Saturday, August 31, 2013

To Fez



Going away from Casablanca

Rabat. Driving out of Casablanca: dry, industrial and goes for miles. There are 30 million people in Morocco,  quite a few live here. The air is hazy here, probably due to their oil refinery and oil fired power station.

A truly awful place.  Rabat, a different story.  Well, the king lives there for a start.  A much nicer and more interesting city of 800,000.

Rabat

A look at one of the king's mausoleums. Took ten years to build. Marvellous workmanship. Four soldiers on guard, plus two more at the entrance on horses, stood still in the hot sun. These guys are tough.

The Mausoleum

Onwards to Fez, and yet another opulent hotel.  The Royal Mirage Hotel.
http://www.royalmiragehotels.com/fes/fr/index.php.

Beautiful swimming pool.  After a swim, out on to the street in search of a cheap meal. Two pizzas for about ten dollars.  

We will be here two nights, and tomorrow we visit a Berber village, where they live in caves.

This note is written  a year later: I realise I have left out the bit where we did a tour through the old town, some 2000 years old(?).  This was total culture shock for me, but a memory that will remain with me always.  This was clearly the best experience of the trip.  Our guide led us into the old town through very small and winding passages.  High walls every where, donkeys, stalls, people going about there lives in here.  The area where they do the fabric dying.  Just wonderful!







Thursday, August 29, 2013

Madrid

Feels a little bit like Paris.  The main roads are wide, sometimes with trees, and lots of good buildings, both old and new.  Throw in the odd giant fountain or sculpture and it passes the test of being a beautiful city. Pity you have lots of people on the sidewalks to cope with.  My pedometer says we did 20,000 steps today, so we have covered some of the main area.  
We did a city bus tour, which covered the bits we missed.
Off to Casablanca tomorrow morning early.

It would be nice to put in about 5 photos of Madrid so a feel for the place could be had...here is my best selection:





Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Frankfurt-Madrid

Today was taken up with travel, mainly to the Frankfort airport, Getting there far too early, and having to sit around Frankfurt airport for hours.

I overheard an elderly couple, who sounded like New Zealanders.  Getting in the bus to the plane, the elderly lady sat down next to me, so I asked if they were from NZ. No, Australians, but they go to NZ regularly, to visit a relative in Pukerua Bay.  Hmmm....guess where my daughter lives?  Just what are the chances of this happening?


Lufthansa gave us a meal on the flight, which helped pass the time.
From the air, the land looked very dry.  

Because the shuttle taxi called in at several places, it gave us a good look at the city.  Our initial impression was it is a big place, a bit dusty, and hot.

We were not sure how our hotel would be, and we were  pleasantly surprised to find a spacious room with a posh bathroom.

Out for a walk, and coffee first. Three euros for two cups.  Nobody here speaks English....what is wrong with these people? Oops, it is raining, back inside for dinner, eggs, chips, and sausage x two plus a glass of wine for 14 euros.  Feeling heavy, a walk around the block is called for.  A tour of the Plaza de Epana and a look at a statue of Don Quixote, nice.


Monday, August 26, 2013

Maastricht and Trier


The Nederlands has a misty atmosphere.  I'm not sure if it is like this permanently, or just that there  is not a lot of wind at the moment. 
Apparently millions of cars, and the odd power station is the cause.
We are on our way now to Frankfurt, via the towns of Maastricht and Trier. Travelling in the Nederlands is through flat farmlands of wheat, potatoes,corn and other crops by motorway. As we near Maastricht, the land gets a bit more rolling.  Maastricht is where Andre Rieau has his concerts.


We stroll up and down cobbled streets to a where a restaurant has tables under big old trees and they have a Latin American band playing.  Ideal time for a small beer. An important subject this is.  Apparently the Kiwi way is to serve beer in a thick glass with no head of foam. Funny, I never noticed this!
Apparently, according to some people, is not correct.  The correct way is in a thin glass, with about an inch of foam. Oh well, slurp...  I can't think why my weight is increasing.
Our hotel is about 10 k away in a small town called Valkenberg.  It has a couple of streets where there is one restaurant after another, all with outside dining.

