I thought I would post a link to Google Maps here in case you might be interested. This is a Google Map that I have created which shows my travels in Europe. Each day gets its own color - as you can see, I was all over the place! That was a very busy trip - I was always going somewhere. This map might help put some of my pictures into context.
So, here it is. Enjoy!
My Europe Trip - Google Maps
Monday, October 18, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
Madman Across the Water
So I got back from my trip to Germany last week, and I'm finally getting some pictures uploaded here. We had a kind of perfect storm with computer problems during my trip - while I was gone, our little server that serves up the internet to our home network died, leaving Teri disconnected from the world. I helped her get my main computer working as the server, but that computer has been having hard drive problems for a while - I had already ordered a replacement. So, very soon after I got home, that computer died as well. So, I've been spending a lot of free time over the past week getting things fixed and recovered. I'm not finished yet, but I am done enough to get pictures uploaded.
I took a lot of pictures, and have tried to whittle them down to a manageable overview of my trip. I was in Europe for nearly three weeks, and during that time visited Luxembourg, France, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Italy, and a lot of places in Germany. (Ok, to be fair, I really didn't "visit" Luxembourg and Switzerland, I just drove through a bit of them.) It was a great trip, but I was really ready to be back home when it was over.
So, without further ado, allow me to present National Lampoon's... er... Sean's European Vacation!
I flew in to Frankfurt, and then drove down the Rhine river on my first day. I had thought about taking a boat, but really driving ended up being a good choice for this trip. The Rhine valley was absolutely beautiful.
Legend and poetry tells about a siren-like woman who lured shipmen to their doom at a huge outcropping along the Rhine called the Lorelei.
Köln (known in English as Cologne) was once a northern colony of the Roman Empire.
I would totally trade my Mustang for this sweet ride.
I visited a cool medieval castle called Burg Pyrmont, which today boasts a very nice restaurant.
Trier is probably the oldest city in Germany - it was the northernmost capital/seat of government of Rome nearly 2000 years ago.
Paris was very cool, but crazy for driving and kind of grimy. My hotel room in Paris was very small, and the elevator was the tiniest I have ever seen. If I was wearing my backpack, I couldn't turn around in it. My shoulders were actually squeezed by the walls.
Because of the Phantom of the Opera, I had to make a visit to the Paris Opera House, the setting for that story.
Don't sit in Box 5, or that chandelier is coming down.
Heidelberg was really nice. By complete coincidence, the weekend I was there, Heidelberg was having a big fall festival called Heidelberg Herbst. I particularly liked the area they had set aside for a medieval fair.
Burg Hohenzollern is really cool. I like the tall pointy spires and towers - this and Neuschwanstein really are what I think of when I think of a fairy tale castle.
On the way down from Burg Hohenzollern, the clouds parted, and I saw this cool rainbow over a town called Stetten.
I stayed in a cool little town called Nördlingen. This is a medieval town with its city wall still completely intact.
Berlin is a huge city that has a rather different character from many other cities in Germany. The Berlin Wall is gone, but it left its marks on the city, even 20 years later.
The Trabant, or Trabi, was the most readily available car in East Germany. The little cars have two stroke engines and sound like vacuum cleaners. Today, a company has bought up a bunch of them, painted them brightly, and rents them out to tour Berlin in a "Trabi Safari".
There was a time when stormtroopers would have been a common sight in Berlin, but I don't think they were the same kind I saw.
An interesting remnant of the split between East and West Berlin is the crosswalks. You can tell when you go from what used to be West Berlin into what used to be East Berlin by the cross walk lights.
The white crosses memorial was created over the years as a memorial to those who died trying to cross the Berlin Wall. It's not a very permanent monument - I kind of think it ought to be.
You can walk the whole path of the Berlin Wall - it is marked by a different set of paving stones along its entire route around former West Berlin.
Checkpoint Charlie is the most famous crossing point between East and West Berlin. It has been rebuilt as a tourist attraction
The East Side Gallery is a stretch of the Berlin Wall that has been left intact for about a mile along the river Spree.
