And finally - Monday 13 June

With hindsight, it may have been fortunate that we arrived in Melbourne before the volcanic ash cloud, even though from what I can glean from the internet, it doesn’t appear to have affected Thai’s flights.

On past trips we have sometimes hired a car, but there was no need this time, and I’m very glad we didn’t (traffic, parking etc).   Trains and buses worked well for us, but we stayed in cities and towns.   My impression is that if you hire a villa in Tuscany, you would need a car as these the villas are generally in rural areas.   Of course, it would have been nice if our bags had have been lighter (especially on the trains, the buses are less of an issue because the bags are stored underneath).  But it’s hard to manage with less, when you’re away for nearly 4 weeks!

I was pleased with the 28 Degrees Mastercard.  It provides very competitive exchange rates and no fees on transactions, including none on cash withdrawals (at least when used at Westpac Global Alliance ATMs).

The el-cheapo netbook that I used on the trip, while not perfect, was adequate.

Jetlag is still troubling me, 2 days after arriving home, even though we broke our return trip with 2 nights in Bangkok.  But hopefully I'm over the worst of it now.

Back in Melbourne - Saturday 11 June

Well, it's nice to travel, but it's also nice to arrive back home - to be able to unpack knowing that you don't have to pack it all in the suitcase in a couple of days time, to change into something different instead of the same old clothes, and just to switch off completely without having to worry about going out or otherwise organising the next meal!
The flight back was uneventful, and touched down a few minutes early, and we were out of the airport in about 20 minutes.    Angela very kindly picked us up (once again, thanks, Ang!).
I hope to be able to post a few reflections on  what we did and how we did it, but it may not be for a day or so, so stay in touch!

Getting ready to depart from Bangkok – Friday 10 June

I read in today's Bangkok Post that there has been an unseasonably early onset of heavy rain this year, hence last night's rain. It also influenced our movements today. We couldn't arrange for a late checkout today, so we had to check out by noon. When we told the baggage guy at the hotel that we would be back to collect them at 6 pm, as we were leaving our bags with him, he mentioned that journey times to the airport at that time on a wet Friday night could be horrendous - there had been cases of it being as long as 3 hours, assuming that you could even get a taxi. So we occupied ourselves for a while on Sukhumvit Road (including some attention to Sue's nails!), but at about 4 pm, the sky wasn't looking good and there were drops of rain. Hence, we decided that rather than spend more time and money sipping coffee in town, we'd cut and run for the airport (even though we had plenty of time). A taxi was readily obtained, an acceptable fare was negotiated (not strictly necessary, but probably meant the driver didn't have to split the metered fare with the cab owner?), then after nearly 45 minutes while the taxi negotiated less than 3 km to get on to the expressway (mostly sitting in stationary traffic) and a further 30 minutes or so on a congested (but moving) expressly, we were at the airport. We can well believe the horror stories about much longer travel times at worse times. Out of interest, I noticed that the cab driver immediately picked up a fare at the drop off zone at the airport (thus avoiding, I suppose, the 50 baht fee charged by the airport and, I assume, a long wait). So hopefully it was a good day for him, and made up for the many hours that cabs seem to sit outside the hotel. Check in at Thai business class took about 2 minutes, and from checkin, you go straight to a dedicated “fast track” immigration and security chanel, and then straight down the escalator to the lounge. Thus within a few minutes of arriving at the airport we were in the lounge, asking about the absence of wine. Everything else is available (except, strangely, peanuts), but the wine only appears at 6 pm (it now being after that time, I can report that the red is an acceptable Lindemans). This is an improvement on the satellite lounge that we ended up in on the way over, where wine didn't turn up at all. The upshot is that we have several hours to wait for our flight, but it beats spending the time stuck in traffic and we are being fed and watered. And, of course, Sue has some important duty free shopping to do, and isn't being rushed!

