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Make sure you check out Heather’s write-up of Dachau in the blog below this one.
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Don't forget to check at the end of the blog for extra photos. Tuesday 26 May:
A wet start to the day with pretty decent rain overnight and showers continuing. A couple of jobs to do after breakfast – Heather went to try and finish off the laundry while I went to the supermarket (which proved elusive). After that we walked to the Hauptbahnhof to catch our train to
Salzburg, Austria. It is very close to the border with Germany and indeed was part of the state of Bavaria until the year 1816. We were scheduled to arrive at about 1130 with our “Sound of Music” tour starting at 2pm. We had planned to explore the Altstadt in this time, but the weather was most uncooperative: persistent cold rain - it was a bit like being at home really.
So we ended up finding a sheltered spot to eat our rolls, waiting in vain for the weather to improve. When it refused we found a café and had coffees and pastries and
Midnight Oil was on the radio. The tour was very busy with the bus being totally full. The weather did improve so for the most part we could see the sights and we didn’t get wet when we got out. The tour guide was very good – a bit camp but I guess you need to be if you’re a guy in this job! The tour went to parts of the city that were used in the filming and the running commentary was very good – both about the film and about Salzburg itself. Then we headed out to Mondsee, a small town that hosts the church where the wedding of Maria and von Trapp took place. We stopped on the way to take some scenic photos – but Austria continued to refuse to show us her mountains in their full glory.
When we got back to Salzburg the weather had cleared so we went to Mirabell Gardens – this is where the “Do-re-mi” song sequence was filmed. We all enjoyed the tour, although it was a bit different from what we expected. We had thought there would be more specific stops related to the movie, but
it was good to get the city info as well. Thankfully the onboard singing was kept to a minimum. After dinner (John Farnham this time – perhaps an acknowledgement of Australia’s superior musical ability after Eurovision?) Then a couple of hours back to Munich, arriving back at the hotel about 9:30pm. Hoping (very optimistically) for a sleep-in tomorrow!
Wednesday 27 May:
Well, we got a little bit of a sleep-in with Zachary waking up at 7:45. We headed into the Altstadt this morning. Heather hadn’t actually been to Munich yet despite being here 2 nights! After a walk around and watching the glockenspiel we caught a couple of underground trains to the Paleontological Museum (free entry!) They had a very good, although not huge, collection of dinosaur bones. The best one was the mammoth I thought. They also had other fossils which were of interest. I thought I might see Steve Horne in there, but no.
After that we made our way by trams to Schloss Nymphenburg. The German “schloss” encompasses both castle and palace and this was the latter. It is an impressive complex. The grounds are amazing, seemingly stretching
on forever. There are lakes and rivers with lots of birds, gardens, and statues everywhere. The grounds are free to get into and quite a few people were out walking or running. Much better than the English Gardens I thought. We bought combo tickets so we could go into all the museums / buildings. €11.50 each was good value although a huge amount of walking is involved. We were all a bit tired and Heather was having a lot of trouble with her ankles and knees so we didn’t do all of it. But the museum in the main part of the palace was spectacular and the collection of carriages was very cool. An extraordinary amount of money must have been spent and it is no big surprise that one of the main culprits here, Ludwig II, went bankrupt. I can’t help thinking that the money spent on this could have been put to better use – building public facilities or feeding the poor maybe? I shudder to think of the amount of taxes people at the time must have paid to indulge the lavish excesses of these vainglorious bastards!
Anyway, that was enough for the day.
Back for a rest and to cook dinner. We have the morning here tomorrow before a train to Stuttgart and then another to
Darmstadt where we are staying with Lara’s parents – Barbara and Rainer Hoffmann. They are taking us to see the Middle Rhine Valley on Friday and then Saturday will be spent in Darmstadt. Sunday we’ll go to Würzburg to see Lara. I remember when she left saying (semi-jokingly) to her that next time I saw her she would be married, fat, and have 10 children. So far as I know she is zero from three. Oh well, can’t get them all right!
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