This evening we wandered along Damrak to Dam square and then up a couple of quieter streets beyond the Magna Plaza to find somewhere for dinner. We weren't overly fussed about what we were looking for, just something different to what we've had before and preferably outside - the sun has been shining since first thing this morning and the city is positively hot! I even regretted taking my cardigan (although I was glad of it a few hours later).
We eventually came upon a fondue restaurant in a back alley and once we'd convinced the waiter that while we appreciated his advise, we'd really like some time to think about what we'd order, we settled on a couple of different fondues, served simply with bread (instead of the 50 euro all-the-bells-and-whistles option he was urging us to 'trust' him on. He was charming. Well, until we rejected his advise, then he was positively peevish, but even that had a certain charm.) I chose the Normande fondue and Simon the traditional one with a name containing more esses, cees and aitches in weird combinations than I am prepared to try and repeat. As it turned out, his traditional one was significantly better than my supposedly spicy one. I think spicy ought to have been translated as ripe. It was a basic, but different meal that we don't regret but wouldn't hurry back for.
Next we wandered back towards home via Van Zuylen - a bar with many tables spreading out on the very wide bridge across the Singel. Simon had a couple of odd beers (well, I thought they were odd, he seemed to enjoy them) and I enjoyed first an apple juice and later a hot chocolate - which I chose mainly because by this stage I had put my cardigan on and was still feeling rather cold. We saw many meals being consumed here and by the looks of everything served we will definitely return for a meal.
Amsterdam is clearly Hen and Stag central on the weekend and the evening was filled with free entertainment, both on the road by way of ambulatory and pedal-powered revellers and of course on the canals - I expect there were several 'man overboard' instances through the evening, although we didn't witness any.
We still haven't adjusted to the unfamiliar hours of daylight. Simon asked the time of me at one point and I was rather shocked when I looked at my watch to discover it was in fact twenty to ten. And yet it wasn't even quite dusk yet! Amazing! It is finally dark outside as I write this at 11pm (although the bars next door, and next door to that are both still going strong - not so strong that I won't sleep through it mind you - it's a very civilised clientele - no pre-wedding parties here!)
Showing posts with label Holiday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Holiday. Show all posts
Sunday, 22 May 2011
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
Hamurana Springs (Hinerua)
Thanks to our recently adopted hobby of geo-caching, I had the pleasure of visiting one of the most beautiful and memorable places I can think of this weekend. In fact, I had the pleasure of visitng 3 such places, but one was the clear stand out.
We took the opportunity of a long weekend to run away and avoid all the things that desperately need doing at home, because quite frankly, we both needed a bit of a mental holiday, and housework, or even the reminder of it, was simply not going to do the job.
So we waited until late on Thursday evening, once the worst of the crazy Easter traffic had died down and headed to Huntly to settle the cats in with their grand parents and their country holiday-home, and turned in for a good night's sleep before heading south to Rotorua on Friday morning.
After a leisurely trip down, we wandered out to the Blue Lake - I love fresh-water swimming, but haven't been anywhere suitable for longer than I care to consider. I went for a refreshing (read 'bracing'!) swim while Simon headed off around the lake to find a cache, and leave his sunglasses at ground zero, and get half way back, and have to go all the way back again before returning to find me just arriving at the car as I'd given up waiting and was by now getting really really cold! But he did find the cache and managed to find his sunnies on the return trip. Happy endings on that little tale!
On Saturday Simon had 2 caches planned for us to find, one in suburban Rotorua in a little area where all the roads were named after star signs. We walked through a public access way to a stream-side path and wandered along, admiring the crystal clear water and cool shade. I'm happy to say I located this cache, after decyphering the additional clue admittedly. We wandered a little further on, as several other geo-cachers before us had encouraged us to do, and were delighted to come upon a peaceful private beach and reserve, complete with jetties and kids enjoying the thermally heated waters at the lakeside. We both just stood and enjoyed the complete and utter peace of the place. We certainly would not have made it there if not for the promise of a geo-cache to locate - we're both fairly goal oriented it's fair to say!
