Italia!!!

We left our hotel in the Bavarian Alps this morning with the owner and his staff standing outside waving good-bye to us. It was still cool and damp, with low-hanging clouds shrouding the mountaintops, but not raining.  The route was a very curvy road that is known all over Europe by motorcyclists who like the curves and grades.  It was easy to tell when we crossed over into Italy though, just by the riding habits of those same motorcyclists.  Suddenly they were all over the place, passing our bus and jumping back into the lane in front of us just in time to avoid being hit by the oncoming traffic.  Definitely some daredevil riding!

The mountains gave way to foothills and we stopped for lunch in the small town of Egna (pronounced ahn-ya), at an outdoor cafe where they served us a salad, then three different kinds of paninnis, followed by a dessert of gelato.  A little local red wine to wash it down, and all was good, and at about $1.50 a glass, the price was welcome too.  The little girl in the first picture had just gotten a drink from the fountain when I snapped this picture, then Dad used his hand and the fresh
water to wash her face.

We kept rolling South, watching the hills flatten out, seeing vineyards nearby and the Dolomite Mountains in the background, with villages and towns crouched at the base of the rocks

Around 5:45 we finally made it to our hotel, following the bus ride and transfer to vaporetto (water bus) and a walk of a few hundred meters.  There was a group of gypsies on the vaporetto casing our group, but when Rosa called out the one who felt up her pocket, then took her picture, they left us alone.  Go Rosa!

Dropping off our bags, we reassembled for a walk to our restaurant.  We passed through St. Mark's square (lots of pigeons), in front of the Doge's palace, and down the main shopping street in Venice.  Stephanie asked me to be one of the "sweepers", bringing up the rear of the group to make sure we didn't lose anybody or have any issues with the street hustlers.  Going past all the jewelery stores, high fashion clothing stores, and shoe stores as a sweeper was about like trying to herd cats! We made it without incident though, and enjoyed a great dinner.  Our choices were the
specialty of the house, seafood risotto,  spaghetti with clams, or lasagna, accompanied by red or white wine, and followed by tiramisu for dessert.  I didn't hear anyone complain at all.

Our guide Stephanie had also arranged for a gondola ride for us all, complete with music.  When  the gondolas all pulled up side by side in the Grand Canal, the singer serenaded us all, and one of the ladies in my boat made the mistake of saying loud enough for me to hear "Oh, this is my song."  I caught the eye of the singer and pointed to her, and he sang "O Solo Mio" to her.  Barbara protested, but I know she liked it.  The gondolier in our boat also was quite taken with Ivana, another of the ladies in the group.  Lots of smiles and laughs all the way around!  A great start to a new country...warm temperatures and sunny skies.  I hope all 8 days in Italy are just like this one.

It's late now and time for me to get some sleep.  Good night friends.

Castle Day

This is going to be a relatively short post tonight friends.  I have been up late the past two nights doing these posts and then getting up early to start out another day.  Add to that the fact that I haven't been getting my afternoon naps with Buddy, well you get the picture.

We started out bright and early to go see Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein Castles, back in Germany.  After seeing the sun trying to burn through the clouds when I woke up, I was disappointed that it was heavily overcast when we took off.   By the time we got to the castles, it had
begun to rain.  The drizzle continued pretty much all day, but we got our guided tours of both castles.  The hardest part was getting there; these old castles were always built on high ground, so the walk to them is uphill.  We made it though, in spite of the elements and I think the only casualties were an umbrella or two that got turned inside out.

We made the walks though, and the interiors of these castles were spectacular!  Very opulent, the first built by Mad King Ludwig II's father, and his
own, which took 17 years to build, and that he
only lived in for about half a year before he died.
Neuchwanstein (the white one) was also the inspiration for Disney's castle.  Just so you know, photos were not allowed inside either castle, but I have inside information that some spy shots may exist and I should have access to them.  Just ask when I get home.

Well I have to get up early and I have to repack my bag before bedtime, so I'm going to sign off for the night.  Thanks for reading, folks...I'll be posting more soon.

We Made it to Austria!

