Europe – Page 7 – Michael Rappa

Eurotrip 2011, Part 5: Dodging a Bullet in Cinque Terre

April 25, 2013 Michael RappaLeave a comment

This installment of my travel journal covers Days 11–13 of my 2011 trip to Europe…

After a long, long break, I am finally returning to the journal of my 2011 trip to Europe. When we last left off, I had just spent two days in Venice, my first ever solo trip in a foreign country. Upon returning to Florence from Venice, I caught the bus back up to the villa, arriving in the early evening, but I was stuck outside the gate for about 15 minutes unsuccessfully trying to get the non-English-speaking caretaker to let me in. There were only a limited number of gate keys, I did not have one of them, and nobody else from our group was home. I thought I was going to be stuck outside for the next few hours until somebody else came back (that’ll teach me to not learn enough of the local language when I travel).

I sat outside the gate with all of my luggage trying to call my uncle (in between curses) to see if he could contact somebody to get the caretaker to let me in. Before the call went through, the caretaker finally realized I wasn’t a criminal and the gate opened at last. I went inside and enjoyed a couple hours of peace and quiet before the rest of the group started filing in. Once again, however, I would not have much time to rest as I needed to pack for a long train ride to Cinque Terre the next morning.

By the time the train was making the final approach to La Spezia, where we would catch a cab to our hotel, it was already dark. At one point we were confused and got off the train at the wrong stop in a remote area. Something didn’t look right, however, and we jumped back on just before the train left. I can’t recall definitively, but I think that may have been the last train of the night, so if we had missed it, we would have been screwed.

We were checking in a day late because we got our dates wrong, but the hotel was kind enough to move our reservation back a day without penalty. As it turned out, missing our check-in date was the best thing that could have happened because Cinque Terre was ravaged by terrible flooding on the day we were supposed to be there (you may have read about this in the news). It had been raining heavily during the train ride in, but it did not seem extraordinary and we thought nothing of it until we learned of the devastation the next day.

We checked in to our hotel, located high on a cliff outside of the five connected villages that make up Cinque Terre. We had a long climb down the cliff to get to our room (a good fifteen minutes), hauling heavy luggage in the pouring rain. When we finally got down to where the rooms were situated, we walked around and around but could not find our room. We finally gave up, soaking wet and tired from a daylong train ride as well as the climb down. I left Uncle Kipp with the luggage and I ran all the way back up the cliff to the hotel office to ask them how to find our room. We finally found it, nestled in this little blink-and-you-miss-it nook area that was easy to bypass in the dark.

The room was a little skeevy, but I was tired enough that I didn’t care. If nothing else, we had a great view overlooking the Mediterranean when stepping outside of our room.

The view from outside our hotel room (the next day).

There were no other restaurants in the area because of the middle-of-nowhere location of our hotel, so we went to the hotel restaurant (which meant climbing all the way to the top of the cliff again). I had spaghetti Bolognese with boar meat; it didn’t really taste much different than other types of meat, especially when drowned in pasta sauce. After dinner there was really nothing to do but turn in since it was already pretty late and we were so far outside of the villages.

The next morning we awoke early with the intention of hiking the trail that winds its way among the cliffs and through the five villages—only to discover that the trail was closed. This was when we learned about the massive flooding that had devastated the area and rendered most of the villages inaccessible.

A highly zoomed-in shot of one of the villages we could not reach, possibly Monterosso.

In fact, the only village we were able to access was the first one, Riomaggiore, and that involved about an hour of walking down the main highway and through a dark automobile tunnel.

The end of the tunnel we walked through.

We walked around for a bit when we got there, making our way down to the little harbor, but we didn’t stay very long because there didn’t seem to be a whole lot to do with so much being closed down.

We were bummed that the whole trip out to the coast seemed to be for nothing, but when we later learned of the sheer level of the devastation, we realized how lucky we were to have accidentally checked in a day late. We almost definitely would have been right in the middle of one of the villages when the flooding and mudslides began, needing to be evacuated like so many others, and it could have been even worse—nine people lost their lives.

When we got back to the hotel my uncle spoke to a Spanish couple who had been stuck inside their car in one of the villages during the flooding for hours, thinking that they were going to die. They were eventually evacuated by chopper and ended up at our hotel, but their car and everything in it was lost.

It was unbelievable to hear stories like this because the previous night’s storm hadn’t seemed like anything out of the ordinary, but the images we would later see on television were shocking. We were truly fortunate to have missed it, just as we had missed the rioting in Rome by one day earlier in the trip.

A capsized boat apparently washed out to sea by the flooding.

