First-person travel notes, city stories, photos, and videos from the Travel Map archive.
#Amsterdam Of course, I got around the city by renting a bike. I registered with Donkey Republic, which allows you to borrow bike shares from parking stations. The starting fee is €1.0, followed by €0.5 every 15 minutes. Overall, it's cheaper than using…
#Amsterdam In my first post, I wrote that I stayed outside the city center. I usually don't do that, especially in new cities, but I made an exception this time. Why? Of course, it's because of the prices, damn it! It seems the city authorities have banned…
And... I've finally arrived in #Amsterdam! I'd love to show you all the beauty of this old city right away, but my hotel is far from the center! So the nearby landscapes look something like this. And in general, most of the Netherlands looks like this. The…
In parallel with the story about Europe, I'm preparing for my next trip to Asia, which is just a few weeks away. The itinerary included 2 weeks in China, so I had to apply for a visa. It wasn't complicated at all - the documents required were much fewer…
A spoiler for the next city in my journey) #Amsterdam
#Vienna #Review The final post about Vienna, where I spent a modest 4 days, but gained a lot of good impressions! I want to start by saying that this is one of the most beautiful big cities in Europe. I can't imagine my life in a small town, so I always…
I decided to collect all the cities I've been to by tags, so that when someone needs it, it'll be easier to find them. For some reason, Telegram implemented a stupid system where the hashtag search is globally available across all open channels by default.…
#Vienna I think most Russian-speaking readers, like me, imagine Orthodox churches as white stone buildings with large golden domes. But after several trips to various European countries, I've concluded that the type of ornamentation shown in the photo is…
#Vienna An unconventional way to light up your street😁
#Vienna Many houses in the center of Vienna clearly look either new or restored. How do they manage to do this?) The answer didn't take long to come - on the very first day, I came across a crane working right in the middle of a residential area, and a team…
#Vienna Compact courtyards, helping to slightly escape from the sometimes oppressive monumentality of the city.
#Vienna A few more fragments from the central street Graben, with the beautiful Peter's Church and St. Stephen's Cathedral.
#Vienna I'm walking around the city and I see a huge stone column in the middle. There's a children's park nearby. I think it might be some kind of water tower? Or an art installation? I decided to look it up online... 👀
#Vienna And here are the real palaces!
#Vienna This is what the evening city center and the main pedestrian street of Vienna, modestly named Graben, look like. Despite the active motorization of Europe in the second half of the 20th century, in 1974, the street was completely given over to…
#Vienna Here's a brand-new station for sightseeing cruises built in the center of Vienna. Some ferries sail around the city, and on others, you can reach Bratislava via the Danube.
#Vienna At some point in history, the architects' imagination went haywire, and these round entrances to the metro started appearing all over the world. For clarification - the first photo is in Vienna, the second is in Toronto.
#Vienna To be honest, there are still "works of art" by European modernists near my accommodation. It's clear that they're repainting them regularly, but the buildings still look quite dull. They could at least slap some art on the bare walls.
#Vienna It's really hard to choose accommodation in a city you've never been to, but it's actually hard to go wrong with Vienna - I didn't see any bad areas here. Of course, the prices are steep - 84 USD per night for a studio apartment outside the central…
The next city on my European route was the capital of Austria - #Vienna. The snow-white facades of majestic houses in the classical style immediately identify this city. Every second building in the center seems like a small palace that accidentally turned…
#Review #Munich I spent just 3 days in Munich, encountering not the most pleasant weather. Therefore, I'll refrain from a detailed review - maybe I should come here in the summer instead. But honestly, after visiting several German cities (Berlin,…
#Munich If you want to explore beyond Munich, but the idea of driving three hours to Neuschwanstein doesn't appeal to you, there's a much more historically significant alternative. From the central station, you can reach a small town called Dachau in an…
#Munich A night walk around the city I stopped by a couple of bars, and the crowd was really nice. There were many people from other parts of Germany and Europe, who mostly come here to work or study. But it's hard to become a local here. The Bavarians are…
#Munich Breaking the rules 😏
#Munich On the streets of Munich, almost all of the popular German architectural styles of the 19th and 20th centuries are represented. Houses with arches and towers? - most likely it's Jugendstil, German Modernism. Rows of windows along the streets,…
#Munich The Munich City Hall is an excellent example of Neo-Gothic architecture. If you think about it, on a sunny day, it's a quite beautiful palace building, but on a rainy day, it just becomes extremely gloomy. It even made me want to go to Edinburgh…
#Munich Do the tenants of this house go to their own organic supermarket?)
