Travel Log
Archive for the ‘General’ Category
I arrived in Madrid at Estación de Chamartin almost exactly on time. Trains so far have been very punctual for both local and long-distance travel. The US airlines could sure learn a few things about scheduling from these folks.
The train station is in the northern part of Madrid and my hostel (MAD Hostel) was in city center. The trip into town was easily accomplished by metro with only one line change. Coming up out of the metro station I pulled out my trusty directions and the required city map I’m ready to head off for the hostel. I’ve started collecting a city map from each Tourist Information office before ever leaving the train station. Unfortunately, the streets around the metro station were nothing like what I saw around me. Okay, now what? Just start walking is my usual method of figuring out where I am. I’ve discovered that there are so any small streets in the historic sections of town that the tourist maps only depict about one out of every six of them. That, coupled with a distinct lack of street signs, can make navigation a challenge. This particular adventure was quickly solved. After wandering down the street for a couple of hundred yards I came upon another entrance to the same station. Ooooops… I exited the station at the wrong place. After locating the correct exit it was easy to follow my directions the 8 blocks to the hostel.
So you can’t visit the French Riviera without making a side trip to Monte Carlo in Monaco so that’s what we did one evening. Four more folks from Australia joined our little group and we jumped on the regional train for the 45-minute trip to Monaco. We decided to go in the evening so that we could see Monte Carlo all lit up at night. The Aussies contingent had been there earlier in the day to play on the beaches but was looking forward to trying their luck at the Casino.
It has been pointed out that I have been really slow at posting pictures. Yeah, yeah, yeah … I know. It's just that pictures take a while to sort through, edit, post, and comment. I am working on them but I am way behind. At last count I have about 2,500 pictures stored on my laptop. I promise I will get them posted as time allows.
Well I had hoped that I could avoid it but it finally happened. My last day in Paris I got my camera stolen. At least I think it got stolen (either that or I left it someplace during my last day’s travels). Whatever the case when I was packing up getting ready to leave Paris for Bruges Belgium it was nowhere to be found. Bummer !!!
There is a bright side to this story. The day before the camera disappeared I copied Stef and Jason’s pictures to my computer so I could burn a CD for them. They didn’t have computers with them and they had both filled up the memory in their cameras. Anyway, after I did their pictures I downloaded all of my Paris pictures to my computer. As a result, I only lost a few pictures (the ones I took on my last day in Paris) but the majority of my pictures where safely stored on my computer. The loss of the camera was a bummer but I would have been much more upset if I had lost my pictures.
So… the first task when I arrived in Bruges Belgium was to go shopping for a new camera. I was lucky because one of the guys working the desk at the Bruges hostel was a camera buff and had several suggestions for where to shop for a new camera. The best deal I found was at a store that I would swear is the European version of Walmart. I’m actually pretty happy with the replacement. Its another Sony but it has a Zeis lens (about as good as you can get) that has a much wider field of view (I can get more into the picture) and it is much more sensitive (ISO 1000 rather than ISO 400) so it works better in low light (many museums and churches will let you take pictures only with no flash). I went for a 512mb memory card too which is twice the space I had in the old camera. So all in all I had to shell out €250 that I hadn’t planned on but I guess it was bound to happen soon or later. I’ve started being more diligent with keeping things locked up. Hopefully it won’t happen again.
My visit to Bruges (or Brugge depending on where you look) was one of those unplanned stops that turned out to be one of the highlights of my travels to date. I originally planned on staying in Brussels Belgium as an intermediate stop between Paris and Amsterdam but I couldn't find a place to stay. So on the advise of other folks in the Paris hostel I book into a hostel in Bruges Belgium instead.
