Europe 2023

Today we'd be moving to a different hotel ( Radisson Blu ) in Copenhagen to start our bus tour of Scandinavia with Insight Vacations . It was another cold (2C at 7am) but bright and sunny morning. The four of us had breakfast again in the hotel restaurant at 8:30. We don't have any commitments before the start of the tour this evening and so it was up to us to find something interesting to do. The answer was to visit the Rosenborg Castle . The check out time for our hotel was 12 noon. However, when Suzy checked with reception, she was told we wouldn't have enough time. So there was a change of plans - we would check out from this hotel and go to the new one and then head off to the castle. Suzy booked tickets online for the castle for 12:10pm. We checked out before 10:30 and the hotel organised a taxi for us. Chris made sure the taxi would be big enough to take the four of us and all our luggage. The taxi that arrived was ideal - it was a van. At Radisson Blu, the rooms wer...

It was another cool morning with blue sky. My app said it was just 3C outside at 7am. We had breakfast with Chris and Janet in the hotel restaurant at 8:30am. It was a great buffet breakfast with plenty of choice. I had eggs this time instead of an omelette. Suzy loved the pastries. This morning we had a booking to go on a sightseeing tour on the canal at 11:20am. All four of us met in the foyer at 10:30 and set off to enjoy the sights on the foreshores of the canal slowly making our way to the place where the canal boat trip starts. I'd rugged up with a beanie, gloves, puffer jacket to prepare the cold weather but it turned out that I was overdressed because we were in the sun as we strolled along the walkway and there was little breeze. Perhaps because it was Saturday, the walkway was quite crowded. Plenty of people had the same idea as us to enjoy the atmosphere on this bright sunny morning in this beautiful part of the world. Along the canal, there were ships moored on both sid...

Today we'd be travelling from Frankfurt to Copenhagen via Amsterdam. Originally our plan for breakfast was to walk to a cafe we'd seen near the river and the cathedral but when we opened the curtains at about 7am, we saw that it was raining. Not heavy rain - just light showers - but Suzy doesn't like going out in the rain. So we had breakfast in the hotel restaurant again. Perhaps because of the cloud cover, it wasn't as cold as previous mornings. It was 10C at 8am. At breakfast, we met an Australian family from Newcastle who were on their way to Croatia for a wedding. We checked out of the hotel at 11am. The hotel had organised a taxi to take us to the airport. Unfortunately I dropped my heavy fleece getting to the taxi and it got all muddy. I was carrying it because I figured I'd need it when we got to chilly Copenhagen tonight. So much for that idea. On the way to the airport, the taxi travelled at speeds up to 140km/h which is the speed limit on that road. There...

We woke to another cool sunny morning and once again had breakfast at the hotel restaurant. Yesterday the tourist information office had suggested that we go to the Main Tower which offers great views of the city. However, when Suzy researched it, she found that the lift doesn't go all the way to the observation level and you have to climb ten flights of stairs after that. Clearly that wasn't going to be an option with my heart condition. Instead she booked for us to go to the Staedel art museum which is located on the river about 20 minutes walk from our hotel. You need to book a two hour window and she booked for midday to 2pm. This time we walked on the south side of the river where there is a wide tree-lined path like the one on the north side that we used yesterday to get to the cathedral and the new old town. Once again, there were geese all the way along. The geese probably outnumbered the people. On the bank we also saw tulips of various colours. I'm not an art en...

We don't have any specific commitments here in Frankfurt and so there was no reason to get up early. It was good to catch up on some sleep overnight after the very long day yesterday. Mind you, it wasn't always settled sleep. For a start, they have an usual arrangement for the quilts. Although it is a king size bed, each person has their own quilt rather than a single quilt for the entire bed. Every time you roll over, you have to sort out the quilt. Second, we hadn't yet conquered the settings on our devices (iPhones, iPads, etc) to keep them silent overnight. So we were woken every now and then by something beeping at us. A few were ring tones from somebody calling from Australia - probably one of the many people who ring me all the time to sell me wine. It was cool here. When I checked my phone at about 7:30, the temperature was -1C but by the time we went downstairs for breakfast at about 8:45, it was +4C. Luckily we didn't need to go outside yet because the restaur...

