Day 20: Bruges, biking

Semi-lazy day today... mostly a bike ride along the canal to the nearby town of Damme.

Since we didn't make the closing of the Belfort tower yesterday, we headed there first. 8 euros for a tower climb?? We decided I would go by myself and K would wait for me at the bottom, eating his strawberries. 366 steps to the top, with a stop on the way to take a peek at the huge old-fashioned music player. It plays different lengths of music for different times of the hour and I got there just in time to watch the mechanisms for the hh:30 ^o^

The steps were interesting because they didn't just spiral up the center in one direction like we've seen at other places. Instead, they went up one direction and turned the other direction and spiraled a bit, and then back the other way, and so on, all the way to the top.

The actual top of the tower was kind of disappointing, so I'm glad only one of us went up.
1. big 'windows', reducing the field of view... that's fine, we've seen that in other towers
+
2. all grated up... still workable, the holes just big enough to fit the SX200 through (but not big enough for the G9; felt sorry for those with SLRs)
+
3. huge concrete slab on the bottom of the window, at about the height of my rib cage... annoying!! The concrete slabs were kind of cute when I first saw them, because they marked out all these cities in the direction you're facing and how far away those cities are. But then, I realized they prevented you from looking down upon Market Square! Especially for someone short like me, this was entirely debilitating. Of course, no panoramic shots >_<

When we first got to Bruges, we were quite disappointed about the weather reports. After having barely escaped rain at all our prior stops, it had to eventually catch up with us. All the different weather sites forecasted rain rain rain for all of our 3 days here. But thankfully, weather is an in-exact science. It's sunny again today and perfect for our ride to Damme. Yay for all our weekend bike rides before the trip not going to waste! ^o^ (I am now slightly more comfortable when on a bike.)

There's no helmets here though. I seriously debated lugging around my helmet on this trip and I'm feeling a tinge of regret and nervousness at not having brought it. We first rented a tandem. K said it would be better because I didn't have a helmet and only he would need to worry about balancing and steering... all I had to do was pedal. It was hard!! It was a heavy bike, and we think maybe the bike was messed up in some way (it was the last tandem they had). After several unsuccessful starts, wobbling down a couple of streets, and nearly crashing into an oncoming car, we returned the tandem for two single-person bikes. At least we provided some entertainment for some school kids ^-^'

The single-person bike was great! The guy said they were much newer.

Riding in a well-preserved medieval city would be amazing for anyone else except me. The cobblestone streets meant bumpiness all the way. Early afternoon meant streets and sidewalks with too many day-tripper tourists. Uneven terrain and obstacles everywhere. I was happy when we finally got out of the few city center streets.

And then, we were out of the city altogether. Grass, mini daisies, dandelions, windmills, water. This was more like it.


Biking through the Flemish countryside sounds glamorous. It mostly is. There are swarms bugs to contend with every now and then... make sure you don't open your mouth and do keep your head down when you see them. And sometimes the scent of fresh manure is just a bit overwhelming. Outside those few moments (and a couple of nervous points), the leisurely ride along the canal was just as it should be.

I've never seen cows given so much pasture! I was so amazed by their special treatment that I shot some pictures. When K was looking through the pictures later, he asked if I purposely took pictures of cows having sex. Nope. I didn't even notice it! (Note: the enlarged pic is a bigger resolution than my other blog entry pics, i.e. much larger file size, but you need the larger size to really see it!)

We biked the six miles to Damme, stopping every now and then, spent a little bit of time in Damme, and then returned on the other side of the canal. RS said the way we used to get to Damme was the 'quiet' side whereas the side we took back was the 'busy' side. The both seemed pretty quiet to us though. I suppose the way back did have an adjacent street for [infrequent] cars, so maybe that's why it's considered 'busy'. The other side only had one path for both bikes and the couple of tractors/vans.

Thankfully, no mishaps. I did get a bit nervous though. Apparently scooters like to ride in the bike/walking paths. On the ride back to Bruges, we passed two oncoming scooters. I told myself to stay calm and just keep going straight. They whooshed by and it was all fine.

Closer back to Bruges, K ringed his bike bell and passed this woman and her dog. She looked back and made eye contact with me, and then she proceeded to cross to the other side of the street with her dog (the side K just went down and I was following towards!), rather than just staying on her side and letting me pass. I nearly crashed into them, but I managed somehow to swerve around. Brief rush of adrenaline and fright. Phew!

