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City trips: cheap online flight and rail tickets

German Rail Sparpreis offer to Berlin for only €58,- together

We have returned from our two city trips to Berlin and London. Click on the Brandenburg gate photo to go to the album that already contains photos of the most important highlights of the German capital. We already knew that German Rail offers cheap tickets, in particular if you are a group. Just search our website for :happy weekend" or "happy day" ticket" or Euro region ticket. This one enables Belgian parents including up to 3 children, to travel from Hasselt or Dutch people to travel from Maastricht to Heimbach and lake Rursee in the German Eifel for a walk or a swim for only €14.50. Grand parents with grand children can also benefit from this offer.

flight to London 2007
At last in front of the Tower Bridge
Walk to Buckingham Palace
Westminster Abbey and the Big Ben
standing on the Meridian Line: Greenwich
the last photo taken at the pub the Big Dick

But if you are even more flexible and have some opportunities to shift in your agenda, you will be able to save much more and yet travel cheap conveniently and quickly. The only thing to do is to create an account on the German Rail website, have your credit card ready (I know it: that step that forces a lot of people to shut down the system:-) and browse their timetable. If you are lucky just like us, there will be connections that will cost couples no more than €58,- and yet will take you to Hamburg, Berlin or Munich at the same conditions: conveniently and quickly.

London trip 2008: low cost flight with Ryanair to Stansted airport

The album of our trip to London, which was the next destination with our flight from Berlin's airport Schönefeld for only €20,- for both of us, you will find by clicking the image of Big Ben below. The album also includes a short description of the highlights and tourist attractions during our sightseeing.

Day trip to Rotterdam: City Hall square and amazing heights on the Euro mast tower

Day trip to Rotterdam including view from the Euromast and City Hall square
Kane concert in soccer stadium de Kuip - the tub - Rotterdam

Shortly after having finished the training in Walldorf with software giant Sap and the next highlight was going to come: A concert of the Dutch Rock group Kane on Saturday in football stadium de Kuip (English: the tub) in Rotterdam. Fortunately for the overnight stay was already taken care of, because live in neighbouring Schiedam. They themselves would be on a birthday party in Zeeland with relatives, so Anita and the webmaster were already very early on their way walking along the New Meuse towards the world port city. Of course we had a lot of chatting that Friday evening, because we had seen each other for the last time at the turn of the year, when they were our guests in Kerkrade for a couple of days."This time we will have a drink in the balls tent". You got to see this. A typical Sailor bar named after the speciality of the house: meatballs. On Christmas I found two tickets for the Kane concert under the Christmas tree. Anita also wanted to invite me to a dinner on an altitude of 100 meter in the Euromast, the highest tower of Rotterdam, but unfortunately that Saturday the kitchen was closed from half past three for visitors. So if you want to invite somebody as a surprise be sure that you contact you make a phone call first. For us the adventure Euromast was solely restricted to the Space tower. That's the tower on the Euromast with a rotating cabin that goes up to an altitude of 185 meter. Die view over Rotterdam and the harbour is splendid. One last important for all of you that want to enjoy the adventure of the Euromast more frequently within a year, including a table reservation for two or more people: then you should buy a so called mast card. Everybody to a maximum of 10 people, that participate in the dinner will have free entrance to the Euromast and the space tower. To my satisfaction the employee deducted €7.70 of my single entry ticket when I bought a mast card. We definitely want to go up there once more and also have dinner up there. By the way, the alternative for the meal in the Euromast, pub 't Fust on the Town Hall square, wasn' bad either. Spareribs all you cab eat was what the webmaster had before on Queen's day in 1999. It is said that the cook was over-assigned the waiter joked. That was not the case this time, but they were quite a bit larger compared to those a some years ago. What a pity only, that the third took over half an hour to be served, because everybody knows that your appetite will decrease soon after having eaten and so the next one was no longer of that great taste. Cook over-assigned? By street car line 23 from Coolsingel we soon reached the stadium of Rotterdam's football club Feijenoord, which today was the place to be for rocking.

Netweaver training with SAP in Walldorf - a two week stay in beautiful Heidelberg on Neckar river

Training with SAP Walldorf - overnight stay in Heidelberg
tourist attraction Königstuhl is a mountain above the old town of Heidelberg and the Neckar in Germany
Philosophers' walk in Heidelberg
A typical German dish for dinner Neckargemünd

Being employed as an administrator of Sap systems I was allowed to attend the course Sap Netweaver Java AS in Walldorf. Colleagues of mine recommended the overnight stays in the hotel Holländer hof im Heidelberg, which really was a city with a magic and romantic touch. Therefore I would recommend a stay in this city for recovering from a day of floods of information about java stuff and sap transaction codes. The location in the North West part of the German state Baden-Würtemberg on the Neckar river, the mountains of the Odenwald, the Heidelberger castle high above the old part of the city, the Philosophers' walk on the other side of the river, the amazing view over the valley of the Neckar and even the Rhine valley, if the weather conditions are good. And what to think of Alte Brücke which is German for "old bridge." Hotel Holländerhof is located on Neckar river with a splendid view from many rooms on that bridge. During my stay Euro 2008 in Austria and Switzerland was going on and so the webmaster spent some time in a pub watching some matches with other people. During the second week of my stay in the hotel I was accompanied by Anita, with whom I visited a couple of tourist attractions in the environment, like the summit Königstuhl, the mountain "King's seat" above the old part of Heidelberg, which can be reached by taking the funicular railway, which is what we did. Descending the Königstuhl was done walking, including a visit to the castle of Heidelberg. Of course one would rather watch the matches at home with friends, not only of the Dutch national football team, but also of those countries with a Dutch trainer. In Heidelberg however it was quite amusing watching the matches sitting on the University square, which for this occasion was renamed to "Heidelberg Arena." Ruprecht Karl University was founded in 1386 and is the oldest University of Germany. In 2006 over 140.000 people lived in Heidelberg. The city is also an ideal place for an overnight stay on your way to your holiday destination on the Mediterranean sea or on your way home from your holiday. The picture below shows the location of the SAP headquarters in Walldorf in Germany, where the application itself will be developed, but where also new administrators will be educated and existing administrators certified by the international training centre.

