Hello everyone! Today I want to tell you the story of our month-long journey across Europe. From thi

Hello everyone! Today I want to tell you the story of our month-long journey across Europe. From this post you will get to know about all the difficulties we had to face and pick up tips on unusual radisson sas hotel edinburgh travel in the biggest European cities. 1. Heading to outer space. For years I ve had the idea to travel radisson sas hotel edinburgh the entire European continent. I wanted explore its main attractions, but from a different point of view: in unusual way and without being crowded among the other tourists. My travel partner Vitaliy Raskalov ( raskalov_vit ) and I decided to organize the trip together. The idea was to go from Sweden to Portugal and to visit 12 cities on our way. As in our past journeys (e.g. Cairo and Dubai), we looked for roofs, dungeons, etc. This idea of extraordinary tourism seemed interesting to the guys from the mobile company TELE2 and so we happened to have a cool sponsor. We were testing the quality of mobile connection during our entire trip: we broadcasted live on the radio, called family and friends. Even before I finished my post, British Daily Mail and The Guardian has already written about our adventures, picking radisson sas hotel edinburgh up the story from the Russian mass media. You are to judge how interesting our journey turned out. So let s start. radisson sas hotel edinburgh 2. Vitaliy on the roof in Stockholm. We were going to visit twelve cities: Stockholm, Warsaw, Prague, Frankfurt-am-Main, Cologne, Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona, Benidorm, Lisbon, Porto. And we had to fly back home from Madrid. For all that we had just one month, so we could spend only 2 or 3 days in each city. Our first stop was Stockholm, and there were two reasons for it. First, Sweden is TELE2 home country, and second, a local journalist wanted to write a story about us. Stockholm is a beautiful but boring city. It didn t match our purposes at all: The city itself radisson sas hotel edinburgh is low and doesn t have many tall landmarks. And those that do exist are equipped with viewing platforms, opened for everybody. 3. Stockholm subway. Since we didn t get lucky with the roofs, we decided to try to get to the underground radisson sas hotel edinburgh tunnels. Stockholm subway is really unique. It turned out that there is nothing easier than to jump off from the station platform and get into the tunnel. Cameras? It seems that no one is watching the stream. 4. Inside of the tunnels. 5. Later I ll blog again about the Stockholm Subway. To tell you the truth, after Stockholm I feared that the entire Europe will be like that, that we won t climb anywhere, and we won t have any fantastic pictures to bring back. But the next city was Warsaw, and there things were far simpler and interesting. 6. Vitaliy radisson sas hotel edinburgh and I on the roof in Warsaw city center. I don t know about the other towns in Poland, but Warsaw radisson sas hotel edinburgh is very similar to Russia. There is its own Stalin skyscraper, Russian-speaking bums, and old ladies at the markets. However the streets are well-groomed in a European manner. 7. Our first roof in Warsaw was of the building under construction near the Stalin skyscraper. radisson sas hotel edinburgh There was no fence so we just walked inside. Then we found an elevator, got to the top floor. And when the elevator doors have opened, we saw a bunch of workers. Panovie, panovie they shouted but we don t know Polish, so we just went up to the roof without paying any attention to them. On the roof we found a construction cradle and safely hid there. For about an hour the workers together with security guards were looking radisson sas hotel edinburgh for us all over the top floors, cursing but to no avail. Soon it got dark and we shot some night views. And that s how we get to the roofs, sometimes. 8. The Palace of Culture and Science - Stalin skyscraper, a gift from the Soviet radisson sas hotel edinburgh Union to Poland. This building is the tallest one in Poland. 9. 10. We were interested in the Stalin skyscraper, we wanted to climb it, but we did not succeed. First, because there is an observation desk, and second, because the spire of the building acts as a transmitting antenna. radisson sas hotel edinburgh So nothing except hard-boiled eggs waited for us at the top 11. Office plankton. 12. Cable-stayed bridge over the Vistula. 13. 14. Warsaw s Old Town. The most popular tourist destination in Warsaw is the Old Town, based in XIII century. This place was destroyed by the German bombs during the Second World War, but after the war, it was fully restored. Now the Old Town of Warsaw is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We were lucky: the largest church in the Old Town was covered with scaffolding, so we were able to climb to the very top, to the cross. 15. After Warsaw we traveled to the capital of the Czech Republic. We had very little time in Prague, only half a day. Prague was awesome, but stuffed with tourists. We were surprised to see many Russians and Ukrainians. After a mug of delicious dark beer VelkopopovitskyKozel we embarked on our adventure. 