Author: traveltalesfrombb8

We leave on our next trip tomorrow so it is time to finally finish the trip from 3 years ago! This one might be a little long. Thanks for reading!

Day 16: Bus, Boat, Park, and Pub

Today we got out of the flat even earlier because we wanted to not have to worry about cooking breakfast. We found a tasty cafe and I got my first full English breakfast. Yummy! It was full, pun intended, of meat and toast and beans. I have to say, eating baked beans for breakfast was weird and I just kind of skipped on them. After that we had decided to go on an open top double decker bus tour around the city. We figured we would see some stuff we already had, but would see a lot more driving around instead of walking. So we found the start of the tour and hopped on. It was a beautiful day for an open top bus tour around London! Our tour guide Andre was awesome with a very dry, witty sense of humor that we enjoyed. It was great to get to see almost all of the important sights around London. Dot took lots and lots and lots of pictures of all the sights. We really should have started our time in London with this tour, would have helped us get our bearings a little. Oh well. After the tour we picked up some lunch to go and made our way to the boat dock for a short trip down the Thames. It was included in our bus ticket so figured we might as well. It was a pretty lame boat trip that lasted all of 15 minutes, but it did take us to the Tower of London. We decided against going in because of the price, but got some good pictures from the outside.

Then Dot needed some down time, so we hopped on the tube and found a park and lay down and enjoyed some relaxation and sunrays. It was nice to just relax. We then had some dinner and met up for our old pubs tour. It was….ok. I felt like we learned some very odd history that I have already forgotten about. We did get to see some interesting old pubs like Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese and the Sweeny Todd pub. The highlight of the tour was Dot getting herself a nice half pint of Guinness, which to her was tasty. It was a full day of touring around.

Day 17: Royal Walk, Changing of the Guard

We had some plans, but got switched because we wanted to go see the changing of the guard with a guide along with a tour around the Royal parts of London. So we did a Westminster walk tour that really helped us learn more about those Royal parts. It was great to add on more to what we had already seen. We got to see the new guard as they gathered to start their 24-hour shift. We saw them march on to Buckingham Palace, but it was so packed on a random Wednesday in April we couldn’t see much after that. Really was quite a scene though, Britain plays up that pomp and circumstance. Got to then hear some fun stories about why there are no potted flowers in one of the parks (couldn’t remember why now). Overall good tour learning about stuff that I knew absolutely nothing about.

Next up we went to the science museum, mainly because they had a fun sounding interactive theater where you experience the Apollo missions. I thought this would be awesome, but weirdly one of the areas was closed so we had to walk up 4 floors and back down to get to the theater that we bought tickets for. Then not 5 minutes later we hear over the speakers “Please evacuate at the nearest exit.” That was strange. They evacuated everyone. After a long wait and no real idea what had happened it was reopened and we exchanged our tickets for the next day. When that excitement was over we went back to home base to do some laundry and pack up the best we could for our last day overseas.

Day 18 & 19: Last Days in England (For now)

A sad day. The last full day in Europe. We are ready to leave London and this tiny place we call a “home,” but not ready to go back to work and responsibilities. It sure would be fun to get paid to travel in Europe and write about our experiences. Not in God’s plans right now, plus I was a science major, not an English major, writing doesn’t come easy.

Went back to the science museum to ride the Apollo simulation. It was kind of lame, thought it would be a lot better. We then did something called the Butterfly Experience, Dots dream. It was a tent full of butterflies flying around us. Dot always wanted to have a butterfly land on her hand, unfortunately it didn’t happen, but it was still really fun. Then back to the British museum to check out some things that we missed, but really it was all leading up to a big last night of seeing Les Miserables!

Something on my bucket list was to see it in London. WOW! Just WOW! Such an unbelievable performance, everyone that gets into London should do his or her best to make time to see it. Great end to an amazing trip.

Next day we grabbed all our stuff and rode the tube to the airport. Saw The Doctor, Matt Smith, there which was surreal. Other that fun thing it was a normal airport experience. Watched 4 ½ movies on our way back and ready to be off the plane at the end. Such a fun experience. Excited to get back!

