Hamburg By Night

We got into Hamburg late in the afternoon September 8. We went walking by the canals downtown and saw city hall.

As we walked pass a Puma store I realized that I look like the mannequins... always wearing workout gear. That's alright, they look great, especially the one wearing runners and carrying an extra pair just in case.

Andrew and I. We love being able to wear jackets and hoodies again.

This is the old warehouse district, the city renovated all of the old warehouses into office buildings, museums, etc.

The buildings in Hamburg were amazing. Every building was different and unique. The city is very different than most we have seen in Europe because the architecture is so modern.

The famous fish market... it's empty, but what do we expect at 10pm?

We ended up in a seedy neighbourhood on our way back but that area even had crazy buildings like this one.

We were catching the S-bahn and we ended up going up 'Reeperbahn', a street in a district that is known for being Europe's largest red light district. It is much different than Amsterdam because the girls aren't behind glass doors but rather leaning on buildings. Also, the girls are modestly dressed. Because it was cool out they were all wearing pants and a jacket, so if it weren't for the plastic thigh high heels I wouldn't have been able to tell who was a prostitute and who wasn't. This area is well-known for its police presence. In this picture is a police station and then right across the street are hundreds of prostitutes.

We loved Hamburg and wished we had more time but now it is on to Arhus, Denmark.

Naked Statues & Crooked Towers

Andrew and I got into Florence August 13. After dropping off our luggage at the hotel we went for an evening walk. It seems that no matter where you go in Europe you are no more than 5 minutes from a huge cathedral. Here is the Duomo, one of the biggest in Europe and our favorite so far.

August 14 we went to go and see some sites around the city. We saw the real fake statue of Michelangelo's David. The real one is in a museum on the other side of a 4 hour line-up (summer in Italy...), so we were more than happy with this one, which stands where the real one used to.

We walked across the only bridge in Florence that wasn't destroyed in WWII. It was a really cool bridge because it had numerous little jewelery shops hanging off of it and lining both sides.

Next we went to the castle, where the famous Medici family lived during the Renaissance.

By this time it was pouring rain, so we decided to take a quick walk by the river and return to the hotel.

We were on a mission in Florence to find me a bag because I was tired of carrying this disgusting grocery bag every day (it is way too hot to carry a backpack). We started looking at all the little stands on the sides of the streets and after probably the 4th one, I was tired of shopping and actually found a bag I liked. Before the vendor came and talked to us Andrew turned to me and said 'Ok, now he is going to ask some ridiculous price for this bag and you have to barter with him. Start low, really low so that you don't end up paying too much.' I told Andrew that I hate bartering and that I can't do it. Then I tried to convince him that he should barter for the bag, but he refused, as he did not feel the need to barter for a purse... When the vendor came over to talk to me he said the bag was 65 euros, and that the lowest he could go was 55. I looked at him and started feeling really bad about asking for a lower price and said 'Is 50 okay?' As soon as it came out of my mouth Andrew burst out laughing and said 'No Amy you aren't going to pay 50 euros for that bag. It won't even last til the end of our trip.' So we left, without the bag. For the next few minutes Andrew tried (once again) to teach me the skill of bartering. I think I am hopeless. I will never learn to barter. This means that either Andrew will have to barter from now on, or we will be paying WAY too much for items we buy from street vendors. I did find a bag later in the day, but in a real store, not on the side of the street where you have to barter.

Last night we finally got around to watching the Sound Of Music. I think Andrew has gained a greater appreciation for the movie now that he has seen Salzburg, although he doesn't agree with me that it should still be winning Academy Awards.

August 15 we went to Pisa to see the leaning tower and man is it leaning! It was hilarious.

Tomorrow we are off to Rome.

Prague & Nuremberg

Prague lived up to its hype. It is a beautiful city. The majority of the buildings are really well maintained, which is very different from Poland.

Our first day of sightseeing in Prague was dedicated to visiting the Old Town and New Town, which are really just two different sections of downtown. First we saw Old Town Square, which included a stop at the astronomical clock (somewhat similar to our experience with the changing of the guards in Monaco: "Was that it?"). The square is enormous and gorgeous. Here is a picture of one corner.

Next we walked to Letna Park for a view of the river and bridges.

At the park we found my favourite type of swing (a two person wooden swing, like the one by Oak Bay Marina in Victoria). We went for a swing, until Andrew got sick (3 or 4 minutes), and then left the park to see New Town. Poor Andrew didn't quite recover from the swinging until well into the evening.

