Christmas Caribbean Cruise

• My Pictures From the Trip
• Sue's Pictures

Trip to the Dolomites

Summer Trip 2007: Berlin

Our first stop on our summer trip was Berlin, we were stayed in a fantastic apartment on the old east berlin side of the city. It turns out that there isn't a big difference between the two sides of city and there are very few sections of the wall still standing as the majority of it has been torn down.


One of the first things we did in the city was hop on a bus tour which took us to many of the interesting sights of the city.




The Brandenburg Gate




Holocaust Memorial





Reichstag Building (The German Parliament)





The Hauptbahnof Train Station





The Viktoria Victory Column





A church that had it's roof destroyed in ww2





A small section of the Berlin Wall





Checkpoint Charlie





The Berliner Dom





The Fernsehturm TV Tower



And a few other places...



We decided to go back to some of the places and check them out in more detail. We also bought an iAudioGuide of Berlin which you stick on your iPod and listen to as you visit different places along the way.


Checkpoint Charlie was one of three checkpoints between East Berlin (The Soviet GDR) and West Berlin (American, French, British) I guess some people were allowed to pass from west to east (Foreign diplomats perhaps) however people from the east side were not allowed to travel out of their side hence the wall. Norm and Sue Nat's parents traveled into the East side back in the 80's I'll ask them more about it when we see them in about an hour.



Anyway the checkpoint charlie museum was filled with information about the Berlin wall and how many people escaped from East Berlin into West Berlin. Many forged passports. Some west berliners stuffed their girlfriends in the truck of their cars or in hollowed our music equipment etc. Some people dug tunnels and others made chair-lifts. Thousands of people escaped and others died trying.



We also ate many delicious foods and I drank many tasty beers. The Germanys are experts on pickling I ate many pickled beats, pickled pickles (sweet and sour) and pickled herrings with dill sauce! Another tasty thing I ate was CurryWurst which is Bratwurst in a sweet curry sauce. You could buy CurryWurst and many other Germany Sausages from carts on the street. One guy had a BBQ strapped to himself. The propane tank was a backpack and the grill was crotch high so I'd imagine he'd have to be careful not to burn his sausage.



We went back to the Brandenburg Gate and walked through it. The Berlin wall had enclosed the gate into the Eastern part of the city and until 1989 people were unable to use the gate. The gate is designed after the acropolis in Athens and was built for a Kaiser (German Emperor) who fancied Greek things back in the 1700's.



The Holocaust memorial was completed in 2004 and is a city block which is filled with a whole bunch of grey cement blocks anywhere from 1cm - 5m high. The ground the blocks are built on is uneven so as you walk into the centre you disappear. The museum that accompanied the memorial was closed so I didn't really understand the significance of why it was a holocaust memorial, However it was interesting to walk through.



The Reichstag (Germany parliament) Building was built in the 1800's and severely damaged during WW2. After the city reunified in the 1990's the The building was fixed and a glass dome was built to replace the old one.



Then we were off to the Alsace in France...

Cinque Terre and Portofino

We tried to hop on the train at 11am to head off on our trip, but it was sold out so we got tickets for the 2pm train instead. On the way we met two guys who were cousins. As the trip progressed one of the cousins became incredibly drunk. So the other cousin started slapping him in the face. This was the point where the train ride became less pleasant. Shortly after the slapping there was some wine spillage. Then someone died of a heart attack. Eventually we did make it to the town we were staying in called Deiva Marina. (Which is half way between Cinque Terre and Portofino).

The next day Nat and I wondered around looking for some food and came across an Emu. At first we thought it was an Ostrich, (neither of us are experts on extremely large flightless birds). The Emu was wondering around in a dry river bed just minding his own business. So we watched him for a while and wondered where he had came from and where he was off too... There weren't many other people around so it was hard for us to judge if this was an unusual occurrence. Later that day we headed to Cinque Terre.


Cinque Terre is a national park, it's not quite like a provincial park back home, however they do protect the nature and wildlife. There are 5 villages inside Cinque Terre, we got off in Riomaggiore and visted the town before heading off on a Romantic walk called "Via Dell'Amore" The Lovers Path.. Unfortunately there were many lovers there that day. As you can see in the picture, the line to be allowed onto Via Dell'Amore was like the line up for the Vortex at Canada's Wonderland on labour day weekend. The Walk was still picturesque despite the large number of lovers.


