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March 19, 2008

EU 2008: Germany and the Czech Republic

Filed under: Life,Photo,Travel — Tags: Cologne, Czech Repubilc, eu, Food, Germany, Pictures, Prague, Travel — SpaceDog @ 9:52 am

Well in terms of the resolution this is a bit dodgy … I was in Cologne for two hours and Prague for six, both waiting to change trains on my way east across Europe. I had been trying to avoid journeys where I had to change but they were never that stressful, everything went remarkably smoothly because European stations seem a bit better laid out and have better signage than over here.

Two hours in Cologne really only gave me time to grab a bite to eat and drink a few glasses of KÃ¶lsch. The beer is good, the sausage was alright but together everything was salty to the point of almost being inedible. Although I did have a bit of a hangover at this point so I wasn’t in the best position to judge.

It was too dark to get decent pictures of anything else, I should have got an earlier train and then I’d have had time to see the Cathedral which is right beside the train station. Although then it would look like I’m travelling the EU visiting cathedrals, which I’m really not — I just have a thing for Gothic architecture.

I was meant to have a day and an evening in Prague but I’d decided not to do two back to back overnight train journeys and so I changed my ongoing train to an earlier one. The hours in Prague really only gave me time for a bit of a walk about and some more food (well, it’s a fair old journey overnight from Cologne).

So, it’s a bit dodgy, I’ve been to both Germany and the Czech Repubilc before and I’ll certainly go back to both but if I end up visiting every other EU country in 2008 except one or both of these two then I’m going to go ahead and count ’em.

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March 14, 2008

EU 2008: Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

Filed under: Life,Photo,Travel — Tags: City, eu, Food, Luxembourg, Luxembourg City, Pictures — SpaceDog @ 9:51 am

The train from Paris to Luxembourg City is my first impression of European train travel. I thought my guide book was rather unkind when it said train travel was excellent and affordable in Europe:

… apart from Britian, whose rail system suffered massively following privatisation …

until I actually took a European train. The difference in price, organisation of the stations and number of routes available is pretty staggering.

Anyway, Luxembourg. The guide book says to pay a bit extra and stay in the Old Town, I didn’t and frankly neither should you. The train station, surrounded by a knot of cheap hotels is literally ten minutes walk from the old town and it’s just not worth the mark-up. It’s difficult to grasp how small Luxembourg is until you’re there, but it does it’s best to make life difficult by being built around a ruddy great valley. So I reckon there’s more vertical distance to cover than horizontal plus you can end up on a road on the wrong level and it becomes a complete pain to get back to the level you were aiming for.

I was here out of season, which is a shame as many places were closed (notably the casements, a network of underground defensive tunnels). The weather was excellent so I settled for following the scenic tourist trail, up and down the hills ending up in Grund which is the lowest part of the city lying alongside the river. This area is supposed to be thronged with pubs, and I imagine it might be in high season but I could only find a couple that were open.

The old town, where I was heading for food, is back up the hill again. Fortunately there’s a free lift so you can avoid the half-hour winding walk back up. My guide book strays further into fantasy when it says the old town is “crowded with inexpensive cafes and restaurants”. There are a fair few, but crowded is pushing it and they’re not inexpensive unless you’re settling for a McDonalds or a generic pizza joint. I sampled a traditional dish of pork and beans which looks exactly as appetising as the picture and would have been only average before I paid an arm and a leg for it.

The truth is the old town is a bit of a tourist trap with high street stores and chain restaurants, wander a few minutes away and you’ll find cheaper places with a more authentic atmosphere. It was here that I found the other dish I’d been searching for, Blutwurst, a type of Black Pudding. Much cheaper than the pork and infinitely more tasty, much moister and meatier than what we get here.

If you want even cheaper bars and cafes then head for the area around the train station, although it’s noticeably more seedy and nowhere near as pretty as the rest of the city.

The advantage of this time of year is the lack of tourists, meaning you can get a good look at the places that are open, like the Notre-Dame cathedral. While not as impressive as the one in Paris it’s infinitely better for not being full of tourists.

Would I go back? Actually, yes. If I had some spare time, or if I wanted to go somewhere to unwind then I would definitely go for a few days.

Anyroads, I think that knocks Luxembourg off the list, there are a couple more pictures in the Flickr set.

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March 12, 2008

EU 2008: Paris, France

Filed under: Life,Photo,Travel — Tags: City, eu, Food, France, Paris, Pictures — SpaceDog @ 9:51 am

Right, I promised ‘country’ posts to accompany my tour of Europe. I’m not going to do a diary style thing dealing with what I did day to day — I still have a vague idea of writing all my travel notes up and making some sort of travelogue one day. But this is not that, these posts are more my quick-and-dirty reflections on the countries I’ve been to.

And so: Paris, “The City of Lights”. To be honest I’m wasn’t really here to do the tourist thing, it was more of a stop off to visit friends, and there should be plenty more tourism coming up.

I knocked off a few main sites anyway, the picture to the left is one of the rare ones with me in it to prove that I was really there. We didn’t go up the Eiffel Tower, instead we climbing the Arc De Triomphe so we could see the Paris skyline with the tower in it. You can get a pretty good idea of the layout of the city from the top, if you’ve not had a heart attack from the stairs. Sadly my pictures from the top aren’t that great, so you get one from across the road instead.

I also got a chance to go round Notre Dame which is probably more impressive from the outside, it’s not that the inside isn’t impressive but one gothic cathedral is much like another and when you’re part of a shuffling line of tourists it kinda loses something.

We didn’t eat particularly French stuff, in fact the best meal I had was in an excellent Sushi place, but I did make a point of getting a plate of snails. Just getting them out the shells is a bit of a challenge, even with the special tongs they give you. Once you get them out they’re kinda small, they have a texture not unlike a mussel and a taste I can only describe as earthy. Not bad, but not something I think I’d seek out again.

The problem with Paris is that it’s huge with a shedload of things to see and do, even if I hadn’t been spending a significant part of my trip knocking back Jagermeister I’d still not have seen a fraction of it. Paris is expensive too, a few more days could have easily broken my budget. Fortunately it’s only a short hop away so I can always go back and see more of it.

My advice for Paris is to plan ahead, now that’s true of anywhere but having a proper plan and a knowledge of where the attractions are relative to each other is going to help you get the best out of the place. As with anywhere the cheaper places are off the beaten track, but the sheer size of the place makes finding them difficult.

Would I go back? Yes, in fact I’ll almost certainly be back this year. There’s so much else I could do and it’s so easy to get to that there’s really no excuse for not returning.

But still, Eiffel Tower, Norte Dame, Arc de Triomphe, Snails? I think that means Paris counts as done, more pictures in the Flickr set.

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