Next we headed back to the car and proceeded to drive around the lake, noting the queue of traffic heading into Rotorua as we went out and expressing relief that we weren't coming back that way! At the northern most part of the lake is the Hamurana Springs. This is a place I simply will not forget in any great hurry, and plan to return to. Soon and often.
First was the beautful stream that we crossed over to get to the trail to the springs - we stood on the bridge admiring the pristinely clear water, the abundance of plump trout and the grace of the geese floating with the current. This alone was a welcome dose of tranquility, and yet it was nothing compared to what was still to come.
Shortly along the trail we glimpsed the stream again and were astonished at the almost unnaturally vivid blueness of currents within the flow. The picture to the right is very true to what we saw. But still, I have not reached the most wonderful place.
As we continued along the trail, we entered a narrow stand of Redwood trees - breath-taking in their size and in the atmosphere they created. As we kept quietly ambling through (I had a strong sense of being in a place of wonder and felt as though I ought to be talking at nothing above a whisper), the narrow stand opened out into a beatiful grove of these incredibly majestic trees. The carpet of fallen leaves, the golden glow of filtered sunlight reflecting off the myriad trunks, the perfect, uncompromising straightness of their reach toward the sky all combined to make this a place I feel entirely inadequate to describe without doing it some sort of injustice of understatement. To stand and spread your arms in this place seemed the most natural thing in the world to do. To drink in the peace, the power, the energy, the pure life of this place was a wonder, an honour and a treasured joy.
I could have spent a lifetime drinking it in and still have not wearied of it. I will return. For now, I will do so often in my memory, but so too I will return in body and draw from the energy and peace of this place.
There was more to the journey, as we continued, seeking a waypoint to a geo-cache, and happening upon the source of the spring - a shaded pool with a deep deep chasm that seemed lit by that same eerie blue we had noted in the stream further down. The current from the spring was so strong that even the ducks seemed to be straining to swim to the source.
I'm afraid I'm out of words on this one. Hopefully I've managed to portray at least a little of this magnificent spot.
More pictures in my flickr stream.
We took the opportunity of a long weekend to run away and avoid all the things that desperately need doing at home, because quite frankly, we both needed a bit of a mental holiday, and housework, or even the reminder of it, was simply not going to do the job.
So we waited until late on Thursday evening, once the worst of the crazy Easter traffic had died down and headed to Huntly to settle the cats in with their grand parents and their country holiday-home, and turned in for a good night's sleep before heading south to Rotorua on Friday morning.
After a leisurely trip down, we wandered out to the Blue Lake - I love fresh-water swimming, but haven't been anywhere suitable for longer than I care to consider. I went for a refreshing (read 'bracing'!) swim while Simon headed off around the lake to find a cache, and leave his sunglasses at ground zero, and get half way back, and have to go all the way back again before returning to find me just arriving at the car as I'd given up waiting and was by now getting really really cold! But he did find the cache and managed to find his sunnies on the return trip. Happy endings on that little tale!
On Saturday Simon had 2 caches planned for us to find, one in suburban Rotorua in a little area where all the roads were named after star signs. We walked through a public access way to a stream-side path and wandered along, admiring the crystal clear water and cool shade. I'm happy to say I located this cache, after decyphering the additional clue admittedly. We wandered a little further on, as several other geo-cachers before us had encouraged us to do, and were delighted to come upon a peaceful private beach and reserve, complete with jetties and kids enjoying the thermally heated waters at the lakeside. We both just stood and enjoyed the complete and utter peace of the place. We certainly would not have made it there if not for the promise of a geo-cache to locate - we're both fairly goal oriented it's fair to say!