Onwards to Trier, stopping in the small town of Monschau.  Very pretty with a small river and old buildings .  Coffee and delicious cake.



Trier is about the size of Hamilton, a wealthy German town with nice shops and cobbled streets and an old Roman gate at one end.
Today we head for Frankfurt, probably arriving around noon, to a hotel near the airport.  Ben is going to drive all the way back in one hit.  He reckons about six hours on the motorway.

Eurostar

Eurostar.
Up early, planning to walk to St Pancreas. In the end we caught a cab, and just as well, as it was a busy bunfight just getting on board. We ended up not able to see out much, but there was not a lot to see.  At Brussells the fun began as we we arrived the southern station, so I parked Rose on a seat and went madly searching for the next train.  At the Northern Station about half a k away.

Somehow I managed to buy some tickets and we got on a much grubbier train. My impression of Brussells is not good-unfriendly, dirty.

We had to change trains two times,  and the first change allowed us six minutes to find the next train.  Not enough apparently.  I tried to ring Ben who was to meet us in Breda, but he was on a motorway and I was in an echoing train station. Oh well, catch the next train in one hour.  

Much lugging of heavy suitcases up and downstairs and at last arrive in Breda.
Ben has assumed we had missed a connection and is there on the platform.



Off to Parc de Keivit, which is a holiday camp with smallish houses.  While his house is not huge it is spacious enough and his section is a large 800 sq m. The pic above is of the Parc de Keivit- the houses are hidden by the trees.
Pine trees everywhere, and he has a small pond with goldfish and frogs. Squirrels can be seen ripping up and down the pine trees.

This is a small cafe in Baarle-Nassau, nearby to Parc de Keivit where we had breakfast....nice!


The next day, off to Eindhoven for a day trip.  Hard to describe in words the countryside, and the city centre.  Safe to say not a lot like NZ. Pictures say it best. This is Eindhoven:




Saturday, off to Amsterdam, via Leiden. Sitting on a canal tourist boat right now.  Glass roof, about 40 deg in here. Moving now,  yay!



Well, who would have thought Amsterdam would have canals from one end to the other?

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Aviemore to London


Glasgow -another city with the usual old buildings, bars and restaurants.
Not as neat and tidy as Liverpool, but still a lot of characterful buildings.

Going North from Glasgow, first stop is Loch Lomond, and a boat trip there.
Worth the money and it is amazing how unpopulated this place is.
Narrow winding roads, a loud bang: it appears a campervan  coming the other way has removed our driver side mirror.

A few photo ops for views of hills and flowering heather, then Aviemore, where we will stay for two nights.  There is a side trip to Skye the next day, but we flag it away in an attempt to cure Rose's swollen feet.  Laundromat and a walk takes care of the day.

The next day, off towards Edinburgh, stopping at Blair Castle along the way.
Heavy peasant investment has taken place here. Other people probably thought it was marvellous,  but anything resembling antiques gives me the shivers.

Edinburgh.  Our hotel is about two miles from town, but is spacious and we have a wonderful view of the city with it's castle on a hill and church spires.
Our hotel is a Holiday Inn, about 3 miles out of town, but on the plus side, very nice and spacious.

It is Monday, 19 August,2013. Today we are on a tour of Edinburgh.  We were driven around the New town and then the Old town.  A quick look at Holyrood House.  This is where the Queen comes and has a tea party for 8,000 people. Seems a tall story.  Not a hugely impressive palace.