People watching in Soi 8 – Thursday 9 June

Shortly after posting the above post, the rain indeed started. There wasn't much of a storm, only a little lightning, but the rain was solid. It is now easing off, about 4 hours later, but in the meantime we wanted to eat. For the sake of an easy (dry?) life, we stayed close to our accommodation, on the patio of a pub-type of establishment (a New Zealander seemed to be in charge). We were able to observe the comings and goings in the street, ranging from the Westerners (EDIT - male, that is) who made up a significant proportion of the restaurant's clientele, and their drinking/dining companions – frequently Thai! - through to the street vendors continued to operate, notwithstanding the rain (using umbrellas etc). The motor cycle boys who generally provide local transport up and down the street were largely replaced by a couple of tuk tuks who passed and re-passed and the massage parlour over the road had a variety of customers (and would-be customers) – including Sue, after dinner, for a back massage (she was happy with it). I explored the local area, which has a great variety of accommodation, ranging from a number of cheap to mid-range hotels (as well as ours), plus some high rise apartments further down the street. I wondered if these are to some extent inhabited by Westerners, given that we saw a number of big 4 wheel drives in the street (quite different from most other vehicles that you see).

We leave tomorrow night for home. I asked about a late checkout, but was told the place is fully-booked, so we will check out by noon and occupy ourselves before returning for our baggage and heading to the airport.

Bangkok Thursday 9 June

We both had a bit of jet lag last night. I know that jet lag hits hardest when you fly from the west towards the east, but why is it that its effect is that you want to go to sleep earlier and you wake up earlier? This seems to be the opposite to what you'd expect, but it resulted us both being wide awake at 4 am. However, we eventually got back to sleep and then only woke up just in time to check out the comprehensive buffet breakfast!

Added - Grand Temple

That done, we made for the Grand Temple and associated temples. It took a while for the taxi to battle through the late morning traffic (but at least the traffic moved, compared with later in the afternoon when we were in the skytrain and it was completely gridlocked). The first main temple you see is the Royal Monastery of the Emerald Buddha, and its associated terraces and other halls, galleries and structures. These are all extremely lavish and the handout you receive explains their significance and history. You then see (from the outside) the Borum Phiman mansion (used in the past occasionally as a royal residence and now used as a state guest house), followed by the Chakri Maha Prasat Hall (which contains a throne room and now used for purposes such as the reception of foreign ambassadors). You can then enter the Dusit Maha Prasat Throne Hall, used as lying-in-state place for royalty. Finally, there's an interesting museum. All in all, it's pretty impressive, and there's lots to see, although (perhaps understandably) you can't enter a number of the buildings.

Following this,  we thought we deserved some airconditioning, so we headed for the multi-storied MBK shopping complex. I spent a few minutes on one of the external pedestrian bridges. But then everyone was cleared off the main bridge and looking down, the street below was also completely clear – an amazing sight for Bangkok. The reason became clear when a convoy of official cars came along – apparently the Queen was going somewhere.

Back in the hotel, there seem to be some dark clouds brewing. It's coming to the end of the hot season and the wet season is due to start sometime soon. Perhaps we're in for a storm.!

Arrival in Bangkok Wednesday 8 June

The flight from Zurich was long but uneventful, with arrival in Bangkok delayed a few minutes because of a thunderstorm in the area. I had read up on the taxi arrangements in Bangkok, whereby the dispatch desk is supposed to allocate you to a cab and tell the driver where you want to go (since most drivers have little or no English). All very well, but just outside the airport, the driver stopped and wanted clarification as to where we were going! Not his fault, but just as well I had printed the hotel's instructions (in Thai) from the internet. But I was prepared for his question as to whether to use the toll road, and I knew that I had to give him the money to pay the toll. So all worked out well, and we were drinking the welcome tea at the hotel within 90 minutes of landing, notwithstanding an afternoon traffic jam on Sukhumvit Road. The room has cooking facilities, but since breakfast is included in the rate, perhaps we don't need these after all. We're staying in Soi 8, near the top of Sukhumvit Road. This isn't an area that I was previously familiar with but I thought the fact that the Westin and Sheraton Grand (amongst others) are nearby was a positive. There is Robinsons department store but otherwise the area has many, many street stalls, restaurants (of all descriptions), made-to-measure suit shops etc, and so is certainly vibrant and full of activity, but it doesn't have a lot of mid to up market shopping arcades etc. However, the Skytrain runs down the street, so it will be easy to get around.

