After catching a glimpse of a typical Christmas market in Frankfurt on the first day (refer to my previous post), we started our 2nd day by going to Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a beautiful medieval town along the Romantic Road. Actually this was my 2nd visit to Rothenburg. I went to Rothenburg in May 2007, and I fell in love with the town. Rothenburg pleased me so much that I decided to come again in the winter, and this time I brought my friends along. Like my previous visit, the weather was sunny and bright. However, unlike my previous visit, this [View Full Entry]

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I visited Germany 3 times (July 2004, May 2005 & May 2007), but all these 3 times occurred in the summer and I haven't visited Germany in the winter. After seeing all the photos and videos about German Christmas markets during my German lessons, I decided to make a trip to Germany and see the Christmas markets with my own eyes. The first stop of our trip was Frankfurt. We took a half-day leave / off from work and went to Heathrow Airport to catch our afternoon flight to Frankfurt. However, there was a delay at Heathrow because of runway congestion. [View Full Entry]

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My cousin Ben, who just finished his student exchange in Copenhagen, came to UK to visit me. On the next day after he arrived, we made a road trip to Bath and Avebury, together with my colleagues Jack, Lois & Francis. We rented a car in Slough and drove all the way to Bath. As we drove towards Bath, the weather seemed to get from bad to worse... (It was cloudy in Slough, drizzling in Reading, raining in Newbury, and raining cats and dogs as we approached Bath...) After a refuelling stop, we made our way to the Royal Crescent. We [View Full Entry]

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For this weekend Carine and I joined Yusen and his housemates for a trip to the Natural History Museum in London. When we arrived, we saw a Christmas market and an ice rink outside the museum. (This was the first Christmas market I saw in 2007.) Entering the museum, we were greeted by a majestic skeleton of a Diplodocus. After walking around the Central Hall, we entered the Dinosaur gallery. The gallery is a bit dark and cramped, but in general the displays are fascinating and interesting. After visiting the Dinosaur gallery, I made a short trip to the mammals gallery, [View Full Entry]

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After visiting London's Natural History Museum with my friends, I went to Lille for a short day-trip. I made my way to St Pancras station to catch my train to Lille. I was supposed to go to Lille 2 weeks ago but the trip was postponed due to the French transport strike. Actually the strike was a blessing in disguise, because there's a Christmas market in Lille and it only started one week ago. If I went to Lille 2 weeks ago, I wouldn't have seen the Christmas market. The Christmas market was indeed fun and pretty. There was a giant [View Full Entry]

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On the last day of our trip, we spent the morning exploring Rome. After grabbing some pastries from a bakery near our hotel, we made our way to Termini Station to buy day tickets for Rome's public transport. Due to time constraint, we decided to focus our time on the Colosseum, Trevis Fountain and Spanish Steps. Coming out from the Colosseum Metro Station, we were awed by the massive scale and age of the famous Colosseum. We walked one round around the mightly landmark, and then we made our way to the Trevi Fountain. On the way, we took photos of [View Full Entry]

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On the second day of our trip we made our way to Pompeii, a buried Roman city excavated by archeologists. After a hearty breakfast in the hotel, we made our way to Naples Central Station. From the internet, I knew there's this Unico Campania day ticket which we can use for our trip between Naples and Pompeii. However, when we tried the buy the ticket from the station ticket office, we were told that there was no such thing as a day ticket, and we had to buy 2 single trip tickets for a return trip between Naples and Pompeii. To [View Full Entry]

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2 weeks after my 1st "out-of-UK" trip to Copenhagen, I was travelling out of UK again - this time to Italy! (7 of us embarked on our short weekend trip to Rome & Naples.) However, things didn't go as smoothly as we expected. Like the previous trip to Copenhagen, our flight was departing Stansted early in the morning, so my friends and I decided to go to Stansted the previous night and spend our night sleeping in Stansted. Upon arrival at Stansted, we realised most of the "sleeping-friendly" areas had been occupied. In the end we settled down outside a baggage [View Full Entry]

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My original plan for this weekend was to have a short day trip in Lille. I wanted to buy some French groceries, as well as withdraw some money from a French ATM so that I have enough Euros for my Italy trip next weekend. However, on the night before my trip, Eurostar sent an email telling me that Lille Europe Station would be closed due to the French transport strike and my train would not stop at Lille... I went down to St Pancras Station in the morning and headed straight to the ticket office. At the counter, the staff told [View Full Entry]

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On the last day of our trip, we decided to walk around Copenhagen. After breakfast in the hostel, we walked to Christiansborg again. When we arrived, we realised that the tower of Christiansborg was covered up for renovation work, so we were unable to take a "postcard-view" of the place. Later we walked towards the Royal Library. On the way, we walked into the Library Garden where the snow from the previous night didn't melt, as the garden was shadowed by the library building. Some of my friends had never seen snow before, so they were quite excited. Then we walked [View Full Entry]

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