeared in front of us between them. Sasha at one stage pointed to the town out the window and said "Oh look there's another town", to which I had to reply that was the same town as the last 'two' we'd seen, Andermatt - the spiralling up the hillside and tunnel diving did make it all a bit confusing though! As we reached where the steep mountainside started plateauing out, we passed a skifield and the base at the top of the skifield. With the carriages being largely glass, we could see out and they could see in - it was quite surreal to see all the skiers rugged up in all their warm snow gear having their lunch and drinks froma thermos waving out to us, and for us waving back with one hand, glass of wine in the other and wearing summer clothes! Lunch was served to those who had booked it on the train - and while there was a real art and performance to the serving of the food, it didn't look all that great. A few vegetables, Spaetzle and what I think was a beef ragout - it just looked like canteen slop really. Their dessert, when that eventually came along was either cheeses and bread or a slice of chocolate cake. The guy next to us had thought it was cheesecake and not cheese, so was disappointed when he got his dessert and ended up swapping it with his partner. Sasha and I felt pretty good about our decision not to order the lunch - for what would have been 45 Chabbo's each, it was definitely not anywhere close to the level that you'd expect for paying that much and drinks are not included either. We only paid about 6 Chabbo's tops between us for Sasha's pasta and my sandwich - both were better than we expected too. Somewhere in among all of this our train stopped to pass the other Glacier Express passing in the other direction - I took the opportunity to take a leg stretch to the bar/buffet car next door as I badly needed it, but managed to poke my camera out of the door where the staff were disembarking to get a photo of the two trains passing. By now the snow had started disappearing and by the time we got to Disentis, where there was a 10 minute stop it was gone except for up on the mountain tops. We got out and had a little stretch of the legs here but didn't go wandering far into the town, before the train headed onwards to Chur. At Chur we parted ways with our neighbours - they'd given us a bunch of recommendations for Chur, which we would keep in mind. We figured out where we needed to go to our accommodation, and on the way we passed a train running down middle of the street along which we were walking. Its common to see trams doing this - but not actual trains, this was the train from Chur that went up to Arosa in the nearby mountains. After checking in at the accommodation and unpacking our bags, we set out again into the town to explore as much as we could in the dwindling light before getting dinner at a restaurant in the Old Town. Chur has quite an extensive Old Town area, and it is all very well kept - very charming and photogenic, and it turns out Chur is considered one of the prettiest towns in all of Switzerland. With the fairly early start the previous two mornings and another one to come, it was not a late night this night. Day 3 - More Trains, More AlpsToday, we were catching the Bernina Express. The Bernina Express is less famous than the Glacier Express, but it has similar carriages and was reputed to travel more spectacular scenery. Unlike the Glacier Express however, the Bernina Express was not a train of its own - it was a number of special carriages attached to the ordinary train along the line. Again, the advice had been catch the normal train because the windows open and its cheaper, but I'd originally found a special two-for-one price for travel on the train which included Pasta for lunch in Tirano, the end of the railway line - which was in Italy. Later, when we did the sums over all the ticket options we found we only had to pay a very small seat suppliment - about 6 Chabbos - to travel in the Bernina Express carriages when using our Swiss Travel Pass compared with riding in the normal carriages. So why wouldn't you ride in the panoramic coaches for that price? It meant we couldn't partake in the lunch deal, but it also meant we were free to do our own thing for lunch in Tirano. A day trip through Switzerland with lunch in Italy had a kind of appeal to it! Our carriage was very lightly loaded from Chur, but after the first major stop our carriage was largely full to the brim. We'd strategically gotten seats opposite each other again, but in a set of 3 right at one end of the carriage - and in the adjacent vestibule there was a toilet on one side, but a window which opened and would be on the right side for the Landwasser Viaduct - one of the iconic points on the section of line we would traverse. No-one occupied that 3rd seat either so that made a nice little space for us. The next carriage along happened to be a normal carriage with a drop down window in the vestibule too, so when we started approaching the Viaduct both Sasha and I poked out cameras out of the windows and got photos. Due to it being early in the morning there was a lot of shade over half the viaduct, and straight after the viaduct the train plunges into a tunnel and arrives at Filisur. From this point on, we started seeing the occasional traces of snow high up but nothing on the ground where we were, until we got to the junction where the track forks - St Moritz in one direction, and Tirano in the other. Our carriages were taken off the back of our train and placed in another platform and attached to a new train. Our old train was carrying on to St Moritz, but we would take a bypass line to Pontresina. Up until this point we had been on the Albula line which the Glacier Express also traverses, but already we'd had the advantage over the Glacier Express of being able to take those photos of the viaduct. At Pontresina the train disappeared - we discovered this only because we'd been sitting at the platform for a while and I went to go stick my head out the window to see what was going on, only to find the rest of the train had gone! Pontresina is the interchange between the Albula