Note: This post is part of a series:
Christmas Trip: The First Days
Christmas Trip: Rome, Part 1
Christmas Trip: Rome, Part 2
Christmas Trip: New Years

We had reservations the morning of the 27th for a train from Munich straight to Venice. Straight shot, no train changes, and straight through the alps, something we were all looking forward to. We got to the train station with about 30 minutes to spare, and the train pulled in about 20 minutes before departure. We walked the length of the train to the car where we had our seat reservations… Or where it was supposed to be. Car 258, 257, 256…. 255? Wheres 255? Car 255, the car that our seats were in, wasn’t there. The train just stopped at 256, missing a car. What’s more, there were several others in the same predicament. Leaving the family with the luggage on the platform, I walked up to the conductor to ask her if she knew anything about it–sometimes, they add another car in the station. “Don’t know, I think they lost it.” They lost it? Please explain to me how one loses a 20 ton train car. She didn’t seem to know much more than that, so I then pounced on the lone TrenItalia employee walking through the train, who was also being mobbed by others missing their seat reservations. “Excuse me, we have reservations for car 255, and there isnt a car 255.” “Yeah, I know.” “So, is one coming?” “No.” “Um, we paid for reservations–where is the car?” “Dunno, they lost it.” “So then where are we supposed to sit?” “Good question.” At which point he turned around and left. Eventually we had no choice but to board the train, grabbing free seats in the hope that the people that had reservations in them wouldn’t show up. We lucked out, getting an almost empty cabin until about 2 hours away from Venice, when two of us were kicked from our seats and had to move to another cabin further down the car. I asked another employee during the ride what happened to the car, and all I got was a shrug and “kaputt.” I guess that’s what you get for riding on an Italian train.

Aside from having to spend the whole ride not knowing whether or not we’d be kicked from our seats and have to stand the whole 7 hours, it was an excellent ride. The train took us through the heart of the alps, and we all gawked at the snow covered peaks towering above us the whole way as our train wound its way through the mountains. We eventually got to Venice roughly on time, and checked into our hotel, the Hotel Abbazia. Tucked into a side alley just around the corner from the train station, it was a great little place. Nice rooms, good service, great prices, and the location meant that we didn’t have to schlep our luggage all over Venice. We ate dinner in an excellent trattoria around the corner, gorging ourselves and enjoying the excellently smooth wine. Afterwards, a quick walk to digest, then back to the hotel to rest up for the next day.

Our plan for the day was to basically just get lost in Venice. We were only there for one full day, and there weren’t any individual sights that we just had to see, so we decided to go more for the experience of Venice, and get ourselves lost. The wonderful thing about Venice is that there are so many side streets and alleys that are off the beaten tourist track. Some of them are so narrow that only one person can walk down them at a time, and if someone else comes, one of them must back out so the other can pass. All of this makes for a wonderful atmosphere. There are also the canals. While the Grand Canal was impressive, the ones I like the best were the small ones, winding their ways lazily through the town, seeing very little traffic. Walking along these canals, especially on the smaller bridges off the main traffic areas, one can imagine the city as it must have been hundreds of years ago. And then there are the colors. Everything seemed to be colored the most beautiful shades, from the pastel buildings to the bright boat covers to the turquoise water. I loved this, and took many photos to capture it.

Eventually we made our way to Saint Mark’s Square, the main square in town. Everyone would immediately recognize it from countless movies, TV shows, even commercials (think the diamond commercials). Also, the ever present pigeons. As many people were crammed into that square overlooking the lagoon, there were more pigeons. And the pigeons there had become so used to people, that you could almost step on them before they would fly off–and I even saw them landing on several people. There were tons of children running around chasing them, providing plenty of entertainment. We then moved on to walk alongside the lagoon, admiring the views of the buildings on the other side, with the gondolas hawking rides to everyone. This area of town is the main tourist drag, and unfortunately, after seeing the square, there was little else there except for Gucci and Prada stores–nothing any of us wanted to see, though we did see an excellent mime who was looking like a statue and scaring people as they walked by.

