Day 16-17 Homeward Bound

Thursday morning dawned nicer than the past few days, with clear skies and an expected high of about 20C in Berlin. Of course, that meant we were leaving…


Now that we understand the European Rail System, it was easy enough to find our bearings at the Bahnhof. We were heading down to the platform to wait for the train when it arrived, a few minutes early. This not being the originating point, it didn't stay that long, but we still had 10 minutes to get ourselves settled in before we left. Another 6 hours but with a different route, so we had many fewer stops and our fellow passengers were a lot quieter and more civilized than the first trip. Although Larry, in wandering around a bit, discovered that we were actually in a car that was designated First and Second Class, as opposed to a First Class only car. Quite a difference, and one that we will keep in mind for the next time we take to the rails in Europe. The First Class car has actual compartments rather than just a group of seats in an area divided from Second Class. But nonetheless, it was a comfortable trip. Overall, Monica got about a third of a baby blanket completed between the 2 trips and spare time, and Larry is getting used to using his e-Reader.

We arrived in Munich on time to the minute (what else?) to a beautiful and warm afternoon. After checking back into the Le Meridien, we picked up our stored bag, dropped everything in our room, and headed out for one last stroll into the old town, and one last Bavarian meal.

But before we did that, we had one more 'memory-lane' trip to make. As mentioned before, we had Googled the Hotel Pension that we had stayed in those 37 years ago, to find that it still exists And, since it was just down the street from the hotel, we just had to go find it. And you can guess what else we found, can't you?

Scaffolding!!!! Yes, that which no trip of ours would EVER be complete without – restoration and renovation. If there hadn't been a dozen people sitting in the café/breakfast/lunch area outside, we'd have rolled on the sidewalk laughing.

So, after that we set out to Marienplatz and the Hofbräuhaus for a last visit and beverage. We had also planned on doing a little more shopping, but of course all the stores were closed. It was Corpus Christi, a holiday in the heavily Catholic south of Germany. Not even the souvenir stands were open – and there were a lot of tourists around, especially at the HB. A couple of last photos:

Yes! - This makes 2 half litres of beer in one trip!

We also decided to go back to the Marktwirt, the restaurant near the Viktualenmarkt where we had had lunch before, for dinner. It was just as delicious as lunch, even though partway through dinner a few raindrops started to sprinkle into their small biergarten.

Pork roast and real potato dumplings



The little alleyway where the restaurant is located



After a slow wander back to the hotel – after all we did have to work off dinner and the beer, we got everything packed up and went to bed. After all 5:00 in the morning comes pretty early…And thanks, Maureen for the e-mail to make sure we got up on time!

So as we type this last report for this trip, we're sitting – ALONE – in the First Class compartment of a Lufthansa A340, somewhere over eastern Labrador.

This certainly has been an experience. Our very own cabin crew, just about anything you could want, including utter silence. Not to rub it in or anything, but here are a couple of photos of the cabin and the meal service:

Last chance to revisit the springtime asparagus tradition

This was the 'afternoon snack'!! - Note that even the butter is imprinted  'First Class'

Hope you had as good a time reading the blog as we have writing it. Now we just have to prepare for all the workout time we'll need to work off that good German food!! We can hear Eric chuckling in anticipation!!!

Day 12-14 Berlin

It's pretty easy to take a train just about anywhere in Europe – much easier than trying to make your way through airports, etc, etc. Within about ten minutes we were out of the hotel, across the street to the Hauptbahnhof and 'checked in', meaning that our Rail Europe Passes and Tickets had been validated at the station.


The passenger trains in Europe all run on an electric system, making it possible to have stations encompassing large covered spaces where the trains can come all the way inside to their platforms. Here's a photo of the inside of the Munich Hauptbahnhof so you can see what we mean:

Everything is available, from candy stands, beer nuts and florists to a huge number of restaurants and fast food stands so travelers can purchase whatever they may want for the journey ahead.

The trains run pretty well on time over here, so you need to be on the platform when your train arrives. Even if your city is one of the end points of the train's journey (as ours was), it doesn't sit in the station for very long. The train was already on its way about 5 minutes after we boarded. And it arrived at every single stop along the way within a minute of the arrival time posted on the route map! The only oddity is that this so-called Inter City Express (or ICE) train made 8 stops along the way and took six hours to get from Munich to Berlin. Sure glad we didn't take "the local" or we might never have gotten here. For all that, we arrived in Berlin on the dot of 6:08 as scheduled, and were in our room at the Grand Hyatt by 6:30!!

