After a drive of about 4 hours, we were passing through areas of forest that frequently brought to mind the adventures of Hansel and Gretel. There were increasing amounts of snow as we drew closer, and many substantial clusters of tall, dark green firs or pines beside the road and on the surrounding hills and mountains. Unfortunately, I didn't really get any good photos of these gorgeous Schwartzwald scenes!
That evening we wandered around the peaceful streets of Tennenbronn in search of somewhere to eat, before deciding the restaurant in our guesthouse actually looked the most promising. Dinner was great – my meal was an unusual but tasty “Black Forest speciality” of pork with cherry cream sauce! Afterwards, to our surprise and delight, we were invited by our friendly server (the owner?) to join the group in the room next door!
From Ben's earlier enquiry as to what the gathering next door was about, we had learnt that they were a group that get together occasionally and wear traditional costumes, play music, recite poetry or stories, and learn various crafts. So, we were led to a table where, with a conversation consisting of follow-my-example gestures, laughter, and everything but a mutual language, a friendly bee keeper taught me how to make a candle using only a sheet of yellow beeswax, a piece of string, and my hands.
Along with the efforts of the few others who were likewise being taught this most precise art, mine was frequently unrolled and redone by the bee keeper with much patience and vigorous explanation, but when I had finally finished he seemed to approve. It was a lovely example of the spontaneous kindness of strangers, and the memory of that will last far longer than the very nice-smelling souvenir of the Black Forest we gained in the process. :)
(Insert overdue realisation of missing mobile phone here, and arrangements promptly made for its subsequent return to England via the backpacker who answered it, the hostel reception it was handed in to (after aforementioned backpacker apparently changed the ringtone but at least did not make any long calls to China), the small fee charged by said hostel, and the postal service.)
The next day we set off on a drive up into the mountains. On the way, we had a lot of fun choosing the “shortest route” rather than the “fastest route” on Tommy, our GPS. Each time, the selection of the shortest route was immediately followed by this warning:
"Please note: Research has shown that the 'Shortest' route is usually not as safe as the 'Quickest' route, as well as taking longer and being less fuel-efficient."
True indeed to this warning, we were led on quite an exciting wild goose chase through the middle of a snowy-floored forest of green-moss-trunked trees and piles of logs. We bumped around a maze of narrow dirt tracks covered in snow, churned up muddy patches too doubtful to drive through, and random piles of rocks strewn across the road. A great deal of reversing was done before we eventually found our way out and decided to stick to the fastest route, at least for the rest of the day!
The views up in the mountains were gorgeous - next after Liechtenstein on the "best scenery of the trip" list! Snow-covered hills, lots of trees, charming houses...
Once we reached our destination, Feldberg, we had a bit of a walk around the snowsports area, where it was snowing lightly. We had initially set off that day with the intention of going snowboarding, but unfortunately this did not eventuate – mainly due to the limited time left before the lifts closed by the time we got up there.
We then set off back down the mountain to one of the larger cities in the area, Freiburg im Breisgau. There, we happened across the town square containing the Freiburg Münster, a large medieval cathedral. We had a bit of a look around and then discovered you could climb the spiral staircase inside the clock tower, which, according to Wikipedia, has been standing there since 1330 and is 116m tall! So, we set off up the spiral metal staircase inside the tower, around and around and around, passing en route the evidence of ongoing restoration work.
After many steps, we reached a little shop near the top, where it was actually someone's job to sit far above the city all day and admit tourists! From there, it was just a few more steps until we reached a platform surrounding the tower's 16 bells, which range in weight from 80kg up to 7 tonnes - incredible!!
As you may well be able to imagine, I was extremely relaxed due to our extreme height above the city and the reassuring motion of the wind gently rocking the ancient tower, and I did not jump at all when the bells suddenly struck a quarter past as I was standing right beside them.
After a pleasant interlude in a bookshop, where we bought a couple more German-language books (including another Tintin), we ate dinner in one of the restaurants lining the square containing the Münster, and then headed back to Tennenbronn for our second and final night at the guesthouse.
Phase I (husband)
Leave camera charger behind in England.
Spend half a day looking for a new one in Brussels, Belgium. Eventually find one.
Phase II (wife)
Take wedding ring off to moisturise hands shortly before checking out of guesthouse in Liechtenstein. Merrily check out of guesthouse, leaving ring sitting on wooden foot of bed. To be truly ridiculously forgetful rather than just forgetful, ensure it is a particularly inconvenient guesthouse to return to – i.e. one that can only be reached by a 600m trek up the side of an icy, snow-covered mountain.
