Day 5- train journey to Baden Baden

When we checked in to our hotel in Black Forest, we were surprised to be given a guest card which enabled us to take the regional transport free of charge and gives discounts at lot of places.

Today we thought instead of driving in our car, we should take the opportunity of travelling from Gengenbach to Baden Baden via the Schwarzwaldbahn. The trains run every half an hour and it takes about 35 mins to reach Baden Baden.

The first thing that you notice here is that the station is quite far away from the city centre. We tried to search in a huge map outside the station as to where we were and how to reach the city centre, however the fun part is that there is no 'you are here' on the map, so after searching for quite some time, we decided to take a bus to Leopoldstrasse/Stadtmitte. It was quite a guess that the bus stop that we picked was actually where the tourist information centre was located.

The tourist information centre building was quite beautiful and the staff friendly. We were planning to do a hike of the Panoramaweg, the best and most scenic hike acknowledged in Germany. We bought the map from the tourist centre and started walking towards the general direction shown in the map.

Now, staying in England for 5+ years, you quite get used to the way of how detailed the maps are and the markings on the streets are, and here this was like searching for a needle in the haystack.

We finally started walking towards Neue Schloss 

which seemed to be in the way and our starting point of the hike.

After climbing a lot of steps we finally reached schlossstrassen, from where we went past the new castle and finally came to a vast meadow where we finally thought our walk could begin.

As soon as entered the meadow, the first thing that we saw was cherry trees, and my wish finally came true. We picked some cherries and finally started walking up.

There we saw our first marker of Panoramaweg. The hike took us quite uphill, with a small top in between to fill our bottle with cold water and continuing up to the Old castle. 

We took in the panaromic view here and then started on our roundweg, towards Battertfelsen. This is quite a paradise for rock climbers but the hike from bottom of these rocks is also worth it. We continued past the rocks toward Engelskanzel via dense black forests. Our hike uphill thankfully was over and we now had to make our way downhill.

We took a stop at a restaurant in Wolfsschlucht and ate the nicest strawberry cake at this restaurant. After taking a food n drink break, we were now energised to continue on our final way.

The hike again led us through forests and we reached down near Merkurbergbahn.

From here on the Panormaweg was more of a road trip and hence instead of continuing our way via foot, we decided to call it a day and took a bus 205 to the city centre again.

We walked a bit around the centre, but since it was already 6 pm, the shops were starting to close. 

We took the 201 bus back from Augustusplatz to station (15 min ride)and took a 6.39 train back to Gengenbach.

If anyone is not interested in doing the hike, the Panoramaweg is 45 km in length surrounding Baden Baden and can be driven through as well.

Day 3 - Munich to Black Forest drive

Monday morning started with a terrible rain. We were hoping that our drive from Munich would be memorable and it was, just not in any way that we had imagined.

We checked out from our hotel near Munich Hauptbahnhof, and due to the rain, took a taxi to the Enterprise car rental agency. We were hoping that we could leave by about 10.30 from Munich giving us ample time to complete my planned tour before reaching Black Forest. Unfortunately by the time the agency guy arrived who could take us to the car, it was already 11 am. 

Either way we started out, and it seemed like the rain was slowing down a bit. I was quite happy since I wanted to go to Schloss Neuschwanstein. 

As soon as we came out of the garage, I realised that this was going to be a stressful drive for me. I am backseat driver and imagine what will happen to me when I realise I can't give instructions as we are driving on the opposite of the road and everything that I might instinctively say would be wrong.

The roads were amazing, and we were quickly able to reach the autobahn. 

This has been Supratim's dream for so long, and he finally got the enjoy the freedom of driving without speed limit in Germany. I was very scared at a lot of places though especially since quite a few places had construction going on and they still announced 100 km limit. There are places where it says do not overtake, and people still do. The roads which do have a limit of them including 100 or 120 is still not followed by most. On average the speed of each car is 140km/hr. This was too much for me, though after some time when I settled down, I became relaxed with Supratim's driving (still not the speed though, especially when for the initial 100 or so kms, every time he had to change a gear, he forgot which side the gear was located. He did not think I noticed for the first few times.)

There was some traffic and some really bad rain, but we reached Fussen at about 2 pm. This town is at one end of the Romantic road drive and has two castles - Schloss Hohenschwangau and Scholss Neuschwanstein. 

Ludwig spent his former years at the Scholss Hohenschwangau.

