Holidays

take a jumper

 

Get a 24 hour visa at Check Point Charlie and cross over to East Berlin. You will have to change 20 DM to Ost Marks (1 for 1) and once over you will find nothing to spend it on...oh and they will xray your toothpaste and everything and confiscate any written material so leave it all behind. Still well worth the experience.

 

I've been twice this year - it's a great city to visit. However, if you go to Berlin and don't visit the Alt Berliner Wirtshaus to have a mixed grill then you've totally wasted your trip. It's the oldest restaurant in Berlin, the food is amazing and so is the beer. I love a mixed grill and it's the best one I've ever eaten across the globe.

Also, be prepared to see ampleman shops everywhere - a national obsession with the green man on traffic lights.

 

Ampel not ample



Das war's

 

Brauhaus Lemke by The Charlottenburg Palace is great for beer (they brew it on the premises) and the food is unbelievably good.

 

That's an Alan Partridge TV show right there. 'Around the world in 80 mixed grills'.

 

I'd love to host it.

 

'A Moog among the pigeons'

 

Bump....


Me and my Girlfriend like to do a pre Christmas trip every year, but we can't this year for various reasons and will have to do mid Jan instead. Any one got an recommendations of European City breaks at this time of year? I really want to do Barcelona or Rome but feel they're more summer trips? (Barca are conveniently playing Granada the weekend i'd be looking to go...)

 

Sevilla ... Beautiful and arty city and if it's sunny it will be warmer than anywhere else.

Get p!ssed, enjoy the flamenco.

 

I had a look at Copenhagen but it's quite a bit more expensive than closer European cities. I really want to go Reykjavik as well but someone told me in winter they only get 4 hours of daylight, which put me off a bit!

 

It shouldn't. I went there in January and the place was in its element. Don't forget their whole society is built around shorter days and long nights. They're geared up for it and I personally think you'd miss out on half the experience if you timed your visit to avoid it. It wasn't even that cold. Around 0c-2c most days although mid-blizzard as we arrived which lasted a few hours. Certainly expensive at times but nothing too astonishing.

3 nights is plenty in my opinion. It's a small island don't forget. You can certainly see all the major sights in that time and still have time at leisure in the city. I suppose if you wanted to spend every minute outside doing adventure/extreme stuff though you'd need more time. It just depends where your interests lie.

 

If you live in the South East of England there is nowhere you can travel on this planet and be shocked by prices.

 

Except buying fruit in Japan.

 

Think we've decided on Barcelona, any tips? Recommendations? Best places to stay etc? All greatly appreciated!

Also has anyone bought Barca tickets before, is that easy? It seems easy enough, although getting 2 together looks like a nightmare.

 

I am having an unprecedented 2 holidays next year.

Firstly for Mrs Peel’s 40th we’re on a surprise trip to one of the Centre Parcs in Holland in Feb half term. It’s actually £200 cheaper for the 4 of us to take the car on the ferry and have 4 nights there, plus a night in Rotterdam than it is to drive 10 miles and stay at the Woburn one for 3 nights in half term. Obscene prices over here.

Summer holiday is 5 nights in Serbia before flying to Rome and driving up to a holiday park near Florence for 10 days.

 

Went a couple of years back and took a metro down to the ground to buy tickets on the day of the match. It was very easy, but they restrict the number you can buy, (think it was 8 each). One strange thing, the seat numbering appears that you're not together, (IE A1, A3, A5 etc.). They were next to each other but just not in the way we're used to. If it's not sold out then there's loads of seats around where you can just go and sit, (we were in the cheapest, highest, part).
On the way down to the ground we asked if they sold beer inside the ground and were told they do. When we got in we found it was non-alcoholic!

We found a cheap hotel really close to Las Ramblas which is the liveliest part. Find a good Irish pub for the best breakfasts and then the backstreets for all other meals.

Pickpockets will be watching you, take precautions, it's a nightmare city for that.

When I went Hornetboy1 on here was very good with advice, PM him.

 

Me and the girlfriend just got back from Copenhagen. I'll leave the tourist tips elsewhere but we dined out in proper kebab shops, pizzas that were made from scratch in front of you and sold for a fiver. Joined the locals on the steps outside. Dive bars do happy hour all night if you don't mind drinking carlsberg (the proper sort, not our chemical crap). Between that and a room in an airbnb the cost came to 700 for two of us including flights from Luton, and we saw everything we wanted. That was three nights as well.

The only thing that truly shocked me was paying 7 quid for a cappuccino, so I had quite a few beers...

 

We didn't and that is largely because of the huge amount of research I did for Lisbon, where the card is a rip off. I had a brief look at it but overall none of the attractions really cost that much, the main expense is food and drink.

Tivoli Gardens was a bit too child friendly and I probably wouldn't bother going there in the day time, but think it would have been great in the evenings even without kids. We got the entrance only ticket, and definitely should have got the more expensive one that included rides. Definitely worth going though.

Didn't do the aquarium unless you mean the one inside Tivoli... Which was 5 quid entry on top of the park itself... And had about 3 tanks of underwhelming fish.

Happy to give a gipo guide to enjoying Copenhagen if the demand is there!

 

Sorry, gypo. Guess it derives from gypsy but Ive just always heard it used to mean cheaper than cheap. Which I am!

 

Just Belgrade. With a 7 and 8 year old in tow, its difficult to get around.

I've been before but need to get my Balkans fix and really enjoyed it there. I'd like to get to Nis and Novi Pazar, but maybe another time.

 

Just back from 2 weeks in California. Went to San Francisco, Monterey, Cambria, Santa Barbara, Santa Monica and San Diego. Fantastic time. Decided I'm going to live in California one day.

 

We didn't have a holiday this year as we couldn't afford it, because it is austerity time.

Last year we had a day at Bournemouth on the beach. We looked at getting one of those beach huts for the day, but it was too rich for our blood. We saved money by taking my big green fishing umbrella to sit under and did not hire deck chairs. We arrived very early in the morning so that we could park on the street and not have to pay for a car park. Of course, we took our own sandwiches and flask.

We had a great time. We walked down to the main part of the town to look at that and to see the pier, but it was too expensive to go on the pier and is only electronic machines anyway. We also walked round a gardens thing they have there. It was a great holiday, but not long because it was only the one day.

The year before that, we had a whole four days in Blackpool. We managed to find a very cheap room at the top of a big house that was used for stag parties at the weekends, but not in the week, so there were enough beds for all of us, but a little basic and many stairs. We still had a good time though. On the last day, we paid to go in the Pleasure Gardens so the kids could go on all the rides. They really enjoyed it, but it was very expensive and we regretted it afterwards because we were paying that off for a long time!

 

i just got back from paraty. i was planning on going to ilha grande too but the weather has been **** on the coast for a couple of weeks so i've decided to come back to sao paulo and then tomorrow head off to either bonito or ouro preto/belo horizonte. any recommendations welcome

 

Clive, never, ever change.

 

So sad :sad1: Is Christmas cancelled too!

 

I'm off to Barcelona tomorrow, if anyone has any last minute tips?

 

Don't get pick-pocketed.