Day 15 – Italian Ending to the Trip

Lago Maggiore at Stresa

We arrived in Milano at 9:12 am, took a second train to the airport and picked up our rental car and drove to the hotel which is near the airport. Fortunately I added a GPS as I don’t think I could have ever found the hotel without it. After a shower and some rest, we drove up to Stresa to see the Lago (Lake) Maggiore area. Lago Maggiore is the second biggest lake in Italy and it was about a 40 minute drive from the hotel, not counting getting lost by putting in the wrong address in the GPS. 

Lakeside in Stresa

The other end of the lake is in Switzerland, so we were very close to the border. Stresa is a beautiful lake-side resort at the foot of the mountains where the well-to-do Milan people go for a vacation at the lake. There are a number of island communities with beautiful gardens to visit as well, but we didn't have the time and the weather was getting iffy with some dark clouds in the area.

Arrivederci Italia

After Stresa, we drove back to the hotel and had a wonderful final dinner at a restaurant recommended by the lady at the hotel. I don’t know why but Italian food always tastes better in Italy and the people at the restaurant were very friendly with us. It was a nice ending to a great vacation. Tonight we pack one last time and our flight is at 10:40am tomorrow.

Day 14 – Vienna to Milan on the Overnight Train

Overnight Train in Wien Hauptbahnhof

We had a 7:19pm train tonight, so we spent the morning and afternoon touring using the second day of our Vienna City Pass. It was supposed to be a rainy day but it really didn’t start raining until about 1 pm, so the rain wasn’t much of a problem. It did turn colder and the day started out in the upper 60s but dropped to around 50 by the time the train left.

Habsburg Gold Table Pieces

We mostly toured museums today due to the threat of rain. First stop was the Habsburg Apartments in the Hofburg palace and the Sisi Museum. Sisi is very famous throughout Austria and Hungary, but she lived a very sad and tragic life. She was a beautiful girl who married Austrian Emperor Franz Josef when she was 16 and he was 24, but she couldn’t adjust to the public life of the court and began to escape from it by travelling whenever she could. She was rarely in Vienna in her later life and she was assassinated in Switzerland at age 60 by an anarchist. While she was alive she wasn’t a well-known figure but she grew into cult status after her death and is now the main icon of Austria. After the Sisi museum, we looked in on a Lipizzaner training session (not too interesting) and actually saw them close up as they were being moved from their stalls (still not impressed). We then did a exhibit called Journey Through Time which was fun and took us through a thousand years of history in an entertaining, “Disney” kind of way. After that we went  through the Albertina Museum, which has a decent collection called from Cézanne to Picasso. When we left the museum it had started raining so we took the red tour line around the inner city, had an early dinner at Café Prückle and headed out for the train.

Sleeper Compartment

It seems there is always a problem with the trains in Europe. We had reserved a coach with its own bathroom and shower, but when we got on they said there was a problem and we were downgraded to just a private double sleeper compartment. Supposedly I can get some kind of refund. In any case, the sleeper compartment was really fine and I would probably reserve that the next time as it is significantly cheaper. The bathroom was a few steps away and we can shower at the hotel.

The train itself was interesting. There were ten coaches in all, mostly sleepers, but the last seven were headed to Rome while the first three cars were going to Milan. Sometime in the night, I think at Venice, they decoupled us from the Rome bound cars and we went off with a different train. We both slept reasonably well and the only sounds we heard were the noises from the train. The compartment was a little cramped and we slept in bunks, which the porter set up when we went to bed. In the photo the two chairs on the right fold down into a bed and the second bed folds down just about at the height of where the chairs were. Fortunately we didn’t have to use the top third bunk as that would have required a ladder.

Day 13 – Vienna

Vienna

Of the six cities we have toured on the trip, for some reason Vienna seems like the biggest by far. It is in fact the biggest but 5 of the 6 cities are comparable, all between 1.2M and 1.7M.  Only Bratislava at 400K seems tiny in comparison. Vienna just seems more like a sprawling modern town with a large city center bounded by the Ringstrasse and the Danube (not blue here either). The city center doesn’t even have an “old town” feel, perhaps because a lot of it was rebuilt after WWII in a more modern urban style. There are still a lot of impressive buildings built by Habsburg (or Hapsburg, seen it spelled both ways) dynasty, but they are a more majestic style that seems far from Medieval.

