Another trip with my family, this time to Skanör, Skåne, Sweden. Hometown of my wife, pleasant beach village in the Baltic, dream golf location with three of Sweden’s best golf courses within a few kilometers/a couple of miles.
However, before arriving the gods have set travelling. In this case a plane journey with our home airline Lufthansa. Not the worst of all carriers, certainly when I look at their safety record and rating. Still a good choice when you look at the drinks being served. But bugger me, the shite they try to pass as food is encroyable: even the flight attendant showed signs of surprise when a passengers wanted one of those sad excuses of a sandwich. I’d say: leave it. Keep serving free drinks and just forget about the rest. Enough rambling: I am looking forward to a few days with the family, a round of golf and the 70th birthday of my mother in law. Party! On the way into Kastrup, Copenhagen’s prime shopping center doubling as airport, we had a great view of the Öresund bridge, which connects Denmark and Sweden:
Having arrived back in Munich from Kazakhstan the whole family got into the car to enjoy the Pentecost school holidays at the Adriatic Sea in Lido di Jesolo, Italy. Quite an experience to board a plane at 3.50am (the true red eye clipper) and, only 20 hours later, sit in a Pizzeria in Northern Italy led by an Indian family who serve quite good pizzas but rather lousy currys – as it turned out. So, if you ever happen to pass Mori on the way from Rivereto to Lake Garda: have a pizza at the local pizzeria Terra Nera (which claims to serve Italian and Indian cuisine), but don’t go for a curry. The Chicken Tikka Masala was god awful.
The journey was horrible: it turned out that we were not the only family who had the idea to spend the first week of the Pentecost school holiday at the sea in Italy, so it was slow going. Eventually, though, we arrived. Arrived at a very nice flat in a new development done by Richard Meier, some NYC based architect, excellent! That’s how the old man introduces the project – so check this out.
The next day we hung around and relaxed at the sea, the pool, a pleasant beach restaurant and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly until we found this:
This is so sick. Italy has its fair share of clowns, Beppo Grillo and Berlusconi leading the pack by far, but I fail to see any fun in that. Caribinieri – shut this down!
On the road again: this time, unfortunately, a very short work trip only! From a travelling perspective probably the worst scenario: hard work from Monday to Friday and then back home in the true red-eye-clipper on Saturday morning at 3.50! So hopefully I’ll still find some new place food and drinks wise – stay tuned!
After our Saturday excursion to the Charyn Canyon with 8 hours on a bus, followed by the glorious Bayern victory in the German Cup Final we felt rather lazy on Sunday morning. Off for brunch to the Coffee Room, which we’ve experienced during our last stay here already and which seemed worth another visit. Which was indeed the case: it’s a nice relaxed atmosphere there, a very nice terrace to sit outside, good service and coffees and brunch type food. Following that we walked down to the cable car which goes up Kok Tobe, the hill that overlooks Almaty. Excellent choice, as it turned out!
We took the cable car up (single ride: 800T, return 2000T – don’t ask me why that is), which was an experience on its own: being used to fairly modern cable cars that go up the Alps stepping into a rather small cabin, which swung up and down with every person entering, was almost a small adventure. The ride up took a few minutes and provided some great views over Almaty.
Kok Tobe itself turned out to be a very relaxed hangout catering for everybody. A few very nice attractions for kids, a loungy restaurant with some life music and tasty food, a few sad cages containing mostly birds (that was a bit sad, actually) and a good crowd wanting to have a good time make for a nice, pleasant atmosphere. Since the weather was really nice it was a great place to be.
There’s also a summer tobogan ride (some refer to it as roller coaster) on top of the hill: it’s good fun to do the downhill ride in the little carts – try it! Further, there is a Beatles monument on the hill, which seems to be a very attractive place to have your photo taken. All in all, a nice, relaxed Sunday.
If you are into football (even if I am at risk to repeat myself: the real football, not the game that has been designed to bridge the gaps between ads on television) you will understand that the day your team is playing in your country’s cup final is not the day you want to be away 6000 km. Alas, here I am in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and my home team, Bayern Munich, is playing our arch rival, Borussia Dortmund. As it turns out, a lot of locals are into football and support clubs like Barcelona, Arsenal and … Bayern! So, there I was, in the Assorti Arena Bar in Almaty, watching the German club final with a whole crowd dressed in Bayern kit!
