World's Best Places to Visit

I love traveling by train around Europe. With parents working for the national rail company, I spent much of my childhood playing around locomotives and steam trains, and I have witnessed first-hand the evolution of train travel. I was a curious child, and this led to many adventures, from learning about how the oil gets changed on a diesel locomotive (which was offered refereed to as “the camel”), to riding in the cabin of a steam strain, when they would be hired for film productions. I even met Costa Gavras on the set of Amen, but I was too young then to know who he was. I grew up traveling by train, riding alone the 7 hours between my hometown and my grandma’s house ever since I was 14 years old. As soon as I got my first passport, I started exploring Europe by train, from the northern countries all the way to the Balkans. There was something special traveling around from one place to another, boarding a train in the evening and waking up to a totally new place in the m...

Last summer while cruising along the Rhine River, I remember staring out my room window, a cup of coffee in hand, my eyes curiously fixed on the city that passed us outside. That trip, we had departed from Basel and cruised upwards toward Amsterdam, passing countless castles and charming cities like Strasbourg, Mainz, Koblenz and Cologne. This particular city though looked a little different than the others. Maybe it was the massive TV tower, the glittering modern architecture or the very subtle hints of old German charm… I have to admit: I was intrigued. I found out later that this city was Düsseldorf, and due to time constraints, we weren’t going to be stopping there. Bummer! At the time, I was pretty disappointed. After a quick Google, Düsseldorf seemed really neat… like in many ways, the ‘edgy cool kid of the Rhine’. With this disappointment in check though, we cruised onwards. Fast forward about a year, I had moved to Germany, and the opportunity...

I love German Beer! Last night we went on a beer tour and had a blast. Apart from drinking a lot of good German beer, we got an education as well. Germans love their beer. So much so that there is laws about what can be put in it. Makes you realize how bad North American beer is. We had a cool guy named John from Chicago on the tour. He loves Budweiser and got teased pretty good by our guide. Here are some pics from the blurry night. Our tour ended at the famous Haufbraus (spelling?) and it was amazing. The place was packed and it was a Monday night. We met a true bavarian man who owns a table there. He was decked out in the full leader hosen and hat. We got some good pics but they are on Jon’s camera. I will post later on. We ended the night at our hostel bar and crashed around 700. We had to be out by 10:00 so there was a lot of down time. Next stop, Prauge…or Berlin. Freedom is awesome. Shaun I loves me some German Beer.