The Big OE

Liechtenstein is a country which has always fascinated me. A tiny country with a paltry 34,000 inhabitants, wedged between Austria and Switzerland is not on the top of everyone’s must-see travel lists, but as I was in the neighbourhood and I thought ‘why not at least check it out’. Famous mostly for their postal stamps, the first thing that struck me about the country is the speed cameras – they were everywhere. With four cameras on every intersection and what also felt like on every power pole, you really got the feeling ‘Big Brother’ was watching.

I tried looking around the capital, Vaduz, but there wasn’t a whole lot to see. I was a little cheesy and got a souvenir stamp in my passport, but that’s about all you could do in the place. The scenery was gorgeous however, and so I pulled over the car, and sat in a field, admiring all the spring flowers, and Alps. Oh and for those that are interested, I found Liechtenstein to have the cheapest petrol out of all four countries. Austria and Switzerland are not too far off, but Germany is by far the most expensive, because of all the taxes. But then again when driving in Austria and Switzerland you need to get a ‘vignette’ to drive on the motorways.

So after a short drive and little more than a flag on the side of the road, I entered into Switzerland. With a wide grin on my face, I meandered down through the hills into Maienfeld, better known as ‘Heidiland’. Cheesy I know, but I grew up listening to tapes, watching movies and reading all about Heidi.

I remember when I was around 14 I rang up the travel agents, to find out how expensive flights to Frankfurt were, because that’s where Heidi had moved to. Who knew that would be so close to my home for a year?

Anyway, Maienfeld itself is relatively small, and although the story is fictional (written in 1880 by Swiss author Johanna Spyri) you can go to Heidishaus, but because there was major roadworks, I couldn’t get to it. But I was happy regardless just sitting in a field, soaking in all the views.

I then carried on along the back country roads (thanks to my handy navigator, which let me avoid all the toll roads) along the impressive Wallensee, and finally along the skinny, and somewhat less impressive Zurichsee. I saw a random New Zealand flag flying from this guys workshop, that sells wood, and so I decided to stop. Turned out he just had some kiwi friends visiting, who decided to put it up. I figured you never know, who you might bump into.

That night I stayed with Dule, a Serbian Evolutionary Biologist, at his cool apartment, right in the Zurich city centre. We went out for Thai, and Dule showed me around the sights, then we met up with one of his American friends and checked out a few local night spots. Including one place, that if you had a giant record player, you could play music off the walls. Had a great time with Dule, and his friend and would have loved to have spent more time there.

Next addition is about meeting up with Gizzy locals, babysitting cats, exploring the rest of Switzerland and the Black forest.

After Füssen, I drove on to Lindau, a small island jutting out into the Bodensee, where the three borders of Austria, Germany and Switzerland meet. A beautiful little town, with cobbled streets, flowers in full colour and its own quiet charm. After strolling around the harbour I met up with Peter, a sound technician, born and bred on the island, who had kindly offered to host me, and was putting me up at a pension just around the corner from his house. As it was a beautifully sunny Easter Sunday, the little town was bursting at the seams with day-trippers, ice cream vendors and street performers which gave it a real summery feel.

Peter showed me all around the small town, and taught me a lot about the history of the place and the people. That night we went to one of the local Italian restaurants for dinner, and to a Dizzy Bee concert at one of the bars, which Peter had installed the sound gear for. The band was really good, had a lot of energy and (luckily for me) sang in English. After they’d finished their set, we moved on to another local spot before sleep finally got the better of me.

The room Peter had found me was fantastic, the house was on a quite cobbled street, I needed a huge silver old-style key to unlock the front door, and the room was something straight out of the 1900’s. I was ecstatic, and feeling pretty spoilt.

Waking up the next day, feeling much rested, I drove to Birnau, which is further up the eastern side of the lake, and has a famous Cathedral, and got as close to Easter Mass as I was ever going to get. As I sat out in the sun, amongst the dandelions and daisies, waiting for the mass to be over, so I could go in and look at the infamous ceiling inside, I got to see a ‘Zeppelin’. A rather large ‘blimp’ like aircraft, that were used to carry passengers from Germany to America in the early 1900’s, and are famous to the region. As it was still a public holiday, trying to find a park anywhere, to take a ferry across the lake, was mission impossible, so happy to hang around Lindau some more, I went back and soaked up some of the sun around the harbour.

