What in the world are we doing?: June 2014

18 June 2014

Lederhosen, Castles, and Weiss Beer

We had a three day weekend in Munich due to Whit Monday (also called Monday of the Holy Spirit), a holiday 7 weeks after Easter Monday. We spent all day Saturday walking around Old Town. Everything was so close that we were able to see so many things very quickly (gates, old buildings, and squares).

There was Karls Gate and Isator Gate. These gates were part of the medieval city wall. They were renovated, but look like they did back in the 1300's with some additions, like a shopping mall on Isator. Quite cool to see them intact and have such a long history.

Karls Gate

Isator Gate

Marienplatz was a very big square and had many old buildings, statues, and fountains. Many of these buildings were built hundreds of years ago and had contrasting styles based on what era they were built. Funnily we thought New Town Hall (Neus Rathhaus - built in the late 1800's and early 1900's in the Gothic Style) looked much older than Old Town Hall (Altes Rathaus - built in the late 1390's in the Baroque and Neo-Gothic style) as seen in the photo's

New Town Hall

Old Town Hall

Then there is the Glockenspiel am Rathausturm which is part of the New Town Hall. We got to see the 11 o'clock show of life sized figure re-enact a happy marriage, jousting and dancing. It was quite fascinating and there was of course a huge crowd to watch.

Life Size Figures

The whole show.

Certainly in an Old Town there has to be Churches. I find it perplexing that there are so many churches so close to each other in these towns, mostly because they are so massive and very close to each other. We walked by several of them and even went up in the bell tower of St. Peter's Church (affectionately known as Old Peter by the locals), the oldest church in the area and built on a "hill". Penny and I were quite surprised when we figured out the building we were looking at was considered to be on a hill, because the incline wasn't really that big, something more like a little rise in the area maybe a meter higher than the ground in Marienplatz. Well worth going up the tower to get a view of Munich from above.

View from "Old Peter's" bell tower

The Church of Our Lady, which was being renovated, had a nice little sitting area outside under some trees and a bit of running water facing the church. It has two towers which are highly visible in Munich as there is height restriction in the city center, but these are 99m tall, although one is completely covered with scaffolding and screens. Still a nice little area off the busy main street of Old town.

Enjoy the peaceful sitting area.

Frauenkirch - Church of Our Lady

Another church we happened to go into was Michael's Church. We didn't stay long, but took a photo of it as it had some paper birds hanging from a mess above the pews. To me it made it look like a school room, where a teacher had the students make birds and hung them for others to see. Different!

Look at the birds in the church!

As a side note, on Sunday we went to Neuschwanstein Castle (more on that later), but on the way there we saw a couple of other churches. One was in a little town on our way up. It had a very pretty interior like nothing we've seen before with a lot of pink colors and of course the normal religious paintings, but we thought it was beautiful.

Lovely Pink Interior

Religious Mural

Then we visited rococo style WeisKirche, which is a pilgrim church built in the late 1740's and early 1750's for the farmers in the surrounding area. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was built by Dominikus Zimmerman and helpers over 9 years. More interestingly, his brother Johann did all the painting by himself. An absolutely lovely church seemingly in the middle of nowhere!

Weiskircke

Nice painting on the ceiling

Now enough with the churches, back to Munich and our Saturday tour! We found a quite funny site in the middle of the English Garden -- there was a place set up for surfing in the Isar River. Yes, I said surfing! Along the sides of this river, and throughout this enormous park, were all kinds of people (and I do mean lots and lots of people!!) sun bathing like they were at the beach and would occasionally jump in the cold water to cool off.

Surfing in Munich!

Just like being at the beach!

One of our favorite parts of being in Bavaria is the Weiss beer. This is especially true for Penny as it is her favorite type of beer. We found several places to have some of "Munich's Golden Water". For lunch we stopped by the very touristy, but still entertaining and good, Hofbrauhaus to have a typical Bavarian lunch and beer. Many of the beers come in 1L glasses, so I got one. Penny got a Weiss, which usually comes in a 0.5 L glass.

Love the dark stuff!

Keep your own mug at Hofbrauhaus.

Gees, that is a big glass, Penny. You need two hands! (note - she is only having a taste of mine, hers was much smaller and easier to hold!)

After a full day of walking around, we stopped at the Chinese Tower beer garden in the English Garden to have rest and break. These beer gardens are HUGE- they can seat up to 7000 people!! After a beer there we decided to go back to town for dinner, which was a nice 30 minute walk back. We decided to try Schneider Weisse for dinner as has 11 of its own Weiss beers on tap and some good schnitzel. I can tell you that it was so good that we ended up going back on Monday before leaving to sample some of the other ones we missed Saturday night.

