Macau Day 1

I first wanted to come to Macau in 1997, while I was in Hong Kong. But since that was my honeymoon round-the-world trip, and the last stop at that, exhaustion precluded this litte side-trip. So it was nice to have the opportunity to visit again, this time with friends.

All I knew about Macau, was that it's close to Hong Kong (1 hour by ferry), had legal gambling and a famous church-on-a-hill. I didn't know it was actually just the facade and ruin, until I did some research on what to see while there. Our trip was for 5 days all up, but only one night in Macau, because the one night here cost the same as 3 nights in Zhuhai, China!

We left Singapore early in the morning and arrived in time for lunch. We took a shuttle bus from the airport to The Venetian (getting it mixed up with Wynns which is the casino only 5 minutes walk from our hotel) and were duly impressed by it. Absolutely magnificent building. It was very much like the real Venice (and reminded me a tiny bit of Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas), except not nearly as stinky!

 

We were only here long enough to figure out how to get to our hotel. It turned out that we'd need to get a taxi, since the other shuttles from the hotel don't go anywhere close to it. So we bundled ourselves into a taxi and headed for The Emperor (not to be mixed up with the Grand Emperor!) hotel to check in and then find ourselves some lunch.

The hotel is nothing flash - 3 stars, I guess, but it was nice enough:

As soon as we'd dumped our things (and I took a photo while it was still tidy), it was time to feed the hungry hordes. We walked out of the hotel and into the first restaurant we saw that looked reasonable:

 

And had won-ton soup. It wasn't too bad. Nothing great either, though. The prices were similar to what we would pay here in Singapore, if not a little higher. But then, I expected that.

After our stomachs had been satisfied, it was off in the direction of St Paul's ruin i.e. camera fodder for me! Our walk towards the old-town part of Macau took us past the Lisboa hotel and casino (the gold tower is so new, it's not on the Google map yet! You can see the excavation site for it, though):

(Speaking of Google Maps/Earth, I couldn't geo-locate any of my photos from this trip because the maps are only available in Chinese)

We then wandered down Avenue Almeida towards the Leal Senado building and Senado Square, which has a lot of portugese colonial style buildings on it:

 

After this we walked up Rua de Sao Paulo and were tempted by a lot of bakeries selling egg tarts (OK, yes, we had one and it was yummy!) and chinese style barbecued bacon and sweets etc. Some of us even succumbed to temptation and bought biscuits and other nice things to bring home (this wasn't me!). At the end of this road, we caught our first glimpse of St Paul's facade:

  

Yay! My main reason for coming on this trip was finally in sight. And closer:

Of course I had to climb the steps and then go around the back and photograph back down the stairs:

Just beautiful! There's a little museum underneath the church, but it's nothing great. But it's definitely worth climbing the steps at the back of the facade to look out the windows. As you're climbing the steps you can also see a little temple (Na Tcha temple) off to the side. It was closed when we walked up - whether it's always closed or it was the lateness of the hour (around 5pm), I don't know.

Next stop was the Mount Fortress and Museum, right next to the ruin. It again involved climbing some steps, and I ended up walking all the way around, but it was worth it for the wonderful photos I was able to take up there:

Dusk comes early and quickly here, so it was fairly dark by the time we headed back towards the casinos (which was the reason my friends came to Macau!), first past the ruins again:

 And then back the way we'd come:

 

To the Lisboa casino:

From here we caught the shuttle bus to the ferry terminal (all casino/hotel shuttle buses meet at the ferry terminal!), from where we got on another free shuttle to go back to The Venetian which had taken all our fancy: mine to take more photos (of course!) and the sisters to feed the slot machines. The trip there and back was also an opportunity to take some photos of the bright lights there:

and back near our hotel after the sisters' wallets had been lightened:

And because we're complete sticky-beaks, we checked out the Wynns casino too. At least the foyer

Then it was time for bed, since we had a lot on our plate the next day, including the crossing to China.

