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Eurotrip V

September 2015
A 15-day adventure by Postcards to Boston Read more
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  • Postcards to BostonEurotrip V
    Day 11

    Werfen, Austria

    September 20, 2015 in Austria ⋅ ⛅ 55 °F

    Breakfast at Le Crobag in the train station. The train ride was uneventful. The arrival was confusing as there was no signs directing us to where we needed to go, but we eventually found the parking lot where the shuttle to ice caves were going. So first a shuttle up to the Eisriesenwelt Ice Caves, then a long uphill walk to the ticket booth and another long uphill walk to the entrance to the ice caves. Once there, we were treated to another 1400 steps inside the ice caves (that's twice as many as we climbed while climbing up the Eiffel Tower!). It was quite challenging but I still wish I dressed warmer. My hands were freezing inside my thin gloves. It was 0 degrees inside and very dark, lit only by handheld lamps. The ice caves were cool (literally and figuratively) but it was a little disappointing to not be able to take photos, and it was so physically challenging that it was hard to focus on enjoying the scenery. We had beautiful views of Werfen and Hohenwerfen Fortress once we left. We had lunch at Dr. Oedl-haus, an alpine ski lodge with noodle soup to warm our bellies, followed by weiner schnitzel and apple strudel. We took the cable car and long downhill walk back to the shuttle bus and got dropped off in the parking lot where we began.

    We had another confusing journey to Hohenwerfen Fortress. The signage is quite poor and not really tourist-friendly. We even had to walk down a two-lane highway to get to the entrance to the fortress which was kind of strange. We took the cable car up to Hohenwerfen Fortress at 2:30pm and walked around the weapons exhibit and saw a Birds of Prey show at 3:15pm. This was awesome and I am so happy we planned our visit to include this special show. The commentary was entirely in German but it was still awesome. We then took a guided tour with audio guide at 4pm throughout the Fortress. This was probably the best guided tour we went on in our entire trip. It was much more in depth and interesting than Hohensalzburg. The tour took us into many interior castle rooms, up in the bell tower and we even got to see where the birds of prey "live"!

    We took the train back to Salzburg and had dinner at Augustiner Brau along with many beers. This was very much like buying food at a sporting event, where there are lots of little storefronts selling things and you can go from one to another to get exactly what you want. The beer was super fresh and served up to order. We got a little bit of everything and met a couple visiting from NYC whose itinerary was very similar to ours. We got a little too drunk after drinking 1.5 liters of beer in 2 hours!    Read more

  • Postcards to BostonEurotrip V
    Day 12

    Berchtesgaden, Germany

    September 21, 2015 in Germany ⋅ ⛅ 57 °F

    I woke up hungover from the fun at Augustiner Brau! We ordered room service breakfast which was very nice and 50% off with Myron's hotel discount. We purchased a Bayern ticket (an all-day unlimited use of Germany's public transportation for up to 6 people) and found our way to Bus 840 from Salzburg Hbf to Berchtesgaden Hbf. It was a small station but (as I researched in advance) had luggage lockers! We chose a large one that easily fit our small rolling suitcase and 2 large backpacks, costing us 2 euro for 24 hours. We barely missed the bus but caught the next one: Bus 841 to Konigsee. There was a short line for tickets and we boarded the ferry which took us across Lake Konigsee. We stopped at St. Bartholomew's Church and Salet. There were a ton of options for hiking and other outdoor activities. I wish we didn't have such limited time there because it was an absolutely gorgeous day for hiking with breathtaking views of the mountains and water. We hiked to lake Obersee in about 15 minutes for more gorgeous views. The ferry back to the parking lot was 55 min from Salet.

    For lunch, we got street food: bratwurst and currywurst. We went up the Jennerbahn next, which has similar views to the Eagle's Nest but is very close to Lake Konigsee. Since we are not much into WW2 history, we chose to go up the Jennerbahn. We went up at 2:45pm on the dot because there is a 20% discount for "last minute". It was a 30 min ride in an enclosed ski-lift type of chair lift. This mountain is a ski resort in the winter. The lift topped out at 1800m above sea level and we hiked to the summit at 1874m. There were incredible views of Berchtesgaden all the way to Salzburg, Lake Konigsee and we even saw the Eagle's Nest! We had ice-cream on the mountaintop at their restaurant (Schmeckerfatz (pear sorbet, strawberry ice-cream and vanilla) and Erdbeere (strawberry)).

    We got to the train station in time for a 5:30pm train to Munich, but it was cancelled at the last minute. We didn't understand the announcement because it was in German, but a train attendant came by and told us the train wouldn't be leaving until 6:30 :( Unfortunately we would've loved more time in Berchtesgaden but by that time we already had unloaded our luggage and didn't want to go out for such a short period of time. We changed trains in Freilassing and our Bayern Ticket worked out great!