Passing by a Mercedes showroom, I saw this awesome car, and had to take some pictures. It's one of a run of only 700, and it costs about $1.25 million according to the sign next to it, converting from Euros.
And finally I arrived in München, in time for the last couple of days of Oktoberfest.
I had to get some pictures of waitresses and waiters carrying large numbers of beer mugs - or maß.
These two guys were playing music by rubbing the rims of wine glasses (the guy on the right was doing the same to long glass tubes for the bass notes). It sounded very cool and ethereal.
I visited Salzburg, Austria, the birthplace of Mozart and the setting for "The Sound of Music", both the musical and the real people on whom it was based.
Lindau is a beautiful resort town in southern Bayern on the banks of the Bodensee, a large lake that includes the borders of three different countries. From Lindau, you can stand in Germany, and look over into both Austria and Switzerland. Much of the town of Lindau is on a small island connected to the shore by two bridges.
It was so close, I decided I would add Liechtenstein to my list of countries visited. It is a tiny country nestled in the Alps, and is as beautiful as it is small.
I went for an overnight trip to Verona Italy. I chose Verona because it was close enough to be a fairly easy trip, but deep enough into Italy to get a feel for real Italian culture and history. (Much of northern Italy is known as Südtirol, and has culture and history very closely tied with southern Germany. They even speak German there, and all the towns have two names - a German one and an Italian one.)
This Roman arena was built almost 2000 years ago, and is still in use. Originally games, races, and gladiator fights were held there, today it hosts operas, concerts, and plays.
Verona is the setting of Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. While Juliet is a fictional character, for over a hundred years a medieval house has served as the Casa di Giulietta, or the House of Juliet.
The statue of Juliet is very polished in the area of the left breast - people like to grope her for some reason.
Ettal is a small town in the southern Bayern, and is the home of a well known monastery.
Ettal is near Oberammergau, a very picturesque town famous for its woodcarving and cuckoo clocks.
Augsburg is a city west of München, with a tall clock tower called the Perlach Turm and a room in the upper part of the Rathaus known as the Golden Hall. As you walk up the many (many, MANY) stairs to the top of the Perlach Turm, they have a lot of before and after pictures, showing Augsburg in 1944, after an allied bombing run, compared to the restored city today. It's quite amazing to see the destruction that took place, and the work that was put into the restoration.
Well, that's certainly not all the pictures I took, but I have to stop somewhere. Hope you enjoy them!
I took a lot of pictures, and have tried to whittle them down to a manageable overview of my trip. I was in Europe for nearly three weeks, and during that time visited Luxembourg, France, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Italy, and a lot of places in Germany. (Ok, to be fair, I really didn't "visit" Luxembourg and Switzerland, I just drove through a bit of them.) It was a great trip, but I was really ready to be back home when it was over.
So, without further ado, allow me to present National Lampoon's... er... Sean's European Vacation!
I flew in to Frankfurt, and then drove down the Rhine river on my first day. I had thought about taking a boat, but really driving ended up being a good choice for this trip. The Rhine valley was absolutely beautiful.
Legend and poetry tells about a siren-like woman who lured shipmen to their doom at a huge outcropping along the Rhine called the Lorelei.
Köln (known in English as Cologne) was once a northern colony of the Roman Empire.
I would totally trade my Mustang for this sweet ride.
I visited a cool medieval castle called Burg Pyrmont, which today boasts a very nice restaurant.
Trier is probably the oldest city in Germany - it was the northernmost capital/seat of government of Rome nearly 2000 years ago.
Paris was very cool, but crazy for driving and kind of grimy. My hotel room in Paris was very small, and the elevator was the tiniest I have ever seen. If I was wearing my backpack, I couldn't turn around in it. My shoulders were actually squeezed by the walls.
Because of the Phantom of the Opera, I had to make a visit to the Paris Opera House, the setting for that story.
Don't sit in Box 5, or that chandelier is coming down.
Heidelberg was really nice. By complete coincidence, the weekend I was there, Heidelberg was having a big fall festival called Heidelberg Herbst. I particularly liked the area they had set aside for a medieval fair.
