Memories and hints of a travelling IT professional.
The Panamericana – or short Panam – is a network of roads going down from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. You can cross the whole continent on this 25.000 km long route, you can see wonderful landscapes and visit up to 19 countries. The plans to create the Carretera Panamericana were agreed on in 1936; only a small part of 90 km length next to Panama is still missing (even 80 years later).
It was a nice day in November and I was driving with my Renault Samsung S3 (I didn’t even know that such a car exists) from Talca to Concepción, Chile. On my way I wanted to have a stop at the dunes of Putú (las dunas de Putú) – a wide area of sand dunes close to the sea. It is supposed to look like the Sahara, but I’ve never found out, because I never arrived there.
Continue reading “Las dunas de Putú (and why I will never forget them)”
My second stop in Chile was Viña del Mar, a spa town close to Santiago de Chile and a destination for its inhabitants in summer time. As I was still coping with Chilean Spanish – which is hard to understand because of the well sounding but confusing mumbling of words – I was happy to be at the hotel of a family once coming from Offenbach am Main, Germany.
Continue reading “Eduardo Vargas, Brazil and a friendly family”
I was laughing hard when I read the note from my travel agency that they booked the Residencia Offenbacher Hof in Viña del Mar, Chile for me – as Offenbach is a city close to Frankfurt am Main in Germany. In fact a German family went to Chile and opened this hotel here.
If the inhabitants of Santiago de Chile need some relexation and want to flee from the smog and bustle of their city, they just get to the nearby city of Viña del Mar. What you get here is a nice beach, lots of hotels, bars and restaurants. And a vivid cultural live with many concerts. Even the Chilean presidents know about this and have their summer residence at the Cerro Castillo.
One of the longest road trips I ever made. When I was a teenager I went on a canoeing trip on the beautiful river Ardèche in the south of France. We also visited the Pont du Gard and the city of Avignon but my memories were fading. That is why I decided to return to these places and to go down to the Mediterranean Sea with a final stop at Marseille, France.
Continue reading “Down to the Mediterranean Sea”
French people admit that going through Paris, France by car is hard work – but it’s not top of the list. Marseille is the worst of all. Located at the Mediterranean coast and with 1.8 million inhabitants a big city you should really think about driving in there – I was pretty exhausted when I finally managed to get my car into an underground car park in the city center.
In the year 2013 I was searching for a place to spend my birthday abroad. Istanbul, Turkey came into my mind because I’ve never been there, it was easy and cheap to reach, full of history and also the only city on two continents (Europe and Asia). On the other hand – after booking – there were protests in the city center that were violently struck down by state authorities.
I had not been to London, United Kingdom for some time as I heard that two friends wanted to get there for a weekend to celebrate the birthday of one of them. Secretly I took over the planning and booked three tickets for the trip and a nice small hotel near Paddington station.
Continue reading “Pleasant surprise”
Once a year I’m doing a road trip to remote places that cannot be reached by car and this time I wanted to see Le Mont-Saint-Michel close to Pontorson, France. It is the most visited spot in France outside of Paris. I combined this with a night in Bruges, Belgium and therefore had a trip to two of the most romantic places in Europe. Continue reading “Romantic atmosphere”