Chapter 4 - Berlin - Before Our Northern Tour Starts

Day 9 - Wed, June 17th, 2015

Tonight we start our Insight Vacations tour of the Northern Capitals and Russia. We moved hotels today and settled into the Swissotel in the west of Berlin. Only a 10 Euro taxi ride from our old hotel and a little bit swankier.

Since last Saturday evening when we flew into Berlin from Munich, we have been doing the sights of Berlin on our own. Museums, walking tours and the like and generally getting a feel for the place.

Some photos follow....

Walking Tour

Holocaust Survivors Memorial and Info Centre

Memorial with the dome of the  Reischtag Building in the background

Museum of German History

The Berlin Lutheran Cathedral

Memorial to Victims of Conflict 

Lunch time - waiting for the tour

Anne with a piece of the Wall

A bit of the Wall the remains near ruins of Gestapo Headquarters

Museums

The Ishtar Gates inside the Pergamon Museum

Guarding the entry to the city

The Reischtag Building

The Dome

Tourists inside the Dome

Up on top of the building looking back at the Dome

Chapter 3 - Munich in Pictures

Day 5 - June 13th, 2015

Sadly, our time in Munich has come to an end and it's time to grab an AirBerlin flight to Berlin. Munich has been fantastic. No one we know could tell us much about it before we arrived but the city, especially the old central part has an amazing vibe.

People seem to take precedence over traffic and there are wide pedestrian-only streets everywhere. The locals stroll about shopping and eating and drinking well into the night and it just comes across as warm and friendly. There is music aplenty, political rallies and student love-ins. What more could you want? Some photos follow....

BMW Museum

The BMW World Exhibition and Museum is great. We tried to get to do a factory tour - booked out for the next 10 weeks! Still, the museum is really interesting.

Anne on a big BMW bike

A slightly older Beemer

Phil in front of a similar model BMW that Mum once owned.

The Nymphemburg Palace

Shades of Versaille anyone??

Out the front of the lake that leads to the palace

Two shots of the interior - plain isn't it!

Looking out to the gardens

Anne on one of the boulevards

Thirsty work this sightseeing!

Deutsches Museum, Munich

This museum is amazing..apparently one of the best technological museums in the world. We rate it just behind the Smithsonian in Washington DC.

Kids watching an automatic machine that makes real miniature house bricks.

Anne checking out some of the aircraft on display

Steam engines anyone?

A German submarine

...and what's inside

The English Gardens

These are 'gardens' that are actually a huge 950 hectare woodland in the middle of Munich. In the centre is the Chinese Pagoda.

Phil dwarfed by the pagoda

The Main Square

These main square in old Munich is Marienplatz, which is dominated by the Church of the Two Women and the Rathaus or town hall.

Two views of the Rathaus

Students Orientation - University of Technology

We stumbled upon this outdoor music fair in the grounds of one of the museums - music food, beer and other funny things quite illegal in Aus. Naturally we were invited to join into MOST of the festivities.

Anne getting into the spirit of the thing.

Check out the bub in the foreground - really into the spirit of the beer and music.

Chapter 2 - We're Off...

Day 3 - June 11th, 2015

The day of the start of our big trip has come and gone and we're well into our journey. 

We were dropped off at Minnamurra station by a good friend on Tuesday afternoon of the 9th June and we settled in for the 2 hour train trip to the airport. Actually it's a tad less than 2 hours from our place to the International Terminal - better than some folks in Sydney have to endure when they travel overseas! 

A quick check-in for our Qantas/Emirates flight and it's off the the club lounge for some tucker and vino and then onto the plane and we're off. Over 14 hours later, we drop into Dubai International at 5.30am and wait for our next flight to Munich. Luckily we can access a lounge so the wait is not too bad. Onto another A380 and we leave the UAE and 6 hours later we're in Munich, Germany.

A 40 minute train trip, a 10 minute subway train on the underground and a 150 metre walk and we are at our hotel - this on our 4 day Munich Travel Pass. The pass cost us 69 Euro for the pair of us - cheaper because we are a "group". The woman selling the tickets asked if we were together when we bought the ticket. "Are you a group? Like, do you sleep together?" she asked in English. What sort of question is that to ask a complete stranger? I didn't know how to respond at first, but nodded 'yes' and took the cheaper fares.

When we first saw our hotel room, I realised the irony of the situation...

...single beds. Maybe I should have shook my head to the ticket seller!

And the room was - as you can see - tiny. In the bathroom when you sat on the loo, your feet were in the shower and when you were in the 500 mm by 500 mm shower, the shower curtain wrapped around you like a snake and tried to strangle the life out of you. Still, the location was magic.

Our first night was a stroll through the fantastic old centre of Munich and dinner at an authentic Bavarian restaurant. Naturally Anne wanted a burger (Bavarian, of course) to go with the first bier of the trip.

Stayed tuned for more updates...

Chapter 1 - Primed and Ready to Go

The Andersens On Tour - 2015 Edition...

Day Minus 2 - June 7th, 2015

Hi all. There are only two more sleeps until Anne and I head off in an A380 bound for Dubai and then Munich for the first part of our trip for 2015. If you are interested, stay tuned to our blog to see how the seven weeks and one day journey pans out.

More later.....