Scholss Neuschwanstein seems like a Disney fairy tale castle. While driving down the road from Fussen, the castle that you see having a yellow facade is the Hohenschwangau and these markers are all in the road. The Neuschwanstein however is the one that is seen amidst the dense trees, atop a hill and sometimes nestled in the clouds.

King Ludwig II built this castle using a stage decorator, as he wanted to bring a romantic medieval feel to his creation. He spent a lot of money in building this castle, but could spend only 170 days in its residence. The castle was never completed. 

There is a nice walk up from the foot that people can try or shuttles and horse drawn carriages that can be used, with fare prices.

Unfortunately for me, because it was quite late and with so much rain, all I could do was enjoy the view of the castle from the foothills.

We started from the Fussen hoping to reach Gengenbach, our Black Forest hotel by 8 pm or so. And instead of taking the same road back, we thought of taking a detour via Lake Constance.

If road to Fussen was the romantic road, then road from Fussen to Lake Constance was definitely a wine road. Rows and rows of vineyards scattered as far as you can see. We also passed many apple orchards and cherry orchards. Every time I saw those red cherries from the trees, I wanted to get out of the car and get some of those. Even with the pitter patter of the rain, the scenery was still worth the drive.

 Luck was not on my side though, with just an hour on the road we came to a major standstill. There had been an accident on the road and we were stuck here for 1.5 hours. Even after this our onwards road was not much easier with multiple diversions on the road. 

However we finally made it to our hotel at 10 pm, almost 2 hrs later than what we had hoped for.

Thankfully a MacDonalds on the highway saved us from hunger, and by the time we checked in, we were very tired. 

Plan for Black Forest drive would need to be made next day itself.

Munich day tour - Day 1

This time our trip led us to the wonderful city of Munich, Salzburg and roads of Black Forest. And since I am now influenced by the British mannerisms, I have to say it was a wonderful weather today.

We took an early morning flight from Gatwick to Munich reaching Munich at about 10 am.

Munich airport is connected to the Hauptbahnhof by S8 and takes approx 40 minutes to reach. So we were ready to explore the city by 11 am.

Most of the Munich city can be covered by foot. Starting from the Munich Hauptbahnhof towards Marienplatz, it is approx 15 min walk. Marienplatz or Mary's square is a popular gathering spot for performing artists and packs a lot of interesting personality in a small spot. This is anchored by Mariensaule - Mary's column.

The neo-Gothic Neues Rathaus with its coal blackened facade dominates the square. With gargoyles, statues and a dragon trying to scale the wall, your eyes will still be drawn to the Glockenspiel. This is one of most visited tourist attraction in Munich. It consists of 43 bells and 32 figures that perform with a musical accompaniment at 11 am, noon and 5 pm daily. 

The top half tells the story of a Knights tournament held in 1568 to celebrate the marriage of Duke Wilhelmina V to Renata of Lothringen. This was the marriage between a local with an Austrian princess, and the story depicts the jousting match where Munich champion defeats Austrian Knight.

The bottom half portrays the Schafflertanz. In olden days when plague had set upon the city, all the healthy people used to quarantine themselves in their houses. The economy used to suffer and the coopers were the most impacted. Coopers used to go out in the city to check if plague had left the city but they had no way of telling the people about it. They thought of putting letters in everyone's home, but not all could read or write in those days, and hence came about the coopers dance, which shows the celebration that plague had left the city in 1517. 

From Marienplatz, you can walk towards the Altes Rathaus, this is the old town hall, though the original townhouse  was destroyed in the WWII bombings and this is a reconstruction completed in 1970s. This now houses the Spielzeugmuseum (toy museum) and contains the largest collection of teddy bears and Barbies'.

Overlooking Marienplatz is also the Munich's oldest church - St. Peter also known as Alter Peter or Peterskirche. Don't forget to climb the tower (with its 299 steps) to get a magnificent view of the Munich city. On a clear day, you will be able to see all the way to the Alps. Munich boasts of the tower at Neues Rathaus, Olympia park and Peters church, and you will get the best views from here.

If you are tired after this walk, walk over to the beer garden crossing the street from Alter Peter. This is the Viktualienmarkt. This is Farmers market and you will get fresh fruits and veggies here. In summer this place is filled with beer gardens. Now beer garden is named only if the garden is filled with chestnut trees. It's leaves are thick and   provide shade. 

This beer garden also contains a maypole which is draped with Austrian flag colours. 

There is a tradition in Bavaria and people are always competing with each other to steal the others maypoles. if your maypole ever gets stolen then the loser(you) would need to treat the winner party with all the beer that they can drink along with all the food that they can eat. And of course this winner party includes the people who stole the maypole, their family and friends. So all of a sudden everyone wants to become friends with the winners.

