On our way home

Amazing how quickly the time went by! Today we start the long trek home. Autobus has sent us some pretty nice coaches but today we got the creme d'la creme. We got the "conference bus" our driver told us. Along with the other amenities we found on the other Mercedes coaches, this one had a conference center at the back of the bus with facilities to do power point presentation, etc.
Traffic en route to Munich airport got very congested when we were almost there so our driver took a few back roads and got us there on time. The line at Lufthansa's group check in looked pretty long and full of students traveling, but it moved fairly quickly and we were all checked in in plenty of time.

Conference Coach - back of the bus!

The flight back was smooth and uneventful. Customs was the usual hassle but then we got outside the terminal and found our bus. Wow! What a difference from what we had gotten used to in Europe. But still, it was going to be good to get on the bus headed home. Not so quick GI! As we started to load the bus one of Massachussett's finest (State Trooper) comes over and starts yelling at us to "Move your F***ing bus or I'll give you an F***ing ticket!" Welcome home! Apparently we were loading in the wrong area. So we found the correct spot and proceeded to load the luggage into the rear compartment of the bus. The fun really began when we got back to Utica and we could not get the door to the luggage bay open! It looked like the latch holding the door closed was jammed by some piece of luggage that had shifted. Try as we might we just could not get the door open. In fact, the driver tried so hard he ended up breaking the handle. I call the bus company and told them we wanted the door removed first thing in the morning. This was finally done the next day, but being it was Sunday there was no one to deliver the luggage to us in Utica so I transferred it all into my SUV and brought it home so everyone could come to my house as the central location to retrieve their luggage.

Here's your luggage!

Salt Mine and Eagle's Nest

Today's tour is something different. We are off to explore one of the salt mines. Where they extracted the very substance that made Salzburg famous and its Prince extremely powerful and wealthy. Following that we will visit one example of Hitler's egotism, his "Eagle's Nest".
The drive to Berchtesgaden was through the beautiful mountains south of Salzburg. Arriving at the salt mine we first were given "miner's vestments" to put on over our own outer clothing to protect them. The seat  of the pants were padded. Later we would find out the reason for this.

Stylin' in our miner's garb

Movin' out on the train

But first we were taken to the "train" that would transport us deep into the mountain and inside a now expended vein of salt. Straddling the cars of the train and holding on to the person in front we took a long ride down a narrow tunnel on the narrow gauge rails until we finally came to a stop and dismounted. The rest of the tour would be on foot. Through a series of humorous movies we were introduced to the history of salt and how it was mined from the times of the Celts in 400 BC through the medieval times  to modern day. We were also informed on the many health benefits attributed to salt and why it was considered "white gold" in the past.

Now we know what the padding
was for! Hot seat!

 Two of the most fun parts of the tour were when we rode down the slides used in days gone by by the mines to get to the lower levels of the mine and the boat ride across the underground salt lake.

Is he for real??

Then there was the creepy part where we saw the ancient miner who had been trapped in the salt mine and his body perfectly preserved by the salt surrounding it. And this was just before we were to go to lunch! Exiting the mine we found many interesting salt related souvenirs in the gift shop. I would have loved to bring back one of the colorful large salt crystals but airline weight limits being what they are had to pass.

Our tour guide then took us to the Hofbrauhaus in Berchtesgaden for lunch, where we enjoyed typical Baverian fare for lunch washed down, of course, with that great German beer.

Then it was on to the Eagle's Nest. This was a gift to Hitler from Martin Bormann for his 50th birthday. It sits atop a 6000 foot mountain and took 13 months to construct at a cost of about 150 million Euros (2007 market value).It was to be a retreat for Hitler and a place to entertain visiting dignitaries.


