"Offbeat" Europe - Rick Steves for CNN - TravelPUNK Backpacker College Student Budget Travel Message Boards!



Go Back   TravelPUNK Backpacker College Student Budget Travel Message Boards! > Backpacker College Student Travel Message Boards > Where ya going? & Specific country info! > Europe: Western

Europe: Western Cafés, castles, architecture, art, wine, the Euro, gastronomy, let´s meet up, and pub crawls.! Oh oui, backpackers paradise...

Raileurope.com: See Europe by train
Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 12-02-2007, 02:35 PM   #1
DC_Jessica
call me Condi!
 
DC_Jessica's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 800
Thanks: 0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
Default "Offbeat" Europe - Rick Steves for CNN

Quote:
(Tribune Media Services) -- No one planning a trip to Europe needs to be reminded to see Big Ben and the Leaning Tower. But it's the unusual experiences that are often the most memorable part of a trip. Study up in advance and you can enjoy places and experiences like these:

Surfing in Munich's English Garden

TV and the downfall of tea
London's Bramah Tea and Coffee Museum is a hit with aficionados of the brown brews. This small museum passionately tells the story of each drink. You'll likely meet the owner, Edward Bramah, who comes from a big tea family. He wants the world to know how the advent of commercial television -- with breaks too short to brew a proper pot of tea -- required a faster hot drink. In came the horrible English instant coffee. The tea industry countered with minced leaves in tea bags, and "it's gone downhill ever since."
Skinny-dipping in downtown Munich
Munich's Central Park, the English Garden, offers a variety of offbeat things to explore. Up to 300,000 locals commune with nature here on a hot summer day, many of them naked. Nudism, denoted by the code letters "F.K.K.," is perfectly legal and widely practiced here -- quite a spectacle to most Americans (they're the ones riding their rental bikes into the river and trees). And here, buried far from the nearest stretch of coast, surfers "hang ten" in the rapids of the city's little river. While seeking their thrills, they provide great entertainment for the ever-present little crowd that gathers to watch from the bridge.
Salzburg's super-soaker prince
Salzburg's 17th-century Hellbrunn Castle entertains with a garden full of trick fountains and tour guides sadistically soaking tourists. At the touch of a button, paths and benches turn into fountains and visitors get doused. It's silly fun, especially with kids on a sunny day.
Don't MissEurope's skinniest park
Paris' skinny, two-mile-long Promenade Plantee park is a narrow garden walk on a viaduct no longer used for train tracks. The elevated park, which cuts through lots of modern condos, gives a fun peek into the workaday lives of Parisians today. Staircases lead to the street level, where artsy, offbeat shops fill the viaduct's arches. The park runs from place de la Bastille, along avenue Daumesnil to Saint-Mande.
Skiing in Edinburgh
If you'd rather be skiing, the Midlothian Ski Centre, just outside Edinburgh, has a brush-skiing hill with a chairlift, two slopes, a jump slope, and rentable skis, boots and poles. While you're actually skiing over what seems like a million toothbrushes, it feels like snow skiing on a slushy day. It's open nearly year round (except, ironically, when it snows). Beware: Local doctors are used to treating an ailment called "Hillend Thumb" -- digits dislocated when people fall and get tangled in the brush.
The tide went out and never came back
Holland is twice as big today as it was 300 years ago. How? By "reclaiming" land from the sea using dikes and windmill-powered pumps. During the process, many tiny islands -- home to traditional fishing villages -- were stranded high and dry and today stand in the middle of Dutch farmland. The fishing village of Schotlan, once on an island in the Zuider Zee, is one such village. The village has a now-useless lighthouse, and you can walk right up to a buoy that once bobbed in the harbor. A bent and rusty propeller from a World War II English bomber ornaments the village square, a reminder that when farmers first tilled their new soil, they uncovered more than just muck and mollusks.
Roman pyramid
You don't need to go to Egypt to see an ancient pyramid. Standing 90 feet tall, Rome's pyramid was built in 12 B.C. as a tomb for the Roman Gaius Cestius, after the Cleopatra and Mark Antony scandal brought exotic Egyptian styles into vogue. Later the pyramid was incorporated into Rome's city wall.
Choco-sightseeing
Along with its rich culture, Europe is loved for its delicious chocolate. All day long, rivers of molten chocolate work their way through factories into small foil packages. While chocolate factory tours are rare, many welcome visitors with museums, showrooms, video presentations and free tasting rooms. Chocoholics love the Imhoff-Stollwerck Chocolate Museum in Koln, Germany. Their self-proclaimed "Mmmuseum" takes you on a tour from the origin of the cocoa bean to the finished product. You can see displays on the culture of chocolate and watch treats trundle down the conveyor belt in the functioning chocolate factory, the museum's highlight.
In my next column, I'll cover more of offbeat Europe. Whether sipping a hot beverage with a tea-vangelist or jogging with Parisians, anywhere in Europe, the unusual sights are a fun way to get some distance from the crowds and lighten up a museum-heavy itinerary.



