28th Sept - Sign of things to come

Hi again, well we knew it couldn't last. Yesterday it was day 45 of our trip - quite amazing really. Especially as we've only really had 2 rainy days.

Monday and for the rest of this week (under current weather pattern) must be a sign of things to come. It's been raining most of today and so the pictures will be a little different to those of previous weeks! Can't really complain as we knew this was inevitable.

Yesterday we had a fairly busy day, taking the elevator up the TV Tower at AlexanderPlatz to take in the views whilst listening to a fairly boring audio commentary - for anyone coming, save yourself the 3 €.

Old and new (communist) Berlin & view from tower

Then we went to an open museum called the Topography of Terror, virtually next door to Checkpoint Charlie. It's quite awful how the Germans were both part of their own undoing (by burning and crashing some buildings in the last days of Hitler) and how the city was almost completely obliterated by the Allied and Russian bombing raids. Many buildings still have artillery shell or bullet marks today, although the Govt is slowly repairing these in important areas like around Museum Island etc.

Berlin after WW2

Finally we ended up at the amazing Jewish Museum which chronicles the lives of Jews in Germany (and particularly Berlin) for the last 1000 years. The reason I say amazing is becuase of the architecture of the building in the first instance and the variety of types of information exchange, through personal stories recorded, original letters between family members, histories of the refugee children about them & their parents and also interactive pieces. Two parts of the museum are equally enthralling- the Garden of Exile and the Holocaust Tower. The architect has tried to convey the sense of danger, loss and lack of hope many Jews felt during the Holocaust and the build-up in the early 1930's.

Jewish Museum & garden of exile

Finally we capped the day off by finding some half price tickets to a State Ballet production of Cinderella at the State Opera Theatre. We got a bit dressed up and saw some beautiful costumes and ballet technique, although both Mark and I felt that we now prefer modern ballet/ modern dance as we've been experiencing in Melbourne & Sydney over the last 6 years or so.

Today we walked through the rain to the East Side Gallery, which is basically a kilometre of the original Berlin Wall which features grafitti about all Berliners experiences before, during and after the Berlin Wall collapsed and what is was like to be on the East Side. Some quite remarkable art grafitti pieces as well as the usual tagging that happens.

Mark at East Side Gallery(part of the wall)

From their we went to the Markisches Museum to discover more about the history of Berlin as a city. It has artefacts from 1250 onwards but we concentrated on the 1840's to current.

We're off now to get our car serviced for the first time and seeing Eliza's sister tonight which will be fun.

26th Sept - Hung over in Berlin

Thanks to everyone for my birthday emails, cards and phone calls. It's been a slow start to the day of my birthday as we had some fun in Berlin last night, completely unplanned which made me feel a little seedy this morning.

A quick recap of the last few days. We travelled through the western and central parts of Germany by car, stopping in Erfurt, Meissen and Potsdam (just outside Berlin) as well as passing through several other much smaller towns to peek at their shops, antiquities etc.


Meissen walkway & Rathaus

We were quite surprised by the amount of Roman ruins and the importance of certain parts of Germany to the Roman empire (years and years ago of course). Along the way we would drive for anywhere between 150 & 500 kms (a ridiculously long day, not recommended), struggle to locate the entry to the city by following 'Zentrum' (centre) or 'rathaus' (town hall) to find the Information centre and scope out possible accomodation and then walk around that place for 2-3 hours in the afternoon, before collapsing in the hotel / pensione/ B&B for an hour before dinner.

I had another go at driving which was much more sedate (as we went off the Autobahns to an old inland highway) which had so many little towns on it where you have to slow to 50kms/hr for about 100 metres that you can't really get up to more than 85 kms/h elsewhere before you hit another village / town! Mark's feeling much better about my driving now, although isn't going to completely hand over the reins.

Erfurt and Meissen were particularly lovely towns and luckily we decided to skip Leipzig and go straight onto Meissen (head of porcelain in Germany) as they had their big festival for the year (Wine Fest) starting on Friday night, which was when we should have been there and would have had no hope for a bed.

