Salzburg - Mozart and more Churches

This will be quick. It is coming to you from our 200euro a night hotel in the Frankfurt airport. Where we have one hour of free Internet!

Janet was in charge of today and she was one step ahead of me all the way. We bought a day pass which gave us public transportation and entrance to all the sites.

First up was Mozart's birthplace which is now a museum. We learned lots about his family (parents, sister, wife and children), his life and his music. Itwas amazing to see his child's violin and concert piano.

Then off to more churches - the Dom and another St. Peter's. I must admit they are running together at this point. One thing I remarked to Janet yesterday was that we had not seen any cemetaries. She found one next to St. Peter's. Very cool.

We took the cable car to the fortress at the top of the hill overlooking Salzburg Festung Hohensalzburg. We saw state rooms of the Archdukes from like 1000 to the 1600's. Also torture tools, armor, kitchen with cooking implements. It was also used during WW I and there is a museum of that time (no English captions there). And another church. The view down to old town and across to the mountains is to die for. We had a sunny but cold day which was a welcomed change to cold and grey.

Lunch in the Mozart cafe and a tour of the Salzburg Museum. That turned out to be some art, some artifacts, and some philosophizing about it all. Not a bit of the Sound of Music though; we skipped that museum. By then we were tired so a city bus back to the train, train ride to Munich, change trains there (we are pros), and train ride to the Frankfurt Airport. Where we are staying in the 5 Star Hilton because we need to sleep and shower before we fly back to you.

All in all an unbelievable trip. I really like Munich and Bavaria is beautiful.

Hungry hungry hippo

Mom and I realized early on that our main goals were very different for this trip. While I love old things and pretty things, I love food way more. Here is a small taste of what my favorite things have been... (A very small taste since I'm making mom stop so I can eat every 3-4 hours.)

Obviously you have to start with a fresh chocolate croissant.

This is the rabbit and rocket salad I had for dinner on my birthday (before we had Emperors Shit for dessert-you already were graced with that picture)

Last night I had a delicious mystery fish and ratatouille veggies...mmmm

For lunch today we had a salad with duck...

sausages with kraut....

AND potato pancakes with tomatoes and mozzarella cheese...mmmmmmm!!!!

And if that wasn't enough for for the day... Here is the dinner I had! Delicious steak, baked potato, corn on the cob, tomatoes, onion rings and salad. Yes, I ate all of it.

If we stay here for too long you will be able to see my fat belly all the way from the united states! I have eaten almost all of Old McDonald's farm!!

As you can see, food here is not very different from things we eat back home, but the spices are a little different. There are no ducks feet, or water bugs to be eaten in these countries, unlike in china. Don't worry though, we have avoided all places that we have back home and have ordered the specials everywhere.

Regensburg is really old

I picked Regensburg because it is really old. Our day began early. Markus came to check that we had not wrecked his place. Then subway to train station and train station to Regensburg. It is about a two hour trip. We were there by 10:30 and started walking.

The below church is Dom St. Peter. The church is built in Gothic style with huge vaulted ceilings. Work began in 1273 and continued off and on with various changes until about 1500. It was redecorated in the 1600's with Baroque furnishings and returned to a Gothic style in the 1820's by Ludwig I. Towers were added and it was finally finished in 1872.

This is a picture of the main altar. All of these churches have side altars all up and down. The stained glass windows (sorry, our picture is bad) are gorgeous and this on a cold and cloudy day.

We walked on and found the Porta Praetorian. I remember learning about this in Latin in high school. Mrs. Connell and Miss Newton would be so proud. The teacher talking to those kids had lots to say but I still do not know any German. I am still amused that this was in the wall that was built to keep the Huns out of the Roman Empire.

Next we walked to the Stone Bridge. The picture is Janet standing on the same bridge the second and third Crusades used on the way to the Holy Land. And it is over the Danube! We had lunch in the salt house.

After lunch we found theOld Chapel. It's existence is first documented in 875. The appearance now is as it was decorated between 1747 and 1797 in Rococo style. It was so light and beautiful even on a gloomy day.

Also special was walking incredibly old streets between ancient buildings which are now all shops for the thousands of tourists who will start showing up in about two weeks.

Then train back to Munich, ten minutes to change, and train to Salzburg. We are good at the train station but bad at the train. I bought tickets for the first class car but we have only managed to sit in it once. And some final musings. The villages are so beautiful and prosperous looking from the train. Churches always stick out - they are tall and on the top of a hill. The fields are just starting to green in some places; it will be breath-taking in a month.

There will be another post on just today's food!! Enjoy and post comments so we know you are reading us. Love to all.

Art and Churches

We slept in a bit this morning and then set out. Our first foray was to a bank which could not give change for 50euro. We should have been scared then. We mailed a post card to get change. Then off to ride the subway. We made our way to Konigsplatz which is ringed with neoclassical buildings commissioned by Ludwug I. We walked across the plaza to two of the art museums. We both walked through the Neue Pinakothek. Saw the French Impressionist bit we took a picture of this:

the title is Monkeys as Judges of Art. Although we saw Van Goghs and Monets and Manets and Renoirs, they were not our favorites of those artists. We then moved on to the Pinakothek der Moderne. I sat in the cafe while Janet toured. (I now know dolormir is German for ibuprofen.) Her favorite was this wall of black and white posters:

After a light lunch break, we got back on the subway and went back to the Marienplatz to look at churches. This is the Frauenkirche which contains tombs of 46 Wittelsbach princes and some cardinals. The Wittlesbach family ruled Bavaria from 1180 to 1918. It was amazing but did not surpass Asamkirche which we saw on Monday.

We walked around the plaza and shopped some. We were lucky to see a little of the Glockenspiels dance. You can just make out the dolls in this picture.

