Tag: travel

Why I use Uber

Michaela MerzLeave a comment

I’m always on the move, frequently abroad. Without a taxi it’s often impossible. But my experience with taxis is very mixed and unfortunately often not only positive. The vehicles are dirty and stink of cigarettes. The drivers are impolite. When I ask them to close the window or switch off the radio, I am ignored. I have to load and unload the cases myself, the credit card is refused and cash demanded. The worst is, I feel cheated, if I have already driven the route and suddenly it is a good deal dearer and who knows what happens when I don’t know the normal prices. Riding taxis around the world is like a bag of surprises, it may be great but it can also be a terrible experience with a high degree of frustration. The chances are about 50/50 and very often the main feeling is that it was simply OK.Read More »

London from a different perspective

Michaela MerzLeave a comment

There are cities, which are alive, inspirational, pulsating and time and again surprising, so that you can’t see them too often and where a lifetime is too short to discover everything worth seeing. London is certainly one of them. Where to begin and what to see? I’ll leave the classic sights unmentioned, all you have to do is google.  If you’ve ticked them all off, what about Covent Garden Market? Not only because of its many small shops, which offer astonishing things, and the inexpensive flea market, which has even more surprising things on offer, but above all for the artists performing there. There is always something on: street comedians, singers, jugglers, living statues. It’s never boring.

Or what about a “Bond in Motion” exhibition not far from the market? All the cars, with which James Bond had spectacularly raced and chased all the rogues in the world, are exhibited there in the original version. They are accompanied by the appropriate film excerpts and some requisites are also there. A must for every James Bond fan.

A visit to London should also include an evening at the theatre. Musicals, dramas, comedies or Shakespeare for those, who like it classic. The tickets are not cheap and you shouldn’t be naïve and think that one can pick up tickets at the box office. If you don’t book in advance, you’ll probably have to miss the culture.

Even with a small budget, quite a lot can be seen. For example, all the museums in London can be visited free of charge. The Tate Museum of Modern Art for example. Even if one can’t get on with modern art, from the 10th floor there is an excellent view, almost as good as from the London Eye, only one can enjoy it FREE as long as one wants. In addition, there is a wonderful corner, where small children can play. And also worth mentioning is that a modern residential block has been built so close to the Tate building that one can see not only city, but also the interior decoration of 14 floors, because the English don’t believe in curtains and therefore don’t have any. Quasi a “live ” course on interior decoration by the upper class at the beginning of the 21st century.

And if you’re travelling on a restricted budget, then close to the Tate Museum there is an old food market with many delicacies, but also opportunities for attending courses in baking or learning how to butcher. You can try much of the food free of charge and an inexpensive, wonderfully smelling lunch can be bought at one of the stands.

Food in London is a world of its own and one should find the courage to eat things one doesn’t yet know. Everything is there and in all price ranges, you can eat Chinese, Indian, French, Lebanese, Japanese, Mexican and so on for 7, but also for 120 pounds. It’s worthwhile. For breakfast try porridge, it fills the stomach and lasts until the evening.

What surprised me was the number of homeless people, who could be seen everywhere in the centre and gave the impression that they had taken root where they slept. It wasn’t simply people in sleeping bags, which one knows from other cities, but real tented camps with household equipment and only the stench of urine reminded one of the limitations of living in a tent.

You can live very well with a lot of money in London, but I think that, as a visitor, you can live well and also see a lot on a small budget. The courage to enjoy unusual experiences is certainly rewarded in this city.

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Dublin – Zurich

Michaela Merz1 Comment

I’m booked on the flight at 6.40 am from Dublin to Zürich. The evening before my departure the reception cannot make my bill, but as customer service they offer to wake me up. I say OK and ask for 4.45 am.