We soon made our way back to the other end of town, near our hotel, and ate a very late lunch, filling ourselves again on good food and good wine. After a quick break, my dad, mom, and I went back out so that my mom could look at some of the interesting shops she had seen along the way. I ended up buying a nice black and white photo of the lagoon, and my mom ended up with several pieces of glass jewelry. By then, everything was starting to close, so we headed back to the hotel to rest and get ready for the trip to Rome the next day.

As always, more pictures in the photo gallery, and check out my Flickr page for even more.

Note: This post is part of a series:
Christmas Trip: Venice
Christmas Trip: Rome, Part 1
Christmas Trip: Rome, Part 2
Christmas Trip: New Years

I made it back to Tübingen this morning after spending the last two nights in Stuttgart. Here’s the first part of the Christmas trip…

The family got into Tübingen on the 22nd without any troubles. I met them in the airport with Lindsay, who was flying out on the flight they flew in on, and after getting the rental car and getting Lindsay to her gate, we all went to pick up the car from the garage and try to get to Tübingen. I say try because the garage was something of a maze, and trying to figure out the different signs in a car that was about to explode from all the luggage was a bit interesting. Things worked out well though, and after getting onto the autobahn, it was a straight shot into Tübingen.

We got checked into the hotel room at the Hotel am Schloss, a nice little hotel right in the middle of the Altstadt, at the foot of the castle. We got all our bags in the room, and went to walk around the Altstadt. I took them to get a Döner, something they all loved, and then to the coffee/tea/chocolate shop, wine shop, and a few other places, including the castle their hotel room looked out upon. That night, we had an excellent Swäbish dinner at a local restaurant, and then I went back to my dorm room to pack while they went to bed early to sleep off the flight.

The next morning, I went to the hotel to pick them up. We ate breakfast in the hotel, in a nice breakfast room with a view looking over the altstadt and a terrace that would be wonderful to eat on in warmer weather. Then we piled back in the car and got on our way to Colmberg and Rothenburg.

Getting to Colmberg was a surprisingly easy thing to do. Autobahn the whole way, and we made pretty good time. We got to the castle, got checked in, and made a quick tour of the castle before heading onto Rothenburg ob der Tauber. We wandered the medieval streets there for a time, enjoying the Christmas market, drinking our Glühwein, eating our bratwurst, toasted almonds, and crepes, and attempting to go to the medieval torture museum there, only to be thwarted by an early closing time. So we headed back to the hotel and proceeded to eat a most wonderful dinner. Lots of fresh venison, and everyone left the table stuffed.

The next day, we headed back to Rothenburg to see that museum. We wandered there for a couple of hours, and then got back in the car to head to Munich. Rather than taking the interstate the whole way, we decided to go the scenic route and take the Romantic Road, a route that passes through the countryside, winding its way through one medieval town after another. It was definitely the right choice to make, and we enjoyed beautiful scenery the whole way down.

We made it Munich in good time, and picked up the keys to our hotel, the Hotel Alcron, from a nearby restaurant since the front desk had closed early. The Hotel Alcron, while not the nicest hotel, has an unbeatable location in the heart of Munich, and the prices are quite affordable as well. There is a wonderfully rickety spiral staircase running up to the whole hotel. That first night, we ate dinner at the Weinhaus Schneider, a small restaurant around the corner from the hotel. We had a wonderful Christmas eve dinner, topped off with good wine and a great chocolate mousse for dessert, in what was one of the best meals of the trip. After the meal, we walked for a bit around Munich, admiring the gothic Neues Rathous in Marienplatz with its massive Christmas tree out front, and eventually ending up at the Frauenkirche, the Church of our Lady, the cathedral in Munich. The bells were ringing loud, signaling the start of the Christmas eve service, and so we wandered inside. There, we sat there and listened to the choir, accompanied by strings, singing through its carols, followed by a bit of the service, with heads craning upwards staring at the rows of massive columns stretching high above our heads. It certainly beat the service back home.

