Salzburg

We spent 2.5 days in Salzburg, which was more than enough time to see everything.  Rick Steve suggests doing a day trip from Munich, and that is certainly enough to see the main sights.  But we enjoyed seeing the town at our leisure.

We had the sense to have booked a hotel with good air conditioning, since the weather was in the high 80s and low 90s each day.  We arranged to spend the hottest part of the day reading in our hotel room.

Friday afternoon we wandered through the main drag (our hotel, the Radisson Altstadt, was right on the primary shopping street), checking out Mozart's house (so-so) and various shops.  Our hotel had a special "Pfifferling" (chanterelle) menu, and with those being Jay's favorite mushrooms, we had to eat there.  The building the hotel was in was built in 1377, so there were a few funky aspects, but I would recommend it as a place to stay.  We also arranged to go to a Mozart dinner and concert the next night at the "Festung" (fortress).

How about a few pictures of this fortress:

From the Mozartweg footbridge.  This was the home of the Prince-Archbishops who ruled Salzburg for centuries.  It was impressive enough that no enemy even tried to storm it..

And at night, from near the cathedral.

And here is it from Schloss Mirabell (near the Mozart Residenz where he lived as a young man.)

And here are a few views looking down from the fortress (or at least the grounds around it) onto the town.

The Festung dinner was quite adequate, and the concert was very good.  Rick Steve describes it as a "Mozart's greatest hits" show, and that was close to right (only about half the program was Mozart).  Going for dinner makes it easier to get to the concert on time, and it includes admission to the various castle rooms, including a very nice marionette museum (remember the marionettes in the Sound of Music?).

I think one is legally required to include a picture of the statue of Mozart (this town is gaga about Mozart)

We did the Rick Steve's walking tour our second day, but that only kept us busy for about two hours, so not nearly as compelling as the Munich tour.  We took the elevator up to the area near the Festung (a monastery and a lovely woods to walk through) for the afternoon.

On the third day, we had sort of run out of things to do in the immediate neighborhood, so we rented bikes to go out to Hellbrunn Palace, about 4km out of town (along the river), on the (correct) theory that it would be cooler there.  This was the summer home of the aforementioned Prince-Archbishops. Also Hellbrunn is noted for its "trick fountains", which surprise you with water being squirted at you, so that was another chance to cool down.

The palace has a lot of small grottos; this one contains a "magic hat" that shoots into the air via a water spout when the magic valve is opened.  These water effects were all created in the 17th century, as sort of the "hi-tech" toys of that era.

Another homage to Mozart in one of the palace rooms.

The original of this little guy is in one of the grottos, but I got a better shot of the museum copy.

That afternoon we went to the Mirabell Palace, which supposedly has the most beautiful room for weddings (it's sort of the city hall now).  We got to see the staircase going to the room, but not the office, since it was Sunday.  You mostly walked around the gardens, including one that had a variety of statues of dwarves.  They are apparently all modeled on real individuals.  Here are the ones I liked best

Clearly, rubbing their noses must be good luck.

We discovered Nockerl, a Salzburg dessert.  It's a not too sweet meringue with a bit of a raspberry sauce.  We ate at a small hole in the wall shop that claimed to have the best Nockerl in town.  Since we only tried the one, we can't attest to the accuracy of the statement, but it was good.  This is the typical size of a Nockerl serving.  It's intended to serve one (and we saw many people finishing a whole one off), but we were only able to eat one segment each, and that was about half our lunch.

Finally, all the shops in the Altstadt have these medieval looking signs to show what they are.  Here are some examples.

The wreath based one in the foreground is interesting.  You may not be able to make it out very well, so here it is blown up:

Yep, that's the Salzburg Golden Arches.

This ends our latest visit to Germany.  Come back next winter for the likely continuance of our thrilling adventures.

Biking Day 6, Hike down Kitzbuhel Horn

The last morning we took the tram to the top of the Kitzbuhel Horn, the "main" mountain of Kitzbuhel, and hiked about half way down.  Very pretty.  Here are some views from the top:

We found this interesting sign on the way down (remember this would be covered in snow in the winter, so the rocks might be less of a problem).  It says "Only for the experienced".  Definitely.

About half way down (half of what we walked, so still pretty far up the mountain), there was an alpine garden (carefully tended by humans, not wild).  We saw some edelweiss (the flower in "Sound of Music"), which is becoming relatively rare, because of climate change.  It is a small, white, composite flower, with small "snowballs" in the inner section.  The images you find on the web are quite pretty; these were sort of ratty.