Schneider Weiss Brauhaus

Their menu of Weiss beers. Yummy!

Of course there were other beers drank during the weekend, but I have to get to other parts of our trip because we really do more than just drink on these trips, I promise.

Sunday was a trip to Neuschwanstein Castle. As I mentioned earlier, we stopped by a small town on our way. Yes, in Bavaria they actually still wear Lederhosen and Dirndl. It isn't just for show in the restaurants. A few photos of people on their way to church in their dress clothes.

Musicians in the Hofbrauhaus

Church day in farm community.

I have to say without a doubt the highlight of the day goes to seeing the castle though. We had several different views of the castle (which inspired Disney's Sleeping Beauty Castle) on the way up and walking up to it from a bridge built specifically for viewing this amazing building. It was built by order of King Ludwig II. The castle did not get finished due to the death of the king, and has been turned into a tourist trap as groups of 50+ get herded through the finished rooms every 5 minutes for an hour tour. Still worth it as this place was so cool!

Countryside Bavaria

King Ludwig's childhood castle - his dad's

Neuschwanstein Castle

What a view.

Looking out from the balcony onto the childhood home.

From the path leaving the castle.

Penny and I are not poster people, but had a hard time not buying posters from each season with a view of the castle. It is so beautiful in the countryside and in the mountains. This place made us really miss living in Colorado by the Rocky Mountains.

After seeing the castle we went to a small farm and ate some meats and cheeses made in the surrounding village, then got dropped off at a beer garden. Not only are beer gardens a big part of the German culture, but they serve these massive pretzels (and many other foods) as well. They are as big as a medium pizza.

Look at that pretzel!

Busy beer garden.

Monday started with a trip to Nymphenburg Palace. This palace was built as a summer palace back in the 1600's. The grounds (garden) itself is 200 hectares in size. The place was huge and had all kinds of paths to take in the palace view, lakes, and green space as you wanted to. Penny and I just walked around the grounds and had lunch before making our way to Munich Olympic Park.

The Nymphenburg Palace, not even the whole thing!

Palace and fountain

Nice pond with the swans

Statue of the Devil in the gardens.

View back towards palace

Fountain at far end of the gardens

Olympic Park was quite big and seemed to have many of the venues close by, so we got a look at most of them and it still seems to be used today.

Swimming pool

Olympic rings and stadium

Memorial for 11 Israeli's killed in Munich massacre

Our trip was extended (but not in a good way) as our late night train from Duisburg back to Enschede was running late. It was so late that we would have missed our connection later that evening (and in fact, we don't even know if ever left). Thus the train company put us up in a hotel for the evening. We could get up at our leisure to catch a train at 8:25 or 9:25 to get us home. However, the rain storm that delayed our night train lasted most of the night and knocked down trees and flooded tracks all across the country. No trains were going anywhere in the morning - the board was blank. After several attempts waiting in line to get more info and 5 hours in the train station Penny asked when would it be time to give up and just get a hotel for the night and try again the next day. She was told they would pay for a taxi to get us to Munster 120km away to get a train to go straight back to Enschede. Not sure how much that little trip cost, but we ended up getting home Tuesday night instead of having to wait another day. Very few trains were leaving from Munster when we got there, but it was better than staying in Duisburg longer. Something both Penny and I noticed in the train station is the lack of anger by the people who were being delayed. There was a lot of disappointment, but hardly any visible anger as people had to wait for hours with little to no information about when the trains would start running again. Lucky for us it was at the end of our little trip. This little delay also made us appreciate just how lucky we have been. We have been using the trains a LOT in the last 4.5 months, and this is really the only sort of set-back/delay that we have had. Hopefully it is the last one too.......

05 June 2014

12 days, 4 countries, 3 friends and 2 cousins!

It seems like we have really got the swing of European Travel. We actually took a proper, extended holiday for this trip, and managed to fit in 4 countries, 3 friends, and 2 cousins. Ah, travel in Europe is so easy! (Be prepared - this is going to be a long post!)

Our trip started in Galway, as I had some work meetings there. Thus, the DAY started with a 2 hr train ride ALL the way across the entire country of the Netherlands to Amsterdam. Then a 1.5 hr plane ride to Dublin, which was followed by a 2 hr bus ride ALL the way across the entire country of Ireland to Galway. Yep, that’s right. I traversed two entire countries by ground transport all before 2pm. Certainly couldn't do that in either Australia or the USA.

