Recharged.

Our last few days spent in Germany were wiled away in Rothenberg ob der Tauber and Frankfurt. The former is an incredibly well preserved medieval town, the latter a city surprisingly reminiscent of Portland that I will explore all over again with you tomorrow.
  
Rothenberg is a gorgeous town that we likened to an adult Disneyland. The houses (actually, all the buildings) were built in the beautiful Bavarian style and the streets were small and cobbled. The wall that surrounds the city was bombed in World War II and has since been rebuilt and honors those that donated with plaques inscribed with their name and hometown.

We spent two nights in Rothenberg and, for the most part, it was peaceful. If you were to visit, be prepared to either shop or be bored out of your mind. The walking tours suggested take up only a small part of the day and there really isn’t a whole lot to do outside of that. There were a lot of student groups (which we found out why later) and older couples strolling through the streets. I’m pretty sure we were the youngest ones there that were NOT part of a group.

The morning after we arrived, we were lunching on pizza (surprise?) and heard what sounded like cannons going off. And then marching type music. We finished our lunch and went to investigate. There was a parade! We had no idea at the time, but Rothenberg was hosting music ambassadors from the US.  We watched for a bit and then followed the parade route to find out there was a Volksfest happening outside the town wall.

Wandering through the Volkfest, we marveled at how similar it was to American fairs. Until we came to the beer garden.

Oh yes. A giant beer tent was set up, complete with German size steins and traditional music. We picked the most awesome of weekends to come to Rothenberg. We ended up visiting the beer garden twice that day as there really wasn’t much else to do in Rothenberg besides the Night Watchman tour, which we missed. We ended up wandering the walls the rest of the day and part of that night and took some pretty photos. I think I’m making it sound as if we were bored out of our minds, but I feel Rothenberg was the perfect town to stop and take a breath.

Barreling through Munich

Aaah! You know when you get really busy and days just fly by and you forget to update your blog? Well that happened to me, minus the busy part. I just didn't post.

The problem with travelling all over a beautiful country such as Germany in a short amount of time is the sad fact we didn't get to see very much at all. We had two full days to spend in Munich, one reserved to visit Neuschwanstein. The remainder of that day and the second day we saved to visit a beer hall and explore the city. Well, castle visiting went much longer than we thought (thanks to waiting for the required guided tours) and we had to leave Munich at a somewhat reasonable time to get to Salzburg early. As I will explain soon, this backfired no thanks to some shitty Google walking directions.

We arrived in gorgeous, sunny Munich exhausted from train riding and not expecting the heat. Our hotel was quite a hike away, but we didn't feel comfortable attempting the subway. So we hoofed it. Along the way, my grumpy, sweaty self was excited to see this:

In case you can't see the date, it was founded in 1397! A brewery older than the US! Long before Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue! If you're not from a somewhat "new" country like the US, it probably means nothing to you, but I cannot get over the history of the place. I knew that Munich and I would get along despite the sun. We finally reached our hostel (Hotel Nymphenburg, which I STRONGLY recommend, despite the hike) and the very sweet staff directed us around the corner for food. We settled on an Italian restaurant (a cuisine Germany is VERY good at) and were not disappointed. Something we've learned over the span of our travels: choose a place that's busy. You're almost always guaranteed good food and service, even if you're cheap like us! I had plenty of vegan options in Germany thanks to Italian restaurants and the beer purity laws. That's right, they don't see the need to add shit like gelatin, milk powder or eggs to their beer. I *heart* Germany.

 

And that was kind of it for our first night. I think we were both pooped from travelling and had an exciting adventure to get up early for the next day.

The train from Munich to Fussen (the town outside of Neuschwanstein) was something like 3 hours. It was a very pretty ride, but when you share the train with other obnoxious tourists, it kind of makes you crazy. The gorgeous scenery helped (and the fact you can drink beer on the train).

 We got to Fussen, bought our tickets and figured since the (required) guided tour didn't start for another couple of hours we would hike to the castle. It was about a mile up, no worse than hiking to our very own Multnomah Falls, but it was HUMID as hell. Humidity is not something Portland offers. This lady made me feel even worse about my uncomfortable hike:

C'mon, HEELS?! And a hat?! It took everything I had no to strip off all of my clothing. Well, and Jeff told  me not to. We finally made it, though, sweaty and stinky and thirsty. And it was SO WORTH IT.

 

 

 

 

I rank this castle higher than Versailles any day. Ludwig planned it as a tribute to Wagner's operas, and all of the detail that went into it was just so amazing. Unfortunately, no photos allowed inside, but you must go. Right now. And then have this after, because it is uber sticky and hot up there at the top.

 

Our last day in Munich was spent stashing our bags at the Munich train station and searching for Hofbrauhaus, one of the oldest beer halls in Munich. It also happens to be a site where Hitler held one of his first meetings for the Nazi party. Just the thought of being in a place where something like that happened gives me the chills.