Today was another travel day for us.  After a nice breakfast in Rothenburg, we started off at our usual 8:15ish to get on the bus and get on our way.  Onkther than the usual rest stops we take every two hours or so, our first activity was a visit to the Dachau Concentration Camp.  What a sobering experience. Seeing the pictures and artifacts that were evidence of the atrocities of extremism really gave me pause.  When I was reading the itinerary for this trip I didn't have a lot of interest in this particular activity; it didn't affect me, why should I care?  As a matter of fact, I wasn't even born yet.  But the visit to the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam a few days
ago really opened my mind to experiencing things
outside my comfort zone (other than food!)  Viewing
the artifacts and photographs of that horrible place
really drove home again how dangerous extremism
really is.  I think some of the a-holes spouting off on
TV and radio, trying to work people into a frenzy
could really do with a dose of this kind of eye-
opening.  I don't know if it would help, but it sure
couldn't hurt!

Ok, I'm getting off the soapbox now.  Our guide
Stephanie really shone today...one of our activities
for tomorrow was to ride a luge down a part of the
mountain, but if there's even a sprinkle of rain, it gets shut down, and the weather has been very wet and cold for this region at this time of year.  She moved us up a day to avoid that, and did I ever have fun!  If you're not familiar with luge, think Olympic bobsledding, then think of the one-man sleds that they ride down the same course laying on their backs.  Now picture a course made out of stainless steel with the same banking in the turns and no steering, only brakes, only you ride sitting up.Talk about fun!  I could have ridden that thing all day!  I wiped out on the first run when I came off the seat a little bit and couldn't get situated for the next turn, but
I wasn't hurt at all, got back on and finished the run.
I then immediately got back in line for another ride,
and by the fourth time down, successfully completed
the run without touching the brake at all.  I would
have gone again, but the ride tickets were all used up.  And no, I wasn't the only adrenaline junkie...there were several of us all geeked up and ready to keep riding!

Following that adventure, we drove another half hour or so and checked into our hotel for the night.   It's a really nice place and they served us a great dinner.  If you can't tell by the pictures, our group is really starting to come together.  Everybody seems to be having as good a time as I am, and we all tend to be looking out for one another.  A very nice group of people to travel with...I think I hit jackpot on this escapade!

Tomorrow is castle day.  We go to see 2 of Ludwig's castles, one of which is the inspiration for the Disney castle.  I have been looking forward to getting shots of these castles since the planning stages, so I hope the weather cooperates.  That's all for now.  See ya later friends!

PS.  I just previewed this post and have no idea why it's formatting the way it is, but I've been at this stupid thing for an hour or more.  The heck with it, I'm posting it the way it is now...sorry about that folks.

Moved on to Rothenburg

At last I'm able to get back online with some degree of certainty!  The past couple of days were very busy.  We were staying in a quaint hotel in the village of Bacharach along the banks of the Rhine river.  It was a nice little village, and one of the highlights was a tour of the village by a man who had lived there most of his life.  Herr Jung is a lively 82 years old and was there during World War II.  He had many stories to tell, and even now becomes emotional at times when talking about the atrocities of war.  We also visited a castle ruins in a neighboring village called St. Goar, followed by a boat ride back up the Rhine to Bacharach.

This morning we got an early start and rode the bus for about 4 hours to a well-preserved village that dates back to the 1100s, called Rothenburg.  It's cobblestone streets and tightly packed buildings in the city center are well maintained and the people are friendly.  The walls around the city are still pretty much intact, there are lots of shops selling all kinds of goods, and as in all European towns, a number of huge, ornate churches.  It's a real tourist attraction, but it clears out pretty good at night.  We took a tour by the "night watchman" who's really a stand up comedian who educates the listeners about how things were in the old days.  He has a unique delivery and gets lots of laughs with his wry humor.  There must have been 120-150 people following his trail tonight, and he stopped about 5 times and talked for a few minutes each time about what went on at that location.  It was a bit chilly (around 50 degrees, I would guess), but worth the time and effort.

I managed to order myself some lunch today in a little cafe where they spoke very little English.  I was using my phrase book to get some German words out, horribly mis-pronounced, I'm sure, but between my bad German and the clerk's better English I got what I wanted.  I was even able to ask the shopkeeper a question, he understood and answered and I understood as well!  Our guide Stephanie has been going over phrases on the bus, so maybe a little of it has been sticking in between my ears.


The photos in today's entry are all from Rothenburg. The top one is obviously a street view, the center one is a part of the wall that goes around the city (which has 42 towers helping to make up the wall), and the bottom one is looking toward the front of St. Jacob's Church.  Many of the churches started out as one religion, but with a change in power, the icons were removed and the church was converted over to house a different religion.  It seems kind of goofy to me, but I guess it's better than tearing them down just to rebuild a new one.

