Austria

Sorry for the long delay, I’ve just gotten back from a fantastic two week roadtrip around the south of Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. I think I’ll have to split up the sections, as there is just too much to write (and read) all in one go. So here are the first few days covering Bavaria and Austria.

I decided to give the Mitfahrzentrale thing another go, after my Belgium experience, and managed to get three fellow travellers to help share costs. Julia, Mandy and Adrian were all quite chatty, which was good, and I hope I didn’t scare them too much. I met up with Ana (my sister) at the Wombats hostel, and then headed out to dinner with her and a woman she’d met earlier that day on a tour she was with. We walked around the city, for what felt like forever, before finally finding a small little restaurant with some scrummy Bavarian fare – oh how I do love German cooking.

Woke up to a very cold and miserable day in Munich, which was a blessing in disguise, because Ana was planning on making me do a three hour bike tour if it had been as nice as the day before. I made sure I was in time to be at the Marienplatz to see the famous Glockenspiel in action. Then I strolled down to the Victualmarkt, one of Germany’s biggest food markets with a huge variety of fresh food and delicacies, which aren’t exactly cheap. Decided to splash out on some exotic fruit, which I think the guy said was from Vietnam, but I found pretty tasteless.

Pigs trotters anyone?

That afternoon Ana and I went to Dachau, which is a memorial site on the grounds of a former concentration camp. Unlike Bergen-Belsen in the north, Dachau has a lot of the original buildings still standing. It was not a designated 'extermination camp' as Auschwitz was, but the camp served as a model for all later concentration camps and as a ‘school of violence’. Dachau was in operation from 1933 to 1945 and in that time thousands of inmates were worked or starved to death. One of the more intriguing aspects of the history of the place, is that they undertook 'experiments' on inmates. These ranged from tests to ascertain how long someone would survive if plunged into ice-cold water, to testing a German version of penicillin by injecting patients with various viruses and seeing if the drug had any effect. What scared me most about all of this was that the reasoning behind it was fairly sane, in that I could see the thought processes behind it. It wasn't straight-out sadism, it was planned and calculating. For example, the ice-cold water tests were undertaken to work out how long the air force should look for survivors from a plane crash. The difficult thing to digest is that the information they collected has been crucial even for today’s medicine and medical practises.

Work brings freedom

Even though the weather was against us, we still decided to check out the Schloss Nymphenburg, a large baroque 17th-century palace which was the summer residence of the Bavarian monarchs and then to the English Garden, which I found both mediocre. For dinner we went to the Rathaus Keller which I highly recommend, but would advise you to go right to the back of the building, as it seems the most atmospheric, which sadly we didn’t see until we were leaving.

Cheimsee

The next day, I was severely sleep deprived – while I was out to dinner some girl had stolen my bed, so while she was out I moved her stuff to the top (empty) bunk above mine. I don’t think she realised you had to make your own bed, and get the sheets from downstairs. When she came back, and I was already in bed, she stole someone else’s lower bunk, and from then on everyone else who came home, had to steal someone else’s bed. But of course each person came back at a different time, each turns on all the lights, starts cursing that someone’s in their bed, then spends half an hour russelling around in a plastic bag, before finally falling asleep with the light on. The drunk 18 year old who came back at 4 am, who couldn’t climb up the stairs, and wouldn’t stop farting was the last straw. And of course the construction crew outside has to start up at 7 am. Oh how I hate hostels.

I’d brought sleeping pills with me, but as I knew I had to drive the next day, I just put up with it. Ana decided to join me for part of my drive to Salzburg, after being stuck in a lot of holiday traffic, we finally got to the Cheimsee, a large lake known as the Bavarian sea, and is a favourite for day-trippers from Munich. We took a ferry to a small island in the middle of the lake called the Herrencheimsee, where you can do a tour of one of crazy King Ludwig the II’s palaces. Although never finished, it is the most expensive of all three of his castles, (of which I have now been to all three, including his birthplace, Schloss Nymphenburg). As it was still early in the tourist season, it wasn’t too crowded, but sadly for us none of the impressive fountains were on. I dropped Ana at the local train station, and carried on by myself, along the foot of the alps, till I got to Salzburg, Austria.

Schloss Herrencheimsee

As things never go quite right when I’m involved, I’d been waiting for something to go wrong with the car for a while, and of course they did. Nothing major thank goodness, but somehow I’d lost the oil cap, and I’d remembered I’d been told it was extremely dangerous to drive with out one. I’m positive I’d screwed it on tightly the last time I’d checked, but something had happened to it. I started to panic that this was going to be one of those stupid situations that it’ll take 5 days for the part to get there and will cost €50, but I needn’t have worried. Using my best German I found a VW dealership and 5 minutes and €6 later I had a new cap. Brilliant! I was also lucky enough to find a host, through couchsurfing called Emanuel, a 25 year old student. He had to work that first night at a bar in town, but like a godsend, he gave me his flatmates room, who was on holiday in India and told me to make myself comfortable. So I crawled into the bed, and watched movies on her computer, which is exactly what I needed.

