冷飯重温: 1998 Euro 豬仔團 trip

Because of my recent trip, I dug out what I wrote for my first trip to Europe (10/8/1998 - 10/16/1998) It was hosted on Geocities which was taken out of service by its parent Yahoo.

Day 1 - London
This is actually day 2 on my itinerary 'coz I spent a day on the flight from SF-NY-London. I arrived in the morning and faced my first problem: finding a place to have lunch. Fortunately there's a train station nearby. I went to the food court and ate at the only fastfood joint where I couldn't find in the States: (McDonalds, Pizza Hut and Burger King had invaded most of the places I visited) I had a sandwich made of French bread (i.e. the really hard bread) and I had this kind of sandwich for lunch most of the time during this trip.

I visited the Tower of London in the afternoon. These towers were built by various emperor of England to defend against foreign invasion. The oldest one were 900 years old. They have witnessed many historical events, including the rise and fall of dynasties, kings and queens during the long history of England. The jewels of the royal family, including the crown jewel of the queen, were displayed there. And the famous London bridge is right next to the towers.

I took subway (called tubes by the local people) to Leicester Square, which claimed to be the hippest place in London, in the evening. It was very crowded, and surrounded by places like Odeon Theatre (where I witnessed the premiere of the movie "Mulan" in London), Fashion Cafe, Capital Radio Cafe (where I had dinner. They have a in-house DJ and DJ booth. Pretty cool) After dinner, I walked to the famous Soho area, which was full of bars and restaurant. It's a cool hangout place.

Day 2 - London
I took a city sightseeing tour and visited St. Paul Cathedral (where Prince Charles and Princess Diana was married. Many famous historical figures, like Winston Churchill and Duke Wellington who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, were buried there), St. James Palace (the official residence of Prince Charles), Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey (where Princess Diana's funeral was held) and most importantly, Big Ben!

I visited Windsor Castle, the largest inhabited castle in the world, in the afternoon. It was also 900 years old. It was magnificent both outside and inside. The interior was luxurious: decorated with paintings, tapestries, furnitures, chinas. I went to Soho again this evening to attend a jazz show. That was a cool jazz club with good atmosphere.

Day 3 - London, Dover, Calais, Brussels
I left London for Dover, a port at South England and took a cruise ship across the English Channel to Calais, France. The ship was big and comfortable. The scenes along the cruise was beautiful. It was an enjoyable experience. The "dummy" tour (i.e. the guided tour) officially begun in Calais. The tour bus took us across the border to Brussels, Belgium.

Day 4 - Brussels, The Hague, Amsterdam
I had a brief city sightseeing tour around Brussels, the capital of Belgium as well as European Union, in the morning. There were not much interesting places, except the Atomium, which is a building that looks like an enlarged molecule: with interconnected balls representing atom and containing restaurants inside. It was built for World Expos in the past.

I left Brussels for the Hague, Netherlands in the afternoon. It's the city where the Netherlands government resides (it's not the capital though) The Peace Palace, i.e. the international court, is in Hague. Then I went on to Amsterdam.

Day 5 - Amsterdam
The tour guide brought us to the first tourist trap of this tour this morning: a diamond "center." Amsterdam is supposed to be famous of diamond. We were shown a little bit of the diamond polishing process.Then we were brought to a room with sales trying to sell us diamonds after educated us with knowledge of diamond sizes and cuttings. They locked the door of the room for about 15 minutes. So we were literally trapped! I wonder who'd buy things that require careful examination and consideration like diamonds under such circumstances. Well, there are always people fall to these traps otherwise these places wouldn't survive.

Then I visited Rijkmuseum, which showed a lot of paintings of Dutch artists, including the famous Rembrandt's. Too bad the Van Gogh museum was under renovation at that time. I had a cruise on the canals of Amsterdam and it is one of the highlights of this trip. Netherlands is a country built on top of water. A third of the country is actually under sea level. Dutch reclaim the land by extracting water from the land using windmills. So water is an integral part of Dutch life. Most of the canals in the city of Amsterdam are constructed, only a few of them are natural. People uses the canals for transportation. The canals also provide spaces for living: there are house boats every where along the canals. Some of these house boats actually seem to be pretty comfortable to live in. There are lots of classic looking buildings, some dated back to 18th century, along both sides of the canals. It's a beautiful scene. A interesting note: some of these old buildings are tilted because wood posts were used to support the building when they were built in the old days and they become rotten by water as times goes by. People living inside need to deal with sloped table surfaces as well as floors. I enjoyed this cruise a lot because of the beautiful scenes as well as the knowledge I gained about the life of people living in Amsterdam.

