Just a quick resumee =)
We are now in Ferrara at Lauras parents place, and are about to go to explore the Ferrara down town. Our way here went through Slovenia, where we spent this week from Tuesday untill yesterday. What a lovely contry Slovenia is! Ill put the pictures here later - i just got the forgotten cable posted from Berlin to here Italy... But this was just let u all know that we are ookoo and in Italy already, and more stories will come some other day when theres a bit more time.
Kisses to all of u from the sunny and warm Italy <3
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Wiener schnitzel
Hei vaan kaikki and greetings from Wien this time!
We came here on Thursday evening to enjoy Simons and Lenas nice company, and so far we have had so nice time, that we are staying here until tomorrow =) So before coming here we were in Prague for three nights in the camping next to the city centre. Its quite funny how there people are making their living so that they put fence around their garden, arrange some electricity plug-ins in the lawn, put showers and toilets in the basement, and invite people to stay at their camping. Really funny =) We were staying in one of these, but the one we were was really well equipped and nice and clean.
Prague itself was lovely city, a bit rusty and rough from the edges but the old town was well kept, but not totally sterile. I liked it a lot how it looked like. But i was so surprised how TOURISTY the whole place was... These low-cost flying companies never do anything good for the cities, since in the old town you couldnt get forward in the huuuuge crowd of non-local people. Hmm.... And then all the shops were filled with all possible Made in China -crap, so to find something from Prague itself was a bit of a challenge. But, as usual, after you walked three blocks away from the touristic masses, then you found some places where locals hang around. Just that then the atmosphere was not the same anymore, and the more distant neighborhoods where some what different. And biking in Prague was even more disaster than biking in Düsseldorf - a total mess! But we finally found our way biking next to the Vltava river.
But in total the city was lovely; Cheap and good beer and tasty food =) And one evening we went to the National Ballet to see Cinderella. That was my first time ever in ballet, and i have to admit that i like it better than opera. We had my poor little binoculars with us, so that we could really see also the faces and huge muscles of the dancers. We had really ookoo places on the first balcony, and the tickets for that Wednesday evening were only 25e. So if you happen to stop by in Prague then dont miss the ballet =)
But what about Wien then? Also lovely and beautiful city (am i using the same adjectives all the time?..) and really well kept but somehow a bit boring.. Like Lena and Simon said - theres some kind of soul missing, and i agree. We spent Friday in going around the old town and accidentally ended up in a round trip in the crypt of the big cathedral. No pictures were allowed to be taken, but we saw huuge piles of bones under the floors here and there - spooky.. On the same evening Simon and Lena introduced us THE schnitzel place where ordering a schnitzel means getting two huge ones on one plate. Yummy! And then in the eveing we went to Ost Club where they play gipsyish-ska-east european music. Great place! There were two concerts - one band from Netherlands and another from Hungary called Upsessions. Both played fast and happy reggae and even almost ska which you quite rarely hear in Finland. The second band played and sang truy well, but still i think that i was the only one enjoying the bands =) The reast of our troop (it was Simons colleagues byebye party) concentrated more on the talking and dancing and drinking shots =) But great evening and fabulous people <3
And then what.. Hmm... Since the party was nice we stayed there until the very end, so yesterday we spent a lazy Sunday (although it was Saturday) and in the afternoon we went to flea market and food marked where we bought squids for tonights dinner, hihii =) And on the way home we stopped by in Schönebrunn castle just when the sun was getting down. Huuuuuuge park with zoo and all. And the greatest thing yesterday was in the evening when with Lenas cooking skills we prepared haluski, a traditional Slovak dish with lamb milk cheese and bacon. Yummy! They were like small potato dumplings or gnocci but the dough was made from raw potatoes smashed in a kitchen blender and not from cooked potatoes like the gnocci. Yummy! I took some pictures from the ready dish but unfortunately i forgot the cable of my camera in Berlin, so no pictures for you this time =)
And then its today. Nothing too much has happened so far, just lazy and laid-back Sunday. Maybe ill report later how the squids became today evening, that will be quite something...
*bisous* to you all, and catcha later!
We came here on Thursday evening to enjoy Simons and Lenas nice company, and so far we have had so nice time, that we are staying here until tomorrow =) So before coming here we were in Prague for three nights in the camping next to the city centre. Its quite funny how there people are making their living so that they put fence around their garden, arrange some electricity plug-ins in the lawn, put showers and toilets in the basement, and invite people to stay at their camping. Really funny =) We were staying in one of these, but the one we were was really well equipped and nice and clean.