The next day was Christmas. We lazily got up and ate breakfast, then ambled around the town for a while. There is a surprising abundance of large European architecture in Munich, more than one would expect–one doesn’t equate huge architecture like in Paris, Rome, or Vienna with Munich, but it had its fair share. We saw many of the sights, but unfortunately, as it was Christmas, most places were closed. That evening, we ate a nondescript meal at the Wirtshaus zum Straubinger, then walked home, in the falling snow.

That next day, we had planned on going to see Ludwig’s castle of Neuschwanstein, but as we hadn’t realized that you had to get reservations at least 24 hours in advance, that idea was cancelled. So instead, we went to the Deutsches Museum, the German version of the Smithsonian. Inside are over 10 miles of exhibits, so you definitely had to choose. We visited the aircraft, spacecraft, tunnelling, physics, musical instruments, trains, and, my favorite, bridge building. An extremely interesting museum, and well worth the entire day we spent inside it. And we didn’t even see half of what’s in the place.

The next day, we hopped the train to Venice…

A quick update–I’m still alive. I’m in Venice with the family, and have just awoken to the sound of church bells ringing. Better than an alarm clock…

I’ll have plenty to post when I get back. I already have a bit written, but I won’t be able to do the images until I get back, so I’m waiting.

I hope everyone had a merry Christmas…

Christmas is fast approaching, and with it, the visits of my girlfriend and then family. Lindsay got here last Friday, and was here until Thursday when my parents arrived. With the family, we will be travelling to Munich, Venice, and Rome. As such, posting will be very sparse, if it comes at all, until the new year. In the meantime, I’ve compiled this list of travel posts I have made since the site started. Enjoy!

Bebenhausen
Oktoberfest
Amsterdam
Paris
Burg Colmberg, Rothenberg
Berlin
A Bit More About Berlin
Nuremberg

Happy Holidays, everyone…

Christmas has hit hard. Several weeks ago, just about Thanksgiving, decorations started going up. Nothing serious, nothing like the jam-packed shopping malls decked out in lights and holiday colors that typify the season in the US, but still, it was coming. And it kept coming. Slowly, things going up one at a time, until a week or so ago when all of a sudden, it seemed like someone threw the switch and the city was fully decorated.

Then, last Friday evening was Die Feuerzangenbowle. Die Feuerzangenbowle is both a drink and a movie, and it is quite the custom to drink the drink and watch the movie this time of the year. The movie is here what It’s A Wonderful Life is to the US. The drink is red wine mixed with spices (most likely cinnamon and clove), orange juice, and strong rum. There is then a cone of sugar placed over the pot, which is doused in 54% rum and lit afire. The sugar caramelizes and drips down into the drink, sweetening it. This Friday night, the whole thing was on a big scale. There was a movie screen hung from one of the medieval houses on Platz vor dem Haagtor, a small plaza in the western Altstadt, and a massive projector and speaker system showed the movie for the hundreds of people gathered there. And they had the drink as well. A massive pot, further across than I am tall, and with a sugar cone taller than I am on top, was lit afire, with huge blue flames reaching for the sky. I bought myself a cup of the warm drink and stood there, bundled up, watching the German movie. A most excellent experience, and the movie was pretty good—though I’m amazed they managed to make it at all in 1944, with Germany fighting on two fronts and being bombed day and night. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so the photo here was taken by Lawrence Tooth, who has generously allowed me to post it here.

Also last weekend was the Tübingen Weinachtsmarkt, the Christmas market here. A much smaller, though I felt, more genuine version than the one in Nürnberg. Unfortunately though, it was only that one weekend, which also meant that the market was unbelievably crowded, and it took one about 20 minutes to move 20 meters. I did, however, have the best Glühwein I have had—and it was also the cheapest I’ve had. Some things are just done better on a smaller scale.

Everyone, go give Pandora a try. Pandora is an online radio station, but a bit different from most. Enter a band or song you like, and it’ll play that artist or song, and then move into other songs/artists that are similar. You can then rate these selections, making your future selections more accurate. It introduces you to tons and tons of music you wouldn’t have otherwise found. Most excellent.

