Day 33

Cochem

All good things must come to an end and so it is that tonight is our last night in Europe. We awoke in Cochem and made our way down to the main town where we caught a shuttle bus up to the castle that looms over the town. After buying our tickets we discovered that the English speaking tour had just left so we had to wait an hour. There was nothing to do except sit in the terrace that overlooks the valley and have a few beers. Life can deal you some unfortunate hands sometimes. Our tour guide was an expert in the art of deadpan German humour. At one stage someone asked a question to which he replied, "That was answered at the beginning of the tour, you will please pay attention" Apparently the castle was basically destroyed by "The Sun King" from France, it was rebuilt over the years and ended up being owned by a rich family from Munich.  This "Sun King" destroyed hundreds of castles in Germany, what a nasty pasty!

 

 

 

 

The woodwork craftmanship was simply exquisite.

 

After the tour we had to wait half an hour for the shuttle bus back to town so we had to have another ice cold beer on the terrace overlooking the valley, the thingsyou have to do!

Back in town we caught a shuttle up to a curious cold war relic. Apparently West Germany was afraid that it would be flooded with couterfeit marks so they printed billions of alternate marks to be issued in the event that the USSR or East Germany flooded the country with bogus bills. These alternate marks were stored in this bunker that we toured. It was built between 1962 and 1964 and closed in 1988 when the notes were shredded.

 

A YouTube video, in German, can be seen HERE. 

Tomo 

Tomorrow we will catch a train back to Koblenz and then one to Frankfurt and get on the plane home. It was a pity that we had to cut short our time in Italy due to the heat but what's the use of staying somewhere whjen all you want to do is stay in your hotel room? 

Here are a few tips for travelling in Europe based on experience.

Sure you don't know their language but take the time to at least learn a few basics: Hello, Please, Thank You, Goodbye, believe me, it will be appreciated. I don't know how many times I saw English speakers make no attempt to speak even a simple hello in the local language.

Toilets, in Europe they can be hard to come by so, always go to the toilet before leaving a restaurant or train. ALWAYS keep some .50c or 1 Euro coins in your pockets as most public toilets charge you.

Carry a toothpick so you can clean the terminals on your mobile phone as they will get dirty due to taking your phone in and out of your pocket continuosly.

Respect their culture, most Europeans speak quietly and don't swear in public. 

Get used to seeing things that would outrage you at home. In Italy it is not uncommon to see a father and a mother holding a baby on a Vespa. 

Pack some earplugs, some hotel rooms will be noisy.

If you like to shower with a bar of soap, take or buy a bar of soap, most hotels and B&B's supply liquid soap.

Most places will take cards that you swipe just like in Australia but there are still places that only take cash. Check before sitting down if you don't have much cash. 

Follow the locals on mask use. On trains practically everyone wears a mask. 

Day 32

Koln to Cochem

Another yummy breakfast at our hotel and then it was off to the station to get a train to a little place called Cochem, on the Mosul river. Probably due to the 9 Euro tickets the train was pretty full but after an hour we arrived at Koblenz.

Koblenz is where the Rhine and the Mosul rivers meet so we checked our bags and went for a walk along the Rhine to the confluence of the two rivers. BELOW:

BELOW: Looking in the other direction at the confluence was this enormous statue. Apparently it is 37 metres high and celbrates an equestrian.

BELOW: Looking across the Rhine, a northbound goods train goes by in the horrid midday sun.

BELOW: Back at the station I snapped this goods train at Koblenz.

 

The walk from the staion at Cochem to our B&B was brutal, about 1.5k's but all uphill and it was 32 C. We passed this on our way, it's either the worlds smallest chapel or a rather large shrine, whatever it was incredibly cute.

After a siesta we walked back down to the town for dinner. We went to one bar where the servers didn't seem overly friendly so we went to another where they were even less friendly, the meal was ok but I'm sure our waitress has just eaten a bucket of lemons so we are not too enthused with this place yet, lot's of surly people here. We hope to visit the castle shown tomorrow. 

 

Day 31

Koln (Cologne)

Kris had stayed here before when she came here for work a few years ago and raved about the breakfasts, she was right, it was great. We walked back to thye main station so we could walk over the massive bridge that take trains out of the main station and over the Rhine. BELOW, An ICE train departs Koln.

 

ABOVE: The bridge is loaded the whole way across with padlocks that is a recent trend in Europe, you get the padlock engraved with your name and the name of your "true love" lock it to the bridge and then throw the key into the water. If the key floats you'll stay together and if it sinks, you're stuffed, you'll be looking for your next "true love" before long. An ICE train passes in the background.

ABOVE: After walking over the bridge you get this view with the Koln cathederal in the background.You can see the 1000s of locks on the fence.

ABOVE: We decided to go for a short cruise on the Rhine. Not long after we set sail the waiter asked us if we'd like a drink, "Is a fish's bum watertight?" was the reply and Kris was soon knocking one back. 

