Domingo's cave-like atmosphere

Today we woke up late owing to the overwhelming hospitality we have been experiencing and our distinct lack of Bavarian genes. Thomas and Emmy seem bright and chipper in the morning... I am told by Crystal who wakes up early enough to see them off to work.

We enjoyed our coffee and watched the robotic lawnmower roll around the yard like a tiny android. Thomas calls him his "cockroach". Bob went out to the cherry trees and picked about 3 lbs of red and yellow varieties for our trip today.

Thomas had set up the GPS to take us directly to Schwangau so we hit the road ready to enjoy our first navigation-free day. I need to add here that the GPS was entirely in German and none of us really read the language or understand the voice. Long story short it told us the trip was 19 hours and 2500 Km long and we accidentally took a detour. Almost four hours later the long-abandoned device rested while we took to the castles (that are a 2 hour drive away)!

The first stop was to Hohenschwangau, situated in the area known as Schwangau on Lake Forggensee which is curiously enough full of swans. The castle was the residence of King Maximillion and his wife Marie and the home that King Ludwig II grew up in. It is lovely, filled with the original furnishings and paintings. The second floor is the queen's floor, the third belonged to the king. His ceilings are much higher and the rooms are grander but both floors are impressive.

The next stop (after the purchase of some desperately needed umbrellas) was to Neuschwanstein castle that sits atop a cliff above Hohenschwangau. The castle was one of many that King Ludwig II built during his brief life (he died at 41) and the inspiration that Walt Disney used for Cinderella's castle. It was extraordinarily expensive and along with his other projects left him in great debt at the time of his mysterious death.


The castle itself is remarkable and wildly over-the-top. It was intended to bring to life many of Wagner's operas in both style and vast murals depicting scenes from various works. Wagner was a great friend of the King who obviously was what we might consider an obsessed fan today. The throne room is likely the most stunning decorated like a Byzantine church, gold everywhere around the paintings of the apostles and Jesus. The floor is an intricate natural design with a wide variety of animals done in over 1 million mosaic tiles.


The most interesting room to me is the "Winter Garden and Grotto" which looks remarkably like Domingo's Restaurant in Raton, New Mexico. Apparently it was not unusual to have a cave in a castle but I walked through there thinking, "maybe he really was crazy". There is also an enormous music hall painted with a scene from Wagner that looks incredibly like Bambi. I think that Disney really liked Bavaria, we also saw dwarf characters working in mines on various artwork here.

Each room is more spectacular than the last, unfortunately no pictures are allowed inside either castle but I will try to drag some off the web.

We drove directly back to Thomas and Emmy's for another great evening. We ate and (shockingly) drank well into the night. Bob's stein magically refilled so regularly that it was almost a joke. We shared ridiculous jokes and enjoyed our last evening to visit.

Munchin' in Muchen

Today we were thrilled to have Emmy with us for the day to tour Munich. We packed up after breakfast and Bob drove us all into the city. We walked from the parking lot down Maximillion street, the Park Avenue of Munich. Any high dollar store imaginable can be found on this street. We chose to visit the quintessential German gourmet food store – Dallmayr.

In Dallmayr you can sit down and have an incredible meal choosing from the incredible food in the cases. The food is VERY fancy in appearance and quality. Everything is beautiful in this store. You can also buy chocolates, candies, pastries, liquor and liqueurs. Some of it is shockingly expensive – cognac for €1755 for one bottle.

From Dallmayr we visited King Ludwig II in his tomb underneath St. Michael’s Church. Many other members of the Wittelsbach dynasty are buried here. Emmy says that you cannot see Munich without visiting the last King of Bavaria.

We stood on the Marienplatz at 11 am and watched the Glockenspiel in the Rathaus (city hall) perform an incredible dance. It shows the story of a big wedding that took place in the square including dancers and jousters on horses. Very impressive clock indeed.

In the square we joined a “free” bicycle tour of the city. Our tour began with the history of the city (begun by monks – hence Munchen) interspersed with many beer jokes. For example, any time a building took more than a few years to build they must have been having a beer in between each stone they laid or cut. Emmy was amused by the jokes and said that now she understands why all Americans think that Bavarians do nothing more than drink beer. I think there might be another reason. Our first stop was the Hoffbrau house. Case closed.

During the tour we saw Feldherrnhalle where Hitler attempted to seize power in 1923. Also, we saw an alleyway that Germans resisting National Socialism took to avoid saluting the fuhrer. They have honored these brave resisters who were sometimes shot for disrespecting the Reich by lining the path in bronze. We also visited St. Cajetan’s Church that has a beautiful dome and understated artistry.