After the hike, we said our goodbyes and got on a bus to take us to Salzburg, where we ended our vacation.  See next post.

Summing up: I really recommend this trip/route.  We had a few hiccups along the way (which I don't particularly want to record in my memories of this vacation), but the biking, the scenery, the people -- everything was fantastic.

Biking Day 5, Kitzbuhel to Pillersee and back

This was a loop route, a bit longer and more strenuous than the last two days.  Another chance to bike my age.  Today went beyond warm to hot.  Through several small towns in the AM, and then a long, relatively mild uphill after lunch (with a steep last quarter mile into the hotel, from a different direction than the day before -- always hard to do when you are expecting those first moments of rest after the ride).

This is from somewhere up high, probably just as we left Kitzbuhel.

We saw lots of cows throughout the week, but I hadn't taken any pictures of them.  They are mostly standing on steep mountain slopes, though these were in a flat spot.  Complete with cowbell, to make my friend Roberta happy.

Today's ride: 69km, 2700ft vertical.

Biking Day 4, On to Austria

Today we left Bavaria and headed for Austria, to spend the next two nights in Kitzbuhel (the ski town).  The morning had one really serious hill as we made our way over the pass into Austria after crossing the Tiroler Achen river.  Again, the weather was good (heading toward warm) and the scenery was wonderful -- so much so that I hardly took any pictures.  Toward the end of the day we were on a bike path called the Römerweg (the Roman Way), a path used by the Romans as they headed north.


Only a few pictures:

I believe this shows the top of a lift in Kitzbuhel.

Another view of the Wilder Kaiser.  This is a typical Backroads "back road" -- it's paved, and every so often you do meet a car, but it's really a country road that is hardly to be found on a map.  Those are two of our group in the red and yellow at the far end of the road.

Today's ride: 60km, 2800ft elevation gain

Biking Day 3, Chiemsee

The Chiemsee is the largest lake in Bavaria, and is a common vacation destination.  The lake is best known for the Herren Insel (Gentlemen's Island), which has the last/largest of the Ludwig II castles, the one that is modelled after Versailles.  This was a much shorter and much less hilly day.  We biked to the lake, took the ferry to the Herren Insel, took a tour of the Castle (it was lived in for less than a week, before Ludwig died under suspicious circumstances), then hopped on the ferry to the Frauen Insel (of course, a smaller island, populated by nuns originally) where we had lunch at an outdoor restaurant that specialized in herring from the lake.  We then biked about a quarter of the way around the lake and headed back to our hotel.  With about 3 hours of sightseeing, there was a lot less time for biking, but still an enjoyable day.  Did I mention we had sunshine all day?  This was probably the best weather of the trip; the rain was gone but it hadn't gotten hot yet.

Photographically:

You get to see Jay, just as we got to the lake.

And here are the two of us.

It does look like Versailles, right?

Including the fountains.

A view of the lake (after lunch).  Afternoon clouds rolling in.

And the mountains we were riding through all the time.

Here is the lake from a bit further away.

Dinner was much simpler than the night before -- we found an Italian place with a Russian waiter that was just the light meal we needed.

Today's ride: 57km, 1800 ft elevation gain.

Biking Day 2, Tegernsee to Aschau in Chiemgau

This was billed (correctly) as the best scenery of the week, but also the most challenging ride..  Over 4000 ft of elevation gain. Luckily, they took us in the van most of the way up the first hill, onto some roads that are used to get to a local ski area (I think this was Spitzingsee).  We then traveled up and down some modest hills on roads only used by the ski area through some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen.  Then they found us some serious hills to climb. Unfortunately, it rained in the morning, so I don't have much in the way of photos, because they came out too dreary.  But I'll show you what we saw after lunch.

Side note: the new rain jackets worked well both days.  On the first day, I saw someone put on his rain booties and thought "Damn, I have a pair of those at home.  Why didn't I think to bring them?" What I should have thought was "Damn, I have a pair of those in my suitcase.  Why didn't I think to put them in my pack?".  (when you pack a suitcase full of biking stuff an entire month before you use it, it's easy to forget what you brought). It took some effort to get the shoes dry, but the second day I was toasty warm and dry (Jay, who does not have rain booties for bike shoes, did not feel the same).  The new base layer shirt helped too.

Our lunch was at the waterfall (well, the restaurant by the waterfall) where the Tatzlwurm Dragon is supposed to reside.  According to the internet, this is your classic dragon rampaging the neighborhood (and who might come out again, if he gets disturbed), but according to the restaurant, it was tamed by a former owner, who kept feeding it until it got fat and sluggish and only wanted to rest by the fire.

