Amsterdam: Days 1-3

Day 1:

We spent our first day in Amsterdam doing what we do on our first day in almost every country: walking around. We loved all of the Dutch architecture. Even the train station is cute. This is an especially cute little street:

Unfortunately, in Amsterdam, wandering isn’t always a good thing. We saw what we thought would be a nice street to walk down…and it ended up being a part of the infamous Red Light District. Oops. It was pretty awkward, I’m not gonna lie:

Luckily, we made our way out of that part of the city pretty fast and got back to the cuteness.

Day 2:

Our second day in Amsterdam, we decided to do a group bike tour around the city. Everyone here seems to be on a bike, so we figured it would be a good way to see things, and it was. Plus, the bikes were cute and yellow, so it was awesome:

After the tour and some lunch, we went to the Anne Frank House. This was the place that she and her family were in hiding for 3 years before they were betrayed and sent to various concentration camps. Anne’s father, Otto, was sent to Auschwitz, and was the only one to survive. This is the door (behind a movable bookcase) that led from the factory below to the “secret annex” where they lived:

Then, for dinner that night, we ate delicious pancakes:

Day 3:

Our final day in Amsterdam was a big museum day. First, we went to the Rijksmuseum, where we some Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Steen, as well as a ton of other awesome Dutch paintings:

They also had these cool dollhouses. In the old days, it was a sign of wealth to have a dollhouse that was basically a model of your own house. Sometimes the dollhouses ended up costing as much as a house themselves:

After the first museum, we grabbed some lunch and hung out in Vondelpark for a while. The weather in Amsterdam was great, so it was very relaxing.

Next, we went to the Van Gogh Museum, which has over 200 of Van Gogh’s paintings on display. They also display them in chronological order, so it gives you a good look at his artistic development over time:

After the museum and some dinner, we caught a train to The Hague. 

Berlin: Days 1-3

Day 1:

We didn’t get into Berlin until late afternoon, so our first day was pretty relaxed. We walked around the area near the hotel, which was full of shops. We also saw the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedachtniskirche, which was partially destroyed in the bombings of World War II. They decided not to fix the damage and to leave it standing as a reminder to the people:

Instead, they built a new church next to it, which isn’t much to look at from the outside, but has some incredible stained glass windows that look awesome from the inside. It’s very modern:

Day 2:

Our second day in Berlin we started out by going to Brandenburg Gate, which is kind of a representation of Berlin’s unity, as it acts as a fulcrum between the East and West of Berlin:

Next, we went to the Holocaust Memorial and walked through the museum they have there:

After a lunch of the German specialty, currywurst (it’s like hot dogs with a curry sauce), we went to Babelplatz square where the famous Nazi book-burnings took place, right across the street from a University. If you can’t tell, the monument they have in the square is a bunch of empty bookcases: 

After that, we went to see a section of the Berlin Wall that has been preserved. It’s right in front of what’s called the Topography of Terror, which is where the headquarters of the Gestapo used to be. It’s now a museum that tells of their acts:

Day 3:

We spent a lot of our third day in Berlin shopping. Greg had a blast at the Lego store, and I found a nice dress.

We also made our way over to Checkpoint Charlie, where people would pass from the East to the West part of Berlin during the cold war. We even got our passports stamped. It was pretty cool:

That night, we took our last over-night train to Amsterdam and it was a much better experience than the first time around. We actually had beds this time and were able to sleep pretty well. Yay! 

Prague: Days 1-3

Day 1:

Our first day in Prague was a travel day, so we didn’t actually get into the city until mid-afternoon. Then, while trying to find our hotel, we got very, very lost. We probably took every wrong turn we possibly could and it was scorching hot. Plus, we were both carrying around 20+ pounds on our backs, which made things even more miserable. Once we finally did get to our hotel, we were so relieved by the nice, air-conditioned rooms with complimentary apples that we didn’t leave for the rest of the night.

Day 2:

In order to make up for the lack of sight-seeing on our first day in Prague, we spent all of the second day walking around the city seeing everything we could. We started out at Malostranske Namesti (the main square), where we saw the church of Sv Mikulas:

Next, we walked up this cute little street:

To get to the Prague Castle, which includes St. Vitus’ Cathedral:

And the Old Royal Palace (you can see it in the distance here):

After a quick lunch, we walked across Charles Bridge:

And found this really adorable square called Staromestake Namesti:

Finally, we walked down Wenceslas Square (apparently, Good King Wencleslas is from Prague, his crown jewels are actually in St. Vitus’ Cathedral, but they are hardly ever taken out), and ended up at the National Museum, which we didn’t go inside. We did sit by the fountains for a while, which was nice.