We rode through the sprawling Residenz that was occupied by royal family members and is being continually restored since WWII. It has many plazas and wings as it was expanded over the years starting in the 14th Century. We visited the site of the American troops’ barracks during the occupation.

We visited the English Garden and enjoyed the lovely buildings, statues and vegetation. We cruised by the “naked meadow” where locals bare all or most, laying in the sun and drinking wiessbier. Stopping at the Chinese tower we shared a beer and pretzel and rested in the shade.

Afterwards we stopped to watch the river surfers ride their boards on the artificial waves produced by concrete structures in the river. We continued over the river and back to near Marienplatz to return our bikes.

The four of us then sat down for a great beer and lovely food at a famous restaurant in Munich, Andechser am Dom. I had chanterelle mushrooms cooked in a cream sauce served with a bread dumpling, Bob had an assortment of sausages and sauerkraut and Crystal had hot potato salad and what looked like SPAM but apparently tasted like a really good sausage. Emmy ordered an assortment of Bavarian appetizers for us to try, cheeses, chives on bread, a cheese spread.

We left the restaurant full and toured the church it faces, Frauenkirche, or basically Church of Our Lady. The church is very tall, gothic style, and very large. The most famous thing about it is that supposedly the devil’s footprint is in the stone at the back of the church. Apparently the place made him angry… hulk smash!

Afterwards Bob drove us back to Thomas and Emmy’s and there was another night of food, beer, pear schnapps (not sweet but they could easily start a campfire) jokes and conversation. We went to bed full and tired looking forward to the next day.

Three days in Bavaria... day one

I am sorry to have not been able to update all of you since we left Switzerland. The internet at our friends' house was incapacitated by a lightening strike and we have been handicapped due to the overwhelming Bavarian hospitality.

After meeting Crystal at the train station in St. Gallen we had an uneventful drive to Germany. The only issue we encountered was in trying to get through the corner of Austria without getting on the turnpike. There is a fee to drive on the turnpikes in Austria as well and Switzerland and for just a few miles it seemed hardly worth the expense. With directions from Sabine we made it through easily.

Thomas and Emmy's home is in Attenfeld, near Neuburg, near Inglostadt north of Munich. It is a lovely part of Germany with rolling hills and farm fields dotted with patches of forest. The fields are very different from what I am used to as the crops are planted in much smaller sections. Driving along the country road you could easily pass 5-10 different crops in less than a minute. They grow wheat (for beer), barley (for beer), hops (for beer), corn, beets, grapeseed, strawberries and more plants that we did not always recognize.

Upon our arrival Emmy came home and toured us through Neuburg. It is a lovely little medieval town with a castle (built by someone who also built the castle in Heidelburg I think) and there is currently a "Schlossfest" going on. I thought that this was a festival where everyone gets "sloshed" but as it turns out Schloss means castle. I think that my meaning may be more on the mark however.

The town also has an ancient wall around it, in fact the parking lot is in the moat (drained). There is an incredible library done in the rococco style that was actually originally at a monastery and relocated to a Neuburg church when the monasteries were closed (I think under Hungarian rule, but I am not sure) that we toured. We also visited the outside of the castle and St. Peter church. It is a beautiful town.

We topped off our visit with a peak at the baths that are a key component of the festival. Large wooden tubs are filled with hot water, oils, flowers and scantily clad guests that are scrubbed by the staff. There is also a large biergarten to watch the people bathing while you have a tall frosty beverage. Believe it of not you must make a reservation for the bath and it is difficult to get on the schedule.

We returned to Emmy and Thomas' house for the evening. They had ordered us a wooden barrel of beer. A barrel. Seriously. We tapped the barrel and toured the backyard that is connected to Emmy's family farm. They have apples, plums, raspberries and cherry trees. We ate raspberries off the vine and picked cherries from the trees.

Emmy's father also gave us cherries he had picked. He is in his late 70s and still farms along with Emmy's brother. He is truly a sweet man and at the risk of being disrespectful totally adorable. He was wearing blue overalls, a white t-shirt and a straw Bavarian hat to keep off the sun. I found him charming, but maybe the fact that he thought I was 18 helped a little.

We had a great evening finishing the barrel with Thomas, Emmy, Emmy's cousin Steffie her husband Reinhart and their daughter. There was a lot of food, lively conversation, jokes, chocolate and above all beer - from real beer steins. I always thought they were just for show and the lids were useless. As it turns out the lid keeps the flies out (or did in the old days) and the ceramic mug keeps the beer quite cool. We were up way past my bed time visiting with these lovely people.

