Bamberg was yet another place on my list that I managed to crossed out this summer, as a day trip from Nuremberg, and I couldn’t be happier. The reason I wanted to go there was because the whole Aldstadt (old city) has been declared a UNESCO Heritage Site, which Lonely Planet describes as “one of Bavaria’s unmissables”. Whilst most people go there for the architectural beauties – I do love pretty German towns – and the beer – nothing for me here -, we quickly realised that adventuring beyond the touristic sights in this very small town offered another, almost hilarious and creative, aspect of Bamberg.
No, this ain’t yet another division line in the tiny island that Cyprus is although I wonder naming “it” the blue line was in some way taking a dig at the Green Line that divides the Republic of Cyprus and the occupied Turkish part of the island. Also known as the Nicosia trail, “it” actually is a 4.5 km long physical blue line painted on the streets of Nicosia, or rather should I say Lefkoşa, to lead tourists to the main attractions in the city.
After a week spent in Dubai, I think we were all begging for a change of scenery – and my cousin for us to go home so she could clean the mess that had piled up. Since I wasn’t expected to be in Turkey until the end of September, I had extended my stay by a few days, which gave us enough time to fit in a day’s trip to Abu Dhabi. We hopped on a bus to Abu Dhabi in the morning and 90 minutes later, we were in the capital of the UAE. I’m not sure quite sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t a completely normal bus station which could easily have been one in Turkey or any other place in the world. Yes, a week in Dubai had really skewed our imaginations about how the whole Emirate kingdom should look like.
We grabbed literally the most expensive breakfast ever and then got on a bus to go to the Sheik Zayed Mosque – the only reason I had been able to drag the lazy bums all the way to Abu Dhabi. Since we weren’t quite sure when the mosque actually was, we ended up following an Asian couple but at some point, it somehow ended up with them following us.
Tales of a Mauritian 