We then overnighted in Potsdam in our first pensione (b & b) which was of course owned by a very nice but very strange couple.


Potsdam pensione


Potsdam architecture circa 1950 vs 1840

Food has been an interesting issue as well as Germany is PORK heaven and I don't eat pork, bacon, ham etc. Surprisingly not much Chicken is consumed and so it's been mainly steak, beef or turkey (which feels very strange and sort of Chrismassy US thing). I thought I'd try some fish one night and found out I'd ordered smoked/ salted uncooked fish of some kind, so that night I just ate potatoes and salad. Ah well, it's getting a little better.

We arrived in Berlin on Saturday late morning and as usual it was fairly stressful entering the city, but we got there. Found the apartment we're staying in and managed to get a free park out the front which is great, as bascially the car will stay there for the next 2 weeks. We've been warned by everyone not to bother using the car in Berlin itself as driving is bad, parking is difficult and expensive. Plus the German public transport system is meant to be fantastic (will discover more later today).

We are staying in Friedrichshain which is sort of a mix between St. Kilda, Brunswick, Fitzroy and Collingwood. There's lots of great grafitti on the building (quite artistic), second-hand markets (where I bought a small backpack) and informal cafes, bars and galleries. We wondered around doing house stuff like shopping and washing clothes and then had a quite night in.


Our Berlin bedroom



A local East Berlin apartment building

Yesterday, was our first full day in Berlin and we explored the markets and then walked for 45 mins to Alexanderplatz/ Hackescher Markt to meet up with a Berlin Walking tour. which would last 4 hours! http://www.berlinwalks.com/ It was about 22 degrees and lovely. We had a fun group of about 16-20 people from all over and the best tour guide that we've had ever (Fabian). The tour actually went longer (nearkly 5 hrs) and when we suggested a drink afterwards (this was by now 7.30pm, 3 Americans, us and Fabian went to a pizza bar and then onto a really weird but Melbourne-style bar and had some shorts & other drinks to celebrate my birthday. It was a really great time, although perhaps a bit too much recent German history and economic policy discussions as one of the Americans was fascinated about the Nazi period and its implications on Germany today and whether USA is approaching similar issues. (I won't extend that line of comment any further).

Anyway, I'll sign off now, We've been having trouble uploading pictures but will rectify that ASAP. Bye, Tam

21st Sept – Luxembourg and Western Germany – “Give it Away B**ch”

Now friends of mine know it’s most unusual to swear and for those family members reading this, do NOT be horrified that Europe has corrupted me. This was the blaring song that was coming out of the loud speakers after Mark and I sat down in a lovely (tranquil until that point) square in Luxembourg the other day when we discovered a bike festival was going to start 10 mins after we sat down for lunch. Great we thought, we lucked out as it was a really sunny and fairly warm day (20 degrees).

Luxembourg bike festival

Other than this 40 mins episode of heavy Black American style rap music blaring out, we really enjoyed Luxembourg which is a lovely city (and country). Now don’t think I’ve gone the other way and being conservative and boring but this was a complete contrast to everything else going on (music wise) in Luxembourg.

Luxembourg Street

After arriving there, we wondered the streets at night and found some gorgeous bridges, hotels and official buildings lit up. The following morning we spent 3 hours walking all over the old town (Grund) and newer areas and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Luxembourg Hotel Albert Premier

Then we hopped in the car to drive to Trier and after 4 attempts to enter the city via the crazy freeway signs, we finally got there. We had nearly decided to skip the town for the next place – lucky we didn’t as it was really lovely. It’s actually very important from a Roman history point of view, given that it was first adopted as a Western European Roman capital in 30AD! It’s got an amazing Porta Nigra (Black door, entrance to the city), Roman baths, churches built on top of or around Roman foundations and many Gothic and Renaissance architectural wonders as well. Mark was very “snap happy”. Trier has six UNESCO World Cultural Heritage sites which made it a wonderful stp-over.