 

This day started out really hard for me. It was one of those days when nothing was going right. It was incredibly hot in our flat and I kept dropping stuff and hitting my head and other body parts on everything in the tiny thing we were staying in. I just felt trapped in this tiny place and felt like we lingered in the morning and it didn’t feel very good. London felt confined, too many people, no one caring about anything but themselves. I wanted out and really wanted to be back in Germany. I wanted out so bad that as we left that morning we were seriously contemplating hopping on a train or plane to Dublin for the day. It was a hard start to the day, but things got better.

Off we went to explore some more things. The first stop on the journey was Kings Cross because we had to see platform 9 ¾!! After that we went to the British Library to see some of the most famous things on paper. It was very fascinating seeing all the really old bibles. Some pages were there that even dated back to the 1^st Century. Also there was the Magna Carta, some original Beatles lyrics and some original stuff from famous authors like Ian Fleming, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. My favorite part was seeing part of Leonardo Da Vinci’s notebook and an original Gutenberg Bible. After that and after looking up logistics for getting out, we nixed the Dublin idea and decided to go see a musical that night instead. So after some lunch we went and bought some tickets to Charlie and the Chocolate factory.

Before that though we went on a tour of the huge and amazing British Museum, again, so much history in one place. We took lots of picture of the great things we saw. It was totally worth it to pay a guide to take us around because we would have easily gotten lost or not understood the significance of things. Items from Ancient Greece, Egypt and Mesopotamia really stood out. Too much to describe in words! Crazy how skilled these people were using chisels to design amazing realistic figures!

Then it was off to theater for some fun and time away from our tiny living situation. I was worried that the musical would be too young for us or too much like the movie or book, but I WAS WRONG! Such an amazing show! Everyone in it did such a great job. Charlie and Wonka stood out to us for their performances. Which makes sense; they are the leads in the play. The one thing that I did notice is that everyone up on the stage looked like they were having the time of their lives. From the kids to the older actors, they were having fun! You couldn’t tell whether they had done this every night for knows how long; they just loved what they were doing! This got me thinking, if this is amazing, how good is Les Miserables going to be in a couple days!

Getting out of the flat helped, but we needed to keep doing the same to prevent the feeling of being crushed.

We had been in London for almost 2 full days and haven’t really seen any of the major sights, so that is what we did to start the day. The tube is easy enough, but you can tell it is the clearly the best option for commuters too because it gets packed. We had our kindle ready to learn lots of information, then we realized there was an audio version of the tour, but it just wouldn’t download, oh well. This meant I got to be the tour guide as we explored some of the most famous parts of London. Stuff like Big ben, Westminster abbey, Whitehall road, the Prime Minsters home, Trafalgar square, really all the big things on the main road.

During our walk we took a detour to Churchill’s War Rooms. That is such a cool place, especially for any history buffs. Full of amazing little things about what was going on during the bombings of London and a little museum just about Churchill’s life. Check it out if you are in London!!

After a full morning of walking it was time for lunch, so we found a pub…for some grub.

Chandos was a great recommendation from Mr. Steves. Great to finally get that British beer and complete the beer in every country I have been to. The fish and chips were so good, but the best part was the sticky toffee pudding. IT WAS AMAZING!! WE will definitely need to figure out how to make this at home (we did, it was good, but not as good as the pub made it).

After lunch was the National Gallery full of some amazing art. Even though I am not a huge fan of art, it was really amazing. We even saw paintings from 3 out of the 4 ninja turtles, no Donatello though. Took some pictures of our favorites and it is hard to describe the awesomeness. Our favorite was a Da Vinci that wasn’t even finished because he didn’t like how it was coming out. Yeah ok dude, its awesome (check it out above). They even had a room that my wife almost died in because she loves Monet and they had some up. She has always wanted to see a Monet in person!

Dinner was next on the list and we had some delicious Indian food. Had to be some of the richest tikka masala I ever had. Nice simple day of sight seeing.

 

The day was finally here!!!! I finally get to see a Fulham game at Craven Cottage! The morning consisted of super exciting tasks like laundry and making breakfast. This was ok though because the only thing planned for today was the game. We enjoyed the park on the way into the game and even sat down and relaxed for a little bit. I was anything but relaxed though. I for some reason felt nervous, just like the day before. I think again it was me worrying about how fans would react to us being Americans.