We stopped by the Minnewater lake & park. I locked my bike and went towards the lake, stooping down to take pictures of the swans. This guy was there taking pictures with his big SLR. At some point during my long wait for the swans to do something other than clean themselves, I realized the SLR guy was standing behind me. Strange. I got up. He stooped down in the spot I just vacated. Then, a bit later, I was taking pictures of some gabled roofs framed by some trees. Same guy comes up and says "hope you don't mind that I copy you". Amusing. Here I am with my puny G9 (and even punier SX200)... flattered.

We also stop by a supermarket on our way back to the bike shop. Yummy 500g salad for only 3.50 euros -- yay! It's later in the day, so a lot less tourists blocking my way and making me nervous now -- double yay! And frites with mayo and andalouse at Market Square -- yay for the taste buds (boo for the body)! There was waaaay too much sauce on the fries though. The guy charged us for one sauce and just did half half...


Laundry in a entirely residential part of town. I was going to roll up the clothes upon returning to our room, but plop, sleep overcame me.

Day 19: Bruges

The weather forecast on the BBC site said "sunny" for the next couple of days, but Accu-weather said "rain". We were pleasantly surprised with a day of BBC weather, mostly sunny, a few clouds every now and then ('nice lighting'), and not a drop of rain.

We had forgotten that Wednesdays and Saturdays are market days (yes, even though we remembered yesterday), but Catherine reminded us when we asked about the nearest grocery. It was already almost 10:30 when we got out, but still tons of food at the market. Seems it basically runs like crazy until a little before 1pm, when everyone has to have closed up and be gone from the square. Appropriately, the Wednesday market is at the popular Market Square (not the Saturday one though).

Saw a bunch of camera-touting tourists every now and then (I was one of them hehe). But unlike all the other non-locals, we walked away with lots and lots of goodies... strawberries, bananas, tomatoes, veges, salad, breads, pastries, choco, smoked mackerel, rotisserie chicken drumsticks, mushrooms. Yes, enough food for lunch *and* dinner *and* tomorrow! We're crazy, but it was all too good to pass up.

Oh, and we ate fresh, warm waffles on the spot. After not really being sure what Brussels-style waffles were like compared to Liège-style, we got to try both at the same time ^o^ (We were pretty sure up to this point that we'd only had Liège-style). Brussels-style ones are more light, perfect with a dash of powdered sugar. Liège-style are more dense and sweet... some chocolate sauce + gelato feels like the perfect accompaniment... we'll have to make sure to try that at the 'neighborhood waffle place' before we leave (Friday).

We didn't understand all the tourists eating at the many [probably overpriced] cafes dotting Market Square at the same time as the frenzied market. There's healthier, yummier, cheaper food right in front of you!

Some of our market goodies...


After lugging everything back to our pension room, washing a box+ of strawberries and some tomatoes, and separating out the food we were taking with us to eat, we started on our RS walk ^o^

Bruges is just as full of chocolate shops as Brussels! Scattered along all the different streets are mostly local brands that I've never heard of, but probably even more yummy. I say probably because I didn't buy any... we'd already picked up chocolate at the morning market hehe.

We saw plenty of tourists, mostly in their little (actually, big) tour groups, but I've managed to become somewhat oblivious to them most of the time (except when they're blocking our way, view, or picture).

Ending back at Market Square, we just missed the bell tower opening, but it's ok... we'll go tomorrow sometime. Instead, we plopped down in a shaded spot near the statue in the square and ate some yummy market goodies. A fairly entertaining balloon guy set up in the square shortly after we sat down. Poor couple who was closer than us ended up being the object of most of his couple jokes. All in good humor though ^-^

Finally, we were able to visit the supermarket during opening hours. I was going to buy more cereal (finished my box in Bacharach) but ended up buying cereal-like crackers (?, not sure how to describe them).


I have my own brand here ^-^


Smurfs cookies!

Day 18: Brussels day-trip

Since Wednesday's market day in Bruges (tomorrow), today's the day to visit Brussels.

At first glance/pay, the ticket seemed quite expensive -- 50+ EUR for two people round-trip. But thinking of it in terms of ~12.50 EUR per person per trip seems more reasonable. Still, it makes us miss the special train fares of Germany.


