Our Boxing Day started with Scott going to the gym and Michele and Teresa walked to the river Main. The bare Plane trees created a skeletal canopy over the foot path that added to the cool and crisp atmosphere. We have still been unsuccessful in spotting a squirrel, although there was a cute bunny in the courtyard outside Scott’s apartment this morning.

There were many river cruise boats parked with tourists disembarking for a day trip in Frankfurt. Teresa and Michele were approached by a number of people who thought we were locals and asked for directions in German.

We (M & T) made our way to the old town and stopped for a Gluwein and a frankfurt because….why not? All of the retail stores are closed here on Boxing Day so no sales frenzy here.

They have recreated more of the old town and managed to make a very aesthetically pleasing new “old” town.

In the afternoon Michele and Teresa went for a stroll into the city and found Cafe Hauptwache to have a couple of drinks in.

The days have been cloudy and cool but we have yet to encounter snow.

For dinner, Katie, Greg and Chloe joined us at Scott’s place once more. We had a delicious cheese plate and leftovers from Christmas Eve. The evening entertainment included UNO and 80s trivia washed down with sparkling wine and vodka. Excited for Kyiv tomorrow. Guten Nacht!

We awoke Christmas morning and cleaned up before getting ready for another Christmas feast. This time it was being cooked for us! Scott had booked us into a restaurant called Oscar’s in the oldest hotel in Frankfurt.

After arriving and meeting Katie, Greg and Chloe there, we ordered a round of dirty martinis and the festivities began once more! Michele, Katie and Greg ordered braised lamb shoulder and Scott, Teresa and Chloe had weiner schnitzels. Bellies full, we then went in search of a place to have a couple of afternoon drinks. Scott has suggested a rooftop bar but it was closed, so we settled on a little German pub/restaurant where we had a cosie little corner table. Schnapps, beer and wine were ordered and once again it was a very merry afternoon. We admired the pork knuckles but did not have extra room for more food.

Strolling around Frankfurt between refreshments we were surrounded by many families celebrating their day. There is a distinct lack of Christmas lights in Frankfurt despite the festive atmosphere. Once again, it was not a late night. It gets dark at around 4pm so by 8pm it feels like midnight. Hoping everyone back home has had an enjoyable Christmas. 🎄

We were expecting to fly out to Kiev in Boxing Day but our Wizz Air flight was changed to the day after. So we will be spending the extra time in Frankfurt eating the mountain of Christmas leftovers. Guten Nacht! 🎄

Christmas was very festive!!

Scott had some friends visiting from Prague: Katie, Greg and their 8 year old daughter Chloe. Michele, Teresa and Scott had made the pierogi the night before, so the morning of Christmas Eve was dedicated to making spinach pie and setting the table for the feast.

Meeting Katie, Greg and Chloe was like meeting old friends and we quickly established that this was going to be a very merry Christmas!

We started the dinner with the traditional Opłatek (communion bread), which is broken and shared with every member present, along with well wishes and an affirmation for the year ahead. The obligatory vodka shots then were poured and our feast began. Greg had brought baked ham and smoked salmon to add to our table of pierogi, baked potatoes, spinach pie, cucumber & dill salad, beetroot with horseradish, śledzie (pickled fish) and homemade Tartare sauce. For entree we had borsch with mini pierogi dumplings.

Chloe had been given some nail polish and tattoos for Christmas so everyone got complimentary manicures and body decorations.

The champagne flowed, the Christmas music played and the Christmas cheer was shared into the afternoon. By around 8pm the jet lag (and booze) kicked in and it was time for Teresa and Michele to sleep. Scott walked Katie, Greg and Chloe back to their hotel. All in all, a very Merry Christmas indeed. Frohe Weihnachten!

We arrived in Frankfurt, the loooong trip being tiring but relatively fuss free. Our bags were the second out at the luggage claim and there were no customs at the other side so we were straight out!

Scott met us at the airport and escorted us back to his place where a feast of Polish rye soup (zurek) and smoked sausage awaited.

Since we only flew in at 5am, to combat our tiredness we went for a walk around Frankfurt to the big Rewe supermarket to buy up supplies for the Christmas Eve feast tomorrow. This is always a bit of an adventure because you spend double time trying to locate foods and decipher labels.

Michele & Teresa went to the Friseur for blowdrys so that we were salon-ready for Christmas.

We returned to Scott’s apartment and it was time to roll up the sleeves and make the pierogi! No wine bottles available this year so our rolling pin was a chilli-infused Absolut vodka bottle.

Teresa rolled, Michele pinched, and Scott boiled & fried. The night ended with a lot of excess pierogi so we just had to eat the surplus for dinner! 🥟🍽

We settled down to watch a couple of documentaries on the countries we are about to visit and then sleep was very welcome. Bring on tomorrow. Guten Nacht!