Peter was extremely fascinating, and we talked a lot about his travels (as he’s a keen diver) and he has a soft spot for New Zealand, of which he has actually travelled all over, even to Gisborne, my hometown. Later that afternoon he convinced me to watch the Borat movie, which I’d been putting off, but actually found pretty funny (mostly shocking, but good for a laugh). We then went to another local restaurant, which specialises in Swabian cuisine. The restaurant was a rather random family run affair, and had more of a guest in someone’s home feel about it, but boy was it good. The menu was written entirely in swabian dialect, meaning I had no chance of understanding it, but quick as anything I was presented an English copy printed off the computer out the back, and asked if it was up to scratch. I had to chuckle at one of the descriptions: Krautspätzle: Sauerkraut and Spätzle mengled together in equal shares and fried; Comparable to a happy marriage. I absolutely love Spätzle, a type of noodle, and will miss it greatly when I leave Germany.

I found Lindau absolutely delightful, and would love to go back. It has a lot of character, and history at ever turn. I was a little disappointed that if there hadn’t been such a thick haze over the lake, I would’ve been able to see the Swiss Alps on the other side – just another reason why I’ll have to go back I guess. Peter was a fantastic host, with whom I am greatly indebted to. Stay tuned for Liechtenstein, Switzerland and the Black Forrest.

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

I may have gotten a little ahead of myself last time, boasting about the return of spring and sunshine, because as we all know nothing is ever predictable when it comes to weather. Winter returned in force last Monday which happened to be Max’s Birthday. We’d picked up 11 boys from his class and taken them up into the Taunus Mountains (more like large hills if you ask me) to a sort of lodge to do rock climbing. When it was time to come home, and the boys had all conquered their fears it had begun to snow. I then woke up the next day (or the one after, all my days seem to blur into one lately) to a blanket of white. I was naturally thrilled, as I’ve been dreaming of running around in snow ever since I got here, and I thought it had all been in vain. Of course it had all disappeared by lunchtime and I didn’t really think about it again – until on Friday when everything went downhill and the chaos began.

This was just for breakfast, he had three cakes in total. One made by Frau Doerr (i.e. the one above), one made by me to take to school, and one by a proper cake maker for his party.

I had been meaning to get to Belgium before my sister left for a while, but as she was off jet setting around Europe every weekend, and I had my fair share of things planned, and expenses to pay, the dates just kept getting pushed back further and further, and as she is leaving Belgium this week, we got to crunch time. As I’m not exactly rolling in money, I decided to take Nicole’s advice and look in to using a German website called Mitfahrzentrale, which is sort of like a hitchhiker/driver match making site. I’d never used it before, because I liked the freedom of being able to stop whenever I want, but having people share the costs of petrol was mighty tempting. So I managed to organise people to come along in various stages of the trip and to help with costs. I’d even arranged to bring back an Antique chair that someone had brought off eBay. I’d navigated the whole site, and was feeling pretty pleased with myself as its all in German and everything was set to go. But on Friday morning, Nicole told me I couldn’t take the car, because the whole Western border of Germany was covered in snow, the roads were chaos, and because we’d already taken the winter tyres off the car, it was too big an insurance risk.

I raced down to the Auto repairers to see if they could put the winter tyres that I’d stored there, back on, but got promptly told there was absolutely no way that they could get them out of a storage facility in Frankfurt before Monday. Absolutely gutted I decided I just wouldn’t go, as I couldn’t afford to take the train. I had to ring everyone and let them know, that I couldn’t take them. Then Nicole suggested we contact the train company and see if I could bring the antique chair (that I’d promised someone I would bring back for them) on the train on the way home. The guy was willing to pay me €150 to deliver it to him, and would there for be able to pay for the cost of the return train. No one would give me any answers so I just took a risk, found a ride from Cologne to Belgium using Mitfahrzentrale and then jumped on the high speed train.

