I'm off to Berlin next Wednesday. Anyone been? If so know anywhere decent to eat?
I think quite a few of us have been there in the recent past and I recommended a few places for Kiko on the previous page.
Restaurants:
Hamburger Heaven Kiosk - Gaeferstraße 93
Pinoy - Danckelmannstraße 49
Devil's kitchen - Gaeferstraße 11
Manouche (coffee) - Grimmstraße 23
La Soupe Populaire - Prnzlauerallee 242 (call +493044319680 for tables)
Balkci Ergun - Lüneburger Straße 382
Mädchen ohne Abitur - Körtestraße 5 (18-01)
Grill Royal - Friedrichstraße 105b ( steaks/20€ 18-03)
Schneeweiß - Simplonstraße 16
Cafe Sankt Oberholz - Rosenthaler Straße 72a
Thomas-Eck - Pestalozzistraße 25
Karun - Pestalozzistraße 25
Ho Vang - Rosa-Luxemburg-Straße 17
Lebensmittel - Rochstraße 2
Burgermeister - Oberbaumstraße 2
I still had those on a note on my phone. They are from all over the more central districts, so hopefully they'll be of some us to you. I went to quite a few of those during my stay there and didn't really get disappointed with food during that trip. If you're just looking for a cheap lunch, Berlin is really good for a Doner kebab
Back home after my "summer" hiatus in the UK.
Bloody love it.
The Algarve is a funny one. It's not the sort of place I'd normally go and the foreign owned resorts and golf courses have obviously had loads of money ploughed into them, but everything in between seems to be a complete run down third world craphole.
I stayed in Olhos D'Agua when I went and it was quite run down in the surrounding areas, we ventured onto 'The Strip' one evening (meeting her aunt and uncle who live there) and it was hell hole. The actual Old Town is nice though, have some nice memories of that place.
Anywhere near Alvor, Floyd? There's a lovely seafood restaurant there called 'The Captain's Table'. Fresh tiger prawns.
I was further east, about halfway between Faro and Portimão.
The best thing we found was a peri peri chicken place that basically just dumped as much glorious chicken, chips and beer as they could find on our table for seemingly no money. There are probably loads of hidden gems like that but the reason they're hidden is that no buildings seem to have been either constructed or renovated since about 1963.
The 'strip' in Albufeira was laughable, like a sort of parody theme park of scummy English people.
Yeah, Albufeira is a shithole. I stayed there when we played Sporting a couple of years back, and while it was enjoyable enough because basically everyone was there for the same reason and the bars were falling over themselves to pander to our tastes (with the exception of 'Corkys', a very conspicuous Celtic bar), you could tell it would be hell on earth at any normal time. My cousin got a bite to eat from a sort of kiosk thing with grease running down the outside of it, which seemed like an error right away, and it looked like some plastic reality creation from a seventies horror film. The place was teeming with what appeared to be locals though, so presumably it was a decent version of whatever it was supposed to be.
There is a lovely Indian there though, about a hundred yards from the top of the strip. I forget the name of it, but I'm sure it had 'oven' in it somewhere.
I just remember being taken to a pub/bar thing for a drink and the floors being really sticky, smelling of stale wood and flies buzzing round all the drinks. Villamoura was pretty nice as well, someone working at our resort told us a lot of footballers park their yachts etc. there, which isn't hard to believe as the place was chockfull of what might as well have been warships, the fucking size of them. Also saw a black Land Rover with 'ST3V1E' with the licence plate, coinciding with Stevie G being on holiday there at the same time
Heard a massive bang this morning but when I went to the window I couldn't see anything happening so went back to bed.
Turns out four police/security got injured trying and failing to defuse a bomb outside a hotel along the road.
Got a 'family' holiday for a week starting on Tuesday.
What exactly is there to do there? Girlfriend isn't one for getting drunk so that's the strip out of the question, and it's with all her family (a combined 7 kids.. ) so I'm torn what to look forward to if anything as it generally doesn't look like much happens or will even be happening.
Test.
I like Albufeira. It isn't paradise but it isn't what I'd call it a shithole. Mind you I only spent three or four nights there whilst staying a bit further down the coast.
It's not a shithole in the Coventry sense. It's just absolutely laughable.
One bar we walked past tried to lure us in on the promise of 'free music'.
Got back yesterday from Berlin. Was great if anyone goes I would say go to Pratergarten found it on the telegraph website was really good in there. Also went up the TV tower and ate food was ok but it was expensive for what it was.
First day was knackering. We had a tour of the Reichstag which was brilliant some really interesting stuff in there. I'd recommend a bunker tour if anyone goes there as well really interesting.
Oh and beer and coke? Don't know where that came from but it's a taste sensation.
Forgot to post about it at the time but New England is absolutely lovely. There's something about the old industrial-looking American towns with white church steeples that I find very exotic. And Vermont is actually a utopia in mid-October, if I do a gap year I'll probably move to my aunt's farm there for a few months.
I'll agree with that.
We also had the bizarre experience of driving straight through Boston on the way to Vermont. I've still never been there but at least now I know what it looks like!
Should've stopped there, Boston is ace.
Yeah, I'll second that. Boston is wonderful.
Brussels is still a shithole, nothing to do there except for eat, drink and buy chocolate.