We had a second lunch of pretzel and sausage and sauerkraut. It was very good. I was surprised - the sauerkraut was very mild but tasty. We then saw Alter Peter, the oldest parish church in Munich. It was cool to see how it was built and enlarged and enlarged again. It was consecrated in 1496 and added on until the late 1700's. It was heavily damaged in 1944 but has been rebuilt. We tried to see the church of St. Michael but it is covered up with construction.


Back to our little apartment and cooking on TV. We both really like Munich. It is very clean. The people are nice and helpful. Today was cold but sunny and people were basking in the sun even though it was only in the 40's. That reminded me of Maine. Lots of dogs which Janet likes. And lots of cute babies bundled up which I like.


And we are left with a last out of place picture. Janet took this at the Pinakothek der Moderne.

Birthday Cake

Tony, here's for you. We went to dinner looking for something disgusting as you said in your email. Here's what we got:

Look at the third dessert. We ordered salads to leave room (Janet say, "yes I got mom to take shots with me on my 21st birthday, and yes I got mom to say 'shit' to a stranger in a foreign country on my 23rd birthday.")



Doesn't it look yummy?

This is the plate when we finished.

More adventures in dining. We had decided to eat there but when we got to the door we could hear music and there was a sign which we could not read. We were afraid it said private party. Someone else came up and we asked him to translate it for us. It said 'close the door. It is cold outside.' the restaurant is called Cafe au Beethoven. There was a small orchestra playing. Maybe al Beethoven but we were the wrong people. Miffy, we needed you. Dinner was wunderbar!

A Day as a Princess

From what I hear from mom, today was a much better day than March 6, 1989.

We spent my birthday learning about king Ludwig II. What a weirdo. He definitely had a lot more money than sense, for a little while at least. Then he was mysteriously killed... But I'm getting ahead of myself.

We took a bus tour today that started from Munich. We rode for about 2 hours to Linderhoff, one of homeboy Ludwig's castles. Then we stomped through the snowy Baverian Alps to the front door of the castle.

There are 8 rooms in this itty bitty castle, and homeboy never allowed anyone to visit him there. What a waste - there were over 16 kilos of gold used to decorate this place... Damn. He spent his days eating and reading.... Oh the life!

Our next stop on the bus tour was to Oberammergau. We just did a little bit of shopping here, and saw the theatre where the passion plays are held... Sorry, this is Janet updating, not susan so you don't get a Wikipedia link.

Onward and forward. Next stop was to Neuschwanstein. This is the castle that inspired Disney's Magic Kingdom. We rode a horse drawn carriage to the castle, no joke. Pretty fancy!!

The castle was never finished, because Ludwig was mysteriously killed. Only 20 of 120 rooms were ever completed. This castle was very different from the first, less gold more paintings. The whole castle was dedicated to Wagner, so the paintings were of scenes from his operas.

Final thoughts: Yup. I saw more snow today than a hundred times the amount I've seen for the whole rest of my life. We have not been adventurous in our meals today... I had a chocolate croissant for breakfast, mom an apple turnover. Then for lunch I had some hot dogs and fries and mom had Mac and cheese. All of it has been delicious though! And mom has not gotten hit by any cars, bikes, trollys, horses, or trains... I am doing my job well!

What a fabulous birthday!!!!

our chariot

my lunch

moms lunch... Much better than easy mac

stomping through the snow to get to Linderhof

my princess tiara

mommy in front of Neuschwanstein

Finding our feet

We were perfect in the airport - found our bags and got on the train. The train was delayed so much; it took over 4 hours to get to Munich! We have a voucher for money off our next train ticket. We got to the apartment, learned how everything works and took off in search of food. We ate in a corner market. We have no idea what we ate. One was kind of like stroganoff and the other like sweet and sour pork. We just know we skipped the McDonalds.

Then we set out walking. We managed the Asamkirche, and the Marienplatz. Had to buy a German charger for all our stuff at the Apple store there. Saw the Glockenspiel in the Town hall. Thought we would take the subway back. At the first station,there was a lot of German and we did not know what was going on. They were telling everyone to get off the train and on the next one. Oh, wait, the next one unloaded too. We were able to get on the third one but it was ridiculously crowded and not everyone got on. We asked how often that happens and were told never. Amazing- no cursing and yelling. All of this was during rush hour.

Now we are watching German tv. Since we have no idea what they are saying, we are watching cooking shows. We might make 8 pm for bed since neither of us has been vertical for at least 36 hours. Pictures tomorrow.

Love, Susan/Mom/Nana and Janet/Pea/The Favorite

Oh, hail!

We stomped our way through rain, snow, sleet and hail but we made it to the apartment in Munich. More to come later, we have exploring to do now!

Serendipidy

In planning this trip three things have really worked out. I want to post this now and at the end we'll see if it is as easy to plan a trip to Europe as I now think.

• We bought Janet's ticket in September. When I decided to go in February, the second cheapest ticket was to fly to Dallas and join her on the same flight to Frankfurt. Who would have thought?
  
• Quickly we decided that we wanted to buy a Rail Pass. I dragged my feet as usual not knowing that there had to be enough time for the pass to make its way from Germany to Atlanta. Thanks to Rosa for saving me from my lackadaisical ways. The Rail Pass arrived on Thursday, three days before we travel.
• Last night booking someplace to stay in Munich finally made its way to the top of my list. I tried to reserve a Bed and Breakfast room but failed. This morning I stumbled on Wimdu. So we are staying in an apartment which is a ten minute walk from the train station. Booking it involved emailing with Markus who fortunately speaks English.

Wish us luck.

Susan

Departure

In 19 hours Susan and Janet will be reunited in Dallas, on their way to Germany!! We invite you all to enjoy our journey with us.