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Monday 30 January 2017

Cologne - Germany

06:18:00 No comments
View from the top of the Kolntriangle - The Cologne cathedral was the tallest structure in the world for a few years after it was finally complete in 1880 - some 630 years after its construction had began. We can confirm that it is a monster!
In English we say Cologne, but in German and throughout Germany you'll notice on signs and timetables it's Koln. 
Famed for its massive Cathedral, the river Rhine, its beer Kölsch, having more bars and pubs per capita then any other German town, the Lindt chocolate museum and of course some more Christmas markets. Cologne was calling out to us. These few attractions were more then enough to make a two night visit worth while as we cross Germany headed for Belgium and the Netherlands. 


Amy having a crack at some Eggnog - this was my first attempt and I was not impressed! I'll stick to the gluhwein!
Small compared to Munich and Nuremberg, Cologne's Christmas Markets were stunning, and the cathedral background really added to the whole experience.

Apparently, one of Cologne's most charming traditions is for the locals to lock their love onto the Hohenzollern Bridge. Each side of the bridge is almost filled with locks across its entire length.

Kölsch, why is it so special I hear you ask? Well, its a clear top-fermented frothy bright in colour and crisp in taste. It was determined in 1986 by the directors of 24 Kölsch breweries that Kölsch is not only a type of beer but also a designation of origin, and that production should be restricted to a specific set of instructions and area of the world. Much like the French do with some of their cheese and champagne. Another cool thing here is that you don't really need to order the beer, as soon as you put down a coaster they bring you beers over. To stop receiving beers you need to put the coaster on top of the empty glass. 
After smashing 1litre frothies in Munich, it was strange to hold and consume only 200ml of Kölsch.... reasonably expensive at 3 euro's per glass.


Packed lunch!
Amy had to visit the Lindt museum, which was ok because we've visited plenty of breweries and pubs off my bat. It was reasonably expensive, and I expected to walk out feeling sick with eating too much free chocolate - which unfortunately didn't happen... It had a lot of information about where chocolate came from, how its grown and its uses over the years. We walked away having learnt about chocolate production, how and where cocoa is grown and genuinely learnt something.
Woot woot - for a few euro's you can make your own block of chocolate with chosen ingredients. 


Walking back to our apartment from the Lindt museum we wandered through a couple of different Christmas Markets selling a lot of hand made non-christmas specific product. Plenty of locals were out and about, well and truly more then tourists which was good to see.



Get yourself a custom on-the-spot handmade belt. 


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Saturday 28 January 2017

Nuremberg - Germany

03:18:00 No comments
December 5th-8th 2016
Nuremberg or Stuttgart??? 
According to a few people we had spoken to in Munich, it was to be Nuremberg.
Our AirBnB was a shared apartment with a host, and one of the more remote locations we've had for a while which meant a train ride, a bus ride, and a walk for a few minutes... BUT they a had ripper dog!
Our AirBnB dog! - Sammy
The Nuremberg Christmas markets are rated as some of the best in Germany, and after being pretty impressed with Munich we were keen to see what it had to offer! Other interesting things Nuremberg housed was its significant stake in Nazi history - the site of the Nazi rallies and post WWII Nuremberg trials.

 The second largest city in Bavaria and old mate Adolf Hitler's favourite city - "the most German of German cities." Nuremberg was considered to be a symbolic place in Germany, so basically that's why it was used by Hitler, and then the Allies post WWII for the bringing Nazi war criminals to justice.

 The first day we arrived we headed straight into town to get our bearings and some tucker. We were greeted with a cold night, but plenty of people out and about milling around Christmas market stands in the centre of old town Nuremberg.




Small thin bratwurst - specific to Nuremberg. Have'ta!

