Köln, Germany

Today, I am sharing my last post recapping my awesome 2016 Europe trip. I am sad to be finished recapping, while also relieved because it has taken me far longer than it should have to complete this post :-)
Köln, Germany was beautiful. We arrived in the evening on Tuesday, headed straight to our hotel for a quick check in since our train was delayed and because of technical issues we had to change trains part way through. But never worry, we were able to watch both parts 1 and 2 of the 7th Harry Potter movies just in time. Because we were checking in after hours at our hotel, we had difficulty checking in and I had to turn on my cell phone to call the hotel for them to let us in remotely. 
We dropped our bags and looked for a place to have dinner nearby. We ended up at a Mediterranean place down the block and it turned out to be one of our favorite meals on the entire trip. We went back to the hotel for a good nights sleep for our last full day of my leg of the trip. 
We woke up on Thursday morning and headed to a local coffee shop for espresso and pastries. It was my last day, so we were going all out. After breakfast we walked to the main square to check out the Köln Dom. It is spectacular from the outside with its gothic architecture. Sadly, they were doing a lot of external renovations, so there was scaffolding around the outside of the church. Nevertheless, it was beautiful. 
We went inside to check out the interior and so that I could say my usual prayer of safe travels and healthy living for my family and friends. The stained glass windows and the architecture and the artwork and the sculptures were just breathtaking. It is free to enter the cathedral; however, when you walk in and at each corner and at every alter there were collection bins. Which was totally fine. I am happy to donate. But I drew the line at the fact that the priests were wearing (yes, I said wearing) collection containers around their necks and while we were sitting at one of the alters, someone came around to collect the money from one of the bins. Can't you do that after hours? It was really disappointing. When I travel, I love to visit churches and to say a prayer. For me, it is a spiritual experience. Now, I understand that that isn't the case for everyone, but I was really upset at hour touristy the church was. If you are hurting for cash, charge an entrance fee and then leave people in peace to take from the site what they will. {end soapbox}

After we finished walking through and admiring the beautiful cathedral, we walked across the famous Love Lock bridge: Hohenzollernbrücke over to the Rhine Promenade for some beautiful cityscapes and views of Cologne. We walked back over into Old Town by Deutzer Brücke and we headed to the Chocolate Factory. I wouldn't recommend the tour. It was kind of pricey and if you have done a Chocolate Tour before, you have done them all. But definitely make sure to enjoy a spiked Hot Chocolate. Caitlin and I both enjoyed the Geist der Azteken - hot chocolate made with chili, tabasco, tequila, white rum and whipped cream. Oh.My.God. This was soo good, I can't wait to replicate it!  

 

After the Chocolate Factory and lunch, we headed over to the birthplace of the famous Eau De Cologne 4711. We walked around the shop, I dipped my hands into the Eau De Cologne Fountain and I found a perfume that I loved to purchase. We did a little shopping, since we were so close to the shopping district then for the rest of the day we brewery hopped. We had a few beers at one brewery next to the Cologne Cathedral and then went to another for our last dinner. 

As we got further away from Munich, the beers got smaller. 

We ended our day with a yummy German dinner - even if our waiter ended up being kind of an a-hole...
The next day, we went back to the same cafe for breakfast, went to the train station to figure out how we were supposed to get to the airport, bought train tickets, checked out of our hotel and headed to the airport. Caitlin then flew on to continue her solo trip, and I flew from Cologne to Munich back to San Francisco. 
This was definitely a trip that I will forever remember. I learned a lot about traveling with friends and myself. I for sure have the itch to travel and have already started planning my big trip for next year to celebrate my big birthday that I will not mention :) 

Berlin, Germany

After Praha, Czech Republic, we headed on the train to Berlin. We arrived in the Berlin train station that is massive. Like, whoa. I was very surprised. We had to ask information how to get to our hotel, because we couldn't find a map in the station that we could understand. HA! 
We made it to our hotel, dropped off our things and decided to head down to Checkpoint Charlie. We got down there and walked around a bit but felt that it was definitely a tourist attraction and we were expecting a bit of a different experience. We ended up getting tickets and audioguides to walk through the Checkpoint Charlie museum that ended up being extremely informative and really interesting. Both Caitlin and I felt like we didn't know a ton about the history of the Berlin Wall and the history of Germany after World War II. I highly recommend the Checkpoint Charlie Museum - there are a ton of stories from people who lived through the occupation and explained a lot of the history of the division. That being said, I would not recommend getting hung up on the attraction that is Checkpoint Charlie - it is almost like Disneyland and just overly crowded. 
After the museum, we popped into a Tapas restaurant bar that was nearby. It was delicious and a nice change from sausages and beer.

These signs are not the original, the posts are. 

This was our first site of the wall on our trip. 

The next day we woke up and headed down to Pariser Platz; where Brandenburg Tor is located for breakfast and to meet our guide to start our walking tour. Our walking tour was about 2.5 hours and we walked around the main sites in Berlin. Our guide was awesome, very knowledgable and very engaging. 

