ending 2014

After my trip away when my visa ended I re-entered the UK on a tourist visa (after a bit of grilling from immigration at the border!). I spent the rest of the year mostly in Edinburgh, with a couple of small trips away.

Edinburgh Christmas Market

ye old england - a day in york

York has been used as an area of settlement from before even the Romans time. It's also somewhere I've wanted to go for a long time, for a fairly bizarre reason. When I was in primary school we used to have "computer units". This was when the class would divide into groups and we would get a certain amount of time per day to play an educational computer game. I remember one of the games went back in time to York, England, and it always stuck in my mind so that when I thought of cobbled streets and old England I thought of York. 

So in December I finally made the journey to walk the streets I have seen in probably terrible 90s computer animation as a child. It was obviously much better than I imagined. 

York Minster

gdansk - poland

Gdansk was a surprise. I booked my flight back to Edinburgh from there before I had any concrete plans, because it was only £18. We only had one night there, but it is the kind of place that looks like it would be an awesome summer getaway, because it is both beautiful and cheap.

Amazing buildings in Gdansk

berlin in winter - layers of history

Berlin is history on show. Despite the physical divides falling 25 years ago the city bares the scars of war and division, some of it on purpose so that we can remember and try and understand what has gone before.

At the East Side Gallery

a day in vienna

Vienna is the perfect day trip from Bratislava, since it's only about an hour by train or bus and you get the benefit of staying in cheaper Slovakia but experiencing the culture of an Austrian city.

The first thing you see getting out of the underground in central Vienna 

bratislava at christmas

Bratislava is one of those cities you tell people you're going to and they say "oh cool!...where is it?". It definitely doesn't get enough credit, especially since it's cheap and if you go in December it has one of my favourite Christmas Markets. There's also towers to climb, castles to see and a too many cafes and bars to choose from over a 3 night stay. 

Clock tower in Bratislava Old Town Square

auschwitz & birkenau - how to

I make the assumption that most people have heard of Auschwitz, and almost as many of Birkenau. 

These places represent the absolute horror of the Nazi Regime, and it is so important that they are never forgotten, for the people whose lives were cruelly taken from them there and for us to learn from the past and strive to never have such persecution happen again. I say strive because unfortunately it still has, and is.

I don't seek to glorify or promote these places as a tourist destination, everyone should make up their own mind about whether they want to visit or not, and think about why that is. Instead I want to explain  what your options are if you do decide to go, since I spent a considerable amount of time investigating before I went and can reflect on how it worked out.