Crown of the Holy Roman Emperor

Today and tomorrow we are using our City Passes along with the Hop On Hop Off tour bus. We shuffled the schedule around a little as rain is predicted for tomorrow and we are going to save the museums for then and do outdoor stuff today. We started with a trip to the Imperial Treasury to see the Habsburg "collectibles." They range from truly historical items like the crowns of several countries, kings' robes and the crown of the Holy Roman Emperor to questionable items such as a unicorn horn, the holy grail and a nail from the true cross.

Schönbrunn Palace

After that we rode the Yellow Line tour out to Schönbrunn Palace, which was the summer residence for the Habsburgs and the most popular tourist spot in Vienna. It is truly a magnificent palace with huge gardens behind. It would take all day to tour that stop properly.

We had a demonstration on how to make Apple Strudel, which convinced us that no amateur chef could do it. They spin the dough like pizza dough and work it until it is wafer thin. We finished the Yellow Line tour and Jeanne rested back at the hotel while I started out on the Blue Line tour.

Wiener Riesenrad

I wanted to ride the Wiener Riesenrad (aka Giant Ferris Wheel) which is a prominent feature of the Vienna skyline, but I mainly wanted to do it because it is featured in the movie, “The Third Man” with Orson Well which is set in post WWII in Vienna. We watched the film before we started the trip and we both highly recommend it. It was named best film of the 20th century by one poll. Jeanne had no interest in riding the Ferris Wheel.

Orson Wells, apparently not to happy with me

I also went to the Madame Tussauds Wax Museum and the Danube Tower, mainly because they were included on our City Pass. The wax museum was a little creepy as you can pose with the wax figures. You can see I continued the "Third Man" theme by posing with Orson Wells in a sceen from the movie. We topped the evening off with a nice Austrian dinner at the Stadtpark Bräu, a short walking distance from our hotel. I had Tafelspitz, which is a traditional boiled roast beef meal, and Jeanne had a nice chicken and mushroom dish.

Day 12 – Bratislava to Vienna

Austrian Local "City Shuttle" Train

Today was a light travel day. By light, we mean about 10K steps and not the 15K to 18K we have been doing. That is a lot of walking for old people like us who aren't used to it. We took the hotel taxi to the train station, bought two one-way second class tickets to Vienna for 12€ each, and the ride was an uneventful 1 hour and 5 minutes. We had considered taking the boat up, which is only slightly longer but the early sailing was booked and the next sailing wasn’t until afternoon. We were back on the Executive Floor at the Hilton so we were happy to have the Executive Lounge at our disposal again - free drinks and food all day!!!

Sacher and Esterházy Tortes

We took care of a little business (picked up our overnight rail tickets and our Hop On, Hop Off tickets for tomorrow) and then bought 24-hour transit passes and saw the city by metro.  First stop was lunch at the Museum Café. Vienna is famous for their cafés and their pastries and so we sampled a couple of their more famous one – the Sacher Torte (the chocolate cake in the photo) and Esterházy Torte. They were both delicious.

Johann Strauss Statue in the Stadtpark

Then we followed a Rick Steves recommended tour on their tram system around the Ringstrasse and listened to Rick explain what we were seeing along the way. We then went to the Stephansdom (St. Stephen’s Cathedral) which is at the heart of old town Vienna. Beautiful gothic cathedral but not as ornate as some we have seen. It does contain a painting of Mary and the baby Jesus, which is called “Maria Pötsch” and that many Hungarian pilgrims come to pray to for miracles. We saw about 20 pilgrims praying (or maybe just resting) in front of the painting when we were there.

In the evening, we went to a Strauss and Mozart concert at the Kursalon, which is a famous concert hall here in Vienna. Johann Strauss is of course the waltz king of Vienna and most known for his Blue Danube Waltz. He performed many times at the Kursalon. Mozart was born in Salzburg but reached prominence in Vienna. There was a 12-piece orchestra, two singers and two dancers in the show and it was quite entertaining.