line and the Bernina line - they are all owned by Rhaetische Bahn (RhB), but the Bernina line has a bigger voltage in the overhead power lines so thats why we got some new railcars up the front to take us the rest of the way to Tirano. All the stuff I'd read said the most spectacular scenery would be on this next stretch, and so it proved to be. We coursed through high alps, climbing very high up into the snow line and then plateauing out at the top of the Bernina pass where a lake was, some 2,253 metres above sea level. From here it was a very steep, sudden and winding drop down the other side past the mountain Piz Palu and its Glacier, with a number of spirals before we ended up in the valley floor below - and surprisingly given how steep the track was, there was no center cog track unlike what the Glacier Express had used the day before on the steep sections. The little towns which dotted along the valley had a distinct different look to them than we'd been accustomed to the rest of the time - basically, they looked more Italian! descending down the valley was still a bit steep, and there was one final spiral to go round which was mostly on a curved viaduct. There was nothing to mark crossing the border into Italy, and then we hit the outskirts of Tirano, went down a Main Street, across a square and into the station. Time for lunch - in Italy! We'd done a bit of research ahead of time and while everyone else looked as though they were wondering where to head, we beelined a block away to a Pizza place where we had a nice and cheap lunch - complete with a piccolo bottle of wine each! following lunch we walked around Tirano, before ending up at a supermarket which was literally half wine and half everything else. Our idea had been to sneak a bottle of wine on the train for the journey back, but everything was basically corked bottles - not screw cap, which presented a problem. Then we found what looked almost like little fruit juice cartons, the sort that you'd give to children - they contained wine, they came as a pack of three and had a screw top lid each. There were two brands, both the same price so we got one of each, knowing they would probably taste terrible but no-one would know we were drinking wine! before long it was time to head back to the station - our 2 hours in Tirano were up. We had different seats in a different carriage for the return journey, because we simply weren't able to reserve the same seats for the way back. I don't think many people do the Bernina Express as a day trip there and back, but rather do it one way on their way somewhere else or stay overnight in Italy and then catch it back the next day. We had managed to get two seats across from each other at the end of a carriage, on the opposite side of the train than we had been before - the idea had been to try and be close to the end of the carriage so we could pop through to the next door carriage's openable window if need be, but it turns out our carriage was the one with the crew area in it and so we were right next to that. Not that it mattered too much, and the seats next to us were taken by another couple. We started sipping away at our "juice boxes" as we jokingly referred to them, and after a while the couple next to us managed to get two plastic cups from one of the train attendants and cracked open a big bottle of something. We were a little perplexed what it might be and that might have shown on our faces, because they asked us if we wanted to try some. We both said no, but they explained it was a kind of herbal schnapps that was not easy to find but that they liked. After that we did try a little bit, it was quite a herb-flavoured liqueur. They asked us what we were drinking, and we admitted to drinking Chateau-de-Cardboard wine out of the little boxes! The conversation flowed from there, as we watched the scenery turn into darkness as we re-traced our route back to Chur. He was German, from Konstanz on the edge of Lake Constance originally (which is right on the Swiss border) and she was Swiss, they lived in Sargans which wasn't far from Chur. We talked travel, languages - they were amazed that we couldn't tell the difference between their German and Swiss-German accents, but they couldn't tell the difference between our accents; the weather, as apparently it was the least snow they'd had in Switzerland for many years and it should not have been melting off so soon usually - and all manner of other subjects, while we finished our juice boxes with the occasional tipple of their liqueur. After we got back to Chur, we all went to a pub and had a few more drinks together before we called it a night and went our separate ways. Sasha and I weren't so hungry after all of this but recognised we should probably eat as dinner had never happened - we walked to the McDonalds only to find it had closed 20 minutes earlier, and with that decided we would eat something from our supplies back at our accommodation and we went to sleep. Day 4 - Another Day, Another CountryI can't say I had a great sleep that night, and felt pretty awful from the mix of wine, liqueur and beer we'd had the night before when I woke up - but after having some water and lying semi-awake for a bit it all decided it wanted out, and after that I felt a whole lot better! Sasha had no such trouble and felt fine. We'd been recommended a bakery with a cafe by the couple from the Glacier express to check out while we were in Chur, so after checking out of our accommodation we made our way there and had a rather nice breakfast. Before long, we made our way to the station and hopped on a train heading for Sargans, which was only about 20 minutes away. At Sargans, we found the bus stop for the bus we wanted - a bus across the border to nearby Liechtenstein. Because we have become a bit crap at looking up things ahead of time before we go places, we still had no real idea what we might do in this small country - but we knew we would probably get off in Vaduz, the capital and have lunch there. Looking at the destination board on the bus, it said Feldkirch and I said to Sasha that the bus we were on was going from literally the south