Travel Tips

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Bran: Dracula's descendants (RO)

October 2007 - Meeting Dracula in Transsylvania

In October we explored Romania for one week. The trip started with 4 days in Brasov (German: Kronstadt) which is the biggest town in Transylvania.

It was our base for detours to the skiing resort Poiana Brasov and two cities with famous castles: Rasnov and Bran. The latter is said to have been the model for the castle in the Dracula novel, although many people think that it is only a tourist trap.

Our trip ended with three days in busy Bucharest, where stomach complaints forced us to stay one day in bed. Luckily we were still able to see at least the main sights of this fascinating city.

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Pier of Scheveningen (NL)

September 2007 - Weekend trip to the Dutch coast

A very spontaneous weekend trip took us to the Dutch Northsea coast. We spent one night in Katwijk which is about 310 km by car from my hometown.

From Katwijk we walked along the beach to Noordwijk. The next day we visited Scheveningen with its busy amusement pier. Scheveningen is a suburb of Den Haag.

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VT meeting in Sion (CH)

August 2007 - Exploring the canton of Valais

In the middle of August we took the chance to explore the Canton of Valais in Switzerland by train and on foot.
We went via Andermatt to Riederalp which was our homebase for 2 days of hiking.
We continued our trip via Brig to Sion, which is the capital of the Valais. Here we enjoyed a fabulous VT meeting with the local VT member tripack. As well as that we took a side trip to St. Leonards.
Our trip ended with another 2 days of exhausting hiking in the Zermatt region. Zermatt is home to the famous Matterhorn Mountain (4478 m).

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HORSCHECK swimming (D)

July 2007 - 24 hours swimming event

Every two years a 24 hours swimming event takes place in the open-air swimming pool of my hometown. Within 24 hours people can swim as much and as often as they like. This year a bank donated 1 Euro per kilometer for the local primary school.

The atmosphere is always amazing, especially at night when it is dark and the outside temperature is cold-ish, whereas the water is relatively warm.

Although the weather wasn't too good, I swam 16,1 km in three parts. All in all more than 300 people swam 1436,8 km.

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Soviet style wall painting in Chop (UA)

June 2007 - Ukraine, my 31st country

At the beginning of June we explored the Ukraine by train. The first stop was in the border town of Chop due to the bogey change of our train.
Then we went through the Ukrainian Carpathians to the charming town of Lviv which was our travel base for 4 nights. From there we even took a daytrip to the medieval Zhofkva, which is located only 30 minutes north of Lviv. My first night on a night train led us to our final destination: The Ukrainian capital of Kiev was our home for another 5 nights, including a daytrip to Chernihiv near the Belarussian border.

The Ukraine is my 31st country regarding VT counting of visited countries.

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Hotel Slavia in the old town of Kosice (SK)

May 2007 - Exploring the East of Slovakia

At the end of May we headed off to the East of Slovakia to explore the High Tatry. The trip begun in Kosice and ended at the beginning of June in the Ukraine.

Besides Slovakia's second biggest city Kosice we visited Poprad, Strbske Pleso, Stary Smokovec and Tatranska Lomnica by train or on foot.

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Dortmund: Telecommunication Tower "Florian" (D)

April 2007 - Tickets and people, Volume II

One of the highlights in April was a weekend visit of a friend of mine from England. He is not a VT member, nevertheless I met him on my travels (Please read my Girona travelogue for more info). Among other things we attended football matches in Mönchengladbach and Dortmund where we also explored the city.

Later in the month I took a daytrip from Zurich to the famous Rhine Falls near Schaffhausen (Switzerland).