Before I get down to the adventures, I have a few announcements to make.
First, let’s start with cheese! I think it deserves the exclamation mark or, at least, the German variety does. Wonderful stuff, especially the gouda we partnered with apple for lunch today.
Second, bugs. They’ve arrived in force. I’ve had three blissful bug-free months and the world seemed fine without them - nothing fell apart, the birds went on singing, the sun still rose. Are they really that important?
Thirdly, some of you may recall that fateful day when Margs and I set out and I lost my toy elephant (no need to ask why he was coming along); anyway, would you believe, I found an identical elephant!
And lastly, when I announce, friends, Dad, brothers (Darcy, if you even bother to read this, I still haven‘t had an email from you and now everyone knows this so you‘d better get cracking), that I shall have no Internet access for a while I do not expect you to consider this time-off from emailing me …
KONSTANZ
We arrived in Konstanz by a train that circled the lake and took us past fields of caravans, tiny villages that don’t seem large enough to warrant their rather grand castles (does it not seem unfair that Germany has a trillion castles and Maddy, who is so well suited to the castle life, I’ve heard many people say, has none?), water birds: white swans fishing with necks tucked, ordinary ducks and others with coats grander than anything I own, and bevies of boats that sit still on flat, endless plains of water; we arrived to a warm sun blanketing yellow light across the city and the day couldn‘t be more perfect.
That warm blanket was soon ripped off, replaced by a sheet of rain and grim skies of grey. Not wanting to linger in our average room, we donned coats, and, armed with umbrellas, tackled the walking tour we picked up from the tourist office for one Euro.
Konstanz is an old city and around every corner and under every rock there is a place of note, which might be lovely on a day bright with sun, but with rain rolling off the umbrella on to a map too large to handle well, our combined mood was not cheery.
It was decided rather optimistically that perhaps it wouldn’t be raining on the other side of the lake, so we traipsed down to the harbour and caught a ferry across to Meersburg, a town of five thousand with two castles - an old and a new, which the bishops of Konstanz used as summer residences once upon a time. The rain did finally dissipate so we ambled up the steep cobble-stoned streets to Altes Schloss, one of Germany’s oldest castles, which is said to have inspired the Grimm brothers. Since you can’t move without tripping over a castle I can’t attest to the validity of this claim.
On Thursday we caught a train and then boarded a bus to the Unesco World Heritage site Richenau Island, a place where everyone owns an orchard and a boat and leases space to hives of irritating insects. We walked all over, following the signs of men with walking sticks that led us through front yards, down narrow roads with no footpaths, around old churches - though I seem to have lost track of old - and along the calm waterfront. When two bus drivers wouldn’t let us on their buses, we walked to a café and walked inside to the counter where the proprietor let us have waffles and coffee and seats so we could have a break from all the walking we‘d been doing. Really, I’ve done so much walking, I could retire from it.
FREIBURG
We moved on Friday, and two trains and a rather stressful trek later we arrived at the very awful Hotel Sonne; in fact, it depresses me to describe the awfulness of the place so I won’t - just imagine that hotel you wish you’d never been to and that’s where we were.
Freiburg is just the prettiest little town; blossoming magnolia trees dot the sidewalks, the Dresiam River runs near our hotel and on her banks the locals sprawl, baking in the sun’s glow, and it’s been glowing a skin-warming 22 degrees. A streamlet follows the narrow boutique-and-café-lined streets; it is the Bachle and folklore says that if you step into these waters, you’ll marry a Freiburger.
After visiting the markets in Munsterplatz, where we finally had the famous German sausage, we journeyed to Schauinsland and caught a twenty-minute cable-car ride to the peak. This ride offers up gorgeous views of green meadows and wooded hills, and when you reach the very top, you can look down on the Rhine Valley and across to the still snow-capped Alps. Up high the air was cloudy with remnants of the volcanic ash that has the European airports in a tizzy.