Aaaaand we’re off! How lucky that they had a gin tasting at the airport, we just had to sample the wares. Having lunch and waiting to board. See you soon Scott! ✈️

Breakfast was included in our room price and the buffet was very extensive, with hot & cold offerings to cater for a range of cultures. We were also able to take coffee back to our room. It was time to explore Hong Kong.

We set out along Nathan road towards the harbour and promenade. All along the way there was mass construction taking place, making it very noisy. Interestingly, the scaffolding around these buildings was made of bamboo sticks fastened with some sort of twine, a technique unique to this part of world.

The view from the promenade across the harbour to another part of Hong Kong was thick with smog. We took some photos in the Star Gardens, a popular tourist spot, and then stopped in at the Intercontinental for refreshments. The bar wasn’t open so we ordered two cappuccinos and a sparkling water. When the bill came it equaled around $45 Australian.

Upon checkout we asked for a recommendation for a traditional place to go for dim sum lunch. She sent us to a restaurant around the corner called Tao Heung. On arrival we saw that the venue seemed to be filled with local people. We were provided with a menu and ordered yum cha style. Our meals were steamed pork buns, deep fried pork buns and chicken spring roll. They were delicious and ended up costing us a total of $16 Australian. Such a contrast to our morning drinks!

Back to the hotel for a drink and then to collect our bags which were being stored for is. It was the end of our holiday, the streets were very busy, and we had no more desire to do any more shopping. Our shuttle to the train station was once again fuss free and we found that you can actually check in for your flight at the station (we had had trouble when we tried to check in online). We tried to do this but, as we wanted seats together, the kind man told us that there were not any at the moment but some more would be released later. He called ahead to let the airport staff know that we wanted seats together and he told us to see the Cathay Pacific information desk when we arrived. When we got there, they took our bags and advised us to come back an hour before our flight when our seats would be released. They also gave us four $40HK vouchers to spend in the meantime.

Now we are sitting in wait of our flight. It feels like so long ago that we left Australia and we have had a great holiday. That said, we are looking forward to coming home, seeing our family & friends, and scratching the doggies. Until next our Europe adventure, good night!

Our 10 1/2 hr Lufthansa flight to Hong Kong was way better than our last Lufthansa experience. The staff were much more attentive and very friendly. Irene finally got her window seat…in fact she had two windows!

The Airport Express from the airport is very easy to work out and to get to our hotel, the Holiday Inn, we were told to get off at Kowloon and there will be a free shuttle bus which drops us at our hotel. Very fuss free and there are official people available to help with directions.

We had booked a triple room for the night and were checked into our first room which was on the non-smoking floor but the air in the room was heavy with the smell of stale smoke and mould. We called reception to report the unfortunate situation and it was no trouble to relocate us to another room which was much better. The spacious room was furnished with 3 double beds which delivered a very comfortable night’s rest.

Dinner was in the hotel’s restaurant and the food was authentic and delicious – tempura whitebait, crispy chicken with garlic, crispy pork belly, shrimp dumplings and shredded pork with noodles. Michele was really impressed when she asked for extra chilli and was given a selection of 3 different types. Yummo!

$100 Hong Kong dollars equate to approximately $16 Australian dollars and with a bill of $1194HK it was our most expensive meal of the trip. This included a bottle of a Marlborough sauvignon blanc.

Europe definitely was more economical.

A quick visit to the 7-Eleven to buy bubble water also surprised us with a selection of wines in store. There were only Australian and NZ varieties to choose from. We stocked up and then went back to our room to sleep in an attempt to get our body clocks closer to Australian time. Homeward bound tomorrow, 晚安！

Our adventures in Leipzig were both enjoyable and thought provoking. On the first morning we checked out of our lodge and trekked over to our new hotel, the Penta Hotel. We had decided to spend a second night in this historical town so we could explore further. Booking for this hotel was easy, upon check in we were able to get adjoining rooms and have our bags looked after until the rooms were ready at 3pm. The establishment also was kind enough to give us a late check out the following day at 3pm.

We went to a couple of museums. The first was the Nostalgic Museum. It had a wide range of artifacts from the time that East Germany was segregated from the west and under communist rule. We found that there was an abundance of appliances, toys, games, furniture, motorbikes etc from the DDR. Despite the plethora of items, however, there was no written information about any of it.

Teresa, Michele and Scott had recently been reading a book about the Stasi, which were the secret police who reported back on literally everything within the DDR. They were keen to find the museum that documents this time in history. We were able able to hire English speaking translation devices to aid us in our tour. What we learnt was interesting and confronting. Would recommend for those who are interested in German history.

