Driving in Germany is interesting - more on that later.
Picked up the hire-car from the airport after a beautiful breakfast at the hotel. Following the directions to the car (an Opel Senator which is a bit like our Passat) was the first big challenge and then had to have the sat-nav changed to English at the workshop. Headed for the north of Stuttgart to visit the Porsche factory and museum. Incredible building in its own right and the displays of every Porshe model plus other inventions of Ferdinand Porsche (including VW) is brilliantly presented. As a good Grandfather, I bought Tommy a Porsche.
Traffic through Stuttgart was terrible - volume is mind-blowing and thank goodness we have the sat-nav as the road system is terribly complex. Headed off for Rothenburg and trip was spent going from one auto-bahn to the next. Mostly 120kph limit but I think I was the slowest car on the roads today in spite of 120kph on cruise control. Most amazing impession was that the right hand lane is a nose-to-tail line of trucks - only a few B-doubles but we've just never seen soo many trucks!
About half way here we struck a huge storm on the auto-bahn - had to pull off in a slip lane with other vehicles for a while. Got here about 3 and after booking in to our hotel which is just beautiful and just 2 mins out of Rothenburg. Rothenburg is almost too typical German village to be true - all just beautiful with georgeous shops - their bear shop is incredible along with craft shops and myriads of bars and restaurants. Middle Ages city wall surrounds it all and we walked around part of it.
Another amazing day. Our hotel (Schwarzes Lamm) has been in the same family since the 1700's and their food tonight was just beautful - Pork for me, trout for Elizabeth and Apple strudel for sweets - apple trudel is nothing like we've ever had before!
Another day on the "romatic road" to look forward to tomorrow!!
Tivia: Ferdinand Porsche invented the first motorised fire engine as well as the first 4-wheel drive system.
Cap Report - still OK which is sad because a new Porsche cap would be cool!
Thursday, 11 September 2014
2014-day 4 (Milan to Stuttgart)
HUGE walking day today - saw some incredible things and finished off by flying over the Alps to Germany.
After booking out of the Genius hotel we headed to the centre of Milan and checked out the oldest shopping mall in the world - an amazing building housing such retailers as Prada, YSL, LV. At 10.30 we met nearby to start the city walking tour (NOT free) which took us back into the mall then to the Duomo - one of the most amazing buildings in the world - built entirely of marbel inside and out. Huge stained glass windows add to the beauty of the all-marbel interior - absolutely stunning.
Past La Scala and then on to the castle on which the Kremlin was based. Last visit was to see Leonardo Da Vinci's "The last Supper" - an amazing work painted on the entire end wall of what was a monastry's refectory so what you see in reproducions does just not prepare you for the reality. Also stunning!!
After a "recovery" lunch we headed back to La Scala to tour the interior - absolutely beautiful recently rebuilt following a fire. Interesting museum with exhibits such as List's piano.
Back to collect our luggage from the hotel, then to the train station to catch the Milpensa Express out to the airport. Small concern when the electricity cut out at departure time and we were about 20 mins late getting away. This added too the delays/bad orgaisation at Malpensa Airport meant we had a short wait for the flight to Suttgart.
Flew with "German Wings" which was fine but quite hilarious - the pre-flight safety briefing by the hostesses was so typically "Germanic" it would have warranted a Monty Python sketch. Typically German though, we landed on time at 9.20 and then just had a two minute walk to the hotel. Reason this log is a day late is that the hotel wanted 15 Euro for wi-fi just for one night - even the receptionist was embarrased!
Crashed after huge day!
Trivia: Prada paid circa 4 million Eros rent for the annual lease in the Milan mall
Cap report: still in tact!
Cheers all
After booking out of the Genius hotel we headed to the centre of Milan and checked out the oldest shopping mall in the world - an amazing building housing such retailers as Prada, YSL, LV. At 10.30 we met nearby to start the city walking tour (NOT free) which took us back into the mall then to the Duomo - one of the most amazing buildings in the world - built entirely of marbel inside and out. Huge stained glass windows add to the beauty of the all-marbel interior - absolutely stunning.