But Hitler was afraid of heights and he only visited it about 14 times. Getting there requires taking a special bus from the base of the mountain up a very steep and winding road which interestingly only involves one hairpin turn. The road up and down is narrow and the two way traffic has to be closely coordinated as there is only one place were downward moving vehicles can pull over and allow upward bound buses to pass.We had a specific time and bus number assigned for both the up and down trips. The final 400 feet or so of the trip up is done by an elevator that was bored straight through the mountain rock. This is a huge bottle neck in both directions so it takes some planning and attention to make sure you are back down to where your downward bound bus is waiting without missing it.

View from Eagle's Nest

Clouds are moving in

Once up at the top the view is spectacular as long as the clouds don't start moving in. Once this happens the line for the elevator down quickly becomes pretty long. The ubiquitous hang gliders seemed to be everywhere at the top of this mountain. The clouds moving quickly up the mountain were a testament to the upward movement of air and the hang gliders certainly took advantage of it. My question was what do they do when the clouds totally obscure the top of the mountain. We didn't stay around long enough to find out.

Hang gliders every where

Dinner this night was in the hotel restaurant. It was our last dinner in Europe and was equally excellent as were all of the other arranged dinners.

Sound of Music Tour

Breakfast at the Hotel Bristol was elegant to say the least. At 9:00 we were to meet our tour guide and board a coach to visit the most significant sites to the story of the Von Trapp family, both actual and those used in making the film.

Breakfast at the Bristol Hotel

Meeting our tour guide, Ursula, we boarded another very comfortable coach and departed for the first of several stops on the tour, Hellbrunn Palace, where we found the gazebo around which Rolf and Liesl sang  "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" in the film.

Ursula encouraged us to reenact that scene, but...  This we found was not the original location of the gazebo. It had been moved from Schloss Leopoldskron, which is now a private residence (nice to have that kind of money!) and the owners were tired of having tourist traipsing all over their property to look at the gazebo.

The Schloss  was actually our next stop. We saw it from across the lake, where the boating scene in the movie was filmed.
Next was the Nonnberg Abbey, which played a part in both the movie and in real life. In reality this is where Maria and the Baron were wed. In the movie the children come to the gates of the abbey to ask Maria to return to them and she is shown to run from the "hills" down to the abbey. In reality, the "hills" are some 20 Km away from the abbey which is at the base of the Fortress Hohensalzburg.

Next we visited the site of the movie wedding between Maria and the Baron, the Church of Mondsee. This was a bit of a drive so just to keep things entertaining Ursula played some of the tracks from the movie score and got us all singing along. Oh, my!

Ursula leading us in "Do Re Me"

Traveling to the other side of Lake Mondsee we came to the town of St. Gilgen, birthplace of Mozart's mother. It is also used in the opening scene of the movie.
Our final stop is right behind our hotel, Mirabell Gardens, where in the movie Maria and the children dance about singing "Do Re Me"

Mirabell Gardens

Returning to the hotel we had the rest of the afternoon to continue to explore Salzburg on our own with the aid of our Salzburg Cards.
We chose to see Mozart's residence, where he lived with his wife. And then on to the Museum of Modern Art. This sits atop a shear abutment high above the old town and provided an excellent vantage point to see and photograph the town.

View from the museum

Munich to Salzburg

After a great breakfast at Hotel Prinzregent, we were again on one of those magnificent Mercedes coaches headed to Salzburg. We loved the Prinzregent, but could the five star Hotel Bristol beat that?
It was a surprisingly short ride, just under 2 hours until we reached the birthplace of Wolfgang A. Mozart. This is one of my favorite cities. There is just so much to see and do in this compact, pedestrian friendly old town.

Hotel Bristol

Since we had arrived relatively early in morning and the rooms would not be ready for a few hours, we stashed our bags and with our Salzburg Cards in hand headed into the old town, only a short walk from our hotel.  The Salzburg card gets you free access to just about any attraction in Salzburg that you might want to see. It is a fantastic deal and very convenient because you don't have to wait in line to purchase a ticket.
 I wanted everyone to know where we were having dinner so I led them to Saint Peter's Stiftskeller, reputed to be the oldest continuously operating restaurant in Europe. From there everyone was free to explore and see the sights that would most interest them. I thought for this situation this would be preferable to a typical city tour where you are dragged from one place to another and see most of the sites only from the outside. Some were interested in the catacombs so I lead a group of folks to that and then on to the Fortress Hohensalzburg, the imposing castle which dominates the Salzburg area. Evelyn and I had lunch at a cafe adjacent to the castle with a beautiful view of the surrounding area.

