Off Topic Holidays

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Ric Glasgow said:
Was there a fortnight ago and had 4 or 5 lovely days and a couple cloudy-ish....It'll improve for you hopefully :emoticon-0148-yes:
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According to the weather app it will be about 10 degrees warmer on Wednesday. We come home Wednesday!!! (The weather gods are not looking after me and it means we have to spend more time in the bars, such a shame).
 
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Bumping the holiday thread as its summer and I'd like to read about where you've all been or where you are off to.

We did our Copenhagen trip recently and can recommend for a city break. Lovely place, very nice mix of old and modern architecture, a very young feel with so many bicycles, like the best bits of Amsterdam, lots of water and canals only cleaner. More Nordic than I expected and similar to Stockholm but more local Danish shops and restaurants than the usual global brands and zero homeless, crime, migrant groups or begging on the streets which they manage to do a bit better than Sweden from inside the EU. Cheaper transfers from the airport than Stockholm as well. Also managed to do the Carlsberg brewery trip.
 
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Did a tour of Cairo and a Nile cruise earlier this year. New Egyptian museum a must visit place ( biggest est museum in the world). Only opened in November, Pyramids are mind boggling. Nile cruise taking in Valley of the Kings , Kharnack and Abu Simbal, Just got back from a tour of Romania taking in Transylvania where I visited Bran castle and Vlad the implalers home town before doing a quick tour of Bucharest taking in deposed Romanian president ceausescu's Palace, second biggest building in the world after the Pentagon.August I will be in Stockholm for a family wedding and will finish the year off in October with a tour of Japan.
 
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Donatella Anybody said:
Did a tour of Cairo and a Nile cruise earlier this year. New Egyptian museum a must visit place ( biggest est museum in the world). Only opened in November, Pyramids are mind boggling. Nile cruise taking in Valley of the Kings , Kharnack and Abu Simbal, Just got back from a tour of Romania taking in Transylvania where I visited Bran castle and Vlad the implalers home town before doing a quick tour of Bucharest taking in deposed Romanian president ceausescu's Palace, second biggest building in the world after the Pentagon.August I will be in Stockholm for a family wedding and will finish the year off in October with a tour of Japan.
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Deposed Romanian dictator to be accurate.
 
Anybody have experience of Japan/China on vacation, none of my family have been so can't get first hand info off them looking at 18 nights roughly around march and partner wants to see panda's, any places we could look at see what they like if anyone has visited nice places, can obviously see nice images but does not really give out what places are really like.

Thanks in advance.
 
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Donatella Anybody said:
Did a tour of Cairo and a Nile cruise earlier this year. New Egyptian museum a must visit place ( biggest est museum in the world). Only opened in November, Pyramids are mind boggling. Nile cruise taking in Valley of the Kings , Kharnack and Abu Simbal, Just got back from a tour of Romania taking in Transylvania where I visited Bran castle and Vlad the implalers home town before doing a quick tour of Bucharest taking in deposed Romanian president ceausescu's Palace, second biggest building in the world after the Pentagon.August I will be in Stockholm for a family wedding and will finish the year off in October with a tour of Japan.
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Message DBT for Japan advice if you’ve not been before. We were there last month and his input was very helpful. Japan is great, Tokyo is awesome.
 
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We visited Thessaloniki in northern Greece recently. Lovely place but every surface seemed to be covered in graffiti. Must be a Greek thing, Athens was similar.
 
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Donatella Anybody said:
Did a tour of Cairo and a Nile cruise earlier this year. New Egyptian museum a must visit place ( biggest est museum in the world). Only opened in November, Pyramids are mind boggling. Nile cruise taking in Valley of the Kings , Kharnack and Abu Simbal, Just got back from a tour of Romania taking in Transylvania where I visited Bran castle and Vlad the implalers home town before doing a quick tour of Bucharest taking in deposed Romanian president ceausescu's Palace, second biggest building in the world after the Pentagon.August I will be in Stockholm for a family wedding and will finish the year off in October with a tour of Japan.
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I found Stockholm a very easy place to navigate round by tram but the best tip I can give is that if you do go to the museum district, go one way by tram and then return by the public ferry that leaves next to the Vark museum. The Vasa is well worth a few hours, but I enjoyed the Vark museum more as I have dived out there. I would recommend the food in the Vark museum for lunch as well.
 
1MoreAgain said:
Dennis?
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Yes. He gave us great advice on the different areas of Tokyo. Using the metro was easy once you get the hang of it. Buy a Suica travel card at any metro station, easy to top up and metro travel is very cheap anyway, and any balance left on the card can be spent at 7/11 stores or at the airport.
Definitely get an eSIM and use Google Maps to get around, and book the Sumo Experience show it’s hilarious.
 
