Sunday, August 3, 2008

Germany with Taylor: a 1700-km Adventure


In addition to my smaller weekend trips, I spent quite some time planning a jam-packed driving tour of Germany for when my girlfriend, Taylor, came to visit.  Taylor spent the first part of her summer working really hard to buy a plane ticket to Germany, and I knew that I had to show her a great time.  Our trip began on a Thursday morning in Munich, where I picked her up from the airport.  The itinerary looked something like this:

Thursday: Munich, Berchtesgarden, Salzburg(Austria)
Friday: Mittenwald
Saturday: Garmisch Parten-kirchen, Schwangau, Meersburg, Kreuzlingen(Switzerland)
Sunday: Triberg, Freiburg, Strasbourg(France), Baden-Baden
Monday: Heidelberg
Tuesday: Heidelberg, Regensburg
Wednesday: Regensburg
Thursday: back to Munich airport

The general area of coverage was what falls on and near the red line:


And this map highlights the actual cities (beginning with Munich and moving clockwise to Regensburg)

The trip was really incredible, and even though we (well, I) drove some serious distance, it didn't seem like a problem, because one, the goal of the trip was to see a lot and know where we would want to go to again, and two, even the driving was beautiful.  I'm don't know exactly how many times I will return to Germany in my life, but it's nice knowing where I really liked and where I didn't.  I agree that it takes a solid week or two in ONE city just to absorb the local life and become even slightly submerged, but we only had one week.

The trip started early on Thursday morning when Taylor flew into the Munich airport.  There was a little confusion, because she said that she was getting in at 7:25 am, and when I got to the airport, the giant arrivals board had only one plane from Boston arriving at 8:45 am.  I was a little bummed out, because I went to bed at 1 am and got up at 4:00 just so I could be at the arrivals gate to greet her.  I found a bench, and waited for a little while.  "I'm going to kill you," I heard a light-hearted voice say to my side.  I turned and it was Taylor, and it turns out she flew from Boston to Frankfurt to Munich, and the board DID say that a plane arrived from Frankfurt at 7:25 am.  Oops.  But it could have been much worse if she had wandered off from the arrivals area.  

We got the rental car (black VW Golf) from Sixt Auto company and were on our way Berchtesgarden, a German town near the border of Austria where almost every SS officer of the Nazi party had owned a house before liberation.  
 Among these houses is the one set atop Mt. Kehlstein, known as Kehlsteinhaus or "Eagle's Nest" to English speaking world.  It was a 50th birthday present to Adolf Hitler that took only 13 months to build (including a ridiculous 6km road up the side of the mountain--WARNING: Steep Road).  This area of Berchtesgarden and Salzburg is very beautiful and known to many as the filming site of the movie, the Sound of Music.  Unfortunately, it was rainy and cloudy in Berchtesgaden which made Taylor and I aggravated, because the inclement weather was between us and some really incredible views of the Alps.  We decided to put the visit to Kehlsteinhaus off until early the next morning in hopes of better weather, and we spent Thursday afternoon exploring the compact downtown of Berchtesgaden.  That night, when I told her that we were only 20 km from Salzburg, Austria (where I had been at the beginning of the summer), she wanted to check it out and get dinner there.  It almost seemed too easy how we crossed from Germany to Austria, walked around for a couple hours, ate some Döner Kebap, and drove back across the border to our hotel in Berchesgaden.  This was a general theme of the trip, and I guess the result of the European Union allowing easy travel within its territory (something like traveling from state to state in the US).

Friday morning, we started with an incredible 
(included) breakfast at the Hotel Bavaria.  When I was looking for affordable hotels, I had booked only ones that offered free, buffet breakfast, so that we didn't have to worry about finding somewhere to eat and could get going early.  To our disappointment, it was raining again, but there were moments of sun shining through the clouds that gave us hope.  We made our way to the Kehlsteinhaus bus parking lot, because only specially-modified (beefed-up for hills) public transit buses can make the 6-km summit.  The house was really something else.  Below are some of the best pictures from the Eagle's Nest (see more in the slideshow on the right).