Panoramic view from Hohensalzburg Castle

Then we visited Mozart's Birthplace. This was a very interesting exhibit with a lot of information about his lineage, his home life as a child and his sister Nannerl, who was a gifted musician in her own right. All this made us want to revisit the film "Amadeus". I never thought he was as goofy acting as he is portrayed in the movie, but from what we read, except for his music he apparently was quite child like as an adult.
Since the rooms were to be ready by 3 PM, most of the group wandered back to the hotel by then and got checked in. The hotel staff had delivered our bags before hand. We had a really nice, spacious room. The view from our balcony of the city was great. See the pano taken with my iPhone.

Panoramic view from our balcony

View of Hohensalzburg from our room

Downstairs we found the rest of the group had discovered "happy hour". Our Romanian bar keep was a real sweetheart and kept us supplied with wasabi peanuts, cashews and other snacks and made sure we didn't miss "last call" at the end of happy hour.
Wandering over to the Stiftskeller we found everyone had arrived and some were even already seated in our private dining room. Dinner consisted of Tomato consommé with basil dumpling, Chicken breast stuffed with herb infused quark, served on grappa risotto with a ‘Schilcher’ wine sauce, and for dessert Chocolate soufflé served with sour cherries and kumquats ice cream. It was delicious! After dinner we thought we'd just stroll back to the hotel. Wrong! We had had beautiful weather the whole trip. Even earlier today there was only a slight drizzle. But all of a sudden the skies open up and a deluge was coming down. A few folks who had beat us out the door got soaked walking back. Fortunately the restaurant ordered taxis for us to take us back to the hotel. I was surprised how inexpensive it was.

Neuschwanstein and Oberammergau

This morning we were greeted by Rudy, our driver from Autobus Oberbayern who would take us by deluxe Mercedes motor coach to see Neuschwanstein Castle and then to the quaint village of Oberammergau. We would be gone pretty much all day and then return to the hotel, freshen up and head out for dinner at the famous Hofbrauhaus.
The motor coach was beautiful, only six months old and smelled like a new car. The technology in these things is amazing. The driver's station looks like the cockpit of an airplane. GPS information is displayed to the driver but also to the passengers on the overhead LCD screens, just like on overseas flights. There are warning systems which alert the driver if he is too close to the preceding vehicle or approaching it too quickly. And if he gets too close to the center line of the road or drifts too close to the solid line to the right an alarm sounds and a red visual signal lights up. The seats in the coach are very comfortable with good leg room. There is a flush toilet on board and a coffee service with an espresso machine and a refrigerator with cold drinks!

Mercedes Benz Bus

It was about a two hour ride. Some of that was due to the Oktoberfest traffic in Munich but then we broke out into the beautiful Bavarian countryside. Arriving at the base of the castle we had about an hour and a half until our scheduled tour time. But that was OK because I had to pick up our tickets a minimum of an hour in advance or we would have lost our reservation. So we had a few minutes for a nature break and to possibly get a bite to each before going on the tour. There were three ways to get from "base camp" up to the entrance of the castle. You could walk the steep inclined road, take a horse drawn carriage up or a special bus that would take you up to the "marriage bridge" above the castle entry and walk down. Some of our group tried each of these methods. Taking the bus to the bridge was nice because it allowed you to get a really nice picture of the castle. The bridge was constructed of steel with heavy wooden planks making up the floor. We walked out and some joker started to jump up and down trying to see how much the floor would flex! So we took our pictures and quickly made our way to the entry.

