TravelStream™ news feed for member cullism on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/cullism en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sun, 15 Mar 2009 22:37:30 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cullism/10/1237163160/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cullism/10/1237163160/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cullism/10/1237163160/tpod.html Sun, 15 Mar 2009 22:37:30 -0400 By rail through Bavaria and Austria then Venice and Dubai

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Mittenwald, Bavaria, Germany

DAY 5 WED We were really looking forward to Mittenwald. By all accounts it would be more pleasant than nearby Garmisch, described by some as too touristy. The setting of the small town was as beautiful as we had expected, huddling in the shadow of an enormous mountain still capped with the remainder of last winter's snow. Mittenwald itself was a little less beautiful than it must have once been due to the heavy concentration of souvenir shops. Nonetheless there were many picturesque buildings boasting the frescoed facades we had come to expect from Bavarian towns.After a quick visit to the Church of Saints Peter and Paul we seated ourselves in a bustling beer garden and sampled some local dishes. At Margaret's insistence I passed on the jellied pig's head in favour of pork, sauerkraut and the ubiquitous pasta-peculiar-to-the region. Margaret chose weiswurst. Both choices were wise, especially when washed down with Dunkel beer produced by the local brewery.Mittenwald is a world-renowned centre of violin making, a fact of which I was unaware. I think that Margaret, the violin meister, was also ignorant of the importance of the town in the history of violin manufacture. Imagine our joy when we stumbled upon the Geigenbau Museum. For a small fee we were able to spend many hours learning everything worth knowing about violins and their place in the history of Mittenwald.How the hours had flown! With fifteen minutes to kill before the train was due to depart we bought ice creams and sat in the town park. So engrossed were we in our treats, the bright blue sky and the towering peaks before us that we failed to realise that we had only three minutes to reach the station. Needless to say we missed the train. This turned out to be a good thing as it gave me time to discover that my Lonely Planet guide to Germany was missing. Not only had it cost me thirty dollars but we relied upon it for information on the places we planned to visit. I left Margaret to trail in my wake as I retraced our steps from the beer garden to the park via the violin museum.At the beer garden a helpful frau looked through a few drawers and questioned some of the serving wenches. No luck. She asked me where I was from and, upon learning my nationality, announced that her son and daughter-in-law had recently spent ten weeks in Australia. I should have realised that I was about to become a victim of an old Thai conman trick. Having created a bond she asked me whether I liked Bavarian music. I could hardly tell her that it left me cold so I told her that I was quite fond of it. She had me in her trap and proceeded to the dénouement. Her son, she informed me, played in a Bavarian band. Would I like to buy a CD by the band? I wouldn't, but I did.Eventually I found the book at the violin museum. I had left it in the water closet while combing my hair (a euphemism). The long train trip to Munich was almost unbearable. The German travellers closed all the windows and, as the air conditioning was switched off, the carriage quickly became hot, stuffy and claustrophobic. By the time we reached Munich Hauptbahnhof I had developed a bad cold. I could only hope that the Medi Nait the pharmacist sold me would work as promised for our next expedition was to King Ludwig's most famous castle.
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Dubai, United Arab Emirates

DAY 34 THU We booked ourselves out of Locanda Silva and dragged our luggage, a little heavier than when we had arrived, down to San Zaccharia vaporetto stop. We were actually able to help an American couple, less seasoned travellers than ourselves, who were heading towards the airport.The vaporetto took an hour to reach the airport, chugging slowly past Murano, Ospedale and other islands we had either visited or at least passed before. At the airport Margaret learned to her chagrin that she wasn't entitled to any refund of tax. We were both most disappointed as we had gone to a lot of trouble in Munich (or perhaps Nuremberg) to complete the necessary forms.We landed in Dubai at a little after eleven in the evening. It was a scene of chaos. I led Margaret to the visa counter because I had understood that we needed a free visa to stay in Dubai. I almost fell down a set of stairs while reading my arrival instructions using my reading glasses. To my surprise I discovered that we didn't need visas after all which was a great relief because the queues were extremely long. Only people of dark complexion need visas, it seems.I rescued our luggage from the roundabout quite quickly, or at least most of it. My backpack didn't appear and I had to report it missing. By the time we got to the Metropolitan Palace it was after one in the morning and we didn't get to bed for another hour. We had been upgraded to a deluxe room, which was a pleasant surprise, however an irritating clicking noise emanating from the bathroom made it impossible to sleep. A maintenance man appeared fairly promptly after my call to the concierge, banged a few pipes, then left. The clicking noise returned ten minutes later.DAY 35 FRI We rose reluctantly at half past eight and indulged in coffee in our room before taking a taxi to Deira City Centre Shopping Mall. I had suggested to Margaret that we walk as it looked pretty close to our hotel on the map. It wasn't, of course, and if we had attempted to walk we would have expired from heat exhaustion.At the mall I finally found the Virgin Megastore I had been looking forward to for the last month. It was a major disappointment. More interesting was the huge Carrefour, the largest supermarket we had ever seen. Everything was unbelievably cheap and if I had been alone I could have filled another piece of luggage with bargains (all unnecessary but too good to pass up). Another taxi ride took us to the biggest mall outside North America, the impressively named Mall of the Emirates. Claimed to be the size of seventy three football fields and containing over four hundred shops, the mall is most renowned for its indoor ski field. We were amazed to see people in ski clothes zipping down a mountain on skis and children hurling themselves down toboggan runs. There were even ski lifts. The Virgin Megastore in this mall was much more to my taste than its predecessor and I bought a number of really cheap CDs. Poor Margaret sat uncomplainingly outside while I indulged myself.Back at the hotel I arranged for a man to fix our clicking problem and booked tickets for a tour of Dubai on the Big Bus the next day. We dined in the Lebanese restaurant, one of half a dozen in the hotel. For the first time ever we ordered entrées as well as main courses. We were starving and the menu seemed very cheap. We hadn't realized that the entrées would be the size of a normal main course and found ourselves struggling to make an impression on the real main course when it arrived. Although the food itself was indeed cheap, the beer and wine we consumed in moderation was horrifyingly expensive so that the bill ended up being at least as big as those we had suffered in Europe.Margaret's second goal (the first had been buying Venetian Glass) was to relax for several hours beside a pool. The Metropolitan Palace boasted such a pool on its roof. We changed into our bathers in the changing rooms on the walls of which was a sign warning that it was a crime to undress in a public place. The sign warned that a pool dressing room was regarded as a public place. As I hurriedly disrobed I realized that I was committing a criminal act which could get me deported, if not executed. The temperature on the roof had dropped to the mid thirties and a brisk breeze caused us to shiver. After a short swim and a few minutes reading on banana chairs we returned to our room.DAY 36 SAT I had set our clock to wake us at eight so we would be ready to board our Big Bus when it called for us between half past nine and ten. The alarm didn't go off and, because we were tired and as we had the drapes drawn to darken the room, we didn't wake until nine. We prepared ourselves as quickly as possible then learnt that the bus wasn't going to arrive until half past ten.The hotel had arranged for the Big Bus Company to send a minivan to take us to the Wafi Mall where we would begin our tour. Our first stop was at the Al Fahidi Fort, otherwise known as Dubai Museum. This was a recreated fort containing exhibits which showed various aspects of Dubai's history and culture. The displays included graves in which skeletons, very old, lay curled in the foetal position as well as musical instruments and weapons from Dubai's tribal past. Other rooms contained very realistic figures of Arabs going about their business (cooking dinner, selling stuff).A Big Bus arrives at each stop every fifteen minutes so it wasn't very long before we were heading for our next stop, the Old Souk. We were going to get off here and look for gifts for David and Tim however the bus barely stopped and we didn't have time to rise from our seats.The Gold Souk was not as interesting as Margaret had expected. Even a quick glance at a shop window would attract the attention of the owner who would launch into a practiced though totally sincere sales pitch. They always knew who wore the pants in our family because they inevitably ignored me and targeted Margaret. We left the souk in a hurry, anxious to escape the persistent gold- selling people.On the other side of Dubai Creek we were dropped off with the rest of the passengers to