Quote:
Originally Posted by Nogrod
As a Finn I must make the obvious question: why Stockholm as you could make it to Helsinki as well?
And if the 'downers are scarce in Stockholm you will find a host of them in Helsinki: Spawn, Lommy, Volo, Aganzir, A Little Green...
So just give us your schedual and we'll try to arrange you people and things to see. And if you happen to need a place to overnight I might easily accomodate you so that you could save that money to spend somewhere else... 
And even the famous Michael Jackson (not the singer!) thought Finland's pubs were supreme!  |
I would
love to see Finland and will definitely do so in the (hopefully) near future. We could not fit it in this time, unfortunately. The Stockholm excursion is a bit of an extravagance and was not originally planned, but when I discovered that Einsturzende Neubauten was going to be playing a concert there three days after we arrived in London I had to make it work. I really regret that we will not be seeing much more, but this is our first trip and will not be our last; in fact, if plans do not change, we will be returning for a week in
Oktober to make up for missing Munich (wheeeee!), Prague, and Vienna. A third trip to do the proud lands of Scandinavia justice will almost certainly be happening within the year after that, and sometime later we will finally be able to explore the south of France and the rest of the Mediterranean.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Lalaith
As an ardent Londoner and European, I have to ask, oblo, what led you to your choice of cities? I've never been to Hamburg....but Mr Lalaith has and he says that other than quite a pretty lake there's not much going on.
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Well London was a given and Paris was top priority for my wife; Stockholm came about by happy accident as I explained above. Ireland has always figured prominently in my fantasies, which is why we are spending a disproportionate amount of time there. Hamburg is a result of a desire to see at least
something German, combined with a cheap flight from Stockholm and not being too far out of the way. Hamburg is actually not the attraction, and this is the only location that we currently have plans for renting a car: we will be driving through more rural German areas (I dream of rural Germany and France nearly as much as Ireland) and hopefully down to Burg Eltz. Well, here's the current draft of the itinerary:
Arrive
Apr 24 to London; 25 London; 26 London; 27 London to Stockholm for concert (morning flight, evening concert); 28 Stockholm to Hamburg (evening flight); 29 Hamburg to Eltz by rental car; 30 Eltz proximity to Brussels; 1 train from Brussels (afternoon) to Paris to spend our 4th anniversary dinner there; 2 Paris; 3 Paris; 4 Paris to Dublin; 5-8 Ireland (more specific plans are not yet laid but we will most likely be spending all of our Ireland time on the west side of the island--Galway and Dingle are two possibilities); 9 Back in Dublin in time to fly back to London;
10 depart London for home at 08:00.
Bold indicates what is paid for and unchangeable; everything else might be modified.
I realize that a lot is missing. I wish we had a month this time, but we just could not do more than the 17 days (including travel time) we have planned.
Again, I really appreciate all this feedback. I will definitely be compiling a list from these posts.