Europe Part 4 - Germany - May 15-18,2008

Below are just some of the photos from this part. See all of them with high-res versions at Flickr.

143 Germany photos - CLICK HERE.



I arrived in Munich Thursday night, and the solo part of my journey was truly underway. I bought a 15 day Eurail pass for this trip, and validated it at the Munich airport to begin the 15 days. The S-Bahn took me into the center of the city.



The Euro Youth Hotel in the center of Munich was my home for two nights. Like pretty much every hostel I stayed at, it was really cool. They also had a bar; apparently on Friday night a Jagermeister promo team came in and throw a ridiculous party with all kinds of free stuff, including drinks of course. I was not around to experience that.



Everyone was encouraged to tape some of their local currency to the wall with a message from them and their hometown or college or whatever.



Early the next morning I took a train south through the countryside to Fussen, a small town located near one of the more popular German tourist sights...



Neuschwanstein Castle.



The castle was built by King Ludwig II in the 19th century and much of the interior was inspired by Richard Wagner. Ludwig died before it was finished, so a lot of the interior was never completed.



This might be my favorite picture that I've ever taken. Maybe. (Huge version as always at Flickr)



The interior of the castle is fairly interesting, but the tour is short and there isn't really much to it since so many rooms are unfinished. The real experience is the walk around the mountain, and the Marienbrucke, a narrow bridge over the gorge offering spectacular views.



Me on the Marienbrucke.



Like I said; the views are amazing.



Hohenschwangau Castle can be toured as well, but I didn't really have time to do it.



I had never really seen mountains like this until this day (but just wait until Switzerland).



Luckily the weather was gorgeous for this day.



Neuschwanstein was the inspiration for several of the Disney castles.



I don't really get hung up on age when it comes to some things. The fact that this castle is only a little over a century old didn't really matter to me. It's still an extremely impressive structure.



I wouldn't mind waking up to this view every morning.



The Marienbrucke, as seen from inside the castle.



I actually rode a bus up the mountain, due to a badly injured right foot that plagued me for about a week of the trip, but decided to walk back down.



If I lived in Germany, this would be the death of me. No, not the beer. Well, maybe that too. But I'm speaking of currywurst. I was only in Germany for a few days, but that didn't stop me from eating currywurst three times. It's more of a Berlin/northern Germany tradition, but can be found pretty much everywhere. So good, and so unhealthy. Also, it's actually relatively cheap.



This guy, whoever he is, looks longingly up at the castle.



I ventured into Fussen for a few minutes before my train left for Munich.



It seemed like it would have been a nice place to maybe have lunch.



Next came the first situation where the language barrier nearly became a problem. I was supposed to change trains at Kaufbeuren for Munich. We stopped at some station about halfway, and then an announcement was made. Pretty much everyone on the train gets up and leaves. Luckily, there was a German couple that looked just as confused as me. "Kaufbeuren?" the man asked. I nodded. He spoke to the platform attendent and then motioned for me to come. We switched trains, and that one ended up in Kaufbeuren about 20 minutes early. All I can figure is that our train arrived earlier than expected at that first station, and an earlier train to Kaufbeuren had yet to leave, so we were able to get there faster.



Whatever the case, this allowed me to add another town to my list, as I walked around for a few minutes in between trains.



This was in the walkway under the platforms in the Kaufbeuren train station. As far as I can tell, the heavily vandalized drawing is of Czech players Vladimir Martinec (former ESV Kaufbeuren player and coach apparently) and former NHL superstar Peter Stastny, who is also the father of current NHL star Paul Stastny.



Back in Munich with about 24 hours to spend in the city, it was time to get moving.



The Marienplaz is the central gathering place in Munich, filled with shops and of course the famous and incredibly anti-climatic glockenspiel. I'm not sure if this was actually in the Marienplaz, but it was at least on the way.



In the center of the Marienplaz is the New Town Hall and the glockenspiel.



Being a foreigner with a tendency to get lost and a complete inability to speak German, I wisely chose to experience the beer gardens and halls on a bar crawl that started at my hostel led by a crazy Australian guy who goes out every night drinking as a "job". We had unlimited drinks at the hostel bar for an hour to try out Augustiner and Augustiner wheat, with a little education as well. Not that everyone there hadn't already had copious amounts of Augustiner. The first stop on the crawl was Augustinerkeller, one of the largest and oldest beer gardens in Munich.



The beer garden is such an amazing concept, and the rest of the world needs to get moving to adopt it. Lines and lines of picnic tables, a capacity of near 10,000 people, tons of shade trees, and unbelievable quantities of beer.



The common thought is that if you come to Bavaria and don't go to a beer garden or hall, you didn't really come to Bavaria. It's certainly true. The history, the economy, the recreation; everything revolves around beer. Beer is had with breakfast, with lunch, with dinner, in between, and after. Have a beer for lunch in some places here in North Carolina and you're an alcoholic.



Next stop, the Lowenbraukeller Biergarten. I'll have to apologize if I can't remember all of the details. I do know that this garden has been around since 1883. Our leader told us a lot of things, many of which I later found to be total crap. I can verify that a beer purity law was indeed passed in Bavaria in 1516, which stipulated that only water, barley, and hops could be used to brew beer. This was replaced in 1987 by a new beer law that allows some other ingredients to be used, but many breweries still stand by the old rule. German beer, while not particularly exciting or flavorful, is ridiculously easy to drink, and so pure that it would be quite a challenge to wake up the next morning with a hangover.