Day 11 – Bratislava and the “Let It Be” tour

The Blue Church

On the surface, Bratislava doesn’t seem to be too well set up for handling tourists or maybe it is still early in the season for them. I had made a reservation for one tour but they never responded. I had the hotel call and they got no answer. No money was exchanged, so no problem. We looked at some other tours in the lobby but nothing appealed to us. So then we took our fall-back tour which was a “Free Walking Tour” where they work only for tips. That worked well. The girl running the tour was Andrea, a university student, and she spoke decent English. She had some interesting stories to tell about Slovakian culture and the lifestyle, so it was entertaining. The walking tour was only 2 hours 15 minutes so not too bad for us and Old Town Bratislava is pretty small. The Blue Church, aka the Smurf Church, built in Gaudi style, was the highlight of the tour.

Easter Tuesday?

One of the stories Andrea told was about the Slovakian custom where on Easter Monday, the men of the town can throw buckets of cold water on the younf women and whip them with homemade willow whips. This is to give the young women health and beauty and the women have to respond by giving the men a gift, usually money or alcohol. She said the men are usually drunk by noon. It is even worse in the villages where the men throw the women into the river and sometimes they are wearing big peasant skirts so it is difficult for them. She said it happened to her when a friend called her and asked where she was. She said she was shopping and told him the store and he came in with a bucket of cold water and threw it on her in the store. Women supposedly can return the favor on Tuesday but she tried it and it didn't work so well. I know this story sounds made up but I checked in on the Internet and it is true, but also a dying custom.

View From The Castle (Our Hotel, The Danube and the UFO Bridge)

She also talked about Slovakia's close history and on-going rivalry with the Czechs. It was always things like the Czechs get credit for starting the Velvet Revolution but we started it one day earlier, the photo of the man in front of the Soviet tank, it was taken in Bratislava, we can beat them in ice hockey, etc. By the way, she said George W. Bush came here and gave a speech and mixed up Slovakia and Slovenia, which happens with tourists all the time.

We had lunch at a hole in the wall restaurant that Andrea recommended and it was pretty good. I tried the garlic soup that she raved about but that must be an acquired taste. I couldn’t finish it. I did get to try the “Česká Trilógia” (i.e., the Czech Trilogy of pork, braised cabbage and bread dumplings) one more time and it was still excellent.

Spire of St. Martin with Gold Crown on Top

After recovering from the walking tour, we walked by St. Martin's Cathedral on our way up to the castle, which is straight uphill from our hotel. Supposedly the gold crown on the top is the size of a VW Beetle. The cathedral, which was closed for a wedding, was where the Kings and Queens of Hungary were crowned for almost 300 years. There were some good panoramic shots from the castle but still a tough climb just for some photos.

Finally walking the streets of Bratislava on a pleasant Saturday evening is like being in the middle of one huge party. All the outside tables at the restaurants and cafes are filled and everyone seems to be out and enjoying themselves and there is live music everywhere. Very enjoyable.

I forgot to explain the “Let It Be” tour comment. That is what we are now unofficially calling this circle tour as we have heard that song performed by street musicians in 4 of the 5 cities we have been to. We didn’t hear it in Budapest only because we chose to go to the traditional music dinner show. I’m sure we would have heard it somewhere if we had gone into town that evening instead.

Day 10 – Budapest to Bratislava by Train

Our Train in Keleti Station, Waiting for the Engine

Today we did a partial repeat of the trip two days ago in that we are taking the same basic Czech train, this time back towards Prague and we are getting off in Bratislava, the capital city of Slovakia. As it is a partial repeat, I can be a little more descriptive of the train itself. First, we were planning on catching the 11:25 train and so we left the hotel at 10 am because the taxi ride can be slow and I wasn’t sure how long it would take to get tickets. As it turned out, the taxi was quick and the tickets were a breeze as everyone spoke English. So we had an hour wait at the station but we were able to spend most of the time on the train. The taxi cost 3600 HUF from the Hilton on the Buda side to the Keleti station in east Pest. That is about $13 for a 20-minute ride. The train tickets were 10,670 HUF so about $39 for the two of us in second class. Bratislava is about 2 hours and 40 minutes away by train.