Although it was mostly cloudy, things moved quickly enough for us to get the occasional peek of the mountains surrounding Kehlsteinhaus.  We took a scenic walk back down to the bus platform and rode back down to our car.  We decided to make our way over to Mittenwald, another small alpine town famous for its violin-making tradition.  I was really excited about Mittenwald, because I had found a great hotel room on a river at the foot of the mountains.  Some people say they live at the foot of a mountain, but actually live a mile or so from the slope of the mountain, but Mittwald is really 'at the foot of the mountains.'  The hotel was actually more of a family-run guest house with only about 20 rooms.  The woman who runs it was very hospitable and made it a fun place to spend a night.  When we were walking around downtown, I had this dessert thing from a bakery called a Schneeball ('snow ball').  It was this baseball-sized chocolate mass that was laced with some sort of cookie pieces and dipped in nuts.  Really delicious.  Also, that night we had debatably the best meal of the trip at a local restaurant.










Saturday morning, we woke up, ate another awesome breakfast, and drove a short distance to Garmisch Parten-kirchen, the site of the 1936 winter Olympics.  After visiting the ski jumping stadium, walking around the downtown, and checking out the ice hockey rink (naturally), we continued our trip to Schwangau.  This town is a tourist melting-pot as it is the home of Schloss Neuschwanstein and Schloss Hohenschwangau, two famous castles in Germany.  Schloss Neuschwanstein is the castle that Disney tried to model in building the castle in the Magic Kingdom amusement park.  You can't imagine how many people visit this castle everyday.  It's quite a site from a distance, but isn't extremely old, and I was less impressed when I was standing inside the courtyard.  Although, the king's bed ('Mad' King Ludwig the II) is the most impressive woodworking that I have ever seen and it is meant to look like a cathedral (pictures of him and his bed below).

We left Neuschwanstein with a little bit of a drive ahead of us.  The goal was to get all the way to the Bodensee, a giant lake in Germany also known as Lake Constance.  From the middle of the Bodensee in Meersburg, we would take a ferry across to the Konstanz, Germany and cross into Kreuzlingen, Switzerland to camp in my roommate's tent for the night.  Arriving in Meersburg, Taylor and I both didn't want to leave right away.  We spent the night walking around the beautiful water-front area and getting some dinner.  It reminded me of a mix between my trips to the ocean in Maine and life around Lake Winnipesaukee in NH.  I would like to go back to Lake Constance for a longer trip someday.  Anyways, we knew that the ferry ran 24 hrs/day and didn't get on until around 11 pm.  By the time that we got to the campground, it was 11:30 pm and everything looked closed.  For such a well-planned trip, this was a fundamental miscalculation.  There were some women drinking outside that tried to help us, but the problem was that the owners didn't want to help us, and the gate into the campgrounds didn't 'automatically' open again until the morning (like it was some uncontrollable machine).  After driving around for two hours into the early morning, crossing the German-Swiss border multiple times, and me alone being offered a room at a brothel by a prostitute (didn't realize at the time), we tried sleeping in the car just outside of the campgrounds.  After about 10 minutes, we 
 realized that it was too hot to bear for the whole night, and setup our tent in the last open campsite.  Taylor told me that I didn't need to put the rain guard on the tent, and then it started pouring.  We woke up exhausted, a little wet, and ready to get the hell out of this Swiss town that we both disliked at this point.  But before we could, I had to deal with a very angry campground owner that had no sympathy for some college students who had no other options.