The final stop before returning to the hostel was the Augustiner brewery's beer hall, Augustiner Braustuben.



Oh, and another thing. The evil Australian, as part of the bar crawl, materialized Jager shots seemingly out of nowhere at several points. Time to abandon plans for the next morning perhaps.



To my knowledge, no one actually ate at this moment, but it's still an opportune time to point out Doner Kebap, the one constant to be found anywhere and everywhere in Europe. Slice meat from a vertical spit, serve it in a way not unlike a gyro or a schawarma with veggies and sauce and whatnot, and you have something that is cheap and delicious. The places that serve them are always open late, and always a little shady. Come to think of it, it may be the ultimate late night drinking food.



Back at the hostel, the Australian selected his two finalists to compete for a liter mug (good luck packing that in your luggage).



Canadian girl shames all the boys by winning with little effort.



Is it morning already? Back in the Marienplaz, having warmed up to the idea of a bus tour in Ireland, I decided to try a free walking tour (you tip what you feel it was worth at the end if you want) of the city.



Our guide was really quite awesome. I learned way more about Munich than any other city I would visit. Of course, I can't really remember any of it. While the city looks very old, most of it is actually quite new, as it was bombed relentlessly during World War II.



A fun sight is to watch tourists in the Marienplaz when it is time for the glockenspiel to go off. Basically, the average tourist seems to prioritize whatever is popular without really thinking "Do I really care about this?" because, honestly, the glockenspiel is pretty dumb. Our tour group stayed around for a few moments to watch everyone get their cameras out, and then we moved on.



Today was the final day of the Bundesliga regular season, and Bayern Munich, already crowned champions, was set to take on Hertha Berlin. Television crews were setting up in the Marienplaz and a giant screen was being brought in to show the game. I had originally intended to go to the game, but sadly never could manage to find a ticket.



The first of many cathedrals to be seen on this trip.



Over at the expansive Viktualien Markt, it was no surprise that the beer was already flowing. It seemed like half the people in town had on Bayern Munich jerseys. There were large groups of supporters roaming the streets chanting and singing.



The Hofbrauhaus is the most famous and I guess most visited beer hall in Munich. For that same reason I suspect it isn't as fun as many of the other ones. We walked through but did not have a drink.



When a building is renovated, the common practice seems to be to put up a wall on the outside painted to look exactly like the building's exterior.



Apparently this guy was a man of the people or something and refused to allow a statue of him to be put up, but then he died, so they did it anyway.



I only did a few tours on this trip, but this was definitely the best. We spent over three hours trekking around the city. They have the same free tour concept in many of the other major cities in Europe; it works really well because the tour guide has to earn his pay by giving a tour good enough to compell people to tip.



Bicycles. They are everywhere in Europe, and even moreso in Germany. Also, dogs. You can bring them on trains, in amusement parks, or pretty much anywhere in Germany. Yet another reason why I loved the place.



Back in the Marienplaz, it was getting closer and closer to game time. It would be a complete dream to see such passion and intense support for teams here in the United States.



If forced to name a favorite city on the trip, it would have to be Munich. Everything about it was just wonderful. However, this trip did not allow for lingering in one place. The first long train journey of the trip was from Munich to the small town of Freiburg in the southwest. This leads me to another awesome thing about Germany: the trains. The trains are fantastic everywhere in western Europe, especially if you are an American and have no perspective on how wonderful public transportation can be, but the ICE trains have got to be among the best on the continent. This was a 2nd class compartment, and it was still total luxury. I could have stayed on there all day.



I knew nothing about the town of Freiburg except that it was near Europa Park, and I spotted Silver Star from the train on the way in. Turns out that the city is much larger than I expected, and in fact pretty awesome.



This hostel ruled so much that I immediately cancelled my reservations in Basel for the next night and extended my reservation here. While every other hostel I stayed in was in a big city, this one was outside of Freiburg in a small neighborhood right on the edge of the Black Forest. There are few reasons for tourists to go to Freiburg, so unlike every other hostel, this one was not filled with Americans, Canadians, and Australians. Freiburg is, from what I could tell, a college town, so people visiting friends probably stay here. Most of the people staying there, including my roommates, didn't speak English. It was a very laid back and relaxed place, and there was a great common area where some people played jazz on the piano for hours.



Every single time I turned the corner to go up to the stairs to my room, without fail, I thought this was a person sitting against the wall, and it scared the hell out of me.



The Black Forest Hostel also had the craziest showers. If you have ever dreamed of showering in a space capsule, go here and you can do it.



In addition to meaning I didn't have to lug all of my stuff to Europa Park, extending my stay in Freiburg allowed me to see a little bit of the town.



I found it very amusing (and depressing) that while even some of the biggest American cities don't have a decent mass transit system, this smaller town in Germany had a great street tram system. It was a nice place, and I'm glad I was able to stop there. Next came Europa Park and the end of my time in Germany.

Next Up - Europa Park



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