Then up the road to the Edinburgh Castle. Great views over the city.
That night, we went to the Edinburgh Tattoo.  I managed to acquire a mild head cold in Aviemore, so I was not looking forward to freezing myself for one and a half hours. To prevent a severe case of pneumonia, We went shopping in the main street, Princes Street, for a suitable jacket.
I was pleased to pick one up for 3 pounds. With bits of plastic wrapped around  my legs, I  thought this should be fine. No.  Normally I would not willingly subject myself to a show like that, but it was quite enjoyable.
To be on the bus trip with a cold is very embarrassing. I was quite pleased when I found out that at least four other people at the same cold at the same time.
From Edinburgh the next stop was York. As seems to be the normal on this tour, we only have a brief time to look at a small part of the entire city. Narrow streets with cute looking pubs and cafes. All the churches are starting to blur together. Another Holiday Inn.
On the road again. Stopped at William Shakespeare's birth cottage. The last stop  is Oxford. There are 39 colleges in Oxford, and we only looked at one of them.  If all of them are as  wonderful and nice as this one, then lucky students.  You could spend a month wandering around all these wonderful old buildings. Then back to London, dropped off near Waterloo station. We have a suspicion that a taxi ride in London is going to set us back around 50 pounds which is New Zealand dollars $100. So to trim that down, we decide to drag our suitcases all the way across Westminster Bridge.  Somewhere around horse guards, we flag down a cab.  14 pounds, including tip. What is for dinner? We could order room service, how much would that be? About 82 New Zealand dollars. So we check out Euston Station, just across the road. Burgers for 24 NZ dollars.

Friday, August 16, 2013

Liverpool

Liverpool.
Cardiff was a nice modern town.  Being a bit tired, we had dinner at the hotel restaurant.  I'm not saying all English are deceitful, but our waiter took the prize.  I asked  for a Merlot and what arrived seemed to be a Rose.  A crap Rose at that!  If you know me, you know I never want to make a scene.  I then asked the waiter , but he swore it was a Merlot. 

So I turned to a man at the next table, who happened to be French, and asked him. He just laughed.  So I took the glass up to the bar, and asked to see the bottle that it came out of.  The barman then tried to tell me it was a Rose/Merlot blend, and would I like a red wine instead.  Tired of arguing I accepted a new glass.  

From Cardiff, going up the Wye Valley to the monastery ruins of Tintern Abbey. An abbey without a roof or windows, way up in the country, miles from anywhere.  The British countryside is beautiful, I thought it would only be nice in patches, but no, there is miles and miles of mature trees. After that, the town of Ludlow, which was quite cute. 

Liverpool was a nice surprise, some industry, but the town centre was impressive.  We had a local guide come on the bus and did a tour of the city.
She said she was fifty, and when she was a girl all the buildings were black.
Lots of new buildings, and reuse of docklands warehouses.

From Liverpool, first stop was Lake Windermere, where we got on a large launch and went down the lake.  Very scenic and worth the extra.  Trafalgar have a system of optional tours, which you have to choose on about the third day.  Most are not expensive, so we have opted for those, of which the lake trip was one. Most of this day has been spent humming quietly down the motorway, so I have slept some of the way.  A quick stop at Gretna Green to see some shops and a Scottish piper.  One the motorway again, bound for Glasgow now.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Bus Tour

Sunday and Monday.  Rose and I are the last on the bus and off we go to Stonehenge.  As always, it is different in reality.  I thought it might have been a bit bigger, but this is probably because they do not let you too close to it, which was disappointing.  Hordes of us looking at it, so understandable.

Then to Bath, a beautiful little town.  The baths were nice, but not mind blowing. Then down to Plymouth,  a city at the bottom left hand corner of England.  Leaving our bags there we went to Penzance, which has a small island offshore called St Michaels Mount.

Lastly,  to St Ives, which is a picture postcard sort of place. We can now say a proper Cornish pastie is almost as good as a Birkenhead potato top pie.

iPads

iPads. Before going on this trip, I decided to buy a lap top, as a means of keeping in touch and for Internet banking. I did consider an ipad, but dismissed this option as being too expensive.  I then weighed my new el cheapo laptop and was shocked at it's weight of4 kg.  I put it in my pack and decided, it was too heavy to cart round on a trip.
So I sold the laptop and bought an ipad the week before going away. A bit of a steep learning curve, but it does have the killer advantage: a low weight.

Coming from a PC usage of over thirty years, it was a little hard to get used to not closing down applications (called apps), saving nothing and not using a mouse at all.

One of the best apps is a built in one : Maps. Hooked up to the Internet this is a wonderful thing, especially if you turn on satellite and show things in 3D.
Not on the Internet, useless.  So off to the App Store and download the National Geographic Map of the world.  Good, it has an option to download the map so you can use it off line, so better do that.  Time to use it on the bus, level of zoom is not good enough to use, so it is back to the drawing board.