On our return we stopped in the city centre where, like the Pied Piper’s children, we followed the glorious sounds of a gypsy family singing on a street corner. The largest crowd I’ve seen buskers draw was ringed about them, engrossed in the performance. They were so marvellous I wanted to get my extended family together, knock out some of the older women’s front teeth, give the men some walking sticks and cowbells to bang, and set out on a grand travelling choir adventure. Only, other than the odd few, none of us is that musically inclined, and not even in my wildest dreams - and I can’t seem to stop dreaming these days - would we ever sound like they did.
For our last day in storybook-pretty Freiburg, we hired brand-new bikes and set off along the river, riding out of town to green meadows where Freiburgers take their dogs for walks and play strange games with wooden blocks. We circled back and traversed the empty streets; Mum was in charge of directions and turned corners at whim until we’d left the map far behind. We eventually stumbled across a tram track and followed the number 5 back to the centre. Afterwards, we walked across the city to the guide-book recommended Reis Garten, where we had wanton and vegetable soup, so delicious my mouth watered after every bite, and tasty ginger beef with cashews. It was still sunny late in the afternoon when we wound our way back to the hotel to commence packing for the next leg of our journey.
Mum and I are in Heidelberg but my fingers are too tired to go on, so whoever is out there reading will have to wait a few days for the next instalment.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
From Munich, with Love
It’s our last night in Munich and for the past hour we’ve been packing, and I’ve been discarding. Living out of a backpack is easily the worst thing about travelling. Mum thinks she’s cracked the code to fitting as many things into a pack as possible, and the result is a funny parcel of clothing but it does work and my zips seem happier.
Since I’ve a book I really want to get to, I’m going to rush through the events of the last few days.
Friday: We arrive in Munich and 500 metres later, we’re out our hotel (memorable for its buffet breakfasts). Three-hour walking tour follows; midway through tour a cyclist stops to tell us our guide is telling us lies, which is plausible but less fun. Dinner we have at a traditional beer hall. Mum shows reluctance but we are served delicious goulash soup and she is won over (which bodes well for future dinners).
Saturday: We trek a very long way to Nymphenburg Palace and take a turn around the rooms (which involves much peering over guard rails, and Mum being yelled at in German for using the flash I forgot to turn off). In the afternoon we track down an uninspiring flee market and learn a lesson in trusting Internet sources. Visit English bookshop (one purchase) and the proprietor recommends a Thai restaurant around the corner for dinner, where we baffle the waitress with our request for two plates.
Sunday: Art museum day - I learn that Germans have funny tastes in paintings but excellent ideas about design. After pretzel and banana lunch on a wintry cold bench, we stroll through the botanic gardens, where the river there has a man-made wave and the mad German surfers, of which there are ten, take it in turns to surf this wave. I drag Mum to a guide-book recommended pub where we have Bavarian potato dumplings with smoked ham, onion and scrambled eggs.
Monday: hopping-say day.
We have no Internet at Konstanz, our next destination, where we’ll be until Friday if anyone is curious.
Love to you all; have almost vanquished cold so next post shall be more thrilling, I promise - in words if not deeds.
Since I’ve a book I really want to get to, I’m going to rush through the events of the last few days.
Friday: We arrive in Munich and 500 metres later, we’re out our hotel (memorable for its buffet breakfasts). Three-hour walking tour follows; midway through tour a cyclist stops to tell us our guide is telling us lies, which is plausible but less fun. Dinner we have at a traditional beer hall. Mum shows reluctance but we are served delicious goulash soup and she is won over (which bodes well for future dinners).
Saturday: We trek a very long way to Nymphenburg Palace and take a turn around the rooms (which involves much peering over guard rails, and Mum being yelled at in German for using the flash I forgot to turn off). In the afternoon we track down an uninspiring flee market and learn a lesson in trusting Internet sources. Visit English bookshop (one purchase) and the proprietor recommends a Thai restaurant around the corner for dinner, where we baffle the waitress with our request for two plates.
Sunday: Art museum day - I learn that Germans have funny tastes in paintings but excellent ideas about design. After pretzel and banana lunch on a wintry cold bench, we stroll through the botanic gardens, where the river there has a man-made wave and the mad German surfers, of which there are ten, take it in turns to surf this wave. I drag Mum to a guide-book recommended pub where we have Bavarian potato dumplings with smoked ham, onion and scrambled eggs.