It was still fairly early in the afternoon when we got back to the hotel so I decided to hike down a nearby cliff. There was a trail that led all the way down to the beach. My uncle stayed behind so I went by myself.

Part of the trail (more treacherous than it looks).

For late October the weather was as warm as mid-summer, so I was able to wear shorts. There were beautiful views of the Mediterranean on the way down.

I also passed by a couple of houses that looked like they had no business being in the middle of a cliff.

Along the way, there were some interesting sights, such as this red ant-infested rock that I could easily have leaned against if I hadn’t been paying attention:

However, it was much farther to the bottom than it had appeared when I started, so I only made it about two-thirds of the way down when the sun set.

I found a place to sit and admire the sunset over the sea. I was the only person on the trail so it felt as if I had the entire Italian coastline to myself. I was amazed at how peaceful the Mediterranean appeared, almost motionless.

I climbed down for a while longer but I never made it to the bottom. I didn’t want to hike back up the cliff by myself in the dark, and I was already pretty tired anyway, so I turned back. I made it back to the top by around eight in the evening. That night we had dinner at the hotel again. I ordered shrimp and was very surprised to be served a plate with fully-formed shrimp staring back at me, eyeballs and all. They don’t serve them that way in the states. 🙂

We turned in shortly after dinner. We had to wake up early the next morning to catch a bus into La Spezia, where we would hop on a train back to Florence and the final two days of the Italy leg of our trip, which will be covered in the next installment. Until then…

View More Photos from Cinque Terre

Photo of the Day: Overlooking Dubrovnik

April 9, 2013 Michael RappaLeave a comment

This is one of those happy accident photos. I was walking along the walls that surround the spectacular medieval city of Dubrovnik, Croatia, snapping lots of photos when I captured this woman lifting her daughter for a view of the city. I normally delete photos with strangers in them if I have a similar shot without them, but I thought this was a poignant scene so I kept it.

Eurotrip 2009 Part 5: Heidelberg

April 4, 2013 Michael RappaLeave a comment

This is the fifth part of my Eurotrip 2009 Revisited series, a special edition of sorts in which I have divided the original post into smaller parts while incorporating minor copy edits and a few new (and reprocessed) images.

After our adventures in Lucerne we departed the next morning for the final leg of our trip. The hotel front desk was late with my wakeup call so I had to rush getting ready and packed to make sure I got downstairs for the bus on time, but I still had a few minutes to hit the restaurant and get some more of that awesome bacon.

Our first stop that morning was the Rhine Falls in Switzerland. While not on the level of Niagara, it is still quite spectacular and powerful.

The Rhine Falls
The tiny people visible at the top of the island on the left give you a sense of the size of the falls.

We didn’t have long to stay and I had already wasted some time sitting on a bench and staring at the falls, but I wanted to get a closer view, so I ran around the far side of the river where a path and steps led to the top of the falls, climbing as high as I could while taking photos. However, time ran out before I was able to reach the top and I had to book it back to the bus.

Our next stop was in the fabled Black Forest of Germany to see the world’s largest cuckoo clock in action. It was kind of kitschy (it’s no Glockenspiel). I would rather have spent more time at the Rhine Falls than rushing to make the 12 p.m. cuckoo performance.

After the cuckoo performance we went inside the building for a demonstration of how the Germans hand-make their famous cuckoo clocks. We then stood in line for 45 minutes to get some crappy cafeteria food for lunch because we thought it would be faster than going to the sit-down restaurant across the way. In all, this was my least favorite stop of the trip, but the rest of the trip was so wonderful that it’s hard to complain about one little bump in the road.

After lunch we departed for our final destination: Heidelberg, Germany. The bus took us straight to the castle ruin that overlooks the city (we would not check in to our hotel that night until after 8:30 p.m.). While not as magnificent as the intact fortress in Salzburg that I saw two years prior, the Heidelberg castle is still very impressive and provides a nice view of the valley below:

A view of Heidelberg from the castle. I would later take photos of the castle
from below while standing in the square visible in the lower left of the photo.

Another view of Heidelberg from the castle.

Here are a couple of photos of the ruins themselves. The open window sections reminded me a bit of the Colosseum.

We stopped in the castle courtyard for a group photo, and then went inside to view the world’s largest wine barrel.

We then explored the grounds around the castle. Along the way, I snapped this photo of a nearby obelisk in my best attempt at a 2001-ish monolith shot:

My Monolith (no apes huddled around this one)

After our tour of the castle we headed back to the bus, which dropped us off in the middle of town for an hour of free time before dinner. I took a few photos of the castle from down below.

I then did some shopping and bought a chocolate gelato. One of the stores had tons of absinthe of every kind imaginable. I had never seen so much in one place. I thought about getting a big bottle to bring home, but decided against it.

