Salzburg and Hallstatt, Austria. October 8, 1999

Today is our departure day from Munich. After a false start trying to find the Autobahn 8, we take a route we are familiar with. We go west out of Munich and then get off and turn around heading east. For some reason either they did not make an east entrance or we simply cannot find it!

Traffic is pretty heavy and we get to Salzburg around 1 PM. We look through their cathedral and then take the audio tour of the Residenz, former home of the Prince Bishops. It is very elaborate, like a smaller Versailles. There are lots of Alexander the Great frescoes on the ceilings. We see many original and period furnishings with many fine mirrors and clocks. We enjoy the tour very much.

Mary listening to the audio tour at the Prince Bishop’s Residenz, Salzburg

We look around for lunch but cannot find anything so we push on to Hallstatt. It is a beautiful ride through the mountains, lakes, and villages. Hallstatt turns out to be a tiny town on a lake. What a beautiful setting. Our hotel, the Gruner Baum, is not as charming as I had hoped but we have a deck overlooking the lake and a very large bathroom. Alas, it is a no shower curtain kind of bath/shower combo.

Hotel Gruner Baum

John on the deck overlooking the lake
Mary on the deck overlooking the lake
The lake

For dinner we go to the Gersthofen Zauner. I order Vienner schnitzel and John has spare ribs. We also order a salad and cauliflower au gratin in hopes of eating some vegetables.

Restaurant

The television in our room only has two stations. Both are in German so we do not stay up very late!

Munich and environs. October 7, 1999

We start the day with a trip into Munich on the U-bahn to the Staatsgalerie Moderner Kunst. (State Modern Art Museum) We walk through the beautiful Hofgarten of Royal Garden along the way. In the museum there is an impressive collection of Klee and Kitchener and some Picassos and Kandinsky.  I think, though, I enjoy the smaller museum in Stuttgart.

John outside Staatsgalerie Moderner Kunst Museum
Mary at Royal Garden

In the afternoon we go to Hersching to see  Andechs Monastery and eat lunch at the Andechser Hof. The monks brew beer at the monastery and it is served at the Hof. The weiss beer is very good but maybe not as good as Schneider’s.  John has maulthaschen which is a layered noodle and minced beef dish and I had the standard wurst and kraut.  My wurst and kraut meal is fine but I think I have had it enough times this trip!

Andechser Hof
Maulthaschen

After a very uphill walk we visit the monastery. I am very taken aback by the baroque, gilded church. First, why spend so much money on decoration when the money could have been spent on poor people.  Second, why did all these “devout” people stand by while the Nazis killed millions.

Interior of Andechs Monastery church

Later, back in our room, we watch Agassi play Escude. It is incredible that Agassi won! All the excitement of the match means that I stay up until almost 11 PM! Maybe I am finally over jet lag!?

P.S. Spoke with Sarah. She seems happy and is full of news.

Munich. October 6, 1999

Today we take the S2 into the Hauptbahnhof and find the “Times Square,” a cyber cafe. We check our email and are happy to find a note from Sarah. We write back to both Jon and Sarah. As an aside I remember how difficult it was to find internet around this time. We sought out bars, bicycle shops, and other hotel lobbies hoping to find a place to connect. Soon we decided not to stay anywhere that we could not get connected.

Times Square, “online bistro”

We reboard the train and go to the Isotar  stop where the Deutches Museum is located. It is an industry and technology museum. We look at exhibits about food science, telecommunications, computers, electronic toys, musical instruments, bridge building and lots of others. It is all very interesting especially when there are some English explanations.

John at the Deutsches Museum
John at beer exhibit

After our visit we have a late lunch/early dinner at Buon Gusto, an Italian restaurant. John has risotto and Ichoose veal Marsala. While we are there we watch a film crew set up for a TV interview with the chef who used to be an actor. He is very short! John and the waiter speak a sort of Italian to each other. This is a very nice break from German food.

Buon Gusto

Lastly we head over to the Viktualen Markt for some wine and cheese. Good thing! When we get back to the room we discover that the room cleaners had thrown out all our pretzels and crackers!!

 

Munich. October 5, 1999

I wake up today and my hip is killing me. So many hard beds have gotten to me. It is too painful to bend over!  I take some ibuprofen that we have brought along and think about how I am going to manage sightseeing feeling like this? We go to breakfast at the hotel. I am getting used to having cold cuts for breakfast.

The first thing we do is drive to Pasing where we search out a Citibank. We need to get some Czech money for later in the trip. They tell us that we can only get it at the Citibank in central Munich. Nothing is easy.

