Archiv der Kategorie: Travel

Cherokee / Smoky Mountains / Gatlinburg

Heyho…I’m back from my two weeks USA vacation and we had a trip northwards to the Smoky Mountains. Therefore a short report about what I saw / experienced there.

On our way to the Smoky Mountains we stopped in Cherokee, which is related to the Indian Tribe. When visiting such an area I would normally hope for the chance to see stuff like how they lived in former times, what rituals they had, what did they teach their children. Due to my high expectations / wishes I can only say I was quite disappointed on how it looked like. Most of it were terrible tourism merch shops with some pottery that had indian motives but seemed to be produced in China. So .. all in all .. no need to go there, unfortunately.

The Smoky Mountains on the other side clearly exceeded my expectations. Wonderful nature, nice weather and two trails in the wild (or at least one, the other was on a good walking path). The first day we made a walk up to „Clingmans Dome“ where all the pictures of the dead pine trees are from. The second day we did a little trail through the woods and along a small river. I definitely need to get back there to do some more hiking in this area.

Gatlinburg was where we spend the night. We had a little apartment rented in the Westgate Smoky Mountain Resort. The apartment (and the view from it) were absolutely nice, but the walls in there thin as paper, so that I could basically here the neighbors party all night and calling friends to speak about that area the next morning. And I could understand EVERY word. So let’s say it’s fine for one or two days, but doesn’t work for a longer stay when you really want to be hiking full days.

Gatlinburg itself is a nice and very touristic little town where one can easily spend some fun and awesome nights with visiting shows or playing mini golf. We did the later and played the firehouse mini golf before we ended up in Calhouns for diner (strongly recommend for this one…very tasty dinner!).

So and now here’s for the pictures:

 

Fehmarn

My first longer vacation for over a year took me back to Fehmarn, a little island in the eastern sea that I had visited the last time when I was 8 or 9 years old.

We had rented a flat in Puttgarden on the northern coast in „Op de Wei 2“ which was called „Große Strandperle“. This turned out to be a very cosy and nice flat which had exactly the right flair for summer vacation. Obviously the in 1900 built house had been restored with great effort and furnished and decorated with love and Ikea.

From our flat one could easily reach the northern beach by a short walk. Puttgarden beach is not really meant to be a beach for swimming. It’s stony and only provides a small area with sand but more than nice for a walk in the evening which we did directly the first evening after an eleven hours drive (lots of traffic jams)

There’s a lot to see and we didn’t make all the spots I would have liked to ..but those are the areas that can be seen in the pictures below:

  • Puttgarden Beach
  • Reptile Exhibition
  • Aquarium
  • History Museum
  • Westermarkelsdorf Beach
  • Lemkenhafen Mill Museum
  • Lighthouse Flügge
  • Nature Protection Area „Grüner Brink“
  • Beach „Grüner Brink“
Unfortunately the weather turned out to be bad the last two days so I couldn’t go and see „Staberhuk“ which was on my list …but this will not have been the last time I have visited that nice island. I’ll be back!

 

 

 

 

 

London 2011 & 2012

Due to Alkaline Trio concert visits I was London bound twice in the last 12 months. The original concert date would have been November, but as Matt Skiba broke his ankle I pretty much had 3 days in London and booked another flight for the rescheduled date on 10th May.

In November we stayed in Fielding Hotel in Covent Garden. Fielding is a small hotel that offers no breakfast and I guess is mostly booked by business people. The rooms in Fielding are huge compared to everything else I so far experienced in London and they were clean and comfortable. Staff was overall nice and I can really recommend it to any travelers that don’t want breakfast in the hotel.

For May I booked a different hotel. By chance I ended up with Double Tree by Hilton, West End which offered breakfast and had restaurant and bar included in the hotel. It’s located near Russell Square / Holborn and so it’s in the middle of the city as well. Double Tree was an overall good choice, clean rooms, nice staff and an incredible breakfast which we didn’t generally book but add for 2 days.

As there was no Alkaline Trio tour in November plans grew for a tour trip outside London on one of the days and as I had never been to Stonehenge before I decided that would be the place to go. Booking took place in the Tourist Information and I learned that I was more or less too late with my tour wishes. Most of the tours were already booked out and so I finally ended up with a tour offering „Stonehenge & Bath“ in small groups. The companies name was : Anderson Tours.