I will be trying to get caught up today - hope to supply the details of our next days in Munich and visiting the castles of Schwangau soon.

Bob plays paparazzi in Liechtenstein

Today we set off for Santis mountain after more delicious Zopf for breakfast. I could eat an entire loaf by myself. Santis is a peak at roughly 2500 m above sea level that is accessible on foot or by aerial tram/gondola. We took the gondola to the top through the mist and clouds.

It was a cloudy day and we hoped that it might clear off before we returned to the base. We enjoyed a drink (beer and sprite is the thing to drink here, mixed - not separate) and cheese. They make swiss cheese here - I suppose that if they made cheddar it would be Swiss cheese also though! The cheese is fantastic and very little like the swiss we can buy at home. It is a slightly harder cheese with a smoother flavor than our swiss. Served with bread, mustard, fresh pepper and pickles it was a great treat.

While we were on the peak we had a few peeks through the clouds into the valleys below. On a clear day you can see six countries from the top: Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany, Italy and France. We enjoyed our time on the peak, the atmosphere, the incredible uplifted limestone and the mist blowing across us.

On the way down the clouds cleared and we could see the Appenzell Alps community below, the cows and goats everywhere, the cheese factory and thousands of tiny white and yellow flowers dotting the green valleys. We enjoyed it all very much and climbed in the car to explore the Principality of Liechtenstein.

Liechtenstein is a very small country, only 62 square miles. It is in the Rhein Valley surrounded by the alps on all sides. I cannot imagine a more picturesque place to visit. The buildings are a mix of ancient and modern, there are cyclists riding everywhere and everything is spotlessly clean.

We saw where Sabine works now and grew up part of her life (just down the street from the Prince - seriously) and stopped in a few shops. Bob and I both have Liechtenstein stamps in our passports now although they are from the tourist office, not customs as the borders are open here.

We enjoyed a sweet treat at a cafe: Sabine had an incredible banana split, Bob had what is called "Hot Love" - hot raspberries and vanilla ice cream and I had sweet pancake-dumplings with powdered sugar and plum sauce. Delicious.

Afterwards we drove to the castle to see where the princely family lives. The castle is the most recognized symbol of Liechtenstein and it is easy to see why. It was established in the 12th Century, expanded in the 17th and maintained beautifully today. It is perched on the mountainside and has an incredible view of the valley and the Alps. There are no interior tours as the family lives there but you can approach the gates and peer inside.

We were gazing at the gardens when the Prince rounded the corner walking towards the castle. He was wearing a blue collared shirt, half unbuttoned, khaki pants and no shoes. He apparently is known to wander around the yard barefoot, and why not? Following him was a group of children in soccer clothes that we presumed to be his grandchildren. It looked like they had all had a nice game in the yard. My first real encounter with a royal... he looked like a really normal person actually. He is pictured in the photo with the gate in it - you may have to zoom in.

From the castle we drove back to St. Gallen and enjoyed clear views of Santis (now cloudless) and the entire range of mountains around us. Back at Sabine and Alain's we are getting ready for dinner and organized to head to Munich tomorrow. It has been so cozy staying here with my wonderful old friend that I am not looking forward to leaving but thinking about our return in the future.

St. Gallen

Today we slept in until 9:30 in a real bed. What a luxury, I haven't slept so well in ages. Bob, Sabine and I had a breakfast and enjoyed slices of Zopf a soft, delicious Swiss bread and cappuccinos from their Nespresso machine. If you are not familiar check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r50sKBB7Fys&NR=1

After breakfast we went up to the hospital to visit Alain. This is one nice hospital - quiet, peaceful, views of the mountains and room service for the patients. Yes, real room service. Alain just pushes a button and his order is taken and arrives shortly. We had a nice time talking about our trip and baseball of which Alain is a huge fan. We are hoping that they will both be able to visit and go to an Indians game sometime in the future.

This afternoon we went on the city tour of St. Gallen after Bob had a famous olma bratwurst. The city was established in the 7th Century by an Irish Monk and contains an Abbey he established. The Abbey is an UNESCO world heritage site as it contains a library filled with incredible books dating from the 9th Century. However, we started our tour learning about the textile industry here and visiting the textile museum.

St. Gallen is very famous for textiles and embroidery. The city was made wealthy on the trade of fine laces and incredible fabrics. It remains a textile center with new fashion fabrics introduced twice a year and through AKRIS fashion shows. In fact, Michelle Obama's inaugural suit was made with fabric from St. Gallen that is on display at the museum. Embroidery was once done by hand but in the 19th C machines were developed in Switzerland that allowed for the work to be done more quickly and precisely. We saw one of these now rarely-used pedal operated machines on display.