Realise ring has been forgotten only after driving 8 km down the mountain.
Call guesthouse. Communicate location of forgotten ring to lovely English-speaking lady host, who has already anticipated that the call is about a forgotten item before being told.
Return to foot of toboggan run. Find minimal-English-speaking husband of host loading up snowmobile trailer with toboggans. Communicate nature of forgotten item by pointing at naked ring finger. Secretly hope one can hitch-hike up the mountain on the snowmobile, retrieve ring, and travel back down on a toboggan.
Call guesthouse again and receive joyfully the news that the ring has been located.
Endeavour to give phone to husband of host so that his wife can explain the situation. Experience extreme difficulty doing so. Discovering that amateur German-speaking ability disappears when needed most, try explaining via English and gestures to minimal-English-speaking husband of host that one does not need to borrow his phone, nor be given the phone number of the guesthouse. One simply wants him to hold the phone to his ear and say hello. Eventually realise one does know a relevant basic German sentence, “sie sprechen mit ihr Frau”, and this does the trick instantly!
Husband of host communicates that he will go up the mountain on his snowmobile with its trailer load of toboggans, collect the ring, and bring it back with him in 20 minutes when he comes down to get the next load.
Experience joyful reunion with ring.
Phase III (husband)
Leave mobile phone behind in Munich, Germany. To be truly ridiculously forgetful rather than just forgetful, ensure it is left in the only room on the entire trip that was shared with six (or indeed any) backpackers.
Leave Munich, drive out of Germany into Liechtenstein, spend day and night in Liechtenstein, leave Liechtenstein (all of Phase II occurs here), drive back into Germany to Tennenbronn in the Black Forest, check into guesthouse, relax, wander the streets, eat tea, make a beeswax candle, etc etc.
Ensure wife feels guilty about Phase II.
Only then, notice absence of mobile phone...
A few days before leaving England, we had found out that Rachael B (working as an au pair in Switzerland; see first blog post from October 2007) and her two younger brothers (over from Australia to visit her) would be travelling through Europe around the same time as us, and our paths were going to overlap in Munich!
En route to Munich, we saw lots more beautiful snow...
We arrived in Munich at about 5pm, which was also when Rach and crew had expected to arrive, but due to the crowds and waiting around they encountered during their visit to Neuschwanstein Castle, they got into Munich on the train around 7pm. After not too much trouble, we found the street corner they were waiting on, got introduced to Matt and Nathan, and then all five of us bundled into our car and set off to find somewhere legal to park.
We didn't have long with them as they were taking an overnight train to Berlin, but we had a very pleasant few hours wandering around the city centre, watching ice skaters, drinking glühwein/punsch to keep warm, and laughing at strange pizzeria ladies who refused to sell two pizzas to five people. Eventually we ended up having tea at Burger King.
Ben said afterwards that it was just so nice to be able to completely relax and talk freely – not having to worry about speaking slowly and clearly, speaking another language, toning down our Strine, etc! :)
That night we stayed at the same youth hostel we had stayed at in June 2006 with Jim, Jenny, Merity, Fraser, Ash and Tish: the Easy Palace City Hostel in Munich. We were in an 8-bed dorm (on opposites sides of the room to each other because that's where the free beds were) - the only night of the trip when we stayed in a dorm that actually had other people in it (twice we had a 4-bed dorm to ourselves)! Apart from some people crashing in at 2am, the person below Ben snoring extremely violently, and some others leaving even earlier than us, it wasn't too bad!
We awoke at 6:30am and quietly got ready to leave. The reason we were up and going so early was because we had plans to drive to Liechtenstein and go snowboarding that day!
We had breakfast at Maccas somewhere in Germany because I wanted pancakes, but they didn't even sell them! Thankfully this marked the end of our brief foray into eating at American-style fast food joints in Europe (three times in less than 24 hours – there was another Maccas moment I didn't mention!).
The scenery as we got closer to Liechtenstein was absolutely stunning. We could see the Alps, blue in the distance, with generous smatterings of snow and fir trees. The strangest feeling on this drive was at times not knowing which country we were in out of three or four possibilities – Germany, Austria, Switzerland, or Liechtenstein!!
As we arrived in Liechtenstein and began winding our way up a steep, narrow road zigzagging up the side of a mountain en route to our guesthouse for that night and then the ski fields, we could not stop raving about the absolutely breath-taking views. It was the most spectacular scenery we saw on the entire trip.
