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Back in the Jugg Agane
Monday, October 8th, 2012 01:23 amIn the morning we are back at work after a very splendid three week holiday.
Normal service will be resumed shortly.
Normal service will be resumed shortly.
Monday, October 8th, 2012
The Grand Tour (redux)
Monday, October 8th, 2012 04:07 pmAfter one of the fastest-passing three weeks ever, I am back in the office. My only comment on that is the observation that if my inbox is anything to go by, IT has been the saviour of the Amazon rainforest. I can’t face trawling through it all and working out which bits need to be attended to and which bits can be safely deleted. Later for that, I think.
I had intended to write more about our holiday, but after the initial post (ages ago, it now seems), I was never able to get a solid enough wifi connection for long enough and I gave up. Then, once we returned to the UK, well, Mists of Pandaria went live on World of Warcraft and there was serious levelling to be done.
And some gardening.
Anyway. We had a really nice holiday, thanks for asking. It was also something of a belated honeymoon: finances did not permit earlier in the year, and later in the summer, the little matter that was the Olympics intruded, so late September was it.
We spent four nights in Konstanz down on the Swiss border, two nights in Heidelberg, further north (about halfway up Germany on the left side of your map) and a night in Köln, before travelling home variously by Deutscher Bahn and Eurostar.
Konstanz is a splendid university town and I recommend it highly. It is not too touristy, or rather it remains largely undiscovered by UK tourists which, generally speaking, is an asset. We took advantage of the catamaran service to visit Friedrichshafen, where the Count von Zeppelin built and flew his erm, Zeppelins, including the ill-fated Hindenberg.
The museum is housed in the original terminal building and one of the displays inside includes a scale model that shows the relative size of the Hindenberg compared with the terminal building and also the RMS Queen Mary. I don’t think I ever fully appreciated the scale of the thing before. The museum includes a large number of pieces of salvaged wreckage and mock ups of parts of the airship that you can walk through. It’s all very impressive.
We bought a couple of Zeppelin Bier glasses as mementos. I don’t understand why there wasn’t a model of the Count’s car, though. I’d have had one of those.
Another place we visited was Meersberg, a small town on the north side of the lake notable for having and old castle and a new castle. The new one being a mere 500 or so years old. The place is almost impossibly picturesque and gets my vote for a possible location for any potential future remakes of The Prisoner. It’s the sort of place that would not look out of place on any festive biscuit tin you have ever seen.
After Konstanz, we travelled up to Heidelberg for a couple of days. Rather more touristy here and aimed very much at the American market (there is a large US base nearby). The new part of town is just ordinary, but the old town is very picturesque as is the ruined castle on the hill. We visited the latter and went to see the Great VAT. This was suitably impressive until we walker further into the crypt and discovered that we had been impressed by a lesser vat. The Great VAT which, before the wood shrank, had a capacity of about 275,000 litres has a small dance floor on top.
I liked Heidelberg, but I’m not sure that it had more to offer than the two days we spent there. At least not without a car.
Our final location before coming home on the Eurostar was Cologne. I think we pitched it about right – the city is set up pretty much to suck money out of your wallet (at least in the centre) and I think that we had our money’s worth after an afternoon and evening there. The famous cathedral is as dark and forbidding as I remember it to be, but I have to say that on our way back from our evening meal we found it was still open and that the organist was practising. In the dark, with candles and the organ playing it is rather more spectacular than it is in the daylight in some ways.
I must admit that on first sight of the hotel in Cologne, I wondered what we had got ourselves into, but it was okay – see picture.
I only have my iPhone with me right now, so I don’t have all the pictures we took, but I will, possibly get around to uploading others from the camera at some point.
It was a good holiday and I wish we were still on it.
Note: For some reason, after the first picture, I couldn't upload any others. I'll try and remember to have another go from my own PC tonight (or from here, later).
I had intended to write more about our holiday, but after the initial post (ages ago, it now seems), I was never able to get a solid enough wifi connection for long enough and I gave up. Then, once we returned to the UK, well, Mists of Pandaria went live on World of Warcraft and there was serious levelling to be done.
And some gardening.
Anyway. We had a really nice holiday, thanks for asking. It was also something of a belated honeymoon: finances did not permit earlier in the year, and later in the summer, the little matter that was the Olympics intruded, so late September was it.
We spent four nights in Konstanz down on the Swiss border, two nights in Heidelberg, further north (about halfway up Germany on the left side of your map) and a night in Köln, before travelling home variously by Deutscher Bahn and Eurostar.
Konstanz is a splendid university town and I recommend it highly. It is not too touristy, or rather it remains largely undiscovered by UK tourists which, generally speaking, is an asset. We took advantage of the catamaran service to visit Friedrichshafen, where the Count von Zeppelin built and flew his erm, Zeppelins, including the ill-fated Hindenberg.
The museum is housed in the original terminal building and one of the displays inside includes a scale model that shows the relative size of the Hindenberg compared with the terminal building and also the RMS Queen Mary. I don’t think I ever fully appreciated the scale of the thing before. The museum includes a large number of pieces of salvaged wreckage and mock ups of parts of the airship that you can walk through. It’s all very impressive.
We bought a couple of Zeppelin Bier glasses as mementos. I don’t understand why there wasn’t a model of the Count’s car, though. I’d have had one of those.
Another place we visited was Meersberg, a small town on the north side of the lake notable for having and old castle and a new castle. The new one being a mere 500 or so years old. The place is almost impossibly picturesque and gets my vote for a possible location for any potential future remakes of The Prisoner. It’s the sort of place that would not look out of place on any festive biscuit tin you have ever seen.
After Konstanz, we travelled up to Heidelberg for a couple of days. Rather more touristy here and aimed very much at the American market (there is a large US base nearby). The new part of town is just ordinary, but the old town is very picturesque as is the ruined castle on the hill. We visited the latter and went to see the Great VAT. This was suitably impressive until we walker further into the crypt and discovered that we had been impressed by a lesser vat. The Great VAT which, before the wood shrank, had a capacity of about 275,000 litres has a small dance floor on top.
I liked Heidelberg, but I’m not sure that it had more to offer than the two days we spent there. At least not without a car.
Our final location before coming home on the Eurostar was Cologne. I think we pitched it about right – the city is set up pretty much to suck money out of your wallet (at least in the centre) and I think that we had our money’s worth after an afternoon and evening there. The famous cathedral is as dark and forbidding as I remember it to be, but I have to say that on our way back from our evening meal we found it was still open and that the organist was practising. In the dark, with candles and the organ playing it is rather more spectacular than it is in the daylight in some ways.
I must admit that on first sight of the hotel in Cologne, I wondered what we had got ourselves into, but it was okay – see picture.
I only have my iPhone with me right now, so I don’t have all the pictures we took, but I will, possibly get around to uploading others from the camera at some point.
It was a good holiday and I wish we were still on it.
Note: For some reason, after the first picture, I couldn't upload any others. I'll try and remember to have another go from my own PC tonight (or from here, later).