Nazi rally grounds and museum (documentation centre).
It was only a couple of km walk from our accommodation to the Nazi rally grounds and museum, and it wasn't too long before we knew we were heading in the right direction. A massive brick structure was on the horizon, as we walked down this abandoned granite road (the Great Road) with over grown concrete seating either side.
The Great Road - intended to be the central axis for nazi parades. Although never used for parade purposes, it was used as a temporary airfield for the US Army post war.
Entrance to the inner courtyard of the Congress Hall - Kongresshalle. Designed to have a self-supporting roof and provide seating for 50,000 people. The building was never finished, and is one of the most significant buildings I've ever seen! It sort of stands out like dog balls and looks abandoned. There was no real signage indicating how to walk into the hall, we sort of just stumbled onto it on our way to the Documentation Centre (museum) which is in one of the halls wings.

Views from the museum lookout.
The museum was really good! There was a free audio guide supplied, and we spent a couple of hours walking around learning about the uprise of the Nazi's, their rallies held prior to WWII and the Nuremberg trials. 
A memorial to all the prisoners killed by the nazi's in the extermination camps. Each card in this memorial represents 100 lives lost at the camps.
Zeppelinfeld - a monster grandstand now run down, this was an impressive sight in the 1930's. 
Weissgerbergasse - historic street.
Good value for Gluhwein - typically you pay an extra 5 euros and they serve the wein in a sweet Christmas cup. If you return the cup you get your deposit back. Great souvenirs, not that we got one.
Amy didn't like the idea of Gingerbread at the beginning, but now its her favourite. Nuremberg's speciality is Nurnberger Lebkuchen - pictured. It was chocolate coated and so delicious.
Token Christmas horse and cart.  

Views back towards the centre of town for the Imperial Castle.
Dominating the crepe game. Nutella and banana if your wondering.
!!!!Gluhwein-lyf!!!!
We really enjoyed visiting the WWII sites in Nuremberg. The city had a great festive vibe and we had a ripper time walking around sipping Gluhwein and checking out the Christmas stalls. They even had an international Christmas market section which had stalls from all over the world selling traditional items specific to their country. In comparison to Munich there seemed to be less variety in the stalls, a lot seemed to have similar things for sale in the main square. 

Unfortunately our AirBnB here was one of our least favourites - our host was hard to communicate with and we didn't really feel comfortable using the kitchen. And every time after we had a shower, she would run into the bathroom and rubber squeegee it clean... A very unique experience. We had three nights and Nuremberg and considering the weather, I think it was enough time.
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Saturday 21 January 2017

Munich - Germany

02:52:00 No comments
First Week of December 2016
We were bloody excited to get back into Western Europe after 3 months in the Balkans and Romania. Especially Munich - beer, German sausage and its famous Christmas markets, what wasn't there to be excited about? We had pre-booked 3 nights at Wombats Hostel to get us started, and expected big things! 
First things first, beer hall! After we dropped off our bags at the Hostel, we ventured out for the afternoon.
Wohaaaaa - after mostly paying from 80cents to $2 for Pints over the last couple of months, it was a bit of a slap in the face to fork out over $20 for what is pictured... However, I can confirm it was DELICIOUS and worth it!
The New Town Hall - possibly one of the most iconic 'historic' buildings in Munich. It features the Rathaus-Glockenspiel (situated within the main tower pictured) which chimes everyday at 11am and re-enacts two stories from the 16th century. The main pedestrian street was a hive of Christmas market stalls offering plenty of food, Gluhwein and decorations.
Nom, nom, nom. Nutella and banana crepes. We've been hankering for some of these since Paris.
After a couple of hours at the Hofbrauhaus, and a few stop offs at Christmas market stands for Gluhwein, crepes, and a couple of Bratwurst, we had blown the budged and handed over more Euros in a few hours then what a few days travel would cost through the Balkans.... 

Feldherrnhalle monument - This is the site of the Beer Hall Putsch, a confrontation between Bavarian State Police and followers of Hitler in 1923. The result was 4 police dead and 16 nazi marchers, further to Hitler being sentenced to a term in prison. Later when Hitler took power, he turned the site into a memorial, which was then used for SS parades and commemorative rallies in the lead up and during WWII.
The Munich Frauenkirche (Cathedral of Our Dear Lady) - very visible because local height limits suggest nothing can be built higher then this cathedral.
The Munich surfers braving what was a day of about 5 degrees celsius, we were told that no matter the conditions, you can expect to see people surfing in this small channel of the Isar River every day! Surfers have been shredding this man-made wave since the 1970s.