Train alongside the Danube in Hungary

The train consists of 6 second class cars one of which is a handicapped equipped, one restaurant car and two first class cars. From what I could tell from the outside, all the second class cars are the 6-passenger compartment type. We shared our compartment with a girl named Misha (short for Mikelle) from Romania who is going to university in Slovakia. She spoke excellent English and she is studying tourism along with English and Russian languages. One funny note. When I asked if I could help put her luggage up, she said, "No thanks. I’m carrying eggs and I don’t want to break them." She can get fresh eggs at home but apparently not at school. She gave us lots of advice on local foods to try in Slovakia.

Arrived essentially on-time in Bratislava and took a 10-minute taxi ride to the hotel for 23€. That is about double what we had been paying elsewhere but there is no other option with luggage. Hotel is the Radisson Park Inn and we have a nice view of the Danube but the room is pretty basic, especially after staying at a couple of Hiltons on the Executive Floor.

Old Opera House in Bratislava

Of the three national capitals we have been in, Bratislava is the smallest, has by far the fewest tourists and seems like the one recovering from communist rule the slowest. That said, Bratislava has it charms. Everything is less crowded and at a slower pace. Almost everywhere we went everyone spoke English to us. You don’t get that in the bigger countries like Germany and Italy who expect you to speak their language. We heard English music on the street and in the restaurant tonight. It is actually amazing how pervasive it has become. We have heard “Let It Be” in three different countries so far.

Bryndzové Halušky

In the evening we went to the hip-hop ballet “Julio a Romea” at the old Opera House. It is a retelling of “Romeo and Juliet” through modern dance interspersed with what I would call unrelated European TV Variety Show acts. That is as close as I can come to explaining it. You kind of had to see it to believe it. Bizarre at times, funny at times, crude at times but always with excellent dancing, and in particular some pretty amazing break-dancing. We both really enjoyed it. After the show, we went to the Zylinder Restaurant for some authentic Slovakian cuisine. We split two local dishes, the very popular Bryndzové Halušky (sheep cheese gnocchi), and Szeged Guláš, their take on Goulash with sauerkraut and spätzle.

Day 9 – Budapest

Danube River and the Chain Bridge

We woke to bright sunshine in Budapest (note: this is roughly pronounced Budya-peescht, although not everyone puts in the “y”). The temperature climbed into the low 70s, so it was very pleasant today. Hungary is south from the Czech Republic so the climate is a little milder here and they claim to be blocked from bad Russian weather by the Carpathian Mountains. Not sure about that but maybe. 

Today was a really full day of touring and we did two separate tours. We had a city tour in the morning and an evening tour of Budapest by night followed by folk dancing and traditional Hungarian music which is heavily influenced by the gypsies. The three hour city tour was very comprehensive and we learned another ton of facts about the city. Of course everything is beginning to blur together a little.

Central Market Hall With One Whole Aisle of Spices

After the city tour, we started riding the public transportation of the town. We took a tram ride down to the Central Market Hall (Hungarian "Nagycsarnok") dating back to 1896. They sold lace products and clothing on the top floor and food products on the ground floor. We had Lángos for lunch, a type of fried dough with sour cream and cheese on top which all the Hungarians rave about, but honestly neither one of us cared for it. After lunch we took a Danube River cruise which was the second part of our city tour. The views were nice but the cruise itself was a little long.

Folk Dancers with Wine Flasks on Their Heads

In the evening we went into the hills of Buda for a dinner with traditional folk dancing complete with costumes, a lot of knee slapping and girls dancing with flasks of wine on their heads. Jeanne even got into the act as you can see in the picture. It was really a blast and the food was great. Several tour groups were there but our particular tour group was just us and two other women from the US. That left us with a half empty table and a lot of extra wine on the table and it was flowing. This was after we started with a round of Pálinka, a very strong fruit brandy, and so one of the US women was really feeling no pain when we left. All in all it was a pretty entertaining evening.    