Oliver Dragojević in Antwerp. So were we!

The first weekend of April brought us a touch of Croatia already. Father Christmas surprised us with two tickets for the benefit concert of Oliver Dragojević in favor of the orphans of Vukovar. As Antwerp is one of our favorite cities we found another envelope under the Christmas tree which was a reservation for the hotel Scandic Antwerp on the outskirts of the city. Not really a problem, because now we found out what is the cheapest way of sightseeing Antwerp using public transport : a 10 ride ticket, available at a bookshop, supermarket, railway stations. We bought it at some kind of oriental shop at a price of €8,-. Although the meteorologists expected much rain - and Friday night and Saturday it was really raining cats and dogs - Sunday lived up to its name. We spent all afternoon on a side walk terrace near the huge tower of the cathedral of Our Lady drinking some Belgian beers.

The culinary highlight that day without a doubt was a typical Flemish dish called Gentse Waterzooi, named after the city Gent, not far from Antwerp. We search the whole center of Antwerp for a restaurant with a menu with Waterzooi on it. When we in fact had given up and sat on a sidewalk terrace on the Handschoenmarkt to order onion soup, I saw the small black board with chalk written dishes on it, including Gentse Waterzooi."Give me a hand, we're going to the neighbours!" Anita looked at me, and started laughing when she saw the black board too. The Gentse Waterzooi with chicken tasted good and were a good portion for the rest of the day.
The concert took place Saturday night in Stuurboord on the bank of Scheldt river. A beautiful location with a view over Scheldt river. The video clips speak for themselves. For the first time we heard Oliver's music on the roof of pizzeria Moby Dick in Bol on the Island Brač in Croatia. The gentle servant explained us who sings those beautiful ballads we heard. On our special Croatia site you will find lots of photos from this fantastic holiday. I would describe Oliver as a gentle grandfather with a great voice that could beat other world stars. What surprised me was that he did only speak Croatian that night - and now I'm only talking about the concert in Antwerp - despite the fact that he does sing in other languages including English. I would love to know what some of his songs are about.

Cities Antwerp, Bruges and Middelburg during our mini holiday Zealandic Flanders

Long weekend Zeelandic Flanders
day trip to Antwerp
To Middelburg and Zoutelande
Taking the bus to Bruges

In October 2005 the webmaster and Anita have spent a long weekend in hotel "het wapen van Zeeland" in Axel in the most southernmost part of Zeeland, Zeelandic Flanders. Axel is located very central in relation to attractive cities like Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp in Flemish Belgium and Middelburg, the capital of the Dutch province Zeeland. Middelburg can now be reached from Belgium by since a tunnel was built under the Western Scheldt, the water that separates Zealandic Flanders from South Beveland. As you may know the Western Scheldt is Antwerp's connection with the North Sea. In the autumn of 2005 we had many weeks of continuously sunshiny days. Our 5 days in October we did not see any cloud in the sky. On Saturday we visited Antwerp and one of the best things to do in Belgium is of course, sitting back on a side walk terrace on the Handschoenmarkt, relax and discover the difference in flavours of all those famous and various Belgian beers. Therefore we took the bus from Axel in Holland to Antwerp, also called the city of diamonds, in Belgium. There is a frequent bus connection between Hulst and Antwerp underground station Halewijnlaan. From there you will be taken by the tube to the Groenplaats, which is in the heart of the city with a splendid view on the Cathedral of Our Lady. After you examined the building from inside, Walk around it and visit the pub with the name "het elfde gebod" which means the eleventh commandment and is a must see. Once there was a beer with the same name available, but in 2008 we discovered, that this was no longer the case. In 2008 we ate a delicious pan of Ghentse waterzooi with chicken, a typical Flemish creamy soup-like dish with chicken and vegetables. On Sunday we spent some time in Middelburg and then decided to go to the beach of Zoutelande to enjoy the sunshine. Zoutelande is said to be the sunniest place in the Netherlands with the most hours of sunshine. It is also a well known holiday region, but fortunately the beach was almost empty. We enjoyed a splendid sunset. On Monday Bruges was the next destination during our Flanders tour. According to the online route planner for public transport ov9292.nl, the travel by bus from Axel to Bruges would take about 2 hours including a change at Breskens. But Zeeland is a beautiful region and with a bottle of Grimbergen beer in one hand and a French bread with garlic butter in the other the travel by bus was quite amusing.

We enjoyed Bruges very much as it has beautiful squares, lots of churches and romantic channels. On Tuesday, the day of departure, we ate fish in harbour of Breskens and took a walk on the Dike towards the lighthouse to enjoy the splendid view on Flushing on the other side of the Western Scheldt. When the moon appeared in the sky we decided to drive home.

 

© Jos van der Burgt