New Town Square was really cool too. Although it was more recently built, the buildings look very similar to the buildings in Old Town.

We returned to Old Town Square at night.

We also walked along the famous Charles Bridge for a view of Prague Castle.

July 20 we started out the day walking to the famous 'Dancing House' (which a Canadian architect apparently worked on').

Here is a picture of us crossing a bridge.

We hiked up Petrin Park (it's a very large hill). Poor Andrew had to put up with me, as I complained that I didn't know about our 'hike' beforehand, and had therefore worn the wrong footwear (flipflops).

After descending Petrin Park/hill, we 'hiked' up to Prague Castle.

We walked around the grounds and found a great view of the City.

July 21 we left Prague to go back to Germany. Once we got into Nuremberg, we did what we always do on the first day: check into our hotel and then find the nearest grocery store to find some food.

July 22 we left the hotel to see the city. Nuremberg is a very interesting city because it has a bunch of pedestrian walkways and a few squares where there are markets set up every day of the week.

We walked around Kaiserburg Imperial Castle.

We spent most of the day wandering around the pedestrian streets and found a little pedestrian island in the middle of city center with a bunch of small artsy shops.

July 23 we went to visit the Documentation Center (a museum dedicated to educating people about the rise and fall of the Nazi party), the Nazi rally grounds (which were in Nuremberg and are huge: the term "megalomaniacal proportions" was used to describe it), and the Nuremberg trials. We went for a walk around part of the rally grounds (many of which were never completed or were demolished after the war). Here is a picture of a field where parts of large rallies were held. It is now used for open-air concerts.

Then we went to the Museum, held within a building designed by Hitler to house another part of the rallies.

Once again, we learned a lot. We spent several hours in the museum (until it closed at 6pm). We were going to tour around the old rally grounds some more after the museum closed, but it was raining really hard.

The heat wave seems to be over as the weather forecast is called for a week of rain and for once we are actually looking forward to rainy days.

We are now in Munich for 5 days of exploring.

Hot Hot Heat

So we got into Berlin July 9 and we were looking forward to a week (5 days) in a hotel with AC. When we got here and checked in, our room was beautiful, looking onto a canal, but it was hot. Not regular hot, but closer to sauna hot. We started unpacking and fiddling with the AC gauge and found out that the AC didn't work. So we went to the lobby and told them. They offered to bring up a fan instead and we told them that we wanted to switch rooms (we had been looking forward to AC for too long, after sweating ourselves to sleep every night in London). So we switched rooms. When we got to our new room we turned on the AC and waited for it to kick in... it never did. So I went down to the front desk, again to tell them the AC wasn't working. They told us that we just had to wait for the AC to 'warm up' and that if it didn't start to work by morning we could switch rooms again. So it wasn't ideal but it seemed there was nothing else that could be done. So we left to go and get groceries. We figured out earlier in the trip that we shouldn't buy bread in bulk but we didn't see a problem buying beer in bulk, especially when we have a fridge. So we picked up 20 beers (.5L each) for 9 euros, how could we resist? (Right Stac?)

We got back and ate and by about 10:30 the room had not gotten colder at all, in fact the temperature seemed to be rising. So once again I marched down to reception and the receptionist came upstairs to look at the machine. When he got to the room (wearing a suit) he immediately started dripping, thank god it wasn't just us! He told us he would bring up another fan and hopefully that would help until a technician came the next day. By 12:30am they seemed to have figured out what the problem was because the AC finally kicked in! All that complaining worked!

We woke up (July 10) and were really excited to see Berlin so we went out... at one of the worst possible time of day, 11 am (as there is absolutely no shade for a couple of hours). And we thought London was hot! Berlin has been 'suffering' from a ridiculous heat wave ever since we got here (July 9 - 35 degrees, 10 - 35 degrees, 11 - 36 degrees, 12 - 37 degrees). So we left the hotel when there was no shade and walked around the city for 5 or 6 hours, walking at least 10 km. We went to go see Potsdamer Platz, but on our way we walked through Tiergarten (a big park). It is really beautiful but... we looked over in a green area, and it was crawling with naked men. They were all just hanging out (figuratively and literally), as if it wasn't strange at all, and I guess to them it isn't. Anyways, Potsdamer Platz, it is a really cool square. Sony's European headquarters are there and a Sony store... which has AC, we couldn't resist so we went inside and looked at 3D TVs.