Jeanne Getting into the Act

Some things you might not know about Budapest. One, the Danube isn’t really blue. It’s the same green as any other river. Two, the tour guides like to point our similarities between Prague and Budapest – cities divided by a river with a castle district on the hills to the west of the river and a larger portion of the city to the east of the river. To us, the comparison ends there. They are cities distinctly different with their own characteristics. Three, the most popular US president in Budapest is Ronald Reagan. They have a statue of him in downtown Pest. The reason is that they credit him with the policies that caused the collapse of the Soviet Union and the eventual full independence of the country in 1991. You have to remember that the country was occupied for centuries – Ottomans, Hapsburgs, Germans and Soviets – and they have only really been free for the past 24 years.

Day 8 – Prague to Budapest by Train

Czech train from Prague to Budapest

We left Prague under overcast skies and a temperature of about 60 degrees. We had a reservation on the 9:42 am Czech EuroCity Slovan train to Budapest. This train was comparable to our last Czech InterCity train but with a slightly newer coach. Same 6-person compartment and we shared with several Czech, none of whom tried to speak to us. Then we had a very nice couple get on in Bratislava who spoke decent English and we talked with them the rest of the way. He was from Bratislava and she was Belarus and was working on her PhD.  It was nice to have a discussion with people who aren't just limited by the American point of view. They were headed on to Romania. The train stopped several times along the way at various points with no explanation and so we arrived about 40 minutes late, taking about 8 hours to cover roughly 360 miles. Arriving on time seems like somthing that never happens, but nobody seems to have any expectations of that so they just accept it.

St. Matthias Church

There were lots of hustlers around the Prague train station. Not sure what their con was, but in best case they are just looking for tips. One "helpful" guy told us  thetrain for Budapest always leaves from track 3, same place for last 10 years. We left from track 5. Another guy insisted on putting our bags on the train. I gave him some change and he said it was only enough for a small coffee so I gave him some more and he left us alone.

The train ride was mostly through freshly tilled farm land with an occasional orchard or patch of rapeseed with its tell-tale chartreuse color, a mixture of bright yellow flowers and the green of the leaves. By the time we reached Budapest it was after 5 and the we had left the clouds behind us and it was almost 70 degrees. It was impossible to tell Czech scenery from Slovakian or Hungarian. Even the occasional small town with its solitary church steeple looked the same. Only the lettering on the signs was a slight give away. 

Hungarian Parliment and the Danube

We reached our Hilton hotel on Castle Hill in the Buda section of town and it is in a fairy tale scene. It is right next to the beautiful St. Matthias Church overlooking the Danube and the Pest section of town on the other side of the river. The river and key buildings such as Parliament are well lit and reminiscent of Paris. Of course they like to call themselves “the Paris of the East” and who can argue with that.

Day 7 – Prague

St. Vitus Cathedral

Prague, or Praha in the Czech language, is really a very beautiful city. This mainly stems from the fact that it was largely spared the bombings of World War II and many of their older buildings still remain. Prague dates back to Roman times but the town as it is today is largely due to Charles IV, King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor. He established Prague as his capital city and built the Charles Bridge in 1357, started building the St. Vitus Cathedral and laid out the many of the plans for the city.

Prague Castle and St. Vitus viewed from the Charles Bridge

Prague is a city loosely divided into sections – the old Jewish quarter, the Old Town quarter where we are staying, the castle district, New Town, Lesser Town, etc. It is also a walking town with many pedestrian zones. We can testify to the walk-ability of Prague as we actually walked from Prague Castle on the west side of town to our hotel on the east side of town. It was roughly 2 miles, but fortunately mostly downhill as the castle is on one of the highest points in town. This was part of our Prague City tour.

Prague's Astronomical Clock

Speaking of the Jewish quarter, unlike the tours in Munich, our guide openly talked about the extermination of the Jews during WWII and other atrocities committed by the Nazis. What she didn’t talk about so much was also interesting and that was their occupation by the Russians until 1989. She kind of hinted at problems but didn’t criticize anything. Maybe she was afraid of a Russian comeback or maybe just that she lived through that period.