Next we headed back to the car and proceeded to drive around the lake, noting the queue of traffic heading into Rotorua as we went out and expressing relief that we weren't coming back that way! At the northern most part of the lake is the Hamurana Springs. This is a place I simply will not forget in any great hurry, and plan to return to. Soon and often.
First was the beautful stream that we crossed over to get to the trail to the springs - we stood on the bridge admiring the pristinely clear water, the abundance of plump trout and the grace of the geese floating with the current. This alone was a welcome dose of tranquility, and yet it was nothing compared to what was still to come.
Shortly along the trail we glimpsed the stream again and were astonished at the almost unnaturally vivid blueness of currents within the flow. The picture to the right is very true to what we saw. But still, I have not reached the most wonderful place.
As we continued along the trail, we entered a narrow stand of Redwood trees - breath-taking in their size and in the atmosphere they created. As we kept quietly ambling through (I had a strong sense of being in a place of wonder and felt as though I ought to be talking at nothing above a whisper), the narrow stand opened out into a beatiful grove of these incredibly majestic trees. The carpet of fallen leaves, the golden glow of filtered sunlight reflecting off the myriad trunks, the perfect, uncompromising straightness of their reach toward the sky all combined to make this a place I feel entirely inadequate to describe without doing it some sort of injustice of understatement. To stand and spread your arms in this place seemed the most natural thing in the world to do. To drink in the peace, the power, the energy, the pure life of this place was a wonder, an honour and a treasured joy.
I could have spent a lifetime drinking it in and still have not wearied of it. I will return. For now, I will do so often in my memory, but so too I will return in body and draw from the energy and peace of this place.
There was more to the journey, as we continued, seeking a waypoint to a geo-cache, and happening upon the source of the spring - a shaded pool with a deep deep chasm that seemed lit by that same eerie blue we had noted in the stream further down. The current from the spring was so strong that even the ducks seemed to be straining to swim to the source.
I'm afraid I'm out of words on this one. Hopefully I've managed to portray at least a little of this magnificent spot.
More pictures in my flickr stream.
Wednesday, 30 December 2009
From Hobart to Coles Bay
We got a rental car in Hobart and headed up the East coast towards Coles Bay on the Freycinet Peninsula along the Tasman Highway with the help of our trusty GPS. It is worth noting though that once out of Hobart, that many of the smaller roads in towns up the East Coast were not covered by the TomTom maps. This wasn’t a problem due to how few streets there are in some of these towns but does make the GPS a little less useful.
Along the way we stopped at Spring Beach which is just out of Orford which was a beautiful beach busy with families today. Actually, on either side of the shot taken here it was a lot emptier on the beach. The temperature at this point was about 24˚ Celcius and it was about 11am.
Our next stop was about 10km south of Swansea at Spiky Bridge, a convict built construction. One look at the bridge and it’s not hard to see where the name came from. We were initially looking at heading down to the beach on the other side of the road but the temperature was getting a bit too warm.
We stopped a few kilometres up the road at Kate’s Berry Farm. Whilst the cakes and jams looked nice (and I think I saw some ice-cream too), there were literally only two punnets of raspberries and one punnet of strawberries to be seen and it appeared to be a tourist trap with a lovely building and outlook so we escaped. There were lots of other tourists there on a bus that weren’t so lucky.
Nine Mile Beach just North of Swansea was our next stop along the way, and this beach had significantly more drift wood on the shore than Spiky Beach and did not appear to be as friendly for swimming at but was nice all the same. It would however be nice if some of these beaches had some sun shelter.
Coles Bay (or to be more accurate Swanwick), our destination was basically at the end of Nine Mile Beach, however there is a little stretch of water at the end without a bridge which means that a 60km (or thereabouts) long drive is required to drive around the bay. The view from our unit at Freycinet Beach Holiday Apartments is absolutely beautiful and it is lovely listening to the waves arriving on the shore.
