Viva Colonia!

Cologne, Germany is a very nice city.  The buildings are beautiful and the people are so nice (when I was on the train from Salzburg to Munich, I met a German girl that said Cologne is probably where the nicest German people live).

The first night in town, I went out with a group of German people to a couple pubs and a dance club :)  Even though they only spoke a little bit of English, the people treated me like one of them.  They also taught me about a song called Viva Colonia that they sing at sporting events and in clubs and jump around and have fun while doing it!

The rest of the city is also beautiful.  The cathedral there, Kolner Dom, is stunning.  It has the fourth highest spires in the world (interesting tidbit - The highest spires are in Ulm at the Ulm Minster which I saw on the train ride from Heidelberg to Cologne)  The stained glass windows inside are very intricate and beautiful.

Around the area of the cathedral, there is a bridge that the trains cross to get to the main train station and there are pedestrian paths across the bridge too.  Along those paths people who get married will put a lock along the fence there which is really cool to see.

Around the area of the city hall, there are large open places with restaurants and brew halls all around.  The weather was very nice so they would have tables all over the plazas with people filling them.

This is the last new place of my journey and I have to say, it has gone by too fast.  I will be glad to get back home and see friends and family, but I will also miss the people that I became friends with.

This is what the finial at the top of the spires look like up close.  They are huge!

Kolner Dom.  The largest church facade in the worl... i think.

One of the stained glass window inside.

Notice the intricate glass design.

One side of the cathedral.

Cathedral with the afore mentioned train/pedestrian bridge in front.  You can see the locks there across the bottom.

Closer view of the locks... There are probably over a quarter-million locks!

Rathshaus.  City hall building tower.

On the advice of others.

While in Munich, I was trying to decide where to head next...  I hit up a guy I met while in Lisbon who I knew lived near Frankfurt to see if he had any suggestions.  He told me that Heidelberg was great for the amount of time I had.  So on his suggestion, I made my way there and it did not disappoint.

I found that the people there in Heidelberg were friendly, the views in the city were beautiful, the air was fresh and the architecture was different that I had seen most places.

Many of the buildings there were constructed with a red stone which set them apart from the usual buildings I had seen all over Europe.  Throughout the Old Town, there were intricate facades to many of the buildings.

Up on the hill behind the old town was Heidelberg Castle.  This castle was originally built in the 1200s but then destroyed in the 17th and 18th century by wars and fires and a lightning strike to one of the sides of the castle.

The Neckar River also runs through the town giving a picturesque scene when looking across the river to the other bank.

Old town begins.

 Stadtshalle.  This is a Congress and cultural center.

Red stone everywhere.

Church of the Holy Spirit.

Towers at the head of a pedestrian bridge over the river.

Heidelberg Castle on the hill.

A Place of Wonder, Excitement, History, Beer, Soccer, and Fairy Tales

I have just left Munich and had another wonderful time in the city.  I had been there once before in 2009.  Back then, I went to Oktoberfest, the BMW museum, the Olympic Park and the Science Museum.  This time, I found many of the other things this city has to offer.

Munich's (and the whole Bavarian state) history is full of legends and folklore but also full of things that were important to shaping the world as we know it, for example it is where Hitler began his rise to power.  There are beautiful old buildings and German architecture throughout the city (much of it having to be rebuilt after the city was decimated in WWII).

The city is know as the Beer Capital of the World.  This has a lot to do with six main breweries ("The Right Six") being based in Munich, Augustiner, Paulaner, Spaten, Lowenbrau, Hacker-Pschorr, and Hofbrau.  Throughout the city, there are huge beer halls, many of which look like you are on the inside of a barrel when you are inside.  Each beer hall can only serve one of those six beer brands.  Many of the beer halls have oom-pah bands that will play traditional German music.  You will see people wearing traditional Bavarian outfits, lederhosen for the men and a dirndl for the ladies.  The beers come in half or full liters... and let me tell you, a full liter of beer is heavy.  They also have beer gardens through the city and if the weather is good, you will always see people out having a beer.

Bayern Munchen is the main soccer team in the area and they also have another team TSV 1860 Munchen.  They both play at the Allianz Arena and I did a tour of that facility.  One funny thing about the stadium is that they have a Biergarten inside the stadium (man they love their beer here).  I also went to a pub when the Bayern Munchen - Real Madrid game was on and it was fun.  It was like being on a roller coaster because the whole bar would crescendo into an uproar when something good was about to happen.

I visited Dachau (Dack-oww) which was a concentration camp during WWII.  It is the type of thing that you see about in history class but doesn't sink in until you see what was going on.  I had been to the Holocaust museum in Washington DC and that gives a very good account of what happened.  If you dont ever think you will make it to Europe and ever get the chance to go to the museum in DC, do it.  The guide I had around the camp did a good job at explaining what all went on at the camp during it's operation through when it was liberated.  One main thing I got from it was aside from all the physical abuse, the prisoners there were psychologically abuse just as much.

