Author: Andrew Reilly
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Waterfront exploration
Last night, at dinner, it occurred to me that we were in the home port of the Origo, the ship that took us around Svalbard back in 2018 (see our Islands of the North Atlantic adventure). There are web pages that will tell you where ships are, based on their AIS signalling systems, so we…
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Big-hotel breakfast
We woke up in time to get to our 9AM breakfast booking (not that there was anyone checking). In the way of big hotels (and this is a big one) breakfast is included in the room rate, and even though the breakfast room is huge, the require you to book a slot in advance. Just…
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Day of rest and day of travel.
We both woke up yesterday clearly sick with the cold I had worried about the previous day. Decided that a day in bed was the answer. Seemed to help. Checked in for our flights and upgraded our seats to front of the bus premium economy to optimize our luggage chances and minimize the transfer time.…
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Weihnachtsmarkt-I, Tiergarten, Schloss Charlottenberg Weihnachtsmarkt-II
Rather than muck up yesterday’s entry I’ll start this one with the bit of extra sightseeing we managed last night, on our way to dinner. We stopped at Alexanderplatz to have a look at the Weihnachtsmarkt that had been set up there (and continued on towards the one down by the Rotes Rathaus). Did not…
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More gentle strolling
On my morning trip upstairs to find coffee, I was alarmed by the clear smell of burning as I stepped into the hall. That persisted in the lifts. And yet there were no fire alarms, and everything seemed to be working. Fetched coffee back down to the room and looked out at the construction site…
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Grand Soviet Architecture, Urban Art-space, Great Food
Today has been a really good day, both for the sight-seeing and the eating. I’ll fill in the details tomorrow, but I’ll just set a placeholder with a couple of pics, for the anticipation…
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Soup and bones
Aah, had to happen eventually: my first post-dated entry. We got back from dinner last night and crashed into bed. The morning had involved a solo-mission on my part, while Cath solidified the plan for the afternoon. I had been disappointed that the camera battery that I’d used the day before had expired so soon,…
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East Side Galery (Kunst auf der Mauer)
So, I missed posting on Friday too. That would be on account of the most excellent dinner we had at Hallmann & Klee, which I’ll get to later. The main thrust of the day was to go and see the East Side Galery, an open air exhibition of murals that had been painted on a…
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Shopping, wandering, then street-food
Got out at the same sort of time as yesterday: about ten-ish, and went to the good coffee shop for coffee and breakfast. Next door to the coffee shop is a hat-and-gloves shop, and we’d left my street gloves at home and Cath wanted a beanie that was warmer than the light ones that she’d…
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A day of two halves
I did a last-minute check of the flight bookings just before leaving Sydney, and was disturbed to discover that the booking reference for the return flight from Svalbard to Tromsø was giving an error. I didn’t have time to investigate then, resolving to figure it out as soon as we were settled in Berlin. Today…