Belgium

Yesterday it was a pretty hard day also. It started well with a breakfast with Ian and Jolien, then we went to visit Gent. They've presented us the city, they were very well prepared with a map and a city tour for us, and they told us a lot of stories about the city. It's a historical city, the buildings look so medieval, it's like going back in history. Every building has it's story. We've walked for about 2 hours and then we took a boat trip through Gent (2 rivers meet in the city, and there is also an old channel that was made to make a connection to the North Sea).



Then we've driven to Antwerpen where the "Onze Lieve" Cathedral impressed us. It's very big and mostly very high, so high that it is very difficult to catch it in a picture. We've seen a lot more there, although it is pretty close to Holland, the style of the city is closer to french style, or even spanish style, with huge buildings. Here Sven recommended us a free parking near the center of the city, and also gave us a map with the most important places to visit, so in about 2-3 hours we were done.

We arrived at Sven's place at about 7pm and this time we were not late. We've met each other, we discussed about the plan for the next days and we've watched the photos from our weddings.
Today we did a lot of things, we've played table tennis, we've walked to the center of the village, and of course, creme de la creme, we went out in a small tour with the bikes. I was funny, too funny maybe, because you know that i don't know to ride a bike ... but i still wanted to do it. So i entered with full speed in a bush (a big bush, about 2m high), and also destroyed some corn plants in a corn field near the bike road that we were going at that time. After that, when going on the streets i only had problems with the cars and with the left/right turns, and also when i was going too slow. otherwise i went pretty well :) of course my ass hurts like hell now, i don't understand how the cyclists can go 200km on bike day after day.
In the evening we went to Isis where we met also Sjarel (other friends from Soccerproject) where we ate very well and had some very interesting discussions. I'm happy that we know each other for real now, it's easier to speak with somebody on the internet when you know him in person.

Amsterdam - Rotterdam - Gent

This day was better. We forgot about the problems with the car, about the 36euro car parking, we just enjoyed A'dam. We started the day early, ate the breakfast that was included in the hotel price (a good breakfast, nothing to complain) and we headed into the jungle :)

We saw the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh museum, the Opera House, the Flower Market, the Rembrandt Square, the Wilhelmina square, Central Station, Diamond museum and then we took a last visit to the Red Light District and back to the car. Luckily, the Albert Cuyp street (recommended by Sven) was at 3 min. walking distance from our hotel, so we didn't have to walk too much. There we bought something to eat (2 grilled minichickens for 6euro) and that was more than enough.

It was getting pretty late so we thought about skipping Bruges. We went to the Castle in Muiden, but didn't enter because 11euro pp was too much for this. So we took some pictures and drove to R'dam. Of course we got lost in all the streets/highways from A'dam Ring so we made about 30km more but we finally arrived in R'dam. Nice bridge, the Erasmusbrug, unfortunately it was pretty much all we saw in R'dam. The batteries were empty after taking some pictures, but we've caught the essential.

Next we drove to Gent to Ian, and of course we got lost again, so we were a bit late. Sorry for that. We also caught some traffic jams (thanks Sven for preventing me), 2 in A'dam and one in R'dam, but at 9:00pm we've parked the car in front of the house.

Thanks to Ian and Jolien for being such a good hosts, I hope we were the same for you when you visited us some weeks ago, we are feeling very good here. Very nice house, and Bilbo rocks! I hope the cats are named Frodo and Sam, or maybe Merry and Pippin :D

Tomorrow we will do Gent, then Antwerpen and finally we'll meet Sven. I can't wait. We don't have photos from today, because we don't have batteries. Tomorrow I think we'll put more.

Hannover - Amsterdam

The most "adventurous" day from out vacation. Pfoa... we started the day at 6:45 am, because Jan and Sybille had to leave for work at 7:30. We stopped by at Continental AG Hannover so I could take some pictures in front of the building, then we went downtown and visited the main attractions. When we were about to leave... surprise: the GPS is dead. I unplug it, see a lot of components in the cigarette lighter... I take them out, try to put them back in place, plug in the GPS again... nothing. I insert the cigarette lighter, it doesn't heat up. Au... what are we going to do without GPS when out trip has just started? It's wonderful, we have 2 GPSs and it's the cigarette lighter that breaks down.

We don't panic, we take the laptop, we power it on, connect the GPS to the laptop... yeah, the GPS will function until the laptop's battery goes empty. So we take advantage of this situation, search for a Renault dealer and stop by. When they see us, they come up with things like "you'll leave the car here until tomorrow and we'll see what we can do". Hello, Deutchland, we have a schedule, reservations, we have to get to A'dam today, what do you mean with tomorrow? Well... let's see, I'll have a look, "der Meister" says, a guy of about 30 years. He takes a look, he says that some 15A safety fuse is not there although it should be. We tell him that the cigarette lighter was ok until now, we haven't touched the safety fuses, so even if it should have been there and it's not, it's not because of that safety fuse that the cigarette lighter is not working. He takes another look, calls one of his colleagues, that other guy takes a look for about half an hour and in the end, apparently, he found that safety fuse and apparently it was defective so he had to replace it. Unfortunately, when the safety fuse broke down, the power cord of Iuli's GPS broke down as well. Sorry Iuli :D The GPS is still functional, but we have to get you a charger.