View from the bridge

Every one , no matter which method of ascent they chose had made it on time! Our English speaking tour guide started out by telling us a bit about the history of the castle, "Mad" King Ludwig and his mysterious death. There is much speculation about how he and his psychiatrist ended up dead in a lake. The most popular theory is that because Ludwig was bankrupting the county building these elaborate, expensive castles all about, he was murdered to put an end to it.

Hohenschwangau Castle where Ludwig's parents lived

We toured the approximately one third of the castle's rooms that were completed before Ludwig's death. The opulence and extravagance of the rooms and their furnishings is something unimaginable to anyone not having the wealth of an entire nation at their disposal. The shear grandeur and number of man years of artisan's work is mind boggling. Most of the rooms reflected Ludwig's infatuation with the operas of his "friend" Richard Wagner. The most intriguing room was one in which an artificial cave had been created. Unfortunately we were not allowed to photograph inside the castle so my pictures are entirely of the outside.

Evelyn finally meets some Bernese Mountain Dogs - in Oberammergau!

After the tour we made our way back down to the base, where Rudy had thoughtfully re-positioned the motor coach at the hotel so we did not have to walk out to the bus parking lot. We then proceeded to Oberammergau. This town is famous for its Passion Play, a reenactment of the Crucifixion that is put on by the townspeople every 10 years. Nearly everyone in town has a part in the play. This tradition dates back to the time of the plague when the townsfolks put on the play for the first time and promised God to reenact it forever if He would spare their town from the plague. He did and they do. The villagers are also know for their talents as wood carvers and the town abounds with shops displaying their wares, which Rudy referred to as "all the stuff you will never need"! His tip for us was to enjoy the ice cream stands. After an hour or so of wandering about this cute little town we headed back to Munich and our hotel.
After freshening up we again took the S-Bahn into the center of town and dinner at the Hofbrauhaus.
It was traditional German beer garden fare, pea soup, Alpine Ox goulash served with a soft pretzel instead of bread and Bavarian cream with a fruit topping. Of course there was also beer! It's amazing how many of those heavy liter glass mugs full of beer this waitress can carry at one time.

I don't know where some of the guys put 2 liters of this stuff

Some fellow Americans we met. The young lady on the right
is a former USAF C-130 pilot, we found out later.

Bike Tour and Oktoberfest

This morning we took the S2 S-Bahn (surface rail) into the city center, Marienplatz. A short walk got us to the old city gate tower where we met our tour guide, Tony, from Mike's Bike Tours. Every tour guide I've ever had fro Mike's has been great and Tony was no exception. He was so "up" and enthused about showing us "his" city that I wondered what was in his coffee cup!

Our tour guide - in a good mood!

First we marched down to the bike shop and took care of "business" ( water in and water out). Their shop is right behind the Hofbrauhaus so we had easy access to rest rooms. Then we were outfitted with bikes. For some of us it had been many years since we had been on one, but Tony assured us that if we had done it in the past it was, well, " just like riding a bike!" Bob was designated as tail end Charlie, or in Mike's Bike Tour parlance, "ass man". He was to make sure no one fell behind and if there was a problem to stay with the individual until Tony returned.
Our first stop on the tour was not what you might expect. Tony showed us one his favorite Bavarian delicacies, roasted pork shoulders, which were displayed on a rotisserie in a shop window. His description sounded so good that several folks had them when we stopped for lunch later in the tour. From there we visited several important historical sites from Bavaria's past. But the best part was his version of the historical facts which he embellished and put into modern day vernacular so we better "get it". Man, there were a lot of cool dudes back then!