We have decided to visit the Alte Pinakothek to see the art they have housed there. They do not have a parking lot or structure. It is just on-the-street parking. Round and round we drive making bigger circles away from the museum.  I am ready to give up but John is still trying. Finally we find someone pulling out of a space about 5 blocks away. Then we hike to the museum. Inside the pinakothek we love especially the Brueghels and Durer self-portrait.

Dürer self portrait in fur lined robe, 1500

After we finish at the museum we go to a U-bahn stop and buy a 3-day pass. We take the train into Marienplatz, the main square of Munich. We find the Citibank and buy the Czech korunas that we will need. We stop for a late lunch at Schneider’s. We dine on wurst und kraut und bier. Yum! Here I will find a life long love of their Weissbier, known as Tap 7. It is the beer we have at our Christmas celebrations, even now some 21 years later.

John is front of Schneider’s

 

Mary in front of Schneider’s

Lastly we do a little grocery shopping and buy some wine and munchies which we will eat for dinner. We take the U-bahn back to where we parked the car (so glad we could find it again) and then drive back to our hotel.

Feuchtwangen, Dinkelsbuhl, Nördlingen, Munich. 10/4/99

Today we leave Rothenburg. It is just as well since we are both sore from the hard bed.

Our first stop is in Feuchtwangen. We visit St. John’s church and its cloister. This church was built in the mid-13th century and still has vestiges of its frescoes.

I think these are frescoes from Johanneskirche (St. John’s in Feuchtwangen.) Over the door is a crucifixion scene and the lower right figure is of St. Christopher while the one on the left appears to be a king
Here is Christ in the center with the icons of the gospel writers around him

Then it is on to Dinkelsbuhl to visit St. George’s church. It is quite large and has many altars.

John somewhere in one of these towns

Finally we head toward Nördlingen. In our travel guide it tells us that Nördlingen is built in the very large crater of a meteorite. The impact was so intense that much of the carbon in the area fused into tiny diamonds.  Many of the older buildings in Nördlingen are built with diamond encrusted rock. The church we have come to see is not open.

Nordlingen

At this point we decide we have seen enough medieval stuff and proceed to western Munich to our hotel, the Insel Muhle. Since I have made a navigating error we buy a map of the area from the hotel. We are on the third floor of an old converted mill. Our bedroom is in a loft area while the bathroom is on the floor below. We will see how that works out! We eat dinner at the hotel, enjoying sauerbraten and tornados. The food is fine but quite expensive. We are really tired and in bed by 9 PM.

Insel Muhle

Always an important picture, John with the rental car

 

Day trip to Stuppach, Creglingen, Wurzburg. 10/3/99

After breakfast at the hotel where they have delicious pretzels, we set out towards Wurzburg. The ride is through woods and rolling farmland. We stop in Stuppach to see the Stuppacher Madonna, a famous painting by Matthias Grünewald (1475-1528).  It is in a little chapel of its own set off to one side of the church. The Madonna is the central panel of an altarpiece. It is strangely luminescent and brightly painted. Angels are descending from heaven with a crown for the Virgin while God the father is cartoonishly outlined in a pink and yellow cloud.

Stuppach Madonna (Internet)

From Stuppach we travel on to Wurzburg to see the fabulous Residenz in Wurzburg.  The architect is Balthasar Neumann and it was built in the Baroque style for the Prince-Bishop of Wurzburg in the mid-18th century. The Residenz is reminiscent of Versailles and comes complete with its own chapel and gardens. We listen to an audio tour with much oohing  over the Tiepolo ceiling.

Residenz – garden facade
Mary in the garden of the Residenz
John in the courtyard of Residenz

Our last stop is in Creglingen to see the Tillman Riemenschneider altarpiece at the Herrottskirche. It is beautifully carved in wood and depicts the life and ascension of the Virgin Mary.

John near the entrance to Herrgottskirche in Creglingen
Altarpiece carved by T. Riemenschneider dedicated to the Virgin Mary in Herrgottskirche, Creglingen, Germany (internet)

This is our last night in Rothenburg and in wandering around we find the Zum Breiterle near one of the city gates and stop for dinner. There are dedicated tables to groups of men and the eye us suspiciously. We are served nonetheless. We have pork schnitzel. You rarely see pork cutlets made this way in the U.S. unless you go to a German restaurant.

Zum Breiterle guesthouse and restaurant near one of the city gates
Pork schnitzel (internet)

Rothenburg, October 2, 1999

We sleep reasonably well for having just arrived in Europe. We have breakfast at the hotel in their breakfast room where the use actual patterned china. They have the usual assortment of cold cuts and cheeses, eggs and rolls. Then we go out for a walk around the city.

We see a band and stop for a listen.

The band!
Mary watching the band

We go to mini-World, a train diorama, on our way to St. Jacobs church.

Mary on the way to St. Jacob’s Church. Portico for church in the background.

Inside St. Jacob’s Church is a beautiful altarpiece depicting the life of St. James. On the reverse of one of the panels is a 15th century depiction of Rothenburg looking much the way it does today (with the exception of tourists.)

Altarpiece in the church of St. James.

We have lunch at the Gesthaus Greifen restaurant on a nearby street.

Mary outside of Gesthaus Greifen

In the afternoon we have booked a walking tour. We find out that Rothenburg-ob-der-Tauber means “place where they cut down the trees above the water.” We see the town hall with its “stein” clock, a town market, and the old tower with a sundial. It is an excellent tour.

Town hall with two figures with steins come out of the adjacent windows
Saturday is market day
Spiral tower with sundial

Later we take a ride around the area and end up in the little village of Detwang for dinner at the Gesthof Schwartze Lamm. I have bratwurst and John has venison. This place is much cheaper than eating in Rothenburg! Plus we almost witness a fight between the smoking and non-smoking dogs! Afterwards we go to their little church to hear an organ concert.

Rothenburg-ob-der-Tauber, October 1, 1999

Both our flights go smoothly and we arrive in Frankfurt at 7:15 AM. We pick up our rental car and are on our way to Rothenburg by 9AM. We run into some. Very heavy traffic outside of Wurzburg and we opt to take a scenic alternate route and arrive in Rothenburg around noon.

Since Rothenburg is a medieval walled city we park outside the city in one of the many parking lots and walk into the city. Everything is very medieval and the whole town mostly survives on tourism. We find the Burg Hotel which is part of a cloister and uses the city wall as one of its outside walls. They have our room ready so we are check in. The room is very nice with a sitting room with ceramic stove. The bathroom has the typical European shower of no shower curtain but a useless pane of glass that only goes part way across.

View out of our hotel windows of Detwang

We go out in search of lunch down one of the main streets of the town. It is raining but still everything is so charming! We decide to try the Hotel Gotisches Haus which has a restaurant  at street level. I have wedding soup with tiny meatballs. John has soup and a salad. After lunch we return to the hotel and take a nap from 3PM until 6PM.

Hotel and restaurant Gotisches Haus, Rothenburg (internet photo)
Charming building with window boxes and John

Later we go out for dinner at the Hotel Goldener Hirsch. We share the dining room with a large Japanese group. I order sauerbraten and John tries their Wiener schnitzel. Vegetables do not seem to be a German thing. After dinner we walk the ramparts.

Dining room of the Goldener Hirsch (internet)
John on the ramparts

P.S. On the way to dinner we see a small parade with a valveless trumpet and drums. They march into a restaurant. We also see some really nice small Santas in a shop that look like they were made out of pressed metal and painted.

The rest of the trip June 11-13, 1996

Once again my travel log stops before the trip is over. What else do I remember from this trip? We were invited to an H-P important peoples dinner which was quite nice and it was lovely to be treated so well. It doesn’t happen that often on the Oracle events. I remember going to Marimekko and seeing their fabulous fabrics. John says the ferry seemed a way for the locals to buy duty free alcohol and cigarettes.

After the day in Helsinki the ship went back to Stockholm for a day and then back to Helsinki. We ended up flying back to Stockholm from Helsinki and then to home. Little did I know that I would visit Helsinki twice more in my travels.

Helsinki. June 10, 1996

Neither of us sleep well but not due to the ship. The ship is sailing very smoothly and we can only feel a little something when it turns. It seems like we are just experiencing more jet lag.  I read that each hour’s difference takes a day to adjust to. Since we are 9 hours off our regular time and we have only been here five days we have more sleeplessness to look forward to.

We have breakfast at the buffet which is full of cold cuts and pickled vegetables, the usual Northern European fare. The buffet, we find out, it is included in our ticket. We have already bought six breakfasts. Oh well.

We go to the terminal and sign up and pay for the design tour in Helsinki. This is a spouse’s tour to keep us busy while our significant other is working.

Entrance to the conference on the ferry

First we go to Arabia factory. They make ceramic stuff. The factory is very interesting. We also have time to shop. Everything is quite expensive. (While researching this topic I found out that in 2016 the Arabia factory in Finland closed. All Arabia products are now made in Thailand and Romania.)

We have lunch at the Savoy Restaurant where it is quite meat intensive. Then in the afternoon we go places where they are hoping we will buy something. No one buys much. We get back around 4 PM and John finishes his meetings around 5 PM, better known here as 17:00 (so many new things to learn!)

The welcoming dinner is not until 8:30 PM (20:30) so we read and nap. There is not much to do on the boat. The welcoming dinner is awful. The food is bad, there is an inept juggler, and drinks close down about 1 hour after we get there. At that point the restaurant is open to the public and we leave. This ferry is definitely not a cruise ship!