Eurotrip, April 1st: Die Königsschlösser

We awoke from a deep sleep at 7am. The view from our window was great, as it opened up to the Alps and the quiet city of Füβen. The Röcks served us a great breakfast of bread, meat, cheese, and soft boiled eggs. The bread included hard kaiser rolls and hearty, brown bread, almost like rye, only not as rye-ey. The meat was sliced salami and ham. We ate in a small alcove, seated in a booth around a round table. Leading right up to the table was a door to the kitchen, and every so often, Mrs. Röck would peek in and ask how we were doing. She told us about her relatives (cousins?) who work at a famous hotel in Munich, “a very well know hotel”.

We left the Röcks and headed for the train station where we stored our bags in a locker. From there, we hiked to the King’s palaces, Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau. The town of Füβen and the castles looked like they were right next to eachother on the map, but it was a good 2 mile hike. We finally reached the ticket office and got our “Königstickets.”

In 1999, I had visited only Neuschwanstein. This time, we were able to see both castles. It was definitely worth it. Hohenschwangau was very pretty and we had a good tour guide. There were many murals on the walls of battles, feasting, and the legend of the swan knight, who searched for the holy grail. Richard Wagner later wrote an opera, Lohengrin based on the story. In fact, Wagner hung out with the royal family, but left when he got sick of King Ludwig always asking him to play his operas on the piano. Hohenschwangau was built on the ruins of a ruined knights’ castle, so homage to the knights was the theme of the castle.

After the Hohenschwangau tour, we hiked up the hill to Neuschwanstein. We grabbed some bratwursts, ate, and walked to the Marienbrücke (Mary’s bridge). This bridge spans a gorge with a waterfall and overlooks Neuschwanstein. It was a nice view, but at the price of standing at precarious heights. We toured the castle. Some things I remembered from my ‘99 trip, but I saw some “new” things like the amazing throne room. It was all marble with brass chandeliers, studded with gem stones. Too bad photos weren’t allowed. Over all, the tour of Neuschwanstein wasn’t as good as Hohenschwangau, but still interesting.

After seeing the castles, we took a bus back to the train station in Füβen and took a faster regional train back to Munich. From Munich we took another regional train to Salzburg. On this train ride I called up a B & B (Zimmer) just outside of Salzburg. I used my German SIM card in my cell phone. Just as I was confirming my name with the owner, the card ran out of minutes. I found that there is no way to add more minutes, except by buying a “refill” card at a shop and type the number from the card into a 1-800 service. You’d think in 2007 they’d be able to take a credit card order over the phone! We traveled to Salzburg unsure of our hotel accommodations. We arrived at the train station in Salzburg at 8:00pm and went out to the bus terminal. I quickly bought a ticket because our bus, #1, was about to leave. We hopped on the bus, punched our Einzelkarten (single fare tickets), and the bus was off. Our original plan was to get off at Makartplatz and connect to bus #27 to Moosstrasse, a suburban area southwest of the city center. However, either we missed the stop or had taken the wrong bus, because after several minutes, the bus came to a complete stop in a suburban neighborhood far from where we wanted to be. I asked the driver if he was going to Makartplatz. He said, “yes, but I have to wait here for 20 minutes.” So wait we did, with no practical way to call our hotel. The bus resumed its route and we connected with bus 21 and down the Moosstrasse. I was confused as to which stop to get off at, since the computerized stop announcements (”nächste hält, ____” - (next stop, ___) were out of sync with where we actually were. So, I asked a guy and he told me when we had reached the Gsengerweg stop.

We looked around for 69-A Moosstrasse. To our aggravation, we saw house #69, then #11, #12… It was wonderful how they seemed to pick random house numbers on this street. We went back to #69. A sign on the doors said, “go around back for the inn.” Eventually, we found a house labelled 69-A, nowhere near Moosstrasse. A light was on behind a curtain in what I guess was the living room, so we rang the doorbell…and nobody answered. Now what?!

We knew the street we were on was dotted with B&B-style hotels, so we went across the street #96 Moosstrasse to Pension Frauenschuh (a Pension is a like a hotel where the family lives on the premises. Frauenschuh = lady’s shoe or slipper). Julie thought she had seen this hotel in the guide book and that it was good and cheap. As we approached the hotel, we saw a man getting ready to leave. I hailed him with a “guten Abend!” and he waved and walked back into the lobby. We met him at the front desk. I asked to reserve a double room. I used my German, but when I didn’t understand his responses, I gave up in tired exasperation and asked if he spoke English. We finished the reservation in English, although I think he thought I was mad at him and was a little brusque. I never asked how much the room would cost, but when we entered our room, I started to worry. Everything was brand-new and clean, the room had a TV (not common), and the hotel featured a sauna. We slept soundly. We had made it to Salzburg!

Eurotrip, March 31st: Munich and Bavaria

A few months ago, back in November, we had been watching alot of Globe Trekker, an off-the-beaten-path travel show geared towards backpackers. Julie and I decided we should visit Europe. We found tickets on kayak.com for only $375 round-trip to Munich during Julie’s spring break in April. So we bought the tickets and a Rick Steves guide to Germany and Austria. For many days I planned our trip, from train schedule to sights to hotels. Rick suggested that reservations for hotels and trains aren’t really necessary in advance, so I took a leap of faith and refrained from booking our entire vacation online.

