DUBLIN 1ST DAY

DUBLIN

In december of 2007 we saw a very cheap flight to Dublin and we decided to go. We stayed three days and we hired a car that only cost 72 €. We were four people (Javi, my sister Silvia, her friend Ana, and me) this time, so we paid 18 € per person. Also the hotel was fine. The double room was 80 € per night with breakfast and the parking was free.

Dublin is the Ireland's Capital and a very nice city.

The most important to see in Dublin is:

- The Guiness Storehouse (the Guiness beer's Factory)
- The trinity College (a part of the University of Dublin)
- The Molly Malone's sclupture. It's not sure that she existed, but she's a very important legend in the city.
- The temple bar, the pubs town and the most characteristic town of the city
- Christ Church
- Phoenix park
- The Spire (the light monument) It's a monument of 120 meters of hight in O'Connell Street.


14th of december 2007

Today we have to wake up very early, but it's for a very good cause: Dublin is waiting for us!! We meet at my home and then Jose, the Javi's uncle takes us to the airport by car. We pass the save control, and we seat in the plane, that departures in a few minutes. During the flight I study very attentively the guide book to know better what to do and what to see, mi sister is studying, Ana tries to sleep and Javi is listening his Ipod. After almost three hours, we arrive to Dublin. We see the landscape from the plane and it's just the same image we thought: so green and full of cliffs. We do the firsts photos. Te day is horrible but at least it doesn't rain.

 

 

The first we have to do is to find the rent a car agency to take the car and go to the hotel, task for which our GPS is essential. The Javi's face is all a poem, is not easy for us driving to the right, because we are used to drive to the right and he's a little nervous. But after some minutes driving, he controls the situation. He's the best!

 

 

To be a little city, if we compare to Barcelona, London or Paris, there is a lot of traffic, and although the airport is near, we take more time that we thought for this reason. And here's the first anecdote of the trip: we can't find the hotel although the GPS is taking us towards there. In the street I see a man walking and I decide to ask him. I ask "Please, can you help me?" and he, with all the calmness in the world, say "no". The face that I have has to be very funny, because the man starts to laugh and tell me "sorry, I was jocking" and very nicely he explains us how to go to the hotel, which is very near. What a curious people, the Irish i think...

 

 

We find the hotel quickly. We install ourselves and organize the tour to see the city. We have a bus stop just in the hotel's entrance, so we decide to go by public transport, that way we don't have to spend money in the parkings or in the pay zone. We inform ourselves fine about the timetables and we go to the centre.

 

It's 3:00 o 'clock in the evening and it's getting dark, but as we are close to Christmas  the city is full with beautiful lights and you can breath a special ambience. We start to cover the down town. We go across to the O'Connell Street and we stop in a Subway to eat something. Then we walk throug Henry Street and we see a Penny's. It's a very big shop with a lot of clothes and we take a look. Javi buys a coat, because his has broken and it's cold. Then we enter in the Temple bar town and we see the Ha Penny bridge, beautifully illuminated.

After to see differents Irish pubs where people don't stop to drink pints, we buy some souvenirs. And here we have the second anecdote of the trip: in a shop where we were buying souvenirs, mi sister asked for a price. The boy who was working in the shop answered and was very expensive for she, so she said "mother fuck!!" Then, he started to speak Spanish, while he was laughing. So we start to laugh to and to speak. He was Spanish too and was very funny.

We keep walking by the streets and see the Molly Malone's statue, the Trinity College and other buildings. It's 7 o'clock and we don't know what to do, we can't visit anything, so we decide to come back to the hotel. After having a shower we go down to dinner something in the hotel's bar. The receptionist is also Spanish and we speak a lot of time with him. Ana drinks a Guiness, but the rest don't like the beer, so we drink other things, like Coca-cola and water. Then it's late and we're tired, so we go to sleep. Tomorrow, more.

 

FOTOS OF ANTWERPEN

ANTWERPEN 2007

28TH SEPTEMBER 2007

It's only one month ago since we were in Belgium and we come back again. This time we go to Antwerpen, not for tourism but a concert. We go to he Milk Inc's Supersized. We have the tickets since 6 months ago at least. We're so excited. The flight costs us 100 € go and back, the tickets 22 € and the hotel 50 € without breakfast (it's an Ibis)

We arrive to the airport of Brussels and we have to take the car we rent, but the company is not in the airport, but a little far and we have to wait for a free bus that takes as to an hotel and the rent a car company is just next to. Once there we take the car and our GPS takes to our hotel without any problem.

It's raining cats and dogs but anyway we go for a walk and to eat something. We don't take to much to come back to the hotel. It's a pitty but with this weather we don't feel being in the street. So we pass the rest of the evening in the hotel until 7 o'clock, when we go to the Sport Paleis, where the concert will be showed.

