Adventures in Europe: Berlin, Germany

We're on our way back to Amsterdam (by train) to fly home tomorrow morning, but we had a great late afternoon and evening in Berlin yesterday.

Adventures in Europe: Hook of Holland, the Netherlands to Berlin, Germany

I have spent the last week cycling from the Hook of Holland to Berlin. I am blogging about the cycling at my cycling blog (https://cyclingedmontonian.blogspot.ca/), but here are some photos of places I stayed along the way, mostly along with my wife Diana.

Adventures in Europe: Amsterdam, the Netherlands

From Almaty I flew to Amsterdam via Istanbul yesterday. But, I am not going home yet. Instead, I'll spend a week cycling from Holland to Berlin. 

Adventures in Asia: Ile-Alatau National Park, Kazakhstan

Almaty is on the doorstep of an incredible mountain range, and the Ile-Alatau National Park is actually technically within the city limits. A municipal bus takes you from downtown up into the park and it's easy to get to several trailheads. Today I decided to hike up to Kok Zhailau.

Adventures in Asia: Almaty, Kazakhstan

As far as I am concerned, Almaty lives up to its reputation as a lovely city. From the train station I made my way to my hotel, where I left my bag. Then I headed up the cable car.

Adventures in Asia: Tashkent, Uzbekistan to Almaty, Kazakhstan

After a lovely few hours in Tashkent, I returned to the train station for my 18 hour train ride into Kazakhstan and to Almaty. I arrived in Almaty just after 10:00.

Adventures in Asia: Tashkent metro stations, Uzbekistan

Tashkent is well known for its beautiful metro stations, many of which date back several decades. This is the current metro system map I downloaded. 

By the way, you can tap your credit card to ride the metro, and each ride works out to 19 cents Canadian! Alternatively, you can pay cash, and then it is about 25 cents.

I took photos in five of the stations. The train from Samarkand dropped me off at the Tashkent stop, so that is where I began.

Kosmonavtlar honours cosmonauts.

Chorsu, the stop below the Chorsu bazaar:

Alisher Navoi, which celebrates the 15th century literary work of the station's namesake.

And, finally, Pakhtakor, which honours cotton pickers (that's what pakhtakor means; by the way, Pakhtakor FC is a football club based in Tashkent, too).