We think that the valley we were looking down into, surrounded by the snow-covered mountain ranges of the Alps, was basically the entire country of Liechtenstein. The charming houses had colourful window shutters and snow on their roofs, a river wound its way through the towns in the bottom of the valley, and the blue and white mountains were all around us! I can't describe it adequately, so here are some photos I took of the views that day and the next...
When the GPS told us we were about 1km from our guesthouse, it became apparent that we could not drive any closer to it. “Rodelbahn”, said the warning sign at the foot of what looked like a narrow road disappearing up the mountain to where our guesthouse presumably was. One quick flip through our aforementioned German dictionary later, we realised that “rodelbahn” meant... TOBOGGAN RUN!!!
Well, it turned out that reaching our guest house involved a 600m trek up the side of the mountain on slippery, icy snow... And leaving it required a winding, 1km downhill run on a small wooden toboggan (rodel)!!! AWESOME!!!!!!!!!
Our initial trudge up the mountain was a bit tiring, for me at least, but my new brown boots did quite a good job of only slipping slightly and occasionally, rather than plummeting me over the edge of the mountain. The gorgeous views of the surrounding mountains and quaint houses scattered across the hills below were also a nice distraction from physical exertion!
Once we reached our beautiful, quaint guesthouse, perched at the top of the toboggan run and looking out over a valley, thick snow all over the ground, we discovered that it also seemed to be location of the local toboggan club! They had a shed full of toboggans, a podium for place-getters in toboggan races, and people coming and going all day on toboggans!
We were curious as to how we would get all our luggage up the mountain, but the lady of the house took Ben down in her car, which had snow chains on, and transported it all up that way. After checking into our room, we discovered that the chair lifts at the ski fields on top of the mountain were closed due to the windy conditions. Unfortunately, this put an end to our much-anticipated day of snowboarding in the Alps.
However, we decided to drive up to the ski resort, Malbun, and have a look around. Obviously this required getting down the mountain via the rodelbahn, which was thoroughly awesome fun and went a little way towards making us feel better about not getting to go boarding! Ben was at the front and did most of the steering and braking, while I was the camerawoman capturing part of the run so that you could all share in the fun. Hope you enjoy it!
When we got to Malbun, we could see there were some T-bars in operation on the beginner slopes, but we decided it was not worth buying half-day passes for that. It was extremely windy at the top of the mountain, almost pushing me over a couple of times, and the big gusts would whip up flecks of snow from the ground that stung the little areas of our faces that were exposed.
Anyway, we had a look through one of the shops at the resort, where I quite enjoyed the antics of a mechanical accordion-playing beaver but did not end up taking him home. I also needed a belt to hold up my ski pants and stop the bottoms of them trailing in the muddy slush, but since the shop didn't have any, I've ended up with a pair of red floral braces instead – quite a unique souvenir!!
Later in the day, we tobogganed down the mountain again from our guesthouse and explored the capital city, Vaduz. We didn't see too much; just ate some chocolate cake and looked through some shops.
Back up the mountain, Ben did an extra solo toboggan run as I could not bear to walk up the hill again – the price you pay for each adrenalin-filled, over-too-quickly descent via rodel!
That evening we had tea in the restaurant at our guesthouse.
In the morning (Friday), we ate breakfast at the guesthouse and I enjoyed making use of an available guitar for awhile. When it was time to leave, we discovered that our luggage would be transported down to our car on a trailer pulled by a snowmobile, which Ben got to ride on with the man of the house! The snowmobile was how, at frequent intervals, all the toboggans found their way from the shed at the bottom of the hill back up to the guesthouse. Anyway, this meant that I got to do a solo toboggan run down to our car. :)
Then, we set off to the Black Forest (Schwartzwald) in Germany...
Writing this while driving through the French countryside on the 6th, en route to Luxembourg...
On New Year's Day, we awoke in Prague after a pleasant sleep in to discover it was snowing! It was the first time either of us had ever seen proper snowflakes falling. They were shaped like tiny flat little stars, about 4mm across, drifting slowly and gently down to the ground. Gorgeous! So we didn't get our white Christmas, but we got a white New Year instead. :)
We decided to take one of the many walking tours advertised in the brochures at our hotel, meeting at the Astronomical Clock in Prague's Old Town Square at 2pm for a 3.5-hour walk around the city's old quarters. However, by the time we got up and going, had breakfast, waited around for trams etc, we actually missed our tour so decided to explore by ourselves instead.
