Reflections on 2023: Part 2 - People and places
As 2024 unceasingly rolls on, here we continue our look back at the year we all grew to know as 2023.
We’ve already spoken about our favourite food experiences of the last year, but what about our favourite places?
Follow along as we share some of our favourite places to visit, and a couple of hacks we learned along the way.
Henry Moore’s sculpture Reclining Figure No. 5 (Seagram)
Best advice on the road
Things people told us to do and we’re glad we didn’t question them:
“Order the chocolate souffle now” - from Gaetano, our fantastic server at Palo on the Disney Wonder
“Spend the whole day at Louisiana” - from another tourist on a ferry in Copenhagen who was carrying a bag from the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art when I asked if he liked the gallery. The place did not disappoint. We could have spent a week here
“Amsterdam this weekend is going to be very busy” - A lovely local on the train who we got to talking to on the way into Amsterdam. Turns out the Easter weekend is a popular time for people to go home and visit family. She was not wrong!
Rejected travel advice
Breakfast at the Hotel Henri in Hamburg as delightful
There is a LOT of travel advice out there. One of those thing you often see is to not book the hotel breakfast. “It’s overpriced, the quality is questionable, you can save money having breakfast on your own.” I know, I read that too. But we were travelling to five different cities around Europe where we didn’t speak the language. The cities were all new to us, and we wanted to see a lot in each location. So I booked us breakfast in each hotel to save us time and having to make choices so early in the morning. They became our rituals each day and saved us precious time in trying to find a place to eat.
Two particularly great breakfasts were at Wide Hotel in Copenhagen and Henri Hotel in Hamburg (see below)
Best customer service experience
By the time we reached Hamburg in the middle of a five week trip in Europe, Richard had a cold. It was inevitable. We’d come from highs of 40°C in Sydney in March to -4°C in the mornings in Copenhagen. Henri Hotel Downtown Hamburg not only made sure we had everything we needed when we arrived, including offers to translate at the pharmacy, but made us a packed lunch (including Easter Eggs) when we had to leave before breakfast on Good Friday.
Runner up: The service on Disney Cruise Lines and Virgin Voyages is impeccable. No notes. We’re doing both again in 2024.
Best flight experience
This was one we didn’t expect. We put in a bid a few days before our flight to London in March and lo and behold found out the night before that we were being upgraded to First Class from Singapore to London. Holy cow. The story we always tell people is that when we went upstairs to have a drink at the lounge we came down to find our beds made and pyjamas laid out. Oh, did we mention that we could have champagne breakfast and poached eggs together in our suites as we flew into London? Yeah, that.
Night Watch by Rembrandt while under restoration at the Rijksmuseum
Most cherished bucket list memory
Amy: I love the Dutch Masters. Seriously. They are a thing. I never thought I would get the chance to see any of their masterpieces in their homeland. But when I saw Night Watch by Rembrandt at the end of that long hallway in the Rijksmuseum, I literally cried. It’s huge, it’s dark, it is FULL of crazy symbolism. Everything I wanted and more. And yes, I can confirm, there is a trap door under it. The work has been undergoing a restoration project since 2019.
Richard: I may have lost my proverbial when I saw Mickey Mouse greeting us on a cruise ship. It’s a kind of art, right?
Best travel hack
Get the local public transportation card (Oyster for London, Suica for Tokyo, Myki for Melbourne, Opal for Sydney and so on) and keep them with your travel documents. We hadn’t been to London for FOUR years and our Oyster cards still worked when we hopped on the Tube from the airport. The lovely gentleman at the station was as surprised as we were.
Runner up: The rumour is true, the walls of cruise cabins are metal and you can hang everything on them! Get some magnetic hooks and use them
Biggest bang for your buck gallery
Entry to An Australian Exhibition at The TATE Modern
TATE Modern, London all day long. Its free entry (except for the extra paid exhibitions) with levels and levels of amazing art, brilliant people watching and lots of places to rest your road weary bones. And let’s be honest, this is a very expensive part of London so to have something free to do is a godsend.
Unexpected theatre experience
If you’ve seen the recent Broadway revival of Oklahoma, you’ll know it gets unexpectedly dark. That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about the actual fight that broke out in the middle of a very quiet moment mid-show in London. Security was called, the man refused to go, but the cast – which included Doctor Who’s Arthur Darvill – didn’t miss a beat. It was weird, man – and we’ve seen PIXELS at sea and Hamilton performed in German.
Runner up: Every show on the Disney Wonder. How they fit a full Broadway-style stage and theatre on a ship is beyond us.
Best souvenir decisions
Stephen and Penelope in Amsterdam
Selecting a great souvenir is an art. The criteria I try to use is something that, speaks to the location, is easy to pack and actually useful in my life. Having said that, I have way too many Disney pins…so the best laid plans and all.
But when I look at the various things we picked up on our travels in 2023, here are my top picks:
Tandem wool in True Blue from Stephen & Penelope In Amsterdam- Netherlands. This is ALMOST a Dustaland cardigan with only the button band to go
A deck of cards from the GardeRobe Mannekin-Pis museum in Brussels Belgium. The cards have the Mannekin-Pis adorned in various costumes. (I had no idea how many costumes were made for this little statue!)
A Westmalle bottle opener from Café Trappisten gift shop in Westmalle Belgium. We use this ALL the time
Best lesson learned
Warm heads and big smiles on a rainy day at Maria Island
Didn’t bring it? Buy it. Ok, we know that budget travelling means some tough choices. It’s also supposed to be fun, so we quickly learned to not stress about packing for every possible eventuality. Unless you’re travelling to the remotest regions, you can buy that extra layer or pair of shorts. If you’re cold, buy a coat and gloves, if you’re hot, buy some shorts or tshirt, if the toothbrush is scratch You can always donate it charity before heading home.
Travel "do over" reflections
Arriving in Amsterdam was overwhelming, especially when we “wisely” chose to do it on the Easter weekend. Our logic was that when looking at the various cities, Amsterdam seemed to have the most open over the holiday weekend. Next time? Apart from not doing it during a busy holiday, we’d probably stay outside of the centre of town, especially given that towns like Weesp are picture perfect.
Runner up: We did a shore excursion off a cruise in Noumea that took us on a wine and cheese tour. With few stops, and only three pieces of cheese, next time we’re getting on the hop on/hop off bus – or the Tchou Tchou Train.