Our first stop in Italy was a German mountain town – technically within the Italian borders, but it’s filled with lederhosen-wearing, hiking, German-speaking Germans. It used to be part of Germany, but Hitler gave the town to Mussolini as a gift. That was thoughtful. And such it was that this German town is now in Italy.
We were still with Vince’s parents, Aunt Ophelia, and family friends Sonny & Fe (who we also were in Munich with). We had a very relaxing stay at a mountain resort with wonderful food and long mountain hikes.
Tirol is a 4-hour drive from Munich. There were castles EVERYWHERE along the way, just along the roadside. There are about 400 castles in the region. Not exaggerating when I say that we saw a castle like this every mile or so.
This is a view of Tirol – it’s surrounded by vineyards & apple orchards… Beautiful!
We visited this castle, “Schloss Tirol,” built in 1138 (and added to over the next few centuries)-
Vince loves “all things castles,” so he was in heaven –
The castle had a great museum with stories of Tirol’s history and cool medieval artifacts – including this shield from the 1300’s
And this iron mask – I guess “The Man in the Iron Mask” isn’t entirely fictional. But Leo wasn't around that day, we looked.
Everywhere we hiked, we had one gorgeous view after another.
We did one organized hiking tour that included champagne tasting, and we walked through pastures that had horses and cows, right along our path – not fenced off in many places. Those are the snow-capped Dolomites in the background.
Germans love hiking. And beer. This being a German town with lots of German hikers, there is a restaurant at the top of every mountain – with soup, coffee, cake, and of course beer. This one is a pretty typical one, most of the houses, hotels, cafes & restaurants are in the Bavarian style.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Summary #1 - Eastern Europe, Germany, & Austria Wrap-up
- 5 Countries (Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Germany, Austria)
- 7 major cities (Frankfurt, Berlin, Prague, Krakow, Vienna, Budapest, Munich)
- 8 Towns (Auscheffenburg, Wurtzburg, Potsdam, Kutna Hora, Aushwitz, Wieliczka, Chiemsee, Tegernsee)
- 4 Currencies
- 4 Languages
- 0 Thefts, pickpockets, or stolen organs
- 2 and a half mild-ish cases of food poisoning
Observations, Opinions, and Gross Generalizations, so far:
- The further east you go, the more challenging the language gets (6 consonants in a row!)
- The deeper you go into post-communist countries, the bigger the gap from “capitalistic customer service”, the surlier the security guards, and the more minutes they close before “closing time” – even if you want to spend money there (winner: Budapest, consistently closed 20-25 min before closing time).
- Public transportation is surprisingly on-time and gets even easier the more cities/systems you try. In general.
- Favorite beers – Czech Republic
- Favorite new cuisine – CurryWurst (Berlin)
- Best stews/goulash – toss-up between Budapest & Krakow
- Best subways – Vienna (Berlin is a close second)
- Oldest subway – Budapest - the historic yellow line is the 3rd oldest in the world, very clean and pretty (1. New York, 2. London)
- Ugliest subway – also Budapest – the blue line doesn’t get the love that the UNESCO yellow line gets... so it looks like the NYC subways circa 1982, pre-clean-up (graffiti, peeling metal, missing bolts)
- Most Globally/recently historic – Berlin
- Most legends – Krakow (they have a dragon in their legends!)
- Most music halls & opera houses - Vienna
A couple fun memories left out of the blog posts:
PRAGUE: We accidentally erased all of our Prague pictures in the transfer from camera-to-computer. Luckily, this happened on our last morning in Prague, and our train wasn't until night-time... So, we spent the last day in Prague re-tracing our steps from the previous 5 days. So any pictures that we have or posted were actually taken in one day, when we saw everything for the second or third time. The only pictures that we weren't able to re-produce were the night-time ones, and the interior of the opera house (we got $5 opera tickets and saw Aida - it was awesome). Anyway, here we are in front of the St. Charles bridge with a view of the castle across the river. 
KRAKOW: The city's history really does start with a legend of a dragon. This is a statue of the dragon (a little hard to distinguish from the trees in this picture) - It breathes fire every 5 minutes or so.
Well, that about wraps it up. We are currently in italy for 6 weeks (blogs coming soon). We are going to Turkey for 10 days in November, and then we are off to Australia & New Zealand for almost 3 months. Then the European adventure continues in mid-February, still working on the specifics.
Lots of Love to all of our family & friends.
Around Munich – Lake Cheimsee, Tegernsee, and Schloss Linderhof
Our hosts Sonny and Fe also showed us some of the wonderful places surrounding Munich, including a lake, a mountain, and a palace in the forest.
Lake Chiemsee is a large lake nestled along the German Alps. It is fairly remote and definitely beautiful. There is a ferry on the Lake that transported us to the various islands.