It was Sunday morning, and we began the third phase of our trip (the first being the Alps, the second being Lake Constance) with our entry into the Black Forest.  To me, the Black Forest carries a sort of Cuckoo clock, fairy tale aura, and having visited, it still does.  So I convince Taylor that before we go to Freiburg, we need to make an hour-long unplanned side trip to Triberg, known for being the Cuckoo clock center of the Black Forest and the home of the largest Cuckoo clock in the world.  When we got to this massive-house-turned-clock, nobody else was in site.  The view of the clock was blocked by hay bails, so we went inside to find the granddaughter of the builder of the clock who wanted 3 Euros for Taylor and I to see the works and watch the clock go off.  She explained how it took X many years to build, and we went outside to watch the show at half past the hour.  I was by far more excited than Taylor and had no clue that she was videotaping my anticipation and excitement right before the bird came out to play.  The clock struck the half hour.  I was in perfect position for the moment.  The bird doors opened, and in less than enough time to get a solid picture, this giant, ugly bird stuck about three inches of its beak out and made a vomitting noise before jumping back inside the clock.  It was the most disappointing three seconds of our trip.  Well not really, because we couldn't stop laughing about it.  And right as we got into the car, a family showed up to see the clock.  We wanted to warn them, but they had to learn for themselves.

Next, we made it to Freiburg, walked the streets, ate some food, and checked out the really beautiful, red-stone cathedral.  This city felt very medieval, and I expected to still find knights roaming the streets.  But no.  It was Sunday, and I think the knights had the day off.  Anyways, after a short stay in Freiburg, we made the decision to go to France.  It was easy enough to do, and Taylor really wanted to see Strasbourg, so we went.  I couldn't how French this city felt considering it is located very near to the border of Germany and German is still spoken by many there.

But Strasbourg was not the day's end destination.  We drove the 80-100 km to Baden-Baden, a casino-bath town that really has  more appeal to people with a lot of money.  It was beautiful, but everything from the upscale casino, to the restaurants made me think that it was not the place for a low-budget trip.  Nonetheless, we made it fun and spent a few hours walking the streets, eating chocolate, etc.

Monday morning, after walking around Baden-Baden a bit more, we drove to the medieval city of Heidelberg.  It's a very historic university city that reminded me a lot of Regensburg.  It has the same 'I'm-going-to-see-knights-in-the-streets' feel that Freiburg did, and even has a castle.  There is also a very old stone bridge and another beautiful church (well not so much on the inside).  This was one of the first times during the trip that we had internet access, and it was nice to get in contact with home.  Afterwards, we checked out some more shops, and drove outside the city to find our hotel.  It was in a small town about 20 km from the downtown and had two eating options.  The Döner restaurant was supposed to be great, but we were a little too late, and opted for the Italian restaurant.  Who would have thought that an Italian restaurant in a small town in Germany would make one of the best chicken piccata's (my favorite).

On Tuesday, we spent the early day seeing more of Heidelberg (castle, coffee shops), before making the longest drive of the trip all the way back to my summer home, Regensburg.  Getting there was both exciting, because I wanted to show Taylor where I lived, walked and had fun for the past two months, and lame, because the trip was almost over.  That night I took her to the Roman/Greek-style temple called Walhalla that overlooks the Danube and the entire area around Regensburg. 

Wednesday, I had a list of the places that I wanted Taylor to see, ranging from the bench where I and played harmonica and guitar, to St. Peter's cathedral and the famous Bratwürst restaurant beside the old-stone bridge.  Even after seeing a list of incredible cities in Germany, I realized that Regensburg is still one of my favorites.  It has a great feeling about it.  And so, we finished the last day of our trip with a homemade dinner and a movie at my apartment.  We were both exhausted.


I woke up really early (around 4:30 am) to ride with Taylor to the airport and see her off.  It was weird saying goodbye for the third time in one summer, but the great part was that the trip had been amazing, and I only had one more month until I would be home for a while.  And like that, I returned to my desk at OSRAM to keep chugging along on my C++ program.  The goal is to finish it before I leave in mid-August.  I want that feeling of accomplishment and a sense of closure with my internship.