After the work was finished Scott joined me and we had an extra day to see the sights of western Ireland. We really wanted to see the Cliffs of Moher, and it seemed like the best option was a day trip. We chose one that included Dunguaire Castle, Corcomroe abbey, a dolmen, a fairy fort, another castle, celtic crosses, etc and of course the cliffs. I should have figured out from the timing and the description that this was going to be a massive bus tour, and we would just drive by some of these things, or if we were lucky, jump out for 10 mins to get a picture. That said, it was still a good day and we did get to see lots of great thing, even if it wasn’t our ideal way to travel. On our return to Galway we managed to fit in a quick tour of all the main sites, and finished the day with a well-earned Guinness/cider.

Dunguaire Castle

Poulnabrone Dolmen

Celtic High Cross in Kilfenora

Cliffs of Moher

Scott at the King's Head pub

Next stop, Dublin to pick up my cousins Pam and Jim and to head up the coast to Belfast. We had rented a car this time so could do a bit more wandering, stopping, and looking at really cool old stuff! We saw Monasterboice Monastery with its celtic crosses. Yep, they are big, I had to get Scott and Jim in the photos to give perspective. Then on to Proleek Dolmen which is located on a very nice golf course, and to one of my personal favorites, Legananny Dolmen . Now this dolmen was in the middle of nowhere, was rather underwhelming by comparison, but it had the best description board – “Legananny has featured in every tourist’s photo album" (note there were NO other tourists within miles!!). Then on to Ballynoe Stone Circle, Inch Abbey and Killyleagh Castle (which is a private residence now!!)

Celtic cross at Monasterboice

Another Celtic cross at Monasterboice

Proleek Dolmen

Legananny Dolmen

Ballynoe

Inch Abbey

Killyleagh Castle

Next stop – Belfast, Northern Ireland. We started our day with a black cab tour of the city. We learned all about the “troubles” from both perspectives and saw both sides of the city. I was surprised to see that there is still a “peace wall” that is in place and operational that separates the Catholics from the Protestants. Both sides say they still want it and make them feel better. Houses along the wall still have their back yards caged in, for protection. Then to Crumlin Road Jailhouse. After this very serious morning, we needed something a bit cheerier, so off to the local markets, and then some wondering around the downtown area (city hall, titanic ship yards, etc) and of course, a beverage!

One of many murals on Black Cab Tour

One of many murals on Black Cab Tour - this one was creepy, the eyes of the gunman follow you!

The Peace Wall

Homes next to the peace wall

Interesting man - he was in prison when he was voted into Parliment!

Crumlin Road Jail

City Hall

Ship yards

The next day included a drive up to the Giant’s Causeway and ending in Derry. Of course, we had to see some more great old things on the way, including Carrickfergus and Dunluce Castle. We took the coastal drive and it had amazing scenery and some great little glens. Granted, yes, it was raining and cloudy, but it was still beautiful, and eventually that passed and we had a beautiful day. The Giant’s causeway is amazing, and is a UNESCO world heritage site. Yep, lots of tourists, but totally worth it.

Carrickfergus Castle

Jim and Scott checking out the natives - although I really love their style of fencing here!

Bit of a traffic jam in one of the glens.

Apparently cows like walking on the beach too!

Giant's Causeway

Giant's Causeway - Pam and Jim just taking it all in!

Nothing like climbing all over a UNESCO world heritage site!

The happy travelling cousins

Giant's Causeway

Dunluce Castle - apparently at one point the kitchen fell into the sea - and the lady of castle said that was last straw

Ok, little side note here. What is with the PINK in Northern Ireland. I had started to notice that there were lots of pink things in Belfast – cars, homes, etc. But it just got worse as we made our way north. I get that there was some event on for the Giro de Italia, but some of these things are permanently pink and couldn’t just have been painted pink for that event. So anyone that may be of help of this, your input is appreciated!

Yep, those are pink sheep!

Next stop – Derrry/Londonderry – depends on which side you support. We stopped her to visit one of Scott’s trainer friends. However, Graham had family commitments, so we only managed a very quick catch up with him at his gym. A quick trip around the walls of Derry (it is one of the only cities that still has its old city walls intact!), and then back on the road to Dublin. Of course, now that we were in Dublin it was time for some more Guinness and some traditional Irish music!

Scott and Graham at Crossfit Derry

More murals in Derry - especially focused on Bloody Sunday

On the walls of Derry

Ah, Guinness!

Enjoying a bit of Irish music (he was actually quite good!)