begin an hour long cruise up and down the creek by dhow. The dhow didn't have seats as such; rather we sat Arab- style on pillows. While interesting in places, we decided that a quarter hour cruise would have been sufficient. Dubai appears to be fairly new so apart from the odd mosque most of the buildings lining the embankment were business blocks. At one point the banks of the creek were jammed with boats of all shapes and sizes, mainly painted blue. Some looked like old Spanish galleons and probably were. We learned that these were trading boats from all over the Arab world and that their crews were not permitted to leave the docks.At the Deira City Centre Mall we left the Red Route bus which had taken us on a tour of the central part of the city and boarded a Blue Route bus for a tour around the beachfront. It seemed that most of the stops on this, the longer tour, were at malls. We disembarked for five minutes at Jumeirah Public Beach to watch mainly white people cavorting in the surf. The only other time we got off the bus was at Souk Madinat Jumeirah where we planned to have a beer. I scanned a beer menu at the bar and told the barman that we would like to drink our beer on the terrace. He was horrified. Apparently it is perfectly legal to buy alcohol in Dubai and drink it inside the souk; it is highly illegal to drink it at a table outside. I made do with a Starbucks iced latte instead.I managed to cause a small commotion in the narrow lanes of the souk by knocking over a brightly dressed mannequin. My attempts to implicate another tourist weren't entirely successful and I was forced to resort to humiliating myself by pretending to be Margaret's senile father (with rather more success). Souk Madinat Jumeirah was only slightly more interesting than the Gold Souk, though we were finally able to buy gifts for David and Tim. Margaret haggled with great skill, though she couldn't beat the man down from ninety five dirham to ninety which would have saved her the equivalent of a dollar thirty.By now it was early evening and we decided to take the next bus all the way back without getting off anywhere. The remainder of the stops were at malls and of no interest to us. These shopping centres were obviously paying the Big Bus Company to advertise their attractions as the pre-recorded guide devoted fifty percent of his time to informing us of the number of shops each mall contained. Another forty percent was devoted to the hotels we passed and their tourist capacities. The remaining ten percent was spent in extolling the virtues of Dubai's ruling family, the Al Maktoums (praised be their names.By the time we reached Deira City Centre Mall it was half past six. We were going to catch a taxi back to the Metropolitan Palace but a helpful guide outside the mall told us that there was a forty five minute wait for taxis and that we would be better off waiting for twenty minutes for a free shuttle bus ride to the hotel. Not only was this the quicker option but we also saved four dollars!DAY 37 SUN First thing this morning a Sri Lankan man brought coffee to our room and enthusiastically discussed cricket (especially his admiration for Shane Warne, who I believe is a famous cricketer) with Margaret. As a cricket ignoramus I made what I hoped were appropriate noises where required.I had been very thrifty when it came to tipping hotel staff since we had arrived, in fact I hadn't done it at all, which Margaret thought most ungenerous. I made up for it on our last morning by tipping the Sri Lankan man and the hotel porters much more than they expected. The former received two dirham (sixty cents) whilst the three porters shared another three dirham (one dollar).We left Dubai and brought an end to our holiday with little regret. We were tired and anxious to return to our family and the familiar routines of life in suburban Sydney.
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Venice, Veneto, Italy

DAY 29 SAT We had our last cup of coffee in Vienna at a cafe near the State Opera before taking a train to the Sudbahnhof. We were early as usual and were amongst the first to board the train. I had reserved our seats back in Sydney but the reservations weren't really necessary as there were hardly any people travelling to Venice. We had a compartment to ourselves all the way to the Italian border but had to share it for the rest of the way with three young Kentuckians and their aunt. At Tarvisio Boscoverde the German crew was replaced by Italians. We assume that the driver was replaced as well because our speed through Italy was double what it had been in Austria.We arrived at Venezia Santa Lucia at 9p.m. to find our friend Cheryl waiting for us. She guided us onto the San Marco vaporetto and suggested that we not validate our tickets so that we could use them later on to travel up the Grand Canal. This made me very nervous even though I knew I could pose as an ignorant tourist who didn't know about the validation process. Margaret and Cheryl weren't at all concerned and chatted happily through the whole trip.The piazza was crowded with tourists and we sat outside a restaurant talking and watching a Central European orchestra entertaining the patrons. Never again would we eat or drink in the piazza, I vowed, having paid twenty dollars for a small bottle of beer.Cheryl led us through the back alleys behind San Marco in search of our hotel. Even for an old Venice hand it was a difficult task, though without her help we may never have found Locanda Silva. Our one-star hotel was the most expensive of our entire holiday but rated at the very bottom. No TV, a quirky bathroom and a very limited living space. To make up for its limitations and to justify, to some extent, its exorbitant cost it was located beside a canal and only a short walk from San Marco.DAY 30 SUN Breakfast was dismal, which bothered Margaret more than it did me. For the last twenty nine days I had made do with cereal, a bread roll and coffee while Margaret's first meal of the day had become ever grander as we moved from town to town. As Locanda Silva didn't offer the fruit, eggs and various types of cold meat to which we were accustomed and as the bread rolls were not very nice Margaret was forced to make do with cereal and coffee.We met Cheryl in Piazza San Marco at ten so that she could guide us to some of the most interesting parts of Venice. Venice is one big maze and even the most seasoned visitor has to work hard to get from place to place. As it was Sunday the churches were only open for Mass, which meant that we would have to revisit them another day. By eleven the tourist hordes had arrived. An hour earlier San Marco had been almost deserted but now it we had to shoulder our way through the crowd.At lunchtime we found a relatively cheap (emphasis on "relatively") restaurant and dined by the Grand Canal. In the interests of security it was my practice to carry my wallet in a bag around my neck and under my shirt. When it came time to pay the bill I caused much embarrassment to Margaret and aroused much hilarity in Cheryl when I attempted to extract my wallet from the bag without undoing too many buttons and revealing my white-haired chest. I am grateful to Cheryl for recording my humiliation on her mobile phone camera. Fortunately I am accustomed to ridicule and derision and was not the least bit discomforted.As we ate we watched huge cruise ships slowly drifting by, their decks lined with waving tourists. They made an incongruous sight, dwarfing the vaporettos and other small craft and towering over the ancient buildings lining the Grand Canal. These ships cause damage to the canal which was never meant to cope with the wash generated by their passage. It would be better if they were banned but Venice is dependent on the income provided by their passengers.With most places closed we decided to visit the Gallerie Dell'Accademia. Imagine my delight when I learned that it was yet another art gallery! Rather than the modern art we had seen at previous galleries the Accademia was full of really old religious icons and paintings by famous artists such as Tortellini. The gallery became a little more interesting once we left the endless Virgin and Child pictures behind (one room was lined with a score of Virgin and Child portraits all by the same artist and all basically the same).In the early evening we left Cheryl to return to her fairly upmarket hotel while we successfully navigated our way back to our somewhat more modest lodgings. As seasoned visitors we felt great sympathy for the newly arrived tourists anxiously poring over their maps as they tried with increasing desperation to locate their hotels. Until one becomes at least a bit familiar with the lanes and alleys of Venice the maps provided by hotels and guide books are virtually useless.Later in the evening we decided to walk to the Rialto. We didn't have much trouble finding it, thanks largely to the many direction signs provided by the city authorities. The bridge itself was a familiar sight and one could imagine the merchants of Venice congregating on it five hundred years ago. The answer to Shakespeare's famous question "What's new on the Rialto" would have to be "graffiti, Bill". We were horrified to see that the shutters of the shops which ran across the bridge were besmirched with the tags of barbarian graffiti artists. On reflection I think Shakespeare's question was "What's news on the Rialto?" Either way, the graffiti should be removed immediately.The walk from the Rialto to our hotel was a lot more challenging than from our hotel to the Rialto. All the little lanes look pretty much the same and somehow we became lost. A young man took pity on us and suggested we follow him back to San Marco. He took us by a very indirect route and left us behind the Doges' Palace. After getting lost again (even though we had walked to the hotel from San Marco several times) we eventually reached home.DAY 31 MON This was to be our day for island hopping. One of Margaret's main objectives for the entire trip was to buy some