One of the interesting things is the linkage to other Apple devices. You can take a video or photo on your iPod and it will automatically appear on your ipad.  Just a pity that in the UK most hotels charge you 5 pounds for 24 hours of wifi.

Thursday, August 8, 2013

Soho

Soho and all that.  Rose wanted to check out a bead shop in Soho, so a walk through Hyde Park was called for. Past Kensington Palace.  Does not seem like a palace, more like a large mansion. Then any old bus going towards Picadilly. Oops, it just made a wrong turn.  Out we get and walk off along Constitution Hill to Buckingham Palace. Just like all the pictures, but as always, different when you actually are there.

Next, a walk through St Jame's Park.  Ooh look: deck chairs. Obviously set out on the grass for us tourists.  Ahhh.  "Excuse me sir, that will be one pound fifty per hour." Tricky bastards, no signs. Through Trafalgar Square, up St  Martin's Lane, past some nicely done theatre facades. I get to prop up a bar stool, while she checks out the bead shop. Hmm. They sell pies for lunch... Back to the bead shop past a really nice looking restaurant called Jamie's.  A bit cheeky catching on to the Jamie Oliver thing.  So we ended up there and thoroughly enjoyed the meal and atmosphere. Then we found out it actually was his restaurant.

Then off to see Rose's sister's son who lives in London.  He came to London twenty years ago for two weeks, and has settled down here.  Dinner with him, his wife and their three month old baby, who slept through an amazing din.

Next day: Museum day. A trudge down through Hyde park past the Serpentine  (a nice long pond/lake) . My cunning plan is to have Rose go to the Victoria and Albert, while I spend two hours in the Natural History.  First, a cup of coffee in the supposedly cute cafe in the V and A.  Yes, very ornate. Well done, whoever.

This is inside the Museum of Natural History:


This is inside the V and A:




There was no queue into the V and A, so I was hoping the same for the Natural History Museum. Nooooo!  One hour in the queue thinking this better be worth it. It was not, for me anyway.  This is not to say that this is not a wonderfully done museum. Just that for my purposes, it was a little disappointing.
My interest was our place in evolution, and they had about 25m of displays of skulls and so on. Maybe it was the lack of time and sore feet.

This is our last night in this hotel, tomorrow we head off to one next to the Albert embankment, which is a lot closer to where the bus tour leaves from. 

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Flickr

I have managed to upload a few photos to Flikr, which can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/blecouteur/with/9459801442/

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

London

Arriving in London. About a 12 hour flight to Frankfurt, then a one hour one to Heathrow.  Quite a contrast in airports- Frankfurt nice and tidy with architectural details well thought out.  The handrails at Heathrow looked like a fitter's mate knocked them up.
The Heathrow express was excellent though, taking only 20 minutes to get us into Paddington station. Our room is fine, near an interesting street called Queensway.
On our first day we went on a Big Bus Tour. Part of the tour was a short trip up the Thames to the Tower of London,  which had a bit of queue, but did not take long to get in.  Once in, more queues, moving at a glacial pace, so we flagged it away and had lunch just by Tower Bridge. Rose had swollen feet,so it was hard going for her.



The second day the plan was to visit the main shops, so I went and bought a 7 day travel card. Our first stop on Oxford street was Selfridges, and it did not disappoint.  Just one problem: all we could afford we're some magazines. My turn for sore feet as I had worn dress shoes-ouch. Back home for recovery, then out to Oxford st again, to have a look at the Burlington Arcade and the Picadilly Arcade. Then off to Trafalgar Square.

It seems like tourists are 50 percent of the population, and big red buses fill the roads.

This bit has been added in July 2015, where I have decided to add photos to the blog (not easy to do at the time on an ipad).  Browsing through them, I am amazed by the photos I did not take, and though I did take pics of Buckingham Palace etc, I think posting them is a waste of time. Rather, I will post just a few that vaugely capture the feel of London.