The biggest island on the lake is Herrenchiemsee, on which sits Palace Herrenchiemsee, one of the three palaces built by King Ludwig II (who also build the famous Neuschwanstein castle and Schloss Linderhof described below). It was an homage to Versailles, but was never completed and some of the areas of the palace remain just brick foundations. Other parts were completed, most interesting were a dining room with a dining table that could be lowered to the kitchen and giant bath tub room.
Another little island on the lake included a monastery and a bunch of cool Bavarian homes. We also got to eat some delicious freshly caught fish at a lakeside restaurant.
Another day, we traveled about an hour and a half outside of Munich to the area around Lake Tegernsee, where we took a ski lift up a apx.2000m peak, that is part of the Alps. During the winter, it is a popular ski destination.
At the top of the mountain, we had some the traditional German soups. Apparently every mountaintop in Germany has a restaurant, which makes good sense. From there we had some amazing views of the valley below and saw some paragliders take off and float down. Then we proceeded to hike for 3 hours down the mountain.
On our way back to Munich, we stopped by to check out the town around the lake. It was a really nice town with some traditional Bavarian buildings and homes, with expensive stores and clientele. The lake was especially pretty as it neared sunset.
We visited the town of Oberammergau, which is famous for the Passion Play they perform every ten years. The tradition of this play of the Passion of Christ started as an homage to the town being spared during the bubonic plague. The actors and everyone who puts the play together is comprised completely of town residents.
We also got the chance to visit Schloss Linderhof, a small palace built by Ludwig II in the mountainous forest about an hour from Munich. The setting is spectacular, nestled in the foothills and surrounded by a large park and garden. The palace itself is ornate, check out the interior photos found on Google.
Ludwig II bought this Moorish Kiosk that was initially built for the World Fair in Paris. Inside is an elaborate peacock throne and colorful Moorish decorations and stained glass.
No palace would be complete without a Grotto. Apparently Ludwig II would have musicians play his favorite music in the Grotto for him privately, as he sat in the boat. He was a little crazy to say the least. He mysteriously died in a boat with his physician and his brother that succeeded him was completely crazy, and was only the king in name. We were told that there was a lot of close family marriages which led to a lot of defects.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Munich, More Than Just Oktoberfest
After our time in Budapest, we took a train run by an Austrian company, that in the middle of the journey sat on the tracks for 2 hours without any explanation. We expected this out of maybe the Hungarian, Polish, or Czech trains, but not Austrian. We finally arrived at the Munich train station where our family friend Sonny and Vince’s aunt Ophelia were waiting. Sonny, his wife Fe, and daughter Janet put us up in their home in Aschheim, a suburb of Munich.
The next day we went to the opening day parade for 200th Anniversary Oktoberfest (had no idea there was even a parade). It included horses pulling beer barrels, marching bands, and floats with traditionally dressed Bavarians. There are tons of people walking around dressed in traditional Bavarian Lederhosen.
After the parade we went to the Oktoberfest fair grounds where the beer tents, food, and rides are. It was so packed, it reminded us of Hong Kong.
The beer tents were full so we walked to the famous beer garden Hofbrauhaus, which was also packed. But we got a seat and were able to enjoy the beer, food, and antics of drunken Italians.
From there we visited an outdoor market and walked by this, the Rathaus of Munich.
Another day, we rode bikes to Munich and were given a tour of all the major sites in the city by Janet, including the Chinese pavilion (note: old German dudes drinking beer at noon on a weekday fail to capture the entirety of background pavilions) in the English Garden, which is 10 times larger than Central Park, and the the famous, double-towered Munich Frauenkirche.
Vince’s parents came a few days later to Munich and we visited the Olympic Tower in the Olympic Park, built for the 1972 Summer Games. We also visited the adjacent BMW museum that had a lot of cool exhibits about “The Ultimate Driving Machine”.
Later, the youngins worked their way into the Spaten Beer Tent at Oktoberfest. It was an amazing time with the bands playing and people singing along, while drunkenly balancing themselves on the table tops. “Country Roads” by John Denver is a confirmed hit among Germans, even though they don’t really know the words.
The following day we visited Nymphenburg Palace, a main residence of the Bavarian Kings. The palace sits on 490 acres of impressively well-manicured gardens. It is one of the few palaces we could take pictures in, the interior picture is the Stone Hall. Also included is the Gallery of Beauties, a set of 40 paintings of Bavaria’s most beautiful women of the time, commissioned by Ludwig I.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Budapest - Neither Buddha, nor a pest… Discuss.