Trier Catherdral & Trier Porta Nigra (Roman City Gate)

Trier Markt

At night in Trier, we found a lovely spot just in the shadow of the Dom (Cathedral) and it seemed to be the ‘happening place’. We both had ‘daily specials’ and tried several different Mosel’s and Feinherb’s (styles of wine from the area). They were only 2 Euro each a glass (extremely cheap).

Trier dinner venue

The next day we drove to Erfurt (500 kms) in one massive day and then explored the town which is quite large for several hours in the late afternoon/ evening and Mark enjoyed a Braugold local beer (although couldn’t finish a half-litre bottle) and I discovered some more Mosel related wine.

Erfurt Damchen & Erfurt Dom

Erfurt Tram & Erfurt Fischmarkt

Still a bit more road travel before we reach Berlin - can’t wait.

20th Sept – Paris – Just a little Champagne Please

Well after an action-packed five days (discussed in the last BLOG update), we joined my University friend Chris, his brother and girlfriend in the 7^th arrondissement in Paris for an extra 2 days. For those who do, and also those that don’t know Paris, the 7^th is just a 2 mins walk to the Eiffel Tower! Mark (Chris’ brother) gained a scholarship to Science Po University to study for 2 yrs and he’s in the middle of that time now. He’s managed to get a three-month work experience at UNESCO where he’s working now. He very kindly let us stay whilst also hosting his parents (traveling with their French cousins), his brother (traveling from a Viennese conference) and distant cousins who live in Paris

Chris' mum, Andie and Mark

On the Saturday evening we had drinks and nibbles at Mark’s flat and then went to a late dinner at his local Italian restaurant and had a lovely meal (although a bit pricey). On Sunday after a later than planned exit (Chris, get off the phone!), we managed to get in line for the Eiffel Tower on a beautiful bright (but crisp) day and after 1h30m, had seen all it had to offer. We walked all over the 8^th, 16^th and back to the 7^th through Le Grand Palais and the Museum and gardens of Rodin. Le Grand Palais was an old Exhibition Hall, (similar in scale and age to Melbourne’s Exhibition Centre) but unused and closed up for the last 12 yrs. They are redeveloping it now and had it open for only 2 weeks before it being ready (completely) for tourists & Parisians) from next April.

Mark and Tam at Grand Palais

Sunday night, Chris, Mark and I had a quiet night after a long walk during the day and we were keen to finally see what our Citroen looked like and a bit stressed about getting on the roads!

Chris, Tam and Mark in front of something important

Monday finally arrived and we got to the Citroen office by about 9.30am.

Tam and our car

After finally seeing our new car (grey-green) we went through HOW to use it and Mark started off out of the garage and I promptly directed him in the opposite direction to how we wanted to go! This was only the first of several minor detours on the first day’s driving. It was recovered fairly quickly (read about 7 blocks) and we eventually got onto the infamous ‘Peripherique’ which crawled along for over 40 mins to our exit. We finally arrived in Champagne region (Epernay) at the Moet & Chandon house at 2.30pm, after finding out the tour started soon; we skipped lunch in favour of a tour. Well we were starving by 4pm and couldn’t find anything to eat, so decided to hop in the car on the way to Luxembourg thinking there’d be a café/ petrol place soon. At 5.30pm we finally had dinner – I just can’t hold out that long! We reached Luxembourg at 8pm and found a place to settle for the night.

Champagne vines

18 Sept - Paris - Exhausted and Loving It

What can I say, it’s been amazing to come back with Mark after ten years and see it through his eyes and also through my other experiences. Naturally it’s a whole different perspective as I was a ‘poor student’ last time and this time I bought something on Avenue Montaigne (more about that later)!