I fixed a couple problems in the photo gallery, namely the category views being all sorts of messed up. Turned out to be some buggy code in the paged archive code. Upgraded to new version, and all is good. Anyways, the photo gallery should be much easier to browse through now. Enjoy.

On Thursday morning, I got up early again and hopped on another train, this time to Nuremberg. I wanted to see the Christkindlmarkt, the Christ Child Market, Nuremberg’s world famous Christmas market. I got there about 12:15, and after checking into the hostel, headed out, stopping on the way to get some Nuremberg bratwurst, a smaller and more heavily spiced version than a “normal” bratwurst. I was very much in the mood for taking a lot of pictures, and so wandered around, camera in hand, seeing what caught my eye. There more than plenty, with the colorful stalls overflowing with their Christmas wares, all sorts of ornaments and carvings, and the various German Christmas foods, Glühwein and Lebkuchen. There were many people out as well, and I had no shortage of subjects to photograph.

I headed into one of the churches, the Saint Sebalduskirche. Like most of Nuremberg, it was destroyed during the second world war, but rebuilt using as much of the original stone as possible. While not the most impressive church I’ve ever seen, the inside was filled with a veritable treasure trove of interesting nooks, with carvings and paintings, and all sorts of other things decorating the place.

From there it was on to the castle. Unfortunately much of it was closed for some reason, but the museum with it’s collection of medieval armor and weapons was still open, as was the main tower. I climbed the stairs to the top, and was rewarded with a splendid view over old Nuremberg, enclosed in its rebuilt city walls, encompassing its castle, churches, and cobbled lanes. The view was aided by the castle’s location, perched on a small plateau overlooking the city.

That evening, it was back to the Christkindlmarkt. Christmas markets are totally transformed at night, with the lights and the crowds walking around, a choir singing on the stage, and the trees all lit up. I sipped a glass of glühwein and wandered from stall to stall. Unfortunately it was hard to take pictures thanks to the low light, so I put the camera away and just enjoyed the experience. Afterwards, I headed into a bar and sampled a Rauchbier from Bamberg, a beer where the hops are smoked before being added to the brew, giving the whole beer a rich smokey flavor. On the way back to the hostel, I stopped to listen to a violinist on the street playing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. He was extremely talented, nailing every one of the difficult violin progessions in the pieces. His violin case, open in front of him, was full of money, and not just the normal 10 and 20 cent pieces–I saw several €20 bills in it, and a mass of other bills and larger coins.

The next morning, I headed to the Reichsparteigelände, the infamous Nazi Party Rally Grounds everyone knows from the images of the massive ranks of troops all hailing Hitler like a God. The grounds were bombed heavily during the war, and so there isn’t much left of them. Much of it has been turned into parks and such now, but enough remains to get a good view of what they were. Make sure to check out the pictures, I have a comparison of what they are now to what they used to be.

As always, there are tons more pictures in the photo gallery. Check them out. You can work your way through them chronologically starting here.

I feel like I left a lot out of my Berlin post, but rather than keep editing that monstrosity, I’ll just post the random points here.