And so that you can see the "difference" between Germans and Romanians, when we asked how much we have to pay, he answered, like a true German: zwanzig. Without receipt, of course, because it we wanted one we had to want until the next day :)

It was ok, because we were in a hurry. Besides, instead of leaving Hannover at 9:30, we left at 12:30. After we left, I wanted to close my window when we entered the highway (because, until then, it's obvious that it wasn't necessary to close the window, since I drove with 50km/h), it closes bit by bit and completely, meaning that now I can't open it anymore. That's the second good news.

Anyway, even though A'dam is only 375km away from Hannover, after about 200km I felt that I could no longer keep my eyes open. I felt so sleepy. I found a park place and took a nap for about one hour. After that, We played badminton and the truck drivers looked at us as if we were coming from the circus. Then we left. We reached A'dam, we found the hotel, but when I asked the dude from the reception about some parking place, he burst out laughing. Parking place in A'dam? Well ... 4EUR/h, 36EUR/day or you can drive to the Ajax Arena and pay there 6 eur/day; they will also give you a subway ticket so you can come back to the hotel. So, apparently we drove there ... about 7km, we entered P6 (meaning park place 6), we asked the gatekeeper and he says that 6eur/day is valid only for P1. That sucks. We can't get to P1, because it's full of "forbidden" signs, so we give it up and go back to the hotel to park there for 36eur per day. And there (meaning in P6), surprise. Our credit card doesn't function, only credit cards from "Dutch" banks function, so we exchange some money at Lidl (after 2 shopping tours in which we bought juice and chocolate), and go with 18 coins of 2 EUR each to the automatic parking device to get the parking ticket. Of course it doesn't function when we try the first time, the dude from the reception helps us, who, by the way, him, but, well, that's the way it is.

So, at about 5:30, we finally get to leave the room and have a walk through A'dam, to see some incredibly narrow buildings (Flemish style) and to see the Red District which, little by little, turns into Chinatown. It rained about 3-4 times, of course, as if all the problems we had today were not enough.

So we came back to the hotel - ah, I haven't told you that we are not staying in the hotel where we made reservations, they gave us a key from a hotel which is across the channel, because they have a "problem", but it's ok, it's a room with 4 beds and we stay only the 2 of us, looks pretty well, the furniture is a bit old and we have a view to one of the million channels of A'dam. perfect :) Too bad is raining, i would stay with the chair on the balcony to watch the channel.

They have houses on this channels, meaning some floating barracks used as a residence. some of them really look good, one had the curtain open so we could see all of his house :)

Tomorrow will take another tour of A'dam then we'll go to R'dam to see the biggest harbour of Europe, then we go to Bruges and we stay for the night at Jan's place in Gent.

Berlin - Hannover

We've started early today, we agreed to meet Rafa and Adi at 10:30am at East Side Galleries (graffiti on the Berlin's Wall - what's left of it). We've checked out, and went to the meating place. There we've seen a lot of graffiti, some of them real masterpiece, along the wall that measures about 1.2km.

Then we've folowed the plan and went to see Gedaechtniskirche, a church in ruins (intentionally left like this) between only new buildings.

We left to Hannover where we've met Sybille and Jan and will remain at their place for the night. They are very nice and have a very educated dog. We've went out to dinner at a greek restaurant where we ate very well for 32eur in total, but we've tried everything :) Then we walked on the lake's shore and saw the old town hall, that the legend says it was built in a swamp on top of 8000 oak trees. All the city looks like it is built in a forest (i believe it really is), full of trees everywhere, like all the buildings are the house of Red Riding Hood's grandmother :)

Today i have to stop here, it's very late and we will wake up early - our hosts have to work tomorrow and we will go to Amsterdam where you never have enough time to visit everything. I'm sorry for the lack of activity on the blog these days, in Germany is a bit harder with the internet. It's good that I had the time to write :)

Berlin

Today it should’ve been a relaxing day, a walking day. Lol, what a nice joke. Yes, relaxing, yes, walking, but …

We woke up late, so we left only around 10:30 from the hotel. We took a bottle with aprox. 0.7l of juice, which of course was not enough, and 0.5l of any liquid in Berlin’s center started from 2eur. We won’t make this mistake again. We took a very fast tram to Alexander Strasse where we started. Although we’ve planned a lot with what to go where, when we arrived in the center everything was there. One after another we’ve seen them all. We found a very good map on the one and only turistic info office – very poor prepared – and then it was very easy. We’ve finished all center in a day, but we’ve walked about 20-25km. My legs hurt, but we are please with the achievements for today.

We ate “on hand” the local speciality – currywurst and bratwurst. Nothing spectacular, but with 5eur we both ate so: no complains. Tomorrow there is a special offer in the hotel, 6 euro for lunch so maybe we will eat it here.