    We arrived in Munich at 9:20pm. Oktoberfest closes at 10, so we decided to call it a night. There were tons of drunk revelers between the train station and our hotel, which was rather annoying as a sober tired person but would be fun in future nights. We had dinner at a small restaurant next to our hotel, and Myron got a donor kebab while I got a falafel sandwich. Our hotel in Munich was the Maritim Hotel Munchen which is very close to Munich Hbf.    Read more

  • Postcards to BostonEurotrip V
    Day 13

    Munich, Germany

    September 22, 2015 in Germany ⋅ ☀️ 63 °F

    We woke up late-ish and got dressed in our trachten (traditional dress: lederhosen and dirndl). We went to Theriesenweise and walked around. The first Tuesday of the fest is family day so there were lots of children and even a lot of school trips around. We made the terrible mistake of not eating much and only had a cheese sausage. We would come to regret not eating more. We took many outdoor photos of each of the tents but stopped into the Hacker Festzelt tent which is known for it's beautiful cloud ceiling. We sat at a table being used for filming a German TV show but they allowed us to sit down until they arrived, which ended up being from 10am to noon. We moved to a table with some Munich locals who were very kind but we didn't have much room to sit down. In total we each had 3 liters of beer and were feeling quite drunk when we left around 12:30 or 1.

    We somehow made our way back to the hotel, which was luckily by the Munich Hbf we we could follow signs. We both passed out and stayed there until 9pm. We ordered room service of a pasta dish which we barely ate because we were so hungover and still a little drunk.

    Lessons learned: not enough food/water prior to going into the tents, too fast consumption of beer. Regular beer is too strong for such long-term drinking but tents do sell railer (half beer, half lemonade) or non-alcoholic beer for the same price. Prices in the tents: 10.30 euro/beer, 4.90-5.10 euro/huge pretzel, 12.00-20.00 euro/ average dinner.    Read more

  • Postcards to BostonEurotrip V
    Day 14

    Munich, Germany

    September 23, 2015 in Germany ⋅ ☁️ 50 °F

    Lessons learned, our first stop was breakfast at Ida's Milchladen. Ida's restaurant was like a warm hug and she was so hospitable to us in our weakened states. We had eggs, muesli, coffee and fruit. The food was very cheap and service was wonderful. We walked around Marienplatz, Glockenspiel, Frauenkirch (which still had scaffolding just like it did in 2009 when we came to Munich) and Karlsplatz.

    We came back to the hotel to change into our trachten and went over to Oktoberfest at noon. We met up with a group from "Oktoberfest in Munich" Facebook group: Alex (Ukraine), Tracey and Tom (UK), Tom (Scotland), Eric (Michigan) and Ken (Kansas). We were in the Schutzen tent. We had a great time, stayed from 12 to 3:30 when we were rudely asked to leave :) We both drank 2 radlers and ate plenty: 1/2 chicken with potato salad for me and venison with butter spaetzle for Myron. By the end of the day we were standing on the benches and singing and dancing. However because of the food and radlers, we were not drunk at all! After security booted us from our table, we bought some warm nuts from a vendor and poked our heads in a few other tents to see the decorations.

    Next, we sat down in the Fischer Vroni tent which serves Augustiner beer and smoked fish. We found two new friends: Sani and Alex from Germany who both were excited to practice their English and we were excited to make German friends! This was a much quieter tent but still a lot of fun and started to get rowdy around 7pm. We shared a fish dish since we were still full from lunch, and each had a liter of Augustiner beer (not a radler this time...Augustiner is too good to water down!). By the end, we were getting too full to consume much more so we decided to leave around 7pm and say goodbye to our new friends. We also didn't want to be hungover for our flight home.

    Back at the hotel, we quickly packed and went to Royal Kebabhaus for dinner, which was actually a vegan donor kebab. It was pretty tasty!    Read more

  • Postcards to BostonEurotrip V
    Day 15

    Munich, Germany

    September 24, 2015 in Germany ⋅ ⛅ 54 °F

    Breakfast was at Ida's again for more yummy home cooking. We finished up with packing and wandered around Munich to kill time. There were lots of people in trachten and we were very jealous that we couldn't go to Oktoberfest for more fun. Unfortunately our poor planning meant we really only got to experience one day of the fest, but we learned our lessons and will hopefully not waste our time in Munich when we come back in the future!

    We checked out of the hotel at noon and got a normal donor kebab in the train station. We took the S-bahn to the airport (10.30 euro each), which took around 40min. It was quick and easy. Our flight was at 3:40pm and arrive in Boston at 6:20pm local time. The flight was almost 9 hours long but it was nice to be able to fly direct Munich to Boston.    Read more

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