RS Grand Place walk. Lots of chocolate shops all over. There was even one that had free cookie dippings into a chocolate fountain ^-^


Even with pretty low expectations of the Mannekin Pis, it's much smaller than we'd imagined / seen in photos. The Chinese tourists taking pictures with the kids on a school trip in front of the tiny statue was quite amusing though ^-^'

Escargot has an elevated status in France, but here in Brussels, if you're lucky, you'll come across the hard-to-find, only-in-season street stands selling caricoles (local name of this street food). And we were lucky ^o^ Since it was going to be as a snack, I only got 12. Yummy! Another customer said that during certain times of the year, if you find the right cart, the snails are much much bigger. Mmmmm.


Being the headquarters of the European Union, we of course visit the European Parliament. It's incredible just thinking about all that happens in that building! K likens it to a visit to D.C. -- exciting!


I knew the Smurfs were originally in French, but I didn't realize they actually originated in Belgium, not France. They're called Schtroumphs. Though interesting, I'm not sure the Comic Museum was worth the cost.

The museum had a little tribute/special exhibition on manga, which was cool. The Bleach panel reminded me that I'm behind a few episodes now. Comics here seem to enjoy a similar number of readers as manga does in Japan (ok, maybe less, but certainly more than other countries); we passed a bunch of comic stores. We also passed a bunch of stores selling erotic figurines and such (sometimes, though not necessarily, the same store as the comics).

Though I know I hate these areas, we decided to walk down the 'restaurant rows' and see what we could find. We were accosted every few steps by the servers standing outside; many were quite insistent, even so much so as to block our way! >_< Can't they just passively let us browse their menus? Then we might actually eat there! We did end up eating somewhere around the area, at a place that didn't have any annoying servers ^-^


We did not expect to see something like this outside of Japan -- a supermarket vending machine! J has some catching up to do.

Returning back to Bruges after it was all dark was a bit risky -- we had to watch out for all the dog and horse poo in the dimly-lit (and not lit) streets.

Day 17: Rhine valley => Koln => Bruges

9:26am train to Bruges. Actually, we stopped in Koln along the way to visit the cathedral (got there 11:05am, left 2:44pm).


The "lockers" at the Koln train station are fully automated! You stick your luggage in one of the machines, your luggage gets whisked away to some luggage garage below, and you get a ticket with a code. When you return, you punch in the code and your luggage comes back out whatever machine you're at.

My favorite parts of the cathedral interior were the varied styles of stained glass and the floor mosaics.



It's 509 (plus another 50 or so) steps up to the not-quite-top. But there's a view over the city and you get to see some parts of the cathedral up close. What's sad is all the grafitti on the cathedral, definitely much more than any we've seen on any other cathedral tower >_<


Bruges. Cute. When we arrived it was already almost 6:30. The rolly suitcase is quite loud on all these cobblestone streets ^-^'', but we still prefer having the rolly. Two ATMs fail on us. Hmm. We hope we can get money. We're staying in a little B&B and the landlady is ok with us paying her later. The B&B is really just a house, with a few rooms rented out.

Finding food today is quite blah. The supermarkets are closed and there's all these places to eat lined up one after the other on Market Square, but I just can't get myself to sit down at an area that's so touristy (and probably overpriced).


The best part of the night was finding a little locals waffles stand. In the cold, wet rain, a warm liege waffle tasted sooooo good. A couple of locals didn't buy anything and were just stopping by to chat with the waffles lady. We love finding places like this ^o^

Day 16: Rhine Valley

At the pension, Lettie, the landlady, makes waffles for us for breakfast ^-^ It's a nice change from the cold cuts and bread we've been eating our previous mornings. Lettie's sixty but she hardly looks it, and she says she closes the pension during the winter months, preferring to spend that time in her house in Las Vegas! She's Filipino. Definitely not what we expected to find in small town Bacharach.

After a short RS walk through Bacharach (we'll finish the walk later), we head up to St. Goar again. We were going to do more of the RS walk, but we ended up seeing a familiar face early in the walk. It's a Hawaiian guy we recognized from being on the same Night Watchman's tour as us in Rothenburg. We saw him again on the train from Rothenburg to Bacharach, and here he is again. We chat for a while. He was also surprised about the bakery closing so early, and that there was only one bakery in the town. Prior to Rothenburg, he was in Vienna, where apparently there's bakeries every other block.

