Category Archives: travel

Norway 2014 – Part 1: Kiel – Oslo

Posted on by
Reply

In Kiel/Germany I went on board the Color Fantasy of Color Line. It was the first time for me on such a huge ferry ship. The boarding went flawless when my car rolled into the huge back gate. I felt like in a parking garage, not a moving ship. After I was ordered to stop at my small parking spot with cars all around, I took luggage for one night with me as the car decks are closed down until arrival. Luckily (maybe perfectly planned by the staff) the elevator nearby also took me near my small room.

In the elevator I made the short aquaintance of some gentlemen who would be met again. I booked the cheapest acommodation possible, still got a nice room but without a window – for that the TV had a channel showing the current bridge view. But why stay in the room when a big ship waits to be discovered? I tried to memorize the cabin location and went on for a stroll around. The shops and venues were not open yet so I went outside to see that the ship crew hoisted the anchor(possibly by pushing a button) and slowly started to head northwards.

Later on at deck the aforementioned group of four vacationeers were met again and we had quite some good talks and beers. They told me that it was not their first trip and some of them have been to Scandinavia for years. This time they wanted to go fishing at Geiranger Fjord and highly recommended a visit. I was able to harvest some tips about my trip to Norway which I’m thankful for – also one reason why Geiranger Fjord has later been part of my trip (quite a bit after the group was back in Germany).

For quite some time we saw the Øresund Bridge, first a small line on the horizon, later a distinct huge structure running 8 kilometres between Sweden and Denmark. Almost everybody was on deck to make pictures when it was underpassed by our ferry.

Later, we went back in the belly of the ship for a short relax, only to meet at the theater where a big show was going on and we had some more beers. Tired and with quite a few new impressions I went to bed.

The next morning the ferry passed the entry to Oslo and finally stopped at the ferry harbour west of the city center. Many cars were spilled out and I was wondering if this concludes to traffic jams everytime a ferry drops by. As I already booked a small and comparably cheap hotel in the city center, I drove there and stopped almost right in front of it. After checkin and putting some luggage to the room, I went off to park my car in a proper garage and was set to go for a field trip around Oslo.

The ferry trip was a great experience and I was happy to arrive at Oslo fresh and open for new excitement.

Prague

Posted on by
Reply

With the car I went to a small Hotel right in the old city of Buda. A small adventure was to find the entry to the parking lot but I finally found it and successfully parked the car there for the two nights of my stay.

To maximize the input of Prague and with my very good experience in Jerusalem, the next morning I opted for the free tours of Sandeman (New Prague Tours). I did the basic tour and right afterwards the castle tour. Quite exhausting because we had great weather and so it was hot and sunny.
Karel, the guide did a good job on both tours and I have seen far more than I could do on my own in such a short time.
Afterwards I was able to visit the Museum of Communism (same entry as the casino: Muzeum komunismu) which showed very good the different stages of uprising and oppression. I was quite touched by the videos which showed how the protesters were singled out and stopped.

The next day I went to Kutna Hora by car to see the huge cathedral, quite morbid bone chapel and church of the Cistercians (they also founded Kloster Eberbach near my hometown).

The next stop of my trip was the Völkerschlachtdenkmal near Leipzig just to make a picture if the new car compared to my last visit there with the old car 🙂

Then off to Merseburg, a nice little town and former city of the German emperors which was my base for the offroad festival 2014.

Budapest

Posted on by
Reply

2014-06-01

Weather was quite cloudy on Sunday morning, rain might come soon. First a short breakfast stop at Szamos Cukrászda, a nice looking patisserie.
Just took the French breakfast with Tejes kávé.

Via the Chain Bridge/Kettenbrücke, this time the castle up on the hill was the goal.
The cable car reminded me of the Nerobergbahn in Wiesbaden, after the steep climb of the little cabin car I enjoyed the great view over Pest, walked around the huge castle area and went in the Hungarian history museum. Then the other side of castle hill was there to be explored. I saw the
Matthias Church and Fishermen’s bastion and went down the Vienna Gate heading for Pest.