But next morning I’m already awake at 4.15 am and deal with all my mails that have arrived since yesterday evening. I am ready and prepared and wonder why the hotel telephone has not rung. At last I notice that on the telephone a light is on and a message has been left on the telephone answering machine. But the telephone didn’t ring. A special way of waking guests.Read More »

Madrid in a state of emergency

Michaela MerzLeave a comment

We planned to go and see a flamenco performance and spend the rest of the evening drinking a good wine, eating tapas and just having a nice night out.

On our way to the theatre, we noticed that the streets were being barred and that there were police officers everywhere. Read More »

Tripsdrill – the first German adventure park

Michaela Merz1 Comment

We went to Tripsdrill and found everything a child’s heart could desire. Good play areas, animals to marvel at and stroke, water chutes, looping coasters, horse-drawn coaches, boats, carousels, games and spending the night in a tree house.

What does the mother’s heart desire in such a children’s paradise? Enough clean toilets, food that doesn’t consist only of chips and sweets. Prices, which don‘t bankrupt you, no queues before the attractions, cleanliness and a well-kept environment.

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We were just lucky. It is the second half of April and the temperatures are climbing almost to 30 degrees. Summer at the beginning of spring. The Germans are at school and we in Switzerland have spring holidays. The park is empty and there are no queues anywhere.

In 278 BC named Trephonis Trulla by the Romans, in the vernacular the name of the location also described a place, in which the impossible is possible. In 1890 the first picture of the legendary Old Wives Mill at Tripsdrill appeared. In fact it was built in 1929 by Eugen Fischer. This was the year, in which Germany’s first adventure park was born.

In Tripsdrill you can find everything the heart desires. It is not kitschy, it offers lots of exhibitions on life and work in the past. In the midst of the vineyards, with a wine exhibition and wine tasting, we lived in a tree house in a wildlife park. In the morning we were awakened by the howling of the wolves, who slept 300 meters from us.

We visited 100 attractions, played, laughed, ate, fed the donkeys, stroked the miniature goats. I climbed into an Old Wives Mill, got wet but not really prettier and younger. I liked the wedding market with all its offerings. We rode in the cradle, pulled twins out of the well and admired the wedding procession and the pithy German humour. Three days fun without end, super sleeping in the treetops with nocturnal forest noises, which didn’t disturb us one bit, because every evening we were so dog-tired with my youngest. Simply only happy, fulfilled days.

The adventure park closes every evening at 6.00pm. On one of our last rides the man asked where we were living. I said “in the tree house, around the corner”. He winked and asked whether we had space free. I disappointed him, after all we were not alone but four of us were together on holiday. It just shows that one can even make contacts there. To all singles and happy couples or families, I can only recommend it.

Welcome to Miami – Bienvenidos a Miami

Michaela MerzLeave a comment

grafite-na-regiao-do

I have the good luck of attracting unique events and exceptions. Like during the Christmas holidays, when I was travelling in Florida. After 29 years, snow and cold in Florida. If I’m honest, I couldn’t care less about the snow, that’s not the reason I have travelled such a distance. An hour from home I could enjoy the powder snow. But fortunately, Florida is big and snow in the North of Florida still means 16 degrees and sunshine in Miami. Read More »

Leningrad then, St. Petersburg today or how I missed Rodin’s Kiss

Michaela MerzLeave a comment

Then I was on a student exchange in Leningrad. It’s years ago and in the meantime the city is called St. Petersburg. Then as today I lived close to the centre. Our student home then was five storeys high. The dormitory was large enough for 30 girls. The girls’ showers were on the fourth floor, the boys’ on the second. Everything was Spartan.

At 9.00pm the porter locked the main door and, whoever was not inside, had to wait until 6.00am until it was unlocked again. For a twenty year old ambitious economist, as I then was, this rule cried out to be disobeyed. It didn’t take long before I discovered that the cellar of our home was connected to the cellar of the next house. The other house stayed open the whole night. The way into the cellar was barred, but I was probably not the first or the last to disobey this youth unfriendly rule, One of the bars could be pushed aside. When one is young and very slim, a perfect way in.Read More »

Our visit to Ulm

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My youngest (10 years old) had expressed the wish to visit the highest church tower in the world. He said it was in Ulm. I had never been to Ulm, let alone known that there was an architectural sacred jewel there that in addition was even the highest on this earth. My youngest is usually interested in Lego and he has already expressed the wish to visit Legoland. Up to now he has never wanted to climb a distant church tower.

