After waiting out the typical German holiday Stau (traffic jam) and being stuck next to a lady from Montana that talked about organs and who knows what else for the 3-hour-long trek, we finally arrived at the Muenchen ZOB (main bus station). There, we greeted Joern's Aunt, Tante Bine and drove off. She was very flustered because we had a movie to catch and we were a little late because of the Stau. But not that late. She had brought the salad to eat in the car because she thought that we wouldn't have enough time to eat the rest of dinner at home. There wasn't really any reason to be in a rush, but I definitely enjoyed the faster pace for a change. Anyways, after inhaling a delicious meal of asparagus, potatoes, Nueremburger wurstchen and a too-big quark fruit salad for dessert, we rushed our way to the Cinema.
For those that don't know, Munich is Germany's fancy city (at least in me and Joern's opinion) and the City Centre cinema was no disappointment. We saw Fast and Furious 8 and no, I haven't seen any of the other ones because car movies don't pique my fancy, but I guess I can say that I've seen it now. Anyways, after the movie was over I finally got to go pee and then we took the U-bahn back to Tante Bine's apartment which, mind you is only two stops away from City Centre.
2 Castles, 2 Churches and 1 Fortress: Day 1
I'm pretty sure that it's impossible to have a single still moment with Tante Bine as I woke up at 6.30 and were all out the door by 7.00. On a Saturday. It was really funny because me and Tante Bine were both ready with our shoes and jackets on at 6.55 while Joern was still moping around trying to get his teeth brushed and who knows what else. Finally, we were ready to go.
By 8.00 we had reached our first of 5 destinations for the day. It was the Rococo style (don't ask because I don't know) Pilgrimage Church of Wies
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| Let the record state that the snow was only pretty because we had to see it for one day |
It was really fun because, since we were up in the the Alps, there was snow everywhere and it made everything look magical with the sun so early in the morning. It was also cool because the church was so isolated from anything significant besides the mountains.
From there, we drove for another thirty minutes to our second and third destinations for the day; Neuschwanstein Castle and Hohenschwangau Fortress. First we saw Hohenschwangau (high swan's valley). I know it's boring but I find the history of these two castles really funny because they were both built by some rich guy named Ludwig II. So he was this gay guy that lived FABULOUSLY but, he also spent all of his money and died before his new vacation home (Neuschwanstein) was completed, shame. But before he started building Neuschwanstein, he had inherited the "hunting cabin" of Hohenschwangau, which is more of a modest castle
Anyways, after taking a tour of Hohenschwangau, we turned around (literally) and walked up the other side of the valley to the Neuschwanstein (new swan stone) castle
The way up wasn't that bad as we only encountered some falling snow from the trees above and horse carriages (that apparently killed someone last year).
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the outside is nice but only the main rooms on the inside are
complete as Ludwig II ran out of money and also died before
it completion of his castle |
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| Hohenschwangau is somewhere down there |
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| The fabulous Tante Bine on the left |
The last two pictures of the latter were taken from the infamous bridge that has the best view of the castle. Due to the snow, the bridge was technically closed off. But only by a slinky little piece of caution tape guarded the entrance to the path, so not really "closed off" rather not recommended. And us, being the professional tourists we are, decided to cross the tape in search of a good photo. I still can't say if it was worth it because we basically had to ski our way back down the hill to keep from falling over. Don't get me wrong, the skiing wasn't the sucky part, it was actually pretty fun, but the not so fun part was that me and Joern didn't have an extra pair of shoes along and we still had a museum, a church and a fortress to see yet. By the end of the day our feet were pretty stinky and my suitcase still smells from having to carry those socks, may they rest in peace.
Despite our stinky situation, we had to power through and after the castles we stopped in the Bavarian Kings Museum to learn a little about the kings that made Bavaria the beautiful castle-dotted country that it is today. Normally in museums, Joern and I are held back by Joern's mom who always wants to look at EVERYTHING and it takes forever. But her sister is very different, as we found out, and we found ourselves being waited for when we got out of the exhibit. After the Bavarian Kings museum, we hit the road for Austria to fill up on cheap gas.
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| .15 €/L lower; that's .62 $/gal cheaper than just across the border in Germany |
Before hitting up the Schloss (not quite sure what the translation is, but I say Fortress), we stopped a couple times to enjoy the view
The Schloss that we visited was also built by our Ludwig II friend and was way over-the-top fancy on the inside, especially for being in such a secluded place. The gardens around the castle were really nice too, but unfortunately the fake caves that Ludwig had constructed were under construction. Who knew building fake caves would be so hard.
After seeing the Schloss, we had to rush rush rush our way over to our last destination which was a church in a nearby village. But first, of course I had to take a picture with the theme-of-the-day fitting swan that just so happened to cross our path:
Our next destination was a monastery church. All I can say about it is that the inside was round as opposed to the traditional long shape of a church. Don't get me wrong, it was a cool church, I had just been sleeping in the car and was ready to return to doing just that. It had been a long day.
