Western Europe 2018 Trip – Part Eight: Heidelberg and the Neckar

June 20, 2021 by Brad

Heidelberg is a tourist town, not just any tourist town, but one of the front cover of guidebooks, where everyone who visits Germany, visits, tourist town. It is both beautiful and overrun with tourist and associated tourist nicknacks. Because of this, the experience of Heidelberg also depends on the exact time you visit and what places in the town you visit, and this certainly extends to food. The first place we opted to eat at, we ended up walking out of, due to a lack of service. Fortunately the next restaurant was divine.

Western Europe 2018 Trip – Part Seven: Rainy Days in North Rhine-Westphalia

January 10, 2021 by Brad

After staying the night in Osnabrück we continued our travel to Cologne, stopping off along the way in Wuppertal to ride the Schwebebahn.

Western Europe 2018 Trip – Part Six: Side Trips to Lübeck and Osnabrück

December 26, 2020 by Brad

After failing to make it to Lübeck on our first day in Hamburg, we did a quick trip on our last day.

It rained the entire time we were in Lubeck, despite this we still walked around the city and even stumbled on a church (St. Petri Kirche) which is now a community centre after the Soviet government refused to allow churches to be restored after the second world war.

Western Europe 2018 Trip – Part Five: Hamburg

December 26, 2020 by Brad

We allocated three days to explore Hamburg and it’s surrounds.

On the train ride from Berlin, we had decided to take an immediate side trip to the nearby town of Lübeck. However, when we arrived at Hamburg’s Main Station all the departure boards for connecting trains were showing the words “Tiere Im Gleis”.

With the little bit of German I know I was left trying to figure out what “Animals on the Platform” meant, and both in a rush and not seeing any animals, we went to the nearest platform for a delayed train to Lübeck.

After sitting on this train, going nowhere, for 20 minutes, we managed to speak to someone in English and realised that the word “Gleis” isn’t just “Platform” but also “Track”, that is, there are animals on the track and the trains are not running, which also explained why our delayed train was not going anywhere either.

Western Europe 2018 Trip – Part Four: Berlin

August 3, 2020 by Brad

Following almost a week in the UK it was time to move onto Continental Europe, with the first stop being Berlin.

Western Europe 2018 Trip – Part Three: Edinburgh

May 24, 2020 by Brad

The next leg of my journey was to catch the Flying Scotsman train from London’s King Cross station to Edinburgh’s Waverley station. The modern day version of the Flying Scotsman is very comfortable and had onboard WIFI the entire way – useless for anyone who gets bored looking out the window (I’m not one to get bored looking out windows).

Western Europe 2018 Trip – Part Two: London

March 8, 2020 by Brad

I spent two and a half days in London catching up a kiwi friend and co-incidentally my Godparents whom happened to also be visiting at the same time.

Western Europe 2018 Trip – Part One: Sydney to London

January 26, 2020 by Brad

In late 2018 I travelled to Europe to attend a friend’s wedding in Germany. During the trip I also visited the UK and Portugal.

Usually I travel to Europe on Etihad, but for this trip I went with Emirates as I was travelling on part of the trip with other friends as well.

Photos: Rotorua, Wai-O-Tapu, Hamilton Gardens 2018

January 18, 2020 by Brad

In Mid-2018 I did a weekend trip to New Zealand, in this slideshow are a few of the shots from an overnight trip form Auckland.

Lady Knox Geyser – Wai-O-Tapu
Hamilton Gardens
Kuirau Park
Kuirau Park
Wai-O-Tapu Champagne Pool
Steaming Hills

A Quick San Francisco Get Away

July 14, 2019 by Brad

In late 2017 I flew to San Francisco for a very short work trip. I then had one day spare where I headed out with a friend to Muir Woods and the Marin Headlands.

Below are a few photos and videos from the trip.