Past La Scala and then on to the castle on which the Kremlin was based. Last visit was to see Leonardo Da Vinci's "The last Supper" - an amazing work painted on the entire end wall of what was a monastry's refectory so what you see in reproducions does just not prepare you for the reality. Also stunning!!
After a "recovery" lunch we headed back to La Scala to tour the interior - absolutely beautiful recently rebuilt following a fire. Interesting museum with exhibits such as List's piano.
Back to collect our luggage from the hotel, then to the train station to catch the Milpensa Express out to the airport. Small concern when the electricity cut out at departure time and we were about 20 mins late getting away. This added too the delays/bad orgaisation at Malpensa Airport meant we had a short wait for the flight to Suttgart.
Flew with "German Wings" which was fine but quite hilarious - the pre-flight safety briefing by the hostesses was so typically "Germanic" it would have warranted a Monty Python sketch. Typically German though, we landed on time at 9.20 and then just had a two minute walk to the hotel. Reason this log is a day late is that the hotel wanted 15 Euro for wi-fi just for one night - even the receptionist was embarrased!
Crashed after huge day!
Trivia: Prada paid circa 4 million Eros rent for the annual lease in the Milan mall
Cap report: still in tact!
Cheers all
Tuesday, 9 September 2014
2014 - Day 3 (Milan-Como)
Some days are special - and today was one of those. Didn't know what to expect really but we'd booked a day tour to Como/Lake Como/Bellagio so headed for the bus to leave at 8.30.
Drove up the highway to Como and had time to wander around there for a while. Very old (Roman) town with beautiful Duomo (Cathedral) in the centre of town. Lousy service at the cafe in town square so left and had ice-cream instead and gathered at the water-front to catch the tour boat.
The lake is just spectacular with massive mountains surounding and magnificent villas lining the shore seemingly all aroung the lake. Like nothing seen before! Owned by poor people such as Versace, Berliscone, George Clooney. Magnificent gardens to go with them.
Arrived at Bellagio, a village at the tip of the land at the junction of the two arms of the lake and had a couple of hours to have lunch and go shopping. Bellagio is probably the prettiest village we've visited. Set on the steep hillside on the lake's edge, the shops were beautiful and we enjoyed a really good lunch. Elizabeth purchased an Italian leather hand-bag that was on her "must get" list for the trip so that has been done - very nice too. A few presents and by then time too head back for a short ferry ride back to Cardenabbia where the bus met us for the return trip down an incredibly narrow, twisting road along the lake's edge before joining the highway back to Milan's traffic jams.
Beautiful day finished with a great (HUGE) dinner at "Andry's" the restaurant recommended by the hotel manager and as usally happens, the recommendation was spot-on.
Bit of rain on the way home but nothing tonight. Doing walking tour of Milan including visiting "The Last Supper" so hope it stays fine!
Trivia: Como is the birthplace of Volta - the inventor of the battery. Museums to him everywhere.
Cap report: all good
Pictures of Como, Villas, Bellagio on facebook!
Drove up the highway to Como and had time to wander around there for a while. Very old (Roman) town with beautiful Duomo (Cathedral) in the centre of town. Lousy service at the cafe in town square so left and had ice-cream instead and gathered at the water-front to catch the tour boat.
The lake is just spectacular with massive mountains surounding and magnificent villas lining the shore seemingly all aroung the lake. Like nothing seen before! Owned by poor people such as Versace, Berliscone, George Clooney. Magnificent gardens to go with them.
Arrived at Bellagio, a village at the tip of the land at the junction of the two arms of the lake and had a couple of hours to have lunch and go shopping. Bellagio is probably the prettiest village we've visited. Set on the steep hillside on the lake's edge, the shops were beautiful and we enjoyed a really good lunch. Elizabeth purchased an Italian leather hand-bag that was on her "must get" list for the trip so that has been done - very nice too. A few presents and by then time too head back for a short ferry ride back to Cardenabbia where the bus met us for the return trip down an incredibly narrow, twisting road along the lake's edge before joining the highway back to Milan's traffic jams.