ABOVE: Not many people know this but there are icebergs on the Rhine. As anyone who has watched the movie Titanic knows, the purpose of a bell on a ship is to alert the captain that you are about to run into a bloody big iceberg. It was quite a warm day so there probably wasn't much chance of icebergs, this is why the iceberg bell was unattended.

ABOVE: As everyone knows, live sheep exports are frowned upon and will be banned very soon but on the Rhine the Live Tourist Export trade is alive and well.100s of tourists are herded into these pens and they sail up and down the Rhine, apparently they feed you in the pens so you don't have to trouble yourself with reading a menu in German at a real restaurant amongst real Germans.

ABOVE: Barge traffic on the Rhine. After the cruise we went for a walk and found a pen/stationary shop. As anyone that knows us knows, these encounters do not end well as far as credit card balances go, but I did replace the Rotring Rapidograph pen that I lost in the divorce many years ago.

ABOVE: After a siesta, Kris and I went for a walk along the river and got a take away pizza which we ate on the riverbank overlooking the famous bridge. I didn't have my SLR and tripod so this iphone pic will have to do. 

Day 30

Nurnberg - Koln (Cologne)

Today was a day of good news, (we saved about $300 in train fares) but also bad news, we were on five trains for about 11 hours, let me explain.

Yesterday I mentioned that we bought 9 Euro rail tickets that lets you travel anywhere in Germany. The fine print means that you can't take ICE (Inter City Express) or IC (InterCity) trains. This means that you are stuck with local or regional trains. We wanted to go from Nurmberg to Koln and when we got to the station and checked the current price was about A$ 300 for a 4 hour journey. Our 9 Euro tickets meant that the trip was free BUT it meant taking 5 different local trains. Which were mostly packed and stopped at pretty much every station.

Due to a battery charging logistical error my phone ran out of power and what with us scurrying between plations at the 5 change train locations I didn't take any pics today. Anyway, we travelled over some lovely branchlines and saw some great scenary. The staions we changed at were Wurzberg, (after our train splitting at Bamberg), Mannheim, Mainz and Koblenz. We finally got to Koln at 8.30pm and went to a mini beer hall for a mixed meat dish with the sourest sauerkraut I've ever tasted.

We travelled alongside the Rhine for a bit of the journey, it is shockingly low, the barges seem to be less than half full because of how low it is.

If you're travelling in Germany soon, don't forget your mask, everyone wears them on the train and if someone gets on without one the passengers demand that they put their mask on. 

Day 29

Nurnberg

First order of business today was to do some washing, being Sunday morning it was ultra quiet in Nurnberg, down a few side streets and not a sould was to be seen, happily the laudromat was open. We went and looked for somewhere to have a coffee while we waited for our washing,  and actually found something is dead Nurnberg. We collected our washing, went back to our hotel and then ventured forth to explore.

ABOVE: In the old town this took my fancy, apparently it is called  Museumsbrücke, Museum Bridge, it crosses the Pegnitz river and replaced a bridge destroyed in the 13th century.

ABOVE: Just posting this in case anyone is looking for work in Nurnberg. Funny how language translates, or doesn't!

We soon needed breakfast/lunch and found what seemed to be a traditional restaurant. The sausages are a local specialty call NUREMBERG BRATWURST, very small and very tasty, they were served on sauerkraut and we got a side of potato salad. In Italy it is against the law to serve bad coffee and so it is with beer in Germany, we have not had a beer that wasn't superb.

ABOVE & BELOW: We went into this church, maybe it was a cathederal? An information board inside described how it was largely destroyed during WW II and most of what you see here is a result of rebuilding. 

A small history lesson for those that may need it. For hitler and the nazi's, Nurnberg became symbolic as it was where the huge nazi party rallies were held. If you have ever seen archival footage of hitler spewing his filth out to oceans of adoring German's assembled before him you have seen footage of the Nurnberg rallies. Being so symbolic to the nazi's it was high on the list of places to be bombed by the Allies, it was also a major manufacturing centre. I decided to visit the area where the rallies had been which was being built as a sort of nazi party temple. The building below was called the Kongresshalle which was designed by Speer but never finished. I went inside the unroofed central area but it is in a terrible condition, the exterior was finished and is in good shape. I though it nice that I could attempt an artistic photo from something that was designed by such grotesque minds.

 

As I approached the remains of the infamous structure I was asking myself, "why am I here, why am I visting this place?" This place that helped spawn one of the darkest episodes in human history. I have no answer to that except to say that ever since I sat on my Dad's knee as a child and watched the World at War TV series, these were places of importance in world history. Interestingly an interpretive sign asked the same question, "you must ask yourself why you are here?" I get the feeling that Germany would just as soon bulldoze the whole area but know that they cannot, in the same way that you must preserve places like Auschitz, we must remember so we never forget. 