At the Bacharach train station, we meet a small older German group on holiday. They had just hiked from St Goar to Bacharach and were taking the train back to St. Goar. Whereas Americans in their 50's/60's are taking relaxing cruises as vacations, their German counterparts are hiking and camping.

Bus up to the Loreley. It's cool to see even just a part of the Rhine from up high.


'Camping'. Looking down from the Loreley point, we see lots and lots of campers lining the Rhine. Apparently campers sometimes stay for weeks or even months and come back to the same exact area year after year.


Coming back down, K tries to ask the bus driver if he can drop us off near the Loreley statue at the bottom. The bus driver seemingly doesn't understand our gestures, but he does indeed stop near the statue for us! Not only that, but when we got off the bus we realized he was also intending to wait for us for a few minutes to get back on the bus. We indicted it was ok for him to go and that we would walk back to the ferry.

We were surprised to see all the cars boarding the ferry on the way over. On the way back, we even saw a tour bus on the ferry! We also came across a purple tri-motorcycle for mom, dad, and son.


Reinfels castle. Huge castle ruins, with cool dark places to explore. The RS walk doesn't take us through the dark places, but we follow the castle map and it's ok. RS maybe intends his walk for older readers?


Kids on a school trip were given torches for the darkness! That would never fly in the States.


The tram to/from the town and castle is made by Mercedes! It's a tschu-tschu train.

Back at Bacharach, we finish our walk. It's already really late, but I tell K I want to check out the castle hostel here. So we go up. Yes, it is a castle *hostel* -- used to be a castle, now turned into a hostel. We had considered staying there, but after reading that you had to hike up 300+ "steps", we decided not to. We did bump into a Japanese couple hiking up with their luggage. Not fun. Glad we picked a pension closer to the train station instead.

The view from the hostel is amazing though. Eating our pastries we bought in St Goar, watching the sky dim as the sun set over the Rhine -- a reminder of just how lucky we are to have each other and be on this trip.

Day 15: Rothenburg => Rhine Valley

We hurry down at 8am to another cute, filling breakfast ^o^ There's two other tables today, one with a Canadian couple and another with a German guy. We discover later that the German is a historian and has a book published about Rothenburg!

9:06 am train to the Rhine valley, where we'll be staying in a small town called Bacharach.

Nevermind about German trains not being late. We would have missed our connecting train, too, but it seems they waited for a bit for the ones boarding from the previous late train. So, it, too, was now late. But by the time we reached our Rhine town, the forced-to-be-late train had already made up most of the lost time, by cutting each stop after the late one a bit shorter. German trains *try* to stay on schedule as well as not screw you over if you happen to be on the once in a while late train. Too cool.

Bacharach is a quiet, sleepy town on the Rhine. It's Saturday and we've arrived a bit late for the bakery and supermarket, which both closed by 1pm. The supermarket is not open on Sundays either. (Even part of the train station 'platform' is just a grassy patch.)

Walking around for lunch, it seems that Bacharach is a town for old people. At least the majority of those we see at the cafes and restaurants are grandma/grandpa age. Where are all the young people?

We end up eating at a little Turkish place, ordering a pizza called "American", containing mushroom, tomato, white asparagus, and egg. We couldn't figure out why it's called "American"; we don't even have white asparagus in the States! It was yummy, so that's all that matters ^-^

After strolling around town a bit, we decide to head up to St. Goar and do the Rhine ferry cruise thing... an hour on the Rhine, watching all the little towns and castles float by.

Day 14: Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Started the day with a cute, filling breakfast.

Walk on the wall. We walked half of it and then decided to leave the other half for later in the day. Aside from the one Japanese tour group, there were only a few sprinklings of people here and there. Most excellent! ^o^

The rest of the day was --
- 214 steps up the Town Hall tower -- very very steep and narrow at the very end
- RS walk through the town -- the market square, Herrngasse, castle garden, etc
- Medieval Crime & Punishment museum -- quite interesting to see the many painful devices and other imaginative punishments
- walk the rest of the wall -- beautiful late-day light

Rothenburg during the day has many more tourists (and schoolkids) than serene Rothenburg of the evening. There were several Asian tour groups, mostly Japanese, a couple Korean, and maybe one Chinese. Seeing all the signs in Japanese (as well as German, even when there's no English) made sense after we saw the large proportion of Japanese tourists.