of the country all the way to the top - we could stay on all the way if we wanted and then head back to Vaduz after if we felt like it. We decided to do this, and the bus took us from Sargans along the Swiss border for a while before crossing the river into Liechtenstein. Liechtenstein is a small principality, a country in its own right but not a very big one. Liechtenstein participates in Schengen and the European Free Trade Association although it is not a member of the European Union - considering it has Switzerland on one side and Austria on the other (past a big set of mountains), this makes a lot of sense and because Liechtenstein is more accessible from Switzerland rather than Austria it uses the Swiss Franc (Chabbo) as currency. Because its Schengen, when we crossed the border there was not much to mark it and certainly no stamp in our passports. Its also not hard to see how the Swiss Army have accidentally invaded Liechtenstein 3 times in the last 20 years with Army units stumbling into the territory on exercises! By the time we were approaching Vaduz about half an hour into the bus trip, Sasha said she was feeling a little bit travel sick with the rocking motion of the bus so we decided to hop off at the main square. The weather was a bit inclement but wasn't raining at that moment, and we wandered around a little bit, looking at the Information Centre, a little glass box with books that you could take which we joked was Liechtenstein's library; we walked along the main street and eventually settled on a place to eat just as the rain started coming down. We had a pleasant meal here - it wasn't cheap, but it wasn't expensive either and by the time we left the rain had finished its downpour. After a little more wandering we headed up the hill path to the Royal Castle - its still in use and you can't visit it, but there were some pretty good views of Vaduz and Liechtenstein in general from up there. Once we were done, we headed back down and went back to the bus stop - we thought about heading along to Feldkirch but decided instead to just head back to Sargans and make our way onwards to Zurich. We scored seats at the front of the bus on the 2nd level, and got to watch Liechtenstein go by us - at the stop called "Schule", we picked up a load of high-school school kids who were obviously finished for the day and we dropped them off along the rest of the route. I was about to crack a joke about how the stop is called Schule, which means School in German because its little Liechtenstein's only School when I realised that actually might be true. The country only takes an hour to drive from its northern extremity to the southern extremity and its not very wide, so although it could have more than one primary school its doubtful there's more than one High School! It rained again as we crossed back into Switzerland, we found our way into the station and checked the train times for Zurich. There were two trains in the next 15 minutes, both within 3 minutes of each other - one was an Austrian RegioJet train Budapest via Austria going on to Zurich, while the other was a SBB Intercity train that started in Chur and would eventually go on to Bern via Zurich. Our ticket was valid on both, but we decided to go with the SBB train as it was likely to have more seats available than the RegioJet. Surprisingly though the SBB train wasn't very empty - it took us a few carriages before we found two front-facing seats together, and we changed after a few minutes as there was a very noisy child adjacent to us. This journey was about an hour - for some reason I had thought it would be closer to two hours, so we arrived in Zurich at about 6pm in the evening and a bit earlier than we had been expecting to. We made our way out of the station and began the 15min walk to our accommodation - which was with the same chain as we'd stayed with on our arrival in Zurich from Germany, but at an inner-city location. This too was a small apartment with a kitchen and ensuite, and after dumping our bags we headed out and found a supermarket from which to get dinner and a few other things for the following day. We did have the idea of wandering around Zurich that night, but we were a bit worn out and so instead had our little wine & cheese dinner in the apartment, rested up and had an earlyish night. Day 5 - Finding things to do in ZürichZurich is not my favourite city, and its a bit of a thorn in my side in a number of ways - not the least of which it keeps taking the crown of the "most visited city" for me in my travels. Its nice, but every time its always seemed like there isn't a hell of a lot to do there and the place is expensive. But Sasha wanted to see the famous city, and I was interested to see whether there was, in actual fact, anything worth doing there. We had a day - and we did have some things we'd come up with. Firstly was a visit to the Lindt Chocolate factory, where we bought more chocolate than we bargained on as well as getting a bunch of free samples of various kinds of chocolates. The factory is out of the Zurich CBD so we travelled there by suburban train and back, managing to have a little walk along the Lake edge on the way back to the station. At the central station, we changed trains to a private railway company and rode up to a hill above Zurich - this involved two trains actually as for some reason the first train didn't go all the way. At the top of the hill, we followed the walking paths and eventually found a building with a small lookout tower adjacent as well as a view over Zurich and the lake. We went up the tower for the better views too - it was a bit windy and after a while we had to go back down, not able to withstand the wind anymore. Once we'd had our fill we headed back down to the station and rode the train all the way back into Zurich Central station. We proceeded to wander into the Old Town, Sasha guiding our way through the various paths she thought looked interesting and with a stop in a few stores - a Victorinox Swiss Army knife store was one, and also a big Souvenir store. Once we emerged at the river, we kept wandering alongside it heading in the direction of the