I don’t quite remember when it started, but as long as I remember something, as of the first day of my childhood, deep down there in my memories, I was always listening to music – and it was always rock’n’roll. My father have taught me what classic rock is, what speed is, what metal, trash, punk are, actually – he taught me everything about the whole specter called ‘rock music’. I grew up with Led Zeppelin, Ozzy Osbourne, Van Halen and Deep Purple and I have always been ‘that kind of girl’ 🙂 Commercial music, girls or boys bands have never attracted me.
Daniel didn’t have the chance to learn for the classic rock music as of the beginning, but he has always been ‘that kind of boy’. I think that this actually sum up everything between us – we were (and still are) that kind of guys 🙂
So let it rock.
One of my biggest dreams have always been to visit some of the greatest European rock festivals during the summer (Download, Rock am park, Rock am ring, etc.). After careful consideration and calculation, it turns out that we’re not gonna make it for big festival this year. But we could definitely at least check some of the groups that are touring Europe through the summer. /something to add here – some of our favorite bands are Americans, therefore they only tour in Europe from time to time, and this is the only way we could see/hear them live. As we don’t have plans visiting USA soon, we should wait these guys to announce world or European tour and then we have to pray at least some of them to visit our country. Otherwise, we should go somewhere nearby (like Serbia, Romania, Greece, Turkey). Or… we should go far away to see them. Like we did/ This year one of the biggest bands touring Europe was Foo Fighters and I love them. We have checked that the cheapest way to see them is flying to Hamburg, Germany. Unexpectedly, it turned out that 2 days after Foo Fighters’ concert in Hamburg, Limp Bizkit were touring in Berlin. What a nice surprise, tho! As of the very first moment I saw that, I booked our tickets and hotels right away.
I wont go further with the concerts, this is not that type of blog. But long story – short: it was awesome!
I will tell you here more about Germany, and Hamburg and Berlin especially 🙂
We have landed in sunny Hamburg in early noon of Saturday, and reached our Airbnb apartment an hour later. We were wondering which would be the cheapest way to travel trough the city and found out that group tickets for 24 hours are super fine and were what we needed. We had long exploration walk in city center, we ate and drunk beer and enjoy the nice weather whole day after.
We did the same on the next day, but we had plan to check couple of things and places and we managed to complete our short list. By the way, have in mind that a lot of shops are not working on Sundays in Hamburg, so don’t presume that you’ll buy everything you need in that day.
Hamburg is really nice, well-organized, full of interesting and historical places to see. There are plenty of small bridges over the canals, like Amsterdam, with old houses, bars, churches and so on. There are a lot of tourists, but not even close to the most popular cities we have been in before. It was nice, shiny, really enjoyable there. Hamburg is definitely super gorgeous city, lovely, peaceful and fascinating, and I totally recommended it!
After the concert in Sunday, we were planning taking the train to Berlin on Monday morning/noon – depending on that when we were supposed to woke up. I have read before that tickets costs something between 30 to 40 euros and imagine my face and surprise on the cash desk at the train station when I heard ‘180 euros, please’ 🙂 It turns out that tickets could be cheap if you book them in advance, online preferably… so, in case you don’t know when exactly you’ll be able to travel and just go there asking for tickets for the very next train, it will be super expensive. So, we got out to the train platform poorer than ever, but then we were supposed to face another disappointment – our super-duper expensive tickets didn’t had seats, so we actually didn’t have where to sit. And we have traveled 2 and a half long unconformable hours sitting on the floor of the train, cause the train actually was bit overcrowded. And this is something that happens there all the time. And there were plenty of other people like us. What a great thing to remember for the trip, right? 🙂
However, we reached Berlin early afternoon, found easily how to reach the hotel and checked-in quickly. We booked a hotel right to Alexanderplatz – great central location with many public transport connections nearby. We had short walk around the center by boat and ended in traditional Bavarian porterhouse with multinational group of friends 🙂 As in Hamburg, we spent the next day walking through the city and visiting some of Berlin’s top attractions. We ate so many kinds of wurst (bratwurst, curry-wurst, named-it-wurst… ) that I actually forgot the taste of real food.
Berlin is huge, compared to Hamburg, big, fat and colorful, mixture of culture and history. I was fascinated how well-organized and combined is everything. People are nice and friendly, but not too much 🙂 There are a lot of things to see there, starting with center, Reichstag building, Pariser Platz and Brandenburg Gate, Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, Museum Island, The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, river Spree, Berlin Cathedral, Sony Center… In case you have one day, like us, the list above is wish-list, as time wont be enough to visit everything for sure. We didn’t have time for the magnificent Sanssouci nor Potsdam, Charlottenburg Palace… but in case you have time – those are must-see !
Over the evening we saw notorious Fred Durst and whole crew of Limp Bizkit and ended in the hotel after midnight totally exhausted . But it was worth it – every single minute of it. In the end of this trip I was ready to do it once again and will always say ‘Hell yeah!’ for every opportunity for such tour : ) You should do it as well!