Just to finish off the UK, after spending 2 lovely weeks in Dundee, we spent a final afternoon/ evening in Edinburgh and had a glorious 24 degree day. We had lunch in a nice restaurant www.centotre.com and had some really excellent Italian cuisine. It’s also in a restored old Bank building and they have tastefully redecorated it. That night we went on a tour of the underbelly of Edinburgh, learning about the ghosts, trade and horrors of being an Englishman in Edinburgh around 1630 (it’s not pretty. For those who want more information, I can explain separately).

Flying to Paris was mostly uneventful and we met up with our friends Lillian and Rod and spent 3.5 days together in the 10^th arrondissement (near Metro Republique). The apartment is in a quiet courtyard behind the Asian tailors (sweatshops of Paris). It’s really nicely done and probably bigger than our house! Set on two levels with a large kitchen (including imported 1950’s American oven) and unique decorative objet d’arts.

Kitchen, dining room and courtyard of our Paris apartment

That evening, we walked around the Quartier Latin and went to an authentic bar in Rue des Ecoles and then onto a very late dinner at Bar Grand Cluny and had excellent steak béarnaise. We arrived home close to midnight and Lillian/Rod were planning a 6AM rise for the train to Versailles (crazy), whilst we ended up walking for 5 hours around Le Marais district and had a lovely lunch at Le 3 in a gorgeous alleyway (Ste Croix de la Bretonnerie).

Arriving home exhausted, we thought we’d take it easy the following day and only walked SIX hours (who was I kidding). We caught a local food market with oysters on ice, really good looking fruit/veg, clothes and everything in between. Then we lined up for the Georges Pompidou centre (modern art).

Pompidou Centre

The centre opens at 11am and was already a 30-mins wait at 11am! This was the place Mark was really looking forward to and it didn’t disappoint. We spent an hour walking around just one floor. And quelle surprise, you are allowed to take pictures INSIDE the gallery with the security people watching! So Mark has one next to a Picasso and I have one next to Gilbert & George (who we actually saw in the Tate Modern!)

Tam with Gilbert & George and Mark with Picasso

Afterwards we had a slap up impromptu meal of half baguette, coke and sugar crepe on the steps leading to the Seine whilst smelling the urine of the last visitor to this spot. Finally, as if we hadn’t done enough walking, Mark suggested we walk all the way to the Louvre and then along the Right Bank of the Seine to the Arc de Triomphe. Believe me it took hours! Along that part of the Seine, there are endless book sellers with old magazines, special comics and posters/ small portraits.

Booksellers

Eventually we came home and had a shower before going out with Lillian and Rod for a special meal (for their last night in Paris). We went to Chez Michel which had been written up in The Age Travel section or The Australian which we’d been keeping clippings from prior to our departure. We managed to have 3 wonderful courses, a bottle of wine and a glass of dessert wine each for only 42 Euro each (approx $60 AUD) which was really top class. They have raved about this chef as having potential to open a Michelin-starred restaurant. Snails came out onto the table, instead of the usual olives and oil. He even ate two snails!

Lillian and Tam

On Thursday, Lillian and Rod went off on their Eurail ticket to Dijon, Lyon and places in the South of France and Mark and I put on some nice clothes (Although my shoes obviously weren’t good enough, according to one shop assistant) to walk down the two most expensive streets in Paris – Avenue Montaigne and Avenue du Faubourg St Honore. Whilst I was keeping my eye out for any rare bargains, I wasn’t really expecting to find/ buy anything there. Well when I walked into Max Mara to glance at their coats/ jackets, I found one that was really special and elegant. It was a really hot day (I was wearing a sleeveless top) and trying on a 100% wool jacket with shirt as well! You can imagine how sweaty I was after trying on about 10 jackets in four different stores. I kept coming back to the style, cut and elegance of the Max Mara one and although it’s a bit more than I wanted to spend, I’m really excited about the weather getting colder now!

Naturally, we don’t eat out all the time and enjoyed cooking one night with Lillian and Rod and by ourselves Thursday, Friday (to save some funds). On Friday we had our first rainy day but luckily it mostly stopped to a light drizzle by the time we left the apartment and we traveled to the Montmatre area to walk around the Sacre-Coeur and the quirky fashion shops, tacky sex shops and naturally found ‘Café Australien’ next door to a sex shop!