Temperatures were just about zero degrees but calm, still a cheeky gluhwein (warm, spicy red wine) was starting to grow on me a bit after initially not really enjoying it.
Cracking night - so we decided to go for a bit of an ice skate! I've never done it before, and I've never roller bladed successfully so I struggled and spend most of the time hanging onto one of those snowman frames.. Amy was more then capable and laughing her head off at me!
Day trip 1 - Dachau
A day trip out to Dachau, a medieval town 16km northwest of Munich. The home of the Dachau concentration camp which was the first Nazi concentration camps in Germany and eventually became the model of which all other Nazi concentration camps would be based on.
Albeit macht frei - Work sets you free
Opened in 1933 when Hitler came to power, it began as a place for the imprisonment of Jehovah's Witnesses, political opponents to the Nazi's and homosexuals. 
We spent about 3 hours wandering around the grounds, and reading this history about the camp and about how Hitler came to power etc. There was a brief movie of stories from people who survived explaining their treatment and the conditions of the camp. The whole couple of hours was such a sombering experience, to walk around the halls and a couple of the remaining prisoner barracks,  it was hard to imagine what these prisoners would have went through and how different the world was in Germany during the period of the Nazi power.

At the opening of the camp in 1933, Dachau had the capacity of 5000 prisoners. By 1937, 13,000 prisoners. It wasn't until 1938 that Jews began to be kept at the camp - which almost doubled the number of prisoners over night. At its height in 1945 there were 30,000 prisoners. Over the course of operation, some 200,000 prisoners from more than 30 countries past through the camp and in total 35,000 were documented to have died - it is estimated that thousands of deaths were never documented...

 While there were gas chambers and a crematorium built on site, only the crematorium was ever used. Other then the forced labour, one of the craziest uses of prisoners at the camp was for military based medical experiments. Nazi doctors used prisoners to experiment how long the human could be exposed to icy water, or freezing temperatures. How long humans could live of salt water, and at what point humans could survive when exposed to high altitude and rapid decompression. Crazy stuff!

 Day trip 2 - Neuschwanstein Castle.
The 'Disney - sleeping beauty' castle. Almost on the border of Austria, Neuschwanstein Castle was a couple of hour train ride from Munich on a packed train of tourists! For the first half an hour of the ride we were standing up until a handful of locals got off at early stops.

 Built by Ludwig II of Bavaria as a retreat, the palace was commissioned by the king out of his personal fortune. The structure is pretty impressively built on a large rock, unfortunately it was never quite finished before the death of the big fella in 1886 - 17 years after construction began. 

 Since the castle has been opened to the public, some 61million have visited. On a summers day un to 6000 people per day can be visiting the castle, making it one of the most popular tourist attractions in Europe. Considering this, I would say our time here was relatively quite with only a few dozen people wandering around. We didn't buy a ticket to tour the inside, so I'm not sure if we missed out on anything or not. At this point we've seen a bucket load of castles...


Views looking back on the castle from the walk upto the bridge lookout.
Proof we were actually there.
Wandering past the castle on our way to the lookout. There were some information boards with plenty of information about the history of the castle and King Ludwig II.
To fill in one of the colder days, we headed to the Deutsche Museum (German Museum) - the worlds largest museum of science and technology. And it was AWESOME! It had everything, and didn't disappoint. I can defiantly recommend anyone who's interested in science or technology a visit.
A whole steam powered tug boat on display!
Overall we spend 6 nights in Munich. The highlights were defiantly wandering through the Christmas markets, learning a lot at Dachau Concentration Camp and the Bavarian beer. She was a bit more expensive then we expected, but other then that it was a beauty!
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