Jean's Europe trip 2006
Part 3: Germany and Switzerland
First episode: Prague and Kutna Hora.
Second episode: Kraków and Zakopane.
Germany
On Thursday evening, 21 September, we flew on Germanwings from Kraków to Hamburg, Germany, arriving around midnight at the Hotel Treudelberg, one of the few places I could find on the Internet with rooms available at the last minute, and not knowing the area at all. It looked like a place that would be most interesting to spend some time at (rather above my usual level of accommodation), but alas we had to get up the next morning before dawn to catch an early flight to Stuttgart, our actual destination.
This inconvenient and roundabout route was necessary because I couldn't find a direct flight to Stuttgart unless we had stayed in Kraków until Saturday... but that would have meant moving into a 6-person dorm at the hostel, which was otherwise fully booked for the Friday night. (Note: Germanwings stopped flying the Kraków->Hamburg route later in October, due to lack of passengers.)
We flew from Hamburg to Stuttgart, again on Germanwings, on Friday morning, arriving at the Mercure Stuttgart Airport hotel far too early to get into our hotel rooms, so we hung around the comfortable hotel lobby (which had a convenient and free Internet machine) until the bistro opened for lunch, ate a delicious meal, and were then able to get into our rooms and collapse for a few hours.
In the early evening, Sigrid arrived, having driven from Kaiserslautern after she got off work. I had not met Sigrid in person before, although we had been corresponding for some some time, so this was a treat for both of us.
Freiburg
After
a day's rest at Stuttgart, and an unplanned diversion to Sigrid's parents' place
so her father could fix a minor problem with her car, on Monday we drove to Freiburg,
a beautiful city on the western edge of the Black Forest of Germany. We stayed two nights in
the Hotel am Stadtgarten, a pleasant place
very conveniently located just a few streets from the main old part of town.
Although it rained off and on, we were able to walk around and see the immediate area. The city centre is a pedestrian district, with trams allowed. An unusual feature is the open gutters (Bächle) that run down one or both sides of the streets (depending on the width of the street) in this area. You can see them in some of my photos in the photo gallery. In a few places the Bächle are covered, but otherwise one must keep alert to not fall in. I had thought these Bächle had been used for sewage in the middle ages, but Wikipedia tells me I'm wrong: their original purpose was to provide water (diverted from the Dreisam River) to fight fires and feed livestock.
We
enjoyed the farmers' market in the Münsterplatz, which like many such markets had
craft stalls in addition to fresh fruits and vegetables and other food, including many stands selling
wonderful grilled or boiled German sausages on bread, garnished with your choice of fried onions,
mustard, and ketchup. Yum!
Also yummy was the food at Martinsbräu, a microbrewery with associated restaurant. We ate there twice, because I was so enthusiastic about being able to get the sort of food I remember from 40 years ago when I lived in southern Germany (in the village of Kornwestheim, now probably a suburb of Stuttgart).
Because of the weather, we did not go to visit the Stadtgarten (City Garden), which sounds most enjoyable for a stroll on a fine day, or take the cable car to the Schlossberg for the view. Sigrid took Daniel on a drive around the Black Forest, but I didn't feel like spending the day in a car, so I wandered about the central city on foot by myself.
Schluchsee
On Wednesday, we drove east to Schluchsee, a mountain health resort town (also in
the Black Forest), on the shores of a lake with the same name.
We stayed at the Hotel Schiff,
which their website says was founded in 1562! This was another pleasant hotel (thanks to
Sigrid for suggesting it, and the hotel in Freiburg).
Walking--including long-distance walks--is obviously a major feature of the region.
Each morning we saw dozens of frightfully fit-looking people of all ages striding off in hiking
boots, wearing daypacks, and carrying (in most cases) two walking poles. Sigrid explained that two
poles are supposed to be more of an aid to efficient long-distance walking than one pole, and
then I realised the similiarity to a piece of exercise equipment I had seen used in the gym.
We could hire poles by the hour or the day at shops in town, but didn't.
I did take a cruise on the lake, walk to the next village (around 4km),
stroll around the town, sit in the restaurant with a glass of wine, and eat far too
much delicious food. Overall, a most relaxing time. By this stage of a long trip, I was much
into relaxing, and this was a great place to do it.