We ate dinner at a charming place called Zum Sepp’l, which has apparently been a hangout for university students since the 1600’s, complete with thick wood tables entirely covered in carved names.

This was the best dinner of the trip, and a nice way to spend our last night in Europe. The tomato soup appetizer was fantastic (and I’m not usually a fan of it), but this tasted almost like spaghetti sauce. The bread was great. For the main course we had these awesome large pierogi topped with ham and onion. They were so good that I didn’t hesitate for seconds when they offered them. Here’s a picture of our mini group at the dinner table:

The people I spent the most time with during the trip.
From Left: Uncle Kipp, Amber, Sam, Me, Sam’s Grandmother.

After dinner, a group of guys from the New York group bought a giant three-liter beer boot, which they passed around and chugged down in rapid fashion.

I was finally able to settle into my hotel room a little after 8:30 p.m., but we were right back outside at 9:30 for an extended walking tour of Heidelberg. The castle looks beautiful lit up at night, though the night photos taken with my pocket camera didn’t come out too great.

After the tour, our Gateway group stopped at a pub for a final round of drinks. On the way home we stopped for our last European gelatos. That night at 12:30 I helped Uncle Kipp do a final room check.

The following morning we hopped on the bus with the Virginia group for a long drive to Frankfurt airport (the NY group had already left very early that morning because they had a different flight). At the airport we said our goodbyes to our driver, guide, and the people from the Virginia group.

Here’s a photo of our entire group (New York, Virginia, and New Jersey):

After a fairly short wait (especially compared to the 2007 trip), we boarded our plane. I had my seat switched from a window to an aisle, thinking that I would have a nice relaxing flight home. Little did I know that the girl sitting behind me would think that the touchscreen on the back of my seat was a punch screen, so you can imagine how fun that was for eight hours (I did finally get up with about 90 minutes left in the flight to show her how to use the screen without punching it). The movies really helped pass the time, even if most of them were mediocre, though I actually liked Marley & Me, a real tear jerker if you’re a dog lover.

We had a pretty rough landing in Philly, just as we had two years ago. Is there something about landing in Philly? We got the shuttle back to Gateway high school in South Jersey, where Jen picked me up. After saying our goodbyes we began the long drive back to central Jersey. I couldn’t wait to get home and get some rest, especially since I was beginning a new job in a couple of days.

Overall, I had a great time on the trip, though I would rank it slightly behind the one from 2007, primarily because on that trip we visited Salzburg (my favorite European city to that point), we did not have to share our bus with any other groups (which gave us plenty of room to stretch out on long bus rides and we didn’t have to worry about losing our seats every day), and we stayed two nights in every location, which made for a more easy-going trip.

On the other hand, we visited more cities on this trip and met some nice people from the other groups. It was also a blast hanging out with Amber, and some other aspects of the trip and flight were easier this time around since I had already gone through it once before. In the end, both trips were fantastic and left me with a lifetime’s worth of memories. One day I’ll write up my journal of the 2007 trip and the comparisons can begin. 🙂

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Eurotrip 2009: The Movie

April 2, 2013 Michael Rappa6 Comments

I finally got around to compiling the little videos I shot during my 2009 Eurotrip into a movie. These were shot with my old pocket camera, so it’s not HD video quality and I didn’t have the ability to zoom in and out during shooting, but it’s still a decent companion piece to my journal.

Eurotrip 2009 Part 4: Lucerne

March 28, 2013 Michael Rappa2 Comments

This is the fourth part of my Eurotrip 2009 Revisited series, a special edition of sorts in which I have divided the original post into smaller parts while incorporating minor copy edits and a few new (and reprocessed) images.

We left Innsbruck after lunch for a very long bus ride to Switzerland. On the way we stopped briefly in Liechtenstein, the world’s smallest principality, basically a tiny independent kingdom complete with its own royal palace:

Our guide Keith pointed out that Liechtenstein has three political parties: the conservatives, the more conservatives, and the ultra conservatives. I thought to myself: sounds like some places I know in the States. 🙂 We didn’t have time to tour the palace, so after taking a few photos and getting our passports stamped, we were back on the bus.

On the way to Lucerne we passed by some of the most beautiful scenery you are likely to gaze upon, including giant lakes surrounded by tall mountains and rolling green hills like something out of The Hobbit:

Swiss countryside taken from bus.
Bad window reflections but I wanted to get a shot of the rolling hills.

Right outside of the city we got stuck in a traffic jam due to an accident that had people rubbernecking, so it took us a little longer to get in. After finally reaching the city we were dropped off in the town center for shopping. I bought lots of chocolate and picked up my free souvenir spoon from the Bucherer. I also picked up another t-shirt and a postcard, which I had been collecting from every country for a friend of Jen’s.