Prague itself was lovely city, a bit rusty and rough from the edges but the old town was well kept, but not totally sterile. I liked it a lot how it looked like. But i was so surprised how TOURISTY the whole place was... These low-cost flying companies never do anything good for the cities, since in the old town you couldnt get forward in the huuuuge crowd of non-local people. Hmm.... And then all the shops were filled with all possible Made in China -crap, so to find something from Prague itself was a bit of a challenge. But, as usual, after you walked three blocks away from the touristic masses, then you found some places where locals hang around. Just that then the atmosphere was not the same anymore, and the more distant neighborhoods where some what different. And biking in Prague was even more disaster than biking in Düsseldorf - a total mess! But we finally found our way biking next to the Vltava river.
But in total the city was lovely; Cheap and good beer and tasty food =) And one evening we went to the National Ballet to see Cinderella. That was my first time ever in ballet, and i have to admit that i like it better than opera. We had my poor little binoculars with us, so that we could really see also the faces and huge muscles of the dancers. We had really ookoo places on the first balcony, and the tickets for that Wednesday evening were only 25e. So if you happen to stop by in Prague then dont miss the ballet =)
But what about Wien then? Also lovely and beautiful city (am i using the same adjectives all the time?..) and really well kept but somehow a bit boring.. Like Lena and Simon said - theres some kind of soul missing, and i agree. We spent Friday in going around the old town and accidentally ended up in a round trip in the crypt of the big cathedral. No pictures were allowed to be taken, but we saw huuge piles of bones under the floors here and there - spooky.. On the same evening Simon and Lena introduced us THE schnitzel place where ordering a schnitzel means getting two huge ones on one plate. Yummy! And then in the eveing we went to Ost Club where they play gipsyish-ska-east european music. Great place! There were two concerts - one band from Netherlands and another from Hungary called Upsessions. Both played fast and happy reggae and even almost ska which you quite rarely hear in Finland. The second band played and sang truy well, but still i think that i was the only one enjoying the bands =) The reast of our troop (it was Simons colleagues byebye party) concentrated more on the talking and dancing and drinking shots =) But great evening and fabulous people <3
And then what.. Hmm... Since the party was nice we stayed there until the very end, so yesterday we spent a lazy Sunday (although it was Saturday) and in the afternoon we went to flea market and food marked where we bought squids for tonights dinner, hihii =) And on the way home we stopped by in Schönebrunn castle just when the sun was getting down. Huuuuuuge park with zoo and all. And the greatest thing yesterday was in the evening when with Lenas cooking skills we prepared haluski, a traditional Slovak dish with lamb milk cheese and bacon. Yummy! They were like small potato dumplings or gnocci but the dough was made from raw potatoes smashed in a kitchen blender and not from cooked potatoes like the gnocci. Yummy! I took some pictures from the ready dish but unfortunately i forgot the cable of my camera in Berlin, so no pictures for you this time =)
And then its today. Nothing too much has happened so far, just lazy and laid-back Sunday. Maybe ill report later how the squids became today evening, that will be quite something...
*bisous* to you all, and catcha later!
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Prague
Moi all,
Greetings from cool and cloudy Prague. We arrived here yesterday in the daytime, coming straight from Sächsische Schweiz, Germany. That nature park was truly one of a kind, like Europes Grand Canyon. I can put here few pictures later. We were in Dresden for one night in a parking place close to the city, and next day we headed to the park in the mountains and spent two days there. On Sunday we decided to continue towards Prague, but on a steep uphill we heard a "bang" from the motor and some band in the accumulators cooling system went broken. Whoops.. So we parked the car next to the closest service station and spent the night there until it was monday and somebody came to change the rubber band.
But no harm done, we are finally here in Prague. By the way does someone have ideas of nice places to visit on the way from here to Wien? We will stay here still maybe two more days and then go to Wien to see Simppa and Lena - maybe in Fridayish.. So there would be time to spend here in Check, just we need an idea where to go.
Well, maybe teh idea will come - now we will catch the bikes and go downtown to have a look at the city!
*besos*
Greetings from cool and cloudy Prague. We arrived here yesterday in the daytime, coming straight from Sächsische Schweiz, Germany. That nature park was truly one of a kind, like Europes Grand Canyon. I can put here few pictures later. We were in Dresden for one night in a parking place close to the city, and next day we headed to the park in the mountains and spent two days there. On Sunday we decided to continue towards Prague, but on a steep uphill we heard a "bang" from the motor and some band in the accumulators cooling system went broken. Whoops.. So we parked the car next to the closest service station and spent the night there until it was monday and somebody came to change the rubber band.
