Disney Castle in Bavarian Alps

I was first introduced to this magnificent castle through Samantha Brown's travel channel 'Passport to Europe' back when I was in Junior High. I was so mesmerised by it's beauty and the fact that Neuschwanstein schloss (read: Noi-swan-stain slos) is the inspiration of Disney castle I often saw in movies. This castle keep following me through my undergrad years as a big poster inside a Student Lounge. I made up my mind that it will be the first castle I'm planning to visit if I ever got the chance to travel around Europe, and it did happened.

The easiest way to reach Neuschwanstein schloss is by taking a train from München Hauptbanhof, check out the fares and time table from bahn.de put Füssen in your destination column since it's the closest train station to the castle. The journey took roughly 2 hours and cost around €20 one way.

Psst, insider tips! There is cheaper option for the train ticket, instead of buying normal train ticket, you can buy Bayern-Ticket which cost €28 and can be use in all regional train within Bavaria, regional train usually the one in red while white train is the intercity rail and express train, and the best part is the ticket can be used up to 5 PEOPLE, yep you don't get me wrong, you can travel with 4 of your friends means each person only pays less than €5 for the return trip, how cool is that? The catch is the ticket only valid after 9 a.m. from Monday to Friday but valid all day during weekend. You're welcome!

From Füssen station, took a bus 73 to Steingaden / Garmisch-Partenkirchen or bus 78 to Schwangau and stop at Hohenschwangau/Alpseestraße which located close to the ticket and information office, if you following my advise and buy Bayern-ticket, this bus ride is included in your ticket.  It is advisable to come in the morning because the ticket easily sold out especially during holiday season, it's more tricky if you can't speak German due to limited English tour per day, the ticket cost €12 which included entrance ticket to the castle and 35 minutes guided tour with an experienced guide which will tell you the story of the castle it self. One downside of this is : no picture permitted inside the castle. Argh, now I'm frustrated!!

Long queue in front of ticket office

There are 2 options to get the to castle from the ticket office, you can hike the mountain through a hiking path which will took around 40 mins to 1 hour but with magnificent view, or you can be lazy like me and took a bus instead. The bust stop located next to the biergarten and costed €3 for both ways. It's a 15-20 minutes bus trip on the edge of a cliff with magnificent view. I really recommended took the bus around an hour before your intended tour, and go the Marianne Brücken to get the first glimpse of this beautiful castle.

It looks so gorgeous!!

After taking lots and lots of picture, I went to the castle by foot. It's another 5 to 10 minutes walk before you find you self in front of the castle gate. But there's another view point when I walk to the castle I can see the beautiful Bavarian alps with snowy mountains and beautiful lake. It just took my breath away! Now I know why King Ludwig II insist on making his palace here, can I be your neighbour, please?

Just go through the gate and you'll see several gate with number on them, you will be assign to specified gate based on your tour number. Unexpectedly the tour was not as entertaining as the view from the outside, it still amazing and worth the visit though. But I just couldn't stop drooling looking over the alps view from the castle window. The tour visit several rooms including king bed chamber, king toilet (which already use a flush toilet, a very advance technology at that time), kitchen, great hall and several other rooms. At the end of the tour I went to the toilet to get a drink, you may say eewwhhh but this is very normal in Germany, and I tasted the most refreshed toilet water I've ever drink, I think it's taste even better than normal bottle water!

Finished my tour and still got time to spare before heading back to München, why not grab a traditional beer König Luwig Dunkel Beer while enjoying the scenery?

For further information regarding Neuschwanstein Schloss, you could visit their official website below:

http://www.neuschwanstein.de/englisch/tourist/index.htm

Why I love Airbnb

Let's talk accommodation, just because you simply cannot sleep under a bridge during your trip, right? Well, I've sleep in the airport, bus station and train station several times, that wasn't too bad either. Let me introduce my most favourite word for accommodation : Airbnb.

Airbnb offer locals who have spare rooms to rent their room to fellow traveller at a cheap price. I think it's really brilliant considering how high hotel or hostel rate in a famous city like London or Rome. You can open airbnb through their website at airbnb.com for your convenience, you can also download airbnb application in Apple store and Google play store.

