I haven’t been writing travel stories recently, but since I’ve been through so many different cities in the past month, I figure I should share a few little notes on each, just in case you’re heading through one of them soon.
Beijing
I just can’t get into Beijing. It’s not a bad city, but it’s sprawling, smoggy, and a little bit faceless. This time I stayed in the hutongs (alleys), which was pretty interesting. Forbidden city is really neat, but the park right behind it is at least as interesting. Climb to the top for a great view. The only reasonably healthy restaurant we found was Saveurs de Coree, a Korean restaurant. Everything was pretty pricey, except for the bibimbap set meal that comes with little Korean appetizers, fried tofu with onions, bibimbap, and cinnamon tea. Not perfectly healthy, but the best I came across.
Shanghai
I love Shanghai. There are lots of things I like about it, but maybe my favorite thing is the 700+ teahouses there. All of them seem to have excellent tea. I think my favorite tea was the Dong Ding at Song Fang. There are also two great healthy restaurants, Anna Maya (say hi for me!) and Kush.
Hangzhou
Hangzhou is a really beautiful city only a couple hours away from Shanghai by train. Once you arrive there you can take a bus to West Lake, which is a beautiful lake filled with human-powered longboats, and surrounded by parks, teahouses, and performers. Highly recommended.
Amsterdam
This was my first time in Amsterdam. I was only there for twenty four hours, but I love it and can’t wait to get back. It’s cool in the same way that Berlin is– it just feels fun and comfortable. The Van Gogh museum is incredible if you like Van Gogh– try to stay there until closing. All day it was totally packed, and then for the last half hour I had it to myself. Often I’d be in a room and I’d be the only one there.
The Rijksmuseum is walking distance away from the Van Gogh museum, and was also great. I only went to the floor with the Vermeers (I’m on a pointless mission to see all of his work) and the Rembrandts. I’ve never seen such a huge Rembrandt as the one at the end of the main hall. Stunning.
I also went through the red light district which isn’t as sketchy as you’d probably expect. It’s a beautiful area with canals and old streets and buildings.
Zurich
Beautiful, but I couldn’t find much to do. I only had twelve hours there, and after wandering around downtown and the waterfront area I went back to the airport. On the plus side, the airport lounges were really good.
Florence
Florence was a pleasant surprise. I thought it would be good, but it ended up being great. Il Duomo, the giant crazy looking cathedral in the middle of the city is stunning every time you see it, and climbing the stairs to the top of it is well worth it.
Florence just feels like the comfortable sort of city you could hang out in indefinitely. It’s beautiful, but functional. Also, the gelato is insanely good. Find Riva Reno and get anything they have.
Genoa
We only had a few hours in Genoa, but I didn’t feel like we were missing out on much. It was a small city that was nice to look at but not particularly exciting. The one girl we talked to there told us that it’s not a good place to visit in general.
Barcelona
I’ve been to Barcelona a bunch of times and never really loved it, but this trip I found myself looking forward to coming back again. We spent a lot of time at El Fundacio Miro, the Joan Miro museum. I’m a big Miro fan, so the museum was a great experience. Just like Van Gogh in Amsterdam, it’s a comprehensive collection of his work that allows you to see his path as an artist.
Casablanca
I’ve been to the other big cities in Morocco: Fez, Tangier, and Marrakech, and I’d have to rank Casablanca behind them all. Tangier is probably my favorite. Casablanca wasn’t particularly beautiful, except for the Hassan II Mosque, which is one of the biggest mosques in the world, and one of the few that nonbelievers can visit. Definitely worth a short trip to Casablanca just for the short tour.
We also went to a traditional Hammam, which was a bizarre and surprisingly pleasant experience. We thought that we’d be in some sort of indoor bath, but it turned out we signed up to lie on giant marble slabs while men with scrubby mitts scraped all of the dead skin off of us. The amount of dead skin that comes off is disgusting.
Lanzarote
Lanzarote is one of the islands in the Canary Islands. We rented motorcycles and blasted around just about the whole island. The volcano museum is a little bit lame, but the ride there was fantastic. Riding around in giant valleys flanked by volcanic mountains is a lot of fun. Probably wouldn’t go back, but had a great time and was glad I went.
Tenerife
I’ve been to Tenerife and didn’t find much to do there that time either. Most of the time we spent eating weird prosciutto sandwiches in a cafe with Wifi, but we also visited the big park in Santa Cruz. I thought I’d been to the park before, but this one was way better than I remembered. The highlights were the giant climbable concrete sculptures and the wild parrots living up in the palm trees.
Pointe a Pitre, Guadeloupe
Literally found nothing to do here. Apparently the beaches are amazing, but we knew we’d be at beaches for the next few days, so we tried to rent motorcycles (failed), walked into a weapons store which we thought was sort of a joke, but a really friendly group of scary looking people seemed to be arming for a battle. We left without buying anything.
Tortola, British Virgin Islands
I always end up going to the Caribbean for cruises, but it’s not my favorite place in the world, so my expectations are usually low. Tortola was definitely a bright spot, though. We went to the Baths, which is an incredible beach covered in these giant smooth stones that create caves and passageways. It really was one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve been to, and the rocks are a lot of fun.
Whew– thirteen cities/countries in less than a month, with two more over the next couple days. Just bite sized samples for all but the Chinese ones, but enough to get to know a few of the places and have enough of an opinion to inform future trips.
I’ve been getting a ton of work done (major Sett progress that I haven’t been able to push yet, plus almost done with the habit book), and have been enjoying traveling with friends and seeing a bunch of new places, but a big part of me can’t wait to get back to my healthy food / high productivity routine.
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Photo was one of my favorite Van Gogh paintings. It looks like cherry blossoms to me, but it’s some other kind of blossoms.
I had planned on reading War and Peace on the cruise, too, but our room is right above the Loudest Nightclub On The Sea, making it basically impossible to read before going to sleep. Only ten percent of the way through and not really into it.
I have a couple funny cruise stories, but they’re the type that are better shared once I’m off the boat.
Sorry this took forever to post. Didn’t get it in ahead of time and the ship’s internet is temporarily unavailable.
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