Opera House square taking photos along the way, but once we reached the lake edge we decided we'd seen enough given the time that we had left and caught a tram back to the station. We'd had a small snack for lunch, and it was nudging 5pm so we went across the road from the station to the McDonalds where Dion and I had partaken in expensive thickshakes and got ourselves an early dinner. There was a reason for McDonalds above anything else - there were two special gourmet burgers that had been designed by some famous Swiss chef and we were keen to try them. I had one and Sasha had the other - they were good, but not anything super special. After McDonalds we headed to the airport by train, checked in and waited for our flight to board. It was supposed to be departing from one particular gate, but as it got closer to the time I noticed there were very few people in our area and some who had been had shifted on. Upon checking the board, our plane was now at a different gate about 6 gates further back so we moved down. We were flying Air Berlin again so surprise surprise, it was late taking off yet again - but was a reasonably pleasant and relatively short flight back to Berlin's Tegel airport, and a fairly easy commute back to where we were living although I do remember it seemed like it was dragging out. And with that, trip over! In SummaryIt was a fairly action-packed 5 days when all is said and done. I don't think we could have gotten any better weather for the Jungfraujoch, and same for the Glacier & Bernina Expresses. Although we might have hoped for some more snow during both of these train trips, what we did see was a good mix and showed off winter-wonderland Switzerland as well as the more summery-looking bare Alps further down. The weather may not have been top notch for our Liechtenstein and Zurich days, but it didn't really need to be compared to the other days. We travelled a huge distance all over Switzerland - which brings me to one of those maps... Saturday, Zurich to Lauterbrunnen via Bern and Interlaken, up the Jungfrau and back to Lauterbrunnen (Red); Sunday, Lauterbrunnen to Brig via Spiez, then Glacier Express from Brig to Chur (Purple); Monday, Bernina Express from Chur to Tirano and back (Blue); Tuesday, Chur to Sargans, Sargans to Vaduz, Liechtenstein and back, Sargans to Zurich (Green); Wednesday, Day in Zurich (not shown). I've included the whole of Switzerland in this map for some idea of how much we covered - a pretty huge portion of the country. This was a trip full of spectacular scenery, good times and Swiss charm - but it did not come cheap. In fact, it is one of our most expensive trips to date - for what we spent on transport and accommodation over the 5 days, was only a bit less than what we spent for 9 days when we visited Sweden and Norway for the Northern Lights. Although all the Scandinavian countries get a bad rap as being expensive, Switzerland is right up there and Zurich is known as one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in - simply because there's a lot of finance institutions in Switzerland and well, rich bankers. If you were to single out a single thing as shooting our expenses up, I know what it would be - the Jungfraujoch tickets were 132 Chabbos each, or €123 - or NZD$188. Each, so we bought two of those. And that price included the 25% discount - tickets are 176 Chabbos a piece at the full price (€162/NZD$248). You're paying through the nose for the experience, but we wanted to do it - but not at any cost, hence we had the caveat of the weather. It played ball, thankfully! We could have just got cheap airfares to a city, spent a weekend there (Basel? Geneva?) and called Switzerland done for Sasha - but we would have missed out on so much, especially stuff that we both wanted to do. This was a pretty comprehensive trip through Switzerland no matter which way you look at it, and I don't imagine there will be much cause to specifically visit Switzerland again for us during our time over this side of the world. That's not to say we won't - it could well be that we transit Switzerland in the course of other travels, but we won't be making a point of it as we have plenty of other places left on our list. In the far future though, I could see the country being a target for a revisit - that alpine scenery will never get old... Liechtenstein, for sure, we won't be visiting again during our time over this side of the world - I cannot imagine any possibility where we'd need to transit or go near this country again, being so small that literally the nearest airport is the one in Zurich. I did like it though, it had its own unique little charm and it is another country to add to the list. Oh and that bus we caught? turns out Feldkirch is the first town beyond Liechtenstein in Austria, so had we stayed on the bus all that way we would have visited a 4th country during the course of the trip, not just three! Speaking of Italy, there was a nice novelty value in being able to just pop across to Italy for lunch - I guess much in the same manner that we popped across the border to Szczecin in Poland from Berlin that time. The things you can do when you are in Europe! As for Italy - there is a lot for me to visit there, it will have to be part of a much bigger trip at some point I dare say. We do have some ideas about this, but those are for mentioning another time... And Sasha's verdict on Zurich? in her own words, there wasn't a lot to do there and "...it was't a city which captured my heart". Which I think sums it up pretty nicely - its nice, but not worth spending much time there. Besides, your wallet will probably thank you for it! But will Zurich retain the crown of "most visited city" or will it be usurped by another? I honestly couldn't tell you what that answer might be right now - it will be interesting to know the result in due course, but either way it will mean more travels...