Beautiful day finished with a great (HUGE) dinner at "Andry's" the restaurant recommended by the hotel manager and as usally happens, the recommendation was spot-on.
Bit of rain on the way home but nothing tonight. Doing walking tour of Milan including visiting "The Last Supper" so hope it stays fine!
Trivia: Como is the birthplace of Volta - the inventor of the battery. Museums to him everywhere.
Cap report: all good
Pictures of Como, Villas, Bellagio on facebook!
Monday, 8 September 2014
2014-day2
Elizabeth's summary of day 2 - an awful lot of sitting and and awful lot off walking! Explanation:-
If 8 and a half hours in the plane sounded like a lot on Sunday - try 12 and a half from Hong Kong to Milan! HK airport never ceases to amaze with the immense size and numbers of people. We pre-booked the lounge at the airport as we had 6 hours stop-over so enjoyed a shower, beer, dinner etc for a few hours before the plane left at 1.00AM. I actually slept for 7 hours which was great but Elizabeth didn't do quite so well but not too bad. Knee and tooth OK!! 12.5 hours sitting is still a lot thus part of the summary above. Flying into Milan is one of the most beautiful sights when flying and it was further enhanced by clouds with the snow-covered Alps emerging above the cloud cover. Beautiful and spectacular.
The "walking" part of the above summary came next. Train easly caught from Malpensa into Milan (26 minutes) with "10 minute walk" to the Genius Hotel - except we had two incorrect directions from locals and spent an hour and a half with our luggage "exploring" bits of Milan we didn't really want to. Finally found/off-loaded lugggage and then (exhausted) set off for our usual "hop-on-hop-off" tour to get an overview of the place.
Impressions of Milan? - magnificent buildings and monuments and hopeless traffic. Growing on us. Didn't realise that the Monza GP was on this past weekend. Papers are full of it and apparently Ferrari didn't do so well - following appeared in local paper:
"Crisi Ferrari - Un disastro completo, inammisibile, delorosso" - get the picture??
The buildings are really beautiful - the Duomo quite magnificent and HUGE with beautiful parks and gardens everywhere. Going for the walking tour on Wednesday so will see more then.
Tonight lovely local cafe for fish/salad tea with local Chianti - beautiful./ Early night to get back into "equilibrium" - we hope. Off to Lake Como and Bellagio tomorrow for day tour.
Some pictures onto facebook I hope - learning that one.
Trivia: The "Castello Sforzesco" in the centre of Milan looks VERY similar to the Kremlin - no accident as the architect of the Kremlin actually copied it!
Ian's Cap count: still in tact but was returned by waiter from "Cafe Dante" as we were leaving without it!
Cheers all - hopefully some photos on facebook!
If 8 and a half hours in the plane sounded like a lot on Sunday - try 12 and a half from Hong Kong to Milan! HK airport never ceases to amaze with the immense size and numbers of people. We pre-booked the lounge at the airport as we had 6 hours stop-over so enjoyed a shower, beer, dinner etc for a few hours before the plane left at 1.00AM. I actually slept for 7 hours which was great but Elizabeth didn't do quite so well but not too bad. Knee and tooth OK!! 12.5 hours sitting is still a lot thus part of the summary above. Flying into Milan is one of the most beautiful sights when flying and it was further enhanced by clouds with the snow-covered Alps emerging above the cloud cover. Beautiful and spectacular.
The "walking" part of the above summary came next. Train easly caught from Malpensa into Milan (26 minutes) with "10 minute walk" to the Genius Hotel - except we had two incorrect directions from locals and spent an hour and a half with our luggage "exploring" bits of Milan we didn't really want to. Finally found/off-loaded lugggage and then (exhausted) set off for our usual "hop-on-hop-off" tour to get an overview of the place.
Impressions of Milan? - magnificent buildings and monuments and hopeless traffic. Growing on us. Didn't realise that the Monza GP was on this past weekend. Papers are full of it and apparently Ferrari didn't do so well - following appeared in local paper:
"Crisi Ferrari - Un disastro completo, inammisibile, delorosso" - get the picture??