We tried the well-advertised scheeballen, which RS said to skip but we just had to try. K actually like it enough to get a second one! For a bad-for-you food, it wasn't good-enough-tasting for me though. It was like fried pie crust with powdered sugar, so maybe that's not for everyone.

Day 13: Munich => Rothenburg ob der Tauber

We were going to take the 3:39pm train to Rothenburg, but since we were pretty much happy and done for now with everything we wanted to do in Munich, we took the hour earlier train out. I still wanted to do laundry at the hostel though. Yay for dryers that actually dry within a reasonable time!

While waiting for our laundry, an older couple checks in. They must have been in their 50s or 60s. It's encouraging to see older adults traveling independently and staying in the budget accommodations we stay at. Looking at them makes me hope that I will still be traveling the same way as now even when we're 50/60.

The train out to Rothenburg... nice views of the countryside throughout. We did have two transfers though.

I told the little pension we were staying at that we'd arrive at 8pm, so I got a little worried when we rang the doorbell early at 6pm and didn't get an answer. We then called the landlady, who said to ring the doorbell again... her mother-in-law was there but a bit hard-of-hearing. She said to ring three times in succession or something like that. After many more rings, indeed her mother-in-law comes to the door. We have the cutest little room, with frilly curtains on the windows, and a view out to a small garden.

Going out in search of food, we end up buying a doner kebab and lachmacun. It's nice to walk the streets of Rothenburg in the early evening, even though most of the shops have closed. It's a cute little (but larger than Hallstatt) medieval town with a market square. Supposedly there's a lot of day-trippers, but much fewer people who overnight. Yay! We'll be here two nights.


Since it doesn't start to rain like the weather report said it would, we decide to do the 'Nightwatchman's tour', a humorous walking tour with tidbits of history. I love the way he tells the stories! The rain does catch us towards the end of our tour, so it's a good thing we brought our umbrella.

Day 12: Munich, Deutsches Museum

A leisurely day at the museum.

The Deutsches Museum is supposedly the largest science and tech museum in the world. It's been a while since I've visited the many parts of the Smithsonian, so it's hard for me to compare which is larger. Both are formidable ^-^

Whatever your interest in science or technology, you will find plenty to see at the Deutsches Museum. Aside from the sheer size of the collection and wealth of information (you could spend several days here if you had the curiosity and patience), we were amazed by the intricacy and complexity of some of the exhibit models. Detail as we've rarely seen in other sci&tech museums! (Picture is a small part of one model in the drilling section.)


Of course, some of the exhibits are similar to ones we've seen at other museums. And it was easy to tell which of the exhibits were from the older years, for example, the physics and chemistry sections. I really liked the chemistry section, despite the Germany-only explanations. But chemical formulas are universal. And when you see the formula, then press the button to mix the two or three chemicals and see the resulting reaction, well, it's too cool not to be cool ^-^

All the demos were only in German, but we did go watch the lightning demonstration. Really cool! And really loud! What else would we expect from the creation of a 5-foot bolt of lightning and other high voltages? There was a part of the demo where a guy sat in a raised metal ball while it dispelled high voltage charges -- scary, but they probably know what they're doing, right?


We took a short break to buy and eat lunch at Viktualienmarkt in the middle sometime, and then stayed at the museum until they kicked us out at closing time ^-^

Since this is effectively our last day in Munich (we'll be training out tomorrow afternoon), time for a couple of random observations and thoughts...

• Cool escalators that go in both directions. If no one is on the escalator, it stops. There's a pressure-sensitive platform right before the escalator that starts it up. There's such a platform on *both* ends of the escalator so you can either start it going up or down! Of course, it could get annoying if both escalators are currently going in the same direction but not the direction you want!


• Facades for buildings under re-construction. The facade, which is just a well-done cloth or cardboard covering over the scaffolding, shows what the building would otherwise look like. We've seen this in countries, too (e.g. South Korea).


• Munich is an economical city for traveling with a few friends or small group. The partner 'tageskarte' ticket for public transport works for two to five adults, with two children counting as one adult! The Bayern train ticket is similar. So if a couple of more people tagged on to K and me on our day trips out, it would still cost the same transportation-wise!

From all our travels thus far, K says Germany feels the most like the U.S. to him (the standard of living, the way people do things, etc.).

Day 11: Munich, views+market, Oberammergau, Linderhof

A visit to both the New Town Hall and St Peter's towers and then Linderhof is on the itinerary for today. We then decided to also stick in Viktualienmarkt before heading out to Linderhof.