It wasn't a very comfortable sleep because of the heat. There was no temperature control on the air conditioning and there was only a heavy quilt on the bed with no sheet. Looking out the window, we could see blue sky with very few clouds. The temperature was 9C. Today we'd be travelling from Tokyo to Frankfurt. This involves a flight of almost 15 hours. (More on that later.) The shuttle bus from the hotel to Narita airport was due to leave at 6:50am and so we set our alarm for 5:30am. We reached the airport at 7am. We had trouble finding the correct check-in counter. The display board told us to go to a particular counter but when we got there, it had a huge queue. We thought this couldn't be right and when we asked at the information desk, they directed us to a different counter where there was no queue. However, when we got to departures, there was a very long queue for the security check. Initially, I couldn't see the end of it. Luckily the queue moved fairly quickl...

This afternoon we will be changing hotels. Our flight tomorrow morning leaves from Narita airport and so tonight we will be staying at a hotel near that airport ( Hotel Nikko Narita ). This will involve a two hour bus trip to Narita. It was another cool morning - about 12C. Not raining but still cloudy and so we still couldn't see Mt Fuji. This morning there was no queue at the hotel restaurant for breakfast. In fact, many of the tables were empty. Suzy was feeling fragile after our dinner last night but she started to feel better after having breakfast. Many of the shops here don't open until 10am. Suzy's sneakers had developed a hole yesterday and so she wanted to replace them this morning. However the shop she wanted to go to didn't open until 11am. I walked some of the way with her to take some photos of the area and then returned to our room. She was back in the room soon after me because the shop didn't have the shoes she wanted. We were due to check out by 12...

Today we had no specific activities and so it was an opportunity to sleep in to recover from yesterday's trip. When we went down to breakfast soon after 8:30am, there was a queue at the restaurant. We both had an omelette, croissants and coffee. Unfortunately the choice of fruit was very limited. In our room, one of the windows looks out towards Mount Fuji. We could see some hills through the clouds but we suspect that Mount Fuji was further away and hidden from view. When we woke up this morning it had been only 11C according my weather app and only 7C after the wind chill factor. At least it wasn't raining and there were sunny breaks. By the time we ventured out of the hotel at about 11:15, it was 15C but still chilly in the breeze. Our first destination was to be the Asakusa Temple which in another part of Tokyo about 10km away. One option would have been to go by train but we would have had to change trains. Although the railway station is very close to the hotel, I remem...

Today we would be leaving Sydney to fly to Tokyo with Japan Airlines (JL52). The flight was due to depart at 8:15am and we were told to get to the airport three hours before the flight. We'd set the alarm for 4:15 and we were out of the hotel by 5:15. The hotel's web site boasts that the terminal is only 181 steps from the hotel. This is probably right but once you reach the terminal, you need to go up the lift (or escalators) to departure. I thought we'd then have to walk a long way to find the JAL counter but it was right there at the top of the escalator. There was no queue for the business class check-in and almost none for economy either. However there was a long queue for security and no priority queue for business class. It was 5:45 by the time we got through. At the check-in, we were surprised when she told us that we weren't allowed to have any airtags in our checked luggage and so we had to open our bags there on the floor and rummage through to find them and ...

We left home to stay at an airport hotel in Sydney in preparation for our departure on Saturday for our holiday to Japan, Germany, Scandinavia, Portugal, Spain, Malaysia. This is because our flight is quite early tomorrow and we didn't want the hassle of getting to the airport from St Ives at that hour. The Uber picked us up at 3:15pm and we arrived at the hotel entrance at 4:15pm. It was a slow trip - partly because the driver drove at a very leisurely pace and partly because of the heavy traffic on the Harbour Bridge and the Eastern Distributor. Apparently there had been an accident in the Harbour Tunnel. It reminded me about how bad Sydney traffic can be and reminded me how lucky I am to be able to work from home instead of battling traffic to get to and from the office. Rydges Sydney Airport is located right at the entrance to the international terminal. Our room is on the third floor and we can see the airport terminal across the road from our window. The Wi-Fi speed is good -...