But no harm done, we are finally here in Prague. By the way does someone have ideas of nice places to visit on the way from here to Wien? We will stay here still maybe two more days and then go to Wien to see Simppa and Lena - maybe in Fridayish.. So there would be time to spend here in Check, just we need an idea where to go.
Well, maybe teh idea will come - now we will catch the bikes and go downtown to have a look at the city!
*besos*
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Berlin Berlin
Huhuu (not tjuhuuuu this time..),
So greetings from Berlin, the city is as nice as always. This time we have been staying in the western side in Schöneberg at Hanna-Maijas and Renes place, thank you a thousand for having us here for a few days ;o)
So, what have we been up to? Last Friday we parked to the camping site in Berlin Tegel, after getting lost and annoyed in the dark Potsdam and the outskirts of Berlin. We had planned to stay over night in Potsdam, but i didnt like the first camping we saw and the second camping was ridiculously over prized. It would have been nice to visit Potsdam by bikes during Saturday day, since theres suuuuper nice palaces and castles in one huge park. I went there once with Melanie, but it was winterish time with no leaves on the trees and so on. It would have been nice to see park in autumn colours, but maybe next time then :)
So instead of biking the Saturday in Potsdam we biked in Berlin. We found our way from the camping to the city centre, and by accident we got our portion of the castles annyhow. We were biking on the river bank of the Spree river (not a canal i learned..) and we bumped into Charlottenbourg palace. The guy in the palace shop was quite laughing when we went to him and asked to see a map to find out where we were actually, hehe! And after all we managed to find our way to Hansus place in the afternoon, since we stopped every now and then to see the maps on the bus stops =)
Sunday was a free day for Hansu, and we went in the morning to have a guided tour - Dark Worlds - in the world war II bunker in the Gesundsbrunnen U-bahn station. And it was quite something. The bunker was built in a part of a metro station that was never taken to its original use due to the economic crisis before the WWII. It was a 90min tour leaded by an excellent guide. Truly a recommendable place to go. Menkää äiti ja iskä ihmeesssä ens viikolla, kun ootte siellä. Englanninkielinen kierros on to-ma klo11. Have a look at the web pages:
http://berliner-unterwelten.de/home.1.1.html
Melanie and Björn came to the tunnels with us as well, and from there we headed for a Sunday brunc in my favorite cafe in Anna Blume where we had the three layered tower (frühstücksetagere für 2/4 personen) with their nice breakfast stuff, yumyum =P And then we had a nice walk in the mauerpark flee market / weekly open air festival; loads of people and nice atmosphere.
And then yesterday Bruno left to Paris for some work stuffi (!?) and i stayed here in Berlin with Hansu and Rene. Bruno was supposed to come back today so that we can continue our ride tomorrow, but apparently there is a general strike in Paris atleast and his flight was cancelled =/ Well, maybe i will get then one extra day in the city - lets see.
And thats about that for now. Wext we will maybe head our way towards the Czech border and close to Dresden in sächsische schweiz national park. According to the pictures it seems to be truly a lovely place. But it depends on the weather how it looks like if we will stay there longer or just stop by for one night on our way to Prague. And then after having enough beer in Prague we will go to Vienna to meet Simppa and Lena. And thats about how far we have made any plans. But i truly realized that the autumn is coming, hui! Yesterday was already really chilly day, and i think we have to speed up a bit to make it over the alpes before the snow and slippery comes.. Well, lets see =)
And now here in the end i will put you some pictures from our past couple of weeks.
*halihali* for all of you, and have a nice week where ever you happen to be!
