Venice- Canals and Crowds

Even though Graham had already been to Venice once before and despite its reputation as Italy’s most expensive city, the place is so unique you just can’t skip it……and neither could the rest of the European tourist masses. The tiny streets were packed shoulder to shoulder with fellow tourists and things were pricey (€100 for a 30 min gondola ride? Forget about it…) By the end of our 24 hours in the city of canals, we had seen what we needed to and were fine with departing (plus it started to rain).

Venice from the ocean

                             The hordes of fellow tourists outside St. Marco Square                              

St. Marcus Square

St. Marc's Basilica

The Pricey Boats

Sue standing at the end of one of Venice’s many dead end streets. You’ll wander down some extra narrow ally way and sometimes it puts you out into some quite hidden square but more often it just abruptly ends into water and you’re forced to back track.

The ferry ride to Murano, the island famous for it’s Venitian  blown glass.  Originally when Venetians first perfected the art of glass blowing, the craftsman who learned the trade were threatened with death if they ever tried to leave.

A voluptuous woman made of blown glass.

Munich- Land of the Giant Pretzel...and Some Other Stuff.

No trip through Germany is complete without a stop in the heart of Bavaria, Munich. While we missed Okotoberfest  by a few weeks, we still managed to get in some quintessential German experiences.

“Residenz” which housed Bavarian rulers from 1395-1918

Bavarian State Opera House with some festive decorations on her columns.  

Sue with two pickles!

Dachau Concentration camp outside Munich. Opened in 1933 it was the first “re-education” camp in Germany and the model for all Nazi concentration camps during WWII. While it never had an operating gas chamber like Auschwitz, some  25,000-30,000 people still died there by 1945, mostly of starvation, disease and exhaustion.

The words laid into the main gate translate into “Work will set you free”. An example of early Nazi propaganda and part of the disguise for the camps true purpose.

The main monument , said to depict prisoners entangled in the barbed wire fence.

The initial monument before the entire camp was dedicated as a memorial. The sign reads “Never Again” in Hebrew, French, English, German and Russian.

The roof of Olympic park, built for the 1972 summer games.

BMW headquarters, museum and factory.

Sue matches her new car! Check out the door handle, it’s on the hood.

A couple of beers and giant pretzel in the Englischergarten beer garden. While they may not look it, the beers are 1 liter each and the plate is about 8 inches in diameter! mmmm good.

Onward to Italy. 

Amsterdam- Alluring, Audacious... Awesome

Oh Amsterdam, what a crazy place. It’s the only place we’ve been (so far) where you can find a bar, sex shop, cannabis “coffee” shop, and prostitutes within a block of a church from the 1300’s and a kindergarten. All this set in a beautiful city of canals where just about everyone rides a bike (rain or shine). The Netherlands attitude toward decriminalized marijuana and sex may seem a little too progressive for some, but once you’re there it surprising how little it seems to affect daily life. It’s like the people realized, “Hey, drugs are always going to be part of society and so is prostitution, so let’s just accept it, regulate it, set up areas for it and then we can worry about other more important things instead.” And everyone seems to be pretty happy with it. As for us, what happened in Amsterdam, was forgotten in Amsterdam …..

Can you find Sue?

The first thing you notice about Amsterdam was bikes, lots of bikes, oh and canals.  

Amsterdam actually has more miles of canals than Venice and just a few blocks off the city center the streets lining the canals can be peaceful and quiet.

Because space along the canals has always been limited, the houses are all narrow but tall. To get furniture and other supplies up without climbing the incredibly steep steps, the houses are equipped with hooks for pulling things up by rope which are still occasionally used today.  Also, you can see one of the houses in this picture is leaning out toward the street. It’s not an optical illusion, old houses all over Amsterdam are leaning due to their heavy weight on sinking pilings, some of them look like they’re about to fall over.

A multi-level bike parking garage. Like we said, the Dutch really love their bikes.

We rented bikes and decided to go where the road took us. We soon discovered riding in the city was like driving on a freeway in a different country, a bit hectic and confusing  (you don’t want to get in the way of a Dutchman on his way home from work).   We headed out of the city and got lost (literally) in Amsterdam’s massive parks which are only a short ride away.

The edge of the red light district. It’s pretty obvious what you’re headed towards.

With a takeout dinner in hand, we headed to the red light district to sit on the edge of a canal and people watch (as you can imagine it is some of the best people watching in Europe).  The swans in the canal like to people watch as well and get aggressive when they see food.  This one snapped at Graham’s feet but instead of our Indonesian takeout, it got a couple of (light) kicks to the beak.

The red lights of Amsterdam. It’s a little hard to see in this shot, but each of the red lit doorways has a scantily dressed “woman of the night” in it. It was like a vending machine of debauchery. Quite a weird place to walk through.

Couch Cruising in Hamburg and Full Bellies in Brussels

Hamburg

We decided to make use of an offer for a free place to stay in Hamburg. One of Sue’s Seattle friend’s in-laws had invited us to stay in their Hamburg home while they were on vacation, without even having met us, what nice people! The weather was less than ideal when we arrived but it turned out we really needed some down time away from the trials of wondering European streets (boo hoo) So we made use of the comfy couch, big screen tv and an actual home kitchen to pretend like it was a lazy rainy weekend back in Seattle. Thanks again to Tania and Oliver for lending us their home to recharge in.

The remnants of a bombed out church from WWII, it now has a few memorial statues dedicated to peace.

Being Germany’s largest port, and the second largest in Europe, there was water everywhere you looked from the harbor to the canals running between  warehouses.

Brussels

Continuing the rapid pace of our European tour we spent two nights in the capital of Belgium. The compact city center lent itself well to our wandering ways and we set to explore the things Belgium is best known for:  Beer, waffles, Chocolate (among other health foods) cars and comics.

Grand Place in the center of Brussels.

The EU’s headquarters are located in Brussels. Can you name the country for each flag? (We couldn’t, but came close)

The Manneken Pis  fountain, very popular.

Of course not long after arriving in Brussels, Sue dragged us into an alluring chocolate shop, very dangerous and expensive places.

Mmmm, more danger

In Belgium the comic book or “graphic novels” are upheld as a true art form,  with their own high end shops  and museums. One of the more famous (and beloved) Belgium comics is The Adventures of Tin Tin, (the series is being made into animated movies by Spielberg and Peter Jackson)

Inside the Mercedes house (really just a fancy show room) A replica of the first car, the Benz Patent motorwagon  circa 1886.

One of Mercedes’ more recent models…

Gardens overlooking the Grand Place

The bar at Delirium Café which guarantees to stock at least 2004 varieties of beers, mostly Belgian.