Monday: hopping-say day.
We have no Internet at Konstanz, our next destination, where we’ll be until Friday if anyone is curious.
Love to you all; have almost vanquished cold so next post shall be more thrilling, I promise - in words if not deeds.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
The Sounds of Salzburg
Mum and my cold arrived at roughly the same time so I can’t have been a very good child.
I was at the airport to collect her at 9, and after we’d dropped off her bags at the hotel (did you notice the missing ‘S’!) we set out wearing our adventure caps. Just down the street, a block on from the ice cream parlour with two kugels for only 1.50 euro (a bargain as if you keep going a kugel is more expensive and the more kugels the better, I say), is Mirabell Garden, made famous by the scene in the Sound of Music, where Maria is teaching the kids to sing - Salzburgers detest this movie, which is a shame as I had hoped to see a few re-enactments; I think there’s a lot of money to be made here - so Mum and I posed for the obligatory photos, and told a wonderful water-colourist that we‘d return to buy her paintings, and then promptly forgot our promise. We pressed on, across the river and up the hill to the fortress, Festung Hohensalzburg, which we detoured around (entry cost was ridiculous) instead wandering the park’s paths behind, winding our way in a full circle.
Thursday morning is market day in Salzburg, so we mingled with the locals, emerging heavier for the brown paper bag of strawberries, a chunk of seeded rye bread, walnut and capsicum dip and an almond pastry cake tucked away in our bags. We purchased Salzburg cards, which gained us free access to a handful of places and meant we were in for the busiest of days. In an effort to squeeze all we could from these cards, we visited Salzburg Museum, caught a cable car to Festung Hohensalzburg, actually went inside said fortress - hugely impressive being the largest of its kind in Europe, perused the catacombs in St Peter’s cemetery, took a very slow but picturesque boat ride (the river is 17cm shallow in some places) then bus ride to Schloss Hellbrunn, a 17th century baroque villa built to relieve boredom and monotony through use of trick fountains that squirt water on passers-by. Mum and I were more excited by the rotunda from the Sound of Music than the fountains, which we found tucked away in an out-of-the-way corner. It was locked, so neither of us could jump from seat to seat in homage to that song.
By this time my cold had taken over and I was about ready to be guillotined, so we stopped by an apothoke, and I bought my first German medicine. Brilliant stuff and felt better almost immediately after taking. This meant a trip to the grocery store where Mum found tiny bottles of cheap French wine and other goodies for pre-dinner snacks. Dinner was Italian - Mum’s reluctant to try German fare, but I mean to make her in Munich, which is tomorrow by train. Here in Salzburg we’ve had average food, which is unusual as I couldn’t praise European meals enough.
We’ve had gorgeous weather in this city normally known for it’s rainy days, but weather reports tell me our luck is about to run out as rain is predicted for the coming week. Our umbrellas are at the ready.
Love Mad & her mum
xxx
I was at the airport to collect her at 9, and after we’d dropped off her bags at the hotel (did you notice the missing ‘S’!) we set out wearing our adventure caps. Just down the street, a block on from the ice cream parlour with two kugels for only 1.50 euro (a bargain as if you keep going a kugel is more expensive and the more kugels the better, I say), is Mirabell Garden, made famous by the scene in the Sound of Music, where Maria is teaching the kids to sing - Salzburgers detest this movie, which is a shame as I had hoped to see a few re-enactments; I think there’s a lot of money to be made here - so Mum and I posed for the obligatory photos, and told a wonderful water-colourist that we‘d return to buy her paintings, and then promptly forgot our promise. We pressed on, across the river and up the hill to the fortress, Festung Hohensalzburg, which we detoured around (entry cost was ridiculous) instead wandering the park’s paths behind, winding our way in a full circle.
