Day 176 - More great buildings

Nuremberg to Dresden - Quality Hotel Plaza

Before leaving Nuremberg we visited the old Nazi Parade Grounds (Reichsparteitagsgelände), and learnt a little more of the history of the Nazis and their involvement in Nuremberg. Some of the old films and photos at the Documentation Centre were especially interesting, as we could recognise some of the buildings we'd visited the previous day.

We drove from there to Dresden, checked in to our hotel, and caught the tram into town. The architecture here was amazing, more and more we are realising what a young country Australia is and how we have nothing that really compares to these old cities. Even though nearly everything was flattened in WW2 they have rebuilt nearly all of the beautiful buildings. As in most other European cities, all the sights are quite close together so it makes it easy for walking around and Dresden's are set quite close to the river. Every time we think we have seen enough for a while we find the next city better than the last.

Day 175 - Next stop Nuremburg

Munich to Nuremberg - Sorat Agneshof

We arrived in Nuremburg to find our hotel was right in the town centre - tiny cobblestoned lanes with heaps of tourists walking about and car parks the size of matchboxes! These towns are not built for cars and they do their best to keep them out. On the plus side our hotel had its own car park (it was one where they stack the cars vertically) so at least we were close to everything.

We wandered around town, as usual checking out the churches, city walls, town square, statues, bridges, etc. We also took a walk around Nuremberg Castle, though we were there at the end of the day so we couldn't get inside.

The old town centre was lovely to walk around, and relatively quiet too once the streets were cleared by a sudden downpour. The buildings were so authentic, and there were some great sculptures in some of the squares, certainly not what we'd expected given what we'd known of Nuremberg's history (Nazi rallies, etc.). We were also interested to find an "Australian" ice cream and chocolate shop, selling chocolates with aboriginal designs on them, but from what we could tell the chocolates were made in Germany!

Day 173 to Day 174 - Concentration camps and glockenspiels

Oy-Mittenberg to Munich - Kings First Class Hotel

Day 173 - After a lovely night we again braved the autobahn to head to Munich, we were a bit nervous at the prospect of driving in a big city for the first time. By now though we've got the hang of driving on the wrong side of the road at 150kmh, but even then we are in the slow lane most of the time.

We decided to go via the Dachau concentration camp. The camp is a massive place, and held about 200,000 prisoners over the time it was in use. We watched a short film, then wandered the displays in the old factory building reading about the history of the camp, and the inhumane treatment of the prisoners (which included being kept in a standing cell, which was so small that the walls on each side your elbows and the walls in front and behind touched your legs so there was no other option but to stand). Many of the old buildings still remained, though most of the sleeping quarters had been demolished.

After that sobering visit we drove to Munich to find it quite quieter than we expected, at least as far as driving went, so it was a breeze finding our hotels car park.

We walked into the city centre which was crowded with tourists, and spent some time checking out some of the old buildings and other sights (cathedral, city hall, various town squares, etc).

Day 174 - Today we headed off to the Deutsches Museum, the world's largest museum of technology and science. It was an extraordinary place with the the most amazing exhibits on every type of subject, from tunnel building to robots, DNA labs to nanotechnology. We both enjoyed the visit enormously, it would have been well worth a second visit.

We made it back to the Marienplatz (central square) to see the Glockenspiel in the tower of the city hall do its thing at 5pm, which was quite cute. We then walked down to the English Garden, and managed to see the nude sunbathers (though that's not why we were there .....). Apparently it is quite a Munich thing to do to head to the park and take off your clothes to get that full body tan - can't see it catching on in Melbourne though.

Day 172 - Fairytale castles

Augsburg to Oy-Mittelberg - Hotel Gasthof Ratskeller

Today we drove to the end of the romantic road to visit the castles that Ludwig II of Bavaria built and lived in, the most famous one being Castle Neuschwanstein, which is supposed to be the inspiration for the Disney castle that we remember from the credits of the old Disney shows.

On the way we stopped at Landsberg Am Lech for lunch, another one of those villages on the Romantic Road, but this one had a nice view over the River Lech, so we skipped the quaint buildings and bakeries and went for a walk along the river instead. The countryside along this part of the Romantic Road was beautiful, green fields, picturesque farms and villages, and the German Alps in the background.

So far we have found the tourist crowds in Germany to be quite reasonable, so we think we've made the right decision to bypass France for now. We had read that the castles were very popular, but we certainly didn't expect the crowds that were there! We were lucky we didn't arrive at the castles any later, we joined the queue for tickets to Neuschwanstein around 2:15pm, and just managed to get into the last English tour at 6:15pm!

We had more than three hours to wait, so we wandered around the town of Hohenschwangau for a while, then headed up to the castle and took in some other walks to fill in time. The views were great, it really is a picture postcard place!

The inside of the castle was amazing, incredible paintings all over the walls and even a man-made cave where Ludwig would sit and listen to Wagner! However we did feel the tour could have been better, we were rushed through what is an extraordinary place and we feel we missed so much. By the time we finished it was around 7pm, so we headed off to our hotel in a village not too far away.

