8 Munich to Budapest!

Thursday, July 7th
Another sunny day--we have been blessed with beautiful tourist weather; I love the rain, and we did bring umbrellas just in case, but we never needed them. And we have avoided the heat quite well--which is good, considering our accommodations.




Andy woke--well, didn't really wake until I shoved a food bar into his hand and spoke rather brusquely through his fog of another low blood sugar. "Andy! Eat this!" Also, by this time it was clear that Andy in his generosity had shared his cold with me, so I began the runny nose and sneezing just in time for the next leg of the trip. Fortunately the worst I usually suffer is a sore throat and some drainage. I was glad to be traveling by train, though, and not having to change altitude. But it did make me a bit cranky, so maybe there was a little impatience in my tone, which was lost on this particular low; it took him half an hour to get moving, of course on a morning that we had to be on a schedule. It was good that I had gotten up a half hour early because I couldn't sleep.




I got a nice hot shower, which helped with the congestion. Then I got all dressed to travel by train--fun! It was a little fancier, which was nice for a change; I love casual, but it's fun to dress up, too.
(Side note--to all the travel fashion bloggers etc.--nobody cares what you wear; just be comfortable. Well, maybe it's different in Paris or someplace, but blue jeans and flipflops were not uncommon, let's just put it that way...)




We grabbed a couple more souvenirs and a quick German pastry from one of the many kiosks in the train station. Andy went to get a Starbucks (which in itself is unusual because he is not fond of American Starbucks), and of course just at that moment, the train arrived.


This food court has taken over the station most deliciously.

No worries, it was in plenty of time that he received his order; that was one plus--in most of the Starbucks in Munich the wait was not as long as back home.






We dragged our suitcases up the ramp on to the platform where Railjet 63 was waiting; we quickly passed the locomotive and first three (labeled "Economy") and the restaurant car to arrive at: FIRST CLASS! YAY! Well, slightly premature celebration--apparently there are three First Class cars, so after the first futile attempt to find our seats, Andy wisely suggested at the second car, "Go up first and make sure that this is the right car," which it was.


I must say, First Class was really nice--plenty of leg room, nice tray tables, rear-facing seats which are actually much easier on the eyes. And, as opposed to first class airline tickets, the additional cost for these seats was minimal. I would highly recommend this to any train-travelers--totally worth it.


Aslan waits as we ready ourselves to leave the station.

Rare sighting: Andy and Starbucks and a smile trifecta!




The train got on its way and shortly thereafter the porter came around to check tickets. Andy again sequestered himself to his headphones to listen to more of his audiobook.






The train wheels called to the passengers as they traversed the rails at varied angles, which was amusing to the ear. Sometimes the sound was like horses' breath, other times as warning moans or grunts. Other than that, the ride was very smooth.






The passage from Munich to Salzburg was quiet as it came out of the city into the flat countryside, past residential "Bavarian HOA required" red tiled roofs and white stucco walls and geranium flower boxes to the farmlands of corn and cows and horses. Apparently the corn is very little for human consumption, mostly for silage and for ethanol fuel.




Though ours was a direct route, we did take on passengers along the way. Slowing into Salzburg, an amusing anachronism: rush hour traffic jam on the bridge over the river overlooked by a small castle on a hill...all surrounded by the Sound of Music mountains.




This is a great opportunity, riding along at a fairly brisk clip, to consider general impressions from the last few days in Munich.
Like Neuschwanstein, there seems to be a  mild pervasive sadness, no smiles, lots of cigarettes.
Birds: pigeons--all colors, white and brown, green and white, black and white, some gray but with wildly varying patterns. Crows, a grackle, a sparrow.
Bikes: watch out!! They know no fear and are bigger than you.
People: speak English better than you speak German, so don't worry.
Trains: always on time.

Moving from Salzburg to Linz, the landscape becomes more rolling hills, and the houses take on the more traditional symmetry. The sunny blue sky is littered with puffy cumulus. Each of the small towns seems to have a church in the middle, often with a disproportionately large steeple sporting an onion dome; apparently this was a common architectural feature in Germany during the Baroque era and didn't denote any particular denomination.




There are lots of solar panel farms--it's amusing, too, to see panels on some of the older architecture.


As we continue eastward, tall stands of spruce begin to predominate; I would so love to hide under their branches! White flowers generously dot the green fields--could it be...? (Break into song...)






Along with the spruce, though perhaps just coincidentally, lumber yards sprout up too. It is fascinating to see the process visually laid out as we go by--logs to trimmed to sawn to packaged and ready for delivery.






It seems there is a greater restraint and intentionality in the landscape as we travel through Austria. That said, the occasional tackiness is universal--cheap plastic Adirondack chairs seem out of place in the postcard scenery.






The train is saying:
Whoosh whoosh, huh huh "LUKE I AM YOUR FATHER"...yes, it did say that...



