Simply Beautiful

I had to make sure I had everything with me before I go.

5 batteries for camera, 2 sets of rechargable AA batteries, 16gb of storage, polariser, lenses and camera sensors cleaned, and I’m set to go.

And after 12 hours of night train (one way!), 2 hour of hiking, 100 euros spent on transportation, and this was where I got myself to over the weekend.

Konigsee

Simply beautiful isn’t it?

This place is in Berchtesgaden, a small town 3 hours train away from , very near to the German-Austrian border. The main attraction of this place if of course, aka the cleanest lake in . I was hoping that there will be blue skies on that day, but for once the weather forecast was spot on. Previously, it wasn’t reliable on a few occasions so I was hoping for the opposite when it shows cloudy day.

is a damn small, dead town and everyone who’s there are only going to 3 places; , Eagle’s Nest (Hitler’s summer vacation home) and the Salt Mine near Austria. I think the majority of them came from for a day trip.

There’s nothing there besides these 3. The town is as good as dead during day time. Forget about night time.

The mountains were really beautiful.

Snow mountains in the background, reflections on the lake, plenty of foreground objects but minus the blue skies! *sigh* But it was well worth the trip all the way there to enjoy the scenery. It would definitely look much better next month towards the end of autumn and the lake will freeze during winter.

Probably I should drop by again for a day or two during winter.

Here’s how Konigsee and Berchtesgaden looked like.

September 23, 2008 | Filed Under Sports, Web | Leave a Comment 

Where to : Konigsee

St Bartholoma

Argh…finally I’m done with all the pending tasks and I’m all set for the weekend. It was all work, and work and work right up to 6pm on Friday. But anyway, I’m done with work for now.

What’s up for the weekend?

It’s gonna be a long trip down to south western of , via and to Berchtesgaden (try pronouncing that!). The train journey itself takes up 12 hours, one way. But no worries on that. The trains here, even the slowest ones are much better than our KTM back home. Fast, on-time (90% of it) and clean.

There are several categories of trains here, RB, RE, IC, ICE. RB only serves the local district. RE serves between different districts in a state while IC and ICE are high speed bullet trains that connects the entire together. Max speed, 330km/h!

There’s nothing much in Berchtesgaden actually if you’re there for shopping or partying. It’s just a small town flooded with people during summer. People are there for only 1 thing - it’s scenery.

The Alps is just a stone throw away and that’s where all beautiful sceneries are. I’ll be going to Konigsee, about 6km from Berchtesgaden.

Imagine the scenery where a lake is surrounded by the Alps during autumn. I guess must look great and I’m hoping the clear blue skies would be my camera’s best friend.

It’s time to go to the train station. Trains here don’t wait for you.

DB Train

September 20, 2008 | Filed Under Travels | 1 Comment 

Blind Booking?

I was chatting with my colleague this afternoon about traveling, in . Suddenly he asked,

Do you know about blind booking on German Wings?

I was like huh, blind booking? Yes, I know about . I’ve actually planned to get one of the flights before. But nothing about blind booking. FYI, is ’s version of Air Asia.

And he came over to my laptop, opened up the main website, and here’s what it says about blind booking.

We guarantee our low prices and take you either to the beach, to great cities or to the best shopping.

Exactly where you end up flying to remains a surprise until you complete your booking. You decide when and from where you depart from and what suits you.

Simply choose your departure airport and your desired travel theme by clicking on one of the themes “City”, “Metropolis” or “Beach and More”.

It basically costs around 52 Euros from -Bonn airport to cities like Barcelona, Lisbon, , Stockholm, Dublin, London, Reykjavik, Vienna, Rome, Milan, Zurich, etc. You get the idea.

But here’s the thing.

You only select the depart and return date.

You won’t know where you’re going to until you’ve completed the payment. That’s why it’s called blind booking. There’s a list of cities that you can go to. But you have to pay 5 Euros to exclude any cities in the list.

He then gave me a few tips for this blind booking.

Exclude cities in - Berlin, and Liepzig. In most cases, those cities will turn out to be the destination.

Check the normal prices of all the destinations. Don’t exclude the cities that has high prices because there’s no way the system will give it to you anyway. Saved 5 Euros.

Anyway, this sounds fun, isn’t it?

September 10, 2008 | Filed Under Travels | Leave a Comment 

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