Our first trip after our December holiday home was to a destination we'd often considered but passed over many times for various reasons. Yup, you guessed it - The Harz. We picked out a weekend when we hoped it would be in decent snow so we could see the region in white, booked our nights accommodation in Wernigerode and planned out how we were going to get there and what we might do there. It all came together fairly easily - we just needed the snow part to co-operate. Day 1 - Steam and SnowSo that Saturday morning, we headed to the Alexanderplatz Station to catch our train to Wernigerode. It was a train run by a special private company, and the tickets for it could only be bought on board. The tickets were a bargain I thought - for a return trip over the weekend, it would cost €29 for the two of us and the train would take us to Wernigerode without having to change. It did take 3 hours in each direction, but this was neither here nor there as far as we were concerned and there was quite a lot of snow landscape to watch go by as the sun rose over the land. The snow was getting thicker, and then after Magdeburg it started getting thinner - to the point when we got to Halberstadt, about 20mins from Wernigerode there was no snow on the ground anymore. The snow returned in that last 20 minutes and we could see there was snow on the hills. We were planning to go into the hills anyway so we'd at least get snow that way. The train was slightly late and a lot of people piled off and rushed to go catch the Harz narrow-gauge Steam Train at the nearby platform before it departed. We were going to ride the train, but a bit later - we decided to visit the station and get our tickets now though. There was a sign on the door in German which we had to translate but it said trains were not running beyond Shierke to Brocken due to weather, which seemed to disappoint most people but for us that was fine as we weren't planning on going any further than Shierke anyway. Apart from the fact it cost over double to travel the extra distance from Shierke to Brocken at the top of the hill, I'd been keeping an eye on the webcams and weather at the Brocken, and it had looked appalling white-out conditions all the previous week. I've been up the Brocken in bad weather and I certainly am not looking for a repeat (to be honest with it being so exposed, having good weather up there seems a bit rare). We got our tickets, then wandered around the main streets of Wernigerode for a while and even visited the same shop where Dion got his socks from the last time I was there. They had some choice clothing sale specials on and Sasha and I bought one or two items each before heading back to the station, where we caught the train. The train took us through Wernigerode and up to Drei Annen Hohne, and while I expected the scenery to look pretty in the snow I didn't anticipate how pretty it might look especially with white hills highlighted with blue skies behind. Sasha and I spent longer out on the platforms than either of us intended getting photos! We knew at Drei Annen Hohne we'd have to change trains as our train would go on to Nordhausen instead. So we get off at Drei Annen Hohne and instead of 3 trains, there is only 2. The other train that was not ours looked set to head back to Wernigerode, so where was the train that we needed? had it not come yet? our train soon took off with no-one on it, but then parked the carriages up in a different platform and the engine then went off by itself. What on earth is going on? I went into the station and asked about our train - luckily the lady spoke a little English, and said the train we wanted to catch wasn't running but there was another one to Shierke in an hour. We hadn't planned on being at Drei Annen Hohne for much time, let alone an hour so we got some lunch from a nearby stand at the station and wandered to another areas of stands and got some Glühwein. Eventually our train showed up, we hopped on and rode up to Shierke where there was a large crowd at the platform, who looked like they were waiting to hop on the train and ride it back downhill. We anticipated that this would be the case also and beyond taking a few photos, didn't move much from the train. Only when I noticed that the carriages were all empty and that crowd had vanished somewhere, did I go ask the ticket office lady what time the next train was. Turns out we were going to be at Shierke for 90 minutes, which was longer than we anticipated or imagined. However we made the most of it by wandering up a snow driving path where some were using sleds, and Sasha fell in the snow about 4 times as she'd lose footing in the deeper parts! we also sampled some of the Schnapps of all sorts of different varieties that we'd acquired also, before eventually boarding the train and heading back down to Drei Annen Hohne where we had to change to yet another train in order to return to Wernigerode. Our plan was to go back to the clothing store upon our return to Wernigerode and see if there was anything else that we wanted to buy (loads actually, but we only bought a few more things - as we only had so much room in our bags to carry things!), and once that was done we had a little bit of time to kill before going to the Hotel Restaurant for our dinner booking so we started wandering the darkened streets of Wernigerode - only for it to start snowing on us, lightly at first and then fairly heavily! by the time we had gotten back to the Hotel it started easing but everything was covered in a pleasing blanket of white. We got our hoped-for table by the window for dinner, which meant our drinks were delivered by model train which was quite a fun quirk! Day 2 - Exploring and WanderingAfter our very substantial breakfast, we checked out of the Hotel and headed out into Wernigerode, wandering our way towards the Schloss or Castle. Its not a leisurely hike up the steep path to the Schloss, but once we were up there we had a rather lovely view of a snow-blanketed Wernigerode. I'd been in the castle once before with Dion, and while we did think about going in we decided against it this time as it wasn't anything much special. After a walk down the hill and a fairly leisurely walk through the town, having coffee in a shop and checking out a few other shops (interestingly open on a Sunday, which isn't the norm for Germany) we arrived at the road intersection near the Westerntor