Burg Hohenzollern is really cool. I like the tall pointy spires and towers - this and Neuschwanstein really are what I think of when I think of a fairy tale castle.
On the way down from Burg Hohenzollern, the clouds parted, and I saw this cool rainbow over a town called Stetten.
I stayed in a cool little town called Nördlingen. This is a medieval town with its city wall still completely intact.
Berlin is a huge city that has a rather different character from many other cities in Germany. The Berlin Wall is gone, but it left its marks on the city, even 20 years later.
The Trabant, or Trabi, was the most readily available car in East Germany. The little cars have two stroke engines and sound like vacuum cleaners. Today, a company has bought up a bunch of them, painted them brightly, and rents them out to tour Berlin in a "Trabi Safari".
There was a time when stormtroopers would have been a common sight in Berlin, but I don't think they were the same kind I saw.
An interesting remnant of the split between East and West Berlin is the crosswalks. You can tell when you go from what used to be West Berlin into what used to be East Berlin by the cross walk lights.
The white crosses memorial was created over the years as a memorial to those who died trying to cross the Berlin Wall. It's not a very permanent monument - I kind of think it ought to be.
You can walk the whole path of the Berlin Wall - it is marked by a different set of paving stones along its entire route around former West Berlin.
 |
| The former path of the Berlin Wall, looking toward the Brandenburg Gate - East Berlin on the left, West Berlin in the right |
Checkpoint Charlie is the most famous crossing point between East and West Berlin. It has been rebuilt as a tourist attraction
The East Side Gallery is a stretch of the Berlin Wall that has been left intact for about a mile along the river Spree.
Passing by a Mercedes showroom, I saw this awesome car, and had to take some pictures. It's one of a run of only 700, and it costs about $1.25 million according to the sign next to it, converting from Euros.
And finally I arrived in München, in time for the last couple of days of Oktoberfest.
I had to get some pictures of waitresses and waiters carrying large numbers of beer mugs - or maß.
These two guys were playing music by rubbing the rims of wine glasses (the guy on the right was doing the same to long glass tubes for the bass notes). It sounded very cool and ethereal.
I visited Salzburg, Austria, the birthplace of Mozart and the setting for "The Sound of Music", both the musical and the real people on whom it was based.
Lindau is a beautiful resort town in southern Bayern on the banks of the Bodensee, a large lake that includes the borders of three different countries. From Lindau, you can stand in Germany, and look over into both Austria and Switzerland. Much of the town of Lindau is on a small island connected to the shore by two bridges.
It was so close, I decided I would add Liechtenstein to my list of countries visited. It is a tiny country nestled in the Alps, and is as beautiful as it is small.
I went for an overnight trip to Verona Italy. I chose Verona because it was close enough to be a fairly easy trip, but deep enough into Italy to get a feel for real Italian culture and history. (Much of northern Italy is known as Südtirol, and has culture and history very closely tied with southern Germany. They even speak German there, and all the towns have two names - a German one and an Italian one.)
This Roman arena was built almost 2000 years ago, and is still in use. Originally games, races, and gladiator fights were held there, today it hosts operas, concerts, and plays.
Verona is the setting of Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. While Juliet is a fictional character, for over a hundred years a medieval house has served as the Casa di Giulietta, or the House of Juliet.
The statue of Juliet is very polished in the area of the left breast - people like to grope her for some reason.
Ettal is a small town in the southern Bayern, and is the home of a well known monastery.
Ettal is near Oberammergau, a very picturesque town famous for its woodcarving and cuckoo clocks.
Augsburg is a city west of München, with a tall clock tower called the Perlach Turm and a room in the upper part of the Rathaus known as the Golden Hall. As you walk up the many (many, MANY) stairs to the top of the Perlach Turm, they have a lot of before and after pictures, showing Augsburg in 1944, after an allied bombing run, compared to the restored city today. It's quite amazing to see the destruction that took place, and the work that was put into the restoration.
Well, that's certainly not all the pictures I took, but I have to stop somewhere. Hope you enjoy them!
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