New York - Day 2

Even if the jetlag made me be awake at 4:30 in the morning it was a wonderful day. Sunny, though quite chilly since the sun reached the pavement rather seldom because of the tall buildings. I certainly need to buy some new outerwear. ;-)
Today we took a stroll through the neighborhood, which is Times Square. Well, it was more a shop-hopping, including a tall coffee at Starbucks.This area is more or less a giant advertisement garden. Most of them are nice to look at, though. People are looking up all the time, like in a art gallery.Here's the first try to use the panoramic feature of my camera.The wind blew through the streets between the skyscrapers, the sun was barely able to provide warmth. Think about buying a cap and gloves for the upcoming visit at the football stadium...


And it was the day of the New York Marathon. We tried to get a glimpse but the course didn't reach Midtown Manhattan. The closest part of it was Central Park South so we went there.
We spent there to cheer for a friend but surrendered to the chilly wind after an hour.
Times Square at night is even more impressing than in daylight. I guess they have a dedicated nuclear power plant just for the lights and these large ad screens in the area..
And a picture of Broadway, where there is no difference in the crowd and traffic between night and day...at least in the theater district where we stay.

New York - Day 1

Finally!! New pictures!!
Taking the trip to New York City as a new starting point here I'll do my best to resurrect this blog site. Yes, New York: I'm there!
After just 9 hours flight we arrived at THE city. The flight was pretty easy. Only remarkable things were the probably oldest cabin crew I've ever seeen (not sure if anyone of them was younger than sixty), the experience of watching 4 full size movies in a row and the second meal: never had pizza and icecream as inflight meal before.
However, everything went smoothly and even the taxi ride to Manhattan was fun, thanks to the entertaining driver and some really nice vistas of Manhattan on the way. We went right into the middle of it, to Times Square. It was pretty exciting in daylight...
..and even more breathtaking at night.
The apartment is luxurious as expected and the owner's wife greeted us with a round of cold beers, don't know if everything could have been better..probably not! :-) And this is the view from the small balcony...22th floor.

Bad Schandau

Again Bad Schandau was destination of an extended weekend trip. Sort of remote but a perfect starting point for exploring the beautiful countryside of the Elbsandsteingebirge. The forrest is as wild as it gets in Germany and the rocks are challenging. Didn't make many pictures this time, don't know why.

One of the days we went to the Czech Republic which is just a couple of kilometers up the river Elbe. Starting point of this day's hiking was Hrensko with the Edmonds gorge where we took a boat.
Then by foot up to the Pravčická brána, a huge stone brigde at 600 meters. This place is private property, we had to pay a fee to enter.
Anyway, I was happy after sitting down with an ice-cold Budweiser :-) in the beergarden right under the stone bridge.

Last day was dedicated to indulgence and renewal of lost energy. It included huge desserts with strawberries.


The final leg of this day's round-trip was a ride on a steamboat on the river Elbe.

Rome - Day 5

No interesting events lately, so I'm going on with pictures of Rome back in March. The fifth day was dedicated to the St. Peter's Basilica. Strangely I haven't made a single picture of the building from the outside. Neither a picture of the Pieta, the most beautiful piece of art among all the beautiful things inside the basilica. Well, this is Rome, an art overkill...
However here are a couple of pictures from inside in random order:










After spending quite some time inside, listening to the almost 50 descriptions of the audio guide, we climbed the cupola.

Best spot I remember from the visit of this building was the roof. It was surprisingly calm, a very welcome retreat, providing rest, a coffee bar and a shop for religious art and souvenirs, where I bought a Vatican bottle opener :-)

Radebeul

Well, in the meantime it's summer already :-) As a break from the weekly business routine we spent a long weekend in Radebeul, near Dresden. It is the perfect getaway location for someone like me. The houses, rolling hills and the vineyards under the blue sky looked pretty much like Tuscany. And it's just a two hours drive from Berlin.



And to make things even better I found another spot for my virtual collection of restaurants at an exceptional vista point. This one is in front of the Spitzhaus, built in 1622, a house where French, Greek and, of course, German Kings slept since then because of the beautiful location. (sorry, took no photo of the house itself, was distracted by the lovely view:-)



Of course we went there for dinner this evening. As a starter I had different kinds of goat cheese with strawberries, flavoured with green pepper and Balsamico vinegar, a surprising good combination..

Then, after fish and meat -yes, I was hungry after climbing the hills the whole day- I had the local Saxonian signature cake, the almost famous Eierschecke for dessert.
I liked it, so we went there again the next day and I had one more of it:-)