Venetian glassware. To this end we caught a vaporetto to the island of Murano, home to the greatest concentration of glass shops in the world! After spending several hours looking at the greatest concentration of Virgin and Child pictures the previous day I was straining at the leash to help Margaret choose that special piece. I must confess that I was still clinging to the hope that before we returned home I would find the world's largest concentration of CD shops, which would necessitate Margaret's gazing despondently at the CD racks while I searched for my special bargain.Most of the shops sold pieces which were nearly identical to those sold in all the other shops and some objéts d'art were excruciatingly ugly. At one establishment the obviously bored sales assistant invited us upstairs to the "special" gallery. We were amazed to learn that her son had spent time in Australia, though she didn't try to sell me a CD of his gondolier songs. The special gallery contained extremely expensive items by a Japanese glass-ornament- making- man. Although she had assured us that she didn't expect us to buy anything, she seemed to lose interest in us when she realised that we really weren't going to make a purchase.After much searching Margaret found her special object, a chook. I had seen many glass birds on Murano and was relieved when she chose one which was attractive. Margaret, who had honed her haggling skills on the hard streets of Chiang Mai, asked for the shop's best price. The salesman declared himself bested and offered her a really special price if she bought a second, slightly smaller chook. To sweeten the deal he threw in half a dozen glass eggs. Sold!A rather long vaporetto ride saw us disembark on the island of Burano, famous for its lace. Margaret had no lace-related goals so we ambled in a leisurely fashion through the island's uncrowded streets. Burano's other claim to fame is that many of its buildings are painted in bright colours so that fisherman can recognize their homes when they return from the tavern after a hard day spent killing fish. We can heartily recommend spending time on Burano, a peaceful and pleasant island free of the hustle and bustle of other parts of Venice.To get back to San Zaccharia, a vaporetto stop near San Marco, we had to catch a boat to another stop then change to another one. Margaret was not pleased when I dragged her onto a boat that was already jammed to capacity. The return journey took forever with at least nine stops, but Margaret was able to find a seat pretty quickly. Once we arrived back at the hotel I checked our itinerary and found that rather than having one more day left in Venice we had two. One would think that this would have been a welcome discovery but rather than being thrilled we were dismayed because we were both looking forward to relaxing in a nice room in our five star Dubai hotel.DAY 32 TUE It was my brilliant plan to get to the basilica right on opening time, thereby avoiding the tourist guides and their flocks. We arrived five minutes early to find a long line of tourists, mainly in groups herded by guides holding aloft various banners, queuing at the entrance. Rather than return later we joined the queue.Unusually for Venice, entry to the basilica was free. It was too good to be true and we soon found that some of the best sights in the church required the payment of a few euros. We had completely forgotten our tour nine years earlier, though I did recall that the mosaic floors seemed to undulate beneath our feet due to subsidence. Margaret was very impressed with the frescoes on the walls and ceiling, but I had become somewhat jaded after visiting countless more beautiful houses of worship over the last few weeks. I couldn't help but feel that the basilica would be much more impressive if restored to its original state.On one side of the basilica was a small chapel restricted to visitors who wished to pray. Margaret entered and occupied a particularly well placed bench. Moments later a couple of priests appeared, one of whom indicated without words that she was occupying his favourite seat. When Margaret rejoined me outside she was seething with impotent rage.Before leaving the building we were channelled through the inevitable shop. I could not help but remark to Margaret that Jesus would have greatly enjoyed chasing out all the souvenir sellers.Our intention now was to cross the Grand Canal by gondola. Until she learned the cost of hiring a gondola for half an hour Margaret had looked forward to a romantic ride down the klongs of Venice. We had abandoned the idea of such an experience until we learned of a service provided by the Gondola Association with the intention of improving the image of gondoliers. For only fifty cents each we could cross from one side of the canal to the other! After a lot of walking and searching we found the traghetto (poor man's gondola) station where we boarded a rather plain gondola for the short trip across the canal to the Church of Saint Maria Della Salute. Once across we were disappointed to find that the church had just closed.We were feeling pretty philosophical by this time. Churches which charged entry or closed just as you arrived at their front doors after a long journey, chi si preoccupa? I think this means "who cares?" We were not disconsolate, though I muttered "il conto, per favour" under my breath as we trudged down the rather attractive street behind the church. A search on the internet has revealed that potrei avere la fattura prego? has the same meaning but I'd never be able to remember it.We still had the two Grand Canal vaporetto tickets Cheryl had given us on the night we arrived and which we had, in a blatant act of dishonesty, failed to validate as required. We used these tickets to catch a vaporetto all the way up the Grand Canal to the railway station. For the first time ever we had good seats and were able to enjoy the sights in comfort. From Santa Lucia (the station) we walked all the way back to San Marco, pausing briefly at a shop near the Rialto so that Margaret could buy a handbag. After a brief rest at the hotel we crossed a nearby bridge in a direction we hadn't taken before and enjoyed a relatively cheap dinner in a restaurant in Campo Santa Maria Formosa.DAY 33 WED And now for something completely different. After several days of battling our way through hordes of tourists we decided to visit a less tourist-infested area. Margaret left me to select destinations and routes, a big responsibility. My plan was to simply walk in the general direction of the public gardens and allow fate to determine what sights we saw and what adventures we experienced. We hadn't altogether agreed with the widely held view that in Venice one should welcome becoming hopelessly lost; in the environs of San Marco this meant struggling against the tide of sightseers and becoming highly stressed. Today we would be away from the crowds and not bound by time constraints.Our area of exploration was to be Castillo, which lay on the other side of the bridge at the end of our canal. Once we had crossed that bridge we found ourselves alone except for the locals. The lanes were broader and there were no shops selling souvenirs. Even better, there were no tour groups. Real Venetian children rode their bikes in the streets. The local ladies gossiped in front of their houses. Peace reigned supreme.The few churches we visited tended to appear around a corner without warning. We had our morning coffee at a little caffé in a small square, Campo Do Pozzi, alongside a few local people and paid only (!) five dollars a cup. Eventually we reached the Arsenale, a rather grand area where Venice built its ships during its centuries as a great sea power. Apparently Dante based his vision of Hell on the ship building industry in the Arsenale, which is now a military base. We entered the front gates with the intention of having a look around the famous complex, only to be waved away by a person in military attire.To reach the public gardens we had to walk all the way down a canal-side lane which ran for the entire length of the Arsenale. This was no hardship because the buildings along the canal were so attractive. When I say attractive, I don't mean that they were well-maintained and brightly painted, quite the contrary. Many were almost dilapidated, which was what made them so appealing.The Giardini Publica, when we finally reached it, was like an oasis of green amidst the bricks and cement of the rest of Venice. They were not beautiful in the conventional sense, which is to say that they were neither highly manicured nor well laid out. For me they were just what the doctor ordered. We saw no foreigners, just old folk and mothers with small childrenAmongst the churches we visited were Chiesa di San Giovanni in Bragora where Vivaldi was baptised and Chiesa di San Martini, most notable for the fact that Saint Martin was the first Christian saint to die a natural death rather than as a martyr. Our final religious experience was in the Cattedrale di San Pietro di Castillo, which sits on the little island of San Pietro. This small cathedral was the main cathedral of Venice from 1451 to 1807 during which time San Marco was the Doge's private chapel. It was one of the best churches we had visited in Venice and we spent a lot of time examining every nook and cranny. We certainly got our six euros worth!Without doubt our most pleasant day in Venice. It was a shock to return to San Marco and its thousands of occupants. We were tired and hot and repaired to our air conditioned hotel room to recover. In the evening Margaret went to Mass at Santa Maria Formosa just across the canal. Legend has it that the Blessed Virgin appeared to St. Magnus (the local bishop) and told him to build a nice little church and a cheap restaurant to serve the spiritual and corporal needs of the local inhabitants. Margaret and two other people made up the entire congregation for the two-priest Mass. I met her outside later and we dined on pizza at the little restaurant.
