On Friday 19th December I took my EasyJet flight to Schiphol (AMS) airport in Amsterdam to meet Dorota. We would have a nights rest before we set off on our 2,746km roadtrip to Poland and back.

We got to Tychy in Poland around 2100 after 1,157km and an 11 hour drive. The best part of the drive there was driving from perfectly flat roads in Germany to passing through the old border control and entering Poland the other side. Video to follow

I will write about the places we visited in more detail later but here is our itinary below.

20th Dec – Amsterdam to Tychy

21st Dec – Tychy

22nd Dec – Drove to Krakow from Tychy
Stary Rynek (Main Market Square)
Brama Florianska (Florian’s Gate)
Barbakan (Barbican)
Bazylika Mariacka (St. Mary’s Basilica) with Oltarz Wita Stwosza (Altar of Veit Stoss), 2m Wooden People, Trumpeter who know one knows

Sukiennice (Sukiennice Cloth Hall) – Middle age cloth hall
Wieza ratuszowa w Krakowie (Town Hall)
Adam Mickiewicz Monument
Wawel – Hill, Castle, Katedra (Cathedral), Dzwon Zygmunta (The Sigismund Bell), Groby Krolewskie (The Royal Tombs), Private and Royal Apartments, Smok, Vistula River (Wista)
Kazimierz Jewish Ghetto – The biggest in Poland

24th – 26th – Polish Christmas in Tychy
Here are some of the Polish dishes we got to enjoy:
Sledzie w Smietanie (Herring in cream) i ziemniaki (with Potatoes)
Smazony Karp (Fried Carp)
Kapusta z grochem (Cabbage with Peas)
Duszone grzyby (Strangled Mushrooms)
Barszcz z uszkami (Borsch with “earlings”, dumplings stuffed with minced meat)
Pierogi z kapusta i grzybami – dumplings with cabbage and mushroom
Kompot z suszowych owocow – dried fruit compote
kaczka z nadzieniem – stuffed duck (with herbs, spices and chicken liver)
Karczek – Pig Neck
Salatki Warzywne – Vegatable Salads
Kielbasa – Sausage
kurczak w galaretce – jellied chicken
Kapusta z grzybami w ciescie francuskim – cabbage with mushroom in French bread
25th Dec – Ice Skating in Pszczyna
27th Dec – Oswiecim /Auschwitz, Brzezinka / Birkenau – the Museum
My first sample of Zapiekanka (Halved baguette topped with mushrooms and Ketchup)

28th – 29th Dec – Czech Republic
Svoboda Nad Upou, Pec Pod Snezkou

30th Dec – Wroclaw
Panorama Raclawicka
Krasnale (Dwarfs)
PRL
Spiz (http://www.spiz.pl/) (Underground pub built within mini Brewery)
Piwnica Swidnicka (http://www.piwnicaswidnicka.com/ Oldest Pub in Europe)
Jatki
Jas i Malgosia (Two buildings)
Garnizon Church & Tower, today Kosciol Sw. Elzbiety (St. Elisabeth’s Church)
Ostrów Tumski (Cathedral Island) with Wroclaw Cathedral
University

2nd – 3rd Jan – Berlin
Feeling extremely rough both with flu and after a near crash experience that day we managed to bear the 1 hour queue to go to the top of the Fernsehturm (TV Tower), the view was ok, but nothing as spectactular as the Eiffle Tower.

The next day we decided to take the easy route and paid for a tour bus to take us to the following:
Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie
Kurfürstendamm – The Protestant Kaiser William Memorial Church (in German: Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche
Dom Aquaree/Sea-Life
Hotel Berlin
Kulturforum, Kemperplatz
Potsdamer Platz
Judisches Museum (Jewish Museum)
Gendarmenmarkt
Alexanderplatz
Friedrichstrabe/Unter den Linden
Brandenburger Tor/Brandenburg Gate
Berlin Hauptbahnhof/Central Station
Flohmarkt
Schloss/Palace Charlottenburg

4th January – Amsterdam then back to Brighton

More to come…

Luckily we had our tickets from museum night which gave us fast entry so we didn’t need to queue up which was great. You get the preferential treatment if you buy your tickets online.