 Our tour included: 

Pariser Platz

Brandenburg Gate

Site of Hitler’s bunker

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Checkpoint Charlie

Gendarmenmarkt

The Berlin Wall

Luftwaffe HQ

Bebelplatz

Book burning memorial 

Humboldt University

The air was cool and crisp, the sun was out and shining and it was a perfect day to walk around the city. 

 After our walking tour, Caitlin and I headed to the East Side Gallery by way of the TV Tower and the Berlin Dom. The church was very busy with a ton of tourists, so we decided to admire it from afar. Which was kind of a bummer because it's so beautiful from the outside, but we figured it would be frustrating trying to walk around and get out of it what we wanted. 

Before we visited the East Side Gallery, we stopped over at Burgermeister for the best burger in Berlin. It definitely did not disappoint and it was perfect timing because it started pouring rain once we sat down to eat, so we were protected by the overpass. Once we finished our burgers and the rain had stopped, we headed over to the East Side Gallery to admire the murals and artwork painted on the still standing portion of the Berlin Wall. Obviously, most (if not all) of the art was very politically charged. 

We then headed into the hipster district of Berlin for drinks and dinner. 

On our last full day in Berlin we took the subway over to Mauerpark, which translates into "Wall Park." The park is located on the East Side of Berlin and, when the wall was still standing, it was right up against the wall, hence the name. The park was actually pretty ugly, there was trash everywhere and the grass was brown where there was still even grass. On Sundays, there is a market with music and lots of people, and this day was Monday, so I hope that it was just looking rough because the market was the day before. 

After we walked around the park for a bit to soak up some warm sunshine, we headed over to walk through the Wall Memorial. We spent a bit of time walking through the memorial then headed over to do some window shopping and have lunch in another trendy area of the city. 

Throughout Berlin, you will come across these stones on the rode. This signifies where the Wall once stood. When you can read the plaque right-side-up, that means that you are on the West side of where the wall stood. Our walking tour guide told us that they did this because the East Side was 'wrong' and if you couldn't read the plaque ride-side-up, that meant you were on the 'wrong side of the wall.' Kind of interesting note...

After lunch and window shopping - it was only window shopping because all of the shops were closed because it was a national holiday - more on that in a minute - we headed back to Pariser Platz to walk over to the Reichstag to see if we could hop on a tour either that afternoon or the next morning before we headed to Cologne. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get a tour, so we just looked on from outside. 

On our walking tour, we walked through the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and since we really just passed through, we wanted to revisit the site and walk through the museum. We spent a couple of hours in the museum and walking through the memorial and to say that it was overwhelming is an understatement.  

We walked back through Pariser Platz and headed to the Adlon Hotel (where Michael Jackson held Baby Blanket over the balcony) to sit outside on their patio with a glass of Champagne and a charcuterie plate. We had a great view of Pariser Platz and the Brandenburg Gate. Now for the National Holiday. We just so happened to be in Berlin for the Day of German Unity - which is the Day of German Reunification. So, there were a ton of people, street performers and there was a festival going on on the other side of the gate. 

We thought that we had wanted to hang around the plaza and be part of the excitement, but at one point a man wearing a nazi uniform and flying a nazi flag walked by. We decided that we didn't want to get in the middle of anything political so we headed back toward our hotel for dinner and to get to bed early.  

We spent the next morning, before our train to Cologne, back in the trendy area where we had lunch the day before, to do some more eating and shopping. 
 Berlin ended up being another one of my favorite cities. Mostly because we were able to experience a lot of culture and learn a lot about the history of Berlin and Germany after World War II. 

The architecture is just beautiful and I hope to revisit Berlin someday! 

Praha, Czech Republic

My first, like, hour of being in Prague was stressful and made me want to leave before we even made it to the hotel. We arrived in the train station without any Czech Koruna. Czech Republic is part of the EU, but does not use the Euro. This is kind of annoying to us travelers but it is nice because the Koruna is not as strong as the Euro, so our USD goes a lot further there. Our first task was to find an ATM before we headed out because we needed to take a taxi to the hotel. We find an ATM and I put my card in first. Since we were so used to Euros, we got a little confused on the conversion and I ended up taking out the equivalent of 450 USD. Now, we were planning to be there for 3 full days, but when a beer costs $1.50, $450 is a little excessive. We decided that between the 3 of us, we would split the amount that I had taken out. Needless to say, I was a little annoyed that I had just taken out so much money. Oh well, now was time to head to our hotel.  We leave the train station and we find a taxi driver. I show him the address of our hotel and he mumbled and grumbled, pulled out his phone to show us a map and told us to walk. Now, let me preface with: when I looked it up, the walk was going to be about 20 minutes and we all had all of our luggage. So, with some admitted attitude, I asked if he was refusing to take us and he said yes, that we could walk. So, now, Im floored. I'm like, I have 10,000 koruna burning a whole in my pocket, can you just f*cking take us to our hotel?! In hindsight, once we got to our hotel, I understood why the driver wouldn't take us. our hotel was in a sort of pedestrian only area and the hotel was really not that far from the train station.  We finally made it to our hotel, checked in, dropped off our stuff and headed to the Old Town Square to check out the Astronomical Clock. We got there at the top of the hour so we were able to see it chime. To be honest, the clock is not as big as I had expected.  We then went to a rooftop bar for drinks and a cheese plate and we read up on how to actually read the clock. Everything made sense, except for the time. Based on the clock, the time was one hour off - which is when we realized that the clock doesn't take into consideration: daylight savings. Which also accounted for why there were a bunch of clocks that had the correct time all around the square. Ha! It was pretty funny. We had scheduled a spa treatment so we headed to the appointment and stopped along the way for a trdelnik - which is basically a churro and it is delicious and totally worth all of the things.   

