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Published: April 28th 2008
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And so to Munich, via Fussen, one end of the Romantic Road. We thought we’d seen some snow around Salzburg, but were not prepared for the drive through Fussen!!
We started out on the green fields and small villages that we’d got used to, stopping in Bad Tolz at a very friendly market to get bread cheese and tomatoes for lunch. However, as we continued along the Deutsche Apline Strasse we rose higher in the Alps and were soon driving through light and then quite heavy snow with very large flakes. The whole countryside was covered in thick snow, as were the buildings and fir trees on the mountainsides - absolutely magic!! We saw lots of alpine flowers valiantly poking their heads through the snow.
We stopped at Oberau, near where the famous passion play is enacted at Oberammergau every ten years. The buildings up in this area are a mix of timber and stucco - quite ornate balconies and some half-timbered. We also passed several lakes, one with large areas frozen solid. We visited the Hohenschwangau Schloss - one of the castles near Fussen which was built in the 12th century and redeveloped by Bavaria’s Max II, the father of
Ludwig II who used it as a base for his partying in the 1860’s and beyond. There are lots of stories about Ludwig, whose spending on castles (among other things) resulted in his being declared insane and losing his rights as King. He was found dead in a lake at age 35 - and there are differing stories about how this occurred, with no official version. A good mystery!! The castle, and the Schloss Neuschwanstein nearby, has fairytale turrets and looks just beautiful against the background of snow and fir trees. Not surprisingly, the subject of many postcards!
Munich’s a great city - wide streets, some beautiful old buildings, smart shops and a great public transport system - not unlike Dublin. Kev and Dave went on a half day tour to Dachau...
To say it was an awakening into human brutality would be an understatement. The starkness of the environment, the ovens , gas showers and detailed information boards all made us recoil at the depths of human cruelty. The visit certainly made us want to read more about this aspect of history,and build on our reading of a great book entitled “Defying Hitler”, by Sebastian Haffner. This is probably
not the place for a discussion on political history, but travel certainly thrusts new intellectual and moral challenges in ones way: an aspect that we really appreciates.
Fiona and Phyllis took a four hour bicycle tour of Munich, which took in the very formal Hofgarten, and also a 30 minute ride in the Englischer Garten - a very informal park said to be about four times the size of central park in New York. It’s the site of several beer gardens, including the Chinese Tower, that seat thousands of drinkers, and also a fake wave for surfing in the park (one surfer at a time!). The Englisher Garten is a wonderfully quiet, green area in the middle of a very busy city - many churches and lots of memorials to remind us of some of Munich’s difficult times (the WW2 bombing, Gestapo activity such as the crushing White Rose Movement for distributing anti-Nazi propaganda, and the terrorist activity during the 1972 Summer Olympics). The bike tour was with Mike’s Bike Tours (Munich and Amsterdam) with tour guide Frankie - he was very informative and worked hard to give us a fun time. For dinner that night we ate at Beethoven’s,
on Beethoven Place - a very noisy but atmospheric university bar with a duo playing piano, clarinet, sax, guitar - very talented and great music. As with Salzburg - Munich is a city to return to!!
The drive to Heidelberg from Munich through some heavily forested land made for a very scenic but long day. We set the Sat Nav (great travel support) to avoid the autobahns so most of the trip was on well formed but sometimes narrow sealed roads - with quite heavy traffic. A welcome break was a walk in the forest - it’s noticeable that the ground is soft with decomposing leaves from deciduous trees compared with walking in the bush in Australia.
Heidelberg is set on the Neckar River - our accommodation is an apartment with views looking over the river to steep hills beyond that are covered with fir and deciduous trees. Heidelberg is the oldest University town in Germany and very very attractive. There’s not much land between the River and the hills that rise on each side, so much of the housing (including our apartment) is built on quite steep ground. We were very luck in Heidelberg to have a fantastic host
and guide in Tilmann’s Mum (Helene) who had not only planned an itinerary but had also prepared fantastic meals for us. Unfortunately Fiona’s migraine recurred with vengeance at this point - Helene came to the rescue in helping to find medical services, but sightseeing was out of the question for Fiona.
So - Helene took Kev, Dave and Phyllis to the Heidelberg Castle and on the Philosophers’ walk on Saturday and to Schwetzingen on Sunday. The Castle was a fortress - begun in the 13th century and is built from red sandstone (unlike most other castles we have seen). As with many, it has a variety of architectural styles (Gothic, Renaissance etc) and is most attractive. In the bowels of the castle there’s a huge wine vat, capable of holding 220,000 litres, so we were told. (How many harvests, John and Linda??). Parts of the castle were damaged during the 1690’s by the French in their wars with the German barons and have not been rebuilt.
We also visited Schloss Schwetzingen . This place has huge gardens modelled on those in Versailles, (as we all do) .They also include a Mosque and a Chinese bridge - just for interest.
Well worth the visit on a sunny day. We finished off the weekend by sharing dinner with Timann’s brother Normann and his partner Grit. Helene produced a huge fanfare of chicken schnitzel, potato salad to die for and very low cholesterol cakes (not) all washed down with great German beer and wine. Wunderbar!!! It was so good to enjoy the hospitality of such enthusiastic locals.
From Heidelberg we drove to Koblenz, via the Romantic Rhine (not be confused with the earlier mentioned Romantic Road). The Romantic Rhine is a 60 km stretch of road (Bingen to Koblenz) running alongside the Rhine River, with a castle on just about every hilltop bend of the river and a picturesque village every few kilometres. We stopped at Baccarach (Bert’s home town?) for a tasty country village lunch. Our soup, served by a mincing version of Eric Clapton, tasted as if it had been brewed for some months in a cowshed and easily won the worst meal of the trip to date competition (Mongolia is yet to come!!).
The hillsides are very steep and dotted with vineyards that can only be tended manually and with great mountain goat skill. Apparently they are worth maintaining
because of the very high quality of the grapes they produce, and also for heritage reasons. The Rhine’s a very busy river - lots of cargo barges as well as luxury cruising boats, and also numerous camping grounds that seem very popular with motor home folk. The scenery certainly lived up to its name - it’s a gorgeous part of the world.
Koblenz is where the Rhine meets the Mosel River - a population of about 150,000, with a lovely old town as well as more modern buildings and the worst traffic jam we’d encountered. (Over one hour to travel 1.4km!!). We were lucky while there to have dinner with Dave’s lovely niece, Louise, and her husband York - they were great hosts for the meal and a terrific source of information about things German. From Koblenz we drove to Bonn-Cologne airport, said goodbye to Ulrike (the Mercedes) and flew to Berlin...... It should be said that Dave drove the car for all of our German travel with consummate skill and a minimum of inventive traffic manipulation!!! Thanks Dave.
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