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Vienna, Vienna, Austria

DAY 25 TUE I had bought our rail tickets to Vienna and reserved our seats yesterday so we wouldn't be in a rush to catch the train at 9.30a.m. I needn't have bothered as our train was twenty five minutes late. An apologetic Austrian rail official announced that the train had been delayed due to a holdup in "German territory" (his words). Blame the Huns, not us. The three hour journey was more bearable than usual because we had a modern train equipped with functioning air conditioning, comfortable seats, plenty of room and large windows. At Vienna's Westbahnhof we indulged ourselves by taking a taxi to our hotel rather than a tram (which would have called for a long walk). Pension Suzanne was on the first floor of a building in the old town, only a block away from the State Opera. We deposited our bags and set out for a preliminary exploration of the town centre.The walking tour I had obtained from the internet back home was not very good, concentrating as it did on antique shops and other sights of little interest. The early signs of senility which had manifested themselves in Salzburg returned again in the middle of Vienna. I was convinced that I had lost my pipe until I found it deep in the bowels of my camera bag. A little later I made to unlock the door of our room but found that the key was not in my pocket. I was instantly soaked in perspiration. How could I tell Margaret that I had lost our keys? I had forgotten that I had given them to her earlier in the day for safekeeping.As is my custom I set out to find a supermarket to replenish my supply of peppermints and to buy a carton of chocolate milk. The walk around the block passed without incident though I regretted not having brought my camera when I stumbled upon the Opera Toilets in the subway. The glitzy brass and marble water closet proclaimed proudly that one could listen to La Traviata (an opera, I presume) while taking a pee. How sophisticated!Vienna was the most expensive city we had encountered, at least when it came to food. We ate at an Italian restaurant round the corner from our hotel and, for the price we paid, expected large servings. My tortellini was tiny and unaccompanied by a salad. We certainly wouldn't patronise that establishment again.Stephansdom (St Stephen's Cathedral) in the centre of the old town was having a light show in the evening during which, we learned, angels would appear. We entered the enormous gothic building to find very modernistic sails attached to the pillars upon which the faces of people were projected. Margaret spoke to the "light sculptor" himself who told her that we could all be one another's angel by helping our neighbours in times of trouble. I was very moved by the deep spiritual truth of this revelation, though it didn't stop me telling the beggar woman outside the church that she should get a job.We ended the night with coffee at the restaurant across the road from our hotel. I was just about to light my pipe when the waiter (perhaps the head waiter) pointed to it and said "Missa, no pipe". I was quietly furious as the people at nearby tables were smoking like chimneys. Anti-pipe prejudice! Margaret began to give him a severe tongue lashing, but I asked her to desist. I don't think the unpleasant Teuton understood a word of English. We never returned.DAY 26 WED At breakfast we shared a table with a couple of Americans who, in the course of our conversation, told us of their visit to an interesting church not all that far away. We were planning to have a fairly relaxing day so we strolled in a leisurely fashion through Resselpark to the edge of the old city in search of Karlskirche (St Charles' Church).Karlskirche, built in the early eighteenth century by Charles VI just as the plague was coming to an end, was quite impressive on the outside due in large part to the two columns (based on Trajan's Column) which dominate the facade. Inside the mainly baroque church we were awed by the unusually bright coloured marble. The frescoes on the walls and ceiling were in the process of being restored and we were able to watch a restorer at work. The patience of such artists was beyond our comprehension but their painstaking work was bringing the paintings back to life.Whilst the extensive scaffolding rather spoiled the beauty of the interior, the lift which had been installed for the restorers enabled us to rise almost to the cupola. A further few flights of rather rickety temporary stairs allowed us to climb to the very top. Margaret turned back, overcome by the vertiginous view over the edge and the fact that the stairs swayed a little. I reached the top and got a close up view of the highest point of the church. The price of admission included a visit to the church museum which was of interest to me for its small collection of relics, including a fragment of the true cross housed in a golden ornament. Just before we entered the museum we were struck by an enormous canvas. Painted entirely in lime green and featureless apart from an apparently deliberate paint run in the top left hand corner, this modernistic work was titled "Tabla Rasa", which means blank slate. I suspect that the good monks paid a significant sum for this masterpiece. If I were a philistine I would suspect that they had been conned.From the Karlskirche we walked back into town to visit the Albertina, home to the greatest collection of graphic art in the world. At the time of our visit there were three separate exhibitions available. The first featured the paintings of Kokoschka, an artist of whom we had never heard. I didn't like his work, but Margaret became a convert by the time we reached his last painting. The second featured Monet and Picasso. I liked Monet (though I wouldn't buy one of his paintings) but was unmoved by Picasso. The third exhibition was devoted to Paul Klee, who I felt should have stuck to his day job. What a plebeian I am! The only works in the gallery which truly impressed me were half a dozen studies of the male body by Michelangelo.By the time we emerged from the Albertina it was time for Margaret to have a rest. The previous day she had bought a ticket to an opera by Verdi at the State Opera House which was to commence at half past six. By some unforgivable oversight she had neglected to buy me a ticket, a cause of much angst on my part. I left her to rest and returned to the streets in search of music shops.My solo adventure took me several kilometres out of the old town and into modern Vienna. I found the shop I was seeking (Saturn) but became hopelessly lost when I emerged from a different entrance into an unfamiliar street. I eventually found my way back to the hotel, thanks more to the assistance of a shopkeeper and a couple of policemen than my once-vaunted sense of direction.In the evening I escorted Margaret to the State Opera where she was to experience an opera by Verdi. I deposited her at the entrance then walked back to the hotel for my evening beer. Once darkness had fallen I set off to explore old Vienna by night. The streets were as busy as they had been during the day but the buildings were now aglow with golden light. I returned to the State Opera at the appropriate hour to pick up my spouse. Opera finishing time came and went but no one emerged from the building. I made several circuits of the block but all was quiet. With a rising sense of panic I began to fear that I had misheard Margaret when she told me where the opera was being performed. What if it was in a different opera house at the other end of town? My relief knew no bounds when the doors burst open and Margaret and the rest of the audience poured into the square.DAY 27 THU A very quiet, rainy day. I walked the entire length of Mariahilfer Strasse , the main shopping street of Vienna. This was where the ordinary Viennese shopped and was almost devoid of tourists. It was not terribly interesting, seeming to be much the same as any city anywhere. I moved with great rapidity, returning to Margaret hot and exhausted.In the afternoon we walked down to the Danube. Much to our surprise and disgust the walls bordering the river were covered in graffiti. Not at all like the Seine. There was a potentially interesting little church in the Jewish area we would liked to have visited but it failed to open at the hour specified. We spent the rest of the afternoon vegetating in our room, leaving it only to dine (for the first and last time) at a nearby Burger King.DAY 28 FRI We were not at all sure what we were going to do on our last day in Vienna. Rather than return to the city streets and see the same churches and art galleries we chose to catch a local train six stops to Schloss Schönbrunn, a huge palace completed in 1700. Schönbrunn is painted in the favourite colour of the Hapsburgs, yellow, and contains one thousand four hundred and forty one rooms of which we were able to tour a mere twenty two. We could only wonder how grand the other one thousand four hundred and nineteen were because the ones we saw were quite spectacular. Most grand of all was the Great Gallery, where Kennedy and Khrushchev met in 1961. Almost as historical was the Hall of Mirrors where a six year old Mozart gave his first concert.We had elected to take the cheaper Imperial Tour which left out a few rooms. Margaret was so impressed by what she had seen so far that she attempted to join the Grand Tour while no one was looking. She only desisted when she noticed that I wasn't following her.The backyard of the schloss was, if anything, even more impressive than the schloss itself. It was also free. The gardens are extensive and beautifully laid out with the most impressive fountain we had seen to date (the Neptunbrunnen). We skipped the labyrinth, which was not free, but walked through the rose garden, which was. We sat in a biergarten outside the Tiergarten (the world's oldest zoo) and drank beer. The service was terrible and we were most incensed when the waiter went off without giving me my change. This was very bad form for three reasons. The first is that one normally does not tip for drinks, the second that the service was terrible and the third that the customer should always given the opportunity to offer the gratuity. I had to restrain Margaret from tearing strips of the offending waiter.