Day 6 - Amsterdam, Cologne, Coblenz
The tour left Amsterdam for Germany in the morning and began the journey into the area along the river Rhine. The first city I visited is Cologne. One of the most famous thing about Cologne is, of course, Cologne the man's "perfume." The name of the famous brand 4711 actually came from the house number of the place where it was first manufactured. However, what impressed me the most about this city was the Dom, a old Gothic style catholic church. It looked magnificent. The next stop is the German Corner. It is the place where the river Rhine and Moselle meet. I stayed at a small and old yet beautiful country side motel on the river bank near the city Coblenz that night.

Day 7 - Coblenz, Trier
The Rhine journey continued on Day 7. I had a cruise on the river: there were lots of old castles along the river. I was told that the interior of most of these castles were not preserved as they were converted to hotels or prisons! What a pity. One of the landmark I saw during the cruise was the Lorelei rock, which was associated to a legend of mermaid. It was not really special. Then I arrived at the city Trier in the afternoon. Trier has a very long history. It was established by the Roman emperor Constantine as the capital of the western part of the Empire about 1900 years ago. I visited Basilika, the palace built by Constantine. It's a huge hall now became a church. There were also other remaining of buildings from the Roman era, e.g. a bath place, where the Roman people took bath (people did not have private bathroom those days) and an amphitheater, where the Roman watched the cruel games of man fighting against animals and each other. It is also famous for being the birthplace of Karl Marx, the father of communism.

Day 8 - Trier, Paris
I left Germany for France this morning. On the way to Paris the tour took us to visit a winery, specialized in champagne. I was surprised by the large amount of money and effort the winery put into the guided tour (which feature a Disney like train ride around the cave) as well as the decoration of the cave where the wine was manufactured. I wonder how much of these costs were added to the price of the champagne. I arrived at Paris in the evening. Then I went to a cabaret show, which Paris is really famous for. The girls at the show were pretty. The music was good. It was very entertaining.

Day 9 - Paris
I took a city sightseeing tour this morning. I saw the landmarks like Notre Dame Cathedral, Louvre and the glass pyramid, the Renaissance style City Hall, Concorde Square, the Eiffel tower, Arc de Triomphe, and lots of other classical style old buildings. I was simply stunned by the beauty of these buildings. It is difficult to describe the beauty using words.

I visited another palace this afternoon: Versailles. It was built in the 17th century and modified many times since and it was the residence of French Emperor Louis XIV, XV, XVI. I was amazed by the luxurious look outside. I was even more amazed when I saw the luxurious decoration inside! Like Windsor Castle, it is heavily decorated with painting, tapestry, furniture, gold painted ceilings. It also has lots of sculptures of emperors including Napoleon and other famous people (e.g. the scientist Laplace) The most magnificent sight in my opinion is the hall of mirror with the chandeliers. It was fantastic.

I went to a jazz club, Duc Des Lombards, and saw the performance of the Ricardo Del Fra Sextet. They played great hard bop jazz. I was glad to see that the place was packed with fans. The atmosphere was great. I guess the jazz scene in Paris must be alive and kicking.

This is the end of my Europe trip. It was a great experience.

Bonus coverage: Day 10+ - New York
I stopped by New York City on my way back home from Europe. I've been attracted to New York City for a long time because of its sports and music scene. I went to an ice hockey game, New York Rangers vs. Edmonton Oilers, at Madison Square Garden, which claims to be the most famous arena in the world. The arena and the crowd was not really special but the game was exciting (Rangers 3, Oilers 2.)

One of the must-see thing in New York is of course the famous Broadway musicals. I saw Jekyll and Hyde at Plymouth Theater. The songs are beautiful. Another thing that New York is famous for and what I'm most interested in is jazz. New York is THE capital of jazz. Lots of jazz musicians are working and living there. Most of the famous jazz musicians choose New York City as one of their tour stop. I think you can find one or more big name jazz musicians playing in NYC every night! Many legendary and prestigious jazz clubs, like Birdland, Village Vanguard, Blue Note, are in NYC. Many jazz masters, including John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Bill Evans have played and recorded live sessions at these clubs. I went to Village Vanguard to see the Lou Donaldson Quartet. I also went to a newer jazz club (any place is new compared to those legendary clubs) called Iridium, which books many big name musicians as well, to see the Pat Martino Quintet. The clubs were typical. The music was great. I visited the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown in upstate New York. It has exhibits about baseball history and it also displays lots of memorabilia items like gloves, bats, jersey...... from legendary players. It was a wonderful experience for a baseball fan like myself. This is the end of my vacation.

2012 Euro Cycling and Art Trip

I have been back from this trip for 4 days already and spent most of my free time blogging it. It's finally finished and published:

Prologue
Munich
Salzburg
Wachau
Vienna
Epilogue 1
Epilogue 2

Hope you enjoy reading it. I certainly will in a few years when I forgot everything :P