Punakha Festival – the mother of all festivals

After a hearty breakfast at our hotel overlooking Punakha Valley, we drove down to Punakha Dzong (1,200m ASL) for the Punakha Festival. Completed in 1638, the fortress is the second oldest (after Simtokha) and second largest one (after Trongsa) in the country. The dzong The first Bhutanese dzong-like structure was built in 1153, but Simtokha was the first to combine administrative with monastic capacities) and all of the older dzongs have had their architectural substance largely replaced over the centuries. Without any doubt Punakha Dzong is one of the country’s most magnificent buildings. Until 1955 it was the seat of the national Government, then the capital was moved to Thimphu.   Confluence of male and female river You reach the dzong via a wooden bridge over one of the two rivers that surround it. It is the Mo Chhu, the female river, which made its way all the distance from […]

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Two days in Nepal – Kathmandu, Bhaktapur & Nagarkot

On our recent trip to Bhutan we extended our stopover in Kathmandu to three nights and two full days on the first leg of our trip. Neither of us had been to Nepal before and this former Himalayan kingdom which turned into a republic in 2008 had been on our bucket list from day one. Our stay and schedule were organised by the brilliant people from Bhutan Norter, who had also sponsored our 6-day tour in Bhutan (we paid full price for Nepal, though, USD 650 for the two of us, incl. 3 & 4-star accommodation, breakfast, all admission fees, and guide & driver, who stayed overnight while in Nagarkot). The pictures below are strictly in sequence but in order to spread them out evenly over the blog post, there are instances where the photos are placed in sections that cover different topics: You will find pictures of Bhaktapur’s Durbar […]

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A Self-Guided Visit to the Paris Catacombs – A Sight with Six Million Skeletons

During our recent visit to Paris Ms B & I did what we had been planning to do for a long time: visit the famous Paris Catacombs. They are located close to the metro station Denfert-Rochereau, not too far from the city centre. Skip the queue, kind of We had purchased our skip-the-queue self-guided audio tour tickets in advance. The Paris Museums Tickets webpage to which the official Paris Catacombs website links to, charges €29 per person. With a bit of luck you might find one of the daily changing discounts somewhere else if you google around a bit. €29 is no small amount of money, but you will be grateful to have spent it, when you see the massive queues which meander around the entrance building for two hundred metres and more. While I’m writing this post, I can see on the Catacombs’ website that the queues are currently […]

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Our favourite Munich haunt – Ratskeller

I have been to Ratskeller at least 20 times, and Ms B has joined me on about 5 occasions. We absolutely love everything about this place, the building and rustic interior decor, the slightly overconfident, grumpy but never malicious waiters, the location in the heart of Munich, and – most of all, of course – the fabulous food! On our recent trip to my home town Burghausen we gladly took the opportunity to pay this true cornerstone of Bavarian cuisine another visit. They seemed to have gone a tad upmarket since our last visit half a year ago, with more fancy dishes and more attention to presentation and high-end ingredients, which was just fine with us.    After short deliberation, Ms B opted for the pork fillet steak with chanterelles and spaetzle in herb sauce (€24), I did what I do most of the time and went for the Bavarian […]

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Esterhazy Keller, Vienna – our Review

We have just returned from our pleasant stay at Esterhazy Keller, located inside the wealthy Esterhazy family’s Viennese pied-a-terre, to this day the largest privately owned palace in town. In the olden days the Esterhazys were famous for their lavish parties which took place in this building complex (not underground, but in the large first floor halls, of course). The dress code was very simple: come naked.     The emperor apparently was so pleased with these events that he rented a five-storey building just on the opposite side of the street, so that he would not have to go through the trouble of being driven to his main palace, ten minutes away, in his carriage. Being the boss of the second larges empire of earth at the time (after Russia) came with certain benefits.   Viennese have never been very big on beer. At some stage the emperor even […]

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