Salzburg and Onkel Ernst: Day 2
On Sunday we made the trek out of Munich once more to pick Onkel (uncle) Ernst up from where he lives. I'm not sure I'll ever understand why, but for some reason Onkel Ernst and Tante Bine don't live together. I'm told that they're looking for a house at the moment though. Anyways, after picking up Onkel Ernst, we drove back into Austria to the gorgeous city of Salzburg. Now I know what you're thinking, "That's the town from
Sound of Music, right?" and yes it is, but we didn't see any of the typical American voodoo as it's pretty much just fake tourism. Rather, we saw the awesome castle on top of the hill
And did a bunch of other cool things like take the sideways train up to the castle
It was really cool because the train basically went 45 degrees up the hill rather than winding and curving to get to the top. The track was a little bit dodgy, but the train itself was far fancier than the one in Stuttgart and went way faster. At the top, Onkel Ernst brought out the selfie stick and let us play around with it. It was really funny because here I was, surrounded by Japanese, Chinese and Korean people all snapping away on their selfie sticks, and then there's me, the he-looks-asian-but-he's-speaking-english person snapping away as well. But nevertheless, I will never be able to shake my ancestral urge and love for the selfie stick
After snapping a thousand pictures on the overlook, we headed into one of the museums. I particularly liked the way that this castle was set up because, rather than there being one huge museum that takes hours to get through, there were a bunch of small museums that made it like a museum buffet. It was set up so you could take a tour of what you wanted rather than be stuffed full of history and be bored to death. Hence, the first little museum we went in was a little puppet museum where we got to play around with one of the fun puppets that originated in Salzburg
And yes, there was a display on the puppets from the
Sound of Music, but it was definitely not the focus. After the puppet museum we took an audio guided tour of one of the main parts of the castle where we got to go up a tower and I got to whip out the selfie stick again
It feels as though every single museum has an audio guide tour in literally every single language. I'm not sure what the deal is but I guess they make sense. I love taking the tours, not to listen to the boring information, but rather to watch everyone walk around like zombies, bored to death. But that's just my opinion.
The picture above reminded me a lot of the dodgy train tracks from The Polar Express, where the tracks go down a really steep hill and there's buildings all around. And the picture below is from the other dodgy train that we took up, but this time we were taking it down (and we got better seats).
After the castle we went to the mozart museum (which is just his old house), bought mozart kugeln (famous chocolate marzipan balls), went inside one of the big churches in Salzburg, and got lunch. I had schnitzel that was OK, but nothing too special as we were planning on having a bigger dinner. Anyways, from Salzburg we headed to some place that I forget the name of, but nonetheless, it had a good view
In the place who's name I don't know, we took a 40 minute boat ride to a little secluded church and tourist hotspot that could only be accessed by boat. Apparently all the other tourists had thought the sunny Sunday was a good day to take a boat ride as the line to get on a boat back stretched back for at least 200m. But in the meantime, we got some food. I got Johanisbeerschorle (red currant juice soda), spaetzle and some kind of Bavarian meatloaf with mushrooms on it
After eating we decided that we had no choice but to wait in the thankfully shrinking line
I found it funny because after waiting for 100m outside, we were led into this line-house just like Six Flags or Disney, but the difference was that we were in the middle of nowhere in the Alps. Anyways, after finally getting to the car, we started driving back to take Onkel Ernst home. But first, we decided to make another photo-stop by the Koenig See (King Lake)
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I like this picture because you could take a marker and draw
whatever face you want on our faces |
Munich: Day 3
Since I saw most of the important sights in Munich on my last trip to Germany in 2014, we walked around a bit and settled for a big museum called
Das Residenz that was the residence of the Bavarian monarchy for a very long time. But it was pretty much just a learn-until-you-bust and fun pictures day
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| yes that's a skull in there |
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| I am Elsa |
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| I am also the King |
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| *and death* |
Yes, it was a fun day. After having lunch, Tante Bine drove us to the bus station where we said our goodbye's and I thanked her for the awesome Bavaria-in-three-days tour. It was a great weekend and I really hope that I see Tante Bine again some day.
Update
I know that this post is more like the length of three posts, but I promise I'm almost done. So Joern and I have come to the realization that we both have a severe coffee addiction and that we need to do something about it. We spent a good hour this afternoon reading about coffee addiction, the goods, the bads, and the benefits of quitting. It was very interesting, but we came to the conclusion that we can still reap the benefits of the magic of coffee if we siphon it down to only Thursdays (the day we have school until 17.00), Sundays and days with big tests. In the end, it should come out to be three times a week that we drink coffee rather than the 10+ that we are both currently at. If anyone has any tips, please please please help us and drop some advice in the comments. Remember that
Kommentar Veroeffentlichen means "publish comment".
As usual, it's really late and I still have homework to get around to procrastinating.
Today is 2.5.2017
Nat