For lunch we went to the Freycinet Bakery Cafe in Coles Bay and I had a Curried Scallop Pie which was okay (but the scallops, as expected in a pie, were overdone) and Jane had a Seafood chowder that she enjoyed. I then went to the Bottle Store at the back of the local Bar and bought a couple of local wines to enjoy over the next couple of days. We also bought a couple of other bits and pieces at the local store for breakfast and snacks and then returned to our apartment to find a Snake on the driveway. Thankfully the snake moved and we were able to park the car but it was a little scary. Unsure of the protocol re snakes, we have been reading a few little bits in some of our guidebooks but without the Internet readily on hand it’s a little hard. Apparently there are four Snake varieties in Tasmania and all are venomous so we are keeping our distance! It does look like he might live in our garden though.
Our first morning in Hobart
I woke up early this morning and went out for a walk along the waterfront in Hobart. It was a nice start to our trip away and a magnificently sunny day.
Hobart is so picturesque and has many buildings that have been there since the settlers arrived in the 1800’s looking for the next penal settlement after Sydney.
Salamanca Place has a number of cafes, bars and shops and this morning when I ventured out many appeared to be just opening up around 7:30. I can imagine that this area will be buzzing later and there will be lots of people lingering around.
I bought some supplies at the Salamanca Store and then found that there was free Wifi available in this area for up to 5MB download per day so quickly checked Twitter, posted a Twitpic and checked out some emails.
I then went back to our Hotel (Zero Davey) and Jane & I ventured out to breakfast at The Timeless Way. We started with some excellent (build-your-own Latte’s) out the front, but it got a tad too chilly so we ventured out the back to a lovely atrium to eat the mediocre breakfast that was made up for the fact that the Waitress was friendly, the food arrived in a timely manner, and the aforementioned coffee.
Tuesday, 6 January 2009
Holiday Musings - Napier
What bliss, what joy, what a wonderful way to holiday! The weather in Napier is decidedly divine, the wines delicious, the countryside breathtaking. This is why I love summer. This is why I'm trying to forget that I have to go back to work next week.
We've visisted so many vineyards, tasted so much wine (and a little beer & cider), seen so many beautiful hills and valleys, rivers and coastline, bought far too much wine (54 bottles and counting, oh dear), and enjoyed so much warming, cheering sunshine. How decidedly wonderful.
So, in a vague effort to try and remember what we've seen and where we've been, a few random notes and some poignant memory triggers from each place:
Day 1:
More photos up on my flickr pages - Napier set.
Ooh - and something really unusual, every evening we enjoy listening to the sea lions barking across the road! We're almost directly across the road from Marine world. Love it!
And a shout out to Cafe Ujazi - great food, fantastic friendly service. We also breakfasted at Cafe Divine which had been recommended to us, but their lack of warmth and friendliness sent us straight back to ujazi. Good food, but it's a whole experience, so we'll stick with Ujazi.
We've visisted so many vineyards, tasted so much wine (and a little beer & cider), seen so many beautiful hills and valleys, rivers and coastline, bought far too much wine (54 bottles and counting, oh dear), and enjoyed so much warming, cheering sunshine. How decidedly wonderful.
So, in a vague effort to try and remember what we've seen and where we've been, a few random notes and some poignant memory triggers from each place:
Day 1:
- Zepelin (we arrived as they were wheeling out their open sign; red wines, only bought a rose),
- Askerne (sister vineyard to Zepelin, included a red sticky),
- Craggy Range (what an incredible setting! Picture below. Love the displays of the different rocks in the perspex cubes behind the bar, and the enormous picture window looking out to the ranges - who needs art when you have nature),
- Te Mata (eep, memories where are you??? No, I'll have to wait for Simon's memory on that one. Ok, now we're both going Duh as we visit their website and remember exactly who they are - Coleraine. Duh!).
- Clearview Estate - where we lunched. Tim Turvey was a fantastic host and really looked after us - then we bumped into him at 2 more vineyards the next day!