station where the train goes through it. According to the timetable we should see two trains pass through, one in each direction within about 5 minutes of each other and in the very light snow we saw one, but the other was a no-show. We popped into the Westerntor station to look at the shop there, saw the display screen which listed the next Schierke-bound train and decided to go for a wander through the town along the path that follows the railway track and catch a photo or two of this next train when it would pass through. We decided to halt at a nice looking spot, and decided to try the last of our Schnapps bottles just as a group of Germans walked by - they seemed quite amused and said "Prost!" to us as they passed. The train came, we got our photos and then we walked back through town, eventually finding a place to have a late-lunch-early-dinner where we had a very hearty stew and a beer, before heading back to the station to catch our late afternoon train back to Berlin. The train was super packed upon leaving Wernigerode but we did manage to find two seats opposite each other in a group of 4, and I figured either the train would become even more full at the next main stop of Halberstadt or it might empty out. Just as we are pulling into Halberstadt I notice a family in a group of three seats behind us get up and walk to the door, so I plonked my bag on the seat and we moved into the group of three seats ourselves. Turns out the train emptied out, so we were able to keep the 3 seats to ourselves. Unlike some of our other travels where we arrive back in Berlin fairly late at night, it was only 8.45pm when we got back into Berlin so with the short tramride home, we still had a bit of the evening free to wind down and get things ready for the next day before heading to bed - which was quite nice for a change! Summing UpWell we finally got back to the Harz, and it was the white wonderland that we had hoped for in the end! The special train made things fairly easy to get there and back, and Wernigerode is a lovely almost stereotypical German town straight from a fairytale - so very pretty. I think we both enjoyed the trip, and while we might have done a bit and seen a bit, it was on the whole a slower-paced and more relaxing weekend away than we have typically done in recent times. So we've done the Harz, although Quedlinberg still remains as a potential location to visit on our list. Quedlinberg can be easily reached by the same train that took us to Wernigerode, so its all doable - perhaps a summertime visit when its warm? Maybe we won't get around to that one, who knows. But I certainly enjoyed going back to Wernigerode, and also seeing the steam trains there in the snow again - like I had hoped I might!
Of what travels we'd done so far since moving to Berlin, German-based destinations were looking a bit lacking! So of course we thought a weekend away somewhere "domestic" would be good. Sasha had a small list of places that she's seen or heard things about and would like to go to - one of these was a town called Quedlinburg, which I knew of through train stuff as being one of the three main towns that made up the Harz Steam Train railway (and I'd been there, if only briefly, doing those trains). We looked at going there for the weekend, but one of the weekends the place was completely sold out, and the other the weather looked like it would be no good. I'd found a cheap train to Hamburg from Berlin with special fares for September and October, and with little other idea of where to go we thought we might go there instead. What would we do there? We actually didn't have much of a clue - when trying to look things up, not much was coming back as suggestions. We knew it was a port city (somehow, as it wasn't on the coast), it was Germany's 2nd largest city, and we knew it had the world's largest Model Train set (the No.1 and No.2 thing to do in Hamburg according to Tripadvisor - one listing was in English and the other in German hence why it came up twice!). But other than that, not really much seemed interesting. We considered just going for a day, but in the end decided to go for the weekend and see if there really was nothing much to do there or whether the city might surprise us. Day 1 - Trains, Boats and Figurines So, one October Saturday morning at 8am, we boarded the cheap train to Hamburg at Berlin's main station. We had allocated seats, we found them and sat down - and noted how strange the decor and arrangement of our carriage was. It was neither the typical compartment, nor open saloon - it was some interesting combination of the two. I do find it interesting when you come across something that is different than the usual and can see a lot of logic in the design - I did like the way that the middle row of seats where Sasha was sitting was offset compared to the other rows meaning all passengers could stretch their legs out without getting in the way of any other passenger. However it seemed not fully thought out and surely couldn't be the most efficient use of the space? The whole train was like this - our train was a special train made up of former Inter-Regional Express (IRE) carriages which were cheaper and slower trains than the usual Inter City (IC) trains, until they got stopped in order to make people use the IC or ICE trains. The IC or ICE trains take 2 hours between Berlin and Hamburg, but our train (going a slightly different route) would take 3 hours - not a problem to us considering it was half the cost of the other trains, and was still faster than the bus. Just after 11am we arrived in Hamburg, had a little wander around the area near the station and following that decided to get lunch from a nearby place that had been recommended when Sasha looked up places to eat. It lived up to its reputation - we both got the same meal, and it was monstrous! we could easily have shared one between us actually. Following lunch, we wandered along the river/canal nearby until we arrived at our Airbnb accommodation at the appointed time. We were only expecting a room in a flat, but it turns out no-one else would be home over the weekend so that was a bonus. Having