Bavaria and Austria

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One of the more serious drawbacks to modern digital camera technology is that the memory sticks have been known “without notice” to crash or dump digital image data. This is what happened to us and this explains why the lack of pictures on this journal entry. We inexplicably lost many of our travel images from Germany and all images of Austria. Read on though, for this is a very interesting part of our trip.

From Bacharach we headed south to Rothenburg (ROE-ten-burg), Germany’s best preserved walled town. We spent the night at a classy new hotel in an old building; The Hotel Gerberhaus.

After an early dinner of delicious wiener schnitzel, we took the Night Watchman’s tour (definately a must do when in Rothenburg) of the city walls and afterwards we went "to hell”. When asking a local, where’s a good place to have a drink, do not be offended if he tells you to go "to hell” - the town’s medieval tavern.

The next day after breakfast we visited the towns medieval Crime and Punishment Museum - very interesting.

We drove further south to Dachau concentration camp near Munich, this was a very moving experience. How can man be so cruel to a fellow human being, there is no rational explanation for this truly shameful event in human history.

Next, on to Munich for an afternoon at Oktoberfest, WOW! what a party! We had roasted chicken, bratwurst, big pretzels and even bigger beer (a whopping 1-litre mug, 1.056 qts.), and plenty of Umpah bands and beer hall music - great fun, we’ll be back.

We then drove south into Austria, toward the Alps and Pinswang, our rural and tranquil Tirol home base. Here we stayed at the Gutshof zum Schluxen in Pinswang, a remote old hotel close to "Mad King" Ludwig's Neuschwanstein Castle. Spending most of our day at Neuschwanstein Castle, we went back to relax at our peaceful hotel.

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