Granted we were on the other side of the fence... but behold, same spot same boat! Friday, July 15, 2011
Top Gear Episode 2!
Granted we were on the other side of the fence... but behold, same spot same boat! 
Filling some gaps!
++++++++++Best to read the below post first! I should have posted them the other way around! Read this after Jess's below!!+++++++++++++++
As we are huge slackers on blogging and only post once in a while (trying to get better i swear!) there are just so many gaps in the things that we have posted and done. I figured having just posted Jess's write up from a few days ago I would try to go with that momentum and write another post. To add some context, we are now in Innsbruck, and rented an apartment off of airbnb.com (thanks to Rymay!). For less than a hotel price, and much nicer than a "zimmer" or "pension" or whatever they call them here, we got our own 1 bdrm apartment with a kitchen, washing machine, living room etc. The problem though, is the internet comes from the apartment across the hall, so im sitting with my back against the front door on the floor in the hallway for the best connection. See the dedication!!!
Seme the past month that I could fill in about our experiences would be:
- Meteora definitely was cool. The place itself was over run with 60 year old cruise ship type group travellers, which is always annoying, but by getting the book jess mentioned we definitely spiced things up a bit. The town we stayed in had like 500 people in it, and was mainly there just to serve as a hotel stop for people who didnt want to do just a day trip to the monastaries. Im very very glad we did it the way we did though, because having dinner at the family run place, staying at a hotel where the owners literally livein the hotel, and watching the sunsets in the evening completed the experience more than just hoping on a bus to and from athens. A must do for greece travels for sure!
-Croatia was very nice. Zagreb was only for 1 night so I couldnt say much about that, but Split and Dubronik were definitely all they are cracked up to be. The lack of commercial tourism in Split was a bit shocking at first, as trying to get from Split to Bol beach on Brac island was literally impossible save 1 ferry at 4pm each day (with no return). I almost felt like I should move there and start a tourist company! What a life eh?! Diocletians palace in the middle of Split was right in line with old town San Sebastian, inside the city walls of Dubrovnik, Venice streets etc. Walking around in 4 story stone wall streets 1-2 meters wide with no cars is always fun no matter what you are doing. Throw in some cool shops, cafes and bars, and you have a recipe for a fun evening! They had live music every night in the center, which we went to twice, and the food was the best we had seen in quite a while.
- Germany was a shock as well, but for the crappy weather, not the lack of tourism. The amount of historical walking tours, bus tours, bike tours, segway tours, skateboard tours, piggy back tours, etc in Berlin was ridiculous. Luckily our good friend trip advisor saved the day again and we went on two tours (one overview, one cold war) with Mike from Insider Tours. He was a kiwi turned German who enjoyed his job more than anyone I have ever met in my life. His father in law was a soldier and border guard in east germany, and his mother in law was an engineer in the government, allowing him to pass on some inside stories that you oculd just never hear from normal tour guides. His inlaws bothed longed for the 'good old days' of communism, and balked at capitalism's unemployment, crime, and poverty. Not like when there was no crime, no poverty, and no unemployment in east berlin.................... Berlin had a lot of great museums that were entertaining even to Jess and I, mainly I think because we could relate to it so much more. Its so frustrating standing in the parthenon with 8000 cruise ship old people when you know its rebuilt, recleaned, remodeled etc versus walking through a museum full of escapes from East germany that you know happened 20-50 years ago. The people who dreamt and built amazing contraptions (which they have on display and are real) to go over or under the wall, and the schemes to go through the borders are so impressive. Plus the people who did it are still alive to tell about it! Its so much better documented. I guess that is obvious, but still, Athens I still feel was a scam better left to books and imagination versus paying to 'see it', and Berlin and Germany is right there in your face realism. We both really enjoyed it.
-Finally, the Nurburgring was a really awesome day. I wish I could have gone longer and for more days. The problem with the ring is its very insiders club. Its open to tourists most days, but lots of them for only 2 hours. For these 2 hours there is everything from race cars to motorbikes to men in work vans driving around. Hence why I paid extra to go on a track day when it was only purpose built cars on the track, no bikes and no vans. The best time to go though is when its 'closed\. We went in the off hours and there were stunning Bentley's, Audi R8s, and ferraris racing around by themselves. I have no idea how or why they got on, but I wish I was in that club. The track day there was about 150 cars in total, and I had the worst car out of everyone for sure. As there is no insurance, I was surprised and impressed with how many people were willing to take their 200k Porsche GT3's, Audi R8's, and Ferrari F430 Scuderia's on the track. I was able to get my car up to 197km/h on the straigh stretch, but people were blowing by me constantly. Its one thing to see an Audi R8 on the side of the road, or accelerating from a stop light, but I had never heard the noises I heard when one drives by you at 300km/h. So powerful and loud, and so refreshing to see people actually race race cars. Granted I would NEVER take my car on the ring anytime soon, as its so scary I would quite likely die, but after years of practice, I could see it for sure. We also saw the Sauber F1 team show up for next weeks race there.