A few things need to considered when using airbnb:

1. It's not a hotel reception, they are just locals with spare room to rent. Don't expect lavish welcoming party during your arrival.
2. Introduce your self in the initial email, as I said in the first point, it's not a hotel reception, you need to introduce your self, where do you come from, how long you intended to stay at their house, why you want to stay at their place, things like that. 
3. Be nice, I knew some people want privacy but it will be considerate if you talk and mingle with your host for a bit, if you're staying with them, during your stay.
4. You can get rejected, yes no one aware of this, but you can be rejected. You will stay at someone's place and if he or she doesn't like you or your profile, they can simply reject your booking.

So compare to booking a hotel or hostel, using airbnb is a little bit need more effort, which I personally think really worth it.

There are several features which I think really useful when I use airbnb:

1. Simply put your destination and date, it will give huge range of accommodation.
2. There are 3 room types to choose, an entire home for a real privacy, private room means you will get your own bedroom but share other facilities or a shared bedroom.
3. Thing I really like the most is how I can set my price range to match my budget. The price will be per room for a night, usually for 2 person or for how many person you put in the guest column.
4. There will be a map on your right hand side, showing the location of the room, it really comes in handy when choosing the right location for your accommodation. I always tend to choose a room centrally located or at least very near to a public transport.
5. When you see a lighting symbol, it means that you can book the room right away without need to  mail back and forth with your host, love this symbol!
6. Need more time to think? Just click heart symbol and the room will be added into your wish list which you can access any time.

Insider tips and why I love using airbnb:

• They usually include fully equipped kitchen, really convenient to cook and lower your budget, best bet is the kitchen already have main amenities like salt, sugar, oil, etc which the host are happy to share with you. Just ensure the kitchen is tidy after using it.
• Getting a key to your room can be really easy or it can be really tricky. The host will give you detail direction to their house once they accepted your request, some of them already have special place where you can take the key anytime you want but some places you need to arrange a meeting with the host to take the key from them and let them show you around the house.
• So far I've experienced 2 types of airbnb: the one where the house have several rooms and they all rented out to guest, so you don't meet the host but usually this type is fairly easy to check in and check out. The second one is when you really living with a local, they live under the same roof with you, you might need to take the key directly from them, but they usually very nice and want to share their knowledge about the city the lived in or just have nice chat.
• When searching an accommodation make sure to read the house description, what kind of facilities they offer and what's really important for you to have during your stay, it's free wifi for me, check the location from the map to ensure you choose the right neighbourhood, and read past guest review. Review usually is the most honest one, so you can trust them if someone say that the house located in shady place or if the hot water is not running, things like that which you will not find in the description. It may take more effort, but trust me it will be worth it.
• After your stay it will be very polite to leave review for your host, how you feel about staying at their place. On the other hand, the host can also leave a review for you, how happy or not happy they are having you in their house. More review for the host means more likely to get more guests coming to their home, having more review means you will get better chances to get accepted when you requested a place to stay on your next trip.

Grab your bag, and explore the world!

Sure lof, it's Ensor

I am no fan of Andrea Hirata's work, never was and probably not in the near future. To be precise, I just read a couple chapters from Laskar Pelangi before I gave up and never attempted to read his other books. Maybe that is why I never heard of Edensor (read: Ensor), a small village within Peak District which also the tittle of Andrea Hirata's third book.

From Leeds, I took National Express bus to Sheffield Coach Station, just be sure to jump off the bus when you reach coach station instead of Meadowhall station, or you can always use train from any part of UK to Sheffield train station. From the bus station, you took bus 218 to reach Edensor which runs every half an hour. The cost for the bus is £6 for round trip and £5 for one way, make sure you tell the driver that you want to buy round trip ticket and keep your ticket! Another thing is, to pay the exact bus fare.

The bus will take you through the amazing landscape of Peak District which is really delighted to see. Know your position because there are no sign of which station will be next or ask the bus driver to stop when you reach Edensor. After going through some small hills filled with pine trees, you will finally see the famous church of Edensor getting closer and closer. The bus stop is just a pole in front of a big tree, don't get confused when you see everyone goes to the hill on your left, they are going to the Chatsworth house, I will be talking about that on another post, but for Edensor you just need to go to your right and across the street.