After lunch we headed down to Aschgau am Chiemsee, which, as the name suggests is near the Chiemsee, and which meant we had a lot of "interesting" downhills on wet roads (at one point it was a 18% grade -- though I suppose doing that downhill is better than uphill).  On our way we crossed the river Inn (as in "Innsbruck"), several more lovely lakes, and got our first views of the Wilder Kaiser, a stony mountain face (the name means Wild Emperor) in the distance.

Pictures:

An idea of what a locals-only ski area this was.

The waterfall that the Tatzlwurm is supposedly hiding behind.

The River Inn shortly after the rain stopped

The Wilder Kaiser from the River Inn.

Random lovely valley we went through.

This is where we stayed this second night (and the third night also).  Residenz Heinz Winkler

Close up of the window detail of the hotel.

That night we ate in the dining room of the hotel.  The hotel was founded by Heinz Winkler to showcase his own restaurant (I suppose to make it a destination).  He was, in 1981, the youngest chef to ever get 3 Michelin stars.  (The restaurant is currently a 2 Michelin star).  The food was excellent, though I doubt you would recognize it as German.  I think we had five courses, all of reasonable size.  But really, four hours for a dinner is too long (OK, we didn't mind it when we went to the French Laundry a few years ago, but then we didn't have to get up the next morning to bike.)

Today's ride: 72 km, 4100 ft elevation gain (so I biked more than my age in km).  There were lots opportunities to get ferried over the hills, but I survived them all. 

Biking, Day 1

This was the Backroads Bavaria and the Tirol biking trip.  We rode from a random spot about 45 minutes outside of Munich (taking a bus to there) to the Tegernsee, a lovely lake.  Sadly, it was dreary and rained most of the day (letting up just as we rode into the hotel). Luckily, during our walk around Munich, we came across a huge sporting goods store, and, based on the weather forecast, bought new and better rain jackets.  We were very glad we did. I didn't take any pictures on the ride, as stopping in the rain seemed like not a great idea.  However, here are some views from walking around near our hotel.

This is one of many lakes in this part of Germany, all well-known vacation locations.  I think all these houses are vacation apartments, though there is clearly a "real" town there too.

Today's ride: 40 km, 1600 ft elevation gain.

Munich

We spent Friday (June 30) checking out of our apartment, taking the train to the Frankfurt airport so that we could store some of our stuff that we won't need on this holiday, then taking the train to Munich.  That left us with a few hours to walk around in Munich on Friday, all day Saturday to explore Munich, and then on Sunday morning we met our biking group.  So not as much time in Munich as I might have hoped.  It really takes 2-4 days to really explore this city.  I think we did justice to the historic Altstadt, but didn't get enough time to visit museums, or to see things in the area, such as Berchtesgaden.

We started our day using the Rick Steve's walking tour of Munich, which I highly recommend (I prefer self guided tours that have you really explore an area).  We only did about 2/3 of it, but it took us the better part of the day.  Some highlights.

The Viktualienmarkt, a large farmer's market/biergarten that has existed for centuries.   The first picture below shows the upper part of the Munich maypole (every little town in Bavaria has one of these, though Munich's is obviously more elaborate than most) and one of the many stands in the Markt.  The second picture shows the lower part of the maypole.  The different figures represent things of importance in the city.  The writing at the bottom talks about the German beer purity law, where in 1516 (in Munich) it was decreed that beer can only be made from water, hops and barley (so no fruit beers, for example).  This was because of a lot of adulteration in beer at the time, but these laws are still in effect in Germany.

A random statue in the Viktualienmarkt.  I liked that someone was keeping him supplied with flowers. 

The New Town Hall (new as of 1867) has a lovely dragon guarding it

I think our favorite find was the Asam Church (officially, the Church of St. Johann Nepomuk), created by the brothers Asam, who were a sculptor and a painter, as a "showroom" for their church building/renovating business (it was also a real church, originally a private chapel, but eventually public).  It's a narrow chapel, right next to their home/office, that has "one of everything" that a community might want in their church.  Which makes it completely over the top (of course, the fact that it is in the Baroque style would make it pretty over the top in any case).  Here are a couple of random pictures of things that struck my fancy:

The marble is a marble veneer (communities wanted more bang for their buck) and there are other "special effects".  Given the overall Baroque style, I found the relative severeness of the last picture to be compelling.  

Side note: this church was a real find from Rick Steves.  It was a bit out of the way on the tour, but well worth the detour.  Plus I would never have understood the significance of it -- it would just have been another over the top church -- without his very witty explanations.  

And for something completely random, we saw this on our walk.

