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I walked across Luxembourg

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Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#81

Post by mcv »

pavlov wrote: post #49
dalbasal wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Dutch law allowed the throne to pass to a female child, but the Grand Duchy was under different laws and was inherited by a claimant rather than the new Dutch queen. (Monarchy is pretty weird in practice.) Game of Thrones, with its campy portrayal of regal titles and announcements, kind of drives this point home. European aristocracy, especially those derived from germanic and other barbarian cultures, held titles…

They did love collecting titles. The kings of England also claimed the title of King of France until 1802, even though they lost the very last enclave on French soil in 1558: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_claims_to_the_French_t...

Holy Roman Emperors also pile on the royal titles. King of the Germans, king of Italy, on top of their regular titles. Charles V was king of Germany, Italy, Spain, Lord of the Netherlands, Duke of Burgundy. When he passed half of his titles to his brother Ferdinand, he was also king of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia.

And yet somehow there's supposed to be only one real king in the Empire (Bohemia).

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#82

Post by d-trieu »

pavlov wrote: post #49
dalbasal wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Dutch law allowed the throne to pass to a female child, but the Grand Duchy was under different laws and was inherited by a claimant rather than the new Dutch queen. (Monarchy is pretty weird in practice.) Game of Thrones, with its campy portrayal of regal titles and announcements, kind of drives this point home. European aristocracy, especially those derived from germanic and other barbarian cultures, held titles…

They did love collecting titles. The kings of England also claimed the title of King of France until 1802, even though they lost the very last enclave on French soil in 1558: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_claims_to_the_French_t...

The current King of Sweden decided that he had enough and dropped all except King of Sweden from his.

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#83

Post by mcv »

SSLy wrote: post #80
mcv wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have it too, but often forget to use it in favour of Google Maps, but Google Maps is terrible for anything not in a car or train, and OSM always has fantastic detail for hiking trails. Every vacation I find myself switching to Organic Maps. This vacation it helped us find a trail to a really beautiful waterfall in Switzerland.

Google Maps whole use case is finding restaurants and pubs in new places, and that's about it.

Even that it's not great at. It's not showing them all, it's not showing the link to the restaurant itself upfront, but neither is the menu it lists the right one.

If they actually wanted to make it easy to find the right restaurant for you in the area, there's dozens of things they could do to make it easier for people.

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#84

Post by developer93 »

famahar wrote: post #19

I walked across Tokyo last weekend. Took me 20 hours. I suck at writing so all I'll say is that everyone should walk across a city. It's a magical experience. Turn off your your phone, bring a disposable camera and a compass and just walk. You'll discover so many personal insights.

If you want to keep your phone on, street complete can be very rewarding, especially in places with not so much osm coverage.

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#85

Post by sph »

famahar wrote: post #19

I walked across Tokyo last weekend. Took me 20 hours. I suck at writing so all I'll say is that everyone should walk across a city. It's a magical experience. Turn off your your phone, bring a disposable camera and a compass and just walk. You'll discover so many personal insights.

If one cannot afford to travel, videos such as these are a good alternative:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgfd-uWTVwg (Kyoto under the rain)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgYPErtoljI (A stroll in a small town near Tokyo)

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#86

Post by Agingcoder »

Many years ago I was traveling around Asia and came across a Spanish traveler called Samuel who was walking from Barcelona to Kathmandu.

I don’t know if he made it, but he made a lasting impression on me.

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#87

Post by mcv »

martin_a wrote: post #68
mcv wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We did a carless vacation this year, and picked Switzerland, which is absolutely perfect for it. Trains are actually better to reach some places than cars are. Unfortunately to get there, we had to travel through Germany, and their ICE network is a complete mess of confusion and delay. They do seem to be good at keeping the total delay just within an hour (it was 55 minutes both times), so they don't have to pay back…

Nah, don't worry, they (Deutsche Bahn) hit the hour mark quite often without any problems. Funny story on the side: German ICEs are only allowed up to Basel, so they will not cause any delays in the Swiss train network. The Swiss fear that we would destroy their fine-tuned system otherwise. :-D

Some ICEs only go to Basel, but there are definitely ICEs going all the way to Bern and Interlaken.

Which is a funny thing: Interlaken is officially a town of 5700 people, and yet they're got two train stations receiving international high-speed trains. I guess it's really a town of 5700 Swiss and 100,000 tourists.

And the ICEs that started in Interlaken left on time. But once our train to Switzerland got delayed, I think we had to switch in Basel and take a bunch of local trains. So maybe you're right; maybe they're only allowed as long as they're not delayed.

Still, I don't understand how German trains manage to become such utter chaos every single time. I feel a lot better about the Dutch railways now.

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#88

Post by saiya-jin »

martin_a wrote: post #68
mcv wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We did a carless vacation this year, and picked Switzerland, which is absolutely perfect for it. Trains are actually better to reach some places than cars are. Unfortunately to get there, we had to travel through Germany, and their ICE network is a complete mess of confusion and delay. They do seem to be good at keeping the total delay just within an hour (it was 55 minutes both times), so they don't have to pay back…

Nah, don't worry, they (Deutsche Bahn) hit the hour mark quite often without any problems. Funny story on the side: German ICEs are only allowed up to Basel, so they will not cause any delays in the Swiss train network. The Swiss fear that we would destroy their fine-tuned system otherwise. :-D

I think the reason is more bureaucratic, costs, contracts etc - Swiss let happily French TGV on their trails, I took it few times with only Swiss ticket since I was getting off within Suisse (so no surcharge).

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#89

Post by developer93 »

martin_a wrote: post #68
mcv wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We did a carless vacation this year, and picked Switzerland, which is absolutely perfect for it. Trains are actually better to reach some places than cars are. Unfortunately to get there, we had to travel through Germany, and their ICE network is a complete mess of confusion and delay. They do seem to be good at keeping the total delay just within an hour (it was 55 minutes both times), so they don't have to pay back…

Nah, don't worry, they (Deutsche Bahn) hit the hour mark quite often without any problems. Funny story on the side: German ICEs are only allowed up to Basel, so they will not cause any delays in the Swiss train network. The Swiss fear that we would destroy their fine-tuned system otherwise. :-D

It's funny because externally Germany somehow has the reputation of perfect punctuality, I can only assume that country stereotypes tend to be outdated.

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#90

Post by tetrep »

famahar wrote: post #19

I walked across Tokyo last weekend. Took me 20 hours. I suck at writing so all I'll say is that everyone should walk across a city. It's a magical experience. Turn off your your phone, bring a disposable camera and a compass and just walk. You'll discover so many personal insights.

While a compass helps with orientation, it doesn't help you find where you are or where you're going, so a map might be a good addition (or a replacement, as I find it pretty trivial to orient myself in a city when given a map).

Why a disposable camera? I would think any user preferred camera would be fine, even a cell phone (just put it in airplane mode to avoid distractions).

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