There were signs saying that they were restoring it but it seems half hearted at best. BELOW: The "Fuhrer's Rostrum" where hitler delivered his speeches every year to the hordes of adoring Germans, you can see the grandstands in the backgrounds,  Up to 200,000 people attended these rallies which were held until the start of WWII. The area between the rostrum and the distant grandstands would be filled with people.

 

ABOVE:  Back at the main train station at Nurnberg I discovered a bar on platform 1. I wonder if German train nuts gather there, surely?

 BELOW: I like discovering pubs and Kris loves discovering wool shops. This was part of a much larger department store at the main station. 

Days 27 & 28

Disentis Muster - Nurnburg

Was it the common cold? Was it flu? Was it Covid? I don't know but I do know that for our two days in the gorgeous Swiss Alps town of Distentis I pretty much just slept, woke up, slept again, repeat cycle. This morning I felt better which was just as well as we had a big day of travel ahead of us.

While I slept Kris visited a local yarn store in Disentis where she bought some Swiss wool. BELOW: It's so authentic that it yodels as you knit it!

 

ABOVE: It was a perfectly clear sunny day so in the afternoon I did manage to get out of bed and go for a short hike to get this photo of a Distentis to Brig train. That's Disentis in the background.

We headed for Munich which involved three different trains and we went through Switzerland, Austria and of course Germany, we may have travelled through Liechtenstein but I'm not sure. There were some tense moments at St Margrethen in far eastern Switzerland, we had not purchased a through ticket so had to buy one from St Margrethen. Problem was that the ticket machine did not recognise the city of Munich! We asked a local for help and she couldn't find Munich on it either but suggested we try the DB app on our phone. Kris was right onto it and in minutes we had 2 tickets from St Margrethen to Munich. Kris is a legend! Like a local she showed the QR code to the conductor and we were set.  

At Munich we were good little tourists and headed for one of Munich's best known tourist destinations, the Hofbrauhaus. It is best descibed as a beer barn, spread over three floors with a huge outdoor area. Upon entering you see a sea of tables and the noise in incredible, we thought we'd try our luck at the outdoor area and amazingly found a table. 

BELOW: A small portion of the outdoor area, Kris can be seen in the extreme left hand corner of the photo. Seating is at a premium so soon enough a young couple from Cologne asked if they could share our table which is quite the done thing, so we had a good chat with them. The place was enormous, Kris reckons it had to have had at least 500 tables. We had a rosted pork knuckle with very yummy crackling and a roast chicken dish, as we hadn't eaten all day there was no much left on the plates and sorry for no photos, we were eating while they were still in the waitresses hands.   

 

ABOVE: Walking back to the Munich main station Kris snapped this amazing building, not sure what it is, but it looked very gothic and a bit spooky.

At Munich I tried to be a cheapskate and buy a cheap ticket to Nurnburg, I have no idea what I bought but it said nothing about Nurnburg. So we went to the ticket office and the lovely lady there informed us that if we don't want to travel on fast trains we could get a ticket for 9 euros that will allow us to travel anywhere in Germany for one month! She also refunded the ticket we purchased, it felt like I'd won tattslotto. A lady on our train from Munich to Nurnburg explained that the German government are doing this as they are very fearful of fuel shortages because of the Ukraine war and are doing everything to stop people driving their cars and encourage them to take trains. 

So tomorrow we have all day in Nurnburg and as I'm feeling a lot better there should be lots of photos and tales to tell. 

Day 26

Torino - Milano - Disentis Muster

I wasn't feeling the best last night and went to bed early so no blog last night. Yesterday we awoke in Torino and didn't have a lot of time until we had to catch our train to Milano and then our train out of Italy into Switzerland.   

 

 BELOW:  A tram in Turino

 

ABOVE: We travelled on a Frecciarossa from Torino to Milano, Italy's high speed train. Screens in the compartment tell you how fast you are going. 

ABOVE: A Frecciarossa on the right and an Italo high speed train on the left  at Milano Centrale.

ABOVE: A Swiss and Italian high speed train kiss at Milano. This was the train we caught to Brig.

ABOVE: This is the train we caught from Brig to Disentis, the famous Glacier Express. There were no 2nd class seats left so we had to pay an arm and a leg for 1st class.

ABOVE: Kris on the Glacier Express.

ABOVE: Our train crossed another train at a station near the top of the pass.

ABOVE: Near the summit the grade is so steep they have to emply a rack, the loco has a big cog that engages with this rack.

ABOVE: This is the view from our hotel room. I stayed at this very hotel in 1983 on my first Europe trip.

ABOVE: Despite feeling awful and wanting to do nothing but sleep, Kris coaxed me out of the room amd we went for a walk. Here is the Glacier Express leaving Disentis.

ABOVE: Near sunset I took this photo from our hotel balcony. As I type this it is 14C, I have long pants on and a singlet, so glad to be out of the heat.