Day 3:

On our third day in Prague, we decided to take a day trip to Terezin, which was a concentration camp during World War II. The weather was gray and it drizzled for most of the day, which made for kind of the perfect atmosphere for such a somber place. It was a very humbling experience. The whole place just had this terrible, gloomy feel to it. Terezin wasn’t a death camp, but many of the people there died from the terrible conditions and a good part of those who made it through their time in Terezin ended up getting sent to die in Auschwitz. Here are some pictures from the day:

This is a picture of what a typical women’s dormitory would look like:

This was above the entrance to one of the sections of the camp. It was kind of a Nazi slogan that means “working makes us free” or something to that effect:

They had dozens of rooms that looked just like this where 50 prisoners would sleep:

While the Nazis were running the camp, they either cremated the bodies of the dead prisoners or buried them in mass graves, sometimes with over 600 bodies in one grave. After the liberation of the camp, the bodies were dug up and laid to rest in the national cemetery: 

Vienna: Days 1-3

We got into Vienna around 10:00 in the morning and were praying that we would be able to check into our hotel right away. Luckily, things worked out for us. We checked in, grabbed a quick pastry for breakfast, and headed back to the hotel for a nice, long nap. Beds are much more comfortable than lying places.

After our nap, we did some walking around the city. We walked through the museum quarter (which we’re planning to return to tomorrow to actually go inside), and a park called Volksgarten where we had a light lunch. Then we saw the Austrian National Library:

The Art History and Natural History Museums:

Parliament:

and the town hall, Rathaus:

When we were walking to find some dinner, we saw a woman selling apricots on the side of the street and they looked amazing, so we bought a box to take back to the hotel. They are delicious and we haven’t had good fruit in a long time, so they’ll keep us from getting scurvy too. Then we had dinner at a nice little café:

Finally, we walked through Stephensplatz, a shopping district with 3 H&Ms, in the background you can see Votivkirche, where Haydn was married:

The next two days of our stay in Vienna were dedicated almost completely to seeing the musical sights. Greg just about died with all of the awesome places we got to go. We started out by going to the House of Music, which had exhibits for all of the major composers who lived in Vienna. In these exhibits, we got to see things like Schubert's glasses:

And the last door Beethoven ever walked through:

They also had what we're pretty sure was Haydn's parrot (stuffed), who would say "Papa Haydn" and sing part of the national anthem. Greg didn't want to take a picture of that for some reason.

Next, we went to Mozart's house. This is the room where he composed The Magic Flute, 3 of his best piano concertos including the D minor, and a ton of other stuff:

After that, we headed over to Beethoven's apartment where he composed the 5th, 7th, and 8th Symphonies, the 4th Piano Concerto, Fidelio, and a ton of other stuff. Here's Greg with Beethoven's death mask:

The next day, we started out by going to Haydn's house, where he composed "The Creation" and also passed away. This is Greg with Haydn's clavichord:

Upstairs in Haydn's house was an exhibit dedicated to Brahms. Brahms' apartment was destroyed in the early 1900s, so the furniture that remained along with some pictures are now displayed in Haydn's house instead:

Next, we went to the Zentralfriedhof Cemetery where all these amazing composers now have their final resting place. Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Schubert, and J. Strauss are all buried within twenty feet of each other. It's incredible to stand in the midst of all these men who created the most beautiful music:

After the cemetery, we went to the house where Schubert died. It was a three room apartment that was completely new when he moved in (apparently the walls hadn't even fully dried yet, which wasn't very good for his health). The room Greg is standing in front of is the room he died in:

After that, we went to the Belvedere palace/museum (right before it closed) mainly to see "The Kiss" by Klimt. There were no pictures allowed, but Greg snuck this one (this guy would NOT get out of the way!):

Greg also loved the Schiele paintings.

Finally, to conclude 2 days of music tourist attractions, we went to hear Mozart's Requiem in Karlskirche, a beautiful church with great acoustics:

It was incredibly moving. I had never heard it in full, but I've wanted to since I first saw Amadeus back in 7th grade. We loved every moment of it, especially the Lacrimosa. It was probably the best ending to an amazing city that we could have hoped for. 

