Each January 1, I wake up early to catch the Eurovision broadcast of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s New Year’s concert from Vienna’s Musikverein. And each year, it makes me want to visit Vienna again. I do not always give into this feeling, but every other year, I cannot help myself, so I book my train tickets and find a good airbnb apartment. Now that it is 2018, I’m going back for a week of total immersion, once again :-)

Nature, architecture, and an endless list of cafés and restaurants to find: five full days in Vienna and I was ready! Lists on Foursquare? Check! https://foursquare.com/leonieke/list/vienna-2016-food https://foursquare.com/leonieke/list/vienna-2016-places Airbnb Apartment? Check! Google Map? Check! European Rivers - Day One Train journey from The Hague, NL to Vienna, AU An early wake-up call (thanks, Mom!), my suitcase packed and I was ready to catch my taxi. At The Hague Central, I was happy to find that at 5:45AM, I could get a fresh cup of tea.

Ridiculously early alarm set. Electronic gadgets with loaded batteries. Suitcase packed, including cords for all these gadgets. Ticket and passport ready. A busy week ahead in Paris, finally my time off for some vacation, and it was much needed: the last weeks of Summer had been crazy, with colleagues away on vacation and me preparing for my vacation! As with my other trips, I once again started by creating foursquare lists (Paris Food 2015 and Paris Places 2015) and maintaining a Google Map.

This is a photolog. For a view of all photos I took while in Berlin, please check this set on flickr: Berlin 2015 I also kept two foursquare lists of places I wanted to visit and places I wanted to check out for food and drinks: feel free to use these, I will not delete them! Would you rather have all of these places in a Google Map? Can do!

With my macbook away for repair, it’s taken me almost a week to start work on all the photos I took during my week vacation in Berlin. Finally I seem to getting somewhere. On Wednesday April 29, I visisted the Botanical Gardens in Berlin-Dahlem. What a wonderful and amazing collection of plants! If you ever find yourself in Berlin with time to see more than just the tourist highlights, I recommend a visit to these Botanical Gardens: they are just splendid!

Decision made: this year, I will visit Berlin again. Two years ago, this city made a lasting impression on me and as there is always loads more to see, I wanted to return. Earlier this week, my friend Fem asked me when I was planning to visit Berlin because she would be going there shortly too. After checking my work calendar, I booked a train ticket, found an appartment and I’ll be meeting up with Fem in Berlin!

On my last full day in Paris last February, I started my day with a quick visit to the L’église Sainte-Marie-Madeleine (La Madeleine). The piece I heard sounded somewhat familiar, but I could not completely place it. The other week, while I was listening to my Google Music “classical” radio playlist, I thought I heard that same piece again. The four audio snippets I recorded seem to be variations or sections of “the Symphony for Organ No.

Early morning start, my last full day in Vienna. I was planning to catch a performance of the Original Hoch- und Deutschmeister band at 10:45 on the corner of Kohlmarkt and Graben. Unfortunately, due to the weather (it was once again raining!), their performance was cancelled. I guess another lazy breakfast was in order, this time at Café Korb. And as the weather did not improve, I made my way over to Karlsplatz for a visit to the Wien Museum where they had a great exhibit: The Metropolis Experiment - Vienna and the 1873 World Exhibition.

The promise of another rainy day made me start with a lazy breakfast at Café Griensteidl on the Michaelerplatz (right at the Hofburg). A short walk a_ond I was at the Heldenplatz again in front of the Neue Burg: obligatory photos taken of course! From there, and I had seen her already earlier this week, I went into the Volksgarten to see if I could take any photos of the monument for Empress Elisabeth.

And it will Rain rain Go away, go away Rain rain Come back again another day [Rain by Terence Trent D’Arby] The weather gods promised rain and they delivered! I tried to stay inside as much as I could, but as in the morning the weather report mentioned “light” rain, I decided to do some outside photography where I could. As I had not yet visited the two other Otto Wagner Ubahn stations, I went out on U4 and hit them both: Stadtpark station and Hietzing station (near Schloss Schönbrunn).