And now till the very end i can add a small video clip from the steam train in Wernigerode - the is only if i now how to do it... Tschüss <3
So greetings from Berlin, the city is as nice as always. This time we have been staying in the western side in Schöneberg at Hanna-Maijas and Renes place, thank you a thousand for having us here for a few days ;o)
So, what have we been up to? Last Friday we parked to the camping site in Berlin Tegel, after getting lost and annoyed in the dark Potsdam and the outskirts of Berlin. We had planned to stay over night in Potsdam, but i didnt like the first camping we saw and the second camping was ridiculously over prized. It would have been nice to visit Potsdam by bikes during Saturday day, since theres suuuuper nice palaces and castles in one huge park. I went there once with Melanie, but it was winterish time with no leaves on the trees and so on. It would have been nice to see park in autumn colours, but maybe next time then :)
So instead of biking the Saturday in Potsdam we biked in Berlin. We found our way from the camping to the city centre, and by accident we got our portion of the castles annyhow. We were biking on the river bank of the Spree river (not a canal i learned..) and we bumped into Charlottenbourg palace. The guy in the palace shop was quite laughing when we went to him and asked to see a map to find out where we were actually, hehe! And after all we managed to find our way to Hansus place in the afternoon, since we stopped every now and then to see the maps on the bus stops =)
Sunday was a free day for Hansu, and we went in the morning to have a guided tour - Dark Worlds - in the world war II bunker in the Gesundsbrunnen U-bahn station. And it was quite something. The bunker was built in a part of a metro station that was never taken to its original use due to the economic crisis before the WWII. It was a 90min tour leaded by an excellent guide. Truly a recommendable place to go. Menkää äiti ja iskä ihmeesssä ens viikolla, kun ootte siellä. Englanninkielinen kierros on to-ma klo11. Have a look at the web pages:
http://berliner-unterwelten.de/home.1.1.html
Melanie and Björn came to the tunnels with us as well, and from there we headed for a Sunday brunc in my favorite cafe in Anna Blume where we had the three layered tower (frühstücksetagere für 2/4 personen) with their nice breakfast stuff, yumyum =P And then we had a nice walk in the mauerpark flee market / weekly open air festival; loads of people and nice atmosphere.
And then yesterday Bruno left to Paris for some work stuffi (!?) and i stayed here in Berlin with Hansu and Rene. Bruno was supposed to come back today so that we can continue our ride tomorrow, but apparently there is a general strike in Paris atleast and his flight was cancelled =/ Well, maybe i will get then one extra day in the city - lets see.
And thats about that for now. Wext we will maybe head our way towards the Czech border and close to Dresden in sächsische schweiz national park. According to the pictures it seems to be truly a lovely place. But it depends on the weather how it looks like if we will stay there longer or just stop by for one night on our way to Prague. And then after having enough beer in Prague we will go to Vienna to meet Simppa and Lena. And thats about how far we have made any plans. But i truly realized that the autumn is coming, hui! Yesterday was already really chilly day, and i think we have to speed up a bit to make it over the alpes before the snow and slippery comes.. Well, lets see =)
And now here in the end i will put you some pictures from our past couple of weeks.
*halihali* for all of you, and have a nice week where ever you happen to be!
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| Riverbank from Amsterdam |
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| Look at these innovative Asian tourists - this lady is having her chair with her =) |
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| We had a really nice dinner in the Amsterdam - in a restaurant where they had carpets on the table |
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| And another nice dinner in Düsseldorf in a Korean place - yummy! |
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| On our biking trip from Düsseldorf to Köln next to the Rhein river - here waiting for a ferry to cross the river |
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| The steam trains steam on the sky in Wernigerode - this vehicle definitely doesnt deserve the German green environment tag, so luckily theres no Umweltzone in Wernigerode! |
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| It was tricky to look forward when the train was running since the smoke it blew out was filled with small pieces of ash and coal |
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| The locomotive and the cars behind |
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| In the castle hill of Wernigerode with view down to the city |
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| We went to see the castle church of Wittenberg, and the nice guy behind the desk let us climb for free to the tower although he was just about to close. The tower had 289 steps and it was 61m high. Lovely view! |
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| And LOOK at this lovely brunch we had in Berlin. Looks and tastes delicious - Björn, Melanie and Hanna-Maija enjoying the lazy sunday |
And now till the very end i can add a small video clip from the steam train in Wernigerode - the is only if i now how to do it... Tschüss <3
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Stories from yesterday morning
Heippa all,
Im sitting now (Fri morning 8th Oct) in the camping of Dessau, Germany without internet connection, and though that I might write you some stories and then put them in the blog later when theres internet again available. Humm... So what have we been up to lately? Well, since leaving from Denmark we stopped by in Amsterdam for two nights and the city was absolutely lovely! Ive never been there before, but after this I definitely have to go back :) Houses were funny and askew, just as in the pictures you usually see from Amsterdam. We had our bikes in the city, but poor finnish and french bikers got almost run over by the locals. Couple of days earlier we had been biking a lot in Copenhagen and the biggest difference was that nobody in Amsterdam used helmet – except me..
And to continue our biking stories the next city where we biked was Düsseldorf – totally disasterous! But with the help of Marion we found our way biking more or less safely. And we almost got run over (by cars this time) only once per day, hihi! But otherweise our next pit stop Düsseldorf was nice. The city itself was ookoo, but our hostess and sofa owner Marion was definitely the best what the city had offer to us <3 Saturday we spent walking around in the centre and visiting the tower of Düsseldorf, and on Sunday we got this brave idea to bike to Köln. We took the nice biking path (no cars!) next to the Rhein river, and I actually didnt measure anywhere yet, but the way must have been something 40km atleast. In the map the distance looked much shorter, but when biking next to the meandering river it was crucially longer. And since we had quite an against the wind we decided to go back home by train.