After a short look around, we had dinner at an Indian restaurant. After we had ordered, we were a little apprehensive but all doubts were dispelled when the food arrived – it was great. Sue showed them her card in Thai requesting no MSG, and the waiter readily understood and said that they didn't use it. We even had sweets, which were also terrific.

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Zurich in transit 7 June

We checked out of our accommodation this morning and headed to Potsdam. One of the nearby S-bahn routes went directly to Potsdam, taking about 45 minutes. Although Potsdam has a great deal of hisotry, it was not as I imagined it. Certainly it's a historic garrison town, but the sights are spread over quite an area. There were a couple of hop-on/hop-off tours, so we elected to use one of these. If I'd known at the time, we could have used our Berlin ABC zone ticket, but on reflection, that would have required a greater knowledge of the local Potsdam bus and tram routes than I had. Anyway, the tour bus showed us a number of the main sights, including several former garrison buildings that now have different uses (some are apartments, some are schools, some are government institutions). The main schloss that we would have liked to visit was the Neues Palace, but apparently it's partly used by the university and the bit that is a museum is closed on Tuesdays! However, we were able to tour the Orangeriescholss, which was the most recent major chateau to be built (1860s). There was a sweeping view from the tower, and the rooms open for inspection (as designed by Frederick IV) were most ornate. Pity he died before it was completed. There were only 4 of us on the tour. The guide explained that the tour was usually in German, and English speakers had a card to refer to. However, she also spoke very good English, and as the other couple were Italian (which she didn't speak), we had the tour in English! We had a bit of a look at the Sans Soucci park, which is very large and is a mixture of some formal gardens and quite a lot of unkempt areas.  We also saw (from the outside) the Schloss Sanssoucci, the historic mill etc.

 

 

The tour bus finished its round in town, and as we would have had to wait for it to continue back to the station, we decided to walk. Potsdam iitself is actually quite a cute town, with a pedestrian mall. Thence by S-bahn to pick up our bags, and taxi to the Tegel airport through quite heavy late afternoon traffic. I know, we could have caught the direct bus to the airport (the stop was only a couple of hundred metres from our accommodation), but we decided that we're “over” wheeling our baggage around the streets for the time being (although plenty of people do that wherever we go, especially in Berlin). Tegel is quite a cramped airport, but we survived in the Lufthansa lounge, and now we're waiting in the lounge at Zurich for the Bangkok flight.

Last night in Berlin – Monday 6 June

After spending a lot of the day in the Bode-Museum, we headed off to Friedrich str, to check out the shops there and Checkpoint Charlie. Sue tells me that she hasn't had much luck finding things of interest, and that she's “over” shopping. Hmmmm, I wonder how long that will last. It doesn't take long to take a couple of photos at Checkpoint Charlie. We didn't think it necessary to look at the museum there – Lonely Planet is (at best) only polite about it, and apparently it's relatively expensive. We also had a nice meal in the area, during which there was quite a heavy storm.

We check out tomorrow morning, before our evening flight to Zurich then on to Bangkok. After we store our bags, we're planning to head out to Potsdam for the day. However, it may be a couple of days before I get back on to the internet.

The Bode-Museum Monday 6 June

Added - Mosaics

There are 5 museums on Museum Island (only a couple of minutes from our accommodation), so it wasn't easy to decide which to visit today. We eventually opted for the Bode-Museum, because it included Byzantine art, as well as an extensive sculpture and collections. The building itself is quite beautiful and we ended up spending over 4 hours there (in an uncrowded atmosphere). The Byzantine collection was not as extensive as we had hoped, but what was there was impressive. It included a whole mosaic from Ravenna (a place that we would have liked to visit but it was so far out of the way that it was impossible). There were sculptures and carvings from various eras, including interestingly to Coptic period in Egypt (up to the 7^th century). There was a lot of Gothic, Baroque and Renaissance work, mostly sculptures but also including some artworks. These came from most of the main European countries, including Italy (going to some extent to remedy our omission to visit the Uffizi!) and of course Germany.