#Munich The central district of the city, also known as the local patricians' quarter. Here, in a historic building, is the Mandarin Oriental hotel (considered the best in Munich), and just behind it is the largest beer hall, Hofbräuhaus. There's a lot of…
#Munich 🤨
#Karlsruhe #Munich At the request of readers - what was eaten in Germany😁
The next city on my journey was the capital of Bavaria and the home of all beer - #Munich I completely misjudged the weather here. It's cloudy, cold, and depressingly autumnal. The high cost of the city forced me to save money, which I also regretted -…
#Copenhagen They're no less beautiful at night!
#Copenhagen Oh, the canals! How could you not enjoy them!
#Copenhagen A walk through the city center on a March evening. I was afraid that the city would seem boring on a repeat visit, but no, it's still beautiful!
#Copenhagen And no, for the minimum price (70$/day), a view of the railway tracks is not included. Instead, you get landscapes from the backrooms.
How stingy Ryanair is! The closed staircase is right next to the plane, but they won't let you use it for free!
The best software for searching for air tickets, which I discovered today - https://matrix.itasoftware.com This is not an advertisement, the site is completely non-commercial, with minimal UI, but no ads, paid aggregators, or other nonsense (hello…
#Frankfurt A few evening photos from the same area.
#Frankfurt The old town square. In the last photo, you can see the Römer town hall, where the city council used to meet. This is almost the only place in the city where the old architecture has been so well restored. The city isn't very popular among…
#Frankfurt What was the city engineer planning here?
#Frankfurt Damn, I really wanted to go! The main thing is that it's prohibited from Monday to Sunday, from 0:00 to 24:00. Just to make sure there's no confusion at all!
#Frankfurt The Westend district of Frankfurt is considered one of the most respectable in the city, but at the same time, it's also the most expensive. Walking north from the metro stop, you can admire the historic mansions of old Germany, which have been…
#Frankfurt The city center is certainly expensive and luxurious. Louis Vuitton stores, cobblestone streets, classic architecture, and a theater in the square. We were very lucky with the weather, as it rained non-stop on the other days. Interestingly, every…
#Frankfurt Of course, Canadians wouldn't be surprised by this, but by European standards, it's really a dissonance. It seems that even in Frankfurt now, many of these buildings wouldn't get approval anymore. A trend towards residential real estate is also…
#Frankfurt I didn't plan it at all, but I ended up spending a day in Frankfurt. I think everyone knows about this city, but tourists don't visit it very often. So I decided to rectify that and spend a day exploring all its central neighborhoods. Upon…
#Karlsruhe The budget was still somehow embezzled🙂
#Karlsruhe Riddle of the day - what is this? As correctly guessed in the comments - a portable speed radar. That's why it has a number on it.
#Karlsruhe The city's key employer is the KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology). Approximately 22,000 people from a population of 300,000 study there. This means that ~7% of the total population are students of a single university. Some buildings can be…
#Karlsruhe My trips to Europe rarely go without a visit to this seemingly unremarkable city. Like Strasbourg, it is located almost on the border, but on the German side this time. I only come here because one of my very good friends lives here. So of…
#Strasbourg #Review I'll share a few more photos of the city's various architectures and write a short verdict on Strasbourg. I absolutely loved the city. Partly because I flew here after Canada. But partly also because it's really a clean, well-maintained…