Rick Steves writes European travel guidebooks and hosts travel shows on public television and public radio. E-mail him at rick@ricksteves.com, or write to him c/o P.O. Box 2009, Edmonds, Wash. 98020.
Copyright 2007 RICK STEVES, DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
I think I witnessed the "x-games" in the park in Munich when I was there. If I remember correctly, we were on our way to or very near where the White Roses memorial was (maybe the building where they were detained...can't remember) when I took this picture. But it was winter, not summer!!


http://www.cnn.com/2007/TRAVEL/getaw...ef=mpstoryview
__________________
"I set out alone, finding no companion to cheer the way with friendly intercourse, and no party of travellers with whom to associate myself. Swayed by an overmastering impulse within me, and a long-cherished desire to visit those glorious sanctuaries, I resolved to quit all my friends and tear myself away from my home."
---Ibn Battuta, CE 1325


Latest travel crushes - Arizona, Morocco, The Baltic States, Tunisia, Portugal, Mexico
DC_Jessica is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-02-2007, 02:45 PM   #2
pinknic38
TPunk Moderator
 
pinknic38's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Sierra Vista, AZ
Posts: 2,829
Thanks: 0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
Send a message via AIM to pinknic38 Send a message via Yahoo to pinknic38 Send a message via Skype™ to pinknic38
Default

ummm I am definately going skinny dipping in downtown munich. I will let you all know how it goes.
__________________
SO FAR: USA, Canada, Mexico, Ireland, Spain, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Kuwait, Qatar, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan
UP NEXT: Mexico, Belize, Honduras, Grand Cayman Islands - Feb 2012


tpunk gallery * twitter
pinknic38 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-02-2007, 08:21 PM   #3
mbo108
TPunk. Recognize.
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Philadelphia
Posts: 1,177
Thanks: 0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
Default

those should be some interesting Facebook pictures!
mbo108 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-02-2007, 10:27 PM   #4
pinknic38
TPunk Moderator
 
pinknic38's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Sierra Vista, AZ
Posts: 2,829
Thanks: 0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
Send a message via AIM to pinknic38 Send a message via Yahoo to pinknic38 Send a message via Skype™ to pinknic38
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by mbo108 View Post
those should be some interesting Facebook pictures!
__________________
SO FAR: USA, Canada, Mexico, Ireland, Spain, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Kuwait, Qatar, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan
UP NEXT: Mexico, Belize, Honduras, Grand Cayman Islands - Feb 2012


tpunk gallery * twitter
pinknic38 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-04-2007, 09:15 PM   #5
lost in texas
TPunk Recognized
 
lost in texas's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Texas
Posts: 446
Thanks: 0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
Default

The English Garden is great. Even aside from the nudity, renting a bike and riding around the park half-drunk is probably my best memory of Munich. The river surfing is badass too! Good times.
__________________
"Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds."
-- FDR
lost in texas is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-04-2007, 11:44 PM   #6
pinknic38
TPunk Moderator
 
pinknic38's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Sierra Vista, AZ
Posts: 2,829
Thanks: 0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
Send a message via AIM to pinknic38 Send a message via Yahoo to pinknic38 Send a message via Skype™ to pinknic38
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by lost in texas View Post
The English Garden is great. Even aside from the nudity, renting a bike and riding around the park half-drunk is probably my best memory of Munich. The river surfing is badass too! Good times.
dude can you get a DUI on a bike in Germany? I know someone from college who almost got a DUI on his bike in the states, which is why I am wondering... LOL
__________________
SO FAR: USA, Canada, Mexico, Ireland, Spain, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Kuwait, Qatar, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan
UP NEXT: Mexico, Belize, Honduras, Grand Cayman Islands - Feb 2012


tpunk gallery * twitter
pinknic38 is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply






Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off



All times are GMT -7. The time now is 01:13 AM.



 

Search Engine Friendly URLs by vBSEO 3.2.0 (Unregistered)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121