Day 171 - Seen one, seen them all ....?

Steinsfeld to Augsburg - Best Western Dasing Augsburg

We continued our journey along the "Romantic Road", stopping at the towns of Dinkelsbuhl and Nordlingen along the way. It's probably bad form to say this, but these medieval towns are a bit like English villages, once you have seen one, you know what to expect - city walls, cobbled streets, Christmas shops, bakeries and cake shops, breweries, nicely painted houses, town square with a Rathaus (town hall) ....

Having said that however, we thought Nordlingen was quite nice, we spent some time walking around the streets, one of the good things was that it is much less touristy than Rothenberg, and a lot more like a town where "real people" live, and not just a tourist destination.

We booked into a hotel near Augsburg, and then headed into Augsburg for the evening. Augsburg is quite a large city, with a very large square, is more like a "modern" city than other places we've visited on the Romantic Road.

Day 170 - Romance is in the air?

Heidelberg to Steinsfeld - Hotel-Gasthof zum Schwan

We picked up our hire car (a one way rental dropping off in Berlin in a week's time) and headed for the Romantic Road. Our trusty GPS helped us a lot - it's bad enough driving on the wrong side of the road, at least we didn't have to worry about getting lost.

Our main destination for the day was Rothenberg-on-der-Tauber, a medieval walled city that's very well known, the old walls are intact, and the old buildings are very well preserved (apparently it has also been used for a number of movies).

We walked around the town and also along the walls, and into the castle gardens. The views over the river valley were amazing,we could also see far below a stage being set up for a music festival which was to feature Iggy and the Stooges - M was disappointed that we weren't going to be around for that, it would have been a great setting!

There were tourists everywhere, though it thinned out at one point when it started raining. For afternoon tea we shared a "schneebal" (snowball), one of the local pastries - they look tasty, but as it turned out it wasn't that nice, just some pastry loosely rolled into a ball and sprinkled with sugar.

We had booked accommodation out of town in a place called Steinsfeld, as we had a car we now had the luxury of staying in cheaper places out of town, especially as many of the older towns have very narrow streets and limited parking. However as nothing was open in Steinsfeld we had to come back in to Rothenburg for dinner anyway!

Day 168 to Day 169 - "Everyone's favourite German city"

Cologne to Heidelberg - Hotel Heidelberg

Day 168 - Another train trip (about 4 hours), we had paid extra for reserved seats only to find that there were people already sitting there. After some rearrangement we managed to sit down, but at a later stop someone else had exactly the same problem. Lesson learned - we won't be booking seats unless we have to.

For a change the tourist information office in Heidelberg was really helpful, they told us how to get the tram (yes, more trams) to our hotel.

Heidelberg is really pretty, it's on the river with hills around and is quintessentially German - well to our Aussie eyes anyway. In the evening we trammed into town, then walked through the Altstadt and along the river, noting points of interest to revisit tomorrow.

Day 169 - From Heidelberg we are planning to drive, so first task of the day was arranging a hire car for pickup the next day. We then took the funicular up to to Heidelberg Castle (yep another castle). The view from the castle was very pretty, and the castle itself had some interesting sections, including giant wine casks, a pharmacy museum, and a very nice garden area nearby.

After lunch we crossed the river and did the Philosopher's Walk, with more nice views of the river, city and castle. Midway through it started raining, we managed to stay dry by taking cover along the way, but as it turned out we ended up getting drenched later on when we had to get from the tram stop to our hotel!

Overall we have enjoyed Heidelberg, and its easy to see why it's known as "everyone's favourite German city".

Day 166 to Day 167 - Why does Melbourne think its trams are so special?

Dusseldorf to Cologne - Park Inn Cologne City West

Day 166 - The train from Dusseldorf to Cologne required two changes which was not that difficult but when hauling your luggage it's a bit of a pain. Being the weekend we got a good rate at the Radisson as it is a business hotel and is only 10 minutes by tram to town. A small price to pay for a nice room at a cheap price according to us!

The more we travel the more we wonder why Melbourne is always pushing how special it is to have trams, we are finding trams very common place on our travels. Maybe Melbourne needs to get out more! One thing we haven't seen though is a city with restaurants of the quality, variety and value as Melbourne. When you are home you hear how good Melbourne's food is but it is only when you travel that you realise you take it for granted.

Anyway, back to Cologne! The cathedral is extraordinary, and we thought we were over cathedrals after our time in the UK and Amsterdam. Cologne cathedral is the highest Roman Catholic cathedral, and fifth tallest in the world.However it's not just the height (after climbing 530 steep winding steps to the top) but the sheer size and appearance that are so overwhelming.

Day 167 - Cologne is also the home of "Eau de Cologne" - we saw it in a few shops but its not pushed at all, rather it's more subtle, there in the background, but not forgotten.

We visited the Museum Ludwig, which holds one of the largest Picasso collections in the world. Along with other modern art pieces, it was similar in some ways to the Tate Modern in London, but we both much preferred the Tate. K had a few unkind things to say about Pablo's ceramics (being the critic that she is) - a continual mumbling about glaze fit accompanied with lots of head shaking.