It's elevator up to the New Town Hall view and then 306 steps up for St Peter's. Yes, if there's a city view, we'll probably see it. We don't plan on visiting the 3rd viewpoint though (from the Frauernkirche). Two is probably plenty enough ^-^

Viktualienmarkt. We love food markets! Especially ones that have fruits as well as yummy prepared foods. There's even a beer garden there! We spend a bit longer in the market than we originally planned for, so we end up on the 12:20-some train out. We grabbed some yummy lunch to go.

Getting to Linderhof requires a transfer at Murnau, which turns out a bit different than planned. Upon arriving at Murnau, we discovered that the hour we ended up taking doesn't have a transfer during the weekdays. There's one for every hour *except* that one. Oops. Missed that on the train schedule. An hour before or an hour afterwards would have been fine. So we end up having to wait an hour more for our transfer. It makes us a bit nervous for a while since it's already quite late, but after finally getting through to the Linderhof ticket office on the phone, we find out we should be ok (just barely) in making it before closing.

Our train destination is Oberammergau and then from there we take a bus to Linderhof. A stop at the Oberammergau TI was well worth it. We had one main objective in Oberammergau before getting on the bus -- to find two houses. We thought we'd walk there, see the houses, then walk back to catch the bus (which has a stop at the train station). The TI rep says we're crazy to think we'd be able to make it in time for the bus we want. After she realized that we were indeed, yes, crazy enough, she thinks for a bit and then tells us about another stop that won't be a backtrack and that's closer to the houses we'll be visiting. Yay!

It's a not-quite-leisurely walk to our houses. We're visiting these because supposedly they have frescoes of the Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel fairy tales! When we said "Little Red Riding Hood" to the TI person, she didn't know what we were talking about until we described the fairytale story. It has an different name in German.



Actually, a bunch of the buildings in the town have small frescoes, mostly decorative or religious theme). And if not frescoes, then at least painted decorations around their windows -- less costly than building the woodwork or physical decorations around the window. This particular house we passed had some cute animal frescos, as well as more simple decorations.

We make it a couple of minutes early for our bus, and, we're the only ones on the bus!


Near the Linderhof ticket area are a bunch of shops for food, souvenirs, etc. Strangely, the signs were in two languages... either German and Japanese, or English and Japanese, but never all three.

The 'castle'... like I told D who told me Linderhof totally blew him away by its luxury, I think I've seen too many palaces... they seem pretty similar after a while! Certainly for Linderhof, "Mad" King Ludwig was crazy to pack so much ornateness into so few rooms. Since he longed for the absolute monarchy experienced by French kings, he tried to copy Versailles. So it's like sticking all the ornateness of the many rooms of Versailles into only a handful of rooms. Even crazier, whereas at Neuschwanstein he only built a little cave corridor, at Linderhof he built a whole grotto, and in it, a scene from Wagner's opera! Both castles were kind of dark though.

At the end of our Linderhof tour (can only visit via tour), we discover we were in fact the last tour. Our tour only had a family of four in addition to us two, quite small. We leave the castle grounds shortly after closing and make the last bus back to the Oberammergau train station.


Murnau and Oberammergau are both small towns. The train between them is only one car!

For how it all turned out, the twitter line sums it up...
not high season + late in day + traveling on local transport = no crowds + time to enjoy = yay!

Day 10: Munich, Neuschwanstein

We debated for quite a while whether to see Neuschwanstein and Linderhof by ourselves or as part of a day tour. Seeing them ourselves would take two days, but we would be able to visit according to our own schedule and leisure. Taking the day tour meant being able to see them both in one day, but we would only either be able to tour the inside or the grotto at Linderhof (not both), and we would be stuck with at least 30+ other people and a strict schedule. D told me about his good experiences with a day tour last summer, but in the end, we decided to do it on our own ^-^

The train out to Fussen predictably consisted of people going to visit Neuschwanstein. We all got off and connected at Buchloe. On the train, we met this student taking a weekend trip from Budapest. She was from North Carolina (!) studying math in Budapest for a few months and lucky to have a schedule without class on Mondays and Fridays! 4-day weekends to explore every week! She was taking the night train back to Budapest after the castle.

The castle was unexpectedly covered in scaffolding for the part viewed from Mary's Bridge. We were a bit dismayed but felt better when we were told it would be that way for another two years. At least it's not like they decided to do some restoration only outside of peak season.