Getting into the stadium was easy enough. It is definitely an old stadium made for much smaller people than I am. But when we walked up the stairs and came out of the tunnel it was a beautiful sight. The grass was so green! There was barely anyone in the stand yet so you could see the writing on the seats around the stadium. It was awesome! I was just so happy to be there, you couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. I think with Fulham having won the previous two games it helped the mood around the ground.

As the first half kicked off you could feel the excitement. Definitely a different crowd then at our American sporting events. Very few people wore team gear. It was more like they came in their normal clothes, whereas Americans go over the top with what they wear to most games. I thought it was a really fun first half. Even better was seeing young American Emerson Hyndman (no longer at Fulham) get the start and I thought he played really well. Unfortunately though the other team (Cardiff) scored with not much time left in the half. The goal deflated the crowd a little bit, but I thought we had some bright spots. At the end of the half I made my prediction to my wife, “We are going to score 2 and they won’t score at all.”

The 2^nd half started with a bang as we got a goal right out the gates. Good ol’ Scotty Parker with the goal, funny enough now Fulham’s manager. What a feeling being able to celebrate a goal with the home fans. Normally I have to be pretty subdued and quiet as I lie in bed in watching or listening to the game early in the morning in California. The joy and excitement the goal brought really brought the crowd back into the game. This made the 2^nd half all that more fun! Then came the ultimate awesome moment. After a couple of missed chances the game was winding down when McCormack had a shot deflected just over the goal. The subsequent corner saw some great hustle, two great passes and pure joy from all over the stadium as that Young American Emerson Hyndman put the winner into the new!! IT WAS AMAZING!!! The perfect game to go to, I really couldn’t believe it!!

WHAT A GAME!!! SO MUCH FUN!! Dot even enjoyed it quite a bit Even on the walk and ride home I couldn’t believe what we just saw. I will always remember that game!! I don’t know when we will get back for another game, but I doubt we will be able to top that.

Nice ride back and enjoyed some delicious pizza for dinner to top off a wonderful day. Has to be one of my favorite days on the trip. I’m so glad it went so well! It would still have been fun if we had lost, but this was just such a perfect first experience at Craven Cottage.

Our last day on the high speed rails, nothing really new about this one. Riding the Eurostar back the other direction. Got to have some more waffles in Belgium and a lot shorter line through security. Excited to get in to London and to some cooler weather and to get away from the smelly French people we sat next to. We got into London a little early and found the tourist info center to buy our oyster cards, 38 pounds for unlimited travel for a week, sign me up!! Then we had to figure out how the heck to get where we were staying, it didn’t take too long, thankfully. This meant we were a little too early at the place we were staying at. Luckily there were couches to hang out on, also the guy that was giving us the key was there early too! We then went up to our London home for the week. It was small, really small, but it was about the same size as our hotel rooms and it was ½ the price of the cheapest hotel and it was a washer/dryer. Weirdly though for us Americans, the washer/dryer was one unit and it was located in the kitchen. Though I wouldn’t really call it a dryer, didn’t dry stuff too well.

After we got settled in we took a quick trip to Fulham’s stadium. This was very helpful so that we could know where we were going to go on game day. The walk from the station along the Thames is really quite nice. There is a really nice park right next to the stadium as well. Such a cool place to have a stadium, different than most American stadiums. I spent the time not believing that I was actually there, it was so surreal. Even going into the stadium store I was for some reason really nervous, like I didn’t belong there, like I was an imposter. Either way I was exited to get my kit, 70% too! Again just so crazy and excited is an understatement for the game tomorrow.

Glad we got to walk out there, after doing that we just had to figure out dinner and it was easy enough as there are lots of places really close by where we stayed. The easy choice was some Indian food.

Went to bed thinking the night was over, but we were in for a surprise. At about 1:30am the fire alarm decided to go off. We assumed it was something in our room and started fanning the smoke alarm because there wasn’t a fire in our room. We then figured out it was a building wide alarm going off. So we rushed to put on clothes, grabbed our essentials and left in a hurry. We even added a French friend that joined us down the stairs trying to figure out what had happened. As we got down to the front desk the alarm had stopped and the front desk guy was panicking a little as he was dealing with drunks and other people asking what was going on. Turns out it was a false alarm, thankfully.