One last thing, for anyone who watches top gear. Episode 2 Monaco filming missed us by 1 day. It's probably the closest I will ever get to JC in my entire life. We walked the track the day before it was closed for practice, and they drove the course that next day after practice was over. When they have the scene where James and Hammond are on those yachts (and they show one that has a glass pool on the back), we were standing in that same spot 24 hours earlier! So timely, and so close to actually seeing them! Too bad...
View through wall one to wall two. In between being the 'death strip' where they would have shot you if you tried to enter. Small price to pay for no unemployment, no poverty and no crime though!!
Something I liked about Berlin. When they rebuilt a lot of stuff they didnt clean it. They used as much of the old building as possible, and then just patched in new stuff. This building is charred and full of bullet holes, but what better way to remember? Also that is Mike being his usual passionate self.
Wall 1 with guard tower. If you make it over that they shoot you.
As we are huge slackers on blogging and only post once in a while (trying to get better i swear!) there are just so many gaps in the things that we have posted and done. I figured having just posted Jess's write up from a few days ago I would try to go with that momentum and write another post. To add some context, we are now in Innsbruck, and rented an apartment off of airbnb.com (thanks to Rymay!). For less than a hotel price, and much nicer than a "zimmer" or "pension" or whatever they call them here, we got our own 1 bdrm apartment with a kitchen, washing machine, living room etc. The problem though, is the internet comes from the apartment across the hall, so im sitting with my back against the front door on the floor in the hallway for the best connection. See the dedication!!!
Seme the past month that I could fill in about our experiences would be:
- Meteora definitely was cool. The place itself was over run with 60 year old cruise ship type group travellers, which is always annoying, but by getting the book jess mentioned we definitely spiced things up a bit. The town we stayed in had like 500 people in it, and was mainly there just to serve as a hotel stop for people who didnt want to do just a day trip to the monastaries. Im very very glad we did it the way we did though, because having dinner at the family run place, staying at a hotel where the owners literally livein the hotel, and watching the sunsets in the evening completed the experience more than just hoping on a bus to and from athens. A must do for greece travels for sure!
-Croatia was very nice. Zagreb was only for 1 night so I couldnt say much about that, but Split and Dubronik were definitely all they are cracked up to be. The lack of commercial tourism in Split was a bit shocking at first, as trying to get from Split to Bol beach on Brac island was literally impossible save 1 ferry at 4pm each day (with no return). I almost felt like I should move there and start a tourist company! What a life eh?! Diocletians palace in the middle of Split was right in line with old town San Sebastian, inside the city walls of Dubrovnik, Venice streets etc. Walking around in 4 story stone wall streets 1-2 meters wide with no cars is always fun no matter what you are doing. Throw in some cool shops, cafes and bars, and you have a recipe for a fun evening! They had live music every night in the center, which we went to twice, and the food was the best we had seen in quite a while.
- Germany was a shock as well, but for the crappy weather, not the lack of tourism. The amount of historical walking tours, bus tours, bike tours, segway tours, skateboard tours, piggy back tours, etc in Berlin was ridiculous. Luckily our good friend trip advisor saved the day again and we went on two tours (one overview, one cold war) with Mike from Insider Tours. He was a kiwi turned German who enjoyed his job more than anyone I have ever met in my life. His father in law was a soldier and border guard in east germany, and his mother in law was an engineer in the government, allowing him to pass on some inside stories that you oculd just never hear from normal tour guides. His inlaws bothed longed for the 'good old days' of communism, and balked at capitalism's unemployment, crime, and poverty. Not like when there was no crime, no poverty, and no unemployment in east berlin.................... Berlin had a lot of great museums that were entertaining even to Jess and I, mainly I think because we could relate to it so much more. Its so frustrating standing in the parthenon with 8000 cruise ship old people when you know its rebuilt, recleaned, remodeled etc versus walking through a museum full of escapes from East germany that you know happened 20-50 years ago. The people who dreamt and built amazing contraptions (which they have on display and are real) to go over or under the wall, and the schemes to go through the borders are so impressive. Plus the people who did it are still alive to tell about it! Its so much better documented. I guess that is obvious, but still, Athens I still feel was a scam better left to books and imagination versus paying to 'see it', and Berlin and Germany is right there in your face realism. We both really enjoyed it.