One nice thing about the train is that you can go to the restaurant car or you can eat at your seat. I wasn't in the mood for going anywhere, so Andy was nice enough to order lunch for us; I'm enjoying a delicious carrot-ginger soup with croutons--sooo good, and soothing on my sore throat--until I realize it has cream in it--uh-oh, hope I stopped eating soon enough! But this smoked salmon and cream cheese on Vollkornbröt is exquisite.

Now vineyards, sycamores, foundation ruins from who knows how many centuries ago?...and we roll into Linz.




Haha, I guess it's good for Andy's sake that we are meeting up with Dave and Sheila; I think we have had enough togetherness, and we both are getting snarky. Just a little...




Vienna--big fields and fields and bedhead looking field of golden grain.
Wind farms--careful birdies! I wonder if the red stripes on the blades are intended for them or just for decoration because the birds are clueless--until ZAP they're dead on the ground.


Wow--an entire field of sunflowers--glowingly happily beautiful!


Fields and fields of sunflowers

There are fields and fields of them as we cross into Hungary.




Györ, the first main stop in the country, didn't speak to well of itself;
 though it is supposed to be the most important city in northwest Hungary, its broken windows and ill-tended yards do not represent well. In fact, the best visual aspect of the place is the graffiti--ubiquitous, colorful, clean, excellent quality. Apparently there is planned graffiti production time every year...hmmm.

Back to more fields...hay in modern rolls, geometrically arranged on the diagonal.
Hey, a murmuration of starlings! Birds do exist in large numbers here after all.






During our entire train journey, there has been an LED board with stop information and train speed, etc. It says we are traveling at 160 km/hr, but it doesn't feel that fast. Of course, I am used to traveling in mphs, maybe that's why...






Color-blocking fields of green and gold--sunflowers, corn, wheat, and more.




Andy remains immersed in Henry the IV or some number--I am glad he is enjoying his audiobook!






Many times the trackside berms occlude the view, but now going through a less rural area it's easier to see bedraggled architecture and traffic on a bridge, signs of urban life. Sea cranes compete with steeples on the other side of the river, which is now thickly lined with deciduous diversity of silvery cottonwood (apparently the silver-gray coloration is useful in hot dry climates), maple, walnut, black locust, etc. It's funny to observe mini crop circles in the drying wheat. How do they do that? hmmm....






So many abandoned buildings. I don't really get that; I wonder what happened. There is a feeling of ennui and I haven't even met any people; can a landscape be tired?






The parts of town approaching Budapest seem to be getting nicer, which is encouraging.




Kelenföld: crows...that is all...






Finally, here it is, our final stop, in 7 minutes! People start to line up and get ready to get out, a little prematurely in my personal estimation, but oh well, okay...we got our luggage from the rack at the front of the car and brought it back to our seats for easier disembarking and waited for a few more moments. An Indian family in front of us had had a rather long afternoon of it; the children were very well-behaved, but someone still complained about the volume. That person clearly has never been around American kids! I was impressed at how articulate they were for their age and the complexity of thought available to them. Great family.




Anyway, the first familiar sights in this new country awaited us on the platform--Dave and Sheila!!!! it was like coming home! (Too much hugging going on to take a pic...) It was so nice, also, to not wonder about what to do next; we were in someone else's hands, and loving hands, at that! They took us to the car and then through the winding streets up to their home.


The view from the Farthings' driveway

We freshened up and then headed out to see Independence Day 2, a special viewing set up by Dave's work. There was a light buffet and then free popcorn and soda. It was not the best movie ever, but it was familiar and fun. We returned and chatted for an hour or two before turning in.

7 Adventure awaits!

Wednesday, July 6th


Andy was starting to feel a little better but was not fully recovered; so we were in no rush to get up and about. We sauntered over to the Coffee Fellows (very nice chain of Starbucks competition) for iced coffee and a Vollkorn (whole grain--with sunflower seeds!) bagel with cream cheese. The cream cheese here tends to be grainier, kind of like last night's sour cream, not bad but not my favorite; I guess I am partial to carrageenan. I do like the colorful interior design of their stores, clean fresh lines, a cheerful atmosphere for those not so entrenched in the Starbucks culture.








At one point Steph had casually mentioned, "Hey, Veganz, the first vegan grocery store in Europe, is there in Munich; you should go check it out." So a quick Google showed it was only seven tram stops away from the hotel, and it was yet another sunny day--no problem, let's do it! We had determined to figure out the tram system anyway--how hard could it be? Well, our determination not being what it used to be, once I checked out the ticket kiosk in the train station to not have the specific "all-day inner circle ticket" and didn't want to spend almost twice as much for the other one that would have worked, upon a little chat and another look at GoogleMaps, we decided to walk; it was less than two miles, a 30-minute stroll, right? Haha.