When we got to Cologne we had used our Rail passes for the last time. It was one of the smartest purchases we made. Being able to just jump on any train allowed us extreme flexibility in our trip. Not only would we hop on any train on the days we used the pass, but 1^st class was very nice. It was helpful because we were for the most part one of the only people in the compartment. This allowed some breathing space from loud people and lots of space to stretch out. We also got to see so much more of the countries out of our windows. Rail travel was also great for someone like me who doesn’t love plane travel and airports. When we travel like this again we will definitely have to buy a rail pass again.

Sure enough, we leave on our next trip in 5 days and our rail passes are ready for us to travel all over western Europe again!

Trains>>>Planes

Our last full day in Germany. Started with our first really good breakfast since Salzburg. We then got on the Rhine boat and for the first time on our trip it was really quite cold, but that didn’t stop us from enjoying the Rhine from the top of the boat! It was worth it because it was so beautiful. There are vineyards all over, beautiful hills, picturesque little German towns and the Siren Loreley (spelled Lorelei in English version and the name of our little girl, though we didn’t know it at the time) watching over the tricky part of the river. Castles littering the hillsides giving us a reminder of what used to be here. We also got our first rain of the trip, but that soon went away and the sun came right back out. The ride flew by and the next thing we knew we were at the dock disembarking.

Luckily we made an early train back down to Mainz so we had over an hour for some food. The only real food stop at the train station was….a McDonald’s. We were trying not to eat at any American fast food chains, but this was really our only choice. It wasn’t bad; it was nice to have a little taste of home.

Then we were off to Cologne for the rest of the day and night. As soon as you walk out of the cologne train station you see Cologne’s famous Giant Cathedral. This thing is huge and it looks really old, but its actually not. Cologne decimated by bombing during World War II, just like most of Germany, and that destroyed most of the older parts of the city.

After checking in to our hotel we went on a nice walk around the city. First things first though, had to find a way to charge our camera (left the cord in Munich…oops). Luckily that was easy enough, found a camera store that had a universal battery charger and we were in business. Then after succeeding at finding the camera charger we toured around the city. Cologne has quite a lot of fun interesting points to check out. Included in this are the lock bridge, a roman museum built around an old roman floor and my wife’s favorite, a chocolate museum. We hit all the sights.

Side note in all of this, Rick Steve’s self guided tours from his books have been a great way for us to explore a place we are only in for a short amount of time.

When we finished walking around we found a Thai Restaurant to eat at. It was surprisingly really good, you wouldn’t think a Thai place in Germany would be, but it was great. Good food, good local Kölsch beer, happy Dot and Ryan. We headed back to our room after this because there was a fitness conference or expo and people from it were everywhere. Off to sleep for us in last night in Germany.

We are now officially over the half way point of our trip. This makes me a little bit sad, wish this trip could go on even longer. It has been so much fun exploring with the love of my life. Trains were nice and easy today; we are really getting the hang of it. Though it is very interesting how different riding the high speed vs. the little train we took to our final destination for the day, St. Goar. Also, 1^st class is just a couple of seats worth, compared to the whole cars worth on the high-speed trains. It was a beautiful train ride as we got our first glimpses of the Rhine valley.

We felt incredibly welcomed at our hotel, Rheinhotel St. Goar, the owner greeted us and told us the best places to eat in town and a couple of things we could do. We enjoyed some pizza and then decided to hike up to the biggest castle/fortress on the Rhine River. After eating some pizza it was a tough uphill hike, but the views made it all worth it. The castle was really cool and used to be a huge fortress that protected a very important point on the Rhine. In its prime it could sustain life for 4000 people for 6 months if the came under siege. And this happened many times over the centuries until the French finally took it over and destroyed it during Napoleon’s conquest of Europe. It was so much better for us to enjoy than the residence, except when Dot (my wife) got scared of going into the semi-dark places. To be fair it was pretty creepy in certain parts.