We saw all the major sites of Prague today and then some. We were at Prague castle when then they did the changing of the guard so we got to see that really up close. We toured St. Vitus Cathedral, walked down the hill from the castle through the Lesser Town section and across the Charles Bridge and back into Old Town. The squares in Prague are amazing. The Old Town square was exceptionally beautiful with the twin towers of the Church of Our Lady and the old City Hall with its astronomical clock dating back to 1410.

Old Town Square at dusk

Here are some little known facts from our tour. One, “Good King Wenceslaus” of Christmas carol fame was really only a prince. Two, the most beloved US President here is Woodrow Wilson and the main train station was named after him until the communists changed its name. It has since been changed back to Wilsonova. The reason that Wilson is so popular is that after WWI, he made Czechoslovakia an independent republic. Prior to that, they had been ruled by the Hapsburg dynasty and the Holy Roman Empire since the middle ages. Three, the Czech Republic is one of the newest countries in the world, coming into existence only in 1993 when Czechoslovakia was split into two pieces. Four, she claimed that the Czechs drink more beer per capita than any other country. I don’t know about that one as we personally saw a lot of beer being drunk in Germany.

Day 6 – Train from Munich to Prague

Our train in the Munich train station

Today we took a Czech train from Munich to Prague, covering a 250 mile distance in 6 hours and 45 minutes. This train was a definite step down in speed and also “niceness” of the accomodations.  We had a six seat compartment assigned this time and we also had a couple of travelling companions, off and on, during the trip. The first was a nice German lady who wanted to talk the entire time but spoke no English. By the time she got off the train in Regensberg, my head was hurting from trying to speak German. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. 

Our train compartment

As seems to be a regular feature when travelling a longer train route, there is always a wrinkle in the plans. This time we had to get off the train in Pilzn, which is across the German border in the Czech Republic. Pilzn is Pilsen in English and the source of the name Pilsner for a type of beer. We were originally on a thru train to Prague and they moved everyone to a local train. This train was actually nicer that our InterCity train but it made many more stops so we got to Prague an hour later than planned.

In Prague we are staying at the Hilton Old Town on points and they offered so send a driver for us, which we accepted as it was about the same price as a taxi ride and we had heard several times that the unlicensed taxi drivers in Prague will try to rip off tourists. That was very convenient but it also forced me to try my phone to let them know we were going to be late. To my surprise, it worked. Of course the rates are $2.59 per minute according to a text I got from T-Mobile, but that was also very convenient.

Pork, Cabbage and Bread Dumplings

We started our evening with a quick drink at the Beer Museum. With a name like that, we had to try it. The Czech Republic is famous for brewing and also consumming beer. Then we went to dinner at a local place, actually called Lokal, that I had seen highly recommended on the Internet. We had gotten a recommendation to try the cabbage and dumplings in Prague so we both tried it and it was delicious.  Because this was a local place, their prices were super cheap. Our bill with drinks, an appetizer, two entrees and a dessert that we split was 539 CZK, or about $21 for the two of us.

Day 5 – Touring in Munich

Today was our day for touring Munich proper and we had a two-pronged attack planned. The first was a guided walking tour of the old city part of Munich and the second was to use the Hop-On, Hop-Off Bus to get to sights that were outside of the old city. We had good weather, sunny but still a bit cool. It was in the low 40s at the start of our touring but got up to around 60 in the afternoon.

Marienplatz

We started our walking tour in the Marienplaz (Mary’s Square) with a concert by the famous Glockenspiel. It plays three times a day for about 12 minutes and features figures at a wedding, a joust in honor of the wedding and some coopers dancing.

Interior of the Frauenkirche

The heart of Munich is the old town section of the city. This area is dominated by the twin towers of the Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady) and no building is permitted to be taller than those towers until you get to the distant suburbs so they are very visible. In the photo, you can see the two green-tipped peaks of the church just to the right of the golden statue of Mary on the column. The glockenspiel is a couple of small windows about 50 feet up on the center bell tower of the Rathaus (city hall building) on the right. One thing to remember about Munich is that it was about 80% destroyed in WWII, but the church and the facade of the Rathaus survived.