The hotel has a spa with heated pool, which I considered using, but I admit I was a bit intimidated by trying to cope with transactions in German when Sigrid wasn't there to translate. (She was studying for an important exam, so did not spend all day being our tour guide.) The whole town is evidently geared for German tourists, not foreign ones. We could get menus in English, but far fewer locals spoke English well than I've found in many other places. This is not a complaint! I quite like feeling that I'm getting a taste of what "the locals" do, instead of an artificial experience staged for foreign visitors. My long-unused German proved adequate for some basic transactions, but not for anything complicated.
Switzerland
On Saturday we drove south into Switzerland to the Rheinfall, then east to the Bodensee (known in English as Lake Constance). The weather was generally fine, so it was pleasant trip.
When we got to the Swiss border, there was no one in sight (and no barrier) on the German side, so we drove on through. I was idly thinking that with all the changes in Europe over the past 10 or 20 years, one of the most conspicuous to me would be the removal of barriers at the borders between countries. Turns out I was a bit wrong, because we were stopped at the Swiss side and politely told that we should have stopped on the German side as well. I then remembered that Switzerland is not in fact a member of the European Union.
The Swiss guards were polite about the incident. They inspected our passports (one Canadian, one Australian) along with Sigrid's German identity card, but didn't ask us to go into the guard station (as happened to me once when crossing from Canada to the USA in a car containing a Canadian, an Australian, a New Zealander, and an American). After the guards had waved us on, we made some jokes to each other about which of us was the most suspicious looking character in the car. I decided it must have been the older woman with the purple hair in the back seat--me!
Rheinfall
I
loved the Rheinfall. The guidebook says it is
the largest waterfall in Europe. It certainly was beautiful. What else can I say?
We parked the car on the northwestern side of the river, above a large building containing a restaurant, gift shop and other amenities.
After enjoying the view of the falls from that side, we crossed the river in a small boat to a place where we could walk up to a series of viewing platforms or all the way to a castle (Schloss Haufen) on the cliff top, where another car park is located. I walked all the way to the top. If we had wanted to, we could have taken a boat to a viewing platform on one of the rocks in the middle of the falls.
Afterwards, we ate lunch in the bistro before continuing our journey through the attractive Swiss countryside to the Bodensee (Lake Constance).
Konstanz and Kreuzlingen
We stayed at the Bodensee-Arena Sporthotel
in Kreuzlingen, Switzerland,
just metres from the German border and the city of Konstanz.
I booked this place because I wanted to be within an easy walk of the centre of the old city of Konstanz, and the places I could find in Konstanz itself were either full or more pricey than I wanted to pay.
A bit further from town (10-15km) along the lake shore on the German side, we could get rooms in what sounded like very nice guesthouses, but I did not want to depend on a car or on public transport.
The Sporthotel turned out to be quite acceptable, though nothing special, being designed to house athletes at the Sport Arena itself. The thing I had not anticipated was being right next door to a small carnival set up for Oktoberfest.
The
noise was sufficient to keep me awake at night, so obviously the only thing to do was join the fun.
I always enjoyed Oktoberfest when I lived in Germany before, so I was glad to have an excuse to go.
Sigrid had a slight cold, and Oktoberfest was no novelty for her, so Daniel and I left her
to study while we went to see the rides and the beer hall.
It was just like I remembered from 40 years ago, except the beer hall was not as smoky as I remembered. Normally I hate crowds and noise at this level, but once a year or so I find it great fun--and so I did this time. The beer, the singing, the dancing on the benches--nothing had changed from my memories. I even recalled the words to some of the drinking songs!
Fortunately, the Oktoberfest closed around midnight, so I had plenty of time for a good night's sleep.
Säntis Peak in the Swiss Alps
We were lucky: the day we had planned for our trip to the Alps was not rainy! So we had
a delightful drive through the beautiful Swiss countryside to Schwägalp, at the foot of Säntis Peak.
There we rode the gondola to the peak itself and wandered around admiring the spectacular view. The wind was... very windy! Check the photo album for lots of photos of the view.
A sudden brief shower drove us indoors in search of food. While we ate, the weather cleared again, so we wandered around a bit more before heading back down the mountain for the drive back to Kreuzlingen.
Back to the UK
Too soon it was time to fly back to the UK. We drove to Stuttgart airport, arriving in plenty of time for me to inspect the