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Published: February 15th 2011
I really love traveling in Europe in the winter. For the past few December / January excursions across the pond, I've enjoyed the ability to see Europe with nominal crowds, and at a lower cost. I can't imagine being herded from site to site during the high tourist season that so many places we've been would bring.
Yet, I have to admit, often times I wish for summer weather while in Europe. Today was a prime example. On our way to Munich to meet our friends Rob and Rachael (who are awesome enough to fly to Munich for a long weekend!), we decided to stop in Kufstein for a bit of sight-seeing. I've really started to enjoy the lockers-at-the-rail-station situation. It's great to be able to dump our belongings in a locker for a few hours and be able to see a whole new town, without having to carry our luggage everywhere or spend a whole day/night someplace. And Kufstein seemed like such a great town to do that in: a historic square, quaint streets, a fortress towering above the town and a handful of rave-review cafes. Yay!
The problem was, despite how awesome the historic square, quaint streets
and fortress were... the winter gloom which has been following us since yesterday is getting old. Fast. And I understand that it's almost January and we're in the Alps. But I'm tired of bare trees and grey skies in all of my pictures. I'm tired of the sun not rising until late in the day, and then retiring early to boot! I'm especially tired of being cold outside, and not being able to just enjoy the outdoor scenery. We're not museum people, so taking refuge inside some building that isn't a cafe is not really our thing.
So, really, we arrived at Kufstein before anything opened. After making a quick round in the historic street/downtown area, we went to see the fortress. That was pretty cool - but again, the grey skies just bummed me out. We stopped in a grocery store to buy some schnapps and made our way to the train station where we planned to make our way to Munich. We missed our train by 5 minutes and had to wait another hour before the next one. In all, we spent probably 3 hours in Kufstein. I can see it being a fun town in the
summer - lots of outdoor space, the river, the Alps, cool little streets... but in December? Eh. Save your time for a beer hall in a bigger city.
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anonymous
non-member comment
Winter
I know what you mean with that Winter weather! I've lived in Germany for the last 4 1/2 months and did a lot of sightseeing in Europe and I felt the same way. It's great with less crowds, but the gloomy weather gets old and really ruins pictures :P I just got back to North Carolina in the United States, where I'm from, and it's sunny everyday :) safe travels!