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Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, Germany

DAY 24 MON Our last day in Salzburg. We missed the bus to Berchtesgaden despite having walked very rapidly from our hotel to the bus stop at the far end of the old town. The next bus was due an hour later but at least we would be at the head of what we assumed would be a long queue. As it turned out the bus wasn't crowded at all and we had a very comfortable ride through the Austrian countryside. There was no sign to tell us that we had crossed from Austria into Germany but we could tell by the change in the presentation of the houses. On the Austrian side of the border they were quite plain but once over the border they became pretty with window boxes full of brightly coloured flowers in a typically Alpine style.Berchtesgaden, located in a knob of land protruding into Austria, is a fairly small town nestled in a valley surrounded by towering, snow-capped mountains. Almost totally devoid of tourist shops (or even tourists), it resembled the Mittenwald of our imaginings before found ourselves disappointed by the actual town. Most tourists didn't stray far from the bus terminus where you switch from the Salzburg bus to the Eagle's Nest bus.The bus from Berchtesgaden took us a few miles to another terminus where we were herded, with many others, onto yet another bus, this one having been built especially to cope with the extremely steep climb up the side of the mountain. Once disembarked at the base of the Eagle's Nest we joined a queue to nominate the time we wished to return to the bus. It was 11 a.m. so we selected the 2.30 p.m. bus. We learned that we were allowed two hours to tour Hitler's mountain retreat and were limited to a maximum of two drinks at the top. This was an order!Eagle's Nest was built by Martin Bormann on behalf of the Nazi Party as a present for Hitler on his fiftieth birthday. The road from the bottom of the valley to the base of the holiday retreat took more than a year to build and the building at the top another year. No doubt Hitler expressed his gratitude to Martin most sincerely, however he rarely visited his birthday present as he suffered from vertigo.From the base of the mountain a tunnel covered with Untersberg marble and one hundred and twenty eight metres long leads to a lift which whisks one a further hundred and twenty four metres through solid rock. The lift is clad in burnished brass and we tourists were dumbstruck by its blinding luxuriousness. Apparently Hitler was reluctant to use the lift because he was afraid that it might attract lightning strikes. Martin and the other Nazis must have been struggled not to look crestfallen when der fuehrer failed to appreciate their expensive gift!At the restaurant on the terrace (where Hitler performed an impromptu dance after learning that France had fallen) we indulged in a beer before ascending the path to the peak. This involved struggling through very slippery snow and Margaret took what she hoped would be a very amusing photo of me slipping dramatically and almost plunging to my death in the valley below. I can imagine people asking her how I met my fate. "I'll show you the photo", she would reply.The scenery was so overwhelmingly beautiful that we couldn't stop taking pictures. It's a wonder that der fuehrer didn't decide to abandon the war and spend the remainder of his life gazing at the Königssee and making authoritarian love to Eva. After walking around the Eagle's Nest via the tracks provided we took the lift down to the bus stop at the base of the cliff. It was only one o'clock and our bus ticket was stamped 1.30pm. Margaret insisted that we sneak aboard an earlier bus, which we did. The penalties for not obeying the rules in this part of Bavaria are severe and I wriggled nervously in my seat until the driver closed the door and started the engine.We arrived back in Berchtesgaden just in time to miss the bus to Salzburg so we decided to explore the town while we waited for the next one. As mentioned earlier, for all its historical importance and great beauty Berchtesgaden is surprisingly bereft of tourist shops (and tourists). We walked up a steep path behind the railway station and found the commercial area of town which had been invisible from the valley below. Hungry and thirsty, we ordered rich German cake and iced coffee from a small cafe. This was a mistake as we were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of cream and pastry. The view from the terrace of the valley and its surrounding mountains created a mental postcard which I treasure to this day.Back in Salzburg we dined for the last time at the biergarten behind the Crowne Plaza, foregoing our usual sausages and sauerkraut for salad.
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Salzburg, Austrian Alps, Austria

DAY 20 THU The train we took to Salzburg was the nicest we'd had to date, even boasting air conditioning that worked. The morning was extremely hot and not at all what we'd been expecting. Hauling our bags to the hotel was hard work and I began to suspect that I was getting too old for such labour intensive holidays.Finding the Lasserhof proved to be easy and it wasn't all that far from the station. After depositing our bags we immediately set off to explore the old town. We hadn't realised how far away it was and, due to a failure in my map reading ability, how long it would take us to actually get there. Once we reached the bridge over the Salzbach River I espied a sign pointing to the Altstadt parking station. I assured Margaret that the parking area was bound to be near the old town and we crossed the bridge and headed off to the right as the sign indicated. After half a kilometre Margaret drew my attention to the fact that there was no sign of the Altstadt anywhere on the horizon. I was forced to agree and we grudgingly retraced our steps all the way back to the bridge and then a further kilometre or so further until we finally reached our goal.By the time we found the centre of town I was near collapse and couldn't work up the enthusiasm necessary to explore the old buildings. We didn't bother to enter the Dom once we noticed the ticket office immediately inside the main entrance with its prominent sign soliciting what it cynically described as donations. Lonely Planet advised that the expected "donation" was five Euros and I wasn't about to pay to go to church.The heat was oppressive so we didn't go too far from the hotel in our search for dinner, finding a pleasant and secluded beer garden just around the corner. We shared eight Nuremberg sausages with Austrian vegetables and the inevitable sauerkraut and, for the first time ever, still had enough room left for strudel. DAY 21 FRI We bought our Salzburg Cards this morning then walked once again through the Mirabellgarten to the Salzach River, over the Makartsteg Bridge and into the old town. Yesterday I had been unimpressed by Salzburg, which I attributed to the extreme heat and my mental and physical exhaustion. My attitude hadn't changed overnight. The old town was crammed with tourists and there were countless shops catering for them. I felt none of the ambience I'd felt in Innsbruck, Bamberg and the other towns we had visited over the last few weeks. Our guidebook advised that best view of Salzburg was to be gained from the battlements of Festung Hohensalzburg. We took the Festungbahn funicular to the fortress then toured its staterooms, an exercise well worth the entry fee (which we didn't pay as it was covered by our Salzburg Card). The view of the city from the battlements was as impressive as the guidebook had promised.Back in the centre of town the Residenz, once home to Salzburg's archbishops, proved to be just as interesting. Our audio guides described each room in great detail (though I was always one room behind the tape due to my difficulty in finding the right button). Just about every room contained an elaborate painted ceiling, several fancy clocks and at least one portrait of a sumptuously robed archbishop. These princes of the Church lived in great luxury whilst their less blessed fellow Catholics struggled to feed themselves. One prelate, when told of the poverty of the peasants huddled outside the Residenz, is reputed to have replied "let them eat sausage". This story is definitely apocryphal as I just made it up.From here our day took a downward turn. Mozart's Geburtshaus (his birthplace) was a great disappointment. I was extremely bored and assumed that this was because I was an uncultured philistine. I was relieved to learn that Margaret (highly cultured and a violinist to boot) also found it dull. The only item of interest in the little house was a tiny violin on which the little prodigy had composed the opera La Traviata when just two hours old.We recrossed the river and, to my joy, stumbled upon the Mozart Wohnhaus where the Mozart family used to live. This was more to Margaret's liking, being well presented, full of pictures of the eighteenth century Liberace and almost literally papered with his scores and newspaper clippings. I found myself fighting the urge to nod off as my audio guide described Wolfgang's life in numbing detail. From what I heard I gather that much of his life was spent travelling around Europe complaining about the bumpy roads and the pain they caused his sore bottom. He might have been a genius but I suspect that he was also a spoiled and insufferable brat. DAY 22 SAT We awoke this morning to find that the sky was blue but the temperature much lower. Yet again we walked through Mirabellgarten and over one of the many bridges leading to the old town. We climbed a steep path to a church perched on the side of a hill. Unusually for Austria it was not a "tourist church" but was nonetheless crammed with people, all locals, who were attending a ceremony involving children.With lots of credit remaining on our Salzburg Card we elected to visit Salzburg Museum. I'm not by nature a museum frequenting creature, but this one was modern, well-presented and quite interesting. I had finally mastered the use of audio guides which meant that I no longer had to spend the entire visit frantically pressing buttons.As I write: Margaret has just shaved her legs and walked stark naked in front of our open windows. I heard several wolf whistles and the screeching of many tyres.After lunch we picked up our tickets for the cruise to Schloss Hellbrunn we had reserved the previous day. Precisely fifteen minutes later our jet-powered boat began its journey up the river. By placing ourselves at the front of the queue we had managed to procure seats at the stern and outside the cabin which we shared with a number of people including a nun and a family from India (or perhaps Pakistan). The mother was a stunner, as were her children.The shuttle bus from the dock deposited us at the gates of the schloss, a yellow baroque palace built in the seventeenth century by a bishop. We all made for the Wesserspiele (Water Gardens) in the palace grounds. These had been built by the aforementioned bishop who obviously possessed a sense of humour and money to burn. As we visited each fountain or water feature our guide pressed a hidden button and drenched those unfortunate enough to be standing nearby. "Over pressure" he would explain with practiced spontaneity. How we laughed! Neither of us fell victim to his merry pranks.After the Wesserspiele we toured the schloss itself, again with audio guides. It was a fairly short tour but reasonably interesting. Public Bus 25 took us all the way from Hellbrunn to Salzburg Hauptbahnhof, only a couple of hundred metres from our hotel.DAY 23 SUN The morning was cool as we took our well-travelled route into the old town. We were heading towards the Franziskankirche to attend nine o'clock Mass and were way ahead of most tourists. It was a pleasant change to have the streets to ourselves.High Mass in the Franziskankirche was quite a treat. There were several Franciscan monks and three priests, one of whom gave what must have been a stirring and uplifting homily, though its theme was a mystery to us. One of the monks was so enthusiastic in waving the incense holder that we made bets on whether he would catch fire before the elderly people in the front row succumbed to smoke inhalation. It was certainly no ordinary Mass. A choir and orchestra performed Haydn's Mass symphony (I forget its title) followed by selections from Salzburg's most famous son, Mozart and a grand finale performance of Love Me Tender. The female sopranos and their accompanying male singers were so good that I suspected that they were miming to a CD.In the early afternoon I snoozed in our hotel room while Margaret transformed herself into an ersatz Salzburgian sophisticate in preparation for attending a concert at Stiftskirche St Peter. She later told me that the concert was fabulous though very poorly attended.