I also got the chance to visit Neuschwanstein Castle (Noy-shhvann-stein).  This was a magical castle built by king Ludwig II in the late 1800s.  He actually never saw it completed while he was alive.  The castle was nestled on the top of a hill right next to the Austrian border and it is right where the Alps start.  The views were breathtaking and it didn't seem real that I was there.  I actually have a huge 1000 piece puzzle that is half finished at home of this castle and it was so cool to see it in real life after staring pieces of at it for about a month.  Along the back side of the castle was a gorge with deliciously fresh alpine water (yes I drank it... lots of it) in a setting that I felt I could just stay forever.

Munich was also the place where I met the most people of the whole trip.  I met and had some good conversations with people from San Francisco, Mallorca, Portland, Seattle, Wisconsin, Indiana, Georgia ("Billy is our leader"), Brisbane (Australia), Blue Mountains (Australia, I hung out with him the most), Argentina, Santa Cruz, Hamburg, Edmonton, Brazil, Munich, Pilzen and England.  That was one of my favorite things about the place.  I guess that everybody is a little more friendly after drinking a liter.

St. Peter's Church tower.  If you notice it has two clock faces, that is because their used to be two towers and one of them was destroyed and the Germans couldn't just throw away four perfectly good clocks so they added them to this tower.

 Picture of the Rathskeller (city hall) building from on St. Peter's church tower.  It was over 300 steps up in very narrow staircases.

 In the big garden there, the Englischer Garten, there is a standing wave that people will surf.  Some are very good, others fall in less than a second or two.

 Allianz Arena is home for both FC Bayern Munchen and TSV 1860 Munchen.  The outside lights up White, Red, or Blue depending on who is playing at the time.

One of the symbols of Munich is a lion.  This is a rather skinny looking one I found.  Another symbol is a monk.  Munich gets it's name from the word for monk.

Dachau memorial.

Hohenschwangau Castle.  This is where Ludwig II grew up as a boy.  It is pretty close to the site where he built Neuschwanstein.

Neuschwanstein Castle.

Courtyard inside the castle.

View from one of the decks of the castle.  You can see Hohenschwangau in the bottom right.  That lake is called the Alpensee

The castle from another side.

The castle from yet another side...  It started absolutely pouring down rain right before this picture was taken.

Flume and waterfalls in the gorge behind the castle.

These are a few of my favorite things...

I am in Salzburg, Austria, where the movie "The Sound of Music" was set and parts of it were filmed here.  That being said, the town has really grasped on to that and made that part of who they are now.  There are Sound of Music bus tours and the hostel that I am staying at plays the movie in one of the dining rooms, every night.

The city is beautiful, with palaces and castles and gardens and churches which give it a cool magical old city feel.  The flowers in the Mirabell garden were either in bloom or recently planted, but either way, it was a wonderful color explosion.

Trivia tidbit: Salzburg is also where Mozart was born.

I also went to a palace called Schloss Hellbrunn which was a palace that an archbishop built that was supposed to be a place where people would come and the palace would make the people be able to escape the monotony of everyday life.  One way he did this was that he had trick fountains all around the palace.  One of them was in the shape of a table and chairs.  The people would all sit around the table with the archbishop and at some point, all of the seats would have water shooting up from underneath... all except for the bishop's seat.  And the people were not allowed to stand before the bishop so they would have to sit there until he stood up.  I'm sure he had fun with that.  All around the gardens, there were little spouts that would shoot water at the unsuspecting (myself included).  It was fun because the water would get some people and everyone in the group would laugh.  I can see how these fountains were able to make people forget about their everyday lives when touring the gardens.

ps... i forgot to mention about Switzerland, I had Swiss cheese (I think they just call it cheese there) and Gruyere (delicious).  The money in Switzerland is magical. When the coins rattle around in your pocket, they sound like Santa's sleigh bells and the paper money is the most colorful I have ever seen.  And on one of the ski gondolas that I was on, a bunch of people started yodeling.

Horse fountain that was featured in the beginning of the Sound of Music.  The fountain was designed by Bernini.

At the top of the dome in the Salzburg Cathedral.  The inside of cathedral was beautiful with frescoes that told many of the stories of the bible.

City view from up on the hill.

Mirabell Garden with Fortress Hohensalzburg on the hill in the background.

Gardens from the other side.  The sky almost looks fake.

Ornate stone mosaic ceiling in the trick fountain area at Hellbrunn.

 

Cool sight at the trick fountains.  Almost every piece of this moves and a water organ plays all using water by gravity to move it all.

Gazebo from sound of music.  This was given to the city from the production company after Sound of Music was finished.

Beautiful backdrop.

Cool view of the city.

Between two lakes

So i am currently in the town of Interlaken, Switzerland.  Interlaken literally means between (inter) lakes (laken).  Lake Thun on one side and Lake Brienz on the other and they are connected by a canal that runs through the middle of town.