We didn't really have time, sadly. I'll definitely get there at some point especially if I'm in school out on the East Coast.
Arrived in Olso on Friday, it's my second time here staying with a mate so I avoided a lot of the stuff I'd done before, and have been enjoying the more competitive krone. It was around 8:1 gbp when I visited in 2009, so having dropped to around 12:1 at the time of exchanging I've been out drinking and eating the last few nights without it costing a fortune.
Craft beer has become massive here. Which is nice, and almost everywhere to go out is fashioned on east London as far as I can tell.
Off to Berlin this afternoon. Also quite excited to look at the forecast for Amsterdam (sunny, 14-16) and Barcelona (sunny, 21) over the days I'm there.
Nice trip. I'm weighing up Oslo for my birthday in March.
Hong Kong next Saturday for me.
Did you get a chance to try anything by Lervig, Merse? The two of theirs I've had were pretty good.
No more explosions here since the one a few days ago.
Have you been to Bergen, Merse? And if so how did Oslo compare?
Behold, mothers. This is following my brief trip to Austria. Italy will also be included by end of year.
What more would one want than eating, drinking, and chocolate?
It's just boring. If you're not stuck in Brussels it's worth getting the train down to Gent and partying down there as it's a student city.
Ah you see, I'm a bit long in the tooth for partying so that's why the likes of Brussels is spot on. The student vibe in Leuven is good though, and not too wild either.
It's utterly dull to walk around, the buildings aren't even particularly interesting either.
Why do you keep going back there if you hate it?
I think it's alright. Belgium's so small though it's easy to just mooch to somewhere else. Try Knokke for a little trip out to the coast.
Just boked next year's holiday. Two weeks in Corfu (daytrip to Albania already being planned ). I've not been before but it will be hot, the hotel has fantastic reviews and I'm paying less than £400 each which I'm fucking beaming about. I only have £550 to pay off which I'll get done fairly quickly. I now have plenty of financial breathing space to finish off paying for stuff for Tromso in February and to book Rome for September.
I got similar done last year (the destinations being Reykjavik, Croatia for two weeks, then Barcelona) but I booked stuff later and paid more so it was tighter. It will all be relatively comfortable this time around. I fucking love holidays.
You never told us you're big in Egypt, @Samadini, you sly dog.
Only Oslo. My mate did his national service in Bergen and was there for university too. But the time I'd made my first trip over to Norway he'd got a job in Oslo.
Certainly the right time to go. Inflation seems to have not really occurred I the 6 years since I was there last, whilst the oil price fall has really damaged the krone so it's 8-1 where I last paid 12-1. It's a major benefit as it's still pretty expensive as it is.
Berlin was fucking brilliant, but I was majorly disappointed to miss out on SO36, or at least to turn up when they're doing a monthly literature reading night. It's about the most legendary punk club in Europe. Luckily I managed to make the 3 mile walk to the newer but still brilliant Clash instead. Second night took me to Brandenburg, checkpoint Charlie, all that jazz. Being a (once a upon a time) history and politics student, that was my obvious highlight. I'll be going back for a good long stay again, two nights was only ever meant to get me a taster. The transport system is confusing as fuck at first mind.
In Amsterdam now, settling down to a curry before hitting up a coffee shop.
I've got two nights stay to use in The Charles in Munich so looking at heading out in May for our anniversary. Flights are a bit of a pain (none go direct from Glasgow) so I'm thinking of doubling it up with another city and doing an internal flight from there and back to Munich.
Choices so far are:
Brussels
Rotterdam
Düsseldorf
Cologne
Vienna
Prague
Copenhagen
Anyone any other suggestions relatively close to Glasgow and Munich? Any of those you would recommend over the others?
Agreed. I enjoyed it, but being there for a few hours today reminded me that we were running out of things to do after a couple of days.
Use all of it on Munich and suck up a drive/bus/train to another UK airport. Brilliant place which smashes all of the above, although I've not been to Vienna, but yeah.
I'd even say head into the mountains south of Munich if you want to make a longer visit along with your two nights. Garmisch (preferably out of season) or similar. You will have to like scenery and walking etc for that though.
From what I could tell during my short stay in Munich, Vienna would be very similar (with more big imperial buildings, if that's your thing), so if you're going for variety, do what Jimmy said instead and go for the mountains. Alternatively, Salzburg is really close and very pretty in a very kitschy way - nice for a day trip.
Bollocks. May need to head home early.
I fucked my knee years ago and it's hampered sports for a while, but for the past year it's been particularly sore. I've been to the docs and am awaiting the results of an MRI likely to confirm that surgery is needed. It's been getting worse during the trip due to walking 15 miles a day, but today, having been lighter on it yesterday (10 miles), I turned it getting out of bed and completely fucked it. Therefor I'm bed ridden in the only stop where I don't have a single room.
I can cancel the accommodation in Barcelona and get a reasonable bus to London on Saturday evening if I feel the need to, but I'm kinda keen to soldier on as barca is forecast around 19-21 degrees so at least it would be nice to sit around their a bit. Will give it a full nights rest and see how I am tomorrow. Still, it's a major bummer as my mobility is completely screwed just now.
Sitting on a bus for ages with a wanked knee would be agony. Enjoy that.