Aaaaaah Vienna

Prominte, Nay chesky (sorry, no czech). If we've said that once in the last 3 days we've said it a hundred times.

We had a lovely time in Prague. On arrival, train weary but happy to have arrived, we availed ourselves of the wonderful vegetarian dish prepared by the good folk at Sir Toby´s hostel. Then we trammed our way into Prague´s main centre. At first it would seem that we´d stumbled on Las Vegas so we kept walking until we stumbled on Old Town Prague. The buildings were wonderfully ornate - and the citizens of Prague have gone out of their way to light them up so that you really do feel like you´ve walked into some kind of fairyland.

Next morning we made our way to the castle - throngs of tourists which dampened our experience somewhat (we returned to walk thru the castle later in the evening - this time no people and thoroughly enjoyable). During the afternoon we took some time out in a park in the old town - was nice to just sit and enjoy the surrounds. Also found a good book store. I found a book which I think will last our entire holiday and then some (no matter that it occupies half of my back pack!).

Other memories of Prague - the somewhat surprising number of middle aged women who dye their hair a striking beetroot shade, superb bat watching, trams 1, 3, 5, 9, 12 and 22, skodas and more skodas (even the trams are Skodas!), dogs on trams, Jack Daniels chicken strips from a not-so-authentic Czeck restaurant (my pick, admittedly) - but mostly, all the lovely walks we took thru old town Prague.

Wish we could have been here longer ......but








Vienna awaits and we´re staying with Mark and Barbara (rellies of mine thrice removed by marriage or something like that). Lovely folk and we´re looking forward to spending some more time with them and exploring some of Mozart´s hood.

PS We thought the banks in Prague have very strange ideas about what constitutes a threat (see below).

Its Thursday- must be Nürnberg

Hi all. The whistle stop tour continues.

We last left you in Örbyhus, Sweden. Since our last post we spent a lovely day crusing around Uppsland looking at old industrial estates (the best iron produced between about 1600-1900 anywhere in the world was from here). The estates (bruks) always have a big old mansion house/palace type bit, a nice palace garden (Orangerie (sic)), which you can still buy produce from), and an artificial lake or two as well as the factory buildings. We also had some lovely home-cooked meals (despite Matt suffering a nasty potato harvesting injury at the sharp end of my elbow- sorry Matt).

We then caught the train down to southern Sweden to go visit a wee village that Lisa's grandfather and great grandparents lived in. She phoned her parents at an unsocial hour so her Dad could direct us to their old house. We think it was this one.

Or maybe this one.

We did find her great grand-parents grave and gave it a bit of a polish and found some wild-flowers to adorn it with. I imagine its been a few years since anyone gave their grave some attention. Lisa was feeling happy and at one with her roots.

Sweden was lovely, lots of lakes and trees, but too flat to be taken seriously.

Have just spent the last couple of days staying in Köln with my fiend Alina and her partner Markus. Climbed all 509 steps up the steeple of the amazing Köln cathedral and got a good look at the town. The thing we noticed about German cities compared with Sweden is the relative lack of old buildings, especially the industrial cities in the west (near the Rhine). We eventually worked out that all these cities got hit hard in 1944-45; suddenly made WWII a more tangible thing.

Speaking of which we spent a few hours today at the Nazi party parade grounds on the outskirts of Nürnberg. Sobering stuff. The way the Germans deal with the history is as fasinating as the history itself.

We're spending the night with a friend of Lisa's; another European that speaks flawless English (bless them). We had a we stroll around an artificial lake (reminded me of Lake Dunstan actually- except for the artificial beaches) and then retreated to the local pub/restaurant for pretzel dumplings and mushrooms. Gotta love these German pubs- beer is cheaper than coke :-)

Was also wondering how come the people of northern Europe were wise enough to leave so much forest standing- at least as much forest cover as Northland, and makes the Canterbury plains look positively scorched earth!

Prague tomorrow, and we haven't even learnt how to say "sorry, we don't speak Czech" yet.

More anon.

WE´RE BACK!

Hej! Here we are, in the land where Lindströms abound. It leaves one feeling quite nordic (in a couple of days we head to Karlshamn to explore Grandad Lindström´s hood).

Odd being back on holiday - we were glad to return to NZ to spend time with Ian´s family but we´re glad to be back on the road too. After spending an evening with good friends Jamie and Tiffany in London we flew to Stockholm via cheap-as-chips RyanAir. Ian´s good friend Matt collected us at the airport and we headed home to Örbyhus where Matt and Åsa live. On the way we stopped at this beautiful medieval church in the middle of the countryside (dating back to.....long ago).


Matt and Åsa live in a cute wee town (about 2000 people) in a cute not-so-wee (100 year old) house which they are restoring.

We had a fabulous day yesterday, exploring old town Stockholm.

We did not visit the royal family but gave them a wave from the kebab house where we had lunch. We also caught a ferry to Skansen and stumbled upon an old Biologisk museum which was hilarious and informative all at the same time (says Ian). I thought I should learn a little bit more about my roots and strong nordic nose but that particular museum was closed for biz.

Lovely moose meatballs last night (now THAT was a first!). As they were hippy, free-range, native mammal, sustainably harvested, and died humanely, swiftly and painlessly (!) type meatballs Ian even had some too. Ian also enjoyed some PLOPP.





Lovely, sunny day today and we are off to Uppsala.

Funeral arrangements

For those interested, Dad's funeral service is at 1.00pm on Tuesday Sept 2nd (tomorrow) at the Anglican Church of St John, 327 Beach Rd, Campbells Bay, North Shore.