I spent about three hours in Cologne, just strolling around, checked out the Dom and walked along the Rhine before I got picked up by Juan, a Colombian student, now living in Cologne who was travelling through to Paris to visit his girlfriend. We picked up Mathieu, a French rugby playing (which is pretty rare around this soccer mad part of the world) friend of his, along the way and they drove me the rest of the way to Belgium. Both were really nice and easy going guys and even posed for a photo for me – thanks guys.

So I eventually made it after all, to the land of Waffles, Chocolate, Beer, Lace, Frites, Mussels, Tintin and Jean Claude Van Damme. Thankfully I didn’t have to wait long before Ana picked me up from my drop off point at the Airport, and then we spent a while shopping and checking out the large Belgian supermarket. Both exhausted, we crashed out on the couch and watched ‘Instinct’. Next morning we drove to a town called Ghent, about an hour west of Brussels. I absolutely loved Ghent, and would love to go back there in the summer, of course when we were there it was cold and miserable. The buildings are really spectacular, and the Graslei along the water canal is particularly picturesque.

It had one of the most impressive Cathedrals I’ve ever been in, and since being in Europe I’ve been in a fair few. There are lots of things to look at, and it had a really lived in feel, and not like just a big museum (the city that is, not the church). We found a sweet stall in a market there, and brought some Cuberdons, which are an old Belgian speciality particular to the Ghent/Flemish region. Cuberdons are dark red, raspberry cone shapes (the outside is hard, while the inside stays liquid) and are absolutely delicious. As their shelf life is only about 4 weeks, they can’t really be exported, so you’re going to have to travel to Belgium to try them! We also stumbled upon a random hall with lots of treats and samples to try, best of all were the mouth-watering truffles. It wasn’t until after I got back to Germany that I found out that Ghent is actually the sistercity of Wiesbaden, but what does being sister cities really mean anyway?

That afternoon, we carried on exploring and drove to a small city just south of Brussels called Namur, which is the capital of Wallonia (or the French speaking part of Belgium). A pleasant enough city, with lots of pedestrian streets but the most impressive part of it is the Citadel, which is a fortress built on a hill overlooking the city, and the site has been used defensively for more than two millennia and has tunnels, riddled throughout the limestone hill. We didn’t really get to explore much of it, as the sun was going down and it was getting more than a little chilly. That night we decided to check out the movies, and went to the Kinopolis in the Brupack which has an impressive 29 theatres. What we hadn’t realised is that there was a major free concert in the park called the ‘Stars of Europe’, to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the establishment of the EU. The Atomium (built 1958), a massive icon of Brussels with nine large steel spheres measuring around 18 metres in diameter, was all lit up, and lasers pointing everywhere, and was a pretty impressive sight. So we checked that out for a while, before heading back to watch a movie.

The next morning, sun shining thank goodness, we jumped on a bus into the city centre and checked out all the famous Brussels sights, including the Grand place, its impressive guild houses and the lucky statue of Everard’t Serclaes. The Manneken Pis seemed more like a joke, than a reason to be a major icon. We did the touristy thing and got a double decker ride around the rest of the city and saw the palace, Jubel park and the EU buildings. I thought Brussels was a pretty nice city, wouldn’t mind going back but not sure you could spend a lot of time there - as a tourist that is.

So after a really pleasant weekend, that afternoon Kriztina, a really lovely Hungary woman picked me up, and dropped me at the train station, complete with a 300 year old Antique Spanish chair. Always one to be a little random, this took the cake. I had to lug the thing on to an extremely busy train full of long distance travellers and all their giant bags, and try and not freak out when ever anyone got too close, or looked like they were going to sit on the very fragile leather seat. I got to Frankfurt Airport without having a heart attack, and even carried it through the airport, up and down 4 escalators, (all because you have to change over to the regional trains) without damaging it. Got a raised eyebrow from a few puzzled onlookers more than once, but that’s the nice thing about not being a local, there’s not much chance of people who know you actually spotting you. So job done, €150 richer, thank you very much and now looking forward to my next little adventure next week where I’m off to the south of Germany, Austria and Switzerland – wish me luck.