Berlin is a big and beautiful city and a little disturbed in this period by all kind of constructions/renovations. But we’ve seen a lot, we’ve made a lot of pictures, so it did worth visiting it. Who wants to come to Berlin should contact us, we have a lot of useful advices :) We still have some objectives to see tomorrow, but we want to leave after lunch anyway.

We’ll go now to a Mac to eat an icecream and mostly to get a free wi-fi internet. We didn’t carry the notebook with us when we went walking, and our phones don’t know wi-fi. I hope that they have it in MacDonald’s because if not … we’ll have to leave it for tomorrow/Tuesday.

The plan for tomorrow: - in the morning we’ll visit graffiti galleries of the Berlin’s Wall (East Side Gallery), we eat, we go to see Gedaechtniskirche and then we leave for Hannover where we meet Sybille and remain at her place for the night.

After MacDonald’s edit: the internet there is the same as here (in hotel), only with Deutche Telekom hot spot, so thanks but no thanks. Too expensive. It’s strange, because in Romania at MacDonald’s there is free wi-fi, also in France (even in Paris). In Romania we have it free in squares and commercial centers, here there is no free wi-fi.

Bratislava - Berlin

What a relief. We’ve done the most difficult part of the trip. We’ve arrived around 8:30 local time in Berlin, after ~ 1300km in 28h. We’ve finished the reckless driving, we’ve done 20% of the trip in 10% of the holiday. From now on, till the last day we’ll have only small driving days.

Now let’s sum up what we’ve done today:

- we woke up pretty late, considering that we went to sleep late in the night. We left Bratislava at 10:30 local time (from now on, when I say time I mean CET) and set the GPS for Dresden, downtown.

- we arrived at the destination at approx. 4:30 pm. Once we parked the car (0.5 EUR/20min.) it didn’t seem like there would be much to see in Dresden. We’ve bought 40min and we went out in the center to see what is to be seen. I was surprised to find that one has really a lot to see in Dresden. It’s outstanding. We’ve returned and took some more (2eur = 80min) because there’s a lot to see. We will put some pictures also, unfortunately to few. It happened what is always happening: the batteries were exhausted. I cannot explain how, but it happened (2 sets, do not think that we were unprepared :D). Also there was a powerful wind blowing on the Elbe’s shore that almost took us flying, luckily we took a brick in the pockets, otherwise we would've been in danger :p

- at 6:30pm we’ve left Dresden, very happy with what we’ve seen there.

- 2h later we’ve arrived in Berlin and we’ve checked in at Hotel Grand City Berlin East (Holiday Inn chain) where for 37.6EUR/double room/night we’ve got a very nice room at 12th floor. Unfortunately we don’t have internet in the room except if we pay 13EUR/day, so we refused. We’ll find tomorrow a McDonald’s with free wi-fi to put the articles online.

Till now we’ve noticed: gas is very expensive, i was expected in Germany to be cheaper (it begins with 1.37EUR/l), and I thought in Bratislava was expensive (1.230EUR/l). In supermarket almost everything is cheaper that home. Meaning water is 0.19EUR/1.5l, apple juice 0.6eUR/1.5l and probably others.

Fuel consumption is 7.9l/100km for now, probably because Friday we’ve used AC non-stop and today we’ve went with a 170km/h average on the wonderful german highways. I think that next days it will decrease a bit considering I’ll drive less and more relaxed.

In Berlin it’s pretty cold now, we’ve went out for a walk it was a bit cold. Also a strong wind is blowing. Still, it’s good that we don’t have 40°C

Tomorrow – relaxing, walking, not driving anymore, not staying glued to the chair anymore :D

So we started

A hard day, a full day. Initial plan:

- 3:30 pm - leave the office

- 4pm - start the trip

In fact:

- office till 4pm, run to the Renault showroom for the impowerment from the leasing company, to be able to get out of the country, fuel.

- 4:30pm - i'm home finally. take a short shower, verify the luggage, everything is there =>

- 5:30pm - start the tour.

The driving was good, with no bad events. 150km/h on the highway (and i thought i can drive within the legal limit = 130), slowing when the locals slowed (probably before the cameras). Unfortunatelly, the GPS didn't know that the hungarians are started the highway to Nadlac, so we lost about half an hour with a small detour.

Then I clicked on the GPS's map by mistake and we've got a 50km prolongation of the route, luckily we observed it in time, after passing our destination, that became "checkpoint" in the meanwhile

In the end, everything was ok, we arrived in Bratislava, at Rafa and Adi's place (by the way: thanks for hosting us) at about 11:30pm Romania's hour, 10:30pm local hour. But, what do you know ... a storm starts so quickly that we cannot take the luggage out of the car. We managed to do it after more then one hour with the price of a short shower.

We have no pictures today, and probably we won't have too many tomorrow as well.

Tomorrow's plan:

9-10am - leave for Berlin via Brno, Praga, Dresda - 700km - i think about 7 hours with a safety delay. We want to see Dresda for 3-4 hours, so we can arrive in Berlin in the evening, around 8-9pm. I hope tomorrow's plan we'll go better.