Let me say again at this point that I was grateful for Steph's help in getting my phone set up for the trip; it was nice to have a texting buddy to send pics to (hopefully for free--well, that's what the travel plan said; we shall see!) and to ask her to Google something when we were away from wireless. Today it proved invaluable to our, well, not-exactly-wilderness survival.








Long story not so long, and certainly not so long as our erstwhile sidewalk trek: we walked south-ish for a couple miles through city blocks of shops and produce markets

and a multicultural festival of restaurants, under the freeway, through a fairly sketchy, more ill-kempt section of town 'til we saw the warehouse district near the canal. Hmm, I sort of remembered that being past our presumptive destination. At that point we regrouped and tried to find a street name that coincided with ANYthing on my screen capture. We took a left and emerged into a fairly pleasant apartment neighborhood. We passed a group of young children and their two teachers; later we walked by the school from whence they likely had come, the universally-recognized playground sounds emanating through an iron gate in the tall stone wall.








Finally we reached the end of Andy's accessible blood sugar supply, so we rested on a park bench for a few moments to have a fig bar before proceeding through the quiet mapled-and-elmed streets. I shared part of mine with an opportunistic crow who must have seen the shiny foil wrapper before we rose and proceeded onward.

"...and we're walking...and walking...and--" it became rather obvious that once again we had lost our way relative to our directions. The street signs didn't seem to be matching Google's. We came upon the Kilchenerplatz U (subway) station, where Andy saw "W.C." relief in sight! We descended the set of stairs, and while he proceeded toward the toilette, I tried to orient myself on the subway stop map. He returned and reached for his phone to snap a pic of it when he realized in a mild panic--"Where's my phone?" He had left it back on that park bench, some 15 minutes' walk ago! I waited at the station while he went back to hopefully retrieve it.


"Looks like a maypole" she said...

Meanwhile, I texted Steph about our predicament; she helped us find a new set of very simple directions, only two miles of walking...ironic since our original distance from the hotel was only 1.7 miles. Nonetheless..




Andy returned, with his phone--and a little story! Apparently (insert observation that the distance he walked started to grow in size in manner similar to a fish-that-got-away story, but HE was the one who had to walk it; so I will defer to his estimation...), when he returned back to the bench in question, there was an elderly woman and perhaps her son sitting there. He asked them if they had seen his phone, and, at first it seemed as though the man didn't really speak English but then he did and pulled the phone out of his pocket, then demanded a code to open the phone to prove ownership, but it didn't have a code, so then he was like, "well, show me a picture of yourself on the phone", but Andy is not in selfie mode, so there were no pictures of him, just family members, etc. Finally he convinced the guy to give him his phone--I mean, c'mon, like he would be walking intently down a sidewalk and coming to a specific bench and asking about a lost phone and the guy having it and not thinking that it belonged to that person? But ultimate success of phone retrieval was accomplished; ask Andy to tell the story--I'm sure I left out some details, and he tells it well--it gets better every time he tells it!




Anyway, after hearing that account, I said, "Give me your phone" which he did, and I took a picture of him should this event occur again in the future.






Then we proceeded--how hard could it be? The sign says "Schaftlarnstraße" just like the map, right? Well it did for a while, but in less than five minutes it had turned into Maria-Einsiedel Straße. At least this time we had gotten lost in an upper class neighborhood. It seemed to still be pointing us in the right direction, perhaps paralleling the street we wanted, until the road curved--either to the left or up a hill to the right. We had walked on level ground for miles at this point with little problem, but we were not in the mood for a hike. The upward direction led to a park (side note: parks here seem to be designated by the white silhouette of a woman and a child; I guess dads aren't allowed in...), and the leftward direction was hidden by tall trees.


At the fork in the road there sat a stately manor named the Asam Schlössl. There were a couple black cars with diplomatic plates, so it was hard to tell what this place was; but perhaps we could get directions out to the main road or even call a cab--haha, it couldn't cost as much as the one in Iceland had!

"Fork in the road" was a fortuitous turn of phrase because it turned out that the Asam Schlössl was a quaint biergarten with an interesting centuries-long history. For us, we were glad that it had been converted into a restaurant because we were not only fairly exhausted by our larger than anticipated adventure, we were hungry, too; it was already 14:30! We were walked through the indoor dining room to an absolutely lovely rose garden surrounding a large patio of tables and umbrellas.

It was very quiet, almost deserted, it seemed, but soon a rather brusque server came to our table. Andy asked for an English menu, so it was delivered by a sweet young woman with a winning smile and an apology, "My English is not very good." We lost little time laughing about our German being worse, so all was fine.

We had a lovely luncheon--I ordered a small schnitzel with "warm" (pan-fried) potato salad, and Andy order the wurst plate--basically 4 hot dogs! We also had bretze (pretzels) with mustard. Andy had his first experience with shredded horseradish...

...enough said...yet another weissbier for him, but I had grapefruit juice w/spritzer--refreshingly clean, perfect after a long walk.