Next we went and saw the location of Hitler's hunker, where he spent the last few weeks of his life, committed suicide and was burned. We thought that there would be a partially built bunker, but all that was there was a sign. The bunker had been destroyed. There are now Soviet style apartment complexes surrounding what used to be the bunker.

Then we went to Topographie des Terrors, which is a museum dedicated to educating people about the SS, Gastapo, Nazis and the Holocaust. It was an amazing museum and we learned a lot. Outside the museum was what remained of the SS and Gastapo headquarters and behind it is the longest portion of the Berlin wall.

Next we made it over to Checkpoint Charlie.

The we walked to the Reichstag to take a look.

Right by the Reichstag we spotted shade... and a river. So we made our way over to it and found these steps where a bunch of people were sitting dipping their feet in the canal. We couldn't resist, so we joined in.

East Berlin is still very different. Although there are a bunch of stores that we have seen everywhere else, the buildings and even the style of the roads were strange. Andrew and I found the pedestrian lights really funny.

At night we watched Germany beat Uruguay, which we were really happy about!

We learned a little bit from July 10, so on July 11 we left the hotel around 1:00pm instead. There was way more shade on the sidewalks so it wasn't nearly as bad. We decided that we would check out West Berlin. We walked around the Tiergarten. We found another river and somehow Andrew wasn't really hot, but I couldn't help dip my feet in.

We walked around the West Berlin downtown. All the buildings looked familiar (unlike East Berlin). We saw a church that was recommended to us by a local called the 'Hollow Tooth'. The church had been bombed during the war and for some reason never been repaired.

After our afternoon walk we went back to the hotel, ate and went back out to watch the World Cup finals. We went to the Tiergarten where they had setup huge screens for everyone to watch World Cup games. Although we had a really good time and the setup was great, the Netherlands lost. We were poor losers and left as soon as the game was over (we HATE Spain due to their diving, rolling around on the ground, crying, screaming, etc).

Yesterday (July 12) was supposed to be the hottest day so far (37 degrees) and because our room heats up during the date from the sun shining right in, we left to go to Potsdam and do some swimming.

It was so nice to get in the water and swim even though the water still felt warm.

When we got back we had had enough heat, so we had a 'relaxification' as Andrew called it. We watched a couple movies and had a couple beers.

Today (July 13, we are going to go back to the Reichstag to climb the glass dome, go to a Holocaust Monument, and maybe take some shelter and go to a movie (it might be our last chance for an English, non-subtitled movie for a while).

Tomorrow we are off to Wroclaw, Poland for a couple days before spending a couple of days in Krakow, Poland and then a few days in Prague (CZ).

D-Day Tours & Bike Riding Part 2

So we moved into Bayeux for 5 days, possibly 6 and we are in heaven. Although it might appear modest this place is sweet.

The washroom is like a trailer washroom with just enough room for a sink, toilet and shower. A room with free wifi... how can you complain!

Bayeux is in Normandy, and we are reminded everywhere about the D-Day invasion. When we got to Bayeux we saw Canadian, British and of course French flags everywhere, which symbolize the liberators of the region. Flags of the liberators fly year round for a lot of the northern french towns - each town flies the flag of its particular liberator - and every year on June 6 there are huge D-Day liberation celebrations.

Here is a picture of a street in Bayeux with multiple flags flying.

May 26 (Wednesday) we took a tour of the Canadian D-Day sites. Here the eastern section of Juno Beach in the town of St. Aubin. Many Canadian soldiers died against this wall. They were supposed to land on grassier, unfortified portions of beach to the west, but the storms pushed them to this unfortunate landing point, which was subject to fortified batteries and machine gun fire.

Here is the Canadian cemetery, where only about 50% of the Canadians that died on D-Day are buried. On each grave there is the name of the soldier, his age, date of death, regiment and a few lines that were given to each family. Andrew and I were very touched by the entire tour, but this part especially because of the huge size of the graveyard (over 2,500 graves), the ages of the Canadians that had died (so many were 19, and in their early 20s) and the personalized lines written by the families of the fallen men. We were told that the Canadian and British graveyards are different than the American because plants and flowers can be planted on the graves and because of the lines given by each family. The personalized words really made brought the loss home to us. Beside some graves there were even pictures of the soldiers and stories about them.