After our fortress adventure we went to the town over, Bacharach. We had heard it was a fun town to check out, but it wasn’t at all. We were there during the shoulder season and the town felt like a ghost town. It was like we were the only ones there, so we made our way back to the train and back to our home base of St Goar. Dinner in St Goar was great, good quality German food in a pretty empty restaurant. Our evening finished sitting on our balcony and looking out at the Rhine. Looking out we could see another castle across the river. It was a great end to a fun day.

Today was a day of resting. A day to relax and not do too much or worry about a list of things that we had to go see. By this point we had seen most of the important sights, eaten the food and drank the beer. So we went to the last couple of spots we hadn’t been, The Residence and the English Garden.

The Residence is where the Wittelsbach family lived for many centuries. Well, the treasury was kind of cool, some really old heirlooms and some cool historical items. But the residence itself……..meh, left a lot to be desired for us. The first couple of rooms were fun, a courtyard with a statue made of shells called a gratto and fountains that used to have red wine flowing through them. Then the festival hall with cool paintings of the towns of Bavaria a long time ago. But after these two rooms it went downhill, at least for us. The next room was filled with portraits of all who lived there and ruled Bavaria. Gold laced everywhere and felt so over the top. As we continued through it, it just kept feel stuffier and stuffier. UGH. For some this might have ben a really cool place, but for us, we just weren’t feeling it on a humid day in Munich.

After we raced out of there, we took a quick train up to check out the English Garden. It is a giant park full of lots of cool things. There were lots of people playing in the fields and bikers all over in the big smooth bike paths. The walk in was like walking into a small forest and it didn’t take long to find our destination, the Chinese Tower. It is a big beer garden with a Chinese style tower nearby. In it you take your tray around to different windows in a way that reminded me of ski resorts. It was a great to finally get a bratwurst! And it was very yummy. The thing that let us down was the radler we bought. It must have been bottom of the barrel, and it came from a barrel, it was warm and tasted blah.

After lunch, we ticked off an item on my bucket list and rode the train up to Bayern Munich’s stadium. It was a quick train ride and fun to see; especially on a day they had a champions league game. Unfortunately, tickets were crazy expensive and we had to get up early in the morning, so we couldn’t go. After that quick jaunt we were on our way back to the center of town and to Hacker-Pschor.

When we arrived in the center of town we were welcomed with a crazy surprise. It was PACKED with fußball (soccer) fans from both teams. It felt like a madhouse. Especially since it was fans from both teams there, we then quickly made our exit to the restaurant. What a cool place!! One of the first things that we got to see was them changing out the barrel of beer. A very cool experience! The food was super good, beer was amazing and it wasn’t too crowded. I even got a beer that was from a freshly tapped barrel!

After enjoying our last day in Munich we took our last ride on the U-Bahn and hunkered down for the night and avoided the crazy soccer fans. Yet somehow we couldn’t find the game on the TV, oh well.

After some nice relaxation sitting at the “San Francisco Caffe Company,” we were off to Beer Tour #2. This beer tour was going to be better though, first because neither of currently had food poising and second because it was more about how the beer is made and less history of Oktoberfest.

Again we had an awesome Irish tour guide for our tour. Liam was super friendly and very funny. Even sharing some stories with us about his first day in Germany. He was staying with his wife’s family and he heard a truck backing up to the house, it was the beer delivery guy. Ha! So great.

And man oh man, when you aren’t sick that beer is so tasty! We stopped at a beer garden first for a beer and then off to the brewery that is in the middle of the city, Paulaner. The best part about that was we got to see how they brewed their beer and found out that beer brewed there is not shipped anywhere. The beer that they brewed there is only for that single restaurant, usually just above the brewery. You really could taste how fresh it was. There we also learned a little bit of how they make the beer and they still stick to the purity laws.

After that it was off to the most famous of all the beer halls, the Hofbräuhaus. The atmosphere in there is pretty hectic. It was good that we went on a Monday night. Much less crazy than it coud have been. A liter of beer sure is a lot, and it took me a good hour to drink all of it. Food there was ok, but really we had great company. We had some real nice and fun people in our tour group. Including a French Canadian who was traveling Europe by himself. He admitted while we were there and I quote in very french sounding english “The more of my beer that I drink, the worse my english is getting.” I thought that was hilarious! Really great tour and just a really fun time!