Our lovely fraulein server called us a cab, and a few minutes later he arrived--a hulking, surly character reminiscent of the cab driver in the scary part of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. Well, we could certainly relate to being lost! He did get us to our destination in a somewhat circuitous route, which at first we met with some skepticism--only 2 miles, right?--but by then we were resigned and relieved to be done with the hunt for our elusive destination. Well, until it was time to pay up--€16 for two miles? Shh, Andy...I gave the driver a €20 bill and walked away.




But, there it was, in the midst of rush hour one way traffic, glowing like a veritable Emerald City: Veganz!

Its branding in spring green, screamed fresh, natural--well, green! We walked in, and right in front was a beautiful bakery counter and small café tables. Then back and to the right was the main part of the store, about the size of a small 7-11. What German vegans seems to eat more than anything else is...CHOCOLATE!!! Shelves and shelves of chocolate. They also had a nice section of refrigerated items and a small amount of fresh (not necessarily organic but beautiful nonetheless) produce.

I selected an orange for a snack later, some obligatory chocolate, and a couple other items.


This must be a haven of rest for German vegans because so much of the food is MEAT MEAT MEAT. I hope they do well. Live long and prosper, Veganz!




I completed my purchase and returned to the front of the store where Andy was waiting at one of the little tables with a surprise: "Let's walk up to Marienplatz!" But an even bigger surprise: "Look what I had in my backpack all this time--" and he held up a large map of Munich. Some irony and probably a spiritual analogy in there somewhere, after over 20,000 steps, many in the wrong direction.






So we began our northward trek OLD SCHOOL, i.e., with a paper map. That reminds me--I just read that people who use GPS and Siri and other travel aids exclusively do not develop the ability to see the big picture as well as those who use maps. This is especially important for young people to realize that it is a brain development issue. Bottom line, if you are going somewhere unfamiliar, at least look at a map first so that your brain will have some sense of where you are going--that way you won't end up in a river, stuff like that.






Just a quick perusal of the map helped us find the places that we had taken wrong turns, perhaps because Google thought we were on the other side of the street or something.




But we weren't done yet...of course it wasn't long before we encountered (yet another) Starbucks--ah, cool (not very cold--note to Europe: more ice!) coffee on a warm day!

We rested there a couple minutes before continuing up the straße, this time with no missteps, until we saw the familiar glockenspiel tower of the Marienplatz looming ahead. We strolled around a bit, and, retracing our steps from our walking tour a few days earlier, miraculously found the German comic book store! I had wanted to get Mark a Deadpool comic because he so graciously introduced us to the character when the movie came out, hence the importance of this find. And it was a find--more like hide and seek! The only reason we had any success was that it was right next to another --you guessed it--Starbucks!


This window was like the star leading the way to the comic book store.

So I made my purchase; they also had a large cardboard box of more vintage comics, and they did have some English X-Men and Avengers but not what I was looking for, i.e. in German. Poor, disaffected German youth. You know, it was surprising that we saw very few children out and about, so I asked and apparently they were still in school; they get about 6 weeks off for the summer.




Ah well, moving on...or not. Andy was having a low sugar again and said, "We should get a cab" of course not realizing that it is kind of hard to find a cab in a pedestrian zone. So we sat down on a bench, and he had a food bar; I shared my orange, which was quite tasty, just what we needed at the time. We knew that the hotel wasn't far away, but we waited a bit for the sugar to kick in. On our way through the Karlsplatz gate, we met Christians who were just sharing the Gospel with passersby. I asked how we could pray for them, and then Andy did. I do pray that their words do not return void but, as Isaiah said, accomplish their purpose.






Finally back at the hotel, we got a text from our Iceland traveling companions to meet up with them for supper. Their hotel was actually just across the station from ours, on the Bayerstraße. Apparently they had secured a very nice room with AC and listened to our tale of woe with due respect and sympathy and "use Booking.com; they are great!" Right near their hotel was a restaurant they had passed and had peered in the window a few times to Ca'd'oro, a highly rated Italian restaurant.

We enjoyed some great  pasta (Andy's penne w/Bolognese sauce and my pappardelle w/(only 2-- :-P) shrimp and thinly sliced zucchini) and more weissbier! The best part of the meal was the great conversation. Truly enjoyable. They were retired and relaxing and teasing those who had to go back to work the next week. Our new friend Sharon helped us get our train tickets from the kiosk, and we picked up some promised Munich souvenirs before heading back to our "dorm room."




Total miles walked 10.18 (24,778 steps)! The strange thing was that we were not that tired. We returned to do some packing for the train, which fortunately was not weight sensitive. (We had had to do some shifting of luggage contents at the Keflavik airport because one bag was 2 pounds over---SOMEBODY'S Twizzlers...) As the saying goes, with regard to the day, all's well that ends well, sometimes better!