On the descent I stopped at Édeni Vegán, a nice restaurant. For lunch I picked a bit of everything.
Édeni Vegán / 1011 Budapest, Iskola u. 31

The Terror Museum was my next stop. Already with a visible exterior it covers the time of two oppressing regimes (Arrow-cross and Communists). From my perspective it is good for school classes to get to know what happened at the place of interrogation and also in general at the time. You can opt for an audio guide and papers to read in every room. I tried the papers.

Chocolate cake / Laško beer at Vello D’oro Pizzeria Caffe Cinema where a draft beer is just 400Ft for 0,5l.

Took a swim at the hotel, small but very nice pool.

2014-06-02

On the next day I went to the Great Synagogue. Entered without a ticket, just had a short look on the prayers before I was asked for a ticket and found out about my fault. However, the line was quite long so I just walked along the garden with mass graves of the Ghetto victims and to the exit of the synagogue area.

As contrast to the remembrance of the suffering I crossed many unbelievably beautiful Art nouveau buildings up to the parliament. Just did a picture in front of the parliament when the guards did a show at around 11:30.

Went via Liberty square park, which is surrounded by astonishing Art nouveau buildings, to a vegan place called Ganga.
Excellent vegan-vegetarian cuisine, also spicy options. Again a tasty homemade lemonade (Lichies) and so much food I was definitely full after the visit. The guys behind the counter gave me a bit of everything (Gingerbread stuffed with vegetables, Lasagne etc.). Ganga was established around 2010 but the owners changed 2 years ago, repainted the wall colors to something more friendly and built up a busy business.

Then I rolled to the second part of the photo museum, the Capa Center (www.capacenter.hu) and used my first ticket (Mai Manó Ház) to get a discount. The current exhibition shows the contact sheets of many Magnum photographers. Basically you see the developed film negative and which picture was chosen to share with the world. The interesting part are the pictures before/after the iconic ones.

2014-06-03

Transition time. In the morning I quickly went to the Art Nouveau museum. However, for 2000Ft it did not meet my expectations. Basically furniture, lamps, magazines put together without any explanation/hints – looked more like a flea market than a museum.
Found some nice postcards in a little bookstore, got stamps at the post and put everything in a post box.

Afterwards rucksack pickup in hotel and off I went to the train station and right into the already waiting RailJet.
In Vienna I directly drove by car to Prague which was a good idea due to multiple small traffic jams.

3 months of vacation

Posted on by
Reply

Yay – after almost one year and two projects in the lovely city of Vienna it’s time to travel.

I definitely want to be back again in the future to meet all the great people I had the chance to get aquainted with.
But first let’s focus on the new topics.

I. Vienna – Budapest
The Jeep is parked and waits for me to pick it up after i come back to Vienna from my first stop: Budapest.
My flat in a 1840s building right besides the house of Johann Strauss, has been given back. I went via the very speedy public transportations system via U1/U4/U6 to Bahnhof Meidling. Here, the trains to Budapest are heading off.
Small and crowded, it will be replaced by the new central station (Hauptbahnhof).

The train is an Austrian RailJet which I often used to travel between the final station Munich and Vienna. This time it’s the other final station Budapest.
Also, this time it’s second class, not first or as available in the RailJet even business class.

After arriving at Budapest Keleti, I directly went to the hotel which is conveniently located. My stomach roared like an arctic bear (which was trapped for quite a while on an ice floe). So importantly, the first trip was to counter hunger and thirst. It led me to Napfényes Étterem at Rózsa utca 39. It’s a vegan only restaurant so vegans as vegetarians can order without doubt. First the delicious homemade ginger lemonade and a bean goulash soup as a starter. The main dish was a Hungarian stuffed pickled cabbage.
Website: http://www.napfenyesetterem.hu/

Soup, vanished within seconds

20140531-213509-77709646.jpg

Main dish: Hungarian stuffed pickled cabbage

20140531-213511-77711753.jpg

But that was not the end of the day. After checking out the House of Hungarian photographers (exhibition of early Magnum work) I found myself near the St. Stephans-Basilika.
The inside is amazing, I was there during mass.
Now my target was to see the Duna/Donau/Danube river. Luckily in front of me was the world’s famous Chain Bridge (Széchenyi lánchíd / Kettenbrücke). Crossed it from Pest to Buda and back.
On the way back to the hotel Hare Krishna people crossed my path while I got a hint of the astonishing architecture of Pest.