We park the car in a place very near of the Sport Paleis and we enter in the enclosure. There are some stands with food and drinks and also merchandising. The doors are still closed but we are living the ambience. It's 7:30 and the doors are open. We get into. I thought the people would enter like crazy, running but no, all is very tidy. We found our place very quickly. We will be standing up and we have a great view. We're very close, in the fourth line. One hour is missing so that it begins the concert while the place fills. I'm surprised because there are people of all the ages: children, old people, young people, adult people, etc. It sounds good music to entertain the people until the beginin of the show.

Finally, at 8:30 the lights go out and starts the concert. I'm grateful for the punctuality. Linda and Reggi appear on the stage.

I love the concert, the show is amazing ans we enjoy a lot. We make a lot of photos and videos and the best is that I can see the concert perfect (usually I can't because I'm very short) and I have enough space for myself (usually I can't breath). At 9:30 there's a break and Javi goes to buy some drinks.  At 10:00 o'clock the concert begins again. At 11:30 the concert ends. What we liked the most was the song I faled with Regi and Scala. All thesse angelical voices singing at the same time it makes me feel like heaven. We enjoyed a lot and we love it, we come back next year for sure. We buy a CD that they recordered during the concert and here starts our odyssey.

Our GPS is blocked and we don't know how to arrive to the hotel, but it's like a labyrinth. Finally, after we were lost for a long time, we arrive to the hotel more than an houre after, and the worst is that it's only to 7 km to the Sport Paleis. We are so tired and we go to bed quickly. 

29TH SEPTEMBER 2007

Today it's a perfect sunny day and the temperature is also good. On the square just opposite the hotel there is an enormous street market and we go for a walk. We buy some Belgium chocolate bonbons (the best of the world). Hear are cheapper than in the shops and also some tulip's bulbs to plant them. Then we take the car and we go to the Antwerpen's down town, that is nice, althoug there isn't too much: the pedestrian area with restaurants, bars and souvenirs shops, the cathedral and the Hall City Square with a beautiful fountaine. 

Going out the down town you find the port. For some centuries, like the XV, XVI for example was the most important merchant port in Europe. Today it's the most important in Belgium and very important in Europe. 

We see the castle, we walk for a while and we go to he airport to leave the car and take our plane to home. We say good bye to Belgium and we hope coming back the next supersized, the next year.

 

PHOTOS OF MILAN AND NIZA

FIRST TOUR BY EUROPE LAST PART: COTE D'AZUR AND COME BACK

18TH AUGUST 2007

After to have a good breakfast we go to France, to the Cote d'Azur. We put Monaco in our GPS and start the trip. During all the travel we pass under a lot of tunnels and uncountable tolls. I don't want to think how much we spent in that, but I think that it was too much. We arrive to Monaco, but we can't park the car in any place, so we decide to see the city from the car. It's a pity but it's close to Barcelona and I'm sure that we can see it another time. Then we go to Niza. We park in a parking near of the centre like the Barcelona ones (3 € by hour. Espensive but not as Milan ones). We walk along the pedestrian area, full of shops, restaurants, ice-cream parlors and bars. We find a quick!! so we eat a Long Bacon hamburguer, our favourite.

Then we walk along the seafront, full of hotels and people in the beach. Today it's a sunny and beautiful day but we can't have a batch because we don't have any bathdress. It's the last time that this happens to us. The next time, we'll take the bathdress althoug we travel to  the Pole. The beaches are very narrow and with a lot of pebble. I think that is not very comfortable to be knocked down there, but the sea has a breathtaking blue colour. After we eat an ice-cream and take de car. We have to look for a hotel. We don't want to have it in Niza because we know is expensive, maybe in another place not very touristic.

We stop in every town, village and city we see but all it's full. It becames night slowly and we are tired and we start to be nervous. In addition, the car begins expressing a sickening smell and when Javi opens the hood discovers that the battery has got damaged. Greate!! The best way to finish our holidays! We ask in another hotel we see and the receptionist tell me that there isn't any free hotel in the whole french cost. That until La Jonquera, already Catalonia, we will not find any. So, we decide to comeback home this night. We arrive at home at 03:00 in the morning, very tired and very sad because of the end of our holidays. But also happy to be at home with our families again and of have fulfilled a big sleep.

CONCLUSION:


Trip budget: 2.600 € total. To cover half Europe visiting places so fantastic like Paris, Brugges, Amsterdam or Berlin, for example, it costs a thing.



This was our first tour and we will remember it for ever with a very special love. If I have to choose the places that I liked the most, I'd choose Paris, Amsterdam and, of course Brugges, and the places I liked the less Luxembourg and Milan, but really all the places liked me a lot. Louxemburg has a lot of places more beautifuls and interestings than the capital.  Maybe we come back one day and we will can discover another things. Brugge is like to be inside of a fary tale and I dreamed a lot of times to be there thar I could'nt believe it.