-Finally, the Nurburgring was a really awesome day. I wish I could have gone longer and for more days. The problem with the ring is its very insiders club. Its open to tourists most days, but lots of them for only 2 hours. For these 2 hours there is everything from race cars to motorbikes to men in work vans driving around. Hence why I paid extra to go on a track day when it was only purpose built cars on the track, no bikes and no vans. The best time to go though is when its 'closed\. We went in the off hours and there were stunning Bentley's, Audi R8s, and ferraris racing around by themselves. I have no idea how or why they got on, but I wish I was in that club. The track day there was about 150 cars in total, and I had the worst car out of everyone for sure. As there is no insurance, I was surprised and impressed with how many people were willing to take their 200k Porsche GT3's, Audi R8's, and Ferrari F430 Scuderia's on the track. I was able to get my car up to 197km/h on the straigh stretch, but people were blowing by me constantly. Its one thing to see an Audi R8 on the side of the road, or accelerating from a stop light, but I had never heard the noises I heard when one drives by you at 300km/h. So powerful and loud, and so refreshing to see people actually race race cars. Granted I would NEVER take my car on the ring anytime soon, as its so scary I would quite likely die, but after years of practice, I could see it for sure. We also saw the Sauber F1 team show up for next weeks race there.
One last thing, for anyone who watches top gear. Episode 2 Monaco filming missed us by 1 day. It's probably the closest I will ever get to JC in my entire life. We walked the track the day before it was closed for practice, and they drove the course that next day after practice was over. When they have the scene where James and Hammond are on those yachts (and they show one that has a glass pool on the back), we were standing in that same spot 24 hours earlier! So timely, and so close to actually seeing them! Too bad...
View through wall one to wall two. In between being the 'death strip' where they would have shot you if you tried to enter. Small price to pay for no unemployment, no poverty and no crime though!!
Something I liked about Berlin. When they rebuilt a lot of stuff they didnt clean it. They used as much of the old building as possible, and then just patched in new stuff. This building is charred and full of bullet holes, but what better way to remember? Also that is Mike being his usual passionate self.
Wall 1 with guard tower. If you make it over that they shoot you.
Update
Posted a few days late just FYI so it sounds a bit odd at first!
This is an overdue blog post for anyone who hasn't gotten tired of checking to see if there are updates.
We are currently in Adenau Germany for three days so that Owen can tick something off of his bucket list. As I write this blog post from the restaurant above the Nurburgring, Owen is out on the track having the time of his life. We started the day at 7:00am for breakfast in our hotel (the first place to serve what we would call bacon since we left home) and we drove our rented VW golf to RSR to pick up Owen`s Clio Cup 200 for the day. After a cautionary breifing from the team he set off to the track for the opening at 8:00am. I drove our car to get some pictures of his first laps which proved to be very difficult. As I approached the ring all you can hear is a car whipping by you and then the smell of tires takes over. My two attempts at getting a picture of Owen on the track were unsuccesful. I settled for a shot of him coming off the track which I`ll attach. It`s been almost 5 hours now and he has just headed out with car 141 for his last two laps. There was one accident so far where a BMW hit the guard rail and lost the front of his car - they had to close the track down and Owen must have been the last person to bring his car in. I was pacing so much in the restaurant one of the instructors went down and checked what kind of car had been in the accident. He reported back that it was a BMW and that only one car was involved but, 5/10/15 mintues later nearly everyone was off the track except Owen and the car that had crashed. After a painful amount of time he pulled in and it turned out the red flags went up right as he was passing the exit so, he had to do another slow lap and pass the accident etc. I'll let him tell his side of it in his next blog post though!