Another road from Marienplatz also leads down to Frauenkirchen. The church was built in an impressive 20 years time between 1468 -1488. It towers over Munich and no other building in central city may stand taller than its onion-domed twin towers. One of the tower is 99m while the other is slightly shorter than first.

During WWII when all of Munich was being bombed, these towers survived. The only guess that people make about why these survived was the fact that these towers were used as a focal point by the ally forces to bomb the city.

There are loads of other places to see in Munich - English gardens, Residenz, museums, etc. However I could only cover these on my first day. Will try to see the others on my last day back in Munich.

How to get a case of beer or the girl that you love - Bavarian tradition

I have learned so many traditions during my visit to Munich and each one is worth telling about and intriguingly a lot of these traditions involve the golden liquid.

This is for all the men who want to win over their girlfriends or wives.

In the early days there was a tried and tested way to show a lady that you loved her. All the man had to do was cut a large tree, take it back home, clean out the branches and polish the bark. Then he would carve out beautiful designs on it,including little clues to his identity on the bark.

Now after working so hard on this, he would again need to drag the tree back in front of his beloved's house at night, ensuring that no one sees him.

The next day when his beloved gets up in the morning and comes out of the house, she would see this beautiful maypole in her courtyard. Looking at the design she is supposed to guess at the identity of her lover. At this point, the man who is hidden nearby would be waiting to hear the decision of his beloved.

If the lady loves his back, she would dance around the maypole signalling that she loves him and both are happy.

If the lady does not love him back, well tough luck, but in order not to disappoint the man, she would go inside her home and come back with a case of beer and put it at the base of the maypole. The man may not get the girl, but he still gets the beer to drown his sorrows in.

You can give this a try... 

Frauenkirchen and the devil's footprint

Frauenkirchen, a magnificent church was built by in only 20 years (1468-1488) and have a lot of stories about why that is so. One such story goes thus -

It is said that this church was built by the devil himself. 

One day while the church was being built, the devil had come to Munich to meet his friends and have a beer or two (of course the story that I was told by the local however factious had to have beer in it.) When the devil passed by the church, it was not yet complete and the devil being the devil decided to raze the church to the ground. When he went inside one of the entrances, he realised that there were not many windows. The place when fully built would be dark and damp. He thought that when the worshipers would come to this place, due to less light and dampness would fall sick and eventually die early. The devil thought that such a place would surely be a tribute to himself. He went to the architect and offered him a deal. The devil asked that if the architect did not add any more windows to the church then in return he would offer riches and fame to the architect. The devil would also help the architect to build the church in the span of just 20 years. The architect took the deal and built the church.

20 years later when the devil returned and entered the church, he saw that there was plenty of light and the church contained a lot of tall windows. He was angry and went to the architect. The devil now wanted to take the architect's soul as he had broken the deal.

The architect though stopped the devil and said 'I did not break the deal. Your condition was that I should not add any more windows to the church and I did not'. 

You see 20 years prior the devil had entered the church from the entrance where the architect's ingenuity had placed the columns in such a way that it hid all the windows except the one above the altar. Now when the church was built, the devil entered the church from another entrance and did not see the same columns hiding the windows. 

The devil was himself duped by a mere human. He was so angry that he stomped his foot in the church and till today you can see his footprint in the church.

The other story is that the footprint inside the church is that of the architect. Instead of signing his work at a corner, he put his footprint as a signature. But you decide which story you find more interesting.

Hofbräuhaus - the famous tavern in Munich

This is the world's most celebrated beer hall, and has a very interesting history and yet again stories surrounding it.

During the early periods after the house opened, men (women were not allowed in) used to drink inside the house and had to go out to relieve themselves, a natural after effect of consuming large quantities of the golden liquid. One can still see a narrow gutter running outside the house which was perhaps being used. There were however a few problems with this solution of urinating outside, you could lose your seat inside the house and may as well your beer. To counter this problem they engineered a better solution, a gutter inside the house running right beneath the tables. All one had to do was to relieve oneself freely as and when pressure was felt, wearing the lederhosen was ideal (or perhaps invented) just for this reason. 

