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Published: March 26th 2012
Munich's historic heart
Frauerkirche and Neue Rathaus, seen from the top of St.PeterskircheTuesday (5th August) I was up early for a five-and-a-half hour train ride from Freiburg to München (Munich), with changes in Neustadt and Ulm. I arrived in Munich at a quarter-past-three, but thanks to the fact that my hostel was directly across the road from the Hauptbahnhof, I was able to check-in, dump my bags and make the twenty minute walk into the main square in time for a four o´clock guided bicycle tour - which I had been wanting to do ever since my first bike tour in Berlin.
Once again I was lucky enough to get a really cool guide - a guy from Washington DC named Tony - who like the guide I had in Berlin was both insightful and funny, making it an excellent introduction to the city. Of course it didn´t hurt cruising around looking too cool for school with a couple of cuties in the group either, though unfortunately by the time I had finished paying for the trip at the end of the tour and enquiring with the boss about the possibility of working there as a tour guide in the future, the girls were long gone!
The next day I headed
into the city centre to climb the three hundred-odd steps to the top of the belltower of the St.Peterskirche - where I not only had a terrific view out over the Rathuasplatz (Town Hall Square) and the rest of the city, but also got my first glimpse of the Bavarian Alps way off in the distance - before heading back to Mike´s Bike Shop to hire a bicycle for the day.
After checking out a couple of sights in the city centre, I headed out past the Residenz (Royal Palace) and neighbouring Hofgarten (Royal Gardens) to enjoy the sunshine and a cold beer at a large park to the west of town called, funnily enough, Westpark. From there I headed over to the gardens of Schloss Nymphenburg (the Royal Summer Palace) and Olympia Park - which hosted the Olympic Games thirty-six years ago, when eleven members of the Israeli team were murdered by terrorists - before heading back into town to return my bike.
And of course, with the bike shop located about thirty metres away from none other than the Hofbräuhaus - which for the uninitiated is possibly the most famous beer hall in the entire world
Survivor from '72
Munich's Olympic Tower - it was only a matter of when, rather than if, I would end up there for a customary litre stein glass of the local lager, and as many different kinds of sausages accompanied by sauerkraut as they could possibly fit on one plate!
By thursday I had booked myself on a full-day guided tour run by the bike shop to Schloss Neuschwanstein (Neuschwanstein Castle); which started out with an hour-and-a-half coach ride south to the foothills of the Bavarian Alps near the Austrian border. First on the agenda was a leisurely bicycle ride to the one-and-only Swan Lake for my first real swim in Europe (not including the beach in Denmark where the water was only about eighteen inches deep!). Swimming in an alpine lake surrounded by tree-clad mountains under a clear blue sky on a warm summer's day would definately have to rank as one of the coolest experiences of my time in Europe so far!
From there we headed off for lunch, before having a couple of runs down a nearby alpine slide; and then it was time to jump back on the bus and head to Schwangau, where both the Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau castles
Swimming in Swan Lake
Cooling off in the shadow of the Bavarian Alps are located. Even if you've never heard of or seen pictures of Neuschwanstein Castle, if you check out the pictures I'm sure it will look somewhat familiar - it was allegedly the inspiration for Walt Disney's fantasy castle! The story behind the castle is every bit as fascinating as the building itself - so here comes another lesson in European history:
A young King Ludwig II of Bavaria had grown up in nearby Hohenschwangau Castle before inheriting the throne at the age of eighteen; but being not only rather eccentric but also a raging queer his ministerial cabinet eventually had him declared insane at the age of forty - by a psychiatrist who had already signed the papers before even meeting the king! Two days after being told he was no longer considered fit to rule, both Ludwig II and the psychiatrist were found dead in just three feet of water in a nearby lake. So with the interior of Schloss Neuschwanstein (which was still under construction at the time) yet to be completed; the government immediately seized all of Ludwig's assets - a result of the debts that he had racked up in building his many castles -
Fairytale castle
Schloss Neuschwanstein and six weeks later had opened the doors of Neuschwanstein to the public and started charging for admission!
After a short tour of the castle's interior (after all I did mention that it was left unfinished!) we hopped back on the bus for the trip back to Munich; and the timing couldn't have been better as it was just starting to rain as we got on the bus.