dropped off some gear, we ventured out into Hamburg again - in a hurry now as we'd taken a look at the brochures we'd picked up at the station, liked the look of the hop-on-hop-off cruise as a means of getting to see Hamburg's harbour area and then realised we'd need to go to the wharf immediately. Not certain that we'd get there, we did with a few minutes to spare. We knew fullwell that if we hopped off at one of the hop-on-hop-off spots there would be no getting back on as it was the last circut of the day, but we weren't interested in using it for that - so far as we could tell, it did the biggest and widest ranging circuit of the harbour so we'd see more. As it transpired everyone else on board had the same idea, so we never did drop off anyone and also didn't pick anyone up. But the boat still did its full circuit, past the Blohm & Voss shipards where we could see some Naval ships being worked on, past a large Aida Cruises cruise ship, past the container wharves where absolutely massive container ships were, through a shipway lock which wasn't about sea level but stopping the harbour silting up, and past various museums, places of interest and museum ships before going back to the start. It had been raining for most of it, but mostly lightly so and we had been out the back protected by an awning so we had maximum view but also good shelter. We might have also had a Flensburger Pilsener as well during the trip! Having hopped off the boat, we were slightly cold so we got a Glühwein from a nearby shop on the wharf which also did Crepes, also getting some crepes as a snack in the process. We had a bit of a wander through the streets of the city on our way back to our accommodation, where we got ourselves ready to go to the Miniature Wonderland which was nearby - the world's largest Model Train layout. Sasha had reserved tickets at a discount for 7.30pm, as it was a special late night at the Wonderland and it was open until midnight. Our plan was to go there, have a look around and see it all and then find dinner afterwards as we weren't hungry at that stage and we figured it shouldn't take more than 2 hours to see the place. Well we were in for a bit of a surprise. First of all, turns out Sasha somehow had inadvertently reserved tickets for 7.30am and not 7.30pm - we'd missed our timeslot by 12 hours! In Germany they use 24hr time and so there was no AM or PM on the ticket. We'd read stories that sometimes you can queue up to 2 hours to get in if you don't reserve tickets, but it turns out the wait would be no more than 15 minutes before we'd be able to go in. During that wait, we were able to have free drinks (including soft drink) in the adjacent lounge & cafeteria. The model layout itself? incredibly detailed. It is organised into different sections and all are different countries and cities - so the German part is Hamburg, naturally but they had USA loosely based on Las Vegas, the Scandinavia area was an interesting mix of Denmark in one part, before merging into Norway (including the Arctic Cathedral from Tromso in the scenery), Norway merged into a wintry Sweden with a large mine - the Iron Ore mine at Kiruna in fact, the town where we'd stayed when we saw the Northern Lights in February. Switzerland was spread over the two upper stories of the building, because the Swiss alps are tall and steep and the layout stayed true to that. The model trains, which were the reason for the Wonderland's creation and reason to be, although interesting to me at first very quickly faded into the background - quite literally, because your focus soon becomes all the little miniature people and the scenes of what they are up to on the layout. People at the beach, people having picnics, driving cars, firefighters working on a building on fire, to Polar Bears having a party, Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs hiking in the mountains, a dog driving a car, penguins and kangaroo's in the snow - and of course people enjoying one of Germany's favourite pastimes - naked sunbathing in public areas. The detail was immense and it was so much fun trying to see what other odd scenes you could find! It wasn't just the trains which moved around - which by the way, are all controlled by computers and monitored by people in a Train Control room just like you have on a real railway - on many parts the cars did too, stopping at the railway crossings when the barriers came down for a train to pass and there was also an airport. The airport was fascination as the planes there not only moved from the terminal and taxied to the runway, but then they'd roll down the runway and take off - flying into a hatch in the wall into which they'd disappear, and some time later (after a few more planes had taken off and landed) it would land again. The flying into the wall part was perhaps the quirkiest part, and the part which I couldn't get over! very clever system whoever invented it. I know for a fact that Sasha thought 2 hours would be pushing it for a visit there and while she didn't have much idea of what to expect, I knew she was mostly going to humour me. However we actually left the place at 11.30pm, nearly 4 hours after arriving because we both just got so caught up in all the detail! We were of course a bit hungry by now, but in a cursory search we could not find a foodery from which to get food so we went back to our accommodation and ate some snacks we had instead, then went to sleep. Day 2 - Wandering AroundWe had a rather early start the next morning - not as early as we had intended or had been recommended, because of getting back later than we intended the night before but still early enough. We left our accommodation and used public transport to get us to the Fish Market, something which happens every Sunday morning in Hamburg. Starting at 5am, the latest fish and produce gets sold off here. We'd been told to check it out, as it would be a mix of people up early to get the best catches of the day, and drunk people still out from the night before. When we did get there about 7.30am, it was very busy and fair to say the description had been accurate. Inside one of the old wharf warehouses