Through the iron gate, and welcome to Edensor! It's a very small village, I'm not even sure to call it village or neighbourhood, filled with pretty little house fit for a fairies, or dwarves. I can almost certain that if I knock one of those doors, I will find Snow White sleeping. It's still quiet early when I reach Edensor, and no sun insight for a whole day (that's a typical English weather).

Me and my friends walk slowly to the small hill, there are around 20 or 30 small houses which looks really cozy to live in on the side of the road. From the end of the road, I can see the church tower looking very iconic between the fog. In front of one of the house, there is this little treat that you can buy. Small snacks such as flapjack and shortbread was sell in a colourful jar and it looks so tempting. I buy the flapjack and it's SUPER delicious, even my friend had to comeback for the third time in a day just to eat those flapjacks. It cost only £1 and all you need is to put the money inside a jar.

I always imagine that kind grandma baked this super delicious flapjack

At the end of Andrea Hirata's novel, when Ikal was mesmerised by the beauty of the small village he found randomly, he asked a passerby grandma, what's this place called and she answer : Sure lof, it's Ensor. Psst, I was trying to find a grandma to reenact this scene, but no luck :(

To check fares and bus schedule to Edensor, you can check the link below:

nationalexpress.com

http://www.travelsouthyorkshire.com/timetables/sheffield/534.htm

My first impression of United Kingdom

'United Kingdom : the land of Harry Potter and Sherlock Holmes' is the first thing that pop-up in my mind before I went to UK.  

Sadly it's not the gate to Hogwarts, neither to enter 221B Baker Street. But let's just take it as an imaginary gate to experience above and beyond what United Kingdom has to offer!

A few years back, I live in Germany for several moths. I really enjoy living there, the weather, the people, the air, the sky, the scenery, but there is this one thing that bothers me, quit a lot, which the language! I even imagine that if everybody speaks English in Germany (and please stop those dubbed movies in the cinema, that's just ridiculous) then my life would be sooooo much easier. And here I am, in the UK where everybody speaks English, does my life so much easier? Yes and no.

Yes because I can communicate better, I can read traffic signs, no dubbed movies into Germany in the cinema, thank God for this one, I can understand someone else's joke, just because Brits jokes just far beyond my leagues, needles to say it is easier. But on the other hand, English accent is just so hard, it's not what you've heard in a movies or during your IELTS preparation, I have an English lecture from Manchester for 4 years and even he doesn't prepare me for what I'm getting here. And to make it worse : Yorkshire accent!! I think they're just too lazy to read the last letter, the middle letter, or any letter to be in fact!

And don't let me start talking about the rain. Sigh. I know for a fact that UK have the highest rain intensity in the Europe, but not this much! One time during my train journey to London, the passenger next to me said that 'It is not the rain, it's liquid sunshine'. Well, if you put it that way...

But without me knowing, UK grow on me. I begin to like it more and more, even the rain and Yorkshire accent. I will talk a lot about my adventure around UK (including Wales and Scotland) in this blog post.

Trivia : did you know that United Kingdom is referring to 4 different countries? It's Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Now you know!

Because travelling is a choice

Hi fellow travellers..

Welcome to my first blog! I have been thinking about making a blog to recap my travel experience, and finally here it is!!

Why 'No Visa Required' ? Because for me, the sole reason you cannot go to wherever your dream place is yourself. You put the limit to your self, it's not about the money because travelling can be as cheapest as you want to. It's not about having no time, you decide when you can have those 5 to 10 days paid leave from work or between those failed experiments in the lab like I do. It's not about having no one to go with, you can always go solo, it's an eye opening experience. 

For me, travelling is a choice. I chose to go somewhere new, somewhere exotic or mainstream (most of the time). I chose to learning new culture, understanding new languages, or trying those food you've never think will be eating before. I am holding a nationality that requires me to apply for a visa for most of the country I've been to, but that never stop me. As I said before, travelling is a choice, and for that : No Visa Required!

The blog will be taking about travelling tips (and I've got loads), my travel stories (past and future adventures) and anything travel related. I am spending most of my times doing chemical reactions in the lab, but no worries I will not writing anything about that, that's what project report should do, and stick with the fun and exciting stuff in this blog post.

Let the journey begin!