- Dinner at Restaurant Indonesia - which came highly recommended and very much met and perhaps even exceeded our expectations.
- Unison Vineyard (first place I've been where we had to walk down a really steep drive literally in to the Cellar of the building! So lovely and cool. Terry was fantastic, so knowledgable and so willing to share her knowledge and passion for wine - Thanks! We learnt a lot about the various soils in the area from Terry. Hopefully we'll see her again at wine club),
- Te Awa (young presenter, knowledgable, but felt like he was reciting a script all the time, and being a casually dressed kiwi and being referred to as 'Sir' always feels a little odd. This isn't a complaint! Just a good memory trigger!!!),
- Trinity Hill (Sarah is seriously high on something! Maybe the vegetarian diet! Nice to have a presenter with so much energy and enthusiasm! Soooo many wines on offer, this was a distinct challenge to keep this list manageable!),
- Alpha Domus (bumped into Tim again here. Would love to know the story behind the old aeroplane logo. Met Paul Ham here while discussing their Sticky (the white sticky, not the red), not sure if Paul is the owner or the winemaker or both - hopefully we'll get him up to wine club),
- Sileni - where we lunched (a little disappointed by the service and undercooked bread, loved the setting though.) And then the
- Silk Oak Chocolate shop on the way back to Napier.
- Misson (somewhat dismissive as usual, but still love many of their wines - we just learn to lower our 'experience' expectations here - the setting makes up for it!),
- Church Road (like the Mission, quite commercial, but had a lovely presenter here - he reminded me enormously of Philip Sherry.),
- Moana Park (wonderful, boutique winery experience - Dan presented 10 wines - 4 white, 4 red, an ice wine (yum!) and a 10 year tawny - another person we hope to see at wine club), then to
- The Filter Room for Simon to do a beer & cider tasting and to have a beautiful antipasto platter for lunch.
More photos up on my flickr pages - Napier set.
Ooh - and something really unusual, every evening we enjoy listening to the sea lions barking across the road! We're almost directly across the road from Marine world. Love it!
And a shout out to Cafe Ujazi - great food, fantastic friendly service. We also breakfasted at Cafe Divine which had been recommended to us, but their lack of warmth and friendliness sent us straight back to ujazi. Good food, but it's a whole experience, so we'll stick with Ujazi.
Monday, 24 March 2008
Easter Friday (& early birthday present mystery)
What a deliciously beautiful easter weekend it has been! We've had a wonderful, relaxing, yet satisfyingly full weekend. On Friday we ventured out into the glorious sunshine, tried to go to jafa for breakfast, sadly it was closed, then ambled on to Occam for a lovely breakfast in the sun.I took my early birthday present with me (I think the prevalence of non-cell-phone photos in this entry is sufficient clue to the nature of what it is!) and got decidedly snap happy.
After breakfast we took a leisurely drive (the queues were too long and slow for it to be anything other than leisurely) down to Mission Bay. The incredibly busy Mission Bay at that. And of course, we indulged in the obligatory (in Simon's case - rapidly melting) ice-cream - although we didn't quite have the endurance required to queue at Movenpick.
More on the weekend when I get a bit more time. Right now we're fighting to get twiki working at home. Oh dear. Fighting and losing for now!
Monday, 24 December 2007
Skiing on the Zugspitze at Garmisch
I went skiing earlier this week on the Zugspitze ski field in the Bavarian Alps. It was a beautiful sunny day, no clouds, unlimited visibility, warm, no queues and good snow. Despite no fresh powder, the small amount of powder was nice, and it was nice not to be skiing on ice!
In terms of finding out details about how to ski at Garmisch I found details to be lacking a bit on various websites, so here is my attempt to explain some of it from my experience.