Added - altarpieces  in Bode

Added - entrance foyer in Bode

Oranierburger str - Sunday evening 5 June

We had dinner tonight not far from our accommodation, in Oranierburger str. Hmmm, an “interesting” area. A variety of vibrant eating and drinking places, and other activities on the street too (think King's Cross). After a nice meal, we walked the length of the street, taking in the “scene”. Once was enough – we caught the tram that runs along the street back.

In the meantime, there are a few other topics in relation to which I have had some thoughts. One is the price of wine. There's plenty of perfectly adequate wine here for around €2.99 to €3.99, and you can get bottles of drinkable wine for €1.99 (yes, someone had to taste test it, so we have undertaken that tough task!). Makes you wonder about Australian wine prices (or is my sense of taste so dulled that I can't appreciate that although we pay more, we get better quality in Australia?).

Another issue is tipping. I've followed the guidebook advice and in general merely rounded up bills (sometimes by only a few cents). Invariably, I have been nicely thanked. Seems that this is all that is expected.

The attitude to former East Germany and the Berlin Wall has interested me. I am conscious that my perception has been through a very narrow lens, but it does seem to me that the city is making the most of the former wall as a tourist attraction. I guess this is inevitable, given the unique nature of the wall. But there seems to be a bit of a self righteous tone (EDIT - for example at the displays at Checkpoint Charlie and in the DDR Museum), and I have on occasion wondered whether there is anyone around today (except for Angela Merkel) who actually owns up to having lived in the former DDR? Since the wall came down over 20 years ago, I suppose anyone under about 30 wouldn't have any real experience of the DDR.

Euro copper coins - what does one do with the collection of 1, 2 and 5 cent copper Euro coins that we accumulate? I can get rid of the 10 and 20 cent coins into ticket vending machines, but the copper coins baffle me. I know this is also an issue in the US, but we don't miss copper coins in Australia, and we're questioning whether we need 5 cent coins. One consequence of having so many small coins is that payment at the supermarket checkout is often slow, while customers look for a few copper coins to round off their payment (and avoid getting another handful of copper).

Berlin Sunday 5 June

I've now added this picture of the Serbian Church

After checking out how to get there yesterday, we had no difficulty getting to the Serbian Orthodox church. We can't decide whether it's in the Wedding or the Prenzlauer Berg district, but it's in the former East Berlin. I suspect that the building may be a former Lutheran church. The singing/chanting during the service was very impressive, and afterwards we were made most welcome over coffee/cakes/sparkling wine/beer (we declined the latter). Needless to say, there was some political discussion (so Sue tells me, since it was all in Serbian), but at a fairly general level (and basically similar views were expressed on both sides).

Sue then engaged in some retail therapy in and around KaDeWe, but Tiffany, Gucci, Chanel and the other designer names missed out as Sue only made limited purchases (including a massage ball for the soles of her feet, after all the walking). Meantime, I went off to Miniatur Welten Berlin. I didn't know this existed, but Sue found it in Lonely Planet, which says that this claims to be the world's largest model railway. I had previously thought this title belonged to a model railway in Hamburg, and I had originally planned to go up to Hamburg to see it. However, the need to go to Hamburg was eliminated if all I had to do was to go to Alexanderplatz, which I did, and I was indeed “wowed”.

Added:   model of Zoo station, Berlin

 All the stations are modelled on actual German stations (including several of the Berlin stations), the trains authentically represent U-bahn, S-bahn, regional and ICE trains, plus lots of freight trains, there are trams, a Luna Park, a military establishment (complete with marching band music), a power station, and an airport. At the airport, planes land and take off, the departure board which you can see inside the terminal changes as flights depart and much, much more. The trains don't just go around in circles, either. There's at least one major junction where trains merge and cross over, and operate in alternate directions over the same track. And the whole parliamentary district is there, including the Brandenburg gate, the Bundestag building, the parliamentary offices, the Victory monument and so many other things. I spent hours there, and still didn't absorb it all!