Because Google walking directions suck major ass, we got lost. And then, like almost every other time we got lost during this trip, it began to pour. Now, I'm used to the rain. But when you're lost and the surroundings are unfamiliar and it starts to rain, it feels as if the world is conspiring against you.

 

 

Somehow, SOMEHOW, we found the right street and subsequently Hofbrauhaus. It was AMAZING. The seating was family style and the room was noisy and raucous. We sat next to a German couple from Frankfurt that didn't seem to mind our wet company and swapped travel tips (they told us about Frankfurt - good for shopping - and we told them about Hway 101 and Route 66 - good for driving). Munich, I officially want to come back.

I hope to have a post up about Salzburg today or tomorrow. In my opinion, Portland and Salzburg should be sister cities in their weirdness.

How to ride a train in Germany.

The last half of our trip involved using a lot of trains to visit a lot of cities in Germany. I feel that we didn't get to explore Germany as thoroughly as I had hoped, but I suppose we earned an appreciation for a country that neither of us were familiar with.

We bought a rail pass through Rick Steves for Germany since we had a few very long travel days. While there are cheaper options than a rail pass (such as the German regional passes) we really appreciated the lack of thinking required on our parts. Riding the rails with our pass kind of felt like we were using a super efficient public transit. The trains were plentiful, the schedules were excellent and we always had a seat. I am so jealous of how easy it is to get around Germany.

The cities in which we stayed were Cochem, Heidelberg, Munich, Salzburg (Austria), Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Frankfurt. I'll touch upon each one in the next two posts, but the cities we enjoyed the most were Munich, Salzburg and Frankfurt.

Cochem was just a quick one night stop for us. We left Amsterdam that morning and were quickly introduced to the German rail system and just how efficient it was. As in, we missed our stop in the middle of nowhere due to our inability to open the door of the train fast enough. The stop before Cochem was at least an hour out and we feared the next stop we'd have to get off at was just as far. I won't lie, we panicked a little. It was already after 7pm, on a Sunday, and we were hungry and exhausted. Luckily, the next stop was only 15 minutes away and we were able to turn around without any issues. The remainder of our train riding in Germany was spent like this:

Our first stop, Cochem, was a gorgeous little town on the river of the Mosel. I had booked a room just past the center of town, not realizing how far the walk was. Thanks to a long day of travel and rapidly dropping blood sugar, I was one cranky snot during our two mile walk to the hotel. When we finally reached it and retrieved the key from underneath the flowerpot (no lie) I was enraged to see that our room was at the very top of the guesthouse. I had to CLIMB STAIRS. WOE IS ME. But I quickly knocked off the attitude when I saw the view from our window.

After I sat a bit and munched on a reserve Larabar (lifesaver) we went and found dinner. I don't have a photo, but the one restaurant we managed to find close to our hotel was Mexican. MEXICAN. I ordered a veggie burrito that I asked the waitress to hold the cheese on and Jeff ordered enchiladas (but got a burrito). The burrito came without cheese on top, but with some kind of crumbled cheese inside (feta?) that I tried to pick around and I'm almost sure made me sick the next couple of days. If you can imagine not being able to get authentic Mexican food outside of Mexico and some southern states, Germany is a hell of a lot worse.

The next morning we attempted to find Burg Eltz near the little town of Koblenz. Since we had to check out (and leave money on the table, also not a joke) by 11am, we had to take our stuff with us. We wrongly assumed the train station in Koblenz would have luggage storage. As we emerged from the train into the misty rain and entered the station, we noticed the station was empty. Of anything. No lockers, no rail employees, no people. Assuming (again, wrongly) that there would be some kind of shuttle to the castle, we took off on foot with our bags. Now, I am still a fan of using backpacks while travelling, but that shit gets heavy. And I got whiny, again. I had hurt my foot in Amsterdam (slipping off a curb or something dumb) and it was really bothering me. So we didn't get to see the castle because I am a baby.

Our next stop was the college town of Heidelberg. For those of you that grew up in the Pacific NW, Heidelberg is the German equivalent of Pullman, WA. Absolutely NOTHING going on. We had a really crappy hostel above a supermarket that promised a buffet breakfast but really offered bread (only one piece), jam and cereal. After we dropped our bags, we attempted to explore the city. Here is what we found that first night:

 A weird sculpture.

 Beer.

 Vegan appetizers.

Firebowl. A bowling alley where we played many games of foozeball.

Needless to say, Heidelberg was not winning us over. We kept seeing ads for this awesome pub quarter, but couldn't find it. The next morning we hiked across town to check out the castle. It was gorgeous and historic and awe-inducing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I feel the city slightly redeemed itself by keeping this castle around and available to explore for reasonably cheap. But I would not go back.

My next post I move on to happier places like Munich and Salzburg. You are excited. I have coined Salzburg Portland's sister city because it is SO WEIRD AND AWESOME.