Yes, that thing overhanging the roof of the building is a basketball backboard (and hoop -- though you can't really see the hoop at this resolution).  I assume it is an art installation, but who knows.  Maybe there are really tall people in Munich.

Sorry for leaving you hanging...

I know, it's been almost 3 weeks, since I last posted.  I told you, when I start having fun, I get too engrossed in things to want to blog about them (I'm not a very meta person, I guess).  But we are now back in the U.S., all nine loads of laundry are done, at least some of the "now that we are home" projects are underway (including find a new gym, and today's surprise project: "spend $2000 getting Robin's 10 year old Prius fixed" -- the radio, climate control, nav system, etc. just froze up this morning).  It's a computer, so a) the only answer is to remove it from the car and order a new one (repair?  What makes you think these can be repaired?), and b) these are custom setups, so it's never cheap to replace them.  Jay just bought a new computer today -- the on/off switch on his stopped working -- and that only cost $500.  Sigh.

On to the next adventure -- biking

Tomorrow we move out of our Duisburg apartment and start our "real" vacation.  We take a train to Munich (with a layover at the Frankfurt airport to store some of our luggage) and have about 1.5 days in Munich for sightseeing.  Then we meet our Backroads friends, take a bus for about an hour, and head out on the bikes.  This trip has a two star Michelin restaurant on the second night, so I hope they work us hard on the bikes :-)  The temperatures are predicted to be reasonable, but there is a bit too much rain in the forecast.  Let's hope it dries up somewhat by the time we are riding.  We end in Salzburg, where we have 2 days for sightseeing and then back to the Frankfurt airport by train.

Reserved parking places (really, test of picture uploading)

This was a novel way to set things up as reserved parking places. The owner of the space uses a padlock to keep the red and white pole upright, and then lays it down when he wants to park. Takes a bit more time than our method of just having a sign, but it's a lot harder to ignore.

Hey, looks like this method of uploading pictures works!  Hope to find time to report on the bike trip regularly.

German houses

I think we have been in more private homes in Germany this visit than any previous one.  This is not a tour of all varieties of German living arrangements (these people are all but one academics, from grad students to very senior professors, so that might lead to some biases).  Sorry, no photos, as I wasn't thinking about doing a post like this when I visited, and also, it's sort of rude to visit someone's house and start taking pictures to show Americans who don't know about Germany.

Individual houses: two different people living in those.  Both were in what I would consider a suburb, though I'm not sure whether they technically met that definition. One was single story; the other two story.  The kitchens (here and everywhere) tend to be small by our standards, but the houses overall were of reasonable size (if you aren't looking for a McMansion).  They have very small yards; I didn't see any lawn, but there were lots of nice trees and flowers and patios for sitting at.  No air conditioning, the walls are of thick stone, and the most insulated windows you have ever seen ("The Germans are very proud of their windows").

Multi-story apartments: Three different instances of this.  Two of them were in buildings where most apartments were single floor, but the top floor had a two level apartment with a roof garden as a third level.  One was in an old building with no elevator (and on the 5th and 6th floors), but the other was a quite new building with underground parking and a building elevator.  Both had circular staircases going to the roof, I assume to save space.  Very spacious, but obviously the roof gardens, which were relatively large, were the only outdoor space.  Fantastic views.  The third one was on the ground floor (and one floor up), with the rest of the apartments in the building being single story.  This one was more spacious, even had a sort of "man-cave"/bonus room. They had a small fenced patio in front. All three of these apartments were owned by the residents.  Two of them were within a large city, and one was in a small suburb.

Single-story apartment: This was a two bedroom place (really one bedroom with office, but since German homes seldom have built in closets, an office is indistinguishable from a bedroom,until it is furnished).  The rooms were nice sized, and the view was killer.  But no outdoor space -- just a tiny terrace, barely big enough to sit at.  I'm pretty sure this place was rented.

I think all Americans would have been taken aback by the small yards (unless their experience was downtown New York City, Chicago, Boston or the like).  The houses would have seemed average to small by our standards, though I thought the owners felt they had plenty of room, and the multistory apartments would be similar.  The single story apartment would be very similar to a two bedroom apartment anywhere in the US.

Pictures from Cologne

Forgot to share some of my better photos, taken while we were in Cologne.

This is from walking along the river bank (the Rhein) after the opera.  That's the Cologne Cathedral in the distance.

This is a tower from an old Roman wall that is right in the middle of town (the Romans were on one side of the river and the ur-Germans (Goths?) were on the other.)

I was quite pleased at how both of these came out, so I didn't want you to miss them.