6 On Being Sick in Munich

Tuesday, July 5
Andy woke up choking on phlegm--grrrrrreat! But a shower helped him, and he was determined not to fritter away the day in that tiny room! However, we were in no great rush to be anywhere, which was a blessing after days of constant activity. I of course couldn't sleep in, regardless, so I finally got up and gathered my needle, thread, and pins and sewed the hem on the dress that Mark and Laura had bought me for the trip; I hadn't had time to do it before we left! Then on to the rest of the day. I figured out how to maneuver in the 2' square shower; I felt bad for Andy, who was clearly not in the minds of the architects of these European hotels. He did develop a workable system for himself; it's good he didn't have to shave his legs!




Our only mission of the day was to find the Dunkin Donuts! The address GoogleMaps gave us was confusing because it said Bayerstrasse, which was on the other side of the train station. But it was nowhere to be found along any of the city blocks nearby; it was like it totally skipped the number we were looking for. Finally, in the station itself, we asked the information person for directions, and she said, "Down two and left." Great, it was IN the station--but two what? Well, we found an escalator that looked promising, and it was indeed followed by second one, and when we turned left we saw--a whole mall underground! Kind of like at Crystal City. Before long we did find the Dunkin Donuts, our mission accomplished!

V for victory, not two donuts...

We ordered some iced coffee, and the lady said, "Oh, we don't have coffee..." What? She did manage to figure out what we meant--iced Americano--oh-h-h-h...Andy got a Boston Cream donut, but he said it wasn't really...it looked familiar, but it had dark chocolate and less vanilla, not quite so sweet, which I preferred, actually. Anyway, our day was complete; everything else was extra!




I had hoped to hunt down the Botanical Gardens, but Andy wasn't up to it. We wandered around a bit then ended up at L'Osteria for lunch, a very nice pizza/pasta place. I ordered off the German menu and actually got pretty much what I was expecting--success! It was a very good thin crust and had spicy pepperoni and basil. What was funny was that I had said we would share the pizza, so when it came to the table, this 18" pie had been cut in two and served on two plates, a half for each of us. Regardless--yum!

I could ALMOST eat half of my half...Andy is such a good helper...

However, I drank too soon after eating and had an upset stomach, so I went back to the hotel while Andy tried to hunt down some cold medicine. He returned without success (though he did find a large multipack of travel tissues which we used a LOT). He looked really pitiful, so I Googled a place to find him a remedy. Apparently all drugs, prescription or over the counter, are sold at the Apotheke, of which there are many. I found one a few blocks away, and I was approached by a knowledgeable-looking employee who asked what I needed; I said that my husband had a cold and needed a remedy, and she asked, "Do you want natural or (ugh) chemical?" I answered, "Chemical", of course! Anyway, she sent me to the OTHER side of the store, where that lady brought out some Wick (Vicks) Nyquil and Dayquil equivalents, which I purchased with no objection or judgment on her part.






There was a door out this side of the store, so I took it and was rewarded for my mission of mercy by a Starbucks! This one was actually good. The first one we had gone to, the day before, and yes, they are all over the place here, too, was in the train station; I attempted to use my Starbucks app there, and the barista disdained it, saying, "THIS is Germany; you can't use that HERE." Okay whatever; here is my card...it's good that the coffee wasn't bad...but today, at THIS place, they were even nice, too!






Well, Odette our travel agent will certainly hear about the quality of the hotel. No A/C, people fighting at all hours of the night, no screens, traffic noise--I found it kind of amusing, though, even at the time; it was kind of like My Cousin Vinny trying to get some sleep. But there was no harm done, even if we weren't in the best part of town. It was very convenient, though! We just weren't planning to spend as much time in there as we did.

I don't know if it's "feed a cold, starve a fever" or "chicken soup will cure it", but it was dinner time, and Andy wanted to get out of the room; so we went to the Wirtshaus, just two doors down from the hotel.

Andy had a wunderbar Munich schnitzel--it was about the best schnitzel I have ever had, dipped in an egg/horseradish/mustard wash before breading and cooking--delicious! I had wurst mit spaetzle and sauerkraut, both a bit salty for my taste but full of flavor and great texture. I also had a black currant juice that was amazing. Andy finished his food and felt poorly, so he went back to the hotel; I stayed because I was still eating and actually wanted some dessert. I had a weisswurst on the platter that was served with a sweet mustard that I think was my favorite of the four types; I felt only a little bad that I couldn't even eat half of what was on my plate. Besides, I wanted some strudel! The owner chatted after two huge parties came through--just to drink beer--and I told him how much I enjoyed the food and that it reminded me of my dad and his heritage, and he said in his thick German accent, "I am honored."





The owner/manager is on the left.

Andy's cold served in, shall we say, teaching me patience. I would have hoped that, especially in the close quarters, he would have covered his mouth with sneezing or coughing, but, oh well, such was not to be. And it might not have mattered anyway, but sure enough I did come down with it in the next day or two. I don't usually get a cold as badly as Andy does, but I did go through a lot of tissues!


