Get lots of cool pictures Oh and some lederhosen if you happen to run thru Bavaria.
Hey there, call it some sort of mid life crisis but I'm going to spend the first two weeks of July in Europe with my lady wife.
Munich - 2 days
Berlin - 1-3 days
Leipzig - 1-3 days
Amsterdam & Holland - the balance of time.
Any suggestions or advice ?
Dollhouse Syndrome = The temptation to turn a map into a picture, obscuring the goal of the image with the appeal of cute, or simply available, parts. Maps have clarity through simplification.
--- Sigurd
Get lots of cool pictures Oh and some lederhosen if you happen to run thru Bavaria.
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps
Spend the maximum amount of time in Berlin. It's a beautiful city with a ton of fantastic museums (assuming you like museums). Find your way to the Potsdamer Platz, it's pretty cool to walk around there, and it has a movie theater with movies in English, which is cool if you're looking to relax and sit for a couple of hours.
Munich is pretty nice, though I haven't spent much time there (I've only been twice even though I've lived in Germany for most of the last 9 years, and once was only for a few hours when I did a college interview with an alumni who worked there). Leipzig I've never been to.
Amsterdam is a great city, and I'd also recommend visiting The Hague. I've spent quite a bit of time there, and it's a thoroughly charming city, with some cool things to see, and some very nice restaurants. If you do go there, find your way to the beach, it's beautiful, in a gray, cold, storm-tossed kinda way (though it might be significantly nicer in the summer, I've only ever been there in January). Also, there's a hotel called the Kurhaus you should find. I mention this not because you should stay there (not that you shouldn't, it's quite nice, I just hesitate to offer accommodations advice) but because near that hotel you can find a very nice little mall/shopping type area nearby if you need something, as well as an Italian restaurant that serves dynamite Calamari. Down on the beach nearby is The Pancake House, which serves a large, thick crepe filled with your choice of toppings (I recommend the apple, butter and bacon for a nice lunch/dinner pancake, but there are tons of others for both entrees and desserts). That place is awesome.
As a final note, awesome choices on countries. I've found Germany to be amazing to live in, and I really enjoy Berlin. The Netherlands is also very nice. The weather can sometimes leave something to be desired, but speaking generally, Germany and The Netherlands possess beautiful, well-maintained, relatively clean cities and countryside, which makes them awesome from the start. Public transportation is very available, and I hope you're planning to make use of the rail system, because it's really quite excellent.
Edit: Munich is the capital of Bavaria, Ascension, and is also the home of Oktoberfest, which ironically enough begins in September and ends very early in October. So you can get shots of him loaded and in lederhosen.
Last edited by Alecthar; 06-18-2009 at 09:07 PM.
"Unless I'm allowed to carry around a gun to shoot their giant killer-spiders, Australia needs to stay the hell away from me. Also Australians, who if they have lived this long are obviously agents of the spiders and not to be trusted."
That's a pic he may not want to post but we'd love to see...for future dealings/negotiations
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps
If you are near mucich, try and make the time to get to the House of 1000 clocks. http://hausder1000uhren.de/index.php?lang=en
And dear god, don;t be like me and NOT buy a Cuckoo clock!
Daniel the Neon Knight: Campaign Cartographer User
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Visit Utrecht in the Netherlands. IMHO, it has a nicer atmosphere than Amsterdam, and there's plenty to do and to see (I especially like the area around the Dom, which itself is a beautiful tower/church).
About the weather: apparently the Netherlands is notorious for its weather patterns (or so international students I talk to here tell me, I guess I'm used to it), which can turn from a beautiful sunny day to colder and shower-y weather the next. Just don't expect a completely sunny stay
The Pergamon Museum in Berlin would be a 'must see' on my list.
Forget about Amsterdam, The Hague or Utrecht... come to Rotterdam! There is a... eh, a harbor here
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Gandwarf has fallen into shadow...
+1 vote for Berlin. I go there a couple of times a year with my family, really enjoying the city-life. I mostly stay in the old east Berlin, enjoying the parks and Zoologischer Garten and such, but I've been to most of the tourist trap things several times, so I'm hardly the typical tourist.
You'll want to see the Berliner Dom (big church), Brandenburger Tor (newly renovated and quite inspiring portal), Fernsehturm (TV tower with a rotating restaurant). Also, a tour on bus 100 takes you past a great deal of sights. All options available within walking distance. Checkpoint Charlie museum was kinda neat.
Potzdamer Platz is pretty, but I didn't find it very interesting per se - it's just a bunch of shops, mostly - apple store, sony store, lego store, tourist-priced café, bleh
I've never taken the time to visit their government building (Bundestag) - there's always been a huge line waiting outside, so we haven't bothered.
That's a good description of Potzdamer Platz. It's worth it to go there to see, I think, especially at night with the lighted canopy shifting colors, but other than that it's not especially great unless you're looking to eat or shop.
I don't know how I forgot to mention the zoo, which is fantastic. I don't know about anyone else, but I have a certain child-like love of the zoo. And Disneyland.
The weather in both the Netherlands and Germany tends toward the rainy side. My father likes to remark that labeling any day as a nice one is asking for trouble, and instead prefers to note how nice a morning/afternoon it is, given that you sometimes have very sunny days turn into very rainy evenings.
"Unless I'm allowed to carry around a gun to shoot their giant killer-spiders, Australia needs to stay the hell away from me. Also Australians, who if they have lived this long are obviously agents of the spiders and not to be trusted."