We decided we urgently needed to do some travel planning, so we set up camp in Starbucks (not for the coffee, for the free internet!) during a big rain storm and made some bookings for Heidelberg, where we also hope to catch up with the lovely German girls we met on our train ride in Tanzania

Day 164 to Day 165 - Why book?

Amsterdam (Netherlands) to Dusseldorf (Germany) - V.I.P. Hotel

Day 164 - We took the train to Dusseldorf in the morning - a nice easy trip over the border i.e. no border at all from what we could tell, that's the European Union for you.

On arrival we dragged our luggage the kilometre or so to our hotel, checked in, then went for a walk through town and along the banks of the Rhine where there were lots of people out enjoying the sunshine.

Day 165 - The next day (with more lovely weather) we walked around town to visit the main sites, the Alte Stadt, cathedrals (including St. Lambertus with its famous crooked spire), some interesting sculptures, nice gardens, etc. On the Rhine there were plenty of cruise boats, including a couple of very large ones that seemed to be inhabited mainly by elderly tourists. In retrospect, even though Dusseldorf was nice enough, we could have skipped it and headed for somewhere a little more interesting as our first stop in Germany, but as we currently seem to planning at most only two or so days in advance, and our access to the internet hasn't been as good as we'd hoped, there are bound to be some missteps along the way.

Day 159 to Day 163 - Why is it so hard to find a coffee shop that sells coffee?

Amsterdam - Swissotel Amsterdam

Once again we're falling behind in our blogging, so this post will be a wrap up of our time in Amsterdam. Since reaching Europe we've actually had trouble getting decent free internet, it's hard to believe that it's been easier to get free internet in Africa and Turkey than in Europe!

Day 159 - On our first full day we took a boat ride through the canals, apparently something everyone does. We took one of the larger "tourist" boats, with a recorded commentary in four languages, but we saw a lot of people doing it in much smaller boats, which we think might have been a better way to do it. After the canal ride we visited Anne Frank's house, the queue was very long, apparently it is always like that. The house (which was in an annex of the building behing the business) was actually bigger than expected.


Day 160 - Next day was a cultural/museum day - we took in the Rijksmuseum (lots of Dutch art, many painters including Rembrandt) and the Van Gogh Museum. After seeing so many paintings we were feeling a little too cultured, so we took a walk through the streets and amazingly found ourselves back in the red light district, not sure how that happened..... The red light district is quite surprising as it is all quite in your face, the girls are literally everywhere standing in the full length glass doors with red lights over the door. We were a little surprised that most of the girls are quite attractive and young (but not all of them ....). The smell of marijuana is everywhere, but surprisingly less than 5% of Dutch use it, much less than other countries where it is illegal. It is also interesting how many families with young children do the tourist thing wandering the streets of the red light district. The whole Amsterdam city area is chock full of tourists making it quite difficult to walk down the streets.

Delft

Day 161 - Our hotel is in such a great position it is easy to become lazy and just wander around Amsterdam but today we decided we needed to go further afield. First up we were surprised to find the city square outside our hotel so empty, we are used to having to squeeze through so many people and bicycles, maybe everyone had a big Saturday night. We caught the train to Haarlem and wandered around the quiet streets, such a contrast from Amsterdam. Not sure how much of it was related to it being Sunday. Being only 15 minutes from Amsterdam it is easy to see why it is a cheaper, quieter option to staying in the city. The town was cute but hard to get excited about after the buzz of the last few days so we boarded the train again this time heading to Delft. Once again we were surprised at how few people were around but enjoyed having lunch in the large, pretty city square before wandering the canals and catching the train back to the big smoke. We had been told before we arrived that the canals could be quite smelly but we didn't find that at all.

Day 162 - The weather before today had been a little disappointing - overcast, and at times cold and raining. However, today when we left the hotel the sun was out! Amsterdam had been transformed into a gorgeous city for sitting and enjoying the sights and that's what everyone seemed to be doing - so we joined in. Lunch was some of the Vlaamse frites (Flemish fries), which are sold all over town in cone shaped containers, which must be what the "Lord of the Fries" places in Melbourne are based on. Today we decided to take in the Jordaan area of town and walk further afield however like everyone else we end up finding a nice place to sit in the sun and watch the passing parade of tourists.

Day 163 - Another beautiful day but we really must start moving on so we spent some of the day researching Germany. We decided to book a train to Dusseldorf the next day, which is just over the border. It was tempting to hire a car but petrol is so expensive and most citys so far are pretty much car free making it very difficult to get around, with parking also quite expensive. Transport in Amsterdam is mainly bikes and trams, so it is quite rare to see a car. The other thing that is tricky in Amsterdam is finding a genuine coffee shop where we can get a decent latte or cappucino, there are lots of "coffee shops", just not the type we are looking for! It is also interesting how often we are mistaken for locals and asked for directions, they must be disappointed when we say sorry but we don't understand. Quite a number of times on this trip we've been taken as Germans for some reason, so we will see if that is the case when we hit Germany!