In the Old Town Square, we discovered it was the last day of their Christmas markets. The market stalls were in little wooden huts with greenery and gold Christmas lights along the edges of their red roofs. The square also contained a tall Christmas tree and was lined with interesting old buildings, and in the centre was a high platform for taking photos and enjoying the view from.
This was the setting of an hour or two of contented wandering around, buying some souvenir gifts and trying a few new foods. We had roasted chestnuts (not that great), langosé (a deep fried pastry base with tomato paste, garlic and grated cheese – quite nice), and trdlo (a wide spiral of pastry coated in sugar – yummy!).
When we first got off the tram, we had passed a sign advertising a free concert at 4pm in one of the grand old buildings lining the square, St Nicholas' Church. It would be a performance of Christmas carols from around the world by a high school choir from the USA, the Madrigal Singers from Queensbury High in upstate New York. Well, we decided to check it out, and this turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip, and made us quite glad we had missed our tour!!
They were brilliant!!! There were 22 choristers, equal numbers of boys and girls, and they performed beautiful Christmas carols in at least three different languages and in multiple parts. The boys wore suits and bow ties, and the girls wore long skirts and short sleeved shirts that they were very obviously freezing in despite the heaters nearby.
These kids sang like professional adult singers – it seemed absurd that they were teenagers and this was just their extracurricular activity!!! They didn't use any written music or instrumental backing, and, in the entire hour or so, I didn't hear a single wrong, missed, uncertain, or off-key note. A couple of times they got soloists out the front, and there was one round sung by a trio consisting of the lady conductor and a mother-daughter pair who were on tour with the choir.
The acoustics in the old, round, high-ceilinged building were fantastic. There would have only been a hundred or so people in the audience, and we were in about the fourth row. The videos I took don't sound anywhere near as good as the real thing, but hopefully they give you a bit of an idea!
Click here for a video of Go Tell It On The Mountain.
Click here for a video of Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer.
Afterwards, we went up and congratulated the conductor and she told us that the choir rehearses every morning from 7am before school, plus one night a week, as well as whatever practice they do on their own. So perhaps that level of dedication goes some way towards explaining their phenomenal talent! Anyway, I really think it was some of the best singing I've ever heard – very, VERY impressive!!
...Now continuing this whilst driving between Luxembourg and Delettes, France, where tonight will be the last night of our trip...
After dark (as the sun currently sets at about 4pm over here!), we wandered around the markets a little more while the vendors were packing up. The square was very pretty at night with all the lights and the big Christmas tree.
From 6pm there was a massive fireworks display near the river, this time an official one, which we could only just see the top of above the buildings around the square. Just beforehand, we had seen thousands of people lining the Charles Bridge to await the display.
Once it was over, the enormous swarm of people who had been watching the fireworks began to flood into the Old Town Square to eat and listen to the opera-like vocal duets we had been watching on a temporary stage in the square, so we headed off and strolled down some of the nearby streets. We came across the old Jewish quarter, which is another area that our walking tour would have taken us through. We also saw the Prague Castle lit up on the other side of the river.
Then it was back to the Sport Hotel for a lovely sleep. The next morning we did a bit of shopping in the precinct mentioned in the last entry, before driving back into Germany for our night in Munich... which would be spent at the exact same youth hostel we had stayed at with Jim, Jenny, Merity, Fraser, Ash and Tish in June 2006!
Admiring the Christmas decorations in the shopping centre, which was closed except for a book store and a stall selling glühwein (mulled wine)
Our gorgeous room that turned out to be an entire apartment
The guest house owners, who could speak only minimal English but were very friendly – Ben got a big hug from the lady!
Wandering the Christmas-lit city centre in the freezing cold at night
Eating Chinese for tea at a restaurant where we were the only customers, we ordered in German, and there were piano renditions of American country songs playing softly
Going to the Wilhelmshaven Naval Museum the next morning (Thursday), which did not have many signs in English but was very interesting anyway! We saw a torpedo, mines, shells, machine guns, code machines, navy uniforms, a hippopotamus skull, model ships, battle paintings, letters... And outside the museum, we got to go inside a U-Boat (submarine), minesweeper (ship) and missile frigate (bigger ship). It was fascinating to wander around inside them; the submarine especially had a mind boggling amount of controls, dials and switches the entire length of it!
Staying the next two nights in Mölln (Moelln)...
Strolling through the town's gorgeous paved streets and exploring the nice shops
Eating tea at the Moellner Grill, which was cheap, cheerful and yummy!
