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Published: April 22nd 2007
Spring Break Hello everyone, I’m back from my 2 week Spring Break, so I have a lot of ground to cover in this blog. My travels took me to Munich, Berlin, Brussels, Luxembourg City, Strasbourg, Freibourg, and London. Each city was its own unique experience, and I hope I can give you a good idea of their character and strength. Since there’s so much to say, and I don’t want to lose your attention, we’ll try a new blog format…
Munich (Germany):
Transport to : 10 hour train ride from Nantes to Paris to Munich. One exciting event on the way was when I reached up to put my backpack on the baggage rails and at the same moment the train lurched left. I broke my fall by falling into the lap of the guy next to me, and then spent the next 4 hours in silence.
Notable sights/events :
•Met up with Lisa Laney (currently studying abroad at Oxford). We traveled together for the rest of the trip.
•Museum of Contemporary Art : open for free on Sundays ! They had works by Van Gogh and Picasso. There were some really great modern art works that were very interesting,
Haufbrauhaus
One LITER of beerbut also its fair share of odd things that shouldn’t really be considered as art.
•A big square with Roman designed buildings : 2 huge marble buildings with columns and a large arch. There was a wooden Trojan horse in front of the buildings.
•The English Garden : an extremely large garden with nude beaches (we didn’t really need to see that, so we didn’t venture too far into the garden). There is a river that enters the garden, and the city has added a wave machine, so you can see surfers taking turns riding the waves.
•Starbucks : nonexistant in Nantes. We had to stop off for a Frappacino.
•Haufbrauhous : a very famous and historic beer hall in Munich where locals and tourists alike come to sit together at the long tables, listen to an Oom-Pah band (decked out in liederhosen), and drink ridiculous amounts of beer. Here the beers are served in liter (yes, liter) doses. Lisa and I split a Radler (half beer, half sprite) and still had trouble finishing it. I had an Its a Small World moment when I discovered we were sitting next to a French family from Nantes!
•New Munich Free Tour
: there is a company that offers really good tours of the city, and the guides work on tips alone. The guide took us to all the important and fun sites, and he was extremely informative and funny (the best Free Tour guide of the trip).
•The Glockenspiel : on the highest tour of the City Hall, this mechanized clock has figures that move and tell a story with bells for accompaniment. There were tons of tourists, who gasped when it started moving. It was cool, but not gasp-worthy, I think.
•Beer Garden : huge cultural custom. There are tons of tents and stands selling beer, sausage, chesse, fruit… You find a table and enjoy your beer and sausage under the shade of tall trees. A very good way to enjoy your lunch…
•Buskers : I have never seen so many people playing instruments in the street for money. There were all sorts of types and qualities of performances, but it was great to constantly be surrounded by music.
•Olympic Garden : built for the Olympic games, the complex is now used by natives as a great place to take a walk and relax among the rolling hills and paths
(mimicked by the architecture of the olympic buildings)
•St. Michael’s Tower : a church tower that takes forever to climb but offers a panoramic view of the city.
General Impressions : Munich is an extremely clean and neat city. It was almost entirely rebuilt after WWII, and they built the buildings exactly as they had been. It was actually the birthplace of Nazism, but you won’t find any traces of that history ; it has all been erased. On the tour, our guide pointed out a lot of important sites during WWII, but very few of them are marked.
Berlin (Germany):
Transport to : night train (couchette) from Munich
Notable sights/events :
•Museum Island : an island on the river with at least 3 old and beautiful museums. Each one was different and had a differnt theme.
•New Berlin free tour : there was a huge group for the tour, that was divided to make it easier to hear.
•Pariser Plats : with the famous Brandenburg Gate. It was divided by the wall, and the gates have always been a symbol of Germany and Berlin.
•The Reichstag : the German parliament building. It was destroyed during the
war, and was only recently reconstructed. It has a transparent dome on the top, representing the trasparency of the German governement and its responsibility to the people. Lisa and I got to go up to the top of the dome to see the city.
•The site of Hitler’s Bunker : you can’t see anything, but you stand over Hitler’s control center.
•The New Holocaust Memorial : a series of blocks of varying heights in a grid pattern. It is on top of a Holocaust museum. It was also fairly recently built, and is very popular.