We pre-booked two walking tours in Berlin. The first was Monday afternoon, so we did something unusual for this trip Monday morning. We didn't set the alarm! After a very nice "sleep in" and breakfast in the Club Lounge (we are in a Club Room), we decided to do what we always do in a new city, set off on foot to explore. And that's where the fun started.

Most cities we have visited have some identifiable landmark, a tall building, a body of water or a defined downtown. Berlin is absolutely flat, and the buildings are so tightly grouped that even the tallest structure, the Runfunk TV Tower, at almost 300 metres, is rarely visible. Most cities have a "grid" road network, Berlin has ONE east/west artery, and it's in the middle of a park. In this situation, one needs a good map that shows ALL the streets. We discovered ours didn't. For all that, if we had just, less than 50 yards from the front door of the hotel, turned LEFT instead of turning right…….. An hour later, after having gone in a complete circle around the hotel, we finally found a landmark we recognized. The 200 acre Tiergarten, the biggest park in Berlin, and less than a quarter mile due north of our hotel!!! This in spite of the fact Larry was carrying (and using) the compass Jane gave him for Christmas, so yes, we knew which way was north, but that didn't mean we could find the streets on the map! Anyway, all's well that ends well, and once we found the park we were all set. And it is a lovely park to walk in, and easy to forget while walking that you are in a city of 3 million people. It was that quiet. A few pictures;

Larry in front of the Siegessaeule, a monument to victory in the Franco-Prussian wars.

Some two hours after we set out, we found ourselves at the meeting point for our walking tour, in an incredibly busy part of the city, an hour early. We found out from our guide later that the area we were in, the Zoologischer Garten (or Zoo), was actually the "downtown" of what had once been West Berlin and the Bahnhof Station there had been its main rail station. This explained why every hotel, fast food outlet and store chain known to man seemed to be located within 500 yards of the intersection! Not to mention that the very famous Kurfürstendamm, or Ku'Damm, one of the best shopping streets in Berlin. Fortunately we did find Kanzler's, the oldest coffee shop in the city, and spent an hour over coffee and sinfully delicious (and fattening) cake!! We felt very Berliner-ish!!

Our walking tour was a Berlin Highlights tour and it started with our introduction to the Berlin rapid transit system. Unlike Toronto, Berlin has EIGHT subway lines, called U-Bahns, and at least 10 elevated train lines called S-Bahns. The map of the Berlin rapid transit system looks like a berserk Rorshack ink blot gone wild!! One gets a headache just looking at it! The tour started with a five stop S-Bahn ride from what was downtown West Berlin to what was downtown East Berlin and was a trip back in time from the early 21st century to the late 20th century. While much has been improved in the former eastern part of the city, much remains as it was and in many areas East Berlin remains a dark place. Over the course of 4.5 hours our guide Caroline took us through much of the eastern part of central Berlin, past the old museums and government offices. She also took us past many of the "relics" of Berlin's darker Nazi past. Much like guides previously in this trip, she talked freely, and at length, about the Nazi history of Berlin. At one point she made the comment "We recently discovered my Grandfather was in the SS and stationed on the eastern front. There is no way anything good can come of that part of our family history." Here are a few shots from the tour:

The Berliner Dom, the main church of the city

The Brandenburg Gate

A different view of the Holocaust Memorial

The double row of cobblestones marking the path of the Berlin Wall

The Reichstag - seat of German Parliament

After Monday's tour, we were afraid our Tuesday morning Infamous Third Reich Sites tour would be a re-run. Our guide this time was an American from Minnesota who came to Berlin to finish his college degree in 2005 and never left. As an American, his perspective on the history of the period was different from Caroline's in many ways. While there was some duplication, his emphasis was more on the buildings and the physical remains of the Nazi period. For example, even though Hitler's Bunker is no more than a filled in hole in the ground now, he verbally reconstructed the entire Chancellery Building, showing us how big it was and finally ending up, based on the historical evidence and pictures from the time, talking about Hitler's death while standing almost exactly at the spot the bodies were burned. A very strange experience in many ways. Our tour ended, fittingly, at a spot that neatly captures Berlin's recent history; on the former site of Gestapo Headquarters beside the last remaining, untouched section of the Berlin Wall.

By the time the second tour was done we were both about "toured out", our heads swimming in the names, dates and accomplishments, good and bad of Berlin's turbulent history. Fortunately our day ended with a great dinner with new friends. We had met Kerry and Will on the ship and discovered they lived about 20 minutes from us. While we went to Munich they had gone to Prague and then on to Berlin. They met us here at the hotel and we had a very nice three hour dinner in one of the restaurants. All in all a very nice finish to a very busy couple of days. Food shots from our dinner at mesa, the tapas-style German restaurant in the hotel:

A selection of entrees - Berliner Currywurst, Fish, and Lamb chops

Berliner Rouladen - second only to Mom's (this portion is a lot smaller than it looks!)