Relaxing in our nice hotel room across from a big lake (with the tank speed limit sign out the front)
The next day (Friday), taking it easy most of the day
That night, wandering the town looking for somewhere to have tea, and finding a gorgeous little café, beside the town's museum, in a really old building with crooked beams and various dining rooms (we had the non smoking room to ourselves most of the time). Due to the likelihood of a café having smaller meals, and the prices being very cheap, we decided to just order the two most expensive things on the blackboard menu because we could not understand anything on it, except that our meals included pork. Well, Ben ended up getting a fry pan containing a big mound of green stuff, on top of which was a large sausage, some bacon, and a slab of pork, plus a separate bowl of roast potatoes. He thoroughly enjoyed it and managed to eat it all! I got a wooden cutting board on which sat a crackle-covered mound of pork about half the size of my head, plus a separate bowl of salad containing lettuce, tomato, corn, shallots, radish, various seeds, mayo etc! I didn't even get halfway through the meat, although I did eat all the crackle and part of my gum is still sore from it now, 4 days later! But that was very fun indeed!!
The next morning, having a bit more of a wander around the town before leaving for Berlin. We bought a German-English dictionary and a light-looking novel called “Jack and Jenny” in German, so that if I get motivated enough, I can read it using the dictionary in order to improve my German. Apparently that's one of the best ways to do so!
The drive to Berlin was my first time driving on this trip (although we swapped over before getting to the city), and my first time ever driving on the right-hand side – a bit scary! Plus there are often open speed limits on German highways, and if there is a limit it's usually 130km/hr, so during this right-side drive in a right-side driver's seat car, I had to do 130-140km/hr! But we survived. :)
The next two nights in Berlin...
Our hotel was in East Berlin and we had a huge room that even had WiFi once we got it all sorted out with the Bulgarian owner – quite a saga, but at least he now knows his WiFi password should another guest ever ask for it!!
Driving past the graffiti-covered Berlin wall
Exploring the impressive, modern city centre at night, and checking out the sales at an enormous, posh shopping centre near the Alexanderplatz
Eating a delicious meal at a large Italian restaurant
Going to the meeting on Sunday morning, which turned out to be quite small and in three languages – German, English and Spanish! Not much translation this time, but we got a few bits and pieces and it was a very special morning.
After a bit of lazing about back at our hotel, we set off to explore the city centre in daylight, where we saw...
Lots of amazing, huge, grand buildings with columns, statues, and various other ornate bits
An enormous old cathedral beside a river, and a guy nearby fooling the crowd (and making an income) with an old trick involving three little boxes, a marble, and the hand moving faster than the eye
A huge art museum with a flautist busking out the front, and free entry into one circular gallery that was lined with statues of Greek gods (see current header panorama at top of page)
Lots of scaffolding, barricades etc, due to restorations being underway on lots of old buildings
A packed ice skating rink called “Berlin on Ice”
A beautiful street called Unter den Linden (Under the Lindens – a type of tree), which had a wide pedestrian avenue down the centre of the two directions of traffic. The walkway was lined with four rows of trees, currently leafless, with their branches spectacularly outlined in golden lights as far ahead as could be seen. The lights weren't wrapped around the branches like you mostly see, but were carefully running along the top and bottom of the branches so it looked like a sketch of each tree glowing against the darkness – absolutely gorgeous!! My camera has made the lights look quite silver, but in real life they were bright gold...
The famous Brandenburg Gate, with its huge columns, and the statue of horses and Victory-bearing-chariot on top
Beyond the Gate, a wide road lined with market stalls stretching out into the distance, selling all sorts of edible, drinkable, and wearable things. A large Ferris Wheel called the Moulin Rouge towered over the festivities partway along the road. Our unique first anniversary dinner turned out to be a large waffle with stewed cherries, a stick of chocolate-coated strawberries, and some glühwein!!! :D
When we left Berlin on the 31st for Prague, where I'm writing this, we drove via Dresden and had a bit of a look around the city centre. Dresden was almost completely destroyed by massive fires during World War II bombing raids, and there were reminders of this in the soot-blackened old buildings and occasional areas that don't seem to have been touched since then. In the centre of town, we came across a fabulous park square lined by amazing old buildings and statues – not sure what it was because there were no signs in English, but it was certainly very old and impressive! We had a delicious lunch in a café inside what used to be a old guard house, and then continued on to Prague. Prague has been fantastic, but I'll save that for the next entry! Happy New Year!