-I met several cool people. Joseph, an Australian, I met in the bar the first night, and again on the walking tour. Cool guy, with a razor sharp wit. Living in Dublin and working there for a while, in Berlin on vacation. Also, several other Aussies. There are more Aussies in Europe than Americans I think. And Japanese. Tons of Japanese there. And for some reason, they couldn’t work any of the locks in the hostel. Maybe the keys turned the opposite way from what they were used to? It was kind of funny to watch them try, it’d take them about 3 minutes to open any locked door. It’d be interesting to know what was so different…
-Everyone spoke perfect English. It was maddening, I couldn’t get in a word of German. As soon as I opened my mouth (and I like to think my accent is pretty good), they immediately knew I was American and started speaking perfect English to me.
-Unfortunately, I didn’t get to sample any of Berlin’s infamous nightlife. I was tight on funds, and paying €10 cover to get into a place and pay for overpriced drinks isn’t gonna stretch that money too much. Besides, clubs sketch me out, and I had tons of stuff I wanted to do during the days, not spend the days sleeping off a hangover. And not too many clubs are likely to let in a lone guy in jeans with unkempt hair.
-I really can’t recommend Brewer’s Berlin Tours enough. This tour rocked. The guy was funny, witty, knew everything, and the tour was cheap, to boot. I was very impressed. But what should I expect? The guy has been leading foot tours of Berlin since before the wall came down, and worked for the British embassy in Berlin for a long time. Be warned though, it ran on longer than the advertised 7-8 hours–we were out there for 10. Worth every minute though.
-Berlin is surprisingly cheap. Especially for a city. Pleasant surprise…
-I wasn’t impressed with the Berlin subway system, despite the good things I had heard about it. It was slow, there weren’t enough lines, and it was impossible to change lines. It took 20 minutes to get somewhere that you could walk to in 20 minutes. And expensive–single tickets cost €2.10. London and Paris have it whipped, though Rome is lightyears behind.
-There were lots of good international restaurants, especially Thai or Vietnamese restaurants. I ate in this one that was incredible, and cost me €5 for an entree. And they had this wonderful sweet and sour sauce that was unlike anything I’d ever had…
-The Döners in Berlin were different. Different kind of bread, more of a focaccia and less of a pita. And the Sharfsoße was curry based, not chili and garlic based. I’m not sure which I like more…
-Both the American and British embassies were guarded like fortresses, especially the American. They had massive concrete roadblocks blocking every road near it, with guardhouses and police all over, not to mention a serious wall surrounding the embassy proper. And this is right in the middle of Berlin. The British embassy was a little more classily protected, with these cool retracting roadblock posts in the street that would sink into the ground to let a car through if need be. But whoa, you’d think this was Saigon, 1975. They were building a new American embassy right next to the Brandenburg gate, complete with 18 inch thick reinforced concrete walls.

That’s it for now–I’m off to bed so I can catch a train to Nürnberg tomorrow morning to see the Christmas market and such…

Thursday morning, I got up early and caught a high speed ICE train to Berlin. Even on such a fast train (155mph at times), it still takes about 6 hours for the journey. This doesn’t bother me too much though–I’d much rather spend time on a train than in a car or airplane. Trains are much more comfortable, have more to look at out the window, are much less of a hassle, and you can get up and walk around. I really wish we had a good train infrastructure in the US. Anyways, I got to Berlin at about 2PM, caught the subway to my hostel, and checked in.

I stayed in The Circus hostel, and was quite impressed. Very comfortable, clean, and relaxed, and often felt more like a hotel than a hostel. Unfortunately, being winter in Germany, it was already getting dark out, but I headed down to the Brandenburg Gate to have a poke around. I got a few good pictures, and then walked down the street to the Reichstag. The Reichstag was very impressive, and much larger than I had imagined, but unfortunately due to the low light (at 4:30 in the afternoon, it was pitch black), I couldn’t get any pictures, so I headed back to the hostel to find somewhere to eat. They pointed me to a very good and very cheap Thai restaurant, and I was very pleased.

The next morning, I decided to go on a walking tour of Berlin. I’d heard several good things about Brewer’s Berlin Tours, and that they were an excellent way to get some insight into the tremendous history of Berlin that you can’t find in a guidebook. They were right. The tour was led in our case by the owner of the company, Terry Brewer, a grizzled old British guy who has lived in Berlin since before the wall came down. We all met up in the freezing cold outside, myself dressed in two pairs of pants, three shirts, my wool overcoat, a hat, and gloves, and proceeded to walk around Berlin for 10 hours. Terry was an encyclopedia of knowledge, pointing out tidbits of information about seemingly random buildings as we walked by. He seemed to know everything, and buildings that you normally wouldn’t have take a second look at turned out to have some very important history behind them. The tour was also a good way to get a feel for the city, and see how it was layed out. Most of the standard sights, like the cathedral, Brandenburg Gate, and the museums, were all in the East–in fact, I think I was only in the West a couple of times during my whole visit. Despite this, most of the old Soviet buildings have either been torn down and rebuilt or totally overhauled thanks to the appalling condition the Soviets had left them in, and you oftentimes wouldn’t even know that you were in the old East Berlin. Even 16 years after the wall came down though, the city is still shrouded in a blanket of construction. Everywhere you turn, buildings are covered in scaffolding, draped in construction covering, and watched over by several towering cranes. The joke used to go that you couldn’t get a crane in Europe because they were all in Berlin. Imagine a city that was isolated, neglected, and abused for 50 years, only to suddenly spring into the daylight, and that is Berlin. Despite this, they conserve some of the past, and one can see a few buildings that still show bullet and shrapnel damage from the war–such damage is even visible on the Brandenburg Gate.

