Monday, November 20, 2006

Pop over to Poland

Only two full days left on our initial European tour (before we can save us some more to go travelling again) before we fly to London in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. Since our last post we´ve managed to fit in heaps of what Berlin, and surrounding areas, has to offer.

This included a day trip to Potsdam, 45 minutes by train from central Berlin, and even though it rained we had a chance to walk around the town and through the Sansoucci Park and it´s numerous impressive palaces. It was one of the few rainy days we´ve had here, most have just been a bit cold and very grey and miserable. Sheryl has adjusted well to the idea of losing daylight midafternoon.

We checked out the Olympic Stadium one day too - initially built by Hitler and co. for the Olympics donkeys years ago but more recently was done up to host the final of the 2006 football World Cup.

A full day midweek was dedicated to clothes shopping for Sheryl and she successfully found a big black winter coat, which she´s pretty stoked about. Everything seems much cheaper here than in the UK.

On Thursday the four of us took a day trip to Poland to a small border town called Slubice. I had no idea Poland was so close - only an hour by train from here. The town itself was nothing spectacular but there was a nice river dividing the two countries. Cheap cigarettes are the big pull for a lot of Germans. Try a carton (ie. ten packs) of Winfield or Pall Mall for NZ$7! Dennis and I happily sat and drank a Polish beer in a small bar while the girls window shopped.

On Friday we went to check out the historic Checkpoint Charlie, or what remains of it, and spent over an hour reading the free material plastered around the streets on the history of the location. Then we lost light and headed home, but not before eating a steaming hot Wurst. I think it´s pretty funny how you get a long sausage with a ridiculously small piece of bread. The sausage to bread ratio is, as the Germans would say, inefficient.

Yesterday we took a boat trip through Berlin and in the evening walked through some of the markets and historic points in the central area. We´re pretty happy to have spent plenty of time here to soak it all up - we´ll share some photos later in the week when we return to Bournemouth.

Dale & Sheryl

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

tim says hi! saw him the other day and we both agreed you've certainly having a great trip - tim thought it was certainly better than doing the friday afternoon run!!
have a safe journey back to uk - keep us posted and don't forget your thermals!! you may have to resort to drinking hot punch in the uk and less of the beer! love xxxx

Anonymous said...

While I was on a short Easter break to Berlin, i managed to visit the border town of Slubice on Tuesday afternoon (11 April). I quite liked the small town and had a nostalgic feeling with some old characteristic buildings. I took some nice digital images but don't know how to post it.