Having by now heard from my Austrian friend Kathi (who herself had spent the past six weeks travelling around the Baltic countries) that she would be spending the weekend in Salzburg before heading home to Graz - and realizing that I would be going through Salzburg on my way to Vienna anyway - I had decided to stop there to catch up with her. Unfortunately though having left it until friday morning to find accommodation for that night, I was unable to book a hostel anywhere in Salzburg; and then discovered that my hostel in Munich was also fully booked! So having no choice but to check out of my hostel, I ended up booking three nights worth of accommodation and jumping on a train to Vienna after all; though
Colourful composition
Statue of Johan Strauss unfortunately that was about all I did for the day, since it was half-past-six in the evening and starting to rain by the time I got there.
Given that friday had been a complete write-off, and that I have been looking forward to seeing Vienna more than any other city I have been to so far, you can probably imagine how pissed off I was when saturday started out much the same way as friday had ended. In fact rather than simply raining constantly, the sun would come out for five or ten minutes at a time - just long enough for me to get my hopes up and get ready to go outside - only to then be replaced by more rain as soon as I was about to leave the hostel. :-( After finally having my second round of photos burnt to cd, reading a couple more chapters of my book, and killing a couple of hours on the internet; the weather eventually cleared enough for me to venture outside, by which time it was already three o'clock in the afternoon.
Needless to say after waiting around for so long I was determined to make up
Regal residence
Schloss Belvedere for lost time, so it wasn't until after midnight that I finally made it back to the hostel - by which time I had seen the Stephensdom (St. Stephan's Cathedral), Rathaus (Town Hall - which looked spectacular lit up later at night), and the Hofburg - which was the city residence of the Habsburgs, who ruled a large part of Europe from the thirteenth century until the First World War.
Later I headed out to Schloss Belvedere - which is actually two buildings set at opposite ends of a manicured garden - where a girl had decided to put on an impromptu opera display, luring people from all over the grounds to listen to her incredible voice! After finding a nice little Thai restaurant nearby for dinner, I then headed back into the city centre to see some of the impressive night-time illuminations, and this time as I was walking through an entrance-way to the Hofburg thinking there was music playing from speakers somewhere, I realized it was actually two girls singing - again seemingly just random passers-by - whose voices were reverberating within the large dome above the passageway!
The following day followed a now familiar pattern:
blessed with blue skies I was out the door by ten o'clock to hire a pushbike, which I returned about nine hours later having first been for a ride around the inner ring road that encircles the city centre; and then heading out to the grounds of Schloss Schönbrunn where I spent the entire afternoon. After walking around the elaborate gardens past the immense Neptune Fountain and up the hill to the Gloriette Monument - which offered an excellent view of both the palace and grounds, and the city of Vienna beyond - I ended up doing the forty-room grand tour of the palace itself, which was suitably impressive for a building that was originally designed as a Habsburg family hunting lodge!
Even after returning my bicycle I still wasn't done for the day, as I took a metro train out to the Prater amusement park for a ride on one of Vienna's most famous landmarks - the Reisenrad ferris wheel - for a bird's-eye view of the city from sixty-five metres above the ground. Not having heard back from Kathi about when I could come and visit her in Graz, I had decided to head back to Salzburg
Magnificent monastery
StiftsMelk Abbey, dwarfing the town of Melk and the surrounding lakes area for a few days, but then changed my mind at the last minute and chose to stay in Vienna for one more night so I could check out the imposing abbey in nearby Melk as well as doing a cruise on the Donau (Danube) River.
And so it was that despite not getting to bed until two o'clock on sunday night I was still out of bed by eight o'clock the following morning to take a train an hour north-west to Melk to do a tour of the StiftsMelk abbey which sits imposingly up above the small town offering panoramic views of the surrounding valley. Suitably impressed by both the size and grandeur of the monastery - and in particular the adjoining church - I then headed down the hill to take a ninety-minute ferry ride on the Donau River from Melk to Krems, which like the cruise I had done on the Rhine River in Germany featured scores of ruined castles and hillside after hillside of terraced vineyards; but which thankfully unlike the Rhine River trip was headed downstream rather than upstream, which, for anyone who has never done a river cruise before,
Drifting downstream
Danube River cruise is definately the way to go since it means the scenery is changing at a much more constant pace, rather than drifting slowly by whilst unconsciously luring you to sleep!
After leaving the boat I teamed up with a Korean girl so we could find our way to the train station (with her map and my sense of direction, how could we possibly go wrong?!) only to arrive just as the next train back to Vienna was pulling away from the platform... and by the time we jumped on the next train an hour later, both of us were already falling asleep! Somehow though I managed to drag my exhausted body around the centre of Vienna one more time to take in a couple of the sights that I had not yet seen - the KunstHausWien (Vienna Art Gallery) and Hundertwasser Haus (a unique apartment block, to say the very least!) - amongst others; before finally retiring to my hostel for another well-earned sleep.
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