We later checked into a very nice hotel right along the lake, of which I had a nice view from my room when I stuck my head out the window. The room had motion sensor lights for the bathrooms that I thought were pretty cool until I realized that the lights would often go out when I was in the middle of doing something like brushing my teeth. The hotel served a good dinner that night: a cheese ravioli appetizer followed by a beef dish with hash browns. The dinner portion was a little on the small side, but I’m used to gluttonous America where everything is supersized. 😉

That night we walked to the Lion Monument, and then around town and the lake, which is all lit up at night:

The covered pedestrian bridge in Lucerne

We ended up at a cafe where we sat in the outdoor balcony overlooking the lake drinking a beer that cost 8 1/2 franks. One thing you learn about Lucerne is that it’s kind of a tourist trap; everything is very expensive. Nevertheless, of all the cities I have visited in Europe, it is one of my favorites. The views of the massive lake surrounded by the Alps (especially Mt. Pilatus, which towers over the city) are phenomenal, and the town itself exudes old world charm with its pedestrian streets, old buildings, and covered bridges.

After our beer we walked to McDonald’s to quell the late night munchies (sort of a tradition in that we did the same thing two years ago), where I had a Cheeseburger Royale (for you Pulp Fiction fans). During the long walk back to the hotel we bumped into a few less-than-kind locals. First, an older guy cut in front of our group, holding his hand up like a stop sign as he crossed in front of us. Later, a young guy with his friends mocked us for having cameras. Oh well, it’s all part of the travel experience. That night I finally got to bed around 1:30am.

The next morning the hotel served a nice breakfast that included bacon! Most of the breakfasts on the trip were more of a continental style, so this was a treat. After breakfast we hopped on the bus for Mt. Pilatus. To get to the top of the mountain you take two sets of cable cars. The first is a small four-person car, then about halfway up you transfer to a large car that holds roughly 30 people standing. At one point, the land along which the car is skimming suddenly drops away and you find yourself dangling over nothing but air—this always elicits a “whoa!’ from the crowd. On the way up the mountain you watch as the terrain gradually changes from green to snow.

The top of the mountain is breathtaking; no picture or description could ever do it justice, but here are a few:

View of Lucerne from the top of Mt. Pilatus

That afternoon I had some time to myself so I walked along the lake toward town taking photos. I stopped for a Doener, a popular Middle Eastern sandwich similar to a gyro, and decided to join the other lunching Europeans by eating it down by the lake with my feet hanging over the edge, enjoying the beautiful day and the incredible view:

After lunch I walked into town to take out more francs in order to pay for the boat ride our group was supposed to be taking that evening. Unfortunately, the boat ride would later be canceled, so I ended up with a bunch of extra franks. Anyway, I went to a place called the Tea Room and ordered a cup of green tea for five francs. As I mentioned, things are expensive in Lucerne: I had earlier bought an eight-franc Fanta on Pilatus, and two years ago Uncle Kipp and I shared a cheese fondue lunch that cost around 50 francs.

While in the tea room I bumped into Keith and the adults from the Virginia group, so I sat with them. I decided to go up to the bakery counter and order a chocolate mousse cake to go with my green tea. About halfway through my delicious desert, one of the store employees came up to the table and asked me to come to the cashier at the bakery counter—I had left my wallet, passport, and return plane ticket (which had been inside the passport) on the counter!!! Everything that identified me as me was sitting on that counter for anyone to take. I would have been stuck in a foreign country with no money or identification, so I was eternally thankful for the honesty of the cashier. That was the second time I had misplaced my passport on the trip, so lesson learned—I’ve used one of those around-the-neck portfolio wallets for every trip since then.

After dessert I made my way back to the hotel following a quick stroll through the underground pedestrian mall. After getting back to the hotel we had about an hour before dinner so I decided to take a walk along the other end of the lake taking more photos, with Amber and Sam tagging along:

Dinner at the hotel that night was roast chicken with french fries and ice cream for dessert. I also had some white wine. That night the students decided that they didn’t feel like going out; they just wanted to hang out at the hotel, so I took Amber out and we walked around the town:

We stopped at a small bar off the beaten path and I bought Amber a radler, though when I ordered the drinks the waiter looked at me like I had two heads because they call it something different in Switzerland. At this point I still had 20 francs left and since it was our last night in Switzerland, I needed to blow through them. Sure, I could have exchanged them later, but where’s the fun in that? So I decided to take Amber to her first ever casino since the legal age there is 18.