Our guide told us that this grave site has the most sets of brothers in it. He told us a story of 3 brothers all who died within June 6 -11 1944, which means their mother would have received 3 telegrams together to inform her of the deaths of her sons.

We also learned that the Canadian forces were very well respected as soldiers.  Canada was the only country on D-Day that could boast of having a force completely composed of volunteers.

This is in the backyard of an abbey (Abbaye d’Ardenne) outside of a small town where 11 Canadian soldiers were taken prisoner and than brutally executed. This is the monument dedicated to them. The German officer in charge refused to take prisoners, and demanded that any captured men be brought to the garden and killed. This site is very well known due to the atrocities committed in the garden.

The tour was very informative and Andrew and I really appreciated it. It was really hard to hear about the brutalities of war, but we are really glad that we were able, if even for a moment, to appreciate the soldiers who, so selflessly, gave up EVERYTHING, and those who went back home after fighting for peace.

I think that November 11 will have a really special meaning for Andrew and I now, and that we will start to give it the proper respect that it deserves.

So, biking round 2... Andrew and I didn't have a tour planned but we wanted to go and see some more WWII sites that were 10-15 kms out of Bayeux. The French bus drivers were on strike (not really surprised...) so we decided to bike. That's right we were going to give this biking thing another try.

We biked off to Arromanches (10 kms from Bayeux), which was a huge harbour brought over from Britain in prefabricated pieces and assembled on a beach that the British liberated on D-Day (the first harbour of its kind, and it was not known whether it would even work). The harbour is one of the primary reasons that D-Day was a success, because without it, it would not have been possible for the Allied forces to bring in supplies - the D-Day beaches were chosen primarily because there were NOT harbours, which were heavily fortified and liberated days to weeks after D-Day, from behind. 

This is a diorama of the harbour. Each inch on the diorama is 100 feet. The harbour was 3 1/2 miles by 1 1/2 miles. Huge ships docked at the harbour, and causeways allowed trucks and tanks, etc, to drive between the ships and the shore. Massive slabs of concrete each weighing more than the Eiffel tower were brought over and partially sunk in order to serve as breakwaters.

Reminents of the harbour.

Next we biked off to the "Batterie de Longues-sur-Mer" (6 kms) which was a German battery, and part of the Atlantic Wall. It was really creepy to go right up to these guns and inside of these bunkers (there were several), but what was even more disturbing was that French kids (ages 12-14) were on a school trip, and they didn't see the sadness of these guns, but rather saw them as jungle gyms. So kids were screaming and laughing and playing around instead of paying respect to the lives that were lost because of these machines (these guns caused a lot of problems on D-Day as they were close to Utah, Omaha and Gold beaches). This is the only battery in Normandy to still have its guns.

Here is a view of the other bunkers.

After another sad day we decided to stop at the Bayeux public park to have a snack. These parks are totally beautiful. There was this tree, called the Bayeux Beech, which was made by grafting 2 different species together (trunk and limbs). It only survived because of the city's TLC - because it can't support its' own weight there are 5 massive posts and an extensive network of cables running from them that support the tree's limbs.

After a visit to the city park we went to Britain's cemetery. There were so many graves, we couldn't believe it. Some of the lines on the graves really stood out to us here, especially one written by a mother to her only son, and another from a family who asked for someone in a foreign land to plant flowers in in front of the grave. Again, it was evident at how many lives were lost and so, so sad.

Although the cemeteries are very sad it is really nice to see how well they are being taken care of. They are in amazing shape and they are so beautiful with gorgeous trees and shrubs.

Biking was definitively a success, we spent 7 hours on the bikes and are talking about going biking again... maybe tomorrow!

Today, May 28, we got on the train to go to Mont St. Michel, an abbey on the top of a hill with a fortified village below. 

It was a gorgeous site and really enjoyed learning about churches, abbeys and Mont St Michel in particular.

The views were great.

I'm still missing Ireland, but we are getting this whole France thing down. We have found our new Dunnes, called Marche Plus+, and my new chocolate chip muffins have become trays of brownies (nothing compared to G'mas brownies though!!). We are trying out several different varieties of wine (all red though) which we are still managing to get for under 1 euro 50 cents. We are also trying out different cheeses (we finally found out what they call cheddar here), and the baguettes are amazing. We have caught a few tennis matches on TV (the French Open is on right now) and we are enjoying playing crib nightly.