August 26, 2005
'm
going to be posting when I can a running commentary of my trip. This may
be interesting to you, but is certainly much more so for me, as it will
help me remember when and where I was, and where pictures were taken.
I'm going to keep it all on this page, though. These are purely random
and disorganized brain dumps, and won't be edited (that I'm planning on
right now, of course… things may change).
Day 1
First thing in the morning, I had to work for a couple of hours at the
show in the Messe (convention Center) in Leipzig. Went back to Westin
Hotel and waited with Bernie until John got their car, a Mercedes SLK.
Then I took a taxi to airport to pick up my car, a lowly Volkswagen Golf.
Left airport around 1PM, headed for Munchen. Saw Bernie, John, Dan and
Sam in their Mercedes on the highway, driving with the roof down. Just
before Munchen it started to rain. Got somewhat turned around in Munchen
due to the construction on the autobahn, but made it to Aumsberg. Lots
of Sunday night traffic headed towards Stuttgart.
Day 2
More rain all day long. Drove remaining 150 klicks to Stuttgart. Walked
around park downtown, and shopping area. Couldn't find CD store, but looked
at siedler von catan in Speilen store. Went out to Döffingen, still
raining, took pictures, and then headed up to Zuffenhausen. Couldn't find
a place to eat, despite a walk of about 2 miles, should have asked at
the desk. Didn't want to eat at McCafe, McDonalds, or Italian Restaurant
all associated with the hotel Achat in Zuffenhausen.
Day 3
Visited
Porsche museum….tiny, took about an hour, but mostly because I lingered
taking pictures. Could have been done in about 10 to 15 minutes. Wish
they had a factory tour. Headed back to Döffingen as weather was
breaking up. Some sunshine breaking through. Lovely town, but the valley
it is in is much smaller than I recall. At age 9 when I left, I'm not
surprised that it seemed bigger back then. The good weather lasted about
2 hours, as I headed south, and then east. Ended up driving through some
varied rain, sometimes hard. Even more clear that a second brain/pair
of hands would have been useful. Navigating while driving is difficult
enough, but when the map has numbers that are too small, and you're speeding
down the road, you can wonder if you're heading in the right direction.
Some random
thoughts:
Average speed on the Autobahn 135Kph (I think that's about 85). That's
about average for the traffic. People are blowing by me at twice my speed.
Number of times I've had to retrace my steps: 2
Number of times I've heard Wake me when September is Over: about 100….but
only once all the way through. I'm getting good at changing the radio.
Number of old songs I've heard covers of: dozens, including a cover of
a Supertramp song called Give a Little Bit (of your love) that isn't bad.
Song it took 3 days to tack down in my memory: a woman singing something
about "moonlight shadows" which I finally remembered is a song
off of one of Mike Oldfield's albums (from 5 Miles Out, not sure I recall
the track name). I've caught the last 30 seconds of the song twice in
the first 2 days, and it took forever to place, probably because I tend
to think I'm the only person in the world who listens to Mike Oldfield
on a regular basis :).
Song I don't need to hear again: Something called Foxtrot Uniform Charlie
Kilo. Yea, you read it right, that's the name. Heard it once without paying
attention. Second time, I listened to the words. Quite a collection of
euphemisms for sex. I won't deign to honor it with the appellation of
"making love", as it is clear this song has nothing to do with
love.
Ratio of American music to German music on the radio: 80:20
Number of hours worked in the last 2 days: About 2. Keeping up on email
and responding as necessary.
I've
stopped for the night in the area near Fussen, near the Neuschwanstein
castle. I'm in a health spa, and my room is about 4 times bigger as it
was last night, and about 20 Euros cheaper. There's a huge 3 story living
room with a fireplace, and below that is a heated pool and sauna. The
cowbells are ringing outside my window, and the clouds are hugging the
mountains. Hopefully tomorrow will be a bit clearer.
The German people are, in my perception, easier on the land than we are in the US. Which is an odd thing to say, considering these lands have been farmed for thousands of years longer than in the US. But here, people seem to clump up into small villages, where as in the US, we spread out into huge housing tracts that scar the landscape. Another nice thing is the lack of advertising on the roads. There also isn't a gas station sign looming over every exit off the autobahn, nor a fast food joint. I've been interested to see a few McDonalds scattered inside some towns, but laughed when I saw a KFC in Sindlefingen. So far, that's the only one of those. I've also seen a couple of Burger Kings. You'd think that a German company could do fast food here better.