Anyways, the next day, I went back to the museums to go inside and spend a bit of time in them. First up was the Egyptian museum. Currently housed in the Altes Museum because it’s normal home is under the shroud of reconstruction, it was an interesting display, but I must say I was somewhat underwhelmed. I think the problem was that the viewing space was possibly smaller than the normal location, and so not as much was on display; regardless, it felt that just as I was starting to get into it, it ended. Not to be phased, I headed down the street into the Pergamon Museum. The Pergamon is a museum in the vein of the British Museum in London. And given that the British Museum is by far the best I have ever seen, I was quite pleased with the Pergamon. While certainly not as large as the British Museum, it was nonetheless impressive. In it are the Ishtar and Miletus Gates, the latter under reconstruction to repair damage sustained in WW2. Also of interest, the Berlin Kore, an ancient Greek sculpture I had to learn about in my Greek Archaeology class and immediately recognized upon seeing, pointing out the details to myself before even the museum recording playing in my ears could say it. An excellent experience, and similar to what I experienced in the British Museum. After this, I went over to the Berlin Cathedral, and after listening to a bit of a choir concert, walked up to the top of the dome and admired the view of Berlin. By this time, it was getting dark, so after quickly walking through one of the Christmas markets, I headed back to the hostel to find some dinner.

The next day, my last final day, was considerably more quiet. I got up early and headed over to the Reichstag with the intention of climbing to the top of the glass dome, but arrived to find a massive line out the front and stretching into the field in front of the building. Everything was like that that day–the tour bus crowds were out in force. You could see them, busses pulling up to sidewalks in front of all the sights, and the tourists disembarking like locusts to swarm all over things, rudely talking loudly, shoving for better camera angles, and generally just being obnoxious. I saw people loudly walking into the War Monument (wearing hats as well), laughing and playing tag in the Monument to the Murdered Jews of Europe, and generally doing disrespectful shit. So I headed off to an internet cafe and passed the rest of the day drinking coffee and surfing the internet. A quiet end, but better than dealing with the tourist hordes.

The next day, up early and then back home. Not much to write about there.

I must say, the best (though somewhat morbid) part of the trip however, was finding the location of Hitler’s bunker, the place where he spent his last days before killing himself and being burned. There’s an eery sense about the place, made all the more so because there is nothing marking the spot and no tour book guiding you there–the German government refuses, perhaps rightly so, to put any sort of monument or marker there for fear of it becoming a rallying point for Neo-Nazis. Terry showed us the spot, which I later managed to back up with a bit of Googling. Today, an apartment building and parking lot stands on the spot. Part of the bunker was torn up to build the apartments, but a significant part of it still remains, and you can see the inconspicuous locked steel doors leading down into it. There is a children’s playground right about on the spot that Hitler is supposed to have been burned, making it even more creepy. All the people living there know what they are living over–seems rather creepy to me. I’m not sure I’d like my children playing on the ground where that man was burned. But nonetheless, my curiosity for history made the place supremely interesting to me. It’s not too often you can stand on the ground where the most infamous figure of the last century met his end, with not a soul around to make a noise.

Anyways, make sure to check out the photo gallery. There are tons of photos up from the trip beyond was is shown here.