Friday the 30th finally came. I got home from work early and Julie got home at her normal time at 3:30. Our taxi arrived at 3:45 and we were off to Dulles airport. We waited in line for an hour to get our tickets at the full service counter, even though we only had carry-on baggage. We had managed to pack a week’s worth into these small bags — very tightly packed!

We boarded the 767 just in time, despite getting there 2 hours ahead of time. They served us dinner as we cruised over the East Coast and we watched Casino Royale on our tiny LCD TV’s. Our flight left at 6:30pm and was scheduled to arrive in Zurich, Switzerland at 8:15am CET, so I had figured that we could get plenty of sleep on the plane and be ready for our first day in Germany. We tried to sleep the remaining 5 hours of our flight, however, a giggling teenager, a crying baby, and uncomfortable seats conspired against us. We landed in Zurich, and to our surprise, did not have to go through customs or passport control. The airport was very clean, modern, and quiet. However, the customer service reps in Virginia couldn’t give us our tickets for our flight to Munich. We had ordered the tickets through Orbitz and it scheduled us on a United flight to Zurich and a Lufthansa flight to Munich. Even though they’re part of the “Star Alliance”, they couldn’t print tickets for us. So, we had to wait in line to get our tickets in Zurich. Luckily, our flight to Munich was delayed, so I bought some Swiss franks and I bought a couple of boxes of swiss chocolates. My first trial in speaking German was when I told the woman at the currency exchange booth, “ich moechte Euros kaufen” (I’d like to buy Euros). She rattled off something, and I said “sprechen Sie Englisch?” She told me I’d have to buy franks and then use those franks to buy Euros. I forgot that Switzerland isn’t on the Euro! Later, when we boarded our plane, I totally understood the ticket desk worker when she asked, “are those carry-on bags?” One for one, not bad! On our flight to Munich, the stewardess served us little sugar-coated waffles. Yum!

From the airport in Munich, we hopped on the S-Bahn (tram/subway) toward Marienplatz, the city center. I bought a Schoenes Wochenende ticket, which, for 33 Euros, covered our S-Bahn and train travel for the entire day. Normally, you’d pay 17 Euros just for the S-Bahn! Along the way to the city center we picked up some drunk and noisy soccer fans — at 11am. It was funny seeing the German version of young, tough sports fanatics. One of the guys left everyone a present and stank up the car, forcing us to find new seats

We hurried out of the Marienplatz station up to the Glockenspiel (musical clock) at the Neues Rathaus (new town hall). At first, we thought we had missed the show. Then, all of a sudden, the large wooden figurines began to dance as the bells played. The knights jousted and everyone cheered. We tourists oohed and ahhed, while the locals mocked us, sarcastically saying, “ooooh, der Glockenspiel!” Unfortunately, I found out at that moment that my camera was hosed! Somehow, the CCD sees everything with a red tint, so my pictures of the Glockenspiel featured a pink sky and areas of pink blotched on the clock tower. Luckily, we had also brought along Julie’s pocket camera. Not very easy to hold steady and not alot of whiz-bang features, but enough to capture the memories.

We then headed to the Viktualienmarkt (munchie market) for lunch. It wasn’t as cool as I thought it would be, just a bunch of ho-hum cafes in a large warehouse. But we did find Der Pschorr, a beer hall that seemed to be popular with the locals. Julie had Wienerschnitzel and I had Zwiebelrostbraten. The waiter could tell I wasn’t a German speaker, so he spoke in English while I practiced saying things in German.

From the market we headed to the Rezidenz, where the royal Wittelsbachs lived. It was very interesting, but a little too much information, especially considering how tired we were. We were given hand-held “phones” that would tell you about every item in the palace, including what material each chair was made from. The Residenz had some neat areas, like the family portrait gallery, but much of it was in poor condition since it had been bombed in World War 2. We stopped at the supermarket for snacks and water at Marienplatz, then took the S-Bahn to the Hauptbahnhof (main train station). We had coffee at Coffee Fellows and I bought a Vodafon SIM card for my phone so I could make cheap(er) local calls in Europe. Normally, Cingular charges $2/min for any calls made overseas. After drinking my chilled cappuccino and Julie had her tea, we got on our regional train to Füssen, a town near the southern border of Germany at the foot of the Alps. The train ride was quite scenic. We passed numerous farms and villages. I think they mostly grow wheat and hay in the area. A lot of green, grassy fields. After 2 hours of slow riding, came to Füssen. The previous day, back in Virginia, I had made reservations by phone with the Roecks, an elderly couple who rent out rooms in their apartment. Just as Rick Steves’ guidebook said, they were very sweet. Mrs. Roeck kept commenting how tall we were (”du bist so gross!”). They really appreciated that I could speak some German. Our room had two twin beds combined to make a “queen” bed. The bathroom had a sloped ceiling that went well below my neckline. While standing at the sink, I had to stick my head in the skylight and while showering… well, I had to do some crouching. We crashed at 10:00pm. We were beat!