Roasted Pork Shoulders

The high light of the tour was biking through the English Garden. After a brief history of this huge park, Tony warned us about the "Nudist Meadow", some of the exhibitionists that lurked there just waiting to shock unsuspecting tourists who dare to look their way! Being it was probably to be one of the last really nice days this fall the meadow, which we had to ride by, had several people lounging about "au natural". Sorry no pictures! Believe me, nothing you really wanted to see!
Near the center of the garden is a Biergarten where we had lunch. The food was good and the beer cold. Enjoying both in the warmth of the sun made one not want to leave.
One last potty stop and we were on the bikes again headed towards the final stop on the tour. A small stream meanders through the garden, but at one particular location a short segment of it is constricted to form a rapids with a standing wave upon which people surf. It's amazing to see them surf and perform tricks in such a small confined space. Back at the bike shop we thanked Tony and Bob was awarded his "Ass Man" medal in the form of a frisbee.

At this point we headed over to the large park where Oktoberfest was being held. We expected to see a lot of beer tents but all the amusement rides were a surprise. The place was mobbed with people coming and leaving continuously but there did not seem to be any roudiness. Folks were pretty friendly and just having a good time. There are always some who drink more than they should but they only caused problems for themselves. By the way we learned during our bike ride that you can be ticketed for DUI on a bike and the police can take your driver's license as a result.
We had heard that it was difficult to get a table in a beer tent if you did not either arrive very early or made a reservation, which could be very expensive. In at least a couple of the places some of us were seated at reserved tables as long as we promised to vacate them before the time they were reserved for.
We all met outside the entrance to the fest area at 4:30 to decide what to do. A few stayed but most of us went back to Marienplatz to shop and find a place to eat or proceeded back to the hotel.

Luzern to Munich

Sadly it was time to depart the Seeburg and leave our lovely view of Lake Luzern. But happily we are off on a new adventure! Our first stop was to be the Benedictine Monastery in the village of Einsiedeln to see the famous Black Madonna. After about an hour's drive we arrived in the village and found that an"Iron Bike" race was in progress. While this presented a challenge finding a parking location for the bus it made an interesting backdrop to the visit.

Mass was being held inside the basilica when we entered. Good timing! We arrive right when they were taking the collection and the ushers weren't bashful. Hope that means we got credit for attending church! It was Sunday. The Madonna is contained in its own separate little chapel area and while the mass was being said in the main area of the church, there were some worshipers saying prayers in front of the Madonna. Unfortunately we could not photograph inside the basilica, but it was quite a thing to see.

Leaving the church, I watched the race for a bit and then took off trying to find the "World's Largest Nativity Scene". It was in a museum that hadn't opened for the day yet. A little further down the road was the Panorama, a 360 degree painting depicting Jerusalem during the crucifixion. A very nice lady working there let me go in to see if it was something the group would be interested in. Better yet, she offered parking space for our motor coach! So I departed looking for the group to tell them what I had found. As it turned out, most of them were coming down the road toward me. I then went up to find where the bus was parked and bring it down to where I had found these two sites.

The Panorama was less spectacular but the intricacy and detail of the Nativity scene was really amazing. It may not be the biggest interms of physical size but mostly has the largest number of individual piece, with hundreds of individually carved characters with moveable limbs and dressed in real cloth garments.
Departing Einsiedeln,we drove through the remnants of the beautiful eastern mountains of Switzerland and into Germany, where the land slowly flattened out. Munich took a long time to traverse en route to our hotel due partly to the Oktoberfest crowds. People seemed to be stumbling about all over the place and Marina had to take care not to hit any of them.

The Hotel Prinzregent is located about 9 kilometers outside the center of town in a somewhat residential area. Although it has a really homey, comfortable feel, all the while everything is done in a top notch way. The rooms are immaculate and spacious, by European standards, the bathroom floor is heated which is really nice stepping out of the shower. There is a friendly bar, an outdoor eating area and a nice private dining area for our group. The maître'd met me before dinner to suggest a couple of wines to accompany our dinner menu. I tasted the wines suggested and found them to be
excellent.

Prinzregent Bar

Our private dinner room

Before dinner we enjoyed some conversation and beverages in the bar. We had a wonderful meal, one of the very best I've had touring with a group. We had Marina join us one last time before he was to return to Switzerland early the next morning.
It had been a rather long day and those comfortable beds with their fluffy duvets were calling!