•The Berlin Wall : we saw a few eroding slabs of the wall, but the path of the wall is also marked on the streets. You can often see a difference between the East and West, because the buildings on the East are usually much more industrial looking.
•Checkpoint Charlie : a spot where you could cross between the two sides, monitored on one side by the Americans and by the Soviets on the other side.
•The Wall Museum : located at Checkpoint Charlie, the museum documented the history of the wall and many escape methods. It was very interesting because it had been started
before the fall of the wall, so it talked about the Soviet occupation in the present tense. There was a display of fake passports and papers, but it contained a warning not to use these methods any more to escape because the Soviets had discovered how to detect them.
•Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp : located north of Berlin. I took a tour of the « model concentration camp » from which all other camps were designed. The guide was very informative and respectful, and it was a very touching and important experience.
•Berlin Zoo and Aquarium : Lisa and I spent the day here, and saw all sorts of animals in very well designed habitats. They have a new baby polar bear, Knut, but we didn’t want to wait all day in line, so we skipped out on seeing it.
General Impressions : Berlin is very affected by its WWII past, but differing from Munich, it has tons of memorials and informative signs recognizing the good and the evil of the time period. There is even a church that they did not rebuild, to leave a reminder of what can happen when the government allows one man to take complete
power.
Brussels (Belgium) :
Transport to : Night train from Berlin. We just stayed here a few hours for a train layover.
Notable sights/events :
•The historic square : my favorite place in Brussels. With ornate buildings from the 1600s on. We got there before the tourists.
•Waffles : Lisa couldn’t be in Belgium without trying the waffles, so that’s what we did for breakfast
•The Grand Palace and gardens : We walked around the huge palace, closed to visitors, and saw the wonderful gardens.
General Impression : Great architecture and fairly easy to get around. It was great to walk around early in the morning before the tourists were out and about.
Luxemburg City (Luxemburg) :
Transport to : Train from Brussels
Notable sights/events :
•The walk to the hostel : The main part of the city is a fortified area that drops off sharply into a valley, kind of like a castle with a land moat. So we walked across a bridge to get into the main part of the city. Walking over the valley was beautiful and you could see the cliffs and fortifications around the city. We actually had to descend
Work Will Set You Free
Sign at the entrance of the Concentration Camp into the valley to find the hostel.
•A walk in the valley: Spectacularly beautiful. We walked around the valley where there is a river, and all the flowers and trees seemed to be in bloom. And all the birds were singing.
•Tour of the fortifications : there are tunnels built into the cliffs surrounding the city and you can wander through them. It was cool to be in caves and rooms and then find a window that overlooked the valley.
•Eating at Pizza Hut : here is was actually a very nice sit-down restaurant. They serve your pizza for you, and I had an excellent three course meal that was actually fairly cheap, and very good.
General Impressions : Ridiculously beautiful. We seemed to go at a perfect time of the year. It wasn’t too hot, but everthing was blooming. It seems like a very rich town, and it still seems isolated from the rest of the world.
Strasbourg (France) :
Transport to : Afternoon train from Luxemburg
Notable sights/events :
•Alsacien dinner : Strasbourg is in Alsace, which has gone back and forth between Germany and France so long that is has a very unique cross-mixture
of culture. We went out to a traditional restaurant and had amazing food, which can be generally considered German in quantity and French in quality.
•Easter Mass at the Strasbourg Cathedral : I’ve been to a few masses, but this was the first time I have seen a completely full cathedral. They had a choir and orchestra, and really pulled out all the stops. The Cathedral itself is beautiful, so it was quite an experience.
•Nouvelle France : a section of town with exclusively French architecture. It is on the river, so the buildings go right up to the water, and there are a few locks for boats to come and go.
•Boat tour : a river encircles the main part of town, so the tour was a great way to see all the essential buildings and sights. Plus, it was in English. (You can get by with French or German in Strasbourg).
•Movie : Ensemble, c’est tout is a movie I had wanted to see for a while since I had read it in French, and I finally got to see it in Strasbourg !
•European Parliament building : we saw it on the boat tour, but didn’t have
Valley
In Luxemburg time to actually visit.
