2014 tagged posts

In Food & Drinks, Japão 2014 On  31/12/2014  No comments

Sorry, this entry is only available in Português.

In Food & Drinks, Japão 2014 On  04/12/2014  No comments

Sorry, this entry is only available in Português.

In + More..., Food & Drinks, United Arab Emirates On  10/11/2014  No comments

In Dubai, at Al Fahidi historical neighborhood I saw a restaurant sign “Camel Burger”. I didn’t resist it. I tried for the first time camel meet. I thought it tasted like other burgers, but this had a cinnamon taste on it. Maybe that was to disguise the camel taste or it was only a local culinary practice. Concluding: approved!

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In Asia, United Arab Emirates On  09/11/2014  No comments

Dubai

Dubai’s tour has two lines: blue and red. I started my day in the blue line which goes to the beach and the financial center of the city. Dubai has high temperatures the whole year through. Now, in the fall, it was a “mild” 35°C. In summer, daily temperatures are higher than 40°C, so the beach should be one of the main attractions of the city.  Unfortunately, like in most Islamic countries, it’s mainly for tourists. Jumeirah has some beach clubs that, depending on the day, are women only. I imagine that might be mostly visited by the locals and not so much by foreigners.

My first stop was Jumeirah Public Beach. From there you can see the famous Burj Al Arab. I’ve seen a documentary on the construction of this luxurious hotel and that made me want to see it from up close. Burj Al Arab is considered a 7 stars hotel and was built on an artificial island. The building’s base is made of 230 concrete spikes embedded in the sand...

In United Arab Emirates On  08/11/2014  No comments

Dubai is a big, spread out city with limited options of transportation. Cabs are expensive and the different attractions are pretty far away. That’s why one of the best options to move around the city is taking a Hop-On Hop-Off tour. This way you’re free to stop anywhere you want, for as long as you want, without depending on any group or having to follow someone carrying an umbrella. My choice was BigBus Dubai. I recommend the 48h ticket. It’s not so much more expensive than the 24h ticket and a day is not enough to get to know this interesting city.

Sharjah

I started my BigBus tour in Sharjah, a city next to Dubai. More conservative than her modern neighbor, Sharjah is a big city with broad avenues and residential buildings. Everything looks quite modern too, like a newly built city. The tour takes 3,5 hours and has two stops. The first one was on The Heritage Area, an historical Center rebuilt with traditional style houses and little museums...

In Berlin, Europe On  15/10/2014  No comments

Lenara Verle, my guru for cultural activities in Berlin, told me about the tours organized by Berliner Unterwelten. It is an association focus on the city’s underground history and tours. The autumn arrived and this is the last month of the Tour 2 – From Flak Towers to Mountains of Debris. The days I could make it, there was only tour in German. So I invited Lenara to come with me. After all, my German is “reasonable” but hers is very good. See Lenara’s log bellow.

Invited by Errante, I joined a tour inside the ruins of a flak tower in Humboldthain Park. The tour is offered by the Berlin Underground Association, a group that explores many underground structures connected to Berlin’s history, including bunkers, tunnels, sewage ducts, pneumatic mail networks and others. Their many volunteers help with digging, cleaning and rehabilitating abandoned spaces, transforming them into small museums and locations for guided tours.

In this tour we visited the one flak tower remaining of thre...

In Adventure, Cycling tour, Cycling in Germany, Europe On  29/08/2014  No comments

When I moved to Berlin I found out about the cycling route from Berlin to Copenhagen and planned to do this summer. After the experience traveling alone on the Elberadweg, I was prepared to Copenhagen. I decided to do the inverse way, starting in Copenhagen and come back home little by little. The plan was to do alone the Danish part of the trip and, in Rostock, meet Katharina Funke to travel together the German part.

It was a 7-day trip. If you want follow our steps, bellow you have the gpx file of each day to download. On this trip I decided not to do travelog, only some points “highlights” of each day. On the German part, Katharina wrote the travelogues.

See the posts of each stage:

• From Berlin to Copenhagen by train
• day 1: Copenhague – Rødvig (88.10km) gpx
• day 2: Rødvig – Stege/Møn (82.51km) gpx
• day 3: Stege – Marielyst (78,33km) gpx
• day 4: Marielyst – Güstrow (124,32 km – 50km ferry) gpx
• day 5: Güstrow – Wredenhagen (79,87 km) gpx
• day 6: Wredenhagen – Linum (86,86km) gpx

In Cycling tour, Cycling in Germany, Europe On  27/08/2014  No comments

Route day 7: Linum – Tietzow – Börnicke – Schönwalde-Glien – Hakenfelde – Havel – Berlin Spandauer Schifffahrtskanal – Berlin

• This was the last day of the trip. We woke up with the feeling of “goal achieved”, after all, we were near Berlin.
• The route was crowded, there was more cars and bicycles on the roads. Near Berlin we got by mistake a part of the mauerradweg and later we had to back to the previous route.
• At our arrival in Berlin, for me the landmark was crossing the Wasserstadtbrücke. By that I felt I had finshed the journey from Copenhagen to Berlin. We stopped to take a photo on the bridge. The phrase “wir haben es geschafft” (yes we made it) was in our minds.
• We had a lunch stop at Restaurant Fährhaus. Enjoying the arrival on a sunny day looking at boats, river and being home…

Day total: 60.05 km – 4h:12m:46s (gpx)

Weather was still cold in the morning and we stayed inside till the temperatures went a little higher...

In Adventure, Cycling tour, Cycling in Germany, Europe On  26/08/2014  No comments

Route day 6: Wredenhagen – Wittstock – Dossow – Fretzdorf – Katerbow – Kränzlin – Neuruppin – Buskow – Linum

• Our first stop was in Wittstock, we wanted to see the wall around the city. We cycled a bit around the wall and continued our way.
• In Neuruppin we stopped for lunch at the lake shore and got some sun to heat up the skin a bit.
• Later we decided to innovate and do a new track, create a new route. We went through a almost deserted forest and the tracks were very confusing. We had to stop a few times to look at the gps location. In one of these stops we met a man came to talk to us and told us the right direction. He was going to another way. Few minutes later we saw that he was following us. We got a bit tense because he said he was going the opposite direction. When he reached us he said he want to accompanied us so we don’t get lost. He seems to be a lonely man, just wanted to chat a bit. I was luck that I was with Katharina...

In Adventure, Cycling tour, Cycling in Germany, Europe On  26/08/2014  No comments

Route day 5: Güstrow – Inselsee – Marienholf – Krakow am See – Malcow – Kepkow – Wredenhagen

• In this part of the journey there was no more head wind. It was cold but there was no strong wind.
• We passed by many lakes and small towns on their shore.
• In Malchow I ate the best fish sandwich of my life. Nothing better than fresh local fish smoked or marinated.
• After days cycling by corn plantations on the Elba river (Elberadweg) and here (Berlim-Copenhague) I felt like eating corn. My desire was fulfilled on our dinner in Wredenhagen. Katharina prepared an excellent herbs butter to go with the cooked corn.

Day total: 79.87 km – 6h:17m:31s (gpx)

Waking up to eight degrees Celsius in Güstrow (who forgot to tell Petri that August is supposed to be summer in Germany?) we left the bed and breakfast at 8.50 am. The sun and a few clouds were greeting us on our way along side the beautiful lakes and through the old coniferous forests next to Mühl and Kirch Rosin...