Budapest is a gorgeous city – some of the most unique architecture that we’ve seen yet. Hungary also has a long history of being conquered and occupied (the Romans, the Mongolians, the Turks, the Hapsburgs, the Nazis, the Soviets). It also has the most depressed economy that we have experienced – 85% of Hungary lives below the poverty line. While the other cities that we have seen have mostly been reconstructed since WWII, Budapest still has many buildings with bullet holes and a century’s worth of dirt/soot on the facades. The effects of Communism are still very apparent in many ways.
On a brighter note, let’s start with the central Market, which was built in the 1890's – it's a bustling place for locals and tourists - business and capitalism are alive & well here.
Exterior of Market
Interior of Market
Hungary’s biggest church is St Stephan’s Basilica, named after the first king of Hungary (around 1000 A.D.), but built much later in the late 1800's. He converted the country to Christrianity. It is one of the most opulent churches we have seen - red marble, gold, and priceless art.
Exterior of the Church
- Note the people (for scale of how huge it is), and the Communist building on the left - they made their point. (Their point apparently being that they can make really big buildings too - but big ugly buildings - and put them wherever they pleased, even in the historic square).
Interior
Communism:
First we saw the Terror House, regarded by locals as one of the country’s most important museums.
It shows the very dark side of communism – the communist rule was most brutal during the first 10 years or so (until the late 50’s), and the museum highlights this period - the torture, the mistreatment & persecution of peasants and farmers, suppression of all religion and jail/torture of priests, etc. The numbers are staggering – 1 in 3 adults during this period was interrogated, jailed or put to trial. Trials were “show trials” since the verdicts were usually prepared before the trial, and there was a presumption of guilt, not innocence. 700,000 Hungarians were sent to work/concentration camps, and 300,000 of these died in the camps.
Then there was the Revolution of 1956, when students (and later many others) demonstrated against the communist occupation. At first the demonstration was non-violent, but when the Soviets responded with heavy fire (tanks rolled in), the demonstrators armed themselves – the conflict lasted for several weeks. It was unsuccessful for the demonstrators, because they did not have artillery or anti-tank weapons. 20,000 civilians were killed or jailed during the uprising, and 200,000 Hungarians fled the country.
This is a memorial to Imre Nagy, the prime minister during the uprising, who was later executed. He is looking toward the parliament building – he hoped for democracy in Hungary.
After this uprising, the Soviets loosened up on the oppressive rule quite a bit to avoid the instability of more uprisings – the 70’s and 80’s were a time of “Communism Light.” We took a walking tour of communism and learned all about this period – both of our guides were in their 40’s and shared their personal experiences with us. During the “Communism Light” period, the government made everything cheap to bribe/placate people – they subsidized food, housing, and completely covered medical care. There was an underground system of bribery to get better medical care, etc. It was interesting to learn that the government did not want anyone to over-achieve, and didn’t want anyone doing more than “just the plan.” There was a lot of drinking before/during work, on all levels. Since wages were set, and low, everyone did the bare minimum – some of these characteristics are still alive and well today.
This is the last communist memorial in the city – the rest have been moved outside of the city to Memento Park.
These are views of Pest taken from the opposite side of the river:
Parliament Building
View of Pest
The Castle Complex
The rest of this blog is about Buda, the west side of the river – it’s the older part of the city, lots of green hills – and the castle.
This might have been our best day yet – a Wine festival in the castle complex. There was wine, a palace, medieval castle walls, amazing food, live folk music, and sunshine – and wine. Great day.
This is the Fisherman’s Bastion, built in the last century - the 7 towers represent the 7 Magyer tribes that settled here in 896 A.D.– it’s beautiful.
In the foreground is the Statue of St. Stephan (first king), and on the right is St. Matthias church.
Close-up of roof tiles –
We explored the Labyrinth that runs beneath the city – it was originally formed by the hot springs that still run under Budapest, and there is some evidence that pre-historic people inhabited the caves. The labyrinth has been built up and utilized by many regimes – as torture chambers, jails, secret passage-ways. It even has a secret hospital that was used for soldiers during WWII – the hospital room can house 10,000 patients, and was kept secret until 1990. 
The food… ah, the food. Lots of stew – beef stew, lamb stew, catfish goulash, goulash soup, sausage & kale stew. Eastern Europeans make great soups and stews… This is us at our nicest dinner out, with our new friends Elya & Ryan (remember them from Krakow)? They are tandem biking through Europe. (you read that right). We hope to cross paths with them again before our travels are over.
Last, but not least – thermal spas! There are Turkish and Roman baths around the city – very relaxing. We went three times, couldn’t help ourselves – good for a traveler’s sore body. This one had a swimming-pool size hot tub outdoors, and lots of pools indoors with different temperatures/minerals.
One night at the baths, we randomly ran into a friend named Pasha from Vince’s MBA program – he just happened to be in Budapest the same time as us, and just happened to be at the same bath house at the same time as us. Love running into a familiar face!