We then had 2 more days of touring around Dublin. We saw all the usual suspects – Book of Kells and the Long Hall at Trinity College, Christ Church Cathedral, Temple Bar, Guinness Storehouse and Croke Park. All were really great but two things of particular note. 1) We took the guided tour in Christ Church Cathedral (which somehow worked out to be cheaper than just a regular visit??). This tour was absolutely fabulous. If you ever go, you must do this tour. Great insight into the church and history, but as an added bonus, you get to climb the bell tower, walk along roof and actually ring the bells!! And 2) We took the tour of Croke Park. This was less than stellar. Croke Park is the major sporting venue in Ireland, and you cannot dispute that it is the home of Irish Sport (especially in Sept). While the park and museum are quite cool, the tour was not. Very disorganised and certainly geared towards a local. Really not worth your time if you go.

Long Hall at Trinity College

Old Post Office (site of the 1916 Easter uprising)

Burial site of Strongbow in Christ Church Cathedral - Interesting Fact: if two people make a deal, spit in their hands, shake on it and then slap Strongbow in the face (and there is a witness) then this deal is legally binding in the court of law!!

On the Christ Church Cathedral roof - Jim didn't really like the size of the doors

Christ Church Cathedral

At the Guinness Storehouse

The Guinness really does taste better in Dublin

A well earned rest after a day of touring

Croke Park

Scott tries out skills at hurling

At this point we say good-bye to Pam and Jim – it was really great to tour with family. We always have a great time with these two and this trip was no exception. As it was public holidays in many European countries, we extended our holiday and heading over to Copenhagen, Denmark. We start our first day with a return to normal of doing lots and lots of walking around town. We see lots of cool statues, architecture and squares. We did manage to time it right to see the changing of the guard at Amalienborg Castle (the current royal palace). We wanted to go to Christiansborg palace but the stables were only open after 1:30, so we decided to come back. GREAT decision. By the time we came back we were able to see the stables and then make the free guided tour of the reception rooms. This was a great way to see these rooms and we got lots of cool stories and histories. The tapestries that were here were very unique (modern and colourful). And, of course, we might have found a brew pub to have an after dinner drink. The second day was more walking, and included the King’s Gardens, and Rosenborg Castle and the crown jewels. Note: do NOT go in here when there is a tour bus there – we couldn’t see anything and had to backtrack after they left. We also walked out to the Citadel and the Little Mermaid Statue. The citadel is a nice walk and one of Northern Europe’s best preserved fortifications, and the little mermaid is underwhelming.

Hans Christian Andersen - or HC as the locals call him

Nytorv square - great for an afternoon sit down

Old stock exchange and Christiansborg Palace

Nyhavn - great little harbour area

Changing of guards - not quite Buckingham Palace - but still pretty cool.

The Marble Church

Tapestries inside Christiansborg Palace

Round Tower - great for a view over the city

Yummy beers and great name - Brew Pub

Royal Thrones and guard lions at Rosenborg Palace

Now that is a crown!

Citadel

The Little Mermaid

Then it was time to head out of Denmark and take the ferry over to Sweden to meet up with Kat and Pete. This part of the trip was a bit more relaxing as we focused on catching up with our friends and meeting their very very cute little daughter Holly. That said, we did still manage to get lots of walking in. They live in a little town, Fladie, outside of Malmo. We had the morning to explore Malmo by ourselves, so wandered around old town, went to the flower show (what else do you when the flower show is in town!), saw some old churches, etc, and then meet up with Kat, Pete and Holly for lunch. After lunch, more walking and sightseeing in Malmo. This time out to the Turning Torso (or is that the Twisting Torso, Pete??) and views over the harbour. There is a really really cool bridge here (The Oresund Bridge) that goes from Sweden to Denmark. It starts out as a bridge on the Sweden side and then after 8km, it disappears into the sea at a man-made island and continues a further 4km as a tunnel into Denmark. It is an amazing engineering structure and lots of interesting facts about it (like the fact that it carries cars and trains, even though the trains run on two different voltages in the two countries!!). We finished this evening relaxing back at their house and learning a Swedish game, Kubb. It has some interesting (and questionable) rules, but was a good way to spend the long summer afternoons! Yep, the days are super long now in Northern Europe. Sunrise at 4:30am and sunset at 9:30, but the long rays of sun are out long before this, with it still being daylight well past 10pm! The next (and last day) started out relaxed and a great walk and brunch along the coast, followed by a quick trip to Lund before we headed back home.

All in all a very very great trip, and was great to catch up with so many friends and family and see so much more of Europe.