This solution however had a bigger disadvantage- one of splash-back which means all your mates and other people sitting around you would be soon feeling wet around their legs, which presumably was not ideal. Someone invented an idea to circumvent the splash-back problem- a stick that you use to wave around under the table just before letting yourself go so that your mates have enough warning to lift their legs up when they feel the knock of the stick on their sheens. Not the best German engineering, and it was not before someone, an old man a regular himself found another idea which could solve both the problems of splash back and getting hit on your legs the whole day. It was a novel idea indeed which he announced excitedly one day out of the blue by standing on one of the tables. The idea was that of a twirling stick that you could use to pee which would help the liquid down its way to the gutter in a more controlled manner avoiding any splash back whatsoever. 

There is another tradition which perhaps started here more out of necessity. It is that of the last bell also known as the wash. The first bell meant more as a soft warning to get your final drinks and prep to leave. The second bell was a warning because that meant you had only a minute to leave before they flood the floor to wash down all the waste out of gutters. It was meant to cleanse the place before it started all again the next day. 

Mariensaule- how it came to be...

I was told of this very nice story by one of the tour guides that I would love to share about  Mariensaule or Mary's column in Marienplatz, Munich.

The 30 years war lasted from 1608 to 1638, where the Swedish forces raped and pillaged various towns and cities. 

The locals were afraid for their lives and decided to build a wall around the city to defend themselves. However, before the wall was completed, the Swedish forces had already arrived at their doorstep. When they reached Munich, the forces, like several other people, fell in love with the city and did not want to destroy it. In exchange of not destroying the city, they asked the locals to give them 300,000 coins. Now the locals gave up a lot of their treasures but still could come up with only about 100000 coins. They went to the Swedish forces and requested that with this amount that they had collected, they would like to offer the forces their liquid gold - beer. The Swedes took their offer and left Munich without spilling a single drop of blood.

The locals decided to celebrate the victory by having a celebration at Marienplatz. Now the elector Maxmilian 1 had left Munich city when the Swedes had arrived. After hearing of their return, the elector rode back to the city with all his forces. The locals, though we're very angry that he had left the city in its hour of need and refused to let him celebrate with them. Max, though, was a clever man - he said to the locals 'I had gone with my forces to the highest of the mountain in the Bavarian Alps, so that I could be close to the heavens. And here I prayed to the God to save the city'. The locals, gullible that they were, believed him and in order to honour him, asked that his golden statue be placed at the Marienplatz. However there was no money left anymore to make the statue. Again came Max to the rescue, and he said that 'we should thank the one person who saved us all, and that is not me but Mary. Instead of erecting my statue, we should have a golden statue of Mary'. This statue of Mary was already with Max and he erected  column in Marienplatz and placed the statue in top of it.

Munich Oktoberfest - stories that I heard in my travels..

Writing my first blog about Munich, I thought of starting with what every local loves to talk about - beer.

Munich is almost synonymous with Oktoberfest and during my visit to Munich City, I learned a lot of interesting stuff regarding this festival.

In 1810, when King Ludwig married princess Therese, as a gift for the bride the king bought a meadow for his bride. But women, as is the case, will never be impressed by a piece of land and the king had to improvise mentioning that this land would be named after the queen. When this too failed to impress the would be queen, the king declared that as part of the wedding celebrations he would throw a huge party for everyone. And it was a glorious celebration with drinking and dancing.
The next year, when it was time after the harvest, the people of Munich remembered this celebration and instead of having a smaller celebration went to the King requesting that he throw the same party as last year and thus the tradition of Oktoberfest began.

People from all around the world visit Munich during this time to enjoy the beer. But Americans and Aussies beware - 1 litre of Augustiner beer is equivalent to 9 bottled beers. So when the Aussies come to Oktoberfest, the Munich locals joke about the fact that they can't hold their beer. 

There are some quite interesting statistics about the Aussies that I was told about in my visit to the city. It is rumoured that when an Aussie comes to the Octoberfest, he is told to always keep track of 2 things - their passports and their children. Some of the statistics say that among the so many people of different nationalities that lose their passports during the fest, Aussies always make it to the top of the leaderboard. And 2 years back, out of 38 children in the lost and found booth, 27 of them were Aussies.

There is a funny story around why Aussies lose their passports, and it goes this way - it is believed that every year there is a competition among the the Bavarian towns. Each town appoint a woman leader, and during this fest whoever collects the maximum number of Aussie passports wins a big barrel of beer. Last year someone collected over 280 Aussie passports. How they managed to achieve this is a very good question 😉

Now in Germany, it is illegal to travel anywhere without an identification document. Unfortunately the closest Australian embassy that can provide replacement passports is a 7 hr train ride to Berlin. But Aussies, God bless them, are always the cheerful lot, and during the festival, they have a temporary embassy opened up within the UK embassy in Munich.
 That is quite awesome.