Is this the real life; Is this just fantasy - Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody Well, I took the opening lyrics completely out of context but doing so lends them nicely to my life over the past five months. Plus I really wanted to work in the song given my location. That was my weak attempt. I woke up this morning and went for a very short run to loosen up my legs. It gave me a nice overview of the small town and where the major spots are in relation to one another. After getting cleaned up and grabbing a small breakfast [View Full Entry]

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Usually my entries are plain on travel days - I left such and such a place to go here. I arrived. That’s it. Well, I won’t do that here. I dedicate this entry to Salzburg and the amazing time I had there. When I left on this trip, I had highly doubted that any spot I would visit would ever come close to beating some of the cities in Italy I visited two years ago. I had enjoyed that trip immensely; probably some of it was due to it being my first trip abroad. But it’s still tough to beat Italy [View Full Entry]

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This morning I embarked on my final tour in Salzburg - the salt mine tour. Salzburg rose in size and stature to a city-state hundreds of years ago when salt was discovered deep below the earth’s surface. Salzburg and its main river were even named based upon the salt extraction and trade. The salt deposits were the result of a salt lake having evaporated and then covered by land over thousands of years. The salt mine tour took us through the extraction process. The trip down was with a host of people going on the Eagle’s Nest tour I did the [View Full Entry]

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Today I took my Sound of Music tour. I arrived early and took the time before the tour started to walk around Mirabell Gardens. I had been there before but the area is so beautiful and the flower arrangements were constantly changing that it deserved another look. The beginning of the tour had to be a bit disappointing for anyone who hadn’t done a walking tour of the city. It was in a small van with the driver merely pointing out some of the city sights from the movie as we drove around. I had already seen most of these on [View Full Entry]

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Breakfast was just like yesterday - eggs, meats and cheeses. Gotta love it. I’m getting some protein in my system before I have to get back to the all bread diet that Continental Europeans tend to favor. I took another tour this morning, this time outside of Salzburg. I headed out with a group that was going on a salt mine tour while I was going to visit Obersalzberg and the Eagle’s Nest. Obersalzberg is a mountainside area just above Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian region of Germany. The area became the symbolic home of the Nazi party when Hitler and several [View Full Entry]

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I awoke early this morning to take care of my every other week task - a long run. This would be 20 miles so I was pretty happy that there was quite a breakfast spread at the hostel to fuel me up. For the first time in well over a month I had eggs for breakfast. And there were meats and cheeses. Not just baguettes and other breads. Sweet. I thought I’d take advantage of the distance I’d have to cover and travel along the river to take in much of what I wouldn’t see on the tours. The weather was [View Full Entry]

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I’ve had some time to reflect on my visit to Dachau this morning. I’ve been searching for words to describe the experience. I’m still struggling. Dachau was the oldest and longest running concentration camp in the Third Reich. It opened in 1933 and operated for 12 years. The camp’s intent was primarily as a work camp (in essence for slave labor) which initially housed “career criminals”. Its scope grew as more and more groups were identified as targets - Jews, gypsies, political prisoners, Eastern Europeans, emigrants (those who left Germany and returned) [View Full Entry]

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Instead of hitting the tents again, today I made the solemn trip to the lost and found office to see if by some small chance my backpack ended up there. I arrived mid-morning and waded my way through huge crowds. These were much larger than yesterday. Granted it is Saturday but there was another reason that I learned from Roger yesterday - the middle weekend is when all the Italians go to the festival. There were Italians everywhere. Some were well on their way, probably from drinking on the train ride up, and others were busy romancing the frauleins. If I [View Full Entry]

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I awoke this morning feeling much better. Somehow, beer, which usually aggravates my sinuses, seemed to help them. Today was going to be a great day to go to Oktoberfest. The weather was a bit cool in the morning and there was a chance of rain so I packed up my small backpack with an umbrella and jacket and headed to the subway station nearby. The train was not all that lively, mostly because it was only about 10 am. I was told that’s the best time to go since the crowds won’t be there yet and it will be easier [View Full Entry]

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My sinuses were still a mess this morning so I pushed back Oktoberfest a day. Instead, I went out to see Castle Neuschwanstein in the Bavarian hills. Castle Neuschwanstein (German for “New Swan Stone”) was built by “Mad” King Ludwig in the 1800s as a tribute to Richard Wagner, the composer. The castle is one of the most visited sights in Europe and is a must see according to many. I took the train down to Fussen, the Bavarian town closest to Neuschwanstein. I was surprised how long the train took. It was a local train that had many stops so [View Full Entry]

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