Trentino / Alto Adige

Posted on by
Reply

On Saturday the Munich weather was quite bad. It was cold, cloudy and raining. Everything looked grey. We wrapped up some stuff, put it in the back of the Jeep an went on the Autobahn from Munich via Brenner to Südtirol. Surprisingly there was not much traffic and the trip was quite pleasing.
Right after Europabrücke it was still dripping but with less clouds. In Italy the sun came out and weather was great.

Meran

After passing Bozen, the capital of Südtirol, our first stop was Meran, a city with thermal springs and baths. We had quite a tasty lunch with dumplings and the local Schüttelbrot.
Just an espresso and we went on to Trentino.

Trentino

Our spot for the night was near an artificial lake, the Lago di Santa Giustina, once the largest dam.
The road was small and when arriving at the dam it was quite a view downwards. Landscape around the reservoir is pittoresque with vineyards and apple farms.
The last piece of the path was not much wider than the Jeep, luckily nobody came from the other side.
Our final stop for the day was a small B&B right at the northern end of the reservoir – the balcony view was amazing.

Bozen

After breakfast we drove via the Mendel Pass to Bozen. There we went to see the famous Ötzi, a man who died in the ice about 5300 years ago. The museum around the iceman is quite amazing and provides thorough information about the scientific findings.

From Bozen we directly went back to Munich, thankfully without traffic jams.

Austria / Hungary on Eastern Holiday

Posted on by
Reply

The second trip with the Jeep took place on Easter Weekend 2014.
From Vienna to Neusiedler See, a common recreational spot for the Vienesse.
I couldn’t resist to cross the border to Hungary, visit the famous Esterhazy castle.

Schloss Esterházy (Fertőd)

The spot where the ‘Pan-European Picknick’ took place in 1989, an event where the borders between eastern and western Europe were torn down.

map Hungary Melolontha

The area around Neusiedler lake is a UNESCO site with quite some wildlife like storks.

jk_picknickspot

USA West coast, part 1: MUC – PHL – SFO

Posted on by
Reply

After quite some security checks I’m about to board the US Airways plane. Something tells me that it won’t be as comforting as the A380 to Dubai.

As always the ride from Nordfriedhof to the airport went flawless thanks to Lufthansa Airportbus.

Back to the plane – the A330 looks better than I thought! Enough leg space and a monitor in front of me – will I be able to utilitze advanced board entertainment?

20130531-114331.jpg

After a more or less comfy flight (more because of space, less because of my neighbouring passengers) my conclusion is a good one. Two movies, a tiny bit of sleep and touchdown in Phili.
From Terminal A to C its not too far, the passport check and security screenings with the usual long lines of waiting people took most of the time. I threw my rucksack on a baggage thingy, still with unclosed wrap sack. So it went on its way to the plane without full protection. Also I was the first time of my life in a body scanner…urgh.

A little less space on the in-country flight, still quite enough.

Dresden

Posted on by
Reply

After visiting the huge Völkerschlachtdenkmal in Leipzig we went to Dresden. The Autobahn between Leipzig and Dreseden was not heavily used during the daytime.

For dinner we went to Suppenbar, a soup bar in the Neustadt, north of old city center. They offered several kinds of soups including vegetarian ones. I opted for a Bauernsuppe (peasant soup) which was quite delicious and spicy. The interior looked simple and modern, invited us to extensive talks by the indirect light and colored walls.

The next morning at another venue we had to wait for quite some time for breakfast and went to the MHM (Militärhistorisches Museum), the museum of military history. It is run by the Bundeswehr and was reopened 2011 with a new design by Daniel Liebeskind. It shows history of military starting in medieval time up until today with parts of the current military endeavours of the Bundeswehr, for instance in Afghanistan.
I recommend to attend the tour which roughly gives you an overview of the huge 10.000m² area. Afterwards we went through the different areas, in the end we were exhausted and a bit short of time as the museum closed.

The old city centre was really impressive and is completely restaurated. The huge buildings show the power of the saxony rulers from the past. Zwinger, Semperoper and Frauenkirche are just parts of that ensemble of old buildings.
Frauenkirche was not as expected on the inside its just painted concrete instead of real marble.

As a conclusion I am looking forward to come back and see more of this exciting area, but next time in the summer.