Monday, August 5, 2013

Our first day in Kyoto

Our first day in Kyoto.  Finding breakfast was easy, just out the door and down the street to  a lift set in a shop front. Something that never occurred to me was how to get photos on to this blog. Real easy if you use  Windows. Not quite so intuitive to me at the moment, so photos may have to sit on Flickr, which although I now have an app for the ipad, I still am having fun with that. I have a suspicion all these things have issues with the Japanese language.
Delicious! See photos.  I thought this might be a good time to try out my new cash passport card. Imagine my surprise and shock when she took it,scanned It, and gave it back with no need for a pin or signature!

Breakfast!

Oh well, just better not lose that one. 

The number one attraction in Kyoto is the Kinkakuji Temple. Which from the map seemed miles away. So we decided to go have a look at the Imperial Palace as it seemed to be just North of us. To keep walking to a minimum, i planned to catch a subway train,just across the river. I expected a polluted fairly deep river because it was quite wide. Nope. About metre deep and crystal clear.
Rubbish bins: there are none.  Park benches to sit on-none of these either.

Here is the river:



Down into the subway and no, you have JR pass, not subway pass.  Grr! Time for a coffee. Drag mrs sore feet in direction of Imperial Palace. Nice grandiose gates, but no way to get inside, and someone's feet dictated a return to hotel needed. Rose reckons the temp was 35. High humidity too, so beer consumption was recommended.

Nice Gates:



All the way down Karasuma st, and Bill the famous navigator took a wrong turn, which was not relayed to the troops as these were a little tetchy. Think bright red face. My pedometer showed 27,000 that day,a personal best ( hi Martin!).

Dinner at Korean restaurant. You don't order, you buy tickets, which we messed up but still enjoyed whatever it was. Crab shells and noodles.
The street naming and layout was hard to get a hang of, being on a grid and with names like Kawaramachi. The tourist maps have very small print and are very cluttered. In hindsight, I should have memorised all the street names in the area of the hotel.

Typical street corner in Kyoto:


Sunday, August 4, 2013

Well hello..

Seems like a good title for what has happened so far.
It all started when I realised with a shock that the plane's leaving time was no 10.00 am, but 8.45 am. Fortunately we are enjoyer's of the Auckland Airport leaving experience, so we were within time at the end and got on ok.
Once on board the time passed quite quickly watching movies and eating breakfast and dinner. Not sure what happened to lunch, there was none. The Air NZ cabin crew were great.
I managed to see two and a half movies, Cloud Atlas starring Tom Hanks which I found confusing as it jumped all over the place in time, but came right in the end. The other was I Anna, a detective story set in London,  which took a while to get going , but proved a good watch.  The last one was Upside Down, which was a rather strange SF story, which I liked.( me strange? No!)
Customs at Kansai was no fun. The queue took an hour of standing in what seemed 30 degree heat.

Catching the train proved easy enough, once we were pointed in the direction of the ticket office.
There were a load of confusing offers, and I selected one that gave us a freedom to us all of the JR network in the area.  Very nice, but I found out that it did not include the Kyoto subways, a glaring mistake as it turned out. At the taxi stand the fun began as driver after driver did not know where the Best Western Hotel Kyoto was located. My problems were solved when one driver at the end of a large and growing queue leapt out of his cab and ordered one of the don't knows to take us any way.
Turns out he could not speak English. Good grief, what is wrong with these people?
Somewhere he used the word walk, which I took to mean we may as well walk, as he could not take us, but what he meant was he could take us, but we would have to walk a bit at the end.
In the end he used the novel idea of consulting his map to locate the hotel.

Here it is, not easy to see, just to the right of the van. This is not a road, but an alley.



Before I came here, I had this idea that Kyoto was a small town, say about the size of Tauranga.
Not so as it turned out. Think of Auckland CBD.  Now multiply that by about at least 20.
We are up a little alley off one of the main streets.  You would think an alley would be a dusty grimy place with rubbish everywhere.  NO.  This part of Japan is amazingly clean and tidy. There is no litter.
The inhabitants are all well dressed and none are overweight.  Must be the food.

This is a typical street corner: