Saturday in Konstanz

Today we're going to visit the Oktoberfest celebration in Konstanz, and then head for Stuttgart. First thing in the morning we visited with Alex, the owner & chef of the hotel's restaurant. Here's Don, Alex, Jack & me:
Steve had been visiting friends to the north of Germany for the past few days, and returned late Thursday night. He was pretty busy and had some catching up to do on his sleep:
This is the Oktoberfest tent in Konstanz, when we arrived (before the festival began).
Here's a picture of Jan with Bob & Steve:
These are our tour guides for the trip, provided by our travel company (Kingsway), Ondrej and Jen. They have been very professional, friendly & patient, and it's been great traveling with them...
Konstanz is literally on the border with Switzerland...so much so that the border passes behind the Konstanz Oktoberfest tent. In this picture, Bob is in Germany, Steve is in Switzerland, and Erica can't make up her mind...
The Chico Bavarians played for about two hours at the fest. Here they are on stage...
Jack playing trumpet...
The cute little girl on the right in the picture below was dancing by herself but almost got trampled; Brandee rescued her and kept her safe from harm:
Here are The Internationals, a sub-set of the Chico Bavarian Band: Jan, Bob, Portor, and Steve.
Here's Carol & myself standing on the border, trying to choose between Germany & Switzerland. Actually Carol is trying to choose and I'm trying to take a picture...
The lakeside view of the Konstanz Oktoberfest tent:

After the performance was done in Konstanz (about 6PM) we piled back onto the bus and headed for Stuttgart, where we arrived about 9PM and checked into our hotel. The band marches in an Oktoberfest parade in Stuttgart tomorrow (Sunday), and on Monday we head back. My final post will probably arrive about the same time that I do...

Friday in Konstanz

Friday was our first full day in Konstanz, a beautiful little city at the edge of the Bodensee, a large lake on the border with Switzerland. It's almost as far south in Germany as you can go, although most of our stops on this trip have been pretty far south.

The weather is still on the gray side, although there's no rain to speak of. Anyway, here's our hotel in Konstanz. Check out the bear on the right -The younger travelers are pretty much all worn out now...using the bus trips as a chance to catch up on sleep. Given that school is in session, most of them have brought homework to do while traveling and also are doing some writing about our trip. I'm not saying that's what keeps them awake, but it might be one of the things...
So, we started a sight-seeing tour of Konstanz in the morning and one of the sights is this fountain in the main thoroughfare. It has several emperors & kings carved on its sides, and some whimsy on the base...
Here's the whimsy...Here's a picture of Bob standing in that street
Konstanz completely escaped aerial bombardment during WWII, so most of its old structures are intact. Our tour guide said that this was because the city kept its lights on during the blackout, and was thus mistaken for its neighboring Swiss city and avoided. It means that buildings like this city hall are still intact. Here's the view from inside the courtyard,
and here's the view from the street. The painting on the face of the building is extremely elaborate and depicts key points in the town's history. By the way, from what I've been told by my family this is the general region where my mom's ancestors came from, and this is an important trading town -- it's likely some of my ancestors were at least visitors here at one time.
After lunch we traveled to the 'island' of Mainau, a garden destination with lots of plants. Well, I guess it's better than that lame description but I'm not much of a garden afficionado...one of the nicer attractions was a butterfly habitat, with thousands of exotic butterflies in a hothouse enclosure:
There are so many they land on people...This moth is about a foot in diameter, and very pretty...
Then it's back on the bus to the hotel. Here's the kids having fun in the back; this is what I saw almost every time I turned around --
At the hotel we managed to sneak into the restaurant ahead of a large party of local diners, but because it was a very small restaurant and a very large group we had a bit of a wait for our meals (which were delicious). Here's Jan, me, Jim, Tessa, Kristey, Carol, Don and Bob. Bob is getting tired...
and below is Carol & Don's son Jack, who helped out when the crowd got heavy by busing tables while Jim & Kristey's son Adam helped wash up in the kitchen. The chef/owner, Alex, was appreciative of the help. In fact, one of our party (Mike) spent the bulk of the evening waiting tables in exchange for beer (and also for the experience -- who else could say that they waited tables in a German restaurant during Oktoberfest for the fun of it?).
Tomorrow is supposed to be clear & warm, we'll see.

Later

Thursday in Austria (September 27th)

Thursday we traveled from Salzburg to Konstanz, Germany via Innsbruck. It was a pretty long day on the bus; several hours with stops here and there. I'm sitting not quite in the back, which is where most of the kids on the trip are sitting (okay, Don in the white shirt there isn't a kid but he's closer to being one than to the age of some of our senior members, who are over seventy). Most of the time we all get along fine but the kids can act up a little bit. Erica likes to kick my seat, and Brandee likes to listen to her iPod so loud that everybody else can hear it (I worry for her hearing).We stopped in Innsbruck for a midday lunch and sight-seeing; the weather had improved (mostly cloudy with some scattered blue skies) and in the high 40's, maybe low 50's.

Innsbruck is very high in the Alps, about 1500 feet, surrounded by much higher peaks (the winter Olympics were held here twice, in 1964 and 1976). We spent a few hours in the city center. Here's an elaborate building, the first you see as you enter the old town from the municipal parking lot:
This is the view of the major shopping street downtown:
And its corresponding street to the right:
Innsbruck seemed to have more genuine tourist shops (i.e. schlock) than Salzburg, which had very fine clothing & accessory stores. Still, there were some upscale places. In particular, the Swarovski Crystal company, which has a factory in Austria, has a very large store here. Some of the crystal items are very pretty but it's hard to be excited enough to stay in a store like that for too long (at least for me). But speaking of excessive displays of consumption, Innsbruck is home to the 'goldenes dachl' (golden roof) seen below. The emperor Maximilian apparently enjoyed sitting under this roof and throwing scraps to the entertainers below around 1500 or so. It's still there, hard to believe but true:
There was a nice lingerie store on the avenue, as Adam found out (notice the handcuff on the mannequin's wrist; a very nice touch) -
After shopping we had lunch at (it had to happen eventually) McDonalds. The kids (Bob & Jan's as well as Jim & Kristey's; that is, Erica, Tessa, & Adam) wanted some good ol'-fashioned American comfort food. And yes, Quentin Tarantino is correct, the quarter pounder with cheese is the 'Royale'. I stuck with the classic Big Mac myself, which tasted just like (here it comes) a Big Mac. meh. I tried to get a beer with the Big Mac but they don't do that in Austria (only in Germany). sigh.

After lunch we trooped back to the bus; the weather was clearing up, and I got a few nice pictures of the mountains around Innsbruck and from the bus as we traveled. This was a long trip, about 5 hours, with a stop along the way at Rosenberger (a mega rest-stop).




Erica wasn't thrilled to be crowned Queen of Rosenberger.
Brandee wasn't thrilled either but did a better job of pretending.
As we left Innsbruck our tour guides Ondra and Jen put 'The Sound of Music' on the bus's DVD player. I don't think I had watched the whole thing through since 1965, honestly, and it was pretty fascinating to be driving through the Alps as we watched the movie. Naturally, since I tear up at any movie scene with kids in it, I was pretty much sniffling for a couple of hours ... getting old sucks sometimes!

We got in to Singen, near Konstanz, around 8PM; early enough for a few drinks in the bar before staggering off to bed. Once again I had to troubleshoot the wifi before I could use it (in Salzburg it was reception issues; in Singen it's DNS server problems). Isn't this stuff supposed to be easy?

Anyway, tomorrow is sight-seeing in Konstanz, followed by a weekend of an Oktoberfest there and a parade in Stuttgart on Sunday. Coming down to the home stretch!

Later -

Wednesday in Salzburg, Austria

Tuesday night we travelled to Salzburg, and settled in at the Hotel Mercure. Wednesday we got up bright & early for a day of sight-seeing & shopping (I didn't do much shopping, but I did see some sights). Salzburg is a beautiful city, even in the fog, surrounded by hills & dotted with ancient buildings (by American standards, that is).

We started our tour of Salzburg by visiting the Mirabell Gardens, which is among other things the spot where a scene from "The Sound of Music" was filmed (this will be a common theme today). The castle in the background overlooks the entire city:
Here's the view of the gardens from the other direction, where you can see Mirabell Palace, built by the prince archbishop for his mistress in 1606 (it's been rebuilt since, last in 1818). As you can see, the weather's turned colder and wetter...
This bridge crosses the Salzach river, and separates the old town from Mirabell Palace. The water is fed by glacier & mountain runoff, and runs pretty fast & clear. Here's a more panoramic shot of the same scene without the guy blocking the view:
In the heart of downtown, this is the birthplace of Mozart (his residence in later years is across the river, back by the Mirabell Gardens). His father rented the rooms below the golden emblem on the wall; now the entire building is a museum.
We spent most of the morning wandering around the old center of Salzburg, including a stop at the 'most authentic' eating place (according to an expat American living here); a tiny hole in the wall (quite literally) called the Balkan Grill, where an old lady in a space a little larger than a phone booth makes & sells 'bosna' (spiced sausage) sandwiches. She isn't very pleasant but her sandwiches are good!

After lunch we toured the Augustiner Brewery; below a part of the group is peering into one of the brew kettles (our tour guide Oliver was a little concerned about the impact of yodeling into the kettle, which Stevey did as soon as he was close enough)...
As we left the brewery, the rain picked up again. Fortunately most of us had umbrellas -
Salzburg is up against a steep hill, which has been built directly into. There are many buildings on the cliff that butt up against it like so:
After finishing our tour & sight-seeing we walked back to the hotel and had dinner, then to bed. Tomorrow is another traveling day!

Tuesday in Germany

Tuesday was a travel day, we didn't have any musical events (at least none planned) and were only traveling from Munich to Salzburg, via Berchtesgaden (the town near Schloss Adler, the 'Eagles Nest').

It started to rain as we were loading the luggage onto the trailer that we pull behind our bus, and the temperature was probably about 50 degrees...cooler than Monday for sure. We left Munich at 8, headed for Salzburg, Austria (only about two hours away). Along the way we stopped for coffee & to use the facilities at an 'american' themed rest stop restaurant; Route 66 & Jimmy Dean figured heavily in the motif. It was clean & convenient, both qualities which easily disqualify it as a genuine American roadside stop. The scenery at the restaurant was very pretty; we're approaching the Alps & it's becoming quite dramatic. Here's the view from the patio (ignore the goofy looking guy blocking the mountain view):
Here's a shot that doesn't really do the scenery justice, but is the best I can do --
As you can see, it's foggy & gray, but beautiful nonetheless.

We continued to Berchtesgaden, and up the mountain to Schloss Adler, the Nazi retreat of Hitler & his party leaders. Almost all remnants of the Nazi regime have been eradicated from modern Germany, but this one remains for several reasons. One is its location; it's basically a modest tearoom perched on the peak of an alpine mountain almost 7000 feet high. Another is its cost -- at the time (1938) it cost about $200 million to build, a staggering amount for the time. So it's still there, although the government takes care to ensure that it doesn't become a rallying point for any neo-nazi organizations. The building is a relatively small teahouse on the peak of a tall mountain, with a tunnel & elevator cut through hundreds of feet of solid rock to get there. All this was a 50th birthday gift for an insane dictator who was afraid of closed spaces (like elevators and tunnels) and afraid of heights. Go figure.

Anyway, we reached the parking lot nearest the schloss to find that we'd ascendend directly into those pretty clouds you saw earlier (and as we all know, clouds up close are just fog):
so there wasn't likely to be much of a view today. Still, we entered the tunnel, where the Internationals (as they have 3 times in the past) struck up an impromptu bit of guerilla polka right there:
The other tourists, both coming and going, were certainly startled to see a Bavarian music quartet playing in the approach to Hitler's private aerie...which, in the picture below, should have an amazing view of the surrounding countryside but instead has an amazing view of the clouds:
Inside the aerie, there are several rooms (no bedrooms; it was never occupied at night), one of which has a large fireplace with an Italian marble face. The marble was chipped away (with shovels, chisels & gunshots) for souvenirs by the American GI's who first entered:
You may need to look closeup to see the remaining marks on the marble. I have a hard time imagining what it was like, to fight your way across Europe shooting & being shot at, living on the ground, eating cold rations and then finding yourself in this elevator:
which is polished brass, rather than the gold it looks like (and the first GI's thought that it was), and is propelled up the hundreds of feet of shaft by a submarine engine. Here's what the elevator looks like on the inside:
which was where, as we went down, Bob & Steve performed another impromptu little performance. More tourists' mouths were agape as we exited the elevator at the base with accordion & tuba swingin'.

After the visit to the Schloss we went down to the nearest town, Berchtesgaden, a very picturesque village. We found a little tavern for lunch (sausage & beer, naturally). Here's Bob, Jan, Adam, Tessa, Erica, Brandee, Kristey & Jim waiting impatiently for food -

From the platz in the town, the hillsides around look like this:
I'd like to visit again, and in the winter to see the snow (I'm certain there would be QUITE a lot).

Here's the obligatory fountain in the platz, with Bob & Jim in front -
After leaving Berchtesgaden we continued on to Vienna and Salzburg, where we arrived around 6PM at the Hotel Mercure (see the sidebar on my blog page for links to the website & map) and wandered out to dinner at an Italian restaurant operated by what I took to be Turkish muslims. The pizza was great and the beer was, well, Austrian beer. Good, that is. Then to bed!

Later --

p.s. I've added more photos to my google photos page.