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Muffinthegoat said:
Yes. He gave us great advice on the different areas of Tokyo. Using the metro was easy once you get the hang of it. Buy a Suica travel card at any metro station, easy to top up and metro travel is very cheap anyway, and any balance left on the card can be spent at 7/11 stores or at the airport.
Definitely get an eSIM and use Google Maps to get around, and book the Sumo Experience show it’s hilarious. :emoticon-0102-bigsm :emoticon-0102-bigsm
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Thanks for that Muffin will message Dennis see if he can gives us some advice.
 
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Muffinthegoat said:
We visited Thessaloniki in northern Greece recently. Lovely place but every surface seemed to be covered in graffiti. Must be a Greek thing, Athens was similar.
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I went to Thessalonika in the height of Greece's financial problems and I expected it to be quiet. It wasn't, it was buzzing. On the subject of graffiti, its the same in Lisbon, although somehow it works and doesn't put you off.
 
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originalminority said:
Bumping the holiday thread as its summer and I'd like to read about where you've all been or where you are off to.

We did our Copenhagen trip recently and can recommend for a city break. Lovely place, very nice mix of old and modern architecture, a very young feel with so many bicycles, like the best bits of Amsterdam, lots of water and canals only cleaner. More Nordic than I expected and similar to Stockholm but more local Danish shops and restaurants than the usual global brands and zero homeless, crime, migrant groups or begging on the streets which they manage to do a bit better than Sweden from inside the EU. Cheaper transfers from the airport than Stockholm as well. Also managed to do the Carlsberg brewery trip.
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Bratislava and Riga so far this year. Got 16 nights booked in Italy/Slovenia/Croatia later in the summer.
 
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The Omega Man said:
I found Stockholm a very easy place to navigate round by tram but the best tip I can give is that if you do go to the museum district, go one way by tram and then return by the public ferry that leaves next to the Vark museum. The Vasa is well worth a few hours, but I enjoyed the Vark museum more as I have dived out there. I would recommend the food in the Vark museum for lunch as well.
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Agree, we did the Vasa ship and the Abba museum there then ferry boat back which gives you the view of all Stockholm from the water. Forgot they have old trams which they don't have in Copenhagen. For a similar experience do the canal boat trip from Copenhagen's Nyhavn and you'll see a similar view including the Little Mermaid, great Scandinavian cities.
 
1MoreAgain said:
Anybody have experience of Japan/China on vacation, none of my family have been so can't get first hand info off them looking at 18 nights roughly around march and partner wants to see panda's, any places we could look at see what they like if anyone has visited nice places, can obviously see nice images but does not really give out what places are really like.

Thanks in advance.
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I wouldn’t try to do Japan and China unless you have more than 18 days. I reckon three weeks is about right for Japan alone. Depending on time of year, consider including Ishigaki/Iriamote for a completely different/wonderful experience including rain forest in the latter. You can usually get reduced tickets if you have bought a long-distance flight. The post towns on the Nakasendo Way are fascinating - you can walk a stretch of the path (make sure you ring the bells to scare off bears - a number of people are killed each year in bear attacks). Tokyo is great, Kyoto and Osaka too. The castles at Himeji and Matsumoto are fantastic. Cherry blossom season at the end of March/beginning of April is the best time to go. Beware of typhoon season, especially in Okinawa. Watch Michael Portillo’s latest series on Japanese train journeys for some ideas.
 
tigermaul said:
I wouldn’t try to do Japan and China unless you have more than 18 days. I reckon three weeks is about right for Japan alone. Depending on time of year, consider including Ishigaki/Iriamote for a completely different/wonderful experience including rain forest in the latter. You can usually get reduced tickets if you have bought a long-distance flight. The post towns on the Nakasendo Way are fascinating - you can walk a stretch of the path (make sure you ring the bells to scare off bears - a number of people are killed each year in bear attacks). Tokyo is great, Kyoto and Osaka too. The castles at Himeji and Matsumoto are fantastic. Cherry blossom season at the end of March/beginning of April is the best time to go. Beware of typhoon season, especially in Okinawa. Watch Michael Portillo’s latest series on Japanese train journeys for some ideas.
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Thanks Tigermaul, but partner wants china and i want japan sounds like some really nice places there we both like Rain Forests, i must remember to tell her not to ring the bells incase she wakes the bears up :emoticon-0138-think

Will note the places you mentioned and put them with the ones DBT gave me earlier see what sort of trip we can do.
 
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