Berlin was very impressive to me, althoug the Wall is still very present and has some things of the war, so I perceived it a little sad, but only a few because it's really a very nice city to stay. Munich, on the opposite, meant a happiness explosion, I don't know exactly why, althoug the visit in Dachau was very hard for us. I don't think that I will visit again another concentrarion camp, for me is enough.

Also I would like to have some touch with the people who lives in these cities, but in a capital withour knowing any person is impossible.

FIRST TOUR BY EUROPE PART VIII: MILAN

MILAN

Milan is the city of the fashion, not only in Italy, but all around the world. It's a nice city, maybe with not a lot of things to see, but with a very exciting night life: pubs, restaurants, discoteques,... Also is a very cultural city. I liked, but it was not the city that I liked the most of the trip. I've got to say that it had a very strong competence, and after seeing Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin and Brugges, for example, Milan it seems not the best, but it's very interesting too.

WHAT YOU CAN'T MISS IF YOU GO TO MILAN

- The Duomo (it's the cathedral of the city and one of the most famous in the world) and its square

- The Victor Manuel Gallery. Just in front of the Duomo, it's a gallery with a lot of fashionable shops.

- Theatre La Scala  

 

- Church Santa Maria de la Gracia, where it's exhibited the great picture of the master Leonardo Da Vinci called "The last Dinner"

- The aquarium

- The Brera Pinacothec

- Sforza Castle

- The Leonardo Da Vinci Museum

- To the lovers of football: San Siro Stadium, the stadium of AC Milan and Inter of Milan.

17TH AUGUST 2007


Our last stop in this tripp will be Milan. We decided it the last night in Munich. We had to start our come back to home, and we thought that Milan could be a very good end. We are already a little tired and we have choosen a city with not very much things to see. Anyway, sure we'll come back some day and we will see the things we didn't see the last time.





To arrive to Milan, we must go across Austria and buy the "vignet", a sticker you have to give in the windshield of the car. Here there are not tolls but exist this thing and you must have it, if not, they fine you. We only need it for some hours, but the smallest is for a week, so we buy this one. We buy it in an oil station in the nearest of Innsbruck. It's cloudy and we have 12º, another sudden change of temperature, but we are neare of the Alpes and we note it, because the landscape we see is very nice. When we enter into Italy, we discover how expensive is to drive by there. There are a lot of tolls, and we were complaining about Catalonia!! I think here is worse. Here, the temperature goes up and in a few hours, we have more than 30º and very hot. We arrive to Milan about 14:00. We find a room in the Novotel and installed ourselves. We eat something of our little refrigerator. We fall sleep in the bed with the air conditioned conected. At 5 o'clock sounds the alarm and we prepare to know the city.

We look for a parking to park the car, but they are so expensive: 5 € per hour. We try to find a place in the street and in the end, we find a place in the load area whose schedule is on the point of finishing. We walk towards the Duomo Square, where it's located the Milan Cathedral. This time we don't have any guidbook neither, because we decided to come here last night. The cathedral is very nice and big, just as we imagined when we have seen in TV a lot of times. It's full of scaffolds, it is in works, so the photos are not very nicely but well... We must pay to enter, but we don't want to pay. Now I don't remember how much is it, but it's no cheap. We see only the outsides. We walk along the square with a lot of people and souvenirs shops, and then we see the Victor Manuell Galeries, very luxurious and full of glamur shops like Gucci, etc.

We go out by the back entrance and we see a square with a Leonardo da Vinci sculpture and a kiosk with a lot of postarcards and guidebooks. I buy one, and despite it's the same as the Munich one, this hasn't an itinerary with the most importants points to see in the city and the down town. Only talks about the most important attractions in Milan. It's becoming late and we can't enter already in the museums and the castle because are closed. We walk along the city pacely and we decide to see these things the next time we come to the city.

We want to see San Siro, the stadium that is shared for AC Milan and Inter of Milan. We look for it in our GPS. We try to park near of the stadium but it's very difficult because it's crowded of cars. Maybe today there is a match. We walk towards the stadium with a lot of souvenirs stands with things of both teams and places to eat something like frankfurts, sandwitches and snacks. Javi buys the both scarfs for him collection and a t-shirt. We find out that the match is between Juventus and Milan. A man offer two tickets by 20 € each one. I think it's worth it and it's a good match to see, but Javi is not sure because maybe we have not a good place, so we refuse them. We buy a good sandwich and eat it while we see the people in the street. It becomes night and we come back to the hotel. It's our last night of the holidays, snif snif....

PHOTOS OF MUNICH