at the Fish Market, was a band playing Rock cover songs while stalls sold sausages, crepes and in particular beer - it was the remnants of Hamburg's own Oktoberfest celebrations and they were still selling Festbier (Festival Beer, i.e. Oktoberfest beer). There were a lot of stalls selling fish-related food, so we got ourselves some freshly battered and fried up seafood bites of different kinds to share as breakfast, and afterwards wandered into the hall and got ourselves a Festbier each because why not? Ordering the two festbiers (in 500mL Steins, not the proper 1L ones) proved easy enough for me but when Sasha came back from getting the 2nd round, she came back with two Wheat beers instead. "What happened to the Festbier?" I asked. "Is this not Festbier?" Sasha replied, and then said about how she'd gone up and asked for two Festbiers in German ("Zwei Festbier Bitte") just as I had, and had been given a wheat beer and a glass of wine instead - not sure how! but she managed to get another beer but hadn't realised that neither glass was the Festbier. Never mind! Once we'd finished, we wandered around the market again - what struck me most was the way the stall venders auctioned their wares off in bulk lots to bidders in the crowds. A fishmonger would grab different kinds and different amounts of fish from his supply, yelling the types out in the process and then say the price for the bundle which was usually around the €20 mark. First person to say they'd take it gets it - I guess you just have to wait until you see what you think is the most useful and attractive combination to you, there is no asking for what you want. This went for all manner of things - fruit and vege baskets mostly as well, but also a group of people selling garden plants which I thought was the most bizarre of all but also was the one with the biggest crowd! There was also one or two stalls selling live poultry or their products - quite literally you could go to the stall and choose to buy either the chicken or the egg. I've never seen that before in a food & produce market! We then wandered around through Hamburg (stopping off at the wharf area on the way where we'd taken our harbour cruise and got Glühwein from the same place as the day before), and eventually needing lunch - I wanted to have a Hamburger in Hamburg, since it was the city that Hamburgers were supposedly first invented. We found a place which specialised in burgers - I would describe it as upmarket fast food and we could order a glass of beer to go with our burger and fries. The burgers were rather large! Following this we made our way to the meeting point for the afternoon Free Walking tour. During the walking tour we learned about Hamburg's history, how it was one of Germany's richest cities for a long time, and how it got devastated during World War 2 but was rebuilt by the allies and retook its place as an important port city for West Germany, and then Germany as a whole following German Unity. We wandered across a large swathe of Hamburg, during which we made friends with an Australian girl called Sophie who was travelling around Europe by herself but staying with people she knew in Berlin and had made a day trip to Hamburg - literally arriving in Hamburg not terribly long before the walking tour started. Following the tour, the three of us wandered to another part of the city to get dinner - which was a cheap doner kebab, but from a place reputed by our tour guide to be one of the best in Hamburg. We discussed travel stories and tips, and after dinner we tried finding Glühwein nearby as Sophie had never had it but with no success so we ended up back down at the wharf getting Glühwein and Crepes from that same place! Sophie was not sure of her plans that evening - she was hoping to catch up with a friend, but the friend was only in sporadic contact and she couldn't make definite plans. She did know of the times of all the buses and the last bus back to Berlin was about 11pm, and we had our train to Berlin which left at 7.30pm. Sophie came with us to Hamburg station and saw us off -she'd decided she might check out the Reeperbahn area of Hamburg while waiting for her friend to get back to her, just in case they did and if not then she'd catch a later bus. The trip back was in darkness, and in the same train with the slightly odd seating - it went fairly quick and deposited us back at the Berlin Hauptbahnhof on time. An S-Bahn train to Alexanderplatz and a tram from there and we were home - journey done! Summing UpI didn't expect to like Hamburg. Aside from being Germany's 2nd largest city and having the Miniature Wonderland, it didn't seem like it had much going for it. I am happy to admit I was pleasantly surprised by the city and thoroughly enjoyed our time there. I don't know that there's exactly a lot to do there still, but there was definitely enough -and enough interesting stuff - to keep us entertained during the weekend we were there. Hamburg is a port city (there's a large and deep river going from the seat to Hamburg) but it is also Germany's main city of theatre shows and concerts (and will be even more so when the new Opera house opens), not that the theatre show thing is of much use to us currently as we don't speak German yet and we wouldn't be able to understand what's going on! My highlight was the Miniature Wonderland, but not for reasons that I expected - it is not really the kind of place for massive model train buffs to geek out about this train and that train, but more for modellers in general for all the detail and for all the public, spotting all those little figurines and what they are up to! Hamburg is the sort of place where we might very well consider going back to for a day trip or a weekend again - undoubtedly though Hamburg will feature in future trips as a place we pass through or use as a launching point for elsewhere. So Hamburg, we enjoyed you - and we will see you next time, whatever shape or form that might take!
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A Kiwi out travelling in the UK and surrounding countries Archives
August 2019
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