When we finished at the Stasi museum we were fairly tired from all of our walking so we headed back to our hotel with the intention of having dinner. We found the hotel staff all very friendly but unfortunately the service in the restaurant was annoyingly slow. Before dinner we purchased our train tickets for the ICE train from the Leipzig Bahnhof office where we were able to book our seats beforehand. It cost 70€ each for the trip to Frankfurt.

Because of the late check out, the next day was pretty much ours to continue exploring. We had the options of visiting another museum and the zoo. We decided to go to the zoo first. There is so much to see at this city zoo that time slipped by very quickly and we had to make haste to gather our baggage and get to the train station.

The ICE train has a catering carriage which is a great place to eat and drink with large viewing windows on both sides. The seats are comfortable and larger than an airline seat so it was the best choice to travel back to Frankfurt. Our Frankfurt accommodation for the final night was at Scott’s place and he was a great host as usual!

We have had an amazing time in Europe and are sad to leave. It is especially hard to say goodbye to Scott once more. Goodbye Germany…for now. Looking forward to seeing what Hong Kong has to offer. Gute nacht!

Teresa and Michele awoke in desperate need of a Friszuer. We were very lucky to find a place called Unicut directly across from our apartments. Fortunately we got there right on opening and beat the regular crowd of people coming in to take a ticket and wait for a haircut.

We decided to spend our last hour having lunch at or favorite Bloody Mary restaurant, so we left our bags with our very accommodating staff at the Rosenthal Apartments, and headed across the road one last time. We loved our time in Berlin but it was now time to meet up with Scott again and explore another city.

Our train to Leipzig left from Berlin hauptbahnhof. This main train station is large but we found it well-posted and fairly easy to navigate. We found the platform to our ICE train and waited. When the train arrived we found a carriage with a small booth of four seats and a table to sit at.

The trip was quite smooth with lots of countryside to view along the way. Of course refreshments were in order and Michele & Teresa set out on the long trek through the carriages to the catering cart. Note to future self: get closer!

Not being familiar with the geography of Leipzig, we naturally thought that taking a taxi from the train station to our new accommodation would be the best way to go. We didn’t find the taxi drivers here very helpful, and when we did find one who would be able to fit our 3 big suitcases, he simply opened the boot and gestured for us to put them in ourselves. It turned out that our accommodation was a very close walk across the road, so we could have walked anyway.

Our Leipzig Lodge apartment was a double-story residence on the fourth floor.

Heidke, our host, was very welcoming and cheerful. We did find, however, that the downstairs bathroom light switch did not work, and there was a lack of privacy due to the absence of blinds on some of the windows. There was a coffee machine available but the coffee tin supplied was empty. Hmmm.

We made arrangements to meet Scott at the train station and were happy to be reunited once again. Dinner was at a traditional Deutsch restaurant, where Michele and Teresa had their first Maß of beer, which is literally a litre glass. Our dinner was traditional and delicious. Leipzig so far is a beautifully historical town with amazing architecture. More exploring tomorrow. Gute nacht!

Thursday morning was a grey and drizzly Berlin day. We were determined to show Irene the wall. Michele used Google maps to plot our way to the open air museum, finding a shortcut through a very historic cemetery which was affected by the wall’s construction.

The memorial at Gartenstraße explained the history in German & English through text, audio and video. The bleak weather added to the solemn atmosphere.

We walked up to Bernauerstraße and bravely decided to tackle the Ubahn…which actually was not too hard to work out. Only two stations to Alexanderplatz and then it was lunch time. We dined at a restaurant called Carambar, where Michele had spaghetti and Teresa & Irene shared the “capital dish”, which consisted of typical German sausages, potato and meatballs. The service was very good and our waiter was very good looking. Lunch was over and it was now time to shop! Our 22kg baggage limit was now in the past. We hit TKMaxx with avengence and some good purchases were made.

With our new found confidence in the Ubahn, we caught the train back to Rosenthaler, dropped our shopping into our apartment and went across the road for one of our favourite bloody Marys. Michele was obliged to report back on the red wine that she had purchased the day before so, afterwards, we just had to go and visit Frieda and Fifty again.

We then explored an area that was recommended to us for dinner but found it to be full of retail rather than restaurants. So we made our way back to where our apartment was to try and find somewhere to eat. We found that it is very hard to locate traditional German food in the German capital. After wandering around the wet streets and traversing the five-way intersection we settled on a Vietnamese restaurant. Here Michele & Teresa order beef Pho soup but Irene won out with her crispy duck dish. Our stomachs filled, we retired to our room to rest up in preparation for our next adventure. We enjoyed watching Avatar in German as we relaxed in our room. Tomorrow, Leipzig. Gute nacht!