D told me 'you have to go to the viewpoint above Mary's Bridge', accessed by a steep, unmarked trail. He said there was no way I'd miss it though, because we'd see all the people coming down/back. But, it's low-season April, not crazy-tourist-season July (when D went). There was no one past the bridge, just us, and then the couple a bit later after us. We couldn't look up and be like, hmmm "how do I get up to the spot all those people are at?" We found a slope, but we're not sure if it was the same area D went to. Actually, we saw this *really* steep slope, which we opted not to go up. The viewpoint we did visit was pretty nice though, but I keep thinking maybe I missed out? If so, we'll have to return someday (and no scaffolding then) ^-^

Since we haven't visited Linderhof yet, the inside of Neuschwanstein wasn't a big letdown like for D. Still, I think I've seen too many palaces, so they seem pretty similar after a while! One thing different here though... the man-made cave corridor. "Mad" King Ludwig is a fitting title.


Aside from the castle exterior itself, the best part of our visit might have been our descent down from Neuschwanstein. We thought we were taking the other path down (different from the one we took up), but it turns out it was another path that we were probably not supposed to use? We did encounter one Korean couple going the opposite way though. Our path ran parallel to the waterfall going down (and sometimes partially over the water itself).


The reason we thought this was probably not a path we were supposed to use is because of the sign we encountered at the end, in the other direction.

The bus back to Fussen for our train back to Munich was really crowded. The schedule stated no buses for an hour and then two buses within five minutes of each other! The bus "line" was badly placed. In the end, it was a mass of people free-for-all, with a bunch of them being Italian teenage schoolkids. Somehow, we managed to grab two seats on the second bus that came up before the first bus had even left.

Anyways, all in all, I'm glad we decided to visit on our own ^o^

Day 9: Munich, Dachau

4.5 days in Munich (yesterday was the ".5").

We take our time this morning, eating a late breakfast at the hostel. Today is a trip to Dachau, about a 45-minute ride out from Munich.

We'll be visiting Auschwitz later in the trip, but we figured Dachau was worth a visit as well, being that it was the first concentration camp opened in Germany. Our travels will include Germany and other European countries further east, so we'll probably be seeing many WWII and Holocaust sites. This is a starter.

The only entrance into the camp promotes the lie "work sets you free"...


Most of the actual Dachau site is pretty bare, so you have to use your imagination to fill in the rest. For example, only two of the 32 barracks have been re-constructed. There's a few other surviving buildings, a few memorials, and a new, very well done museum full of information and graphics. In fact, the museum is so well done that this site didn't strike as hard of an emotional cord within me as I expected it to. I think it was because my brain was still too occupied with processing all the factual info given by the museum.

The crematorium's gas chambers and furnace area did give me the chills though. You read and learn about them, but it's not quite as 'real' until you confront them, in person.

Also, this picture reminds me of the almost x-files quality of being in the prison camp bunker. There wasn't really anyone else there, and the building's concrete construction made it very cold despite the sunny day outside.


Communication with bus drivers is always a bit interesting because they don't necessarily speak English, which was true for our bus from Dachau back to the train station to return to Munich. When K asked the bus driver if it went to the train station, the driver went off in German and seemed to say 'no', but I think maybe he was just trying to explain that the bus made a huge circle of sorts or something, and maybe also trying to tell us that all buses at the camp will eventually take us to the train station. Pure speculation on my part. Anyways, we eventually got on the bus, and it did indeed bring us back to the though station (even though it was seemingly traveling in the wrong direction at first).

Back in Munich, we picked up a small meal at the train station and ate it in our room. Again, it turned out to maybe be the wrong thing to do (pre-eating before a 'food site'). We were only going to go for a short visit at Hofbrauhaus after a bit of rest, for a pretzel and maybe beer. We ended up ordering a dish as well since the prices seemed pretty reasonable.

LP says, "Unlike France or Italy, Germany has never been a culinary destination. In the international imagination, the food is often just something to accompany its superlative beer." I'm not sure I agree with Italy been a 'culinary destination'. What ever happened to Spain? But anyways, the German food we've had thus far has all been pretty good for me. And yes, they do know sausages! There's not much variety food-wise though (all the different types of sausages don't count!), so maybe after several more days, I'd be in a food rut.