I read that afternoon in 1 Corinthians about worldly wisdom--that is, God's wisdom seems foolish to men, but the "foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men." It occurred to me that, even when we pursue God's wisdom, if it is through human, self-oriented, perhaps, motivation, it is not necessarily God's wisdom that we end up with. "Knowledge puffeth up, but love edifies." NLT's wording is good: "But while knowledge makes us feel important, it is love that strengthens the church."

Ah well, something to ponder drifting off to, well, probably not sleep, but rest anyway...

5 The Day of the Neuschwanstein!

Monday, July 4th, evoked many memories and emotions. It occurred to me that part of my feeling overwhelmed at leaving home to travel wasn't just that I was leaving a part of my heart--and, dear friends,  many things would remind me of you, and I would say to myself, "You need to remember to mention that when you get back home"--, it was that on this very weekend, my dad had many years ago taken his leave of this world to go on a much greater journey. This was a significant weekend for him in life: his first marriage on the 4th, his second on the 2nd (I think), and his death on July 1st. Death anniversaries tend to creep up on me and make me wonder why I feel sad or why other emotional events have greater impact, so when I realized this, it was easier to be intentional to do things that honor his memory and assuage some of that heartsickness. In fact, the main reason for going to see Neuschwanstein was that he seemed to have an affinity for it; I remember him talking about King Ludwig II and his story.

So now we were really going! We were to meet at the same tour company in the train station, so we found a small café upstairs and had our Americano and a bagel. When we were checked in at the assigned location, we were met by a British chap who looked at first like one of the tourists; he was gregarious and humorous and unpretentious, but when it was time to get going, he got us to the train and had us stake out our territory. He told us that, when any non-tour people came by looking interested in a seat, we should smile and say, "Good morning." We were a bit baffled by this, but when we did as he instructed, they looked uncomfortable and almost unanimously moved to another section of the train. It was amusing and gave us a greater chuckle every time it happened, but what it also did was unify the group and gave us a commonality before we even left the station.

Jeff was the tour guide's name, and as many people know, the guide usually holds up a flag or umbrella or some item to keep the group together; Jeff appealed to baser instincts and held up a tube of Smarties, the European version of M & Ms, which he doled out when people answered questions correctly and the like. He was an expat from Britain of 17 years or so, when he came over because "the money was better here."

The train ride gave an opportunity for Jeff to give some background to Ludwig's motivation for building the castle and how it was decorated, with a mind to his love for Wagner's operas. But all I could think about was the ethereal positioning of white turrets glistening in the sun high on a mountainside I had seen in many a photo. We were soon to find its context.

We jumped from the train to a shuttle bus and fairly quickly arrived at a cul-de-sac with a restroom/gift shop and, as Jeff lovingly named it, "Michael's House of Cholesterol", a short order grill where we could purchase some form of wurst and fries. I did get a hot dog, which I think is the best one I have ever had--served on a hamburger bun. Funny. I cut it in half, added some mustard, and shared it with Andy as we waited for another shuttle bus to take us slackers who had opted to NOT walk up the mountain.

It was here that reality set in: Neuschwanstein was in fact not announcing itself floating on a gleaming cloud; my first glimpse of the castle caught me by surprise as I looked all up and around and found it quietly hovering in the shadow of the mountain, barely visible.

The inobtrusive castle sits just below the center
of the photo.

The shuttle deposited us above the castle at a beautiful bridge--which was under repair, so we couldn't go that way--so we walked down the wide paved path through the woods toward the castle. Here we got our first real view of the valley, I imagine a deciding factor in the choice of building site.

We were greeted by a man playing the hurdy-gurdy, an intriguing instrument.

We were not in a hurry, so we listened a while and then I asked him how it worked; he, nothing loath to talk about his object of affection, showed me in great detail the mechanism and principle of operation. It is actually a fascinating combination--a stringed instrument with keys; it has a neck like a violin (can't remember if it is fretted or not), and it has a rotary bow that is turned with a crank. The keys line up with various places on the neck to produce the different pitches. It used to be a much larger, two-person instrument that was actually used in churches before the current configuration of organ was invented. I was so excited at his invitation to turn the crank while he sang a verse and chorus or two of "Cockles and Mussels"--wow, I got to (sort of) play a hurdy-gurdy! Thinking of Laurie Nation at this moment for some reason...lol, I know you would love it!



We had tickets for 14:05, and you HAD to be there at exactly the right time because everything is very precise in Germany.

 

 

While we waited, we had the chance to take LOTS of pictures, which is good because we were not permitted to take any inside the castle. They never said why, but once inside, I could just feel that it wouldn't have been appropriate, for some reason. As we walked up the two sets of 63 stairs each (it was good we took the shuttle up the mountain!) and through the corridors into the various rooms, a heavy sadness descended on me as it became clear that this entire endeavor was to find fulfillment in grandeur, in beauty. It wasn't just a stone building; it was the cry of a soul in search of unattainable longings. The murals depicting scenes from Wagner's operas, the rich woods, the chapel with its walls that aureate like St. Mark's Basilica in Venice--all this lavish attempt to recreate the grandness of the great Bavarian kings and not even finished before his untimely death.