Olympic Aquatics Center (foreground) and Olympic Tower

Olympic Stadium

We left the walking tour about mid-way in and moved to the bus part of our day as we simply didn’t have time to do everything in one day. The bus took us about 10 miles outside of the old city area and we saw Nymphenburg Palace which was the summer residence of the rulers of Bavaria, the BMW factory and museum - after all BMW does stand for Bayerische Motoren Werke (Bavarian Motor Works) - and the site of the 1972 Olympics. We didn’t go into either the Palace or the BMW museum, but we walked around the Olympic grounds quite a bit and went up into the Olympic Tower, which is the highest structure in Munich.

From the tower you could see a great distance and the Alps were visible, but slightly hazy. You could just make out the Zugspitze, Gemany's highest mountain, about 70 miles in the distance and on a clear day they say you can see Switzerland. We also stopped in one of the museums (the Neue Pinakothek) in the museum district to take advantage of their one Euro price for Sundays and to see their excellent collection of Impressionist paintings.

Day 4 – Bavarian Castles

Us, in front of the gardens at Linderhof

The rain from yesterday has passed by but left us with an overcast sky and cool temperatures, 41 degrees as we left on our tour. Fortunately we brought warm clothes for the occasion.

Today we took what is called the “Royal Castle” tour which took us to southern Bavaria near the Austrian border. We boarded our bus a little after 8 am and didn’t get back until about 6:30 pm, which seems long but the day went pretty quickly as we made friends with a couple from L.A. and we toured together. We met when we each jumped into the front seats of the second level of the bus to get the best view for the tour.

Interior view of the King's Bedroom

Our first stop on the tour was Linderhof Palace, which along with Neuschwanstein Castle, was built by King Ludwig II in the 1860’s. Ludwig is often called “Mad” King Ludwig for his extravagant spending on castles which essentially bankrupted him. At that time, the king was no longer an absolute monarch in Bavaria and his ministers had him declared incompetent; he drowned a few days later under very mysterious circumstances. Linderhof is built in the style of Versailles in France and has marvelous guild work and mirrors. No interior pictures are allowed so I borrowed one.

Site of the Passion Play

Our second stop was at Oberammergau, the site of the famous German Passion play which is performed by the townspeople every 10 years. The play was first performed in 1634 after the town was spared by the plague. There are 2000 people involved in the play and each one must have been a resident of the town for 20 years. Children must be exempt from the 20-year rule as there are many of them involved as actors as well. Bill was here for the play in 1990, but since then they have added a retractable roof to keep the audience dry in bad weather.

Neuschwanstein Castle

The final stop and highlight of the day was a visit to Neuschwanstein Castle. This is the most visited castle in the world and supposedly was the inspiration for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle. A visit required a grueling uphill hike of more than a mile and 200 more steps within the castle, but it was well worth it. By the time of our visit, the skies had cleared and the view from the castle was stunning. It overlooks a great panorama of lakes and plains and a view of his parent's castle (yellow in the photo).

View from the castle

In the evening, we continued our tour of the various beer halls in Munich by dining at Augustiner Keller. It was a raucous crowd on a Saturday night and we shared a table with a group of young Swiss men, very drunk and very eager to try their high school English on us and talk about the Eagles. They were really very polite. When they left, a large group of Scottish men took their place. They were holding a bachelor party for one of their friends and took him to Munich. We sat next to two lawyers, actually solicitors as they explained, and they couldn’t have been any nicer. When Jeanne couldn’t finish her meal, one of the guys asked if he could finish it because he didn’t really like German food. He said it was quite lovely – essentially pork medallions and German-style macaroni & cheese. I, of course, had a huge plate of various meats with sauerkraut and a potato dumpling. The food and beer were excellent once again.

Day 3 – Guten Tag from Munich

Frecciabianca in the Milan Station

We woke to a light drizzle and cooler temperatures, in the mid-50s. Of course it is never pleasant to travel when it rains, but it is always much better to have rain on a travel day than having it on a sightseeing day. We had a two block walk to the train station in the rain with our umbrellas and then boarded our first train of the day. This was the Frecciabianca (White Arrow) which is a high-speed train that runs from Milan to Venice, but we got off in Verona.

