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Published: September 4th 2008
Fergus the Focus
Our little car that took us from Berlin to Munich.We finally made it out of Berlin, and we managed that in a manual car and just a road map. We decided to stop enroute to Dresden along with all the other grey nomads and their campervans. It was quite a success, even if it took a little while. The beauty of the car was that we were able to stop on the way in some great little places, an example of this was Meissen. It was a compact, perfectly preserved old town with a great river which people would swarm in and picnic by in the sun. We had a quick stroll around the town, tasting the yummy ice-cream, seeing the Albrechtsburg Cathedral and 15th century palace.
When we finally made in into Dresden which was wonderful. Dresden is a town that was almost completely destroyed during the second world war by allied bombers. The city itself dates back to the 18th century and it’s historial centre was beautiful, romantic and frankly mind blowing. Every corner you turned there was something more beautiful than before. The city was rebuilt in the 1950’s and culminated for the city’s 800th anniversary in 2006. We wandered the city and saw the Frauenkirche,
Along the road
Crusing along the autobahn. or Church of Our lady, the procession of princes is a porcelain mural covering the outer wall of the old royal stables. Then we stumbled onto a the ballet of Casanova in the Zwinger Fortress. It was so beautiful but unfortunately because we had arrived in the late afternoon/evening none of the museum were open. We left the town of Dresden late that evening and kept driving to our overnight stop in Chemnitz.
With an early start today we aimed to see alot and stray off the beaten track with Fergus the Focus (yes we named our hire car, it was something that came up the night before). The first town on our map today was Bayreuth, a small town, not in our lonely planet guide. It was again another lovely quaint town, with very clean free toilets, an opera house and a dinosaur museum. We didn’t stay long, we had bigger plans for today, but we certainly didn’t think that would include the joy of Frankie’s Wunderland. That was another joy we had discovered by straying of the autobahn and following the good old ‘brown signs’. It was a bad 1980’s Western Theme Park, complete with a wagon
Cruising Down the Autobahn
Here in Fergus, Stephen at the wheel. I later found out that Stephen actually never drove a manual, only learnt on one, 12 years ago. It was a bit crazy to start off with. styled ferris wheel, jumping castles and cowboy and Indian rides. I really think this is a case for photos describing it better than words.
From Frankie’s Wunderland we headed straight for Nuremburg. It was only a few hours away and we had arrived by 10am, this meant a FULL day to explore what already looked like a fantastic city. Nuremburg was also another like so many towns in Germany that was destroyed during the second world war, it seemed like such a senseless waste to flatten such a beautiful town. We decided to pay the €5 and head to the Germanisches National Museum. It was fantastic, one of the best museums we had been into in the whole of our trip, so much so we spent four hours there. The same time we had spent at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The first time in Germany this museum was filled with positive aspects of German history and culture. It was a refreshing experience. Some of our favourites exhibitions were the German Culture, with a collection of painters, archaeology, armoury (almost as good as the one in the Kremlin). They also had a massive collection of pianofortes, clothes, shoes and
Albrechtsburg Cathedral, Meissen
This was our first town during the road trip, Meissen is famous for its chinaware with the blue crossed swords insignia. handbags over the centuries, as well as the most amazing collect of toys (tin soldiers and doll houses mostly). The bible (lonely planet guide) said it was worth a visit but it was mostly in German, with very little English signs. Obviously the museum had an update since then because most of it was in English. We would certainly recommend it to anyone heading to Germany. Lastly I must mention this one for mum, they had a 15th century tapestry which they had just spent the last two years restoring on exhibition. Going through what work was undertaken to restore it was well worth it as the described the meaning of all the different scenes of the tapestry. From there we had a look at St. Lorenzekirche, which within this 15th century cathedral you can find a 15th century tabernacle that climbs up to the roof like a vine. And from there we did what I had been looking forward to for a little while, we went shopping!! When in Nuremburg the only place to head is the Hauptmarket, where they have a famous Christmas market. We brought some beautiful Nutcracker Soldiers.
Stephen had noticed on our road map
Stephen is Dresden
Dresden along with many German towns was destroyed during the second world war. It was restored and now is ever so beautiful. that the Play Mobil fun park was very close to Nuremburg. Yes, that’s right, I said Play Mobil!!! Our next adventure was trying to navigate out of Nuremburg during peak hour traffic. Stephen was pretty excited we paid our €5 and went in. It was a blast and I hope the photos show that. We spent about one hour and a half there, travelling through the different lands, Pirate Land, Kings and Castle Land, the Wild West Land and Noah’s Land. It was so much fun, ahh it was certainly a joy of not having kids, they would have dragged you down there. From Play Mobile Fun Park we headed to the town of Ohrenbach for our overnight stop.
