Short break for everything but resting

Hello again! My second of three consecutive weeks of dedicated flying has just ended, and while I will talk about the latest experiences and some photos from that later, first I'll talk about my vacation in July.

In the end of June I had just completed four flight lessons and had a week of theory studies before the holiday. On Wednesday July 5th, we had our last theory class, and on the next day I packed my rucksack and took bus and train to Lund, changed to the train for Denmark and went to Copenhagen. There I met my friend Jacob from Uppsala and we boarded another train to Hamburg, this time using our Interrail passes for (mostly) free travel in all of Western Europe.

After having changed train again in Hamburg we arrived in Berlin in the evening (Thursday), and took the U-Bahn (metro) to Alexanderplatz, where our hostel was located. Then we spent two days sightseeing in Berlin. We climbed the TV tower, saw a lot of Berlin wall graffiti, ate currywurst, visited the stasi museum and more. Satisfied on Saturday evening, we boarded the night train to Basel on the border to Swtizerland. Having arrived on Sunday morning, we continued to Bern for a calm day of sightseeing in a city that unfortunately didn't offer much on a Sunday except nice weather.

On the next day we climbed the cathedral of Bern and then the nearby mountain Gurten, and otherwise mostly relaxed walking around in the very beautiful town. I even swam in the intensely green river dividing the city, it was quite cold and also rapid. After two days in Bern, on Tuesday morning we head south again. Because our train from Bern to Milano was delayed we missed our connection to the French border and we had to wait a while for a slower train why our arrival was delayed three whole hours... Around 11 hours after departure from Bern we finally arrived in Monaco and spent the evening there.

Monaco was really fascinating being a beautiful and modern tiny city. It felt like someone dug up two square kilometers of the finest parts of Paris and put them on a steep hill by the French riviera coastline. The view was fantastic indeed. Satisfied after just a few hours in Monaco, we took the local train for 20 minutes to Nice, and checked in at the hostel there. And we were relieved that the only hostel we used with air-conditioner was the place where we needed it the most.

On Wednesday we stayed in Nice, walked around the Old town, climbed a hill by the sea and just relaxed on the beach with a few swims in the warm water. The weather was really warm and sunny so it was a great day. Then on Thursday morning we took the TGV to Paris. Being the fastest conventional rail service on earth right now it was a highlight, really nice. In Paris where I've visited before, we climbed the Eiffel tower to the second floor, walked the Champs-Élysées, climbed the Arc de triomphe and saw the Louvre.

On Friday around lunch, after seeing Notre dame, we took the last train of our joint travel: Thalys to Amsterdam. In Amsterdam I only had an afternoon and evening, so we hurriedly saw some parks, museums, governmental buildings and statues etc., finishing by visiting the Red light district, without entering anywhere... While Jacob stayed in Amsterdam two more days before taking another train back to Sweden, I left on Saturday morning flying with Ryanair from Weeze to Skavsta. Weeze being located past the border to Germany 3.5 hours by bus from Amsterdam, and Skavsta 4 hours from Falun by bus+train it was a quite tiring end of the trip.

In Falun for the remaining two weeks of my summer holidays, I did a few skydives, visited friends and family and returned via Uppsala to Ljungbyhed on Saturday-Sunday July 28-29.

Photos:

Berlin TV tower in Alexanderplatz close to our hostel. As most of you know, I love high places so I could not *not* go up there.

A part of the Berlin wall. On the other side there was a lot of art with political satire etc.

The former Stasi headquarters, now a pretty interesting museum. Stasi was a very scary organisation...

The legendary Tempelhof airport is a huge park since a couple of months only. Quite popular it seemed.

Bern. The unestimated Swiss capital. Small city but very beautiful.

 

Monaco. Really nice, unfortunately most people will never have the privilege of being able to live here.

 

Nice. Very touristy but still really nice place for relaxing and sea swimming.

TGV, the pride of France.

 

Paris was as superb a tourist destination as ever.

 

My friend Rembrandt and a part of the Red light district.

 

I'm still not sure if the extra 5 hours of travel by choosing Ryanair instead of another airline was worth the saved roughly 500 kronor... Anyway, I'm so looking forward to work in such a beauty, with this surrealistic but fantastic view.

Back home in Dalarna again. We do have a very beautiful landscape as well, even though I'm quite used to it.

Canoeing in Runn, it's nice to do this kind of fun simple activities about once a year.

My grandmother visited me on the skydiving camp in Orsa in northern Dalarna. My family's dog Zorro came along.