One issue that I have been meaning to comment on is the use of bikes. Bikes are very common in the cities where we've been. But the bikes themselves are often old clunkers (EDIT - did I say "old"?    No, many of them are quite new, but they are still "clunkers"), helmets aren't required and no-one wears lycra around the cities. So little old ladies and mature gentlemen are just as at home on a bike as anyone else. And speeds are (usually) sedate. Perhaps in return for this, bikes seem to be allowed everywhere, on footpaths, through pedestrian filled plazas, up the wrong way on one-way streets! I realise that no-one in Melbourne has made it compulsory to wear lycra, but if we really are to introduce a bike culture into our cities (as some would wish), then many of us would find it less intimidating if lycra (EDIT - and the associated requirements of performance bikes travelling at high speed) wasn't as prevalent in everyday use.

Today around the Zoologischer Garten area a number of the major streets were closed, and given over to bikes! Masses of bikes, many carrying green balloons. But all ridden at quite sedate speeds and no lycra to be seen. Pedestrians, however, tended to come off 2^nd best – it was very hard to cross the streets!

And for my “it can only happen in Germany” story: there was a ticket inspector on the train today (pretty casually dressed, but he had some sort of ID card and other people were showing him their tickets). But I got into trouble, there was something wrong with my ticket! Seems that seniors travel today was either free or at a discount rate, and I had a full fare ticket. I count myself lucky that I wasn't fined for paying too much for my ticket!

Berlin Saturday 4 June

After I checked the location of the Serbian church to make sure that we can get there tomorrow, we explored nearby Alexanderplatz. It's perhaps not one of the world's most visually attractive spaces, but Sue was pleased to discover that there are a couple of department stores there! We also took an interlude on one of the city sightseeing tours. These are not my favourite activity, but this one wasn't too bad. Although it covered a number of places that we had already visited, the commentary added to our understanding. It also covered a few locations that remain on our to-do list, but gave us a preview of what we might encounter. In particular, the KaDeWe store is apparently definitely on Sue's shortlist!

Hackescher Markt area - Friday evening 3 June

Well, I thought I was through for blogging for today, and that we'd go out to eat at one of the very many eateries in the Hackescher Markt area where we're staying. That was until Sue turned the TV on, and found that the Federer/Djokovic semi-final in the French Open was on, with Djokovic just on the verge of winning the 3^rd set and proceeding to an engrossing 4^th set which unfortunately ended in him losing in a tie breaker. That certainly ended any prospect of going anywhere for a while. So we ate bread, cheese and other nibbles which we'd accumulated and drank red wine, while Sue provided emotional support for Djokovic and I put some more thoughts down!

The Hackescher Markt area has been described as recently undergone a revival, and certainly there's lots of life around. However, it isn't far away from the areas described in Lonely Planet as including some derelict industrial areas, and certainly within a couple of blocks from where we are (and in the vicinity of the local supermarket) there are quite a lot of “alternative” types of people.

After the tennis finished we went for a walk in the immediate vicinity. There were lots of people out and about, drinking and people watching, but there were also some dark lanes!

First day in Berlin - Friday 3 June 2011

We've never been to Berlin before (obviously the reason we are here is to tick it off the list!), so what do you do the first time you are here? Attend a service at the Dom, walk the length of Unter den Linden, check out the Bugati car showroom in Friedrichstrasse (sorry Cath and Kev, too big to fit a couple in the baggage), observe the tourists (including us) gawking at Brandenburg Gate and look at the Bundestag, of course. In between, we had lunch at a restaurant where you enter your menu choices directly on a computer screen and got lost at the Hauptbahnhoff (there are at least 3 levels of trains, and a few additional concourses for passengers). Other achievements included Sue finding almonds (don't the Italians eat almonds? We could never find any).