There are mountains all around the lakes and the town.  The three peaks of Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau are the backdrop of the town and are one of the most emblematic points of the Swiss Alps.

The first day I walked all around the town and down by the canal all the way to the river Thun.  There was also a castle ruin there that I could climb around in (Indiana Jones style).  I ate at this very nice restaurant where the people there made me feel like family.

The second day I walked around town again all the way to Lake Brienz.  I then decided to hike up to a place called Harder Kulm.  That is on a mountain opposite from the others.  It took about two and a half hours to hike up to it.  It is a 2475 ft climb (Phew).

The views around this city are breathtaking and the people all seem to be super nice.  There is a big number of extreme sports (sky diving, bungee jumping, ice climbing, white water rafting, canyon swinging, and more) that go on here, but they are all super expensive so I will probably wait until back in America to try some of those :)

Lake Thun

Ruin castle.

One of the closer mountains.

Lake Brienz.

 Lake Brienz from the hike up to Harder Kulm.  The water is SO blue!

Observation deck at Harder Kulm over looking Lake Thun.

Three Peaks, left to right, Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau.

People might ask, what's your favorite part of Switzerland...

Well, the flag is a big plus!   ...guffaw

But seriously, Zermatt is amazing!  The train ride to Zermatt is so beautiful with the mountains and there is a river right next to the tracks for most of the way and the water is a beautiful light blue-green color that just looks like what you imagine alpine water would be like.

The hostel room that I am in has a beautiful view of the Matterhorn, probably one of the most photographed mountains in the world, and I helped add to that number... I took so many pictures of it.

Skiing the mountain was an amazing experience.  Seeing all the mountains everywhere with the snowcaps were so beautiful for the backdrop of the adrenaline experience of speeding down the mountain.  There were some runs that took me over 45 minutes to get from the top to the bottom.  Considering at Wintergreen, I could get from the top of the mountain to the bottom, taking the longest route possible in under 5 minutes.  It was exhausting too.  My legs are definitely not in ski shape.

Zermatt was also having something they called Zermatt Unplugged going on.  They had a bunch of bands playing concerts all over the town at different times throughout the day.

 View from my hostel window.

Zermatt.

Matterhorn with the river running through Zermatt.

Knobbly tree-faced fountain.

Porto has a few main things that I found out about...

...Port wine, gold, tiles, bridges, and Harry Potter... and top 5 lists.

So, port wine was created here and there are TONS of port wineries (or wine barrel houses) all grouped together that give wine tastings.  Port wine is a very sweet, very strong type of wine.  If you look at one bank of the river Douro, you can see at least 20 of those wine barrel houses.

As for the gold, when Portugal was trying to expand their empire, their colony in the Americas was Brazil.  Well, they found gold in Brazil and then brought it back to Portugal for use in the churches.  Any of the churches in the city that were built after the 16th century has tons of Gold inside.  The one with the most gold is the church of Sao Francisco, and it has over 600kg (1300lbs) of gold inside.  But really, if you see any church, you will probably see gold.  It left me feeling like I had found El Dorado.

When I first arrived at the train station, Porto - Sao Bento, I noticed that there was a really cool tile mural on the wall.  I found out later that this is in the top 5 most beautiful train stations in the world.  There is also tile all around the whole city, some on church facades, some just on house facades.

There are 6 bridges in Porto that cross the river Douro.  At the time each one of them was built, they were all world record holders for something (or at least 5 of the 6 were).  Two of the bridges are steel and have an intricate steel pattern that looked very familiar.  The first was designed by the architecture firm of Gustave Eiffel.  Eiffel himself did not design it but it was a partner in his firm, Teophile Seyrig.  When the second was being designed, Seyrig no longer worked for Eiffel and they competed with each other for the design of the second bridge.  the officials of Porto decided to go with Seyrig again.  At the time, that was the largest steel structure in the world.  This didn't sit well with Eiffel, and less than 2 years later the Eiffel Tower was built.

If you have never read or seen a Harry Potter book or movie, this paragraph might not make sense to you. JK Rowling lived in Porto for 3 years.  She was living there when she started writing the first Harry Potter book.  The university students there wear black suits as uniforms and they all wear capes.  This was some of the inspiration for the Hogwart's school uniforms.  She went to this cafe called the Majestic Cafe (One of the top 5 most beautiful cafes in the world) and worked on the manuscript there.  There is a book store there that is one of the top 5 most beautiful book stores in the world.  In the book store, there is a crazy staircase that is the inspiration for the main staircase in Hogwart's and the thinnest house in the world is also in Porto, possible inspiration for Sirius Black's house.

Inside tiled walls of the Train Station.

 Majestic Cafe.  From what I hear, the first three chapters of the first Harry Potter novel were written here.

Tiled facade of at church.

Golden interior of another church.

Dom Luis Bridge, this is the second of the two bridges that I mentioned.