Brad & Janka's Holiday Diary

As we had seen most of Berlin the day before, Monday was spent seeing all the little bits and pieces that were missed. I was keen to see Hitler’s main bunker, as well as one of the two remaining guard towers that were used to protect the Berlin wall.
Unfortunately for us the maps we had were quite vague especially on the location of where the bunker was. It didn’t help that the bunker had been destroyed and is now underneath a car park! But we found it all the same and had a read of a plaque then left. The guard tower was a different story. We had to take two trains to get close to it. Another section of the Berlin wall was near the train station so we had a quick look at that then started to walk to the vague location marked on our free map.
It seemed fairly close however after an hour walking through residential Berlin we started to wonder if it actually still existed. I kept following my built in compass and this useless map and we finally came to a dead end residential street and sat down defeated and tired near the river. I turned around and in the middle of a block of flats there it was! The guard tower! In the most out of the way bizarre place it could be! I was however slightly disappointed until I learned that this was the guard tower a guard shot and killed the first person to try and cross the Berlin wall from. The main drawback was the long walk back to public transport! All in all though Berlin was a very interesting city to visit it had brilliant architecture and a colourful history that is still visible today. Out of all the European cities I have visited Berlin came out on top after WWII as far as re-building goes.

Our first full day in Berlin began with a sleep in which was well needed. We rushed to get ready to make breakfast before they shut-down the supply of food. We had no idea what we wanted to see so after doing some quick reading of a tourist book we got at the airport we decided to head in to Alexandra Platz which seemed to be in the guts of the city. Before we could get in there we had to decipher the ridiculous train maps they have here! I mean I can get myself around London’s & Hungary’s underground without a second thought however this place was a totally different story even without the language issue. The map consists of a colour coded spaghetti pile of lines which is fine until you realise that there are two oranges two purples none of the colours are explained they just have tiny little numbers next to them that mean nothing. It was quite funny to be fair we took the underground then spent 15 minutes trying to figure out where the other line we need was until we realised that they were actually over-ground lines not underground lines so we walked around until we saw the station then just kind of winged it and jumped on a train we thought was going in the right direction. We got lucky and headed in to town.

Soon after getting off the train in the city centre we started trying to figure out what we were going to do. I wanted to go on a Segway tour where they take you around the city on Segways! I thought that would be a bit different but Janka wasn’t that keen and besides we missed the one and only leaving time of 10AM. So the second choice was an open top bus tour. We found one that looked identical to the ones they have in England and got ourselves tickets for that. The guide on board was OK he said his spiel in German first then in English. I got the impression that what he was saying in German was much better than the English translation as people seemed to laugh when he said something in German and yet it wasn’t that funny in English. He spent much longer speaking in German than English but we got the jist of what was going on but he was nowhere near as good as the Irish tour guides. One funny highlight of the tour was going past Tergarden which is a large park in the centre of Berlin. For some reason people like to sun bath there, close to the road, butt naked! It was actually quite disturbing seeing overweight Germans naked in a park. We decided NOT to go walking through the there during our stay.

After doing a complete 2 hour circuit on the bus we then started going back to the locations on the bus tour that took our fancy. After we got sick of walking we heading back to the hotel.

This was our first holiday to Europe where we didn’t have to get up in the middle of the night to get to the airport. Our flight wasn’t until 11:30am so it was a relaxing morning, well as relaxing as it could be with Janka stressing about getting to the airport on time. We got to Berlin and waited in a line for passport control for ages as they actually look at peoples passports?! What is up with that?! When we fly to Hungary they don’t even stamp my passport which causes all sorts of issues when I go to leave the country but that is another story.

Once cleared we brought a travel card for 4 days for all forms of transport and made our way towards our hotel which is on the other side of the city to the airport.

The star ratings on hotels in Europe are very different to those in the UK which we already learnt from our trip to Spain; however Germany’s ratings I think are a step below that again. We booked a three star hotel which would normally have a double bed with nice pillows a jug for making your own cups of tea/coffee etc. This place looked like the Russians had built it, it was pretty drab from the outside the girl at reception was not playing with a full deck, the hall ways and rooms seemed quite dim and dreary, the room was very basic, and the doors hung on metal door frames so sounded like prison doors shutting. Anyway that is enough whining about the hotel.

We got to our room unpacked then went for a walk to check out our surroundings. We stayed in the Western most edge of the city called Charlottenburg but it was still quite populated and busy. There were plenty of restaurants and links to trains and buses. We got ourselves the necessary ice cream to combat the really hot sunny afternoon. I don’t know why it is that all of Europe has incredible ice creams that are very similar to Italy’s renowned Gelatos however England couldn’t sell you an eatable ice cream to save themselves.

Anyway that night we went to a nice Italian restaurant, yes we are in Germany and you are probably wondering why we didn’t go to a German restaurant, well that is because there aren’t any (well none near us) apparently authentic German food is very cheap and now that Germans have a bit of money they feel that the old food is beneath them so instead eat the food of the countries that kicked their ass in WWII, irony! The place we went to was really nice, the staff found us an English menu and we got pizza and red wine for dinner. The wine we had was excellent, so much so we brought another bottle from the corner shop on the way back to the hotel!