The very name, Neu-schwan-stein, speaks to his love of the graceful swans that ornament many of the rooms; Ludwig's eccentricities were certainly not well understood, but his kindness to his servants was clear in his generous accommodations (much nicer than our hotel room!) and other appointments to the lower quarters. What a beautiful copper kitchen!

multiply this by at least two more walls of copper

We had time for a snack in the little gift shop/restaurant just prior to the exit; I chose a slice of Schwarzwalder kirschtorte in honor of my dad--LOTS of heavy whipped cream, which I managed to avoid for the most part.

I did pick up a couple souvenirs there--thinking of Linda and music and Terry and puzzles!


We were considering taking the horse-drawn carriage down the mountain,

These beautiful guys were sweating and fighting off an annoying horsefly/hornet buzzing around their heads.

but there was a line and after a few minutes of waiting we realized that because of the shopping and snack we were now on a rather tight schedule; so Andy said, "Let's walk!" He was surprised by the exertion of downhill walking on his quads, and we did find a staircase that helped to shorten the descent...well, until we took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up in some rather nice residential section with NO signage for directionally challenged tourists. Our time was getting close, and either his blood sugar or his muscles were making him walk more and more slowly; eventually I just prayed "God help me!" and He showed me the way. I ran ahead to the main street, took a left, and there were the other, wiser, tour members and Jeff. I ran up to him and told him that Andy was coming but he was having blood sugar issues; he was sympathetic and not too concerned about the time, but Andy pulled up at the last minute and we were able to get away quickly--we had a train to catch!




Two trains, in fact--there was a switch we had to make about halfway back. But it was great because Jeff ended up sitting with our little subgroup of the seats facing each other, and we got to ask him questions, like how did they actually get all that stone up the mountain to build the castle? (It was a kind of pulley system...yay physics!) He added to the air of sadness when he described the mysterious circumstances of Ludwig's death and his lonely life leading up to it.

Jeff kept an eye on his phone; apparently he was going to babysit his godchild that week and was keeping in touch. What a difference a tour guide makes; the day before, the tour guide was fine, but Jeff was like a friend who wanted to share with you something that he loved and wanted you to get the most out of it too.  I hope his family visit went well.

We arrived back at Hauptbahnhof and then quickly to our room, recovered, and then wend out for dinner. I had seen "The Block House" the day before on our walking/running tour; they had an outdoor seating area, which Andy wanted, so we went there, also because it was close by.

Andy ordered his obligatory weissbier and I had some sparkling apple juice--for dinner we had onion soup, Hereford ribeye (Andy)/turkey medallions (me), and cheesecake. It was interesting that they proudly presented their baked potatoes with house-made sour cream--a little grainy but actually not bad! It was a pleasant dinner, even when three clearly inebriated gentlemen were walked by, happily loud in general and singing badly. They moved on quickly. We toasted the USA on its birthday.


One thing about Germany--the coffee is good EVERYWHERE.



4 We arrive in Munich

Sunday, July 3--
We made it to Munich fairly uneventfully. The only confusion was that our transfer vehicle voucher didn't say which bus company it was for, but the Lufthansa bus driver took us in and drove us all the way to the hotel. Andy observed that Munich roads looked a lot like home. The bus was quite nice, even to the point of having a table setup every few rows.  We weren't in a rush because the airport was so efficient we got through it very quickly--and it turned out that we had the whole bus to ourselves, a really big limo!
We arrived at the Novum Hotel fairly early in the morning, about 8-ish, so we had to store our luggage for a while before getting to check in to our room. We went and found breakfast at the train station, at, of all places, a Burger King. It was fairly normal, though I don't usually get a breakfast sandwich with tomato and mayonnaise...we had our first experience with the restroom attendant, who doesn't give you a paper towel until you pay the 50 cents. But the biggest surprise was that whom would we meet at the BK but our new Colorado friends! We chatted a bit and exchanged texting numbers and promised to try and make a dinner date before we left.



I saw on GoogleMaps that there was a Dunkin Donuts, Andy's favorite, very near the hotel, so we walked around the block and didn't find it where it looked as though it might be; but we did see a cool vegan-friendly store.




The rest of the area was characteristic of city life: homeless men sleeping in their sleeping bags, broken liquor bottles around the corner, humanity of every ilk mingled together according to their varied purposes, whether traveling or businessing or out-of-businessing; "ah, look at all the lonely people" comes to mind--no smiles.
One thing we were told was that Munich is a fairly safe place, and actually it did seem to be so; insofar as surly derelicts and the misunderstood were a block away in one direction, the Polizei station was only half a block away in the other.