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Innsbruck, Austrian Alps, Austria

DAY 17 MON The train trip from Regensburg to Innsbruck was a very long one. We had only one change, at Munich. Our ICE train was to leave fourteen minutes after we arrived so we hauled our bags with alacricity down one platform and up another.Once on the second train we had to find our seats. The inter-city train carriages contain compartments and they were all occupied or reserved. We dragged our bags through three carriages, no mean feat given the narrowness of the aisles, but couldn't find vacant seats. In desperation we ignored the reservation tickets outside one compartment and occupied a couple of seats opposite two young people. Much to our relief nobody turned up to claim the seats and once the train left we removed the tickets and settled back to enjoy the journey.Many hours later we alighted at Innsbruck Hauptbahnhof. I had prepared detailed instructions on how to reach our hotel but once again I found it difficult to determine which direction we should take after we had exited the station. Always decisive I determined that we should turn left and walk about a quarter of a kilometre to the nearest cross street. Unfortunately my decisiveness was not rewarded and we had to retrace our steps and walk half a kilometre in the right direction. The area around the station was not terribly attractive and Margaret prematurely declared that Innsbruck was a dump. I had calculated that the distance from the station to the hotel was slightly less than a kilometre. This hadn't seemed excessive back home but was a long and difficult slog when hauling baggage.Hotel Weisses Kreuz was located right in the centre of the old town. Lonely Planet described it as possibly the best three star hotel in the Altstadt, which is probably why Leopold Mozart and his thirteen year old son Wolfgang stayed there in the eighteenth century. Imagine our excitement when we discovered that not only were we staying in a hotel which had sheltered Mozart but were sleeping in the very bed that the young genius had occupied all those years ago. In line with tradition the sheets have never been changed since that historic night. This was probably not true, though we thought that it was a distinct possibility.The rest of the afternoon we spent investigating our immediate environment. Our street, Herzog Friedrichestrasse, was lined with buildings built in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. At the end of the street stood the Helbinghaus, famous for its faded but fancy facade and golden roof. The inevitable Dom, Saint Jakob, was rather bland on the outside but very ornate (Baroque) inside. By now we were a little blasé about ornate interiors so we didn't linger.The Hofgarten was a peaceful park just outside the main part of the Altstadt and a welcome relief from the swirling hordes of tourists a hundred metres away in the old town. In the evening we dined at a nearby biergarten. The service was unbelievably slow and we remarked on how prices in Innsbruck seemed to be a bit higher than they had been in Germany. We were amused to see that while we had donned jackets in the crisp night air our fellow diners, German and Austrian, had taken theirs off and sat in t-shirts. Our amusement was due to the fact that throughout Bavaria Germans in trains insisted on closing all the windows and doors while huddling in their coats despite the fact that the temperature was 35 degrees. When we returned to the hotel we found a new arrival with several bags waiting for the tiny lift and were forced to trudge wearily up the stairs to our room on the fourth floor.DAY 18 TUE First thing this morning we bought an Innsbruck card. We had examined the brochure closely to make sure there were enough things covered to make the twenty five Euros (each) card economical. If we moved fast and visited a lot of otherwise expensive attractions it wasn't going to be difficult to come out on top.Most expensive and therefore first on the list was the Nordkette Cable Car (19 Euros). The Hungerburgbahn funicular took us to the village of Hungerburg where we switched to the cable car for the ascent to the top of Hafelkarhaus, 2269 metres above sea level. We climbed a steep path to the peak, struggling to breathe in the thin, cold air. From the summit we had stunning views of the Karwendel mountain range as well as the city of Innsbruck spread out far below us. Margaret was constantly warning me to stay away from the edge, fearful that I would trip over myself and plunge to my doom. Years earlier I would have teased her by deliberately walking as close to the edge as possible but in my dotage I realised that I probably would stumble and plunge to my doom.We descended to the next level, Seegrube, where we sipped cappuccinos on a terrace overlooking the valley. Black birds hovered in the sky above us and, as I discovered later, defecated on my shirt. One of our rare moments of near panic occurred when we attempted to descend to the next level. Margaret placed her Innsbruck card in the card reader but the turnstile failed to open. The attendant tried with both our cards without success and handed them back with a guttural "no good". Margaret began to remonstrate with him but he waved us toward the ticket office. The thought of having to buy tickets was more than a little depressing, but what choice did we have? As we approached the counter we suddenly realised that we had been trying to go down the mountain via the up-the-mountain cable car! With dual sighs of relief we headed for the correct turnstile.After a very brief tour of the village of Hungerburg we descended to the Alpenzoo further down the mountain. I am normally not a zoo person but the entry fee (which we didn't have to pay) would contribute towards making our cards economical. There were quite a few animals, birds, reptiles and fish imprisoned in the zoo, many of which would not be found in Taronga Park (being peculiar to the alpine environment). The midday heat was oppressive and there was little shade to provide relief as we struggled up the steep and winding path.It was still mid-afternoon by the time we disembarked from the funicular so we decided to use our cards to catch the post bus to the Swarovski Kristallwelten. The brochure described the experience as a "guided tour through the sensual kaleidoscope" which I interpreted as a promise of erotic delight. My interpretation was incorrect. The entrance to the subterranean world of crystal was a door beside a large plant-covered head which vomited a continual stream of water into a small pond. The kristallwelten comprised a series of darkened rooms, many of which were extremely bizarre. In the Jim Whiting Mechanical Theatre clothes, mannequins and various domestic items danced, fell apart and re-formed in time to a disco beat. Other rooms were equally strange. In Reflections, described in the brochure as "a kaleidoscope of sound and colour" I was warned that I would be "caught up in a whirlpool of knowledge". Bollocks, I thought crudely. As expected I emerged from that room as ignorant as I had been when I entered it.The entire tour took about thirty five minutes and ended up in an enormous showroom full of Swarovski crystal. Being a simple and unsophisticated person I had never heard of Swarovski and was completely unaware that it was a company famous for its crystal ornaments. Some of the ornaments were quite pretty but rather expensive. The most desirable item, a crystal cobra, was selling for more than $7,000. To my great relief Margaret didn't want anything, which emboldened me to suggest several extravagantly priced crystal elephants, insects and snails. I was treading a dangerous path but after forty years of marriage I knew that I could safely appear generous without ever running the risk of having to actually buy anything. We couldn't help but chuckle at the stacks of plastic carry bags provided so that one could more easily carry one's collection of priceless mice and ballerinas to the check-out.Even after examining almost every object in the showroom we still had an hour to wait until the bus returned to take us back to the city. We cynically agreed that the long wait for the bus was designed to keep people in the shop for as long as possible. If that were indeed the plan it succeeded admirably as most people didn't return to the bus stop until just before the bus arrived. Once back in the old town we walked a little way from the centre in the hope that restaurants away from the tourist area would be a little cheaper. We also assumed that Chinese restaurants would be a bargain. The one we found was not, though the Asian food made a pleasant change from sausages and dumplings.DAY 19 WED It was indeed fortunate that we chose to ascend to the top of the mountain yesterday. As the girl at the hotel desk had predicted, this morning was cloudy and visibility poor. We had nothing much on our calendar today so we decided to use the last few hours available on our cards to tour the Hofburg (Imperial Palace), just around the corner.We arrived just as the palace was opening and I wasted a Euro buying a guide book. I say wasted because the contents of the guidebook bore no resemblance to the actual contents of the Hofburg. One of the attendants was most apologetic for the discrepancy, informing us that half of