Indeed we were a small group of only 5 plus guide and were traveling in a small bus. First stop was Stonehenge where we had more than 2 hours time to take pictures and walk around the ancient stones. The entrance fee was included in the tour price. From Stonehenge we went to Bath, which we reached about lunch time. The tour included entrance fee for the the ancient bath and after that we were free to run around on our own and our guide just gave us some useful hints where to eat and where to go.

This time I tried booking a tour in advance. Advance means like 10 days before the flight and again I learned that I was a bit late. I wanted to see Stratford upon Avon and the tours going there were almost booked out completely for the date I wanted. I ended up choosing Premieretours that offered „Warwick Castle, Stratford upon Avon & Oxford“. The tour was quite expensive, but I learned during the day that this was probably due to the high entrance fees of Warwick Castle, Shakespeare’s birth house and Oxford’s Christ Church College. We travelled in a huge buss and the group was about 20 people. I must admit I really regret booking it afterwards. It was a rush all day. We had like 45 min in Warwick Castle and  30 minutes in Stratford upon Avon before our buss drove to have lunch in a pub our guide recommended and which turned out to be in the middle of nowhere so that we more or less had no choice than having our lunch there. Lunch time was 35 minutes which meant for me that I left half of my desert back there and overall I can say that it was neither good nor cheap at all. It was pretty expensive for the quality offered and I guess that it includes extra money for the guide. From that pub we drove to Oxford where we more or less ran through a tiny part of Christchurch College and afterwards were guided to city centre where we had 25 minutes free time. It turned out that Oxford is a beautiful city and the colleges are awesome so I can only recommend to spend a whole day in Oxford and I can say that 25 minutes were just enough to enter a fudge kitchen and afterwards see a toilet.

The pictures of London Tower are from November, Buckingham Palace was in May. I have no idea why the guards were marching that day and my friend CJ didn’t know as well so I guess it’s related to the fact that Queen Elizabeth has her 60 years throne jubilee in 2011.

One evening we had diner in the „Spaghetti House“ near Holborn station and I can absolutely recommend it. Even though it was full and we hadn’t reserved a table they somehow managed to find a place for us. The meals were perfect and the service was awesome. Only that I’d recommend everybody to book a table beforehand!

Ireland 2005

due to the fact that I’m on holidays I finally had the time to add the Ireland 2005 pictures to the gallery. The travel reports will follow tomorrow or during the weekend.

All pictures during that trip have been shot with a little Canon Digital Camera I bought a week before the trip and which turned out to make pretty good pictures.

The trip took place in May 2005 directly after I graduated university and mainly covered the south-western area of Ireland. I’d like to point out that the pictures 23 & 24 have been taken from the same spot in Killarney National Park, a point that’s called „Lady’s View“. The first one was taken at very cloudy weather, while the second one (being the lead image for the gallery and this post) has been taken at bright sunshine and I’m still absolutely stoked by seeing the difference between those too pictures.

All pictures are unedited as they came as JPG from the camera and not RAW.

Highlands?

For Sunday we had decided to do the Highland tour. Meant for us that we really had to get up very , very early. We needed to leave the guest house at 7.30 am and so it was clear there would be no breakfast served at that time. Luckily the couple taking  care of the house was so nice to prepare us a take away breakfast so that we had something to eat at last. Shops in Edinburgh seem to be open on Sundays as well, but coffee shops don’t open before 8.30 am as we finally realised.

Our tour guide turned out to be a guy in a kilt named Andy and we started in Edinburgh at a 08.15 am. First stop was Doune Castle which was featured in Monty Python’s „The Holy Grale“ and we had time for a walk around the area. From Doune Castle there’s a way leading to Bridge of Teith. Andy told us that Teith was the area where most of the weapons came from and that’s where the expression „armed to the teeth“ comes from as during the ages teith became teeth.

From Doune we had our next stop at Lough Katrina which is one of the smaller loughs in the Highlands but I must admit that I actually liked it more than the later visited Lough Lomond. Maybe it was due to the weather as it started to rain when we left Lough Katrina and rain didn’t leave us the rest of the tour. The Scotsmen say it doesn’t rain in Scotland, they call it liquid sunshine or „atmoshperic“ but it spoiled the tour a little for me personally even though I must say after seeing a part of the Highlands I will definitely go there again for a Hiking Tour. Beautiful area and some very impressive mountains.