The buildings are really beautiful - the Duomo quite magnificent and HUGE with beautiful parks and gardens everywhere. Going for the walking tour on Wednesday so will see more then.
Tonight lovely local cafe for fish/salad tea with local Chianti - beautiful./ Early night to get back into "equilibrium" - we hope. Off to Lake Como and Bellagio tomorrow for day tour.
Some pictures onto facebook I hope - learning that one.
Trivia: The "Castello Sforzesco" in the centre of Milan looks VERY similar to the Kremlin - no accident as the architect of the Kremlin actually copied it!
Ian's Cap count: still in tact but was returned by waiter from "Cafe Dante" as we were leaving without it!
Cheers all - hopefully some photos on facebook!
Sunday, 7 September 2014
2014-DAY 1
How do you make an 8.5 hour plane flight with a stopover in Cairns sound the least bit exciting? You can't really. very nice, comfortable flight though with Cathay - regular attention with food, drinks etc and saw a couple of good movies - I watched The railway man and The other woman - very different but enjoyable and Elizabeth watched the Pianist which apparently wasn't all that thrilling.
Started off early with taxi ride to the airport and after the usual "hanging around"time we left exactly on time. Got to Cairns where we had hoped to meet Elizabeth's sister Ruth but we weren't allowed out of the departure area so we spoke bby mobile phone looking through the duty-free window! Also spoke with Claire, Jessie and Tom as they were still asleep when we left this morning.
HK airport is as overwhelming as ever - we are in the "Plaza" lounge which is a good place to spend the 6 hour stopover - booked in for showers at 9.00 so should be refreshed for the long overnight haul to Milan - next blog will be from there tomorrow ight. Not much planned for there tomorrow as recovery will have priority.
No "Trivia" in this blog - will start that tomorrow. Another regular update this trip will be "Ian's cap status" as each trip includes rgular loss of caps and the need for replacements! Today's Status report- all in tact but almost lost one at the coffeee stop on the way down yesterday.
Cheers all - no facebook pictures yet - nothing to show as yet.
Started off early with taxi ride to the airport and after the usual "hanging around"time we left exactly on time. Got to Cairns where we had hoped to meet Elizabeth's sister Ruth but we weren't allowed out of the departure area so we spoke bby mobile phone looking through the duty-free window! Also spoke with Claire, Jessie and Tom as they were still asleep when we left this morning.
HK airport is as overwhelming as ever - we are in the "Plaza" lounge which is a good place to spend the 6 hour stopover - booked in for showers at 9.00 so should be refreshed for the long overnight haul to Milan - next blog will be from there tomorrow ight. Not much planned for there tomorrow as recovery will have priority.
No "Trivia" in this blog - will start that tomorrow. Another regular update this trip will be "Ian's cap status" as each trip includes rgular loss of caps and the need for replacements! Today's Status report- all in tact but almost lost one at the coffeee stop on the way down yesterday.
Cheers all - no facebook pictures yet - nothing to show as yet.
Monday, 18 August 2014
Ready to go??
just to make sure I'm still able to publish a post and to try out the new tablet/keyboard unit (which in theory looks terrific) - here we go with a "publish"effort to see if it all works! Not long to go and just a few booking dates to sort out and we're in business.
Saturday, 10 May 2014
Canberra trip - days 7&8 (Canberra)
Hi all
I'll combine the two Canberra days into one blog - we've had a great time here with Geoff and Tracey but now approaching exhaustion stage I think.
Had a good trip from Jenolan - the Guide's advice to come via Oberon was good advice. By nature, the road out of Jenolan HAS to be steep and this one was steeper than the usual track in - steepest road we've travelled in Autralia by far. Absolutely magnificent grazing country fom Oberon all the way to Goulburn but a lot of roadwork slowed us down.
Stopped for a break in Goulburn where we wre impressed by the main centre - lots of very good shops and lots of activity. After Goulburn the federal highway means 110km all the way just about to Canberra - easy to see where the road money gets spent!