Finally it was time to go on our Munich: Monks and Monarchs tour. We did find the Radius Tours office around the corner and then another corner in the train station, "across from Gate 32, you can't miss it!" Our tour guide met the group of us who had innocently signed up for a low-pressure introduction to the city, an elderly professorial type whom one would think likely to retire to a biergarten and give a lecture--mistake! He walked so fast we could hardly track him! It was all we could do to keep up with those salmon-colored trousers of his.

It was a rather unstructured tour, which in a way was okay as its goal was to give an overview so that we could go back later and see stuff at a more leisurely pace. Well, this was NOT a leisurely pace by any stretch of the imagination. Whenever he would stop, we would be catching up with him as he was in mid-sentence about some feature of the architecture or history of the building or who stood in front of it. Some names were vaguely familiar, others totally obscure to me, but Andy seemed to know most every detail; he is the history expert in the family!

We encountered several edifices of significance, like the Ministry of Justice and many Catholic-influenced churches, but it was clear that to our guide, the one nearest and dearest to his heart was the Hofbrauhaus, in which resided his treasured stein in a specially designated locker (see them behind the copper sink). It seemed the highlight of the tour, the one that made his eyes light up--as he put it, his "little piece of heaven." It was such a loud place, we knew we wouldn't be able to hear each other talk, so we at least knew to avoid it in the future; but it looked as though people were truly enjoying their repast in full vigor.

        

There were a couple interesting post-WWII attempts at revitalization of the area, so it was interesting to see one doorway lead through a tunnel to open up into a multilevel mall with modern architectural features--and a Starbucks--and a comic book store with Deadpool prominently displayed. It was hidden away in a corner of a courtyard, though, and I despaired of finding it later.

 

This one had a lovely white cap;
another was almost entirely white with green iridescence.

I had noticed pigeons in the train station, but it was in the pedestrian areas like the Marienplatz that I noticed not only the leucistic nature of some of them but the wide diversity of coloration across the spectrum--fascinating example of adaptation and selection! They were the only birds I saw in great number; I did see a few crows and starlings and hear other birds, but pigeons were the clearly dominant species in this urban area.
Anyway, what with next to no sleep, the Energizer Bunny for a tour guide, and extra hard cobblestones under our feet, we finished the tour a little cranky. We got to our room (fortunately we had been able to check in right before the tour) and napped so soundly that, upon waking, Andy actually thought that it was the next day! But it was only time for dinner, so we put different shoes on our feet (Andy had developed a quarter-sized blister on the ball of his foot caused by the shoes he had worn for the flight, not for speedwalking; he asked me to lance it, and apparently it helped because it didn't get infected and, with the industrial fingertip bandage I had that conforms to curves fairly well, didn't peel off or cause any problems after that) and retraced our steps back through the City Gate into the pedestrian area and to the Augustiner Grossgastatten, an Augustiner-style  weissbiergarten. We enjoyed a lovely meal of soft pretzels from the bread basket, a rich beef/vegetable soup, cabbage salad (UN-sauer-kraut), beer-marinated  or roast pork, and a baseball sized dumpling each. Apfelstrudel with vanilla sauce for dessert. It was hard to not be able to eat but about half, if that, of each meal, but Andy helped!

A pleasant walk back to the hotel, with a quick stop at the Subway (yes the sub shop) to buy water--the employee thought I was German and proceeded to sprechen Deutsch at me until I shook my head and he said, "Okay." Ich spreche kein Deutsch. When we got back to the room and Andy opened the water, he realized that you have to make sure you are getting still water, not bubbly, which is very common in Europe, apparently.

Speaking of the hotel, the doorknob to our room took a little figuring out; it didn't turn, just the key turned a few different times, so we had to figure out the right number of turns to get in or how many to lock ourselves in, etc. Once we got into the room, we found out that four stars mean very little. Andy said it was like his dorm room but smaller, and that was about right--two small twin beds and no air conditioning. It is in THE middle of town, with concomitant noise, right across the street from the train station, so it was louder than Andy's CPAP machine, which made for very poor sleep conditions. But it was clean and the water pressure was good. (I actually liked that there was no A/C--for a change I was not freezing to death!)

We watched a little of a Korean "Chopped" type show that made me want some noodle soup! Then we channel surfed to Sweeney Todd with German voice-over--funny! Andy paused on one station where a woman was caressing her own black vinyl-covered posterior--it was kind of silly; THEN she turned around and revealed that she had forgotten her shirt. Andy forgot to change the channel--I had to ask if he was planning that soon...haha! Too much Game of Thrones gratuitous skin has him accustomed, perhaps, but he quickly surfed away and eventually turned off the TV entirely.

Regardless, we were grateful for the little room and the opportunity to be horizontal for a whole night, and we slept soundly, right through the trains and buses and trams and do-so-do-so-do-so-do-so police sirens.