Thursday morning is market day in Salzburg, so we mingled with the locals, emerging heavier for the brown paper bag of strawberries, a chunk of seeded rye bread, walnut and capsicum dip and an almond pastry cake tucked away in our bags. We purchased Salzburg cards, which gained us free access to a handful of places and meant we were in for the busiest of days. In an effort to squeeze all we could from these cards, we visited Salzburg Museum, caught a cable car to Festung Hohensalzburg, actually went inside said fortress - hugely impressive being the largest of its kind in Europe, perused the catacombs in St Peter’s cemetery, took a very slow but picturesque boat ride (the river is 17cm shallow in some places) then bus ride to Schloss Hellbrunn, a 17th century baroque villa built to relieve boredom and monotony through use of trick fountains that squirt water on passers-by. Mum and I were more excited by the rotunda from the Sound of Music than the fountains, which we found tucked away in an out-of-the-way corner. It was locked, so neither of us could jump from seat to seat in homage to that song.
By this time my cold had taken over and I was about ready to be guillotined, so we stopped by an apothoke, and I bought my first German medicine. Brilliant stuff and felt better almost immediately after taking. This meant a trip to the grocery store where Mum found tiny bottles of cheap French wine and other goodies for pre-dinner snacks. Dinner was Italian - Mum’s reluctant to try German fare, but I mean to make her in Munich, which is tomorrow by train. Here in Salzburg we’ve had average food, which is unusual as I couldn’t praise European meals enough.
We’ve had gorgeous weather in this city normally known for it’s rainy days, but weather reports tell me our luck is about to run out as rain is predicted for the coming week. Our umbrellas are at the ready.
Love Mad & her mum
xxx
Friday, April 9, 2010
Bits and Pieces
Part One
I’ve had a lazy time in the mountains, my existence punctuated by the odd walk with Wally and dinner. Climbing the hill behind the Ginger Monkey and looping around takes an hour if I dawdle, which I often do to throw planks of wood and rocks - Wally has odd tastes. There have been only six guests other than me, and only four at one time. This means I have had a room to myself, an unexpected pleasure.
My hosts, Sean and Jess, are unusual. You would swear that Sean is Irish, but his pronounced accent is a by-product of learning English in the company of Irish folk. His passport says he’s Israeli, but while I was there his mum received a letter that might change this. Because he’s been away travelling for five years, the government want to take away his citizenship. We live in a world, a time, fixated with borders. So where does a person with no borders fit in? He’s still puzzling this over.
Jess, an Oxford graduate, works for a company called Oxbridge, which employs Cambridge and Oxford alumni to write essays for students. They produce ‘model essays’ and there’s some contract the students sign to keep it above board, but basically it’s a service enabling people to buy degrees. You wouldn’t believe the pay, though, or the scope Jess writes about. She says she hardly retains any of it, but after hearing her talk, I think she’s just being modest.
I see the other hostellers during the day. We watch movies together, episodes of the Office always seem to be running, but it’s at dinner when everyone is about. The first three evenings Sean cooked, but the last two nights we spent down the road at two of the two local restaurants. Thursday night it was goulash in a small wooden hut where we were served by a tight-lipped Slovakian man through a dirty window. Friday night it was pizza. Though Sean and Jess had heaped praise on this place I was sceptical. After all, we’re in the Slovakian outback. But I was wrong to be wary - Slovakian sheep’s cheese and sausage are marvellous pizza toppings. The cheese is amazing; tasty beyond belief and thick without being chewy.
Meals are advertised in weight, so you know exactly what you’re paying for and how much you are eating. The hostel has a pizza-eating challenge. Eat the XXL - 50 cm in diameter - and you get a chalk mark next to your country. It might please you to note that Australia is in the lead, but not by much. I did not contribute to our tally but I watched an Irish attempt fail at the last two pieces.
It snowed my last night in Zdiar, after I was so sure we’d seen the last cold weather.
Part Two
Back to Vienna for Easter, which was fun and familiar, though everything, except restaurants and cinemas and Easter markets, was closed. I went to Schobrunn Palace on Sunday, grabbed a chocolate waffle from the market in the courtyard, and strolled around the grounds. Sighted first European flowers and pushed the Slovakian snow out of my mind.