Heidelberg

My last destination on my trip already! Though I guess 3500 photos (for the entire trip!) is enough to work through :-)

It had been my intention from almost the start of the trip to return to Heidelberg, since I remembered it as somewhere really beautiful i.e. lots of old buildings, from when I went there in 1984 on my Contiki trip....those were the days... Unfortunately, it didn't quite live up to my memories. It's possible I'm mixing it up with other destinations, but this trip to Heidelberg didn't show me as many beautiful old buildings as I thought there would be. This didn't stop me taking 350 or so photos though :-)

Daniel, a friend of mine with whom I worked when I lived in Germany, was on holiday, so he accompanied me and drove us there in his car. It was great to be independent of transport to and from Heidelberg, though we had to park the car all day. The parking fee was reasonable though, at 10 Euro for the whole day. We ended up buying a 'Heidelberg Card' similar to my Stockholm Card, since that gave us admission to the castle and its tours, the cog railway, as well as the University and a few other places we didn't have time to see.

First stop, after the information centre where we bought the card, was the car park, which is right near the Kornmarkt and thus at the foot of the hill on which the castle is perched. Then the slog up the path to the castle. It was quite embarassing how out of breath I was after about 20 steps - after all, I exercise frequently and don't smoke, whereas Daniel is the opposite (i.e. no exercise, smokes) and had no trouble getting up that hill! Tsk.

There were some nice views of the town and the castle above as we climbed:

The park around the castle is free, but entrance to the courtyard costs admission. It's nice to have a wander around the courtyard, even though the castle is mostly a ruin:

We went on a tour of some of the rooms that have been re-created. Some of them were quite nice, and the tour allows you to take photos both inside rooms and parts of the castle you can only get to with a tour group:

The last stop on the tour was where the big wine barrells are - they are truly huge. Unfortunately, my photos of this didn't turn out very well - I must have got the lense wet or something. Oh well. Hey! Stop cheering there! It's not like I upload all the photos I take! Hey! I heard that! ;-)

We wandered around the courtyard and had a coffee:

Then we walked around the outside some more:

Next stop was the cog railway (Bergbahn) to the top of the Koenigsstuhl (king's chair) from where there's a good view of the city below. For some strange reason, most of my photos from up here were blurred so I threw them away. (I said stop that cheering!!) Here's a couple that turned out:

We took the cog railway all the way back to the bottom station, near the Kornmarkt. From there we just wandered around the Altstadt (old town), more or less aimlessly. We went past market place and the Holy Ghost church, the knight's house hotel, the Jesuit church and the old University. We visited the hall of the old University, which was quite impressive:

It was starting to get late, so we quickly had a little bite to eat (Thai food of all things!) before heading off  past the beautiful library which we entered for a quick look around:

Then we headed towards the river Neckar, so we could see the old bridge and its gate:

We crossed the bridge to the other side of the river and walked up the 'snake path' towards the philosopher's path, but only as far as the first viewing platform:

We had decided to eat dinner at the knight's house hotel, just for the hell of it. This was where the handiness of having brought our own car came in - we didn't have any deadlines to meet. The meal was very traditional german food. Very nice. Also, expensive :-)

After dinner, we went in search of a coffee, waiting for darkness, and then stopped for some night shots of the castle all lit up:

Poor Daniel then had to drive us home - a trip of about 1 1/2 hours!

And thus ends my series of blog entries for my trip to Germany!

But never fear: I've booked my trip to Macau and Zhuhai in late October, so look for more entries then!

Stockholm

My flight to Stockholm wasn't as convenient as our trip to London had been - I flew out in the afternoon and back in the evening - thus only having not quite two full days in Stockholm. But I made the most of it.

The flight with Ryan Air went to an airport 100km away from Stockholm, necessitating a bus trip of about 60 minutes. But the connection was great - straight out the door, since I had no checked luggage - and into the bus which took off about 5 minutes later. Wonderful.

I arrived at the central station and bought myself a Stockholm Card - great investment! Highly recommend it to anyone going to Stockholm for sight-seeing. It includes all bus and train fares as well as admission to everything I wanted to see.