When we arrived at Lough Lomond we had time for a lunch and we went for a fish & chips shop „Palombos of Balloch“ which turned out not to be the best choice for me personally as I somehow fighted against the fish for the rest of the day.  As already mentioned Lough Lomond was covered with rain the whole time. I was more or less happy when we turned homewards again and on our way back we stopped at Stirling Castle which is closely related to the history around William Wallace.  So finally I can say the tour was a big fail for me. The price was 30 pounds (weekend price) but I wouldn’t recommend it. If we’d had more time we’d better rented a car and made a hiking tour through some part of the Highlands..would have been more fun.

High above Edinburgh

Second day and we got up at half past eight. I tried out the shower and that was really refreshing. The only negative point was that the heating in the bathroom didn’t seem to work and I’m sure in winter this would be really cold. We got down for breakfast which is served from 8.00 on during week and from 8.30 on weekends. Breakfast was delicious. We could first choose between Yoghurt, Muesli, Cereals, Cheese, Jam & Toast and had then to quote which second course we wanted. The options were „Southside Grill“ (egg, potato cake, sausage, tomato, mushrooms & bacon), „Southside Vegetarian“ (pretty much the same, only that the bacon was replaced by beans and the sausage was a vegetarian one) and „Smoked Scottish Salmon & Egg“. Absolutely tasty and coffee was fine as well. So we had a good basis for the upcoming day.

We started in direction of Carlton Hill which leads along the Royal Terrace and then to the City Observatory and the National Monument as well as Nelson Monument. From Carlton Hill we had an absolutely nice view over whole Edinburgh and I guess we spent there around 2 hours with taking pictures and looking over the city. On our way down we decided we should go through St. James Centre, Edinburgh’s shopping center, and from there we walked along Princess Street with all it’s shops, turned and walked through Rose Street which has a lot of tiny restaurants and finally made our way over the bridge again in direction of Dublin Castle.

Dublin Castle is huge and I can only say we spent more than 3 hours in there and we could have been there much longer if we’d decided to read every information chart. The entrance fee is 13 pounds and there’s no use going through the castle without either an audio guide or the guide book ( 4 pounds). But it’s worth the time and the money. After Dublin Castle we took a long walk along the Royal Mile and finally for the day ended up in an Indian Vegetarian Restaurant named „Ann Purna“ (45 St. Patrick’s Square). Food was okay but for the price paid it portions were really tiny. I wouldn’t recommend it as there are lot’s of other Indian restaurants in Edinburgh.

Finally that day I discovered that Lidl sells Pear Cider in Edinburgh…quite jealous now..

First day in Edinburgh

We started early today. We had to get up at 7.00 a.m. and had breakfast with my parents as my Dad was so nice to drive us to the airport afterwards.
We‘d booked our flight with Ryan Air and I should mention some points regarding that airline. Ryan Air is cheap if you only travel with hand luggage. We had booked a onboard luggage as well (additional 30 Euros) for 15 kg and I can say that every kg more will cost additional money. They are really strict as this is probably the way they make their money. On our flight to Edinburgh there was some bowling group on board which made sleeping during the flight absolutely impossible.
When we arrived in Edinburgh we directly went to the Tourist Info in the airport. There we got a bus ticket into town (6 Pounds – inclusive return) and a map of the city. We‘d already decided that we‘d like to do a one day trip into the Highlands and we booked this for Sunday as well.
Afterwards the bus got us downtown which was a 30 min trip and we ended up at Waverly Station. From here we decided to walk to our guest house. Waverly Station / Bridge seems to be the lowest point in the whole city so that our way was up the hill and we already got a glimpse of the Royal Mile and the area around it (lot of coffee shops here). We had to walk about 30 min until we finally reached Southside Guest House. I had already advised the owners that we would be there around 2.p.m and when we arrived there the lady opening the door told us that the room wasn‘t ready (we expected this as normal check in would be around 3 p.m.) but we could leave our luggage there and head off for something to eat. We ended up at „The Steamie Pub“ ( Newington Road 72 – 74)for our first pear cider and burgers which were absolutely delicious and we spent about an hour there before we returned to the guest house to have a look at our room.
Southside Guest House was a great choice. The whole house is quite old and all room are set up in a different style. Ours was at the second floor and was mostly in purple colours with a huge bathroom. We changed clothes there and went of for the city. We mainly walked through the ancient part of the town that evening and finally got rewarded with a beautiful view of Carlton Hill with it‘s Monument and a double rainbow above. Absolutely perfect end of day one.