The Zupspitze is the highest mountain in Germany and the snow (according to the guy in the snow rental shop) is the best up there, as opposed to the numerous other ski areas around. I hired skis, boots and poles from a place on the corner of Alpspitzstraße and Sankt-Martin-Straße called Thomas Ski Schule or something like that. I don't know if it's the cheapest but the the gear was good enough (€28). I was also wanting to hire goggles but they unfortunately don't hire them so I bought some instead (my other ones are a bit old anyway). They also didn't hire helmets for adults, but this wasn't a biggie for this field (imho) unless you're wanting to hit the terain park.
In order to get to the ski field I took the Zupspitzbahn (cost ~€38 including access to all lifts on mountain) which is a cogwheel train that goes up to the ski field (the Zugspitzplatz area), from it's station next door to the main train station. There is essentially nothing at this station expect for a ticket office and the train (of course). I took the first train (8.15am) and about an hour later arrived at the ski field which was practically empty. I actually took a taxi to the station it left from because I didn't want to walk with skis, boots, poles etc 1km to the station (cost ~€9). I got there early and found no queue at all. It was very easy to buy a ticket and the guy in the counter spoke great English (like most people in Germany). I then put my skis on the side of the train and went inside to the nicely heated interior with my poles and boots. At this point I hadn't put my ski boots on, but many others had. The trip was very scenic with snow everywhere.
Once off the train, I went to the outside area and put on my ski boots and put my other shoes in my day pack. I think there was an area with lockers but my bag was so light I ended up skiing with it on. The ski area starts from this area (I recommend heading left and down for intermedia and above skiiers/boarders, to the right is essentially the beginners area although it can be a good place to start for others too) and there are a couple of restaurants here with reasonably high prices; it would be worth taking a little bit of stuff up with you. A super small tube of sunblock also set me back €9.20 so it would be worth taking that with you too if it looks like it will be a sunny day. In terms of the runs, they're well marked, and fairly self explanatory in terms of how to get back to this main area (although it might take a t-bar and a chairlift to do so). Incidentally there was only the one charlist and every else was a t-bar.
The vast majority of people on the field were skiiers, not snowboarders which was something different. The field is nice and wide and a great place to practice turns, but not much in the way of things to jump off or walls to back up (that I saw anyway). I did lots and lots of runs. It is actually quite a fast field, whereby there were a number of times when you need to go at a decent speed in order to make it up the next hill, but this didn't pose a problem at all for me.
In terms of getting back down I decided to take the cable car down from the summit to the Eibsee. Whilst I had heard this was faster, in my case it definitely wasn't. The other option is to simply go back on the Zugspitzbahn (which I would recommend). I changed back to my walkign shoes at this point, but many didn't. In terms of the way I went, there is a cable car up to the summit from the main Zupspitzeplatz area which left about every 15mins (and I'd just missed one). Once finally on (standing room only) this only took a few minutes to get to the summit, where there was about a 10min wait for another cablecar down to the Eibsee (NB: you need your ticket, from the journey up the mountain, here to get through the turnstiles). This was also standing room only and took 5-10mins and went down a long way rather quickly (quite exciting). At the bottom there was a short walk (~2min) along a path covered in snow (which was just ok in my shoes) up to the train station where there was a 35min wait until the Zugspitzbahn arrived, which I then boarded (NB: you need your ticket, from the journey up the mountain, here to get through the turnstiles) and eventually (~30mins later) arrived back where I started at the Zugspitzbahn main station.
So that was my day. Great fun and good snow!
In terms of finding out details about how to ski at Garmisch I found details to be lacking a bit on various websites, so here is my attempt to explain some of it from my experience.
The Zupspitze is the highest mountain in Germany and the snow (according to the guy in the snow rental shop) is the best up there, as opposed to the numerous other ski areas around. I hired skis, boots and poles from a place on the corner of Alpspitzstraße and Sankt-Martin-Straße called Thomas Ski Schule or something like that. I don't know if it's the cheapest but the the gear was good enough (€28). I was also wanting to hire goggles but they unfortunately don't hire them so I bought some instead (my other ones are a bit old anyway). They also didn't hire helmets for adults, but this wasn't a biggie for this field (imho) unless you're wanting to hit the terain park.
