Aug. 30th, 2015

Holiday!

Aug. 30th, 2015 10:39 am
naath: (Default)
I went on holiday, yay.

We went to Copenhagen and Stockholm via France/Belgium/Germany. Onna TRAIN, which necessitated overnight stops in Germany both ways, and the carrying of four currencies.

I have learned that when bahn.de thinks you can make a 6 minute change on a long distance train *it is wrong* (although I rebooked that one to avoid); our tightest change was 20 minutes in Copenhagen coming back, and it turned into 5 minutes due to train delays. Several trains were delayed, two by an hour.

Almost all of the trains were very busy, most of them had insufficient luggage capacity to cope with being full of people who all have luggage, which would seem reasonable on the commuter train to London but on an international train seems rather useless. The Hanover<->Stockholm train in particular had almost nowhere for large items of luggage.

Of 4 hotels only one managed to put 2 chairs in a room for 2 people (One had no chairs at all, which is at least more fair...).

We had amazing weather. It was sunny and warm every day.

We saw lots and lots of things; highlights:

*Copenhagen zoo has RED PANDAS. Two of them. And we got there before they fell asleep for the day.
*We went to Roskilde to see VIKING BOATS and actually got to row/sail on a similar boat.
*Parkrun has made it to Denmark, I parkran in Copenhagen :)
*Skansen in Stockholm is an outdoor museum/living-history/zoo place, and it's very cool.
*The Vasamuseet houses the Vasa which was a huge warship that... sank the first time it sailed, they dredged it up and made a museum and it's pretty cool.
*In Scandinavia they really know what to do with a herring.
naath: (Default)
Died on this day in 1483 aged 60 King Louis XI of France (my toy,wikipedia). Nephew of Isabella and Catherine who married (respectively) Richard II and Henry V. Interfered a bit in the Wars of the Roses, granting the exiled Warwick refuge in France where he formed an alliance with Margaret of Anjou. When Edward IV later invaded France, Louis negotiated a treaty where he gave Edward a lot of money in exchange for Going Away, which he did.

Born on this day in 1334 to King Alfonso XI of Castile and Maria of Portugal, King Peter 'the Cruel' of Castile (my toy,wikipedia). Father of Isabella who married Edmund of Langley, son of Edward III. Peter spent 11 years engaged in a war with Aragon, which he didn't do very well in, and then there was a civil war in Castile which got rid of him. Generally regarded as being vicious and nasty and all round not very nice.

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