4th of July, Wayde’s Birthday. We got to sleep in this morning it was lovely. Our first stop was just a short drive away, it was Rothenburg Ob Der Tauber. A sleepy town surround by a middle ages wall, a factor that introduced us to the German Japanese tourist market, and I can say they are exactly the same in Germany and Australia. Nevertheless the town was charming and filled with little shops trying to sell everything German, this was
another town my mum would just have loved. We looked around all the Christmas shops, and it was hard to stop myself from buying you all wonderful Christmas tree decorations, but we did discover a problem. Stephen is a 'Star on top of the tree' man, while I am an 'Angel top of the tree' girl. This meant neither of us got anything in the Christmas Museum shop.
From there we headed along the Romantic Road, which is a series of picturesque Bavarian towns and cities. It’s not just one road, but rather a 353km route to highlight as many quaint towns and cities as possible in western Bavaria. This would eventually take us down to Füssen for King Ludwig’s (of Bavaria) castles. But our next stop was Dinkelsbühl, another medieval walled city complete with moat and watchtower similar to Rothenburg Ob Der Tauber but smaller. We wondered around and explored the city and their pastries. We continued along the romantic road and discovered the most amazing church, perched high on a hill. It was breathtaking; walking in we didn’t know what to expect but it was amazing, such high ceiling and so white, unfortunately we didn’t have our
Procession of Princes
Here is a stunning 102m long porcelain mural covering the outer wall of the old royal stable in Dresden. camera with us. We drove to the next town and tried to get some sleep, it was going to be a big day at LegoLand and Ulm with Lisa’s folks for the night.
We tried to start early but alas LegoLand Deutschland didn’t open until 10am!! That was cruel making a girl wait that long. At least Stephen was starting to relax and enjoy himself a little more with the car. It turned 10am the gates open and kids went crazy, running and screaming, parents feeling more and more out of control as the kids wondered into the gift shops!! It was great being one of the only couples without kids there, they would have ruined the experience. LegoLand Deutschland was so much fun but very tiring. We went on all the rides possible for people our size and took heaps of photos.
After lunch we drove into Ulm and onto Lisa’s parents house where they were our personal tour guides for the town. We saw the tall cathedral with a minster 789 steps high, the Mayor's amazing house, the sunken house and the Danube River Festival. The Danube River is the second longest river in Europe and
runs through most of the countries we had visited so far in Eastern Europe. For dinner we head to a traditional Bavarian Beer Garden and enjoy some traditional fare, we both had pork iwhich was just mouth watering - so tender it fell apart. Before we headed out for some drinks in town with Hannes (Lisa’s bother), we both had a shower. I know you are thinking, why are they mentioning a shower, but after four months of hostel showers, this shower was amazing, I even got to have a bath as well. Oh my god. Heavenly. We had a fantastic time sampling the Ulm night life.
We left Franke and Christophe’s at around midday and headed south to Füssen, to see the Neuschwanstein Castle, the summer palace for King Ludwig II of Bavaria. And the inspiration of the Disney Princess’ Castle. It was beautiful, so big, the only bad thing was it was cold and raining. You had to pre-book tour guides and ours wasn’t until 17:50. We decided to have a look at King Ludwig the first’s summer palace, it was smaller but just as beautiful, while we waited. We then waited for the bus to take
us part of the way up the steep hill to the Neuschwanstein Castle. After which we decided to drive over the border into Austria, since we were so close (well it was mostly me, I thought it was pretty cool, driving over into Austria, just like that). It was lucky we did, petrol was €0.20 cents cheaper than in Germany. We continued to drive last night to get us half the way to Munich for the morning.
Thanks to the autobahn and my husband, who can navigate anywhere in Germany, we arrived into Munich where we said our good byes to Fergus and we were back to walking and carrying our backpacks in our last town before we settled in England. It was a bit sad that our road trip had come to the end. It was so much fun and we had seen so much extra of Germany that we would have seen without Fergus.
Hope to hear from you all,
Much Love,
Michelle and Stephen.
Xoxox
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