After sleeping three lovely nights in Marions couch (warmly recommended) we hit the road again and headed towards Wernigerode to see Melanie. And again – what a lovely city that was! Nice hilly surroundings, huge leafy forests everywhere, and the city itself looked like it was directly from the fairy-tales. And maybe the best thing ever was a real steam train from 1930s that run daily back and forth to the 1140m high hill top. We have to remember to put here some pictures for you to see. And for Bruno the place was especially nice since he was dreaming of having a schnitzel since we first arrived to Germany, and finally he got it, in a small hotel canteen in the old town. Funny place and again as from fairy-tales except when we had eaten our schnitzels the small restaurant pare got totally full packed with 50-60 years old drunken Danish men. Humm... The poor lady running the restaurant side was totally over loaded with work and it took maybe 45min before we got our dessert, but it was funny to do some people studies looking at the guest and passers by :) Also one evening in Wernigerode we tested the outside grilli-place that there was in Melanies garden, and it worked perfectly! We had some nice grilled cheese with baba ganush and carrot zaziki, yummy!
Yesterday after leaving from Wernigerode we stopped by in Thale and some slimy reporter came with his camera and microphone to tell us to admire the nice view once more so that they can get it on the film. Hah! Next week there is the 40-year-old anniversary of a telepherique (siis hiihtohissi ilman laskettelukeskusta) that takes people up to the hill to admire the nice view. And he was doing a promotion episode about it to some local tv. So you might even see us during some of the coming days if you happen to be in Germany :)
And then we are here, in Dessau, spending a lazy morning at the quite ookoo camping we found. Still yesterday I thought we should go to Magdeburg, but then I saw that there was more castles in Dessau. I think we will take no wour bikes and bike to the city centre to find a tourist info and ask which are the nicest castles to visit. Then in the afternoon we will drive to Berlin to stay there until Wednesday most probably at Hansus and Renes place, jubii!
And then I will warn my friends in Austria and in Italy (Simppa, Lena, Laura P, Davide, Ritu), we are heading towards you next, are you ready? :)
Have a nice weekend everybody, and big hugs and kisses to you! We miss u all <3
M&B
Post Script from Saturday:
We went to see one of the castles but it was not the nicest one maybe. In turisti info we found the picture book from the other ones. After leaving from Dessau we drove to Wittenburg to see the door of the castle church where Marthin Luther nailed his theses in 1517. Quite cool city, go and have a look if you happen to hang around there. Yesterday we drove to the Berlin camping finally, and now after biking the whole day in Berlin city, we are sitting in the living room of Hansu and Rene <3
Soromnoo all!
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Denmark part II
Whooops, i forgot to put here the pictures from the whole family on their 10km Copenhagen run. There was this running event where Gitte, Hans, Moin and Mette-Marie were supposed to go to run in Tivoli and around the lakes. Gitte had her leg still not totally ookoo so Bruno went instead of her. I went to stand next to the lakes to try to catch a picture from them all, but with Moin and Mette-Marie i was too slow - they had already passed my spot. Hans spotted me and made a pose, and Bruno was somewhere in the middle of the thousands of the others. So here are the pics. Everybody made by the way quite nice time, under one hour all =)
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| Before the run... |
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| ...and during the run |
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| This picture is actually from Göreborg, where we finally met a moose. We had been driving 2500km in the Scandinavia without any smallest flash of a moose. Then we got to the central park in Göteborg where was a little animal park, and there it was! Huge! |
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Photos from Denmark, finally...
Hei all again,
Now finally i thought it would be time to out here some of the pictures from our time in Denmark. We are now in Germany in Werningerode at Melanies place, and we came here yesterday after spending a nice long weekend in Düsseldorf at Marions place.
Now finally i thought it would be time to out here some of the pictures from our time in Denmark. We are now in Germany in Werningerode at Melanies place, and we came here yesterday after spending a nice long weekend in Düsseldorf at Marions place.
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| Our campern in the ferry fron Helsingborg to Helsingör |
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| The Carlsberg elephants that we saw during our whole-day walking trip in Copenhagen |
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| We decided to climb to the round tower.... |
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| ...and the view was like this! |
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| We had a pizza lunch in a park - heres Morten, Valdemar and Bruno |
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| And Valdemar took a close look at Nespresso coffee - nice quality he thinks! |
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| And look at the funny Danish moon where it ended up when we walked to the train station in the evening =) |
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