I caught the subway and walked 5 minutes or so to my hotel (I had researched all this on the 'net before I left, naturally - those rainy days and all!) and checked in. Since it was still light albeit 7.30pm, I caught the subway into Gamla Stan (the old town) to start off my sight-seeing. I used my camera's night snap shots setting and I think they turned out quite well:

After wandering around until it was too dark to take more photographs, I looked for somewhere to eat. I found a nice little restaurant in Gamla Stan whose prices weren't too outrageous and had some good steak with mash:

After that it was off back to the hotel. I had a lot to see the next day, after all!

I got up early the next day and caught first the train and then a bus out to Drottningholm palace, where the swedish royal family actually reside. Their tours don't start til 10am, but I had a lot to see, so figured I'd go through the grounds first and look at the Chinese palace only from the outside. The grounds were very pretty, as one might expect - reminded me of the formal gardens in the Loire valley castles.

The tour of the state rooms inside the palace didn't allow photos, as per usual. How sad.

After the tour, I headed back to Stockholm city, to check out the Djurgarden island's offerings. There were some beautiful villas here, as well as the Rosendal palace and a few other little palaces I didn't have time to see. It was a long walk from getting off the bus at the gorgeous Nordic Museum building to the Rosendal Palace, and my feet were sore already from having walked all around Drottningholm...ah well. I could rest when I'm dead, I figured.

After the Rosendal Palace tour for which I had to wait about 45 minutes (yay! shoes off!) I headed towards Skansen open air museum by walking through the lovely forest in the middle of the island. I got to Skansen at 3.30pm and the lady at the admission counter told me that most of the houses would close by 5, so see those first. I already knew this, and didn't care too much whether I could see inside or not - I couldn't go any faster than I was going already! There were some cute little buildings in the grounds and it's quite an impressive museum, from the size alone:

I left here around 7pm to head back towards town. The Museum Biologica is another beautiful building which I had no time to see inside of:

Since I didn't do any sort of harbour cruise (no time!), I figured I'd just get the ferry from outside the Nordic Museum (which I wanted another opportunity to photograph properly anyway) back to town. I just love that building:

And the ferry trip was also included in my Stockholm Card:

By the time I got back to town i.e. central station from where I could get my train to the hotel, it was getting too dark to see anything i.e. for taking photos :-). The day before I had seen signs up about the rock opera "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" being performed at the Culture House, opposite the central station, so I thought I'd just go ask how much it costs. Turned out it was only about (converted) 10 Euro, so I went to see it! Unfortunately, it was all in swedish so I didn't understand a thing!! I had hoped the songs would be english, but no. At least I recognised one or two so could vaguely get what was going on. The audience enjoyed it and laughed a lot, so it must have been good. :-)

I headed back to the hotel, not having had dinner or lunch for that matter. No time, no time!

The next and final morning, I headed down early for breakfast and then checked out and stored my luggage at central station (I'd checked the day before, and it's only (converted) 4 Euro, which was acceptable!). I headed straight to Gamla Stan which I had read would get extremely crowded during the day. They were right - I got there about 8am and the crowds started around 9am and by 10 you could hardly move! All the tour groups moving around - scary stuff.

I walked around taking day-light photos:

Until the first thing opened, which was the church:

After that, I sat down for a little while and had a coffee, waiting for the palace to open:

After the palace and the 3 crown museum, which is attached to the royal palace, I headed off in the direction of the Town Hall where I wanted to be for the 12pm tour. I passed the lovely Houses of Parliament and walked along the water towards the Town Hall:

The Town Hall is, of course, where the banquet for the Nobel Prize is held. The gold room is most impressive, with its 17million golden tiles. And, surprisingly, one is allowed to take photos:

After the tour, which is the only way you can see inside, I headed off towards Gamla Stan station with completely drained batteries - both camera and myself - to get on the train into town to pick up my luggage and head off to the airport and home....well, Bremen anyway :-)

After another night in Bremen, it was off to Frankfurt again. Coming up in the next post: a little sight-seeing of the Limes, and Heidelberg.