the palace was being renovated and the furniture distributed around the other half. The most important room of all, the Riesenaal (Giant's Hall), was one of the rooms not available for inspection. Before we reached the first room we had to spend some considerable time exploring a mountaineering exhibition, some of which was quite interesting. Never have I seen so many pairs of worn-out boots in one place. Maria Theresia, Empress of Austria (named after a street near our hotel), was responsible for the baroque and rococo design of the palace. How she found the time was beyond us as she was the mother of sixteen children, one of whom was the ill-fated Marie Antoinette. Margaret drew my attention to the fact that the huge paintings of the family paid no attention to perspective. People were the same size whether they were in the foreground or the background. Children were depicted as miniature adults and many of them boasted heads shaped like light bulbs. All sixteen kids were apparently identical in looks, which was unfortunate.On returning to the Weisses Kreuz we were delighted to find the musical branch of the Austrian Army setting themselves up for a concert almost outside the hotel. We purchased coffee and sat down to watch the performance. The band, with brass and drums an even a xylophone, played a series of tunes which had us tapping our feet and applauding enthusiastically. Their repertoire ranged from Hungarian Dance No. 5 (thanks, Margaret) to Oya Como Va by Santana. It was one of those serendipitous moments we encounter every so often on our travels.
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Regensburg, Bavaria, Germany

DAY 16 SUN Margaret woke me at seven this morning. In reality it was only a quarter past six but she had dreamt she heard the bells of the Dom tolling seven. A few days earlier we had risen two hours early because the hotel's bedside alarm clock was two hours fast.We left Bamberg without regret, for although the Barockhotel and its owners were charming and we had enjoyed the town immensely, there were only so many times we could visit the same sites. Our next stop was Regensburg where we were to experience our only one night stopover, purely so that we could break the long train trip from Bamberg to Innsbruck.In theory the Ibis hotel should have been the easiest of all our hotels to reach from the station. Not only did I have written instructions but also a satellite photo of the station, the streets surrounding it and the hotel itself. The reality, as usual, was different. Despite the photo we exited the station on the wrong side and became totally disoriented. A friendly station assistant pointed us in the right direction and we found the hotel a block away.A little later we walked the length of Maximillianstrasse to the Alte Kapelle (Old Chapel). After the relative austerity of churches in Nuremberg it was refreshing to be overwhelmed by the gaudy beauty of the Rococo style, even if one could only appreciate it through a wrought iron gate. Further along the Gothic Dom Saint Peter was as majestic as the guidebooks promised, its spires soaring somewhat appropriately into the heavens. The stained glass windows survived heavy bombing during the war and were beautifully detailed and brightly coloured.We decided to stop at Saint Ulrich's Diocesan Museum and walked down to Steinerne Brücke (Old Stone Bridge) which was once the only fortified crossing over the Danube. The Altes Rathaus (Old Rathouse) boasted a highly decorated hall but one could only examine it at close quarters by buying a ticket at the tourist information office, which was closed.Being Sunday there were not many people about when we entered Saint Emmerais Church. It was several streets away from the main tourist area and I was able to take pictures and video of the miraculously badly preserved bodies of a couple of saints without feeling like an uncouth tourist.We returned to the Ibis exhausted but satisfied that we had seen the most interesting sights that Regensburg had to offer. The beer garden across the road was deserted and we were able to dine in peace amidst plants and trees. Our meals were enormous and I had to force down each mouthful, delicious though it was.
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Bamberg, Bavaria, Germany

DAY 13 THU Usually breakfast at the Hotel Drei Linden is very quiet but this morning we shared the breakfast room with a crowd of businessmen in suits, all in Nuremberg to attend a food trade fair. We shared our table with a well-spoken gentleman from Kenya and the three of us had an enjoyable breakfast while exchanging impressions of Germany.We reached Nurnberg Hbf (Hauptbahnhof) via tram with time to spare and hauled our bags to platform 13. Slowly the platform filled and, as the 9.50am departure time came and went, we became increasingly agitated. Announcements were made which were incomprehensible to us and didn't seem to enlighten our fellow travellers. A young lady informed Margaret that all trains to Bamberg had been cancelled for reasons not explained.What would become of us? All the hotels in Nuremberg were full due to the food convention and we didn't relish the thought of sleeping on a railway bench. At the information desk we were informed that there would be a train leaving for Bamberg in an hour. This was not true. We dragged our luggage several kilometres back to platform 13 where some friendly Germans told us that the trains to Bamberg were, in fact, cancelled but that we could get to our destination by travelling in the opposite direction, alighting at Rothendorf and then catching another train back to Bamberg.Once we reached Bamberg Margaret insisted that we take a taxi to our hotel. Although this went against my miserly instincts I agreed, which was a fortunate decision as the Barockhotel was a long, long way from the station. The new part of Bamberg was not very exciting, however our hotel was just outside the gates of the Altstadt.The Barockhotel was a pretty little place built, as the name suggests, in the baroque style. Our promised view of the Dom amounted to a glimpse of its spires rising above the roof of neighbouring buildings. We didn't complain because a) we are too nice, and b) because our room was quiet, comfortable and not lit by any streetlight beneath our window (unlike the Drei Linden in Nuremberg). The hotel was very pleasant overall and my later positive rating in TripAdvisor raised it to number one on that website's list of the best hotels in Bamberg.As an aside, I had noticed a gradual decline in the standard of refrigerator services since our arrival. In Munich we had a bar fridge which, when its overpriced contents were removed, provided plenty of room for our own beer, wine and milk. In Nuremberg we shared a communal fridge at the end of the corridor. In Bamberg there was a single fridge downstairs full of the hotel's products but obviously not intended for the storage of the guest's supplies. As in England years ago I realised that I would have to keep my beer cold in the bath.We decided to have an exploratory walk through the old town as it was already late afternoon. Most of the shops were closed for the Corpus Christi holiday. Margaret was disappointed to learn that we had arrived too late to witness the famous Corpus Christi procession so it would have been nice for her to be able to browse through a few shops. The Dom was open, as one would expect on a feast day, and we spent quite some time exploring its cavernous interior. The cathedral took twenty years to build during which time the floor plans were revised backwards and forwards between Romanesque and Gothic styles. Of particular note was the statue of the smiling angel (Lächeinde Engel) who is handing a martyr's crown to a headless Saint Denis. I was morbidly interested in the saint's bone preserved in a chalice which was the main attraction of the crypt and was more than a little disgruntled when I wasn't left alone for long enough to take a photo. DAY 14 FRI A room facing the Dom had seemed to be a bonus back in Sydney, but our opinion changed somewhat when the church bells began to ring at seven in the morning. The bell ringer was obviously inebriated as he tolled the bells for what must have been at least ten minutes. There was no tune, just bang, bang, bang. Margaret rose long before the first bang, anxious to be first at the breakfast table. Unfortunately for her the bedside clock provided by the hotel was two hours fast and she found herself washed, dressed and made up two hours before breakfast began.Our plan for the day was to take a relaxing walking tour of the old town. We were both physically and mentally exhausted and needed to do something undemanding. A short walk took us to the Church of Our Lady, known here as the Upper Parish Church. The land on which the church was built in the fourteenth century was originally given to Heinrich the Quarrelsome by Emperor Otto II in 973, probably to shut him up. After the rather plain churches of Nuremberg this church, with its Baroque nave, colourful ceiling and extravagant altars, reminded us of Munich.The next phase of our walk called for us to stroll back down the narrow cobbled streets, cross the river and walk through the old town to Schloss Geyerswortl (I can't read my own writing so this name is probably incorrect). It was not a terribly interesting