We had to pay a cover charge to get in, which left us each with only five francs, but that was fine, because I’m not a gambler myself, and it was enough to give Amber a taste (and bragging rights to her friends who still had to wait three years to legally enter a casino in the States). We stuck to the slots, and needless to say, we lasted about 15 minutes before running out of money. A guy from the New York group named Mark had actually won $200 the night before, but no such luck for us.

After leaving the casino we went back to the hotel. Amber went to bed while I stopped in the hotel bar, where I bumped into Mark, and we hung out for about a half hour talking before I finally went up to bed myself. The next morning we would be heading back to Germany for the final leg of our trip, which will be covered in the next installment.

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Dubrovnik, Croatia

March 26, 2013 Michael RappaLeave a comment

I stumbled across a few small videos I shot while in Croatia in November of 2011 that I forgot to include in my main Eurotrip 2011 video, so I thought I’d compile them here.

In honor of the upcoming season premiere of Game of Thrones and Dubrovnik’s connection to the show, I have scored the video with the main theme from the series.

I chose to smooth-out the video using youtube’s smoothing software, which resulted in quite wacky behavior of the title captions at the beginning, but the rest of the video is nice and smooth, so once you get past the opening captions, it’s smooth sailing—do you think I used the word ‘smooth’ enough in that last sentence? 🙂

See photos from Dubrovnik

Eurotrip 2009 Part 3: Neuschwanstein and Innsbruck

March 20, 2013 Michael RappaLeave a comment

This is the third part of my Eurotrip 2009 Revisited series, a special edition of sorts in which I have divided the original post into smaller parts while incorporating minor copy edits and a few new (and reprocessed) images.

After spending our last night in Munich, we had a (gasp) 6:15 wakeup call the next morning, though I actually awoke on my own at 5:45. Following breakfast we were on the road to Neuschwanstein, the fairy tale castle of King Ludwig II. The Sleeping Beauty castle of Disneyland was based on Neuschwanstein . . . and for you Spaceballs fans, it was also used as Castle Druidia in that film.

Hohenschwangau Castle, Ludwig’s childhood home, located beneath Neuschwanstein

The long climb to the top of the mountain where Neuschwanstein sits was much easier for me than it had been two years ago when I was carrying around 30 extra pounds. We toured the amazing inside of the castle (Ludwig was like an overgrown child; all of his rooms were extravagantly themed on Wagner operas, and he even had an indoor cave built just outside his bedroom). Unfortunately, they don’t let you take any pictures inside (I tried to sneak a few pics from under my jacket but they didn’t come out), so here’s an exterior shot of the valley taken from the castle:

One of my favorite scenes at Neuschwanstein

After the tour we made our way to the Marienbrücke, a bridge over a gorge that normally provides a stunning view of the castle, but unfortunately the entire side of the castle was covered in scaffolding. Luckily, I had gotten great pictures when I was here in 2007, so it wasn’t a huge loss.

Neuschwanstein unfortunately covered in scaffolding

Amber and I crossed the bridge and began climbing the path to the top of the mountain, during which I took my obligatory Karate Kid photo:

After a short climb we decided to make our way back, but were separated from the rest of the group, so we started walking back down the mountain on our own. We came to a fork, at which a sign seemed to indicate that we could get to the bottom taking either path, but one was shorter than the other. We took the short path, which was steeper than the traditional path.

About halfway down we reached a dead-end, so we climbed back up to an intersection where the path appeared to continue on down the hill, but we didn’t want to take anymore chances and wind up late for the bus, so we climbed all the way back up the steep path to the original fork, an arduous climb with the clock ticking—Amber had never heard me curse so much in her life 🙂

Eventually we made it back to the original path on which we had climbed up to the castle, but way too late for lunch, so I grabbed a Bavarian hamburger and munched it on the way down. We made it back to the bus just in time, putting a little scare into Uncle Kipp, but as it turned out, the leader of the NY group was 15 minutes late, so we would have been fine.

Our next stop was the Wieskirche (also known as the church in the meadow). Here’s one shot of its amazing interior:

The meadow that gives the Wieskirche its nickname

Following that we stopped in Oberammergau, a town famous for its Passion Play, as well as its wood carvings and painted buildings. I was still worn out from our mountain experience, so I just explored the town briefly before sitting down with a radler at an outdoor cafe, relaxing, and enjoying the view:

We eventually arrived at our hotel in Innsbruck, Austria around 6pm. My room had a nice view of the alps:

View from an Innsbruck street
(McDonald’s truly is everywhere)

After unpacking and eating a hotel-provided pork dinner, we went on a brief walking tour. The kids wanted to find a nightclub, so Uncle Kipp befriended a group of local kids and had them lead us to a bar. A few of the girls did not want to stay, so I led them home, which was fine with me because the smoke in the bar was disgusting. Everyone who stayed at the bar apparently had a great time, but as my uncle is fond of saying: “To each their own.” After a very long day, I slept like a log for most of the night.