A word about the Dom. It's a most impressive building, both outside and inside. We, along with many others, paid the fee to enter and were admiring it all, including the statue of Martin Luther and the immense organ, when an announcement was made. Everyone sat down, no-one else was admitted, and a short service occurred. It included an organ prelude, hymn (no-one sang, but they made up for it by joining in the Lord's Prayer) and organ postlude – all clearly designed to show the versatility and abilities of the organ. It was almost as good as Armadale UC's. The service included what the order of service described as a homily. Unfortunately this was in German, and we ony found out later that a simultaneous translation was available if you sat in an appropriate area. Since yesterday was Ascension Day (taken very seriously in Germany and we understand from Sabine and Sam, also in Austria, in that it's a public holiday), perhaps we missed something important.

And after we'd done all that, we headed out again, and visited the DDR museum – a compact but interesting museum about life in the former East Germany. Although it made some good points about the repressive nature of the regime, I thought it was a little critical about aspects of the standard of living. Perhaps I'm just showing my age, but I identified with many of the points made in relation to the way of daily life as being similar to Australia in the 1950s! I admit, however, that Australia had moved on, or at least changed, by the 1980s. Following this museum, we went on a 1 hour river cruise, which was quite informative (earlier in the day, these had been very crowded).

A word about our “apartment”. It's actually just a large hotel room, but with microwave, dishwasher, refrigerator, cooktop and other kitchen type facilities. It's very satisfactory for our needs, even though it doesn't have laundry facilities.

A day spent mostly in Pisa airport Thursday 2 June 2011

We've had better days. It started off OK, we went for a walk down to the Levanto beach before checking out of the hotel, and saw a number of board riders making the most of the surf (yes, if the wind is right, you can have a bit of a swell on the Mediterranean). But things started to go astray at the station. The good news was that the railways weren't on strike. The bad news was that the carriage numbers were from the back of the train to the front – and of course we were in carriage 8 and so were at the wrong end of the platform. So we got on board and managed to thread our way half the length of the crowded train with our 2 suitcases. But at Pisa airport, things got worse. Our plane was delayed, eventually leaving 3 3/4 hours late. I had factored in a bit of spare time at the airport anyway, to allow for contingencies (which also fitted in with the train times), so we ended up sitting at the airport for about 7 hours. It did occur to us to make a rush trip to the Leaning Tower, but this would have been complicated by the fact that even though the flight was delayed, Easyjet's check-in times for our baggage weren't changed (so we had to wait for check-in to open, and they closed as if the plane was on time). And just when we might have gone, the rain came, which (to coin a phrase) put a bit of a dampner on the idea. The day was topped off at Berlin, because we exited the secure part of the airport without realising that we had passed the point of no return, and had to go the “Lost & Found” office to arrange to have our baggage brought out to us. Needless to say, we got a taxi in to town (from Schonefeld) – no experimenting at 10 pm with the local transport options as suggested by Lonely Planet kindly provided by Ang & Kev. But the Adina apartment here in Berlin is very modern and reasonably spacious, so we ought to be comfortable.
EDIT - We subsequently received an email from Easyjet apologising for the delay.   Nice thought, and of course we don't want planes that have technical issues to fly, but just the same we would have preferred not to have had the delay.

A wet day in Levanto Wednesday 1 June

As we were having breakfast the rain started! Until now, we've had sun every day, with the temperature consistently in the mid to high 20s. Yesterday was a little cooler, but after rain for about an hour this morning, it's cool and breezy even though the rain has cleared to showers. This morning we explored the beach/marina area. We were thinking about taking the ferry down the coast this afternoon, but a sign at the ferry booking office says that all services have been cancelled today.  So we had a "re-charge" morning, at least while we pondered what we might do this afternoon.
We ended up having a casual lunch at what I think can best be described as a "laid back" cafe overlooking the beach, then after a short siesta (for me) and a hair wash (for Sue), heading off to Vernazza for the evening. The showers had cleared, and we had a nice dinner at a restaurant in the main street.    Then back to Levanto, to pack up and get ready to travel tomorrow, to Pisa by train and then by plane to Berlin.