Europe Trip 2011 #22: Prague Day 1 walking around

Day has been day 1 in Prague. It is an interesting place although I didn't get to see much of the city. I intend to go and see around and across the river tomorrow which should be interesting.

Anyway, today I spent some time in Wenceslas Square and then the old town centre awaiting a walking tour [more about that in the next post]. As expected, there are a lot of very old buildings in these areas, including the  museum in Wenceslas Square and the Astronomical Clock building in the old town centre.

The first 2 pictures are looking up [as the museum] and down Wenceslas Square, the next 3 pictures around the old town centre [including a very good, funny, band of older musos]. Following that are a couple of general pictures including one of an old Colonel who seems to be stalking me [I managed to avoid him today]! Lastly is a picture of my hotel.

Enjoy!

Europe Trip #5: Welcome to Berlin - Hop on hop off bus

Well, I'm in Berlin now. I've never been here before, but I've been told lots of good stories , so I have been looking forward to it.

I'm in a little hotel called Hotel Kubrat, which is right in the middle of everything, just inside what would have been the eastern side of the Berlin Wall. It is 5 minutes walk from "Checkpoint Charlie" and 10-15 minutes from the Brandenburg Tor [Gate], so really central. More on the hotel in a later post [if I remember] though.

Today's sightseeing consisted of a walk to Brandenburg Tor, followed by a sightseeing trip on the "Hop On Hop Off" bus [EUR15] which was a chance to see the lie of the land so to speak and scout out a couple of other areas to go and see. The following pictures are from that tour. Sorry, I don't have descriptions for all of them, although the first one is part of the Bundestag [German Parliament], the second is the official residence of the German President [although I understand he does not live there], the third is part of the Berlin Wall that has been left up [not sure what part of the city that was], followed by some river we crossed, then the Berlin University and a museum. The last picture is of my hotel, but as I mentioned before, more on that later.

The remaining sightseeing will be covered in the next few posts [BTW - if anyone wants to correct any of the info above, please leave me a comment!].

Europe Trip #1: English B&B

I´ve finally started my big trip to England/ Europe!

I arrived in England [along with my parents] on 3 September at London Heathrow airport. After being met by my sister, we jumped in a car and commenced a 4 hour road trip to our first overnight stay. It´s fair to say that I was stuffed after the plane ride [4 hours sleep in 30 hours of travel], but I managed to stay awake until night time and, apart from a little tiredness the next day, have not suffered from any jetlag at all!

The first night was spent at a B&B in the middle of nowhere at a place call Landscove which is near Ashburton. The B&B is called ´Blackler Barton´ [the Brits have this odd habit of giving their homes a name]. It´s a little odd being in a building of which parts are up to 500 years old! It was comfortable though and I managed a good night´s sleep.

The roads around here are crazy! People complain about the roads in New Zealand, but with the exception of the English motorways which seem to be superb, the roads in New Zealand are at least as good. As an example, the second of the pictures below shows the road to/ from the B&B!!

The first picture is of the B&B, the second of the road to/ from the B&B.