Now for our Spa Treatment. It was hilarious and totally one of the highlights of my trip. I actually found a Beer Spa while I was perusing pinterest and trip planning. It looked hilarious and the girls were in, so we booked it. It was hilarious. We arrive, change out of our clothes and into robes and then we hopped into tubs of water, bubbles and hops and enjoyed some fresh beer from the taps. We soaked for about 45 minutes - mostly laughed the entire time - and then got some back massages. It was glorious. If you are traveling to Prague, I definitely recommend checking this out. We were sent home with a certificate - don't ask me - some more beer and a commemorative photo, that I won't be sharing. Ha! 

Our first full day in Prague we spent it walking for 5 hours while eating all of the yummy Czech specific food. We started our food tour at a cute little bakery with some cookies, because who doesn't want to start their days off with treats? And then we moved on to an assortment of open faced sandwiches and butcher shop meats. Oh.My.God. Everything was so good. Then we had a sauerkraut soup that was to.die.for, a pork belly spread with a hard cider and we ended the day with the traditional beef, bread dumplings and gravy with a glass of wine. Everything was delicious. We did the tour through Eating Prague Food Tours. We had an awesome guide who was very knowledgable about the history of Prague and he was able to tell us stories and point out famous areas of interest and give suggestions about what else to do. I would definitely suggest the tour, it was delicious and informative!

After our food tour, we walked across the Vltava into Mala Strana in search for the John Lennon Wall. I loved seeing all of the brightly painted and colorful houses throughout the entire trip, and Prague was no exception. The weather was perfect for a stroll, especially after all of that eating. 

We found the John Lennon Wall and spent a bit of time reading all of the quotes and looking at all of the artwork.

This was my favorite quote that really resonated with me: 

"I don't know what the future holds. I know who holds the future."

After checking out the Wall, we walked back into Old Town via the Charles Bridge. This bridge is famous for all street vendors and performers. They were selling anything and everything from postcards to jewelry to performing music with string instruments.  

Jess had to head back to the hotel to do some work, so Caitlin and I decided to find some beer and food. We headed over to U Kunstatu which had an advertisement on our city map and a couple from our food tour had recommended it. Unfortunately, they were closed for a private party, so we found another spot nearby to grab a drink so we could head back over there to meet Jess once they reopened.

We obviously went big here. We ordered 2 different tasters with all different beers so we could try everything. We sat at the bar, the keeper was friendly and the other patrons of the bar were really nice and fun to chat with. Jess met us there to help us finish the beers and food we ordered and then we headed home and to bed. Jess had an early morning since her flight left out of Prague at 6am.

The next day, Caitlin and I headed over to St. Nicholas Church in Mala Strana and then for a self guided walking tour of the Prague Palace. The St. Nicholas church is very understated from the outside and breathtakingly beautiful on the inside. I would say that this was, hands down, my favorite church in all of the cities we visited. 

We walked up to the Prague Palace just in time to see the changing of the guards. We were wondering why this ceremony existed because there isn't anyone living in the palace, so we figure that is just for tourists. We thoroughly enjoyed it, so no complaints here. The church within the Palace is massive and beautiful, but we didn't tour around it because it was so packed with tourists - it was a bit overwhelming. The Palace grounds were green and beautiful and provided unobstructed views of Prague. It was simply beautiful. 

We headed back into Old Town via the Charles Bridge where we bought our souvenirs and then headed over to U Fleku - Shannon's recommendation - for some beers and lunch before we headed over to see the Dancing House. The Dancing House was a bit underwhelming. It is an office building, or at least that's what it looks like, and you go in, take an elevator to the top but you can't go outside unless you buy a ridiculously expensive drink or a ticket. We decided against it, which was, in hindsight, a smart choice. 

We made our way back to U Kunstatu for the beer tasting and boy did it not disappoint. We sit down with another couple from Canada who had been traveling for 9 months around the world, and our host walks in already blasted. He was hilarious and was definitely a beer aficionado! We took a tour of the basement and the building, which is one of the 2nd oldest in Prague, and drank beer all night long. It was a blast. We ended up grabbing food with our Canadian friends and grabbing more drinks at our hotel with them. It was a blast! 

Prague really made up for being such an a*shole at the beginning. We had a blast and it turned out to be one of my favorite cities on the entire trip. 
Prague, I love you, I will most definitely return one day. 
Next stop: Berlin!