London in June (4) – Camden Town

Camden is an inner-city district in the north of London. It is a very colorful place and a center of alternative culture like punk and Goth subcultures. If you stay in London you have to visit this district. I’ve never seen so many tattoo and piercing studios in one street.

The Camden Lock Village reopened in May 2009 so we were lucky to visit it. The market in general is very exciting and if you are there you have to eat in the section along the canal.

They have a vast range of different food from Mexican, Thai, Chinese, Italian etc.. and the places where you can eat it are special. See below:

More pictures of Camden Town.

London in June (3) – Kew Gardens

Kew Gardens

The correct name would be the The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew but usually one says just Kew Gardens. It is a vast collection of living plants (more than 30′000!) and the size is about 300acres. The entry fee is about 11 pounds. More pictures of Kew Gardens.

Rhizotron & Xstrata Treetop Walkway
This walkway gives you the opportunity to walk high above the ground through the tree canopy of sweet chestnuts, limes and deciduous oaks. If you are lucky you see birds, insects, lichens and fungi that rely on these huge organisms. The walkway is about 200 meters long and is really thrilling. You also have a great view of the vast 300 acres of Kew, as well as the London skyline. It is designed by Marks Barfield Architects, the architects of the London Eye. The pioneering structure of the Xstrata Treetop Walkway is an ingenious design based on a Fibonacci numerical sequence, often found in nature’s growth patterns.  And if you have forgotten what the Fibonacci numbers are, here the reminder : 0,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,…

Temperate House
The central part of the Temperate House was designed by Decimus Burton and finished in 1861. It was very expensive and because of financial constraints the construction of the two side-parts was delayed until 1899. It is the largest glasshouse at Kew and the world’s largest surviving Victorian glass structure. It contains plants from Asia, Australia, Pacific Islands and Africa. You can even walk up and view the trees and plants from above.

Waterlily House
It is the hottest and by far the most humid house at Kew. There was immediately a film over my lens from the camera. The Waterlily House contains a large pond with huge lilies surrounded by other heat-loving plants.

London in June (2) – Richmond

A nice day trip you can plan is to visit Richmond and on the way back Kew Gardens. Richmond sits on the south side of the river Thames. If you have a 7-Day Travelcard for zones 1 and 2 (and I remommend to buy one if you stay that long)  the return ticket only costs about 3 pounds. Below you can see the Richmond bridge which was built in the 18th century. 1937 they widened the bridge due to increasing traffic.

We enjoyed the Thameside walkway with the pubs, terraces and beautiful green parks. Again there were lot’s of squirrels in the parks..

Andrea attracting a squirrel…

London in June (1)

The Piccadilly Circus at night is one of my favourite places in London to take pictures. It’s so vivid and colorful that you have lot’s of opportunities to test different modes and parameters for your “perfect” shot. Below are a few examples taken without a tripod. I tried some different ISO values and aperture times to compare the results.

 
1/2s, f10.0, ISO 320

 
1/4s, f7.1, ISO 320

1/20s, f3.5, ISO 320

London – HDR Shots

The Royal Albert Hall. Made from a single RAW.

Piccadilly Circus at Night. Made from a single RAW. 

London Trip (1)

London is one of my favourite cities. We arrived at Stansted Airport and took the Stansted Express train to Liverpool Street (about 45 minutes). We stayed at the Hilton Olympia in Kensington which is easy to access via the tube station Kensington High Street. From there it is about 10 mins to walk. The hotel was wonderful and the breakfast fantastic. I will definitely stay there again.

We explored the city a few days and walked lots of miles Check out the track below.

 London City Trip Details

On the 30th April there was a flash mob from t-mobile at Trafalgar Square. 13′000 people met to sing karaoke,..maybe it’s a new record for the Guinness book. For a surprise Pink performed there as well and all in all it was a fantastic event.

 The full length of the first song is already on youtube.

See all pictures of the London trip in the gallery.

Rhodes 2008 (4 – Final)

West Coast
On the day we had to bring back the rental car we drove to the West coast via Archipolis, Eleousa, Dimylia and Soroni. The west coast near Soroni was more industrial and the beaches were mainly gravel and no sand. The whole coast was very windy and therefore there were lot’s of schools for kytesurfing and windsurfing. Personally I think the east coast with all the bays, sand beaches and less big hotels is more interesting. But if you are a professional surfer or want to learn surfing than the west coast is definitely for you.

Having the car for one week was not enough so we decided to rent another car for 3 days. We wanted to visit Rhodes by Night again and of course our favorite beach the Agathi bay (Golden Sand).

Rhodes 2008 (3)

Epta Piges
We read about Epta Piges and the lake in the forest which is reachable through a 200 meter long tunnel. It wasn’t that far from our hotel, so we decided to go there. Epta Piges, or also called Seven Springs is a place in a green valley where exactly seven springs build a (small)river. Again there were hundreds of tourist which came by bus to eat at the tavern near the river. However going through the tunnel was exciting. It was completely dark and so narrow that you couldn’t turn back even if you wanted to. The tunnel was too small for two people next to each other. We walked several minutes in complete darkness and partly very bad air (from the sweating tourists in front of us). The only noise you hear is the flowing water at the bottom of the tunnel. Unfortunately there was no lake on the other side, only a small dirty pond. So the month July is probably not the best time to visit this place. But – funny enough – nevertheless tourists were taking pictures of this dirty pond.