Mirabelle Gardens

I didn’t really know all that much about Salzburg or what to expect, apart from it was the birthplace of Mozart and filming location of the “Sound of Music”. In the morning I strolled around Mirabelle gardens, which was in full spring bloom. I stopped myself from running around singing ‘Doh-rei-mi’ unlike a few of the other English speaking tourists around. Funnily enough the movie never hit the German speaking part of the world, and few have ever heard of it, let alone actually watched it.

Mirabelle garden with the Pegasus Statue, and covered walkway where Maria taught the kiddies to sing 'Doh-rei-mi', with Hohensalzburg Fortress in the distance

I walked all around the alt stadt, and demolished a delicious giant pretzel. I had to cringe at all the poor horses, carting around fat tourists through all the historic streets. Took a funicular up to the Hohensalzburg Fortress, which towers over the city, and as it was Good Friday, it was too crowded to take the tour inside, but I was happy just strolling around, soaking in the sights of the city and the alps in the distance. Since I’d been lucky enough to be given a brand new navigator, I decided not to do the ‘Sound of Music’ bus tour, but did my own mini version.

The gazebo where Liesl sings '16 going on 17'

So I saw all the main sights, and drove out to the Lake District, which was picture postcard perfect. Emanuel invited me to go to a grill party with him and his mates, at the Hintersee, a small lake far off the tourist trail. It was so nice sitting out in the sun, while the others played on the guitar or didgeridoo, and cooked dinner on the open fire.

That night I went with Emanuel to a friends birthday party, held at a beer hall called the Augustinerbräu. They specialize in brewing a heavily malted Oktoberfest-style beer that is served in huge 1 litre clay-porcelain mugs. Now I’ve never been much of a beer drinker, but this stuff was fantastic, I highly recommend going there. His friends were a great laugh, and it was a great way to end a perfect day.

Bavarian Alps

The next day back in Germany, I followed most of the Alpine Strasse, along the Bavarian alps which were just spectacular, past the “Wank” mountain, which I couldn’t resist taking a photo of, and on to Schloss Linderhof - King Ludwig II retreat in the middle of no where.

This King Ludwig II guy was becoming a bit of a reoccurring thing in this part of the world. So what I’ve gathered of him is that he was king of Bavaria in the mid 1800’s, he is best known for his extreme personal eccentricity (he was rumoured to be gay) and for the extravagant medieval fantasy castles he constructed. He died under mysterious circumstances which are still unclear today.

He was declared insane by his own government because his passion for expensive castles was draining Bavaria’s budget, and he was grounded to Schloss Berg. Oddly enough, he was quite a popular king, and there were rumours he was planning to escape and reclaim his power. Coincidentally he became suicidal and drowned himself in Lake Starnberg (where it is only waist deep). His shrink, who said he was not at all suicidal, drowned, too, coincidentally! Years later, the royal coroner suddenly remembered in his deathbed that there were two bullets in the King’s back, which always struck him odd. Especially since seven witnesses have coincidentally died or disappeared soon after the Kings death. However, others say this is only a wild conspiracy theory. Ironically, nowadays Ludwig’s castles are fairytale cash-cows for Bavaria’s government.

Schloss Linderhof

So after a pleasant stop in the middle of the alps, my navigator took me on a random, twisting drive through back country roads, where I stumbled across pristine turquoise lakes, forests and crossed back over into the Austrian border before finally arriving in Füssen, Bavarias highest town. I had to resort to spending another night in a hostel, but at least no one snored, and we were in a reasonably quiet end of the building. I met a guy there from Mainz, Wiesbaden’s rival city, and we swapped stories. Then at breakfast the next morning, I met Maria and her boyfriend Martias whom I’ve kept in touch with since.

Although the weather was against me, I went to Schloss Neuschwanstein, the infamous German castle which inspired the design of the Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland. As I was pretty early up there, I didn’t have to wait very long to get a bus to the top of the hill. There is a bridge about a 10 minute walk from the castle that gives you a fantastic view of the whole area, but it freaked me out. Largely made out of wood, the whole thing feels very unsteady with 100 tourists all trying to take photos at once.

Severlly sleep deprived yet again, early on Easter Sunday morning at Schloss Neuschwanstein

I must’ve been the only person there not planning on doing a tour of the inside, but I admit I’ve been a bit castled out, and after seeing inside Herrencheimsee, Ana said there was no real need for me to see this one, as its all pretty similar. Met a really nice Australian woman and a Canadian guy there and had a decent chat. That’s what I love about travelling by yourself; you’re much more likely to met interesting people. I stumbled upon a local flea market where I found a not too tacky Beer Stein and black glass bead necklace. I popped back into Füssen, and had a stroll around the town before heading on to Lindau, my next destination.

Füssen shop sign

So that’s all for this part of the trip. In the following days I travelled to the Bodensee, to Liechtenstein, Switzerland and back into Germany and around the Blackforest. So I’ll try and get the next update for you in the next day or two. Take care