General Impressions : This was a very clean city with a lot of character. There were lots of unique neighborhoods, and since the river goes through the city, the city seems very river-centered (lots of boats and historic buildings by the river).
Freiburg (Germany) :
Transport to : train from Strasbourg
Notable sights/events :
•The scenery : the city is on the edge of the Black Forest. There are rolling fields that turn into a thick forest.
•The hostel : this was a very laid-back and fun hostel. And we were allowed to use the kitchen, so Lisa and I had fun cooking some wonderful pasta. The staff was very helpful and there was a library and piano for the visiters.
•The people : everyone was very helpful and nice (despite the fact that we only spoke about 4 words in German), and a woman went out of her way to help us find the hostel.
•View from the hill : we climbed a tall hill to get a panoramic view of the city and the forest. The hike was pleasant and the view was spectacular.
•German Playsets : they really know how
to do kid’s playsets. There was a metal slide that followed the descent of part of the hill. You built up surprising speed going down, and sort of explode out the other end into a small mountain of sand. Very fun.
•Market vendors : Around the church, there was a daily market selling amazing bratwurst and drinks.
•The gardens : just chillin’ in the shade in the hot afternoons.
•River promenades : follow the river, find a bench, and read a book.
General impressions : very small-town feel. It was laid-back and relaxing and very sensitive to its wonderful scenery.
London (Great Britain) :
Transport to : RyanAir, a budget airline
Notable events/sights :
•Hostel : located in the Lord Baden-Powell house (the man who created Boy Scouting). There were some informative boards and artifacts to check out.
•Kensington and Hyde Parks : wonderful English gardens with plenty of children and people enjoying themselves.
•The Underground and Double Decker buses: insanely expensive, but very handy for getting around town and seeing everything.
•The National Galleries : free museum with amazing exhibits by all the well-known painters. They had a special exhibit of Monet and Picasso, also free.
•The plaza in front of the National Galleries : Huge statues, plus a view of St. Albert’s Tower (called Big Ben, though that is technically the name of the bell inside it).
•New London free tour : not the best guide, but we still got to see some great stuff.
•Portobello Market at Knotting Hill : tons of stands of real antiques and tourist stuff all mixed together, plus jewelry and fruits and vegetables, and basically anything you could want.
•Houses of Parliament : we couldn’t go in because Parliament isn’t in session, but we got to see all the grandeur.
•Downing Street : you can’t see #10 (where the Prime Minister is supposed to live), but you can see the fortified security walls and police guards.
•Broadway performance of Wicked : since London has amazing broadway shows, Lisa and I decided to see one. We got cheaper tickets since we got them the day of the show. We had a great view of the stage, and the performance was spectacular. Neither of us knew the show, so it was a totally new experience.
•Tea and Scones : Lisa and I finally succeeded in finding a place that served them,
and I gotta tell you, it was amazing. Earl grey with hot scones, clotted cream (a mix between butter and whipped cream) and jam.
•Pax Lodge : one of the four world centers of Girl Scouting. I stayed here for one night, and had the opportunity to spend some time with the girls that are working there. It was a great place to stay, and I really enjoyed the company, not to mention the fact that its a sort of pilgrimage place of Girl Scouting.
•Walking Tour of Hamstead : Pax Lodge offered a guide to see the surrounding area. It was a great tour because, altough it is in London, Hamstead is much more picturesque and down-to-earth ; it actually feels like people live there. I saw the Admiral’s House from Mary Poppins (let’s just say they added some props), and I had a very nice stroll through town. It finished on top of a large hill that overlooked London.
•The flight back to Nantes : we had to wait in the terminal for an hour, but while I was waiting, I ran into an IES friend that was taking the same flight back to Nantes, and we told
each other our travel stories to pass the time.
General Impressions : A very diverse and bustling city. There is so much to do, but also some great places to relax. Though you can’t stay here long because the $2=1pound idea just kills the old pocketbook. It was a great way to end the trip.
Well there’s the trip in a nutshell. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Tonight, the French will complete the first round of presidential elections, and nobody quite knows what to expect. So check out the news to see how it went !
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