The game ended 2:0 for Bayern in extra time – I have seen better football games, but none with more enthusiastic supporters in front of the TV. Almaty, keep supporting Bayern!
Finally! Not just time for an excursion outside Almaty, but also the weather for it. You might remember, my first weekend in Almaty, as exciting as it might have been, suffered a little bit under a weather condition that one might call “raining cats and dogs”. Which basically meant, that our chance to explore anything outside Almaty was restricted to a very brief trip up the mountain to Shymbulak. But, here we go:
After the best part of four hours we arrived from Almaty at Charyn. We hadn’t booked a tour, but some local friends called on of the tour operators for us to check whether seats were available. We showed up at the bus stop at the Central Stadium in Almaty (East side), found the bus and, again with the help of a local friend on his mobile phone, bought the ticket here and there for 4000 KZT. It would be helpful to have a vocabulary of 300 words in Russian. Unlike on other Asian countries (if you ever bought a bus ticket for an express ride in India you know what I’m talking about) it was a direct ride from Almaty – one stop to fuel up and another to visit the restroom:
So, all in all an easy trip. The bus wasn’t new, but fairly comfortable, the air-conditioning worked, the roads, once outside Almaty, were a bit pot-holed but not too bad and the general behaviour on the road was acceptable. Our journey went along with a range of mountains in the South on tarmac roads, just the last maybe 10 km were on gravel roads. The canyon didn’t show until we arrived – there it was, like a gigantic hole in the ground. We had a nice and experienced guide who led us down a little bit off the beaten track. The canyon itself is quite impressive. I haven’t been to Grand Canyon and would expect that to be even more impressive (bigger, deeper, faster, stronger – in other words: American), but I have hiked in the Colca Canyon in Peru (which I was led to believe is the second biggest canyon in the world) – Charyn canyon rocks! You walk among impressive rock formations, you see some huge rocks seemingly ready to be tipped down by the next gust of wind – it is an exciting display of natures forces. Some say that the big creator has done a particular good job in creating this part of the world – seeing that Moshe, Ali and Peter would have a hard to even agree on who the big creator I’d say thanks to the River Charyn and nobody else!
This has been a very enjoyable day, crowned by the spotting of a bird of prey (something in me wants to believe that it has been a golden eagle, but something else says: you have no clue of birds, so stop pretending.) circling over the canyon. The way back was uneventful, but 8 hours in a bus in one day is a lot of time.
I really enjoyed Dresden. The city has a lot of things going for it – beautiful architecture, nice contrasts between old glory and a vibrant modern student life in Neustadt, all very cool. Now, there were a few things that were distinctively odd.
Dwelling in nostalgia is one thing, but a Trabant stretch limo another. Not quite my cup of tea, but I don’t think there’ll be many of those on this planet. Now, there has always been a rumour that due to the lack of other entertainment possibilities the citizens of the former German Democratic Republic took to rather carnal sorts of experiencing pleasure – I certainly have a hard time not to smirk at this pedestrian traffic light. But then, I am a dirty old man.
What a bummer! Here I am again: in Almaty, looking forward to a sunny weekend and had to realise, that I’ve left my travel guide at home! Paul Brummell’s “Bradt Travel Guide to Kazakhstan” proved to be a helpful travel companion last time, see http://adebiportal.kz/catalog/book/kazakhstan-bradt-travel-guide/?lang=en.
Not this time, though.
There we go again: Munich – Frankfurt – Almaty in approx. 10 hours with one stop. Not too bad a journey, even when you consider the distinctively cattle transport like economy class of Lufthansa. Very nice flight attendants, this time: super attentive, helpful, friendly – makes flying that bit nicer!
Almaty in May 2014 feels very pleasant: temperature in the morning close to 20º Celsius, rising to a pleasant 25º during the day.Beautiful weather, pollution not too bad – even though that might be a subjective feeling driven by the excitement of just having arrived. Well, off to the office to a good day of work, but more to come in the next days. Hopefully a chance to explore the surrounding and meet the “real” Kazakhstan with yurts and kumis and eagle hunters and tasty Aport apples.
Who's been here? 