Desserts - of course!!

Our third, and final, day in Berlin started like our first day, with no alarm clock!! It also started out sunny for a change, but still not real warm. We had no real plans, but at dinner last night Kerry mentioned they visited the food court of a well known German department store KaDeWe (which is short for Kaufhaus des Westens) near their hotel, so we decided to check it out. Which meant tackling the U-Bahn system! Which meant we first had to find the entrance to the system. The closest U-Bahn stop was right around the corner from the hotel and there were lots of signs pointing to it, but we couldn't find the actual entrance stairs!!! We could find the S-Bahn (which is actually under ground in this part of town), but no U-Bahn. Finally we found it, and after finally figuring out the ticket machine (the entire transit system is a POP honour system) we made our way to the food court at KaDeWe. Oh my! Food emporium is more like it. We walked around the 6th floor for an hour and never saw the same place twice. Everything from (Euro) penny candy to a $3,000 bottle of Cognac. In a department store!! In a stroll down one aisle our cholesterol and blood sugar readings went through the roof and we never tasted a thing! The aromas alone were fattening. Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures, so you will just have to trust us on this one!!!

After extricating ourselves from the food emporium we once again tackled the U/S-Bahn system and took ourselves back over to the eastern side of the city. We had read, and heard, that no visit to Berlin is complete unless you take a boat tour on the Spree River, and the best ones are on the east side. This one started beside the Berlin Cathedral and we can now say that we agree this is a must-do. The cruise took us through much of the east side and then through the "government district" on the west side, and things really do look different from a boat. Some pictures:

How civilized - wine and non-alcoholic beer on the cruise boat...

Along the  riverside in the Nikolai-Viertel (in old East Berlin)

Larry and the Reichstag Building

A beach bar - the only place we didn't get to on this trip

As we type, we are back in our hotel room and packed up for our return train trip to Munich tomorrow and our flight home on Friday. This has been quite the trip and we have both commented that while we left home two weeks ago today, it feels like we have been gone a month. We don't know if we will get time for another post, but in case we don't, we hope you have enjoyed our trip as much as we have.

Day 10 & 11 Touring Munich and Bavaria

Our first full day in Munich dawned cloudy and a bit cooler than we had been used to. Promptly at 9:00 our group met our guide Jeff at the hotel for our half day bus/walking tour.


Once upon a time, back in 1600 – 1800's, Bavaria had been a country in its own right and Munich had been its capital. We spent the morning, first by bus, and then walking, touring the various "Imperial" sites from this time. We passed numerous arches, statues and theatres built by one or another of Bavaria's Kings. Here are a few pictures around town:

The Old Rathaus, now housing the Toy Museum

The Theatinerkirche

Inside the church

Interestingly, and for the second time this trip (Linz being the first) our guide spent a fair amount of time talking about Munich's WW II past. Along the way Jeff pointed out the various buildings with a "Nazi" past; the old parade grounds, the building where the 1938 Munich Treaty was signed, and even the spot where, in 1923, Hitler was arrested after the failed Beer Hall Putsch!! What we found interesting is that in prior trips to Germany, this part of German history was rarely, if ever, mentioned.

This is a pretty normal konditorei (coffee & cake cafe), except that it is almost next to the small monument that Hitler put up to honour his friends that were killed in the Putsch. We later found out that he came back on the anniversary every year to pay tribute and raise a glass or two in a local kneipe.

One tower of the Frauenkirche - the other's behind the scaffolding

After visiting the main cathedral, the Frauenkirche, and then the open air market, our morning ended, not terribly surprisingly, at the Hofbräuhaus, in the main beer hall. After taking leave of Jeff, most of us ended up taking over several tables to sample the product. We ended up at a table with the two couples from Australia, both of whom had also been there the evening before!!

The new Rathaus in Marienplatz

 The Glockenspiel

The Glockenspiel's two levels depict two different events. The Glockenspiel runs at 11:00 and 12:00 noon every day, with an additional performance at 5:00 p.m. in the summer months (probably for the additional tourists). The top level depicts the wedding of one of the Bavarian princes and his bride from France, and includes two knights on horseback passing each other in a joust. On the second pass, the French knight falls back on his horse as the Bavarian knight rides by victorious.  The lower level depicts the beermakers and innkeepers celebrating the end of the plague. Every other city just erected a column with a statue or figure on top; Munich had to put the thing to movement and music!

In the Victualenmarkt - one of the larger cheese vendors.  This one's for you, Mom!