Day 4
Climbed
up to see both Schwangau and Neuschwanstein Castles. You know, it isn't
the exercise, although I'll grant you I'm a bit tubby, but it is definitely
the humidity. Talk about sweating! At least the sun came out. Hopefully
I got some good pictures, which I'll post here when I can, without abusing
the bandwidth of my good host here. I can assure you that Neuschwanstein,
which overlooks Schwangau, is uphill both ways, in the snow. It's a hike.
No doubt. I could have paid 3.50 euros to ride up on a horse drawn carriage
(and where is the art school that these horses go to?), but being parsimonious
as I am, I chose to forego that option. Have to admit, both castles were
impressive, although Neuschwanstein, being built as late as it was, was
obviously a "folly" especially as they stopped building it immediately
upon the king's death, and opened it as a museum within 6 weeks of his
death. What was completed, however, is most impressive. I just wish that
the guide spoke English a bit better, and that the children did a little
less screaming. There's a chapel that has tall ceilings, and is an echo
chamber….I heard almost nothing. Along side with that, there were
a couple of Asian young men who either didn't understand the multiple
requests and signs indicating that there was to be no pictures taken inside,
or they didn't care. All in all, though, incredibly impressive.
After leaving there, I drove south from Füssen (for those of you following on a map at home) and through a pass into Austria, and then past Innsbruck. I finally got blocked on the highway, as it was completely closed for construction, so I took off on a side road. I think I'm heading towards Salzburg, but I'm not really sure at this point. I know I'm in a town called Kössen, in the Hotel Sonneck, which I believe to be in Austria. I'm pretty beat, so I'm going to lie down. Still no internet access, so this document is living on my desktop until I get a chance to upload it.
Day 5
Another
lovely day driving through the Alps. Finally hit the main road to Salzburg
around noon after driving for a couple of hours through various small
villages. One of the nice things about having an innate sense of direction
is that I'm not too frightened of going down the wrong road. Besides,
if it starts heading in a direction I'm not happy with, then I just take
the next turn. Since most of the towns on the signs aren't in my mind
(not having studied the map too terribly well), I just took it as it came,
climbing up hills, following along side streams, just enjoying a lovely
day. Once I hit the highway, though, it became business again, and I swept
down into Salzburg. Stopped at a lovely convent (at least I think that
is what Maria means in German…there were women wandering around in
the appropriate dress, at least), and shot some nice photos, I hope. This
chapel sits on a hill overlooking Salzburg, and it was a fairly lovely
day. After that, I hightailed it down to Hallein, where the salt works
are. I parked and walked a fair bit around the center of town, finally
finding the Celtic Museum, which turned out to be 2/3 Celtic, and 1/3
Salt Miners, which was fine. Once again, no pictures were allowed…
and to top it off, on top of the admission, they charged me 2.50 Euros
for an English translation of most of the data in the museum, which was
only posted in Deutsch. My major beef there is that it seemed like only
about 20% of the data that was posted next to things was translated into
English in the book. At least I got to keep it. :)
After that, I headed up into the hills and did the Salt Mine tour. I'm assuming it was the same one I did 32 or so years ago. Not as exciting as I recalled it, but much more interesting. Visitors have been touring those mines for 300 years. Wow. I took some pictures, naturally, but I'm not sure they'll convey properly, since the flash will light up significantly more of the scene. They also had a Celtic Village set up, which was pretty much a bunch of log buildings. I did learn something, however. Apparently, the Celts in Austria were able to create and use iron locks. Every door of those buildings had a hefty lock on them, attached with iron. Pretty neat!...OK, so maybe it was an issue with modern day times, but still.
Drove
by Bertesgaden (sp?) but it was too late in the day for stopping there,
so I'm heading back north. Stopped about 60 km south of Munich, since
it was getting late. One thing I'm having problems with is finding hotels.
They certainly don't mark them well, or at all on the highways.
Once again, it is raining. I don't know if there has been much coverage in the states about it all, but it has been constantly reported on the radio the last 4 or 5 days as "catastrophic", a word that is apparently the same in German as it is in English. Quite a few folks have lost their lives, and most of the rivers have been overrunning their banks. On CNN Europe, a weather person said this was normal for this time of year, and said that if she played back a tape from last year this time, it would seem to be the same, but that doesn't change the impact. Apparently, the highway I used the first day was closed due to high water the day after I drove through. Since I'm kinda heading back that way, we'll have to see what happens. Fortunately, I'm just as happy taking back roads as I am the highway.
Day 6 Sitting outside a T-Mobile office, grabbed their hotspot to post
this...more later