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This is my personal site where I note down my thoughts. Enjoy!
Koblenz and Cochem
We spent a night in Koblenz, the city where the Moselle and the Rhine merge at the "Deutschen Eck". Koblenz came across as a nice place to visit, but perhaps not on a cold winter's day. It was carnaval weekend in this part of Germany, meaning there were preparations for the processions that take place on Rosenmontag.
Following a night at the Wohngut Hotel on the outskirts of Koblenz, a nice reasonably priced place, but with beds not terribly comfortable, we headed to Cochem to look at the castle there. Following a guided tour of the castle, we headed back home.
Overall this was a nice short weekend away, but this part of the world is not really suited to tourism in Ferbruary. It even snowed on the Monday morning. A lot of things were shut (such as the cabel car across the Rhine in Koblenz) and on the Monday it was hard to find a restaurant open in the afternoon, given that Monday's are traditionally a day off for restaurants.
Koblenz
The Kaiser-Wilhelm monument at the Deutschen Eck.
This is not a clock, but a water level meter. The Rhine was at 4.90m.
The Deutschen Eck, where the Moselle and the Rhine merge, seen from the castle across the river.
Cochem
This knight's plate armour was about 2.2m tall.
Cambridge
A day trip to Cambridge whilst visiting K1 who had dislocated her knee the week before. She seemed to be getting around quite OK already. We spent about 7 hours walking around the town. Including a pub lunch at the The Mitre pub on Bridge Street. I'd forgotten what your average food and ale in a British pub tastes like. Uncooked, dirty veg, salty battered fish, almost no meat in the meat pie, flat tasteless pale ale. All for 50 quid not including the 12.% obligatory discretionary service charge. What a joy!
Otherwise visiting Cambridge was a nice day out on a wet chilly day. At least it didn't rain.
Trinity College
In fact not where Stephen Hawking got his PhD, which was in Trinity Hall. Go figure.
Mathematical Bridge
Alan Turing
Corpus Clock
Joining the Euro
Bulgaria joined the Euro
On the 1st January 2026, Bulgaria officially joined the Euro. Having been pegged to the Euro, via the Deutschmark, since suffering hyperinflation in the 90s, this made some sort of sense. Support for the Euro was quite weak in the country, but the benefits should be reasonable. Not only for business, but also for the millions of Bulgarians who emigrated to other EU countries or do seasonal work their.
The Lev is still usable until the end of the month, but shops should only give change in Euros. When paying in Levs you get Euros back. This is confusing, especially to the older generations. Bus tickets in Plovdiv change from being 1 Lev to 0.51 Euro. We can't have anything being cheaper of course.
Here's a picture of the national side of six of the Euro coins:
It's the same reverese side as on the current Lev coins, making the confusion complete as it still says ΡΡΠΎΡΠΈΠ½ΠΊΠΈ (stotinki). This means "hundredth" in bulgarian, ie cents, so it makes sense, but they look identical to the Lev coins.
Trying to get a sizable amount of Levs converted to Euros was challenging, despite the promises of the government. Some banks insisted you had to be a client (not true), others that you could only exchange a small amount in one transaction (in fact the limit was around 30,000 Levs). We even tried going to the central bank office in Plovdiv. Apparently this contains the biggest safe in the Balkans. Accordingly, the people queueing there had lorries full of notes and coins. It took two hours per person, so we gave up on that idea. Towards the end of our week there things began to even out and we managed to get the money exchanged in two goes, once even on a Saturday.
Welcoming π§π¬ to the β¬uro.