Travel Log III (The South)

Posted: Dezember 17th, 2008 | Author: soeren | Filed under: Privat | Tags: Family, Germany, Intercultural, Travel | 1 Comment »

Day 7 (December 5th)

On friday, the big roadtrip finally began. During our preparation, we decided to rent a car that would get us four adults comfortably through the country and carry a navigation system. So we consciously booked a upper class car, but still were surprised to get this:

A Volkswagen Touareg V6. Probably ideal to drive up the mountains we wanted to see, but hardly a car to drive comfortably on the Autobahn around them – the round trip offered my the chance to get over SUVs for good, and it worked.

The first trip in our newly rented monster truck took us to Munich, with a stop over in Rothenburg ob der Tauber. This town was known to me only because of the akwardsness of its name, even for German standards. But apparently it is quite the famous little German town –  a must-see on any Japanese or North-American bus tour through Europe, it seems. The main attraction is its historic center that closely resembels a medivial German town, complete with a surrounding stone wall. Not surprisingly, the place was overrun with foreign tourists not knowing what to photograph first, but hardly any Germans beside the locals. There was a Weihnachtsmarkt so perfectly integrated into the scenery that one had to wonder if this was not built into the city permanently – as a permanent “Weihnachtsmarkt Show”. It even had a centralized return location for empty Glühwein cups, complete with opening times:

FInally, we arrived at Munich. A bavarian local and former co-worker at Leipzig convinced me, that the Hofbräuhaus would actually be an acceptable location for dinner, at least in their first floor restaurant, the “Braustüberl”. And so we tried it, and it turned out to be actually good. Hearty, bavarian food in good quality at decent prices.

Day 8

 

If Rothenburg ob der Tauber is a tourist magnet for oversea visitors to Germany, the number one, visit-at-all-cost Cliché-Burger with extra bacon is, of course: Neuschwanstein aka “The Disney Castle”. I never had any urge to see it but was quickly convinced by both, in-laws and their daughter, that in this case my opinion was of no matter. So we went and while all my concerns about how much this is a tourist trap were neatly affirmed, I also learned how bad it really was:

 

• Neuschwanstein is not older than 150 years, 
• the whole interriour is a marketing stunt from Richard Wagner, the composer. All paintings promote one or the other play of his
•  it looks impressive only from far away, when you come closer it appears like a movie set. Also, the building is a horrible mix of interpretations of medieval as it was fashionable in the late nineteenth century.
• There is no meaningful history to the place, other than the fact that only six weeks after King Ludwig was dead, the state opened it up as a museum.
• Visitors are managed like cattle to take the meager 30 minute tour, which reminded me strongly of MTV’s “My Crib”, just citing a long list of meaningless details about the flashy interior and expecting the guests to be impressed about it.

THe short tour luckily meant that we were done quickly, so were back in Munich by the afternoon. There we had a taste of the local Weihnachtsmarkt and some harmless shopping.

 

Day 9

The Sunday took us over the border to Austria, more exactly Salzburg. Needless to say that the parents in law were pretty flashed by seeing the alps. It is quite amazing how they somehow abruptly appear after the last turn on the A9 shortly before Piding.

You would think that Salzburg was on their list because it is Mozart’s birthplace or because of the “Festspielhaus”, but obviously the main draw of this place is “The Sound of Music“. Never heard of it? Then you must be German. Because every other nation seems to know about it. It seems to be a broadway musical and some German film adapted the musical afterwards. Can’t say much about the story itself, but it plays in Salzburg and oddly enough they did a lot of singing when escaping the Nazis in WW2. Somehow this movie manages to represent the life in mountainous regions of Central Europe for a lot of people. 

Anyway, Salzburg is a pretty town, and is best viewed from the Festungsberg – yet another castle much older and historically relevant then Neuschwanstein. The visit ended in an oldest cafè (Kaffeehaus), which was particularly enjoyable, as it represented “Viennese café” style, even if not in Vienna. Old, wood pannelld walls, marble tables, a waiter in a smoking and a lady carrying the selection of fresh cakes to your table.

For the night we went back to Germany and stayed in Schönau near to Berchtesgaden, just by Salzburg. A place where I spent many summer holidays with my parents. The major deal was to give everybody a little more time surrounded by mountains and to stay in one of the higly rustic “Pension”s. At night we couldn’t see much, but the next morning we walked to the “Königssee” as an opportunity for some great photos. It is a pretty cool, almost Fjord-like setting.

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