From the textile museum we walked through the city center and learned about the "Nouveau" architecture that is famous here. New architecture in Switzerland is from around 1900. I find this rather amusing being from a place where anything older than 1940 is not considered 'new' at all.

We meandered to the cathedral to marvel at the Gothic style. Sabine and Alain got married at this church in October 2007. She has said there was no need for decoration in the church because it was so ornate and now having seen it I can't argue. The gilded gates, incredible frescos and blue-green malachite paint detail work are remarkable. There are also 3 pipe organs in the church and so many beautiful hand carved choir seats.

From the cathedral we went to the Abbey library. The floor is beautiful old parquet that is carefully guarded and we had to put on over-sized felt house shoes over our sneakers before we could enter. The library is ornate and lined with alcoves of incredible ancient volumes. There is a balcony floor that wraps the entire room as well. In the center they rotate displays of carefully guarded hand-written books dating from the 9th century. We saw books detailing geometry, astronomy, student handbooks, teacher grade books, a beer delivery receipt from the 8th Century and one with a hand-carved ivory cover.

The library also has an ingenious catalog system in hidden panels next to the shelves. You could look up books and see if they were checked out or available. There were also angels marking the subject areas of the room. The angels are holding objects to indicate what subject area is represented there. No photos allowed, this is from the web.

Afterwards we headed home for another great meal with Sabine of Zurcher Geschnetzeltes and roschti. Wonderful day. We are again being spoiled by a fantastic host who will not let us do a thing. Very relaxing time, we are very happy to be here.

Crystal, "went hiking today and took a scary gondola, it was fun. Tonight is the Lucerne music fest. I hope to see some yodelling." Hope to tell you more later!

Venice to Lucerne and St. Gallen

This morning we packed up very early and started our long drive to Switzerland. We drove through Milan and across the border where we bought a pass for the car that you must have to drive on the interstate here. It is lovely to be back in the mountains and even enjoying them from the car is a treat. We also noticed an immediate transformation in driving style. The Swiss seem to obey traffic laws! A welcome change to the more haphazard Italian road.

On our trip to Lucerne we drove through a tunnel that was over 6 miles long. Remarkable! On one side the sky was relatively clear and when we popped out on the other side it was raining. A whole new weather system. Very interesting experience.

We arrived in Lucerne and dropped Crystal off at Jenn and Dirk's place. Unfortunately due to a combination of heavy rain and exhaustion we saw nothing of Lucerne but rested for a bit at the apartment before setting off. Crystal will be in Lucerne for the weekend and we will be with Sabine in St Gallen. I will try to let you know what she is up to also.

Our drive hit Friday afternoon traffic in Zurich and unfortunately took us quite a long time. Once here Sabine and I had a tearful reunion, it has been 8 years since we last saw each other. We met at TU when we were suite mates in LaFortune Hall and she was on an exchange with Hilti, the company she worked for then.

Although she lives in Switzerland she is originally from the Principality of Liechtenstein that is near St. Gallen. Her husband Alain is unfortunately not able to be home this weekend owing to a trip to the hospital for an injury sustained in a softball game. He is doing fine, but we are all disappointed we will only be able to see him at the hospital.

We had a great dinner together that Sabine cooked for us and sat up late eating black forest tart and catching up. It is so good to be here with a wonderful friend who is like family. Mom, she still has the Tulsa snow globe with her in the living room. After a long day and many days traveling we retired to some much deserved rest.

The Venice of Italy...

Seems like every place has a Venice of _________. Finally the real deal. Packed with tourists, colorful, decaying, smelling of seaweed and salt, the former super power does impress. We really enjoyed this city, eating our way across it. I am too tired to write more tonight so enjoy the pictures:

This morning we got up early and took the first shuttle to Venice. To get to Venice you must take the causeway that runs through the lagoon. The bus let us off, we bought a one day public transit pass and we were off.

In Venice the public transit system is not primarily busses but boats called Vaporetto. We hopped on the #1 slow boat and took a self-guided tour from our guidebook. Venice is in a colorful state of decay with plaster falling off the old palaces and algae growing on the door steps. 1500 years old with a heyday that predates Columbus it feels a little like a time capsule. With a lot of tourist shops.

We cruised under the Rialto bridge where shops abound and there is supposedly a nice breeze at the top and past the post office with postal carrying boats. We passed many old family palaces built by the wealthy merchants here ages ago. Many of them have mooring posts out front that are richly painted with the family colors.