16. We visited several observation decks the first day. 17. On the second day we saw this cathedral and realized what we want to do in Prague. After we saw the St. Vitus Cathedral, we decided that we don t want to go to Frankfurt or anywhere else. And yes, they do have an observation deck on one of the towers but we wanted to conquer the others and also to get inside. Climbing the St. Vitus Cathedral radisson sas hotel edinburgh is the main fail of our trip, but we leave with no regrets. This cathedral was partly covered with scaffolding. We didn t have enough time to wait until it gets dark, so we had to climb in the middle of the day. Luck doesn t always work in these cases. radisson sas hotel edinburgh Thirty minutes after we climbed to the top of the Cathedral we saw military and police officers on the roof. It s not too hard to guess who they were looking radisson sas hotel edinburgh for. Unfortunately, all our attempts to hide were unsuccessful and shortly we got arrested and escorted to the police station. 18. St. Vitus Cathedral, the view from the central tower. 19. The Cathedral is located on the territory of the Old Palace just next to the Parliament building. Local policemen didn t know what to do with us because radisson sas hotel edinburgh it was the first time something like that happened there. Climbing this cathedral is similar to climbing St. Basil s Cathedral on the Red Square and waving to Putin. But policemen turned to be really nice and they even knew a little Russian (from Czechoslovakian period of history). This ended with a warm conversation and we were able to avoid jail and big fines. Hello to everybody from the police station! 20. Then came a huge man with a suitcase to make sure that weren t terrorists and didn t want to blow anything up. The suitcase contained some tricky device which, according to what the policemen said, was the only one in Europe and this guy was its only owner. The device spitted out some sheet of paper, with which we had to wipe our hands and backpacks. Then the paper was shoved back into where it came from. I was scared, trying to remember if I touched any TNT recently. But no, all was ok, the suitcase radisson sas hotel edinburgh beeped and turned radisson sas hotel edinburgh green. The policemen smiled and decided it was time for us to go to Germany. With receipts for 500 crowns in penalties for each of us in our hands, we happily headed to the bus station. 21. Frankfurt-am-Main. We expected a lot from Frankfurt. The city is full of tall buildings so we thought it would bring us a lot of great shots. It didn t. In fact, the majority of the skyscrapers were the headquarters of banks, and climb a bank is as unwise as to get into the bank itself. So many viewpoints were excluded from our list from the beginning. 22. The city of Frankfurt is teaming with immigrants from Turkey radisson sas hotel edinburgh and Russia. Construction noise everywhere, many roads are under maintenance it was unpleasant to walk around the city. At one point we had to walk past a gathering of homeless people. Fifty bums stood there, gesticulating and exuding strong odors. 23. Frankfurt stands on the river Main. The city is the financial and transportation center of Germany. Also, it is the largest financial center in continental Europe. Frankfurt is also the criminal capital of Germany. 24. View from the balcony of Lindner Main Plaza hotel. If you have 60 euros you can get a permit to take some pictures. Of course we didn t pay anything. But we also didn t know the price for shooting until a photographer accompanied with concierge came over. He started complaining that we haven t paid yet. 25. We didn t argue we just got to the very top, the roof. When we were leaving Frankfurt, we decided that most likely we won t come back. Next city was Cologne. The only thing that interested us in Cologne was the Cathedral. To tell the truth it really is the only interesting thing there The Cologne Cathedral impressed us in all kinds of ways. It was constructed from 1248 until 1880 or so. By the time it was finished the 157-meters high cathedral radisson sas hotel edinburgh was the highest building radisson sas hotel edinburgh in the world, and held that record for several years. 26. Vitaliy and the Cologne Cathedral. 27. During the World War II, when the Allied bombing destroyed almost the entire city, the Cologne Cathedral was the only monument that didn t get damaged. By unwritten agreement of the pilots,the Cathedral was cherished as a geographical landmark. On one of the towers there is a public observation deck, but it was almost impossible to take pictures there because of the enclosing grid. Actually, it was the worst viewing platform I ve ever seen. So we took a chance radisson sas hotel edinburgh and sneaked to the other tower, where access is closed to tourists. We got lucky again, a small part of the building was in scaffolding. 28. It was late at night: our Prague experience taught us that if we got there in the daytime, we d get caught. But even after it got dark there still was a crowd around the Cathedral: there were a lot of young people who were hanging out, drinking beer and singing songs. When no one was watching, radisson sas hotel edinburgh we sneaked to the scaffolding and started our ascent radisson sas hotel edinburgh to the heights. It s not too difficult to climb the scaffolding radisson sas hotel edinburgh although it s quite dangerous because there is nothing beneath radisson sas hotel edinburgh but the steel poles. 29. Stained-glass windows. 30. First we got into the small centra