I met an English girl at the hostel who shared her gingerbread cake with me, and made me think of English boarding school stories. Discovered that Mum had got her dates mixed up and would be arriving on the Wednesday and not Tuesday morning, which, though disappointing, meant I didn’t have to get up in the middle of the night to meet her in Salzburg.
Sorry to be brief and behind, but I've been terribly busy and unfairly, I think, sick with my third cold in three months. Mum and I are now in Munich after spending two days in sunny Salzburg, which I'll tell you about soon.
xxx
I’ve had a lazy time in the mountains, my existence punctuated by the odd walk with Wally and dinner. Climbing the hill behind the Ginger Monkey and looping around takes an hour if I dawdle, which I often do to throw planks of wood and rocks - Wally has odd tastes. There have been only six guests other than me, and only four at one time. This means I have had a room to myself, an unexpected pleasure.
My hosts, Sean and Jess, are unusual. You would swear that Sean is Irish, but his pronounced accent is a by-product of learning English in the company of Irish folk. His passport says he’s Israeli, but while I was there his mum received a letter that might change this. Because he’s been away travelling for five years, the government want to take away his citizenship. We live in a world, a time, fixated with borders. So where does a person with no borders fit in? He’s still puzzling this over.
Jess, an Oxford graduate, works for a company called Oxbridge, which employs Cambridge and Oxford alumni to write essays for students. They produce ‘model essays’ and there’s some contract the students sign to keep it above board, but basically it’s a service enabling people to buy degrees. You wouldn’t believe the pay, though, or the scope Jess writes about. She says she hardly retains any of it, but after hearing her talk, I think she’s just being modest.
I see the other hostellers during the day. We watch movies together, episodes of the Office always seem to be running, but it’s at dinner when everyone is about. The first three evenings Sean cooked, but the last two nights we spent down the road at two of the two local restaurants. Thursday night it was goulash in a small wooden hut where we were served by a tight-lipped Slovakian man through a dirty window. Friday night it was pizza. Though Sean and Jess had heaped praise on this place I was sceptical. After all, we’re in the Slovakian outback. But I was wrong to be wary - Slovakian sheep’s cheese and sausage are marvellous pizza toppings. The cheese is amazing; tasty beyond belief and thick without being chewy.
Meals are advertised in weight, so you know exactly what you’re paying for and how much you are eating. The hostel has a pizza-eating challenge. Eat the XXL - 50 cm in diameter - and you get a chalk mark next to your country. It might please you to note that Australia is in the lead, but not by much. I did not contribute to our tally but I watched an Irish attempt fail at the last two pieces.
It snowed my last night in Zdiar, after I was so sure we’d seen the last cold weather.
Part Two
Back to Vienna for Easter, which was fun and familiar, though everything, except restaurants and cinemas and Easter markets, was closed. I went to Schobrunn Palace on Sunday, grabbed a chocolate waffle from the market in the courtyard, and strolled around the grounds. Sighted first European flowers and pushed the Slovakian snow out of my mind.
I met an English girl at the hostel who shared her gingerbread cake with me, and made me think of English boarding school stories. Discovered that Mum had got her dates mixed up and would be arriving on the Wednesday and not Tuesday morning, which, though disappointing, meant I didn’t have to get up in the middle of the night to meet her in Salzburg.
Sorry to be brief and behind, but I've been terribly busy and unfairly, I think, sick with my third cold in three months. Mum and I are now in Munich after spending two days in sunny Salzburg, which I'll tell you about soon.
xxx
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Bratislava and Budapest (in the wrong order)
The view of Bratislava from Hrad Castle's grounds
Hrad Castle, Bratislava
Inside the Natinal Theatre in Bratislava where I attended the ballet. Terrible photo, I know, but I'm sitting in a box exactly like you see opposite on the ground floor.
Oh, this was a fantastic Indian meal I had in Budapest at this very cheap Hari Krishna restaurant, which I thought I'd share with you
Another average photo, but this little square had the most fabulous stalls; I came here for lunch and dinner, and see the busker? He's bowing in thanks to a passer-by who put some money in his case. This is where I was mistaken for a Hungarian. I think at the time he was playing 'Hello, Dolly', which I found rather amusing.
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