As for the trip, prior to here we have been in Dusseldorf, Hamburg and Berlin. We only had last Saturday night in Dusseldorf and despite everyone from Hamburg rolling their eyes at us for visiting there it was a really good time. The "longest bar in the world" seemed to be accurate... We headed out at 5pm to walk around and the streets were already full of bachelor/bachelorette parties as well as tourists and locals. We managed to get a spot at one of the brewery's that was recommended and drank little 1.80 beers standing up in the street. After we had 10 or so pencil
strikes on our coaster and a small snack we moved on to the next brewery for the exact same thing. We stood beside a nice couple from Dusseldorf who we chatted with for a few more beers and watched the street party continue. We stayed out and enjoyed the streets for a few more hours but, a 5pm start made it hard to go too late. We arrived in Dusseldorf by train from Hamburg which was also a very cool place to visit. We were really lucky to arrive on a Wednesday when the Reeperbahn had a cool street market running. We stopped and got a cheese plate, tumblers of wine and some bread and sat outside for under 15 Euros. There was a couple bands playing and it was a cool environment. It takes some getting use to walking on a street full of sex shops, peep shows and strip clubs but, everyone seemed to think it was normal..lol. We took a walking tour in Hamburg as well where it's free and you basically pay the guide what you think the tour was worth. We had previously done two walking tours in Berlin which were amazing (mostly due to our very enthusiastic guide) Berlin was 3 days full of sightseeing and rain. It was the first time we had experienced bad weather since we left home. At first when we arrived on the plane we were happy to feel rain but, it didn't last long. I had two pairs of shoes that were drenched after the first day so, I was happy to see sunshine on our third day. We visited the Berlin Zoo on our last day and it was definatley the best zoo I have ever been too. We got to see giraffes, gorillas, elephants, lions, bears, a rhino and tons more animals. The only things we didn't get to see where the hippo and the kangaroos..I guess they had gone to bed.
Prior to Berlin we had spent time in Croatia. I could have spent a month in the places we visited. We had one stopover night in Zagreb and then took a train to Split where we spent four days. The highlight had to be our day trip to Plitvice Lakes National Park. We rented a car and drove the 2.5hrs to get to one of the most beautiful places I'd ever been. The water was unbelievable. I can't even count how many times I turned to Owen to say "I just can't believe the colour of the water!"
We chose to do the 6 hr suggested walk which included a tram ride and an electric ferry ride across one of the lakes. Our camera doesn't do it justice but, a picture is attached so you can see! We also did a day trip to Brela - the beach was named the best beach in Europe and the 6th best beach in the world according to a Forbes list. Unfortuatnely, it turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. It was definately beautiful but, it wasn't really that great for a swim/lounge. It's all rocks so you pretty much need to bring a chair or rent one (we only had our towels so, we just laid on the rocks) and the water was probably the coldest water I've ever tried to swim in. It was like ice jaggers hitting you as you entered. Owen and
I both did give it a go but, you couldn't stay in longer than 10 seconds and you also couldn't put your head in. I was expecting better given that we were in Croatia but, sadly it hadn't warmed up yet I guess. We did get to do a little bit
of swimming in Dubrovnik. The water was slightly warmer and we went for a couple short swims on one of our beach days. Dubrovnik was such a cool city! We got to stay inside the old city walls for our last two night and it was tons of fun. I'm attaching a pictures of the 3L beer tower we took down at Exit Bar on our night out. The place would have been amazing except for the sign outside encouraged smoking... Instead of the red circle with the line through the cigarette, there was a green circle around the cigarette. The music was great, the beer was hilarious but, the smoke was unbearable. I have a photo of me breathing into my sweater because it was so strong it made you sick. Sadly, we had to leave the good music as soon as we were done our tower because of it. The place was full of bars, pubs, restaurants etc to hang out at and we really liked it. The second picture is of a walk around the city walls which was also really cool.
I'll do one more little blurb thinking back to June 21st. We took two days after Athens to visit Meteora in Kastraki. Our train arrived in Kalambaka Greece in the afternoon and right away you can look around and know you are somewhere special.
The mountains are very memorable. They look smooth from far away (even though they are quite coarse up close) and they come to funny points high above the little towns. The impressive part of these mountains (and the reason we came) are the monestaries. Monks had previously built their monastaries on the tips of these mountains. Today there are still some you can visit and we did just that.
We had read a review about a book called "the foothills of meteora" and went into town the first night to look for it. We found it at in a shop window and decided that we were going to skip the tour buses and rental cars and visit them by foot. BAD IDEA! Our journey had to start as early as possible because the heat got unbearable during the day so, we set off before 8am (by the way, that is
early for us now..lol) The book was extremely detailed but, it did caution that no one in Greece walks anywhere so the paths are overgrown and may be hard to find. We made it to the first site no problem but, on the way to the second we were
making our way through an overgrown field beside one of the mountains to visit the monks prison and we heard a weird snorting noise and a saw some trees moving in the distance and decided we should head back to the road. We did end up getting to two more using the book and the paths but, after a ridiculous amount of bugs, a fallen wasps net, a scare from what turned out to be a goat and the crazy heat we decided to call it quits. I'll attach a couple photos - I had to carry around a long skirt for the day because when you enter the monastaries women have to have full skirts on (the reason I have a big skirt over my lulus in the pics)
We are headed to Innsbruck & Salzburg next, hopefully it won't be a month before the next update!
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