The next morning we went on another brief walking tour, culminating in a visit to a church with cool statues:

After that I did a little shopping with Amber, as well as Sam and her grandmother. I picked up another t-shirt (which I would only get one use out of because it shrank to nearly a half-shirt after I washed it). This was the same store where I bought my nephew Jamie’s t-shirt, so I hope his fared better than mine did.

A little later I bought a small bottle of absinthe, just to see what all the fuss was about. Amber and I then walked down to the river, where we got some great photos:

Innsbruck historical district at riverside

We then ate lunch at an outdoor cafe where I had a good spaghetti bolognese (even though I was enjoying the German food, I couldn’t go a whole week without eating Italian :-)).

Following lunch we hopped on the bus for a very long drive to Switzerland, which will be covered in the next installment.

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Eurotrip 2011: The Video

March 16, 2013 Michael RappaLeave a comment

I thought I’d kick off the new Videos section of this blog with the very first video I made from one of my trips. This video covers most of my month in Europe in 2011, including visits to Italy, Switzerland, and Croatia.

This video is nearly 18 minutes long, so I’ll understand if you don’t want to sit through the whole thing :-), but it is accompanied by a couple of pleasant pieces from Holst’s The Planets.

Eurotrip 2009 Part 2: Munich

March 14, 2013 Michael Rappa1 Comment

This is the second part of my Eurotrip 2009 Revisited series, a special edition of sorts in which I have divided the original post into smaller parts while incorporating minor copy edits and a few new (and reprocessed) images.

Flash Forward: Nymphenburg Palace in Munich

Soon after our adventures in Rothenburg we left for the bus ride to Munich. On the way we stopped at two more medieval towns that also had city walls like Rothenberg. Our first stop was Dinkelsburg, a charming town that looks like it jumped right out of the pages of a storybook.

Our next stop was Nordlingen. For film buffs, this is the town that can be seen from the glass elevator at the end of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (most of the movie was actually filmed in Munich). I did not know this during the time I was there, though, or I might have taken more pictures (I didn’t snap many photos in this town because it looks so similar to Dinkelsburg and Rothenburg).

Later that day we arrived at our Munich hotel. The room card was needed to activate both the elevator and the electricity in my room, which I thought was an interesting feature. We had some free time to get settled in before leaving that night for the Augustiner restaurant. What was supposed to be a 15 minute walk turned out to be a half-hour walk, and by the time we got there people were starving (in retrospect, complaining about a 30-minute walk seems a bit silly in light of all the walking I did last year on the Inca Trail :-)).

Dinner began with a basket of pretzels (which you see more often in Munich than bread). The dinner was good, pork chops and spaetzle. I also ordered a radler (beer mixed with lemon soda). It’s a tasty alternative to beer and was my drink of choice for most of the trip.

On the way home that night we went to the Augustiner beer garden, where I had my first Mas beer of the week: a one-liter beer in a giant mug. Uncle Kipp had bought Amber her first beer earlier in the day (a radler), but she had not tried real beer yet, so I let her taste mine, to predictable results:

A couple of German guys (who we thought worked there) came over and talked a few people from our group into going up on stage to dance and sing. The kids who went up soon discovered the truth when a real employee yelled at them. Soon after we headed back to the hotel. Exhausted from a general lack of sleep over the first couple of days of the trip, I fell asleep pretty easily a little after midnight, though I woke up a couple of times during the night.

The next morning for breakfast I had some outstanding croissants with tasty European butter, as well as a good chocolate-frosted pound cake. That day we went on a bus tour of Munich with the same guide that we had two years ago. Our first stop was Nymphenburg Palace:

I snapped this quick photo of Nymphenburg Palace from the bus.
Gotta love Photoshop’s spot healing tool for getting rid of window reflections.

While inside, I briefly leaned against one of the pillars in the picture below to take a photo of the ceiling mural, which was a no-no. A little old lady came over to yell at me, then proceeded to follow me around for the rest of the tour.

After finishing our tour of the palace, we hopped back on the bus and stopped by the Eisbach river to watch surfers ride the rough waters where the river forms a standing wave.

Our tour ended in the town square known as the Marienplatz, where we watched the Glockenspiel in action.

Our group then split up and I bought Amber lunch for her birthday—we ate with Sam and her grandmother. Like the previous evening, we were supplied with a basket of pretzels. However, unlike the previous evening, they charged us for them—and neglected to mention this until after we had already eaten them. That was kind of annoying, but what are you going to do? These things happen when you travel. The lunch was good anyway: sausage and potato salad.

That afternoon I skipped the group excursion to the Dachau concentration camp since I had already seen it two years ago, choosing instead to walk to the famed English Garden (Munich’s version of Central Park). It’s a beautiful oasis in the middle of the city complete with mini waterfalls and babbling brooks.

Before going I bought a t-shirt (the first of many I would buy on this trip because the April weather was much warmer than I was expecting and I had mostly packed heavy clothes) and changed into the only pair of shorts I brought. By the time I got to the English Garden I realized it had taken me an hour to walk there, and it would take me another half hour to walk to the beer garden at the back of it. While in the park I discovered firsthand how much less prudish Europeans are than Americans when I saw a naked guy running around playing Frisbee with himself. There were tons of people there; including children, but nobody cared. It was certainly a jarring site for someone who grew up in a country that freaked out over a Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction.

I made my way to the back of the park, first stopping at a gazebo on a hill overlooking the entire park with the city line in the background:

Munich city line behind the English Garden

I then continued on to the beer garden, at the center of which stands a large Chinese pagoda:

Chinese pagoda and beer garden in the English Garden

I sat down and drank a Radler and ate a giant donut type of pastry, soaking in the beautiful sunny day. I also took this time to call Jen at work. On my way out of the park I stopped and had a chocolate gelato (I was pigging out on this trip). A German man then asked me to take a picture of his family. We had a brief conversation, during which he sort of made fun of me for wearing an Oktoberfest shirt in the spring, but it was good-natured ribbing.

While walking back through the city, I saw an accident happen in front of me in which a motorcycle wiped out. The guy was okay; he had jumped off the bike. Interestingly, we had also seen a motorcycle accident on the trip two years ago.

When I got back to the hotel I stopped and spent a few minutes on the pay-per-minute internet computer to check email (this was back before I had a cell phone or kindle capable of keeping me connected abroad) . . . facebook was down so I couldn’t check that (perish the thought!). I then went to Uncle Kipp’s room and we chatted for a while only to realize that we had lost track of time and were late for the bus that was taking us to dinner. Everyone took turns being late on this trip, today was ours–and Amber now had some ammunition to fire back at Uncle Kipp. 😉

Dinner that night was roast chicken and fries, and once again we fell victim to the pretzel bait and switch, only this time it was more egregious because our dinners were supposed to be all inclusive except for drinks (the pretzels at the previous day’s dinner had been free). It wasn’t a big deal for me, but many of the students were there on limited budgets and were not expecting to have to pay money toward their dinners.

For dessert, Uncle Kipp gave Amber a very good birthday cake that our table shared. Later that night we went to the famed Hofbrauhaus for drinks.

Amber & me with Mas beers at the Hofbrauhaus

At one point during the evening I discovered that German women have no problem coming into the bathroom to clean while you are still using the facilities. Anyway, we got home that night a little after 11. We had a 6:15 wakeup call the next morning to leave for Innsbruck, Austria. Along the way we would be stopping at King Ludwig II’s fairy tale castle, Neuschwanstein, and a few other places. Those events will be covered in the next installment.

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Eurotrip 2009 Part 1: Rothenburg

February 25, 2013May 22, 2018 Michael Rappa2 Comments

This is a re-posting of my 2009 Eurotrip journal. I am revisiting it in order to split the long original post into smaller parts that will fit more neatly into the country categories of the top menu. I also wanted to restore some images that were lost when I imported my old blog to WordPress.

What follows is the original text with minor edits and a few new (and reprocessed) images here and there. Consider it the special edition, or Eurotrip 2009 Revisited. 🙂

: This is actually a photo from later in the trip (Innsbruck, Austria),
but I thought it was a nice choice for kicking off the journal.

This journal chronicles my trip to Europe from April 4th to April 12th, 2009. First, a little background. My Uncle Kipp is a high school German teacher who takes his students on biennial Spring Break trips to Germany through a tour company called ACIS. As group leader, his trip is free, and he is allotted a certain number of chaperones, who also get to go for free. This was my second trip with one of his classes (I had also chaperoned two years ago). As with the previous trip, I paid extra to be guaranteed my own room, so my trip ended up costing $280, which is still obviously an enormous bargain for a trip to Europe, and more than worth it to have my own room for the week.

On this trip we were joined by my cousin Amber, who would be turning 18 in Munich (coincidentally, I had celebrated my 36th birthday in Munich two years ago). I wish I had kept a journal for that first trip because it would have been interesting to compare the two trips, but this one will have to do…

Flight

After packing all night and getting little sleep, we left the house around 12:45 p.m. for Gateway high school in South Jersey. The airport shuttle arrived at Gateway a little after 2 p.m. and, after saying our goodbyes to family, we were off.