For a highly touristed location, the food at Hofbrauhaus was decent, and, I actually enjoyed my beer! I ordered a radler (beer mixed with lemonade) and there was only the 1 liter size!

Day 8: Zurich => Munich

Nope, didn't manage to wake up from my nap last night. I do wake up before our morning alarm though. Unfortunately, we're unlucky; my fears of the clothes not being totally dry (why I was going to "nap" rather than "sleep") came more than true. I split up the clothes to dry in batches. Most of them ended up at least not drippy wet by the time we had to leave.

It took a bit longer to leave since we had to return the apartment key to G, but we made our train - so yay!

Munich...


V said her kids liked the sausages at the train station, so I pick one up to eat for a bit later.

We're staying at a hostel near the station, but not in a dorm room... in a double. And this double turns out to be the largest double we've ever seen or expected in Europe! It even has it's own bathroom.

The girl checking us in looks a bit surprised when she sees our reservation -- 5 nights?? According to her, the average stay is 1.5 days (at least at this particular hostel). Maybe that's upon checking in though; after all, some people don't have their detailed itinerary entirely set when they arrive at a place and end up staying more days than originally planned... a way of travel seemingly more common in the backpacker circuit.

Dropping everything off, we head off for the Englischer Garten. Huge park, bigger than NYC's Central Park. We never really thought about what an "English" style garden is... but if we use this as an example, it's probably informal, let-things-grow-as-they-grow type of landscaping (unlike the sculpted French gardens).

A section of the park's river has small swells and a bunch of surfers who surf them. They line up on both sides of the river for their chance. If they're good, they get the waters for longer; otherwise, they fall pretty quickly after they start their turn. It's quite a sight to watch!


I could be mesmerized for a quite a while, but I was getting hungry, so we didn't stay too too long.

We'd actually bought some lunch items at the train station to eat at the park. We were going to visit the beer garden but not stay too long and then find a nice bench in the park to eat. The thought was that the beer garden would be too alcohol-smelly for K and too smokey for both of us. Neither turned out to be true (maybe we just got lucky on the smoke part), so we kind of regretted buying food already.


It didn't keep us from buying a yummy desserty-type dish though... fluffy, sweet, with applesauce and plums ^o^

So, we ended up sitting at one of the beer garden tables eating lunch that would surely do some artery damage if not for all the extra exercise we're getting. Surprisingly, the beer garden had free wifi!

Halfway through lunch, we felt drops. Luckily, we were sitting next to the Oriental-style pagoda in the garden and followed everyone else sitting nearby in dragging the table and benches under the pagoda. The rain only stayed a drizzle though ^o^


Marienplatz. *The* square to visit in Munich. It's kind of odd... there's these old-looking buildings surrounding it, except they're not old! After the buildings were destroyed in the war, the city voted on whether to rebuild in contemporary or old style. They chose old style. (Frankfurt voted the opposite, but we won't be visiting there this trip.)

The evening light is already setting in... minus the shadows, it gives a nice warm glow to the buildings. We walk back to our hostel from here. On the way, a short ways from the square, we stop to listen to some music. Definitely better than your average street musicians, but K is unimpressed. "You'd get better quality in a concert hall." Yes, but this is not a concert hall, it's the street, and it's like a free outdoor concert for me. They only play one or two songs though, and then it's a five-minute break until the next one.

Back in our room, K makes a trip to the train station to buy some of the tickets we'll need for the first few train rides of our trip. He comes back surprisingly happy. We probably totally overpaid on our Zurich-to-Munich tickets. That's not the happy part. The happy part is that there's all these special fares that you'd only know about if you did some very detailed, specialized research (and still might not even find then), or if you visited a Deutsche Bahn counter. These were for the Germany tickets. The DB rep said we should wait until Poland to buy our Warsaw-Krakow ticket (and others) since DB doesn't know about the specials deals for over there. We already figured we would save more by not getting a rail pass this time (unlike our previous Europe trip), but this is even better. (Even if we had bought all our tickets and totally overpaid in Zurich, we probably still wouldn't hit the price of the rail pass.)

Turns out there *is* a downside to this room -- the shower. We're familiar with it for sinks, but it's the first time we've ever seen this type of mechanism on a shower. You push the knob, it runs water for a while, and then automatically stops. Is it on the shower to save water? The water doesn't run all that long with one knob press, so you have water turning off intermittently during your shower! Makes the whole shower experience quite annoying.