On board in comfort

The Frecciabianca hits peak speeds of 120 MPH and will be the fastest train we will take on this trip. The ride was very smooth and we had an area to ourselves. The trip took 1 hour and 22 minutes and we passed through the mostly flat Italian countryside. Average speed by my calculations was about 72 MPH, including stops.

You can’t get directly to Munich from Milan without changing trains somewhere, so in Verona we switched to an Austrian train. This train route heads north and follows the mountain valleys through the Italian Dolomiti mountains and crosses the Austrian Alps at the Brenner Pass, which is now mostly a tunnel. The scenery changes from vineyards in Italy to Swiss-style chalets and snowy mountain peaks on the Austrian side of the border. We immediately start looking for Heidi with scenery like that!

ÖBB markings on our Austrian train 

This was a InterCity train which is slower than the bullet trains but still pretty luxurious compared to the regional trains. It was schedule to reach Munich (270 miles) in 5 hours and 19 minutes or an average of about 50 MPH including stops. Of course there is always a wrinkle in every plan and our coach had no power so they moved us to another coach in the rear of the train early into the trip and then swapped the car out in Innsbuck, which put us 30 minutes behind schedule. We had no connects so no problem for us.

Scenery in Austria

Our hotel, the Europäischer Hof, couldn't be more convenient and we like the room. It's a bit small by American standards but nice. ‎Dinner was at the Hofbräuhaus. Yes, it was a bit touristy but the food was good, the beer was great and we each had some of our favorite German dishes.

Day 2 - Milan

Duomo (Cathedral) in Milan

Today was a second nice day in Milan. It was a little cloudy but the temperature was in the upper-70s.  We slept late, until after nine, to recover from the jet lag and then we took the Metropolitana downtown to the Duomo. From there it was a short walk to the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, which is a combination library and museum. It houses some great Renaissance paintings by Bottecelli and Da Vinci, but now also has an exhibit of the original Da Vinci codex. The codex is a loose collection of Da Vinci’s papers and illustrated drawings of his inventions. It was a nice, old style museum taking you on a rambling walk through about 20 rooms on various floors. One nice thing is that this museum is off the beaten path and there were hardly any tourists here, just a couple of school groups of children.

Stained Glass (Christ in the storm)

From the museum, we walked back back to the piazza to tour the Duomo. When we were here several years ago, there was a mass in progress and we couldn’t see most of the cathedral. It is a beautiful Italian Gothic style cathedral with massive stone columns and stained glass windows. It took nearly 600 years to complete the cathedral and is the 5th largest church in the world and the largest in Italy. That last statement is a really technicality as St. Peter's is bigger but it is in Vatican City which is not part of Italy.

Italian Girl

After a quick lunch, we went to see The Last Supper, which is Da Vinci’s masterpiece showing Christ at the moment he announces that one of his disciples will betray him. The painting was done with a dry fresco technique and hence is very detailed but also very fragile compared to the wet fresco technique. They strictly control access to the room through two sealed air chambers and limit groups to 30 at a time to prevent further deterioration. We bought these tickets several months in advance as there are virtually no same day tickets. While waiting to get in to see The Last Supper, we listened to someone playing mostly English songs on the guitar in the piazza. After I asked (and tipped him), he played three Italian songs for me, two of which I knew very well. It was apparently so inspiring that an Italian girl strted posing to the music while her boyfriend (and I) took her picture.

La Scala

In the evening we went to La Scala to watch the ballet, Giselle. La Scala is one of the two or three most famous opera houses in the world but the ergonomic design of the seating is several centuries old (opened in 1778) so it very tight with obstructing poles here and there. Of course being in the cheap seats, relatively speaking, didn’t help. Even with the discomfort the ballet was magnificent. I counted a ballet corps of 24 ballerinas and at least a dozen men, not counting the main ballerinas. The synchronization of movements was fascinating and very beautiful to watch. Fortunately we had studied the story in advance so we were able to follow the plot pretty well. It was a late night as we got back to our hotel around midnight with an early start planned for the next day.