Obviously I drove there, although it takes more than 2 hours by car. Firstly I was also curious and secondly I wanted to support his interest in architecture. Both of us like climbing and the idea of conquering the highest church tower was more than attractive.

And honestly, if you have never been to Ulm, I can only recommend it. Ulm Minster is something you have to have seen. It is imposing, beautiful and has an enormous capacity for 20,000 people. You have to imagine that, when the foundations were laid, it didn’t have so many inhabitants. That’s as if today Zürich built an auditorium for two milllion visitors.

First we visited the interior of the minster. One has an overwhelming feeling, when one sits there and feasts one’s view on all the statues, images and wooden figures. The space feels airy and lends the soul wings. I was very taken by the wooden figures on the choir stalls. We wandered from one to the other and studied them. We wondered who were the people illustrated there, what were their fates?

Actually that was only the prologue to the climb. And the climb was something else. The tower is 161 m high. The next highest tower is the church tower in Cologne with 157m, followed by the one in Strasbourg (142 m) and Vienna with almost 137m (which we have already climbed with my youngest). To us it looked like a competition for: „Who builds the highest tower“.

Even if then the motives were perhaps not so noble, the result is breathtaking in two senses. To reach the tower, one has to take the stone staircase step by step. 768 steps until the top up to the tiny balcony at the very top, which is so narrow that standing aside is not possible without intensive body contact. This balcony is perhaps 150 metres above the ground and the steps are steep. Even if one’s condition is not the best, the motivation to reach the top and look out over the city from the highest point lends one wings. I believe that I have a head for heights, but this narrow staircase with the windows and the view for many kilometres made you overcome the unease. It would not have entered my head to give up, but keeping up with the tempo of my youngest was really a challenge. And he was driven only by the thought of arriving at the top as quickly as possible.

The distant view from the small balcony is phenomenal. Not much is left of the old town, because on 17.12.1944 the allies reduced the city to rubble and ashes. The minster remained unscathed. If that wasn’t intentional!!

After the descent my left knee signaled that I had overstressed it. From the conversations around me I gathered that it had nothing to do with my age, but the others, who had also made the climb, were just as bad. It felt as if I were using the ancient sewing machine of my great-grandmother, on which one had to tread regularly in order to be able to sew at all. My knee was trembling and so made a funny, uncontrollable movement. Fortunately only for a short time.

In the nearby monastery garden Weiblingen, this weekend the middle ages had unfurled. And so we concluded our trip with archery, jugglers, mediaeval music, making pergament, prophecies with mice and many other enjoyable things. We didn’t really want to return home and back to the present. But just as the towers do not grow up to heaven, the fun also comes to an end somewhere.

Paris

Michaela MerzLeave a comment

Years ago I saw Massimo Rocchi’s programme that dealt with France. How he describes the French fascinated me. For him they are the ,,grande nation»». Everything is big, monumental, almost theatrical. That certainly holds good for Paris.

I have already visited Paris on numerous occasions. Reluctantly for business and with great pleasure privately. There is almost always a traffic jam from the airport into the city. Uncertainty whether the taxi journey will last 40 minutes or 2 hours. Many, who can’t speak a word of English.Read More »

What’s important in life

Michaela Merz1 Comment

I was flying home and arrived at the airport a little too early. As it was midday, I went into the airport canteen, which is also open to visitors. I placed my small case by a free table and went to fetch my beloved cucumber salad. When I came back, an old man was seated at my table and wanted to start his lunch.

We greeted each other, wished each other an enjoyable meal and began eating. One word led to another and soon we were deep in an interesting conversation. I asked him, if I were a powerful fairy and he could have a wish, what would be his wish.Read More »