building but the Alt Rathaus (old town hall) certainly was. Built on an artificial island in the middle of the Regnitz River in 1461 it looks like something from Shakespearian London.Next on our itinerary was Schloss Concordia which was best viewed from the other side of the river. Despite an intense examination of our map we simply couldn't find it. The young lady at the tourist office explained in a few sentences the route we should take but, true to form, I had forgotten everything she told us by the time we stepped out the door. We had almost decided to give up when a trio of young Bambergians emerged from a nearby house and led us to the correct path. The Schloss, impressive as it was, was a bit of a disappointment.Bamberg's Altstadt had seemed quite small during our preliminary investigation the previous day, but a chance diversion down a side street took us into a part of the town we hadn't known existed. A long pedestrianised street, lined with shops interesting to Margaret, was the site of a fruit and vegetable market. I was in seventh heaven! Seriously though, it was interesting to watch the mixture of locals and tourists going about their lives.Just before we began our return journey to the hotel I stumbled upon a second hand CD shop. My excitement was quickly extinguished once I entered the pokey little room on the first floor. The owner was so eager to sell me one of his over-priced discs that I took pity on him and bought a CD containing examples of eight hundred years of the music of Bamberg. I couldn't wait to get back to Sydney and play it!We dined at the Brasserie again in the evening. Yesterday we had discovered this place just around the corner from the hotel and enjoyed a hearty lunch at its courtyard tables. The food was excellent and I had fallen in love with Bamberg's own Rauchbier (smoky beer). Margaret had made friends with several of the waitresses, though they still didn't give us a discount. Back in Nuremberg one of the waiters had been so taken with my wife that he presented her with a special plate of cheese at no charge!DAY 15 SAT At breakfast this morning our landlady warned us that the NDP (Nazis) was holding a rally in the convention centre and the anti-Nazis were meeting in the town square. She expected violence and warned us against going into town. I would have liked to be a spectator but Margaret was understandably reluctant and, as our landlady pointed out, it would be better if people denied the Nazis the attention they were seeking.There wasn't much of Bamberg that we hadn't seen at least once but there still remained Michaelsburg. Saint Michael's Monastery was at the top of a steep hill overlooking the old town. It was early morning and we were rested, so the long climb wasn't at all challenging. The inside of the church was of the Rococo style and we were most impressed with the ceiling which was decorated with six hundred painted plants. I was equally impressed by the elaborate pulpit, considered by pulpit aficionados to be one of the most beautiful in Franconia. Saint Otto's tomb, hidden behind the main altar, thoughtfully provided a hole for devoted pilgrims such as myself (but not Margaret) to crawl through, probably earning a plenary indulgence in the process. Margaret had moved on but returned when I informed her that touching the tomb was said to have a special healing effect in cases of gout, rheumatism and back trouble, all of which plague her at one time or the other (sometimes simultaneously).The terrace outside the monastery provided panoramic views of Bamberg. A pair of police vans bristling with antennae was parked by the parapet. They were ideally placed to augment the surveillance operations of the helicopter hovering over the convention centre. The monastery's cafe had just opened and we sipped coffee beneath the trees and basked in the sun while lazily watching the few tourists strolling around the terrace.We left the monastery via a narrow path which descended through the woods to the river, emerging at the area known as Little Venice. The houses bordering the Regnitz were, as claimed, vaguely reminiscent of Venice, some appearing to be on the verge of sliding into the river. As is our custom we indulged in a couple of small beers at a cafe just outside of the old town. The waiter presented me with a bill for three Euros and twenty cents. I gave him a five Euro note and he said "danke", brazenly neglecting to give me my change. Some tip! 30% rather than the customary 10%.We lunched on soup at the Brasserie. I had selected a particularly obscure soup whose name began with leber. Margaret asked the waiter what it was and he pointed to his liver. It was a broth containing meatballs made of liver (hopefully not his), a dish I would not order a second time.The Carmelite monastery, not far from our hotel, contained a nice church and a rather plain cloister. Margaret ordered me to be quiet several times, pointing out that the Carmelites were people of few words and soft ones at that. By now it was time for an afternoon rest and we returned to the hotel.At about four we put down our books and went looking for coffee and cake. The first cake shop we found was in the centre of town, down a side street we hadn't seen before and which was in the process of being dug up and restored. We didn't notice any Nazis, though there was a pair of black-clad rappers yelling from a stage (I believe it might have been the modern version of what we used to call singing) watched by a group of similarly black-clad young people sporting Mohawks and clutching beer bottles. I was unable to determine whether the performers and their audience were Nazis or anti-Nazis. We felt perfectly safe, thanks to the presence of numerous Polizei who maintained order in the square.Our last dinner at the Brasserie and we both selected the same dish; duck with potato dumplings (Margaret substituted French fries for the doughy dumplings, so it wasn't exactly the same dish). It was one of those dinners I thought I would never finish. My duck was as big as Donald and Uncle Scrooge combined and the potato dumpling (jellied potato) became progressively more sickly. I have an obsessive reluctance to leave food on my plate but I was forced to give up before finishing the last dumpling. It was with even greater reluctance that I drained my glass of Bamburgian smoky beer, which I'm sure I won't find back home.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cullism/10/1211244300/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cullism/10/1211244300/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cullism/10/1211244300/tpod.html Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:51:32 -0400 By rail through Bavaria and Austria then Venice and Dubai

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Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany

DAY 12 WED We spent the day visiting the few places we had missed in Nuremberg on our first day. The Museum of Transport half a kilometre away from the hauptbahnhof was well worth the money it cost us, which was nothing as we only toured the souvenir shop. If I had the slightest interest in rail transport I would have thoroughly enjoyed perusing the souvenirs and may even have paid a large sum for an old station sign, dirt included.Margaret had professed a previously private admiration for the work of Albrecht Dürer (a secret she had managed to keep over forty years of marriage) so we decided to seek out the Albrecht Dürer Museum, located on the other side of the old town. Albrecht lived in the museum from 1509 to 1528, when he died of boredom. I jest, of course, for it didn't become a museum until after his death. The little house would have been a lot more interesting while he was alive, especially on those nights when he entertained other celebrities such as Rembrandt, Michelangelo and Einstein. The audio phonic tour was narrated by a woman named Agnes, who claimed to be Albrecht's wife. Margaret noticed my look of disbelief and suggested that the voice was that of an actress rather than an extremely old German.Actress or not, Agnes could certainly talk and we learned everything there was to know about her husband, including the frequency of his bowel movements. She was unable to tell us that the house had been almost destroyed during the Second World War then rebuilt so that the reconstruction was indistinguishable from the original.Margaret left me to explore the Nuremberg dungeons while she searched for postcards. Unfortunately there were no tours scheduled to begin until later in the day so I walked down the street and watched a block of buildings being demolished. What was left by the wrecking ball must have brought back nasty memories for the aged crones riding past on their bikes. A few days earlier we had lunched on Nuremberg sausages in a large restaurant serving nothing but sausages. Margaret had read that the place was very cheap, but it wasn't. Today we found the place to which her article had referred, a take-away restaurant manned almost entirely by people of Asian origin. Our sausages-in-a-roll were extremely cheap and just right for lunchtime.As I write: Margaret has just returned from a wine-buying expedition down the street and had her hair done on the way As a consequence she is on top of the world.
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