Cinque Terre: Via Dell'Amore

Vernazza was probably the nicest village in Cinque Terre. The town is built right out to the Sea. Vernazza also had some tasty tasty pesto pizza. It's a cheese pizza that is then covered in pesto, so it's green!... and tasty. I didn't take a picture of the pizza but I did take a picture of a really low arch that you could walk under... it was low.


Cinque Terre: Vernazza

The following day we took a train to Santa Margherita and then caught a boat to Portofino. Portofino is a beautiful town where rich people come to show you how big their boat is. The boat we arrived on was a ferry and therefore it was luckily big enough for us to gain entrance. One of the giant boats was so fancy that it could afford to be two different colours: black in most circumstances but purple if you looked at it from a certain angle. Each boat seemed to have at least three people working on it and several had swimming pools. Other than looking at giant boats we also visited a Castle called Castel Brown, and attempted to eat lunch but all the restaurants close at 3, so we ate some focaccia instead and bought a bottle of tasty wine.


Portofino

• Pictures from the trip
• A map of where we went.

Bay of Naples with Mum and Dad

We rented a car, left Rome and headed for Sorrento. We had a TomTom GPS thing so we didn't have to think too hard about driving. Once we were close to Sorrento we had to do a little thinking however because we were actually staying in a small town called Sant'agata. The TomTom wasn't clever enought to know where Santa'agata was so we had to ask someone how to find it.


View from Sant'Agata

The next day we went to Capri. We were able to visit the Blue Grotto this time because the sea was calm. It was as blue as advertised. We also had a tour around the island and saw some arches that have been carved by the sea. After that we visited the rest of the island. Later we got lost looking for the Natural Arch, and finally gave up and headed back to the main land.


Capri: Blue Grotto

The next day we took the train from Sorrento to Pompeii which cost us a whopping 3 euro each. We saw some plaster casts of some of the people who had died when they were poisoned by gas and then covered in pumas stones from the Vesuvius eruption. We rented some audio guide things and not only was it informative, it also had an exciting sound track filled with explosions and lots of exciting flute playing. So it made me feel like we were being followed by Newton and Tewt from the cartoon the Mighty Hercules! (Tewt had a flute that he would play because he couldn't talk.)


Pompeii

The next day we headed back to the Naples airport to fly back to Milan, however we decided to take the long way and drive along the Amalfi Coast. We visited the Amalfi coast before on a bus and anytime a bus encountered another bus they would both spend 5 minutes maneuvering around each other. So we were a little worried that the tiny twisty roads would make it to difficult drive. It turned out to be a pretty easy drive in the end compared to some of the other roads we'd already driven on getting to Sant'Agata.


Amalfi Coast Drive

On our way back into Naples we enjoyed the wonderful scenery that Naples has to offer. The random road side fires, and heaps of garbage 2 stories high are some of the spectacles that make Naples one of the hidden jems of Italy. The TomTom helped us get into Naples and I had asked it to take us to the airport so when it had us traveling down dirt roads in some sketchy looking neighbourhoods we became slightly concerned. Eventually it proudly announced that we had reached our destination. It turns out it dropped us off behind the airport so we had to drive our way around the barbed wire fence to find the entrance. All in all it was a fun trip with my folks!


Beautiful Naples

• Pictures from our trip
• Map of where we went

Bormio with Mum and Dad

Mum and Dad came to visit for our easter holiday. We all went to Bormio for the evening... It's a small town on the border of Italy and Switzerland in the Alps... We rented a car to make the trip, it turned out that driving around italy is a little less intimidating than I thought it would be. Renting the car was more difficult than driving it, as I needed my passport but didn't bring it...

While in Bormio we ate some good food. And went to the top of the mountain... We also visited Bagni Vecchi a Thermal Spa thing, which has been used since the roman times. One bath in particular was inside a cave in the mountain there was naturally heated hot waters pouring into the cave, another cave filled with steam from the hot spring water, and a bath filled with cold water...


An artists illustration of what it might have looked like...

A link to all the pictures...