Summer sun in Vienna

Saturday was just so amazing. Not only did Vienna prove to be as beautiful as we had figured it would be on Friday, it was also t-shirt weather: just so warm!

We started with a lovely breakfast at Neni’s at the Naschmarkt. The Naschmarkt is a big market that streches for at least 500m between the streets “Linke Wienzeile” and “Rechte Wienzeile” and has not only market stands where you can get vegetables and fruits (from the normal stuff to very exotic fruits that other than in Thailand I have never seen before) but also many small restaurants. Our breakfast e.g. included not only nice views of the market but also scrambled eggs, fresh cream cheese and homemade bread and also some tea and (we thought we deserved this) a glass of champagne.

Biking the world – a comparison of Germany, The Netherlands and Cambodia

Before I go to Vienna in 4 four days (and I’m absolutely excited to go) I wanted to share a post on biking as this is something I do everyday. I like biking – in a way of travelling from A to B, not in a sporty kind of way. I’ve been riding a bike here in Germany for about 24 years now (I think I learned to ride a bike at around the age of five). Other than in Germany I’ve been on a bike only in Cambodia and the Netherlands so far and everywhere it was different.

Bike Trip Part 3: Haarlem to Amsterdam

After going from The Hague to Zandvoort and then from there to Haarlem, our bike trip continued on Saturday. As fine as the weather had been on Friday, as bad it was on Saturday. When we were about to leave our hotel, it started raining. But we were prepared. Wrapped up in rain gear, we cycled through rain and winds towards Amsterdam. Actually quite a nice ride, mainly through the countryside, but with that weather we could only appreciate if there was no rain or wind that day and not how nice the landscape looked. When we arrived in Amsterdam it had stopped raining and we found our place to stay easily: the Maria Alberta, a boat near the main station. We had booked a three bed cabin and here it was not too bad this time, that it was just the two of us, as like this we had at least some space to spread our luggage.

Bike Trip Part 2: Zandvoort to Haarlem

After our one hour sunbathing we follow the route from The Hague to Zandvoort on to Haarlem which was closer than we thought. On our way we not only saw a water castle but also water buffalos (what ever they were doing there). It was a bit confusing to see these creatures standing next to a small lake in the dune landscape in the Netherlands just as if they had always been there (which I very much doubt. As far as I know they are not originally from there, but please correct me if I’m wrong).

Bike Trip Part 1: The Hague to Zandvoort

I know, It’s been ages since I last posted something and I still want to blog about my trip to Kassel and the Documenta last month, a trip to Kaiserswerth with my parents some weeks ago and the review about the Lonely planet magazine that I got a subscription for isn’t finished yet either. But now I’m on a bike trip from Den Hague to Amsterdam so I decided to be up to date first and blog about things a little past later.

Cycling in Düsseldorf

Summer is here, at least for some days. This is actually a very sad statement when it’s already end of June / early July. But this year we decided that no rain or temperatures over 20°C are absolutely great weather so far, so we are making the best of it.

Last weekend was like this: all sunshine and high temperature. And as Tine was over from Brussels we decided to do a little bike tour. I had just bought a new bike that week, already preparing for our bike tour in the Netherlands in late August, so we had two bikes and actually we wanted to go to Kaiserswerth, a cute little northern suburb of Düsseldorf. But as the weather was so good we decided we’d go to the beach instead.

Angkor by bike

Yesterday we started late, having had a long breakfast, then picking up our laundry and getting bikes.

Angkor Wat in the sun

We managed to be at Angkor Wat, this time in full sunshine and really beautiful, at the others tourists’ lunch time. It was really good with only a few other people around.

All in all we rode about 20km with our bikes, not getting as far as we wanted. But we saw a new temple and being free to go just where we wanted and being back for sunset at Angkor Wat again was worth it.