Frankfurt: Days 1 & 2

Apparently, we scheduled our trip to Frankfurt during the hottest two weeks of the year. I guess it doesn’t get that hot otherwise, so no one bothers to invest in air conditioning. Our hotel room was sweltering. We got into our hotel around 11:30 PM and spent the rest of the night sweating away.

The next morning, we walked back to the train station and spent quite a while booking a bunch of tickets for the next several places we’ll be going. It took up a lot of our day, but it’s nice to have it done.

When we were done with that, we decided to do another little walking tour through the city. We walked down alongside the river along this cute path with trees whose trunks look like camouflage. It was very nice.

We made our way to a cute little plaza with all these adorable buildings. 

We found out that Goethe’s house was nearby, so we followed the signs there, but when we got there it had already closed. Too bad. I love Faust.

Next, we got dinner at a cute little café that had some amazing desserts. Greg ordered some ice cream that looked like spaghetti.

After dinner, we hurried back to our hotel so that Greg could watch the World Cup Final. I watched too, just not as intently. He even took a picture to commemorate this part of our trip: 

On day two, we took a riverboat tour on the Rhine where we saw at least a dozen castles. They would just randomly pop up all over the place, most of them in really good condition. It was a very relaxing way to see a lot of cool stuff.

The tour took almost the whole day, so after it was over, we went back to the train station, got dinner, and waited for our first overnight train to Vienna. Since we’re already in Vienna, I’ll tell you about that trip now:

We were planning on booking beds for the trip, but we found out that reserving them would cost about $150. However, we found out there was something in between a bed and a seat (the lady who helped us called it a “lying place”) that was much cheaper, so we got that instead. When we got into our little compartment, the seats looked a whole lot more like seats than beds. Also, there was someone in our compartment who didn’t have a reservation there, which made it a lot more crowded than we would have liked. Luckily, he got off at the first stop (about 1:30 in the morning). We figured out how to recline the seats, which made them a little more comfortable too, but it wasn’t a very restful night. Luckily, we only have one more overnight train. 

Interlaken: Days 1 & 2

Interlaken: Days 1 & 2

Interlaken is a little town where a lot of tourists who want to see the Alps stay. Like the rest of Switzerland, it’s adorable. We really enjoyed our time there. The first day, we walked around a bit and had some delicious pizza for lunch. After that, we decided to take advantage of one of the beautiful lakes we saw on the train ride over. We took a bus to Lake Thunersee and spent the rest of the day lounging around there. We rented a boat and Greg rowed us around for a little while. The water there is an amazing color and the landscape is just gorgeous:

After rowing for a while, we decided to take a little dip (the water was freezing!) and then read in some chairs by the lake. It was very relaxing. Do you like my cute tan line?

On our way back to our hotel, we ran into some missionaries! One of them went to BYU before his mission and had seen Greg’s concert there, so that was kind of cool. They were really nice and it was fun to talk to them while we waited for our bus.

I am sorry to announce that for dinner that night, we had McDonalds. Everything in Switzerland is ridiculously expensive, even the mediocre food. We knew we would be spending a lot of money the next day on tickets into the Alps, so we wanted a cheap dinner (something that isn’t even possible in Switzerland, even the value meals at McDonalds were twelve bucks).

However, it was all worth it because the next day, the Alps were incredible. After taking a short train and bus ride, we took a tram up to this tiny little town in the mountains called Gimmelwald. It’s very secluded and almost something out of the past, but it’s beautiful.

We hiked from Gimmelwald to the next town called Muren, where we caught the tram again and headed up to the top of the Schilthorn. On the top of this mountain is a revolving restaurant where we ate lunch and got a panoramic view of all the amazing-ness surrounding us. It was incredible!

This is also the location where one of the James Bond movies (Her Majesties Secret Service or something like that) was filmed, so we got to watch a little excerpt of the movie.

After heading down the Alps, we stopped at Trummelbach Falls. It’s this amazing waterfall running through a mountain. They have lights and paths inside the mountin so you can walk through and see it at different points. It was amazing how much force it had.

After seeing the waterfall, we headed back to the train station where we got a quick dinner before catching our late night train to Frankfurt. We already miss Switzerland.