Got to Canberra about 1 and tried to book into our unit but no-one at the office. went around to Geoff's, had a lovely lunch and tried to check in again - still no-one. Rang the "emergency" number and eventually had retun call from someone who told us where to find the key. Not very satisfactory and when we got to the unit found it to be pretty ordinary to say the least so we've chalked up our first "failure" for booking.com so we'll let them know!!
Off to birthday dinner for Geoff - went to "Grazing at Gundaroo" which is about 30k outside Canberra and was last year's "Restaurant of the Year" and we found out why - just the best meal and service we've had anywhere and set in an old 1865 pub - just beautiful and HIGHLY RECOMMENDED as was the wine (a Mother's Day gift from the kids)
Sunday: called into a beautiful bakery to get some croissants, bread and bits and came around to G & T's for breakfast. Then to the National portrait gallery (terrific and VERY interesting), the sculpture garden and a walk in the sunshine along the edge of Lake Burley-Griffin to the "Mork" Thai restaurant for lunch (are you picking a theme here??) which again was great - Canberra certainly has wonderful eating places and we've given them a pretty good try-out.
Back along the Lake to the fishwick markets where we enjoyed coffee (of course) and went shopping for veges, fish, prawns etc which Geoff is going to create into something wonderful for tea.
Tomorrow will see us leaving early and heading via Goulburn up to Tamworth where we'll stop for the night before heading for Brisbane on Tuesday for a pre-Cambodia departure dinner with Heather - then back home wednesday night.
It's been a really great trip - magnificent countryside, wonderful meals and great wine - hard to beat.. Great bithday and Mother's Day celebrations with Geoff and Tracey over the weekend so all together a terrific little break - back to reality on Thursday!
Cheers all - look forward to seeing everyone back home again.
I'll combine the two Canberra days into one blog - we've had a great time here with Geoff and Tracey but now approaching exhaustion stage I think.
Had a good trip from Jenolan - the Guide's advice to come via Oberon was good advice. By nature, the road out of Jenolan HAS to be steep and this one was steeper than the usual track in - steepest road we've travelled in Autralia by far. Absolutely magnificent grazing country fom Oberon all the way to Goulburn but a lot of roadwork slowed us down.
Stopped for a break in Goulburn where we wre impressed by the main centre - lots of very good shops and lots of activity. After Goulburn the federal highway means 110km all the way just about to Canberra - easy to see where the road money gets spent!
Got to Canberra about 1 and tried to book into our unit but no-one at the office. went around to Geoff's, had a lovely lunch and tried to check in again - still no-one. Rang the "emergency" number and eventually had retun call from someone who told us where to find the key. Not very satisfactory and when we got to the unit found it to be pretty ordinary to say the least so we've chalked up our first "failure" for booking.com so we'll let them know!!
Off to birthday dinner for Geoff - went to "Grazing at Gundaroo" which is about 30k outside Canberra and was last year's "Restaurant of the Year" and we found out why - just the best meal and service we've had anywhere and set in an old 1865 pub - just beautiful and HIGHLY RECOMMENDED as was the wine (a Mother's Day gift from the kids)
Sunday: called into a beautiful bakery to get some croissants, bread and bits and came around to G & T's for breakfast. Then to the National portrait gallery (terrific and VERY interesting), the sculpture garden and a walk in the sunshine along the edge of Lake Burley-Griffin to the "Mork" Thai restaurant for lunch (are you picking a theme here??) which again was great - Canberra certainly has wonderful eating places and we've given them a pretty good try-out.
Back along the Lake to the fishwick markets where we enjoyed coffee (of course) and went shopping for veges, fish, prawns etc which Geoff is going to create into something wonderful for tea.
Tomorrow will see us leaving early and heading via Goulburn up to Tamworth where we'll stop for the night before heading for Brisbane on Tuesday for a pre-Cambodia departure dinner with Heather - then back home wednesday night.
It's been a really great trip - magnificent countryside, wonderful meals and great wine - hard to beat.. Great bithday and Mother's Day celebrations with Geoff and Tracey over the weekend so all together a terrific little break - back to reality on Thursday!
Cheers all - look forward to seeing everyone back home again.
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