Sacre Coeur

Tomorrow we leave our apartment to meet up with Chris and his brother Mark who has been studying and living in Paris for quite a while. We’ll spend two nights with them before finally seeing our Citroen C4 and driving onto the ‘open road’.

Till our first ‘pit-stop’, keep trucking and don’t forget to leave a comment or write us an email.

10th Sept - Glasgow and St Andrews and Glasgow

This is our second week staying in Dundee with Rebecca, Theo and Kali.

Tam & Mark

Earlier in the week, we drove to St Andrews (the home of Golf) with Val (a relative of Vera's whose house we are staying in). We had a great lunch and a nice walk around the town looking at the cathedral and castle.

Val with Kali in St Andrews

We stopped off to look at the first tee at St Andrews Golf Club on the way home but being in the middle of summer, our view was a little limited. The Scottish call a fog 'haar' and Tam thought that the haar was having a joke on us.

First tee at St Andrews in summer.

It was one of those typical Scottish summers days as you can see from the picture below.

St Andrew's Catherdral in summer!

Yesterday we took a day trip (Megabus - £10 return for both of us) to Glasgow to have a look around the financial capital of Scotland. It's a 2-hr bus trip each way. Glasgow is very different to both Edinburgh and Dundee. Even the standard of women (and men) were a marked improvement over the rest of Scotland.

Glasgow is famous for the Glasgow movement which is a style of art, architecture and design (similar to Art Nouveau) that came to prominance in the late 1890's. The most famous artist is Charles Rennie Mackintosh http://www.crmsociety.com/

Two of his building included The Willows Tea Room and the Glasgow School of Art.


The Willows Tearooms - Glasgow


Glasgow School of Art

Next stop Paris!

4th Sept - Sisterly love in Dundee

Well, it's been a week since we last wrote. We've spent the week in Dundee, Scotland with my sister, her husband and her new daughter Kali (only 8 months old). I haven't seen my sister in about 3 yrs but it feels like old times.

Kali - aged 8 months

Dundee is the fourth largest city in Scotland and has an unusual mix of University students, lecturers, artists and factory workers. My brother-in-law is a doctor (MD) and most of their friends are doctors and scientists. One of his MD friends has 5 doctors in the family out of 6 people (2 parents, 4 kids). There are 3 MD's and two PhD's in the same family. At the same time, Dundee is apparently the town with the highest level of teenage pregnancy in UK so interesting mix.

The house we are staying in was built in the 1780's and is quite spectacular. My sister is staying in the 'drivers' apartment whilst my brother-in-law's grandmother stays in the main house. It's pretty amazing as her husband was a very well repected artist and the house is full of his artwork, her artwork and their son's artwork. There is a wonderful mix of new (1960's onwards) and very old architecture in Dundee, which we also noticed in Edinburgh and London.

Tam and Vera (Theo's grandmother)

The reason for our travels here was to spend time with my sister and also meet my new niece. She is a lovely and happy child, very calm, hasn't really cried in the week we've been here and I think it's down to my sister's very positive attitude.

Feeding the ducks

We have done a bit of shopping (favourite past time of ours) and seen Dunkeld and Perth (each about 45 mins away). We went to the Fife coast which has lots of fishing villages yesterday and apparently Anstruther has the best Fish & Chips in Scotland (the best we've had in the UK so far but nothing compared to our local Greek fish & Chip shops in OZ). The other fishing villages -Crail and Pittenweem are also nice.

Theo (Rebecca's husband) & Tam

Dunkeld cathedral

Pittenweem

Some of the best fish'n'chips in Scotland

Generally we've been hanging around the house and spending time with the other half of the family we never see (and also meeting all of their friends). We've enjoyed meeting their friends and sampling 'the best' restaurants in Dundee. I have to say Melbourne is really spoilt for choice of cuisine, quality of food presentation and value for money (those back home - do appreciate it).