Just to look down the canal is incredible and brings to mind the many painting we have seen on this trip of Venice. It is easily understandable why so many have been inspired here.

We hopped off at St. Mark’s Square and swam upstream through the crowds to see the cathedral from the square. Intricate mosaics cover the front of the domed church where St. Mark’s remains rest. Unfortunately we seem to have hit the tourist crowds at their peak and we tried 3 times to visit St. Mark’s but found the line too long for our liking.

Instead we chose to wander the back alleys and get lost on purpose. We perused the many Venetian glass and mask shops. Glass-making is an ancient and modern art form here and the shops are numerous. Masking making stems from the masquerades famous in Venice. They range from the ornate to elegant, over the top to mundane and cheap.

There are also numerous pastry and chocolate shops, gelaterias, pizza and sandwich bars and shoes and curiously lingerie. Our first stop was a fantastic bakery where I had a passion fruit sponge and cream cake, Bob had a blackberry and raspberry tart and Crystal had a coconut cream puff that she describes as “a piece of heaven. If it were a man, I would marry it”. Very delicious stuff.

At this point we adopted our “eat our way through this town” philosophy that has not failed us in Italy. After more window shopping our next stop was for sandwiches. I had roasted vegetables (eggplant, zucchini, peppers) and cheese panini, Crystal had a hot ham pizza panini, Bob had a shrimp sandwich with large quantities of mayonnaise. Excellent. This sandwich place like many in Venice is Italian food owned and run by a Chinese family.

From there we hopped on the Vaparetto to the Rialto bridge where we wandered the neighborhood and somehow ended up back in the same area we were just in. This was a common theme today, we seemed to walk in circles a lot. But in Venice that is just fine with me. We stopped ion a lovely small church and then wandered across the Rialto to explore more neighborhoods.

Stopping for a drink at an over priced café we ended up sitting next to two lovely couples from Yorkshire England. As it turned out one was actually born in Dayton, Ohio at Wright Patterson Airfield. Well, not the field itself, I’m sure. Anyway,. We had a great time chatting with them. The other woman did her fabulous and hilarious American accent for us and her friends enjoyed it as much as we did. Crystal was particularly amusing to them, telling them in her best Texas accent, “ I don’t really have much of an accent”. . They were rolling…. I particularly enjoyed the gentleman with pigeon poop on his shoulder (hazard of Venice). He looked and talked a lot like Wallace. They highly recommend Yorkshire and it is now squarely on our list.

After our rest we decided it was time for a gelato and a gondola ride. Gelatos are about 1.20 E, gondolas are 80 Euros for a 1 hour ride. We enjoyed our gelato and decided it was instead time for a traghetto ride (a quick gondola ferry across the canal) for 50 cents. Crystal is calling that the “Bob Sudomir gondola ride” as that is all we were willing to pay for.

We enjoyed our 3 minutes on the gondola ferry and laughed all the way through the alley with no real direction in mind. Eventually we hopped on a vaparetto that took us all around Venice from the Grand Canal around the outside to the burbs of Venice (if such a thing exists in the lagoon). We hopped off in St. Mark’s again, shook our heads at the line and took off for a progressive Venetian dinner.

Our first stop was a bar that has been in operation since 1462. Seriously. We ordered wine and appetizers (cichlietti) of roasted veggies, fried stuffed zucchini, tiny sandwiches with ham, shrimp, tuna or anything else you might want. Enjoying our great first course we pondered how many of the 1 – 2 Euro sandwiches we could eat for the cost of a regular meal here. From there we were onto another great OLD pub for a second round of cichlietti – more veggies, roasted tomatoes (yum), polenta with spicy or creamed fish on top. Excellent.

Finally we stopped for sandwiches at yet another Chinese-owned Italian restaurant. Very interesting. Excellent food, no fortune cookie. Time for another gelato? Indeed. Crystal proclaimed this “Bob’s last gelato in Italy”. He looked rather crestfallen.

At this point we wandered around the shops a little more, stopped for fancy chocolates and tried to hop back on the vaparetto back to where our shuttle picked up. However, instead we ended up circling the same neighborhood about 4 times. I was hysterical with laughter every time we turned a corner and saw the same statue.

Somehow back on the boat we made it to the shuttle stop early. Wandering the area around the shuttle Bob found another gelato shop. Bob’s real last gelato in Italy this trip was enjoyed on the banks of the Grand Canal. Back at camp we exhaustedly hit the hay. Tomorrow we are off to Switzerland.