We breezed through check-in at Philly airport—and I wasn’t searched for a change! The flight did not leave until 6:15 and we had some time to kill, so I watched the Star Wars episode of Family Guy on my iPod. Also during this time, I learned how easy it is to misplace your passport as I had a brief panic attack when I couldn’t find mine (it was under the seat I had been sitting in.) It would not be the last time on this trip that I would have a passport snafu (more on that later).

On the flight I got separated from the rest of the group and wound up with a window seat. I would have preferred an aisle seat but at least I had a nice view. I like this shot of the sun setting over the runway as the plane turned for takeoff:

During the flight, Lufthansa serves food and drinks (all free). The dinner was actually pretty good for plane food and I had a few glasses of white wine to wash it down. The woman sitting next to me was nice and we had a good conversation for the first half of the flight. She was headed to Germany on business for Siemens.

I tried to sleep during the second half of the flight to no avail thanks to the guy behind me kicking my seat the entire time. I finally gave up and decided to watch a movie. They now have touch screens on every seat where you can choose from a number of movies, TV shows, and music channels. The movies are edited for content, but it wasn’t too noticeable. I decided to watch Twilight (the first film had just come out) to see what all of the hype was about—there’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back. Anyway, we soon landed. I bought a pair of earplugs supposedly designed to help relieve the pressure during takeoff and landing, but they didn’t work; I pulled them out about halfway through the landing. Thankfully, I’m more of a veteran now and better at popping my ears on flights, but at the time it was only my second flight in 20 years.

Rothenburg

We arrived at Frankfurt airport around 8 a.m., met up with our tour guide, Keith, and hopped on the ACIS bus. The other two groups had arrived before us, so there wasn’t much choice in terms of seating (it would be the first salvo in a week-long battle for seats on the bus). The drive to Rothenburg, a charming medieval town surrounded by a perfectly preserved city wall, took around two hours.

We were unable to check in to our hotel until 3:30 in the afternoon so the bus dropped us off and we embarked on a walking tour of the city with our full plane carry-ons in tow (I had not been to sleep since the previous day). After the walking tour we split up and went off on our own. I ate lunch with Uncle Kipp, Amber, her friend Sam, and Sam’s grandmother Elizabeth. This was the group I hung out with for most of the trip. We sat outside at a restaurant in the town square. The lunch I had was fantastic, and would prove to be my best meal of the trip. It was a pork steak in a dark beer sauce topped with onions and thick bacon, with a large pile of awesome fried potatoes on the side. After lunch we stopped for some delicious gelato. We then walked around the city streets and on the wall, taking lots of photos. Here are a few:

Amber and me with Sam (the girl Amber befriended and hung out with for most of the trip)

I was finally able to check into my room around 4pm, at which time I crashed and got about an hour of sleep before dinner at the hotel. Dinner that night was decent, a beef pot roast. That night we walked back into town for more gelato and to see the town crier, who was dressed in full period costume.

After that I went to bed early, around 11:15 p.m., but not before I realized that I had forgotten to bring my contact case, so I was forced to improvise a container to store my contacts for the evening. The next morning I awoke before the wake-up call (after waking up several other times throughout the night) and went down to breakfast in the hotel. Following breakfast we had to be packed and ready to put our suitcases on the bus by 8:30. Amber was late and wound up having to store her suitcase at the hotel front desk after the bus driver left, which led to a scolding from Uncle Kipp. 🙂

That day we had some free time before leaving town, so I walked around Rothenburg by myself. First I toured the historical museum in the town hall devoted to the 30 Years War, which had a cool dungeon complete with cells and instruments of torture. I also tried to climb the town hall tower to get a bird’s eye view of the city, but it was closed for the day, so I did some shopping and then ate at the same restaurant where I had the great meal the day before. This time it wasn’t as good, but it was still okay: a pork chop, sauerkraut, and my first beer of the week.

I was disappointed to discover that I could not use my credit card to pay for the meal because there was a $25 minimum (this would be a recurring theme throughout Europe), but when you’re traveling you have to roll with the punches and realize that many things are not going to be the same as they are back home, though Europe is pretty close—if you can’t handle the minor differences in Europe you should probably do all of your vacationing in the States. 😉

Later I bought a chocolate covered snowball (a local specialty for which I cannot remember the German name), and soon after we were back on the bus for Munich, which will be covered in the next installment. Until then, I’ll leave you with a couple of night shots of Rothenburg.

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