I had multiple opportunities of visiting England so far. But I usually only went to London for business or leisure trips. Many years ago I spent a lovely extended weekend in Wales. Also saw a few cities and places south of London. Therefore I always had the big plan to do a long roundtrip around England and – if time permits – also visit Scotland for the first time. In June 2015 I finally got the chance to do this. Spent about four to five weeks travelling around the big island.
End of March / beginning of April I finally managed to do a trip to Vietnam and Cambodia. The main objective was to see the amazing ruins of Angkor around the Cambodian city of Siem Reap. Vietnam was the additional cream on top of the waffles. Combining both in a two week trip was a very good idea. Both countries have a fascinating – but also brutal – past and hopefully a much brighter future with less conflicts.
Between February 25 and March 18 I did a short road trip to Berlin and then towards the north of Germany and parts of Denmark. I used the opportunity also to spend a bit of time in the Harz region in the heart of Germany.
Continue reading Trip to Berlin, Copenhagen, Bremen, Harz, …
Mid January 2015 I had the opportunity to do a two week trip through some of the main historic sites of Egypt. If you are interested in history and old building, Egypt is basically the jackpot. The country is full of ancient treasures. Many of them probably still hidden under the sand.
There has been a lot of public debate if the very expensive reconstruction of the Neues Museum with its mostly Egyptian and other antiquity collections was done properly. It was destroyed during the Second World War. Afterwards it kept decaying as a ruin for decades.
I have had the opportunity to travel to many countries – either as a tourist or related to work. But there still were a lot of white spots in the more immediate neighborhood of Central Europe which I never visited before. So the idea came up to load my car and do a trip along the entire western coast of Europe. The starting point was the Netherlands. Afterwards I went all the way down the coast of Northern France, Northern Spain to Portugal. From there in a zig-zag route through Southern Spain and Southern France until I left the coastal regions in Perpignan.
“God created the earth, but the Dutch created the Netherlands.” This saying describes a bit the magnitude of how the Dutch literally built their country in the middle of the waters, for a large part below the sea level. This is an amazing feat of engineering. It all started centuries ago but still needs constant work every day to make sure that what has been won from the sea and rivers is not immediately lost again.
I have uploaded a range of new photos taken at various locations. In my picture gallery you can find new travel snapshots from Lourdes, Biarritz, San Sebastian (also with some pictures from 2002), Pamplona and Bilbao (again with quite a few pictures from 2002).
The village of Locronan is a small French treasure chest of medieval houses and a wonderful church. Glad the granite stone is so hard that the buildings survived the centuries – but it still must have been a lot of work to restore the village to its former grandeur. I was there on a very foggy morning. Walking through the streets felt like suddenly being in one of these old German Edgar Wallace black & white movies. Please go to my gallery for the pictures.
Published a few photos taken during my stay in La Rochelle. Includes primarily the Vieux Port (Old Harbor). There are also quite a number of outside shots of Fort Boyard. This a fortress built into the middle of the bay entrance to protect the harbors of La Rochelle and Rochefort. Unfortunately it is not possible to enter this “stone ship” in the sea. Other pictures show the nice aquarium of La Rochelle. Please go to my gallery for the pictures.