Outside...

...Inside

After lunch at the Marktwirt, a restaurant near the market suggested by Jeff, we spent the afternoon wandering the various streets and alleyways around the Marienplatz before heading back to the hotel. After a couple of hours of R'n R, we headed back out to the Marienplatz, having dinner in the Ratskeller Restaurant. A gentleman at the next table offered to take our picture:

Our final day in Munich was spent mostly on the bus. The group assembled at 8:45 for our trip into the Bavarian countryside, specifically for a visit to Neuschwanstein, the castle built in the early 1800's by Ludwig II, the Mad King of Bavaria. Aside from its history, this castle was the "model" for the castles in Disneyland and Disney World, as well as being used as a set in the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang! Along the way we also made a brief stop at the Wieskirche, a spot we had visited in 1992 with Monica's Mom and Dad.

Unfortunately, Jeff jinxed the tour by telling us that only once in about 10 years had he arrived at the Wieskirche with a group while a mass was in progress. Well, today's trip made that 2 times – which is why we don't have any new photos of the inside of the church!! The second photo below is a picture of the inside of the original chapel. Apparently a farmer had, for some reason, put a wood carving of the Virgin Mary out in his field. One morning, his wife went out to the carving and noticed that there were tears falling from her eyes – hence, a miracle! Then, of course, other townspeople would come to see this, so they put the statue into a small chapel. Well, eventually the place got so popular they built a church, and a bit of a town grew up around it – at least a small hotel, some restaurants and a gift shop or two. Now, they're expanding the parking lot as well.

Approaching Neuschwanstein by road you can understand why Disney was attracted. The castle sits up on a plateau about a third of the way up and a mountain, and from a distance it just seems to be floating above the forest. Once you arrived at the base of the mountain you discover the other similarity to Disney, the "tourist trap" town that has grown up to serve the literally millions of visitors to the castle every year. The castle itself is beautiful, and SURPRISE, was more than a third covered in scaffolding!!! Only about a third of the rooms were completed before Ludwig's death, and he essentially bankrupted Bavaria in the process!! Our tour of the interior covered approximately half of the completed rooms, but unfortunately picture taking was not permitted. Which is not the same thing as not taking pctures. Monica managed to "sneak" one in the Royal Throne Room. Not the best quality, but you get the idea.

A real fairy tale scene. Too bad about the scaffolding...

Not the clearest picture but you get an idea of the interior decoration

Just across the valley was the Castle Hohenschwangau, which was built by Ludwig's father, Maximillian II. Apparently Ludwig liked to sit at this castle and watch Neuschwanstein being built.



The view from Neuschwanstein across to Hohenschwangau
 and the Schwannsee (or Swan's Lake) beyond

Lunch near the castle - wieners and potato salad

After lunch in a restaurant outside the castle (the top is as big a tourist trap as the bottom!), we set off on our trip back to Munich. On the way we travelled through Oberammergau, home of the Passion Play staged every ten years, and also a place we visited in 1992. This photo is of the front of the Hotel Wolf, which is also famous for the overflowing flowerboxes under the windows – at least they will be in July and August.

Also famous in the region is decorating the outside of houses, a process called Lueftlmalerei, where the pigment is mixed into the stucco and 'painted' on before it can dry. Someone told us that mixing the pigment and stucco with beer instead of water gave it a longer drying time so it was the preferred combination – no corroboration on that, but given that beer is practically more common than water down there, it would be no surprise.

This is known as the 'Hansel & Gretel House' for the story that is painted on it

Once back in Munich, right on time at 4:45, we packed up for the trip to Berlin and decided to try someplace closer to home for dinner. One of the major breweries, and one of the oldest ones, in Munich is the Augustiner Brewery, opened by the local Augustine Monastery many hundreds of years ago. Did we mention earlier that the monasteries were pretty much the first brewers all over Bavaria, and that they were the first ones granted the right to SELL beer? There's a long story about some monks sending strong (high alcohol) beer to the Pope, asking to be able to sell it to the townsfolk in their areas to supplement the needs of the monastery. By the time it reached the Pope, the beer had turned sour. After he took one sip and spit it out, he said, 'Sure, go ahead. This is so bad, nobody would drink it anyway!'

Larry's dinner - steak and bratkartoffeln (fried potatoes)

Monica's dinner - Veal in cream sauce and spaetzle

One thing that Bavaria is known for is its beer gardens, and the Augustiner Brewery is no exception. Although we had elected to eat inside, this is what the outside looked like as we were leaving. As one of the tour guides had put it - the German word for air conditioning is Beer Garden, especially outside under a shady tree.