The ground floor is the most interesting with information on the colonies of the Dutch, their relationships with the Spanish, the Golden era and how they lost it all. There were a few open questions in my mind after the visit, such as how Suriname returned back to the hands of the Dutch after the British controlled it and how and when other colonies were returned.

Thinking of colonies I’m not sure what was happening in Amsterdam this weekend, but we saw lots of children in fancy dress with black faces, presumably it has something to do with the slave trade. I’m not to sure on their motivation for this event but it doesn’t seem like the sort of act to be celebrating.

I was surprised to see an exhibition inside of Damien Hirst. After queuing up for about 30 minutes where we were squeezed into a pitch black room. I realised that in fact this was the only piece of work. I’m not too sure what I thought of Damien Hirst’s “For the Love of God”. It did look amazing with the way the light reflects of the diamonds, Photos here of the £50 million disco ball. I’ll let you decide on this one.

If you are into surfing, not the web kind, there are some reasonably good waves which had a few people riding on, I haven’t seen anyone windsurfing there yet but looks pretty good conditions for it, how I am now thinking back to being in Lancelin and wishing i had learned to windsurf… long story cut short, one of the best places in the world to windsurf, but it was too windy for me to learn. There were a few people testing their kites for kiteboarding/kitesurfing which judging by the waves would have been awesome.

I never set foot unto the peir, it didn’t look particularly that interesting, apart from you can bungy jump off the top. A pretty small bungy jump too compared to my AJ Hacket bungy, but it would have been fun i’m sure. I tried to get Dorota to do a tandem one with me, but she wasn’t feeling the excitement.

If i had gone here a couple of hundred years ago, in fact in 1654, i would have probably been killed. As the Battle of Scheveningen was fought here between the English and the Dutch. The amusing thing is that in Britain anyone not in the actual battle would have ran off, but in the Netherlands the dutch stood on the beach to watch! I was curious as to which side won, and to my estonishment from reading the wiki both sides did

“Oddly both sides claimed a victory: the English because of their tactical superiority, the Dutch because the strategic goal of their attack, the lifting of the blockade, had been achieved”

Whilst on the wiki i noticed this interesting piece of trivia:

“There is anecdotal evidence of the name Scheveningen being used shibboleth during WWII to identify German spies: they would pronounce the initial “Sch” differently from Dutch native speakers”

There is an amazing hotel in Scheveningen called the Kurhaus Scheveningen, it was built by ze germans in 1884, and has recently been completely renovated and now is a high class hotel and casino.

So to sum it up, if you’re ever near Amsterdam it is most definitely worth a drive to the beach here, it’s about a 45 minute drive away and so worth it for a nice chilled relaxing day, and dare I say it… almost as nice as Brighton

Kinderdijk is situated in a polder (The Dutch term for land which has been reclaimed from the sea, lakes, or river deltas. The land is bounded by a dike, is drained, and is maintained by pumping.) at the the Lek and Noord rivers.

The Alblasserwaard polders are situated below sea level so these windmills were built to drain the excess water, this water is sluiced into the river Lek. These mills are the biggest concentration of old windmills in the Netherlands.

These dutch windmills are possibly the best known tourist site within the Netherlands are were placed on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list in 1997.

It was really interesting to have a look around the inside of one of these old windmills, they are much bigger inside than they appear. However I’m pretty sure they didn’t have plasma screens in back in the 16th Century. We had a little boat ride up the polder to look at the windmills… they were great but once you’ve seen one windmill you’ve seen them all.

“First and foremost, World Press Photo is known for organizing the world’s largest and most prestigious annual press photography contest. Prizewinning photographs are assembled into a traveling exhibition that is visited by over two million people in some 45 countries worldwide. A yearbook presenting all prizewinning entries is published annually in six languages.”

Oude Kerk means old church, it’s the oldest church in Amsterdam. Obviously quite a creative name

The exhibition was great, what was even better was to see photos which weren’t perfect, but were technically bad, but showing meaning and making you think about the situation.

Photo of the Oude Kerk by devo_andare