Several of our group, myself included, appear to be coming down with colds.   This is not what I wanted to happen, but between the flight over, the cold damp weather, including wind, and these goofy hotel rooms, it's probably no wonder.  They don't furnish a top sheet and blanket over here, just a duvet to cover up with.  Consequently, I get too hot, throw the cover off, then get too cold.  I found a blanket in a armoire in my room for tonight, so I think I will try using that instead of the duvet. We are only staying at this hotel for tonight, then heading out in the morning for Reutte, Austria where we will take a tour of the Dachau concentration camp.  Hopefully the internet connection will be more reliable in Austria than it was in Bacharach.  See you soon!

Going to make this short and sweet.  Crappy connection at the hotel--this has been the first time I have been able to get a signal in two days. All is well and we are moving on in the morning, going to Rothenburg, Germany.  Hope to get back to posting everyday then.   Having a good time.  connection so bad am not even going to try posting pics.

A day in Amsterdam

 Today we got up and headed into Amsterdam right after breakfast at the hotel.  Our first stop was at the Anne Frank house, obviously a somber place, but I was impressed by the way the place was treated by the visitors.  As expected, the adults were concious of the history and everybody spoke in low voices and were quite subdued, but what struck me was that the kids there acted the same way.  It was almost like they were picking upon the vibe and taking their cue from the adults.  I resolve to read her diary when I get home and reacquaint myself with the story more fully.

After a lunch at a cafeteria type place in a department store (I had a salmon, onion and spinach quiche and a sampler of salads) we headed off to the Rijksmuseum to see some spectacular paintings by some of the Dutch masters, as well as all sorts of other exhibits.  Our guided tour got cut a little short due to the delay we had at the entrance, but the guide was very informative all the same.  We had some free time afterwards, so a number of us re-entered the museum and looked around on our own, so we managed to salvage the visit.

We followed up the museum with a canal tour.  The boat probably would hold about 40 passengers, so our group of about 25 was very comfortable.  The driver was very good, maneuvering the long boat very skillfully and pointing out certain points of interest along the way, supplementing the pre-recorded soundtrack playing on the boat's sound system.  It was a welcome break from being on our feet and all of us were ready to head back to Haarlem to our hotel.

Dinner for me and several others was at a local restaurant / pub where I had a Carpachio salad (a standard green salad that also included raw beef, sliced very thin, on the salad)...definitely out of my comfort zone!  It wasn't bad, but I won't be ordering it again, either.

Today's photos are basically just a general overview of the sights of Amsterdam, with this bottom one being of Amsterdam's prettiest canal.  There are 7 stone arched bridges in a row.  They don't show up so much in a picture of this size but I am hoping that they might if I enlarge and print the shot.

It's off to bed for me now...need to be up early to pack and leave right after breakfast.  Tomorrow night I will be sleeping in Germany!

The potato has landed

After all the time and anticipation, my European trip has finally begun!  The flight over was uneventful, delayed by an hour or so by the Detroit weather, but otherwise very smooth.  The baby on board only a few seats away from me was no problem because his parents were so attentive and considerate of all the rest of us.  I got lucky also in that there was no one in the seat next to me, so I could spread out a little bit, but unfortunately there was still not enough room to get any sleep.  It was a long flight and a long night!
Upon arrival in Amsterdam, I cleared customs and caught my bus to Haarlem, then a 10 minute walk took me to my hotel.  I was able to check in even though it was only noon, then headed back out for a stroll to get oriented and work some of the kinks out of my muscles.  What a beautiful old city, with buildings dating back to the 1500s, and the people are friendly and helpful.  On top of that almost everyone speaks English, making up for my ignorance of Dutch!
I caught a nap and then met the rest of the group at 4:00pm for a get acquainted meeting, followed by a family-style dinner at an Indonesian restaurant. The food was delicious and the company was great.  this looks like a great group of people to travel with and I have the feeling that by the end of 3 weeks, I will have made some friends.  I also got lucky in the respect that I don't have a roommate.  The other guy listed singly on the roster is in fact travelling with a woman, so I will have a room to myself.  Okay, signing off now...very tired and need to get a good night's rest so I'm ready to kick some butt tomorrow.

 

Counting down...I leave in 6 days!  Getting very excited.  Updates will start in about a week from Amsterdam.