Originally we planned to stay in Lloret De Mar for the full four days but after getting bored with the tiny little town after the first two days we decided we should check out Barcelona on the last day.

Our airport transfer was organised to pick us up late in the afternoon so we rang them to ask if they could simply pick us up in the morning instead. Unfortunately they decided to be complete wankers about it all and refused to reschedule, so we left the booking in place and organised our own way back to Barcelona. We took the bus which is actually a lot cheaper than the transfer bus and made our way in to Barcelona with all of our luggage.
We got to the central bus station and got ourselves a map of the city so we could start planning what we wanted to see. The first thing we had to get sorted was a place to store our luggage and the only options we had was the public lockers at the bus station or the central train station. The train station was the best choice as it was closer to the airport however it was on the other side of the city from the bus station. After looking at the map for a while we decided that we should just walk it as it “didn’t look that far”. After 20 minutes of dragging our suite cases through the city we decided to use the underground to get there. The first problem was that we had no idea what ticket to buy as their tariffs are setup on a zone system similar to England but the key is to know where you are and where you need to go in relation to the zones on their map. Luckily a lady came and offered to help us who worked for the underground but that was an effort in itself as she spoke very little English and was more concerned about telling us how to protect our luggage from muggers than actually helping with which ticket to buy. We eventually got our tickets and got our luggage dropped off at the train station.

We headed back in to the city and started near the centre of the city and decided to work our way down to the harbour. We got to see a lot of the sites we wanted to by following that path including the Temple de la Sagrada Familia, Las Ramblas, and the Barcelona Wharf.
The one place I wanted to see was the Olympic Stadium which was used during the 1992 Olympics. It was a bit out of our way but since we had time to kill before our flight thought it was a worth while trip. After a ride on the underground, an unattended train ride up a hill, then a short walk we made it. I must admit I was quite disappointed at what we found. From the outside it looked fairly nice however inside it was terrible! It was riddled with cats, and reeked of cat piss! They still use the stadium for concerts and football matches which was surprising considering it looked more like a cat sanctuary.
After our visit to the stadium we made our way back to the train station to collect our luggage then made our way to the airport to catch our flight. I think if we ever return to Spain it will be to a more remote and authentic part of the country so as to avoid the tourist ruined beaches and boring cities.

This holiday was one of those spur of the moment bookings that we made one weekend when we were bored.
I didn’t have a lot of interest in going to Spain however we managed to get a good deal so thought “what the heck”.
We flew in to Barcelona then caught a transfer bus from the airport to Lloret De Mar which is a small beach resort about an hour North of Barcelona. I would have liked to have said that the transfer bus arrived when they said they would and everything went smoothly but I can’t. The transfer bus service was useless, stay clear of Holiday Taxis Ltd!!! We had to wait in the rain for almost an hour for them to show up even though they had our flight number and time of arrival and did not mention anything about a long wait when booking!
We eventually got to our “4 star hotel” two hours after arrival. I must say though that the hotel star ratings in Spain are nothing like the ones in England or anywhere else for that matter! The room was very basic. It had a TV and two beds in it but nothing much else.
We decided to go for a walk in to town to have a look around. It was about 2-3pm in the afternoon on a Wednesday so we took a while to figure out why the place looked like a ghost town. We forgot that everyone was having a Siesta. A Siesta is basically when everyone closes up their business and goes home for a big lunch then an afternoon nap! It was quite strange as we stopped at a café to have some food and when we came out all the shops were open and the streets were full of people again. It was quite strange.
The next day the weather cleared up so we went for a walk around the place to do some sight seeing. The stretch of coast line is split into a couple of small bays so we went and checked these out and walked around the surrounding area. There was not a lot to do or see except some nice scenery so we grabbed the towels out of our room and went down to the beach to relax. The beach was really nice until you start looking at what was on the beach. It seems that every obese white English person comes to Lloret De Mar for their holidays. The beach was littered with what can only be described as beached whales! The sight of these Vicky Pollard looking chavs rubbing oil in to their folds of skin while trying to stuff their face with crisps was one that I will not be able to get out of my head for some time!
Apart form the nasty sight on the beach the water was very refreshing and the sun was lovely and warm. We definitely started missing the summers back home in New Zealand.
In fact it was hard to tell we had actually left England at all as we discovered after a day and a half of walking through the town that finding a restaurant that sold Spanish food is almost impossible! All they had was fast food and pubs/restaurants that sold British food! That part was quite disappointing as I was looking forward to having some authentic Spanish food. The one authentic thing we did find was Champaign Sangrias. Here are the ingredients for those who have not had one. 3oz triple sec, 3oz brandy, 2oz rum, 2oz vodka, 1 cup strawberries, blended, chopped up fruit as desired (apple, mango, tangerine, pear, peach), 1 bottle sparkling wine.
They are extremely easy to drink and are quite potent; they sell them in pitchers so you can get through quite a lot if you want to. We had one of these every day we were there. I could quite easily drink them all night, or until I pass out.