In order to get to the ski field I took the Zupspitzbahn (cost ~€38 including access to all lifts on mountain) which is a cogwheel train that goes up to the ski field (the Zugspitzplatz area), from it's station next door to the main train station. There is essentially nothing at this station expect for a ticket office and the train (of course). I took the first train (8.15am) and about an hour later arrived at the ski field which was practically empty. I actually took a taxi to the station it left from because I didn't want to walk with skis, boots, poles etc 1km to the station (cost ~€9). I got there early and found no queue at all. It was very easy to buy a ticket and the guy in the counter spoke great English (like most people in Germany). I then put my skis on the side of the train and went inside to the nicely heated interior with my poles and boots. At this point I hadn't put my ski boots on, but many others had. The trip was very scenic with snow everywhere.
Once off the train, I went to the outside area and put on my ski boots and put my other shoes in my day pack. I think there was an area with lockers but my bag was so light I ended up skiing with it on. The ski area starts from this area (I recommend heading left and down for intermedia and above skiiers/boarders, to the right is essentially the beginners area although it can be a good place to start for others too) and there are a couple of restaurants here with reasonably high prices; it would be worth taking a little bit of stuff up with you. A super small tube of sunblock also set me back €9.20 so it would be worth taking that with you too if it looks like it will be a sunny day. In terms of the runs, they're well marked, and fairly self explanatory in terms of how to get back to this main area (although it might take a t-bar and a chairlift to do so). Incidentally there was only the one charlist and every else was a t-bar.
The vast majority of people on the field were skiiers, not snowboarders which was something different. The field is nice and wide and a great place to practice turns, but not much in the way of things to jump off or walls to back up (that I saw anyway). I did lots and lots of runs. It is actually quite a fast field, whereby there were a number of times when you need to go at a decent speed in order to make it up the next hill, but this didn't pose a problem at all for me.
In terms of getting back down I decided to take the cable car down from the summit to the Eibsee. Whilst I had heard this was faster, in my case it definitely wasn't. The other option is to simply go back on the Zugspitzbahn (which I would recommend). I changed back to my walkign shoes at this point, but many didn't. In terms of the way I went, there is a cable car up to the summit from the main Zupspitzeplatz area which left about every 15mins (and I'd just missed one). Once finally on (standing room only) this only took a few minutes to get to the summit, where there was about a 10min wait for another cablecar down to the Eibsee (NB: you need your ticket, from the journey up the mountain, here to get through the turnstiles). This was also standing room only and took 5-10mins and went down a long way rather quickly (quite exciting). At the bottom there was a short walk (~2min) along a path covered in snow (which was just ok in my shoes) up to the train station where there was a 35min wait until the Zugspitzbahn arrived, which I then boarded (NB: you need your ticket, from the journey up the mountain, here to get through the turnstiles) and eventually (~30mins later) arrived back where I started at the Zugspitzbahn main station.
So that was my day. Great fun and good snow!
Friday, 7 December 2007
The Day Before
Right, my inbox is empty, my to do list is all but ticked off (only 1 item left and it's only a priority 3 so it can stay unticked at this point). All that remains is to drop the cats off to their grandparents, wash all my clothes (damn), tidy the house (bugger), change the sheets (or not if I can't be bothered), grab my passport (argh! nearly forgot!), and jump on the plane. In 30 hours and 29 minutes. Yes, and counting.
Hopefully we'll get to internet cafes regularly enough to keep updates here, we'll see how we get on. Probably no photos until we get back though, at which point I can assure you there'll be plenty.
Watch this space!
Hopefully we'll get to internet cafes regularly enough to keep updates here, we'll see how we get on. Probably no photos until we get back though, at which point I can assure you there'll be plenty.
Watch this space!
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