Rhodes
The ancient Acropolis of Rhodes (Monte Smith) and the old town of Rhodes were really fascinating. We went there in the late afternoon when the main heat was gone and we also hoped to see the sunset on the west coast. The light at about 7 pm was perfect for taking pictures. The contrast and the colors were much better than at noon. First we visited the Acropolis, the theater and the old stadium which was build at about 200 B.C. The stadium is still used today for sport events and as a jogging trail. If you have time watch the sunset over Simi. The changing colors and the reflections in the water is something you have to see.
The town Rhodes itself was amazing. The big walls around the old town and the bombastic entries with the towers look like as if they were built for a Hollywood movie. Most of the small alleys are maintained and while walking through you get a good feeling of how they lived hundreds of years ago.

Rhodes 2008 (2)

Feraklos fortress / Charaki
The other day we went to Charaki and climbed to the Feraklos fortress. About 300m above sea level we had an amazing view of the Agathi Bay and the small Charaki village. To explore more of the south we drove to Gennadi. In the south were less hotels and also less tourists. But I must admit the landscape was also less exciting because everything was so dry and desert like. On the way back we stopped at the Agathi Bay which we think (so far) is the most beautiful bay for swimming on Rhodes (on the east coast). The road to the beach is too small for the tourist buses which is a great advantage. The small amount of people makes this bay so attractive. The water is crystal clear and on both sides of the beach are cliffs and rocks which are excellent for snorkeling.

Moni Tsambika
Moni Tsambika is a spectacular viewpoint. It is a mountain at the coastline about 15 km south east from Faliraki. On the top is a small church and from there you have an amazing view of the coastline. You can drive by car almost to the top. The way up is then only 20 minutes and about 300 steps to the church.

Currently they are renovating the building and therefor they need lots of sand and gravel. There is no road to the top so you have to put it manually there. Whats the best way to bring all the material to the top? It is using the tourists for it. At the starting point you see many little bags all full with sand and gravel and a sign which says that you can help renovating the church by taking some of the bags up to the top. The motivated tourists – which don’t know up front how far it is – take several bags at once and start the way up. Soon they realize that it is not that easy and fast as they thought.

These 300 steps are very exhausting especially with the additional bags and the heat. But the reward is great if you reach the top. You have an 360 degrees view of the island and you helped the people who are renovating the building.

Lindos
Lindos was interesting but not that spectacular as it is described in the travel guide. Lindos has also like Rhodes it’s own Acropolis but we didn’t went up because of the masses of tourists and the extreme heat in the afternoon. The city itself is nice but the small alleys were stuck with tourists and souvenir shops. Nevertheless the city has it’s own authentic character and in the hotel they told us that Lindos by night is even more engaging.

Rhodes 2008 (1)

We started our two week trip to Rhodes at 12pm in Munich. The flight was OK and it took us only 2hr 25mins to get to the Diagoras Airport on the west coast of Rhodes (there is one hour time difference). We rented a car (Suzuki Jeep Jimny) and went straight to our hotel, the Cathrin. The hotel is on the east coast of the isle and very close to the famous Anthony Quinn Bay. They filmed a part of the movie “Die Kanonen von Naverone” in Rhodes and made the isle to millions of people public. It is a small but very beautiful bay with clear water and lots of underwater life.

Faliraki
The hotel is also near Faliraki, a very tourist driven place where most of the main streets are very noisy and full of animators in front of the many bars and discos. As we expected there was also a Mc Donalds, a KFC and even a PizzaHut for the average tourists. If you want party and action all night long (and you have no car) this is probably the right place for you. Street life begins at about 11pm, most people come even later. We thought we could walk from the hotel but we found no proper way to get there by foot. And if you had some cocktails the way back is even more difficult and for sure too long. If you have a car than Faliraki is a bad place for going out. Rhodes City is then definitely the better choice.

Valley of Butterflies (Petaloudes)
The first day we went to the valley of butterflies (Petaloudes). The entry fee was 5 euros and for that you can walk about 2km on a nice trail through the valley along a small river. There were thousands of butterflies and unfortunately also thousands of tourists. They come with buses at about midday and we didn’t knew that. I wasn’t able to take some good macros of the insects because first the light was not the best (too dark in the forest) and second because the masses of people were to noisy for the butterflies. Interestingly there was only one sort of butterflies with orange black wings, the Panaxia quadripunctaria.  
 
Kolimbia was similar to Faliraki but everything was smaller. At the beach is a nice bar with comfy couches and relaxing music. The umbrellas at this beach were with 14 Euros (3 beds) the most expensive ones. The average is about 10 Euro for 2 beds and one umbrella. Most of the time we had 3 beds and two umbrellas for the same price.