London, one of our favorite cities...

The news were full of "London hit by 48-hour tube strike", "Travel chaos in London" and similar headlines just before we left from Zurich ... so we decided to rent some bikes to travel around in London with. Our plan however proved to be a little too optimistic, we found out when the guy from the rental agency said that he would surely not attempt to cross the city to deliver out bikes (at least not for the first day of our stay). So the first day we took some comfortable shoes and headed towards the river Thames ... walking on the streets of London, along with cars, motorbikes, horses and of course THE big red double-deckers:

From EUROPE - UK - London

The weather was so nice and sunny when we arrived to the south bank of the Thames, that we decided right away to start exploring the city by taking a ride on the London Eye, Europe's biggest giant wheel (and not risk to miss one of the city's musts in case the weather turns to rainy for the rest of our stay- after all, we were in the UK, we thought...)

From EUROPE - UK - London

After a nice ride with amazing views we crossed the Westminster bridge and continued our way towards the Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament (we also went inside the Parliament to watch debates and committee hearings, although there were barely a few Members of The House of Commons debating that day):

From EUROPE - UK - London

It's hard to describe all the amazing sights and places we have visited during our 4-day-stay in London, but we surely had a great time as we have been walking / riding (on the second and third day) around the city (see below the picture gallery of our favorite sights):

1 The changing of the guards at the Buckingham Palace:

From EUROPE - UK - London

2 The Trafalgar square, London's most famous public square:

From EUROPE - UK - London

3 Picadilly Circus and the Regent Street, one of the major shopping areas in London's West End, where you can find also find the World's biggest toy shop:

From EUROPE - UK - London

4 SOHO and the colorful Carnaby Street, a place to enjoy the crowd, vibrant street life and live music...

From EUROPE - UK - London

5 St Paul's Cathedral, the seat of the Bishop of London and a major London landmark (on the picture below: Millenium Bridge with St Paul's in the background):

From EUROPE - UK - London

6 The Tower of London, where we have been welcomed by the Beefeater who told us tales of the Tower and who himself admitted he doesn't know why he is called a 'Beefeater' ;-)

From EUROPE - UK - London

7 And last but not least, the Tower Bridge, one of the best-known landmarks of the city:

From EUROPE - UK - London

All in all, we had a really great time in London and found that the city has a special atmosphere which makes it different from any other European city.
You can check out our entire Photo Album on London here:

EUROPE - UK - London

Frankfurt, Mainz and the Rhine valley

We have spent the last weekend in Germany, visiting our friends in Mainz...
As I had a business trip to Frankfurt last week, Zoli decided to pick me up on Friday from Frankfurt:

From EUROPE - GERMANY - Frankfurt, Mainz & the Rhine Valley

After a short stroll in Frankfurt city, along the banks of the Main,

From EUROPE - GERMANY - Frankfurt, Mainz & the Rhine Valley

we visited our friends in Mainz and spent together the weekend by walking around in the city,

From EUROPE - GERMANY - Frankfurt, Mainz & the Rhine Valley

visiting the Gutenberg Museum and taking a boat trip along the Rhine valley (despite of the cool, rainy weather, we still enjoyed it):

From EUROPE - GERMANY - Frankfurt, Mainz & the Rhine Valley

You can see some more photos of Frankfurt, Mainz and the Rhine valley here .

Cycling along the Limmat: from Zurich to Baden

Yesterday we tried out the bike trail from Zurich to Baden - a very pleasant, about 30-km-ride along the Limmat:

From Hiking_Cycling_Fun

(at least it was supposed to be a nice, easy ride if we would have followed the cycling trails instead of choosing the narrow hiking trails uphill in the forest nearby the river valley... ;-)

From Hiking_Cycling_Fun

When we reached Baden, we found that the entire Altstadt was full of huge hearts everywhere, painted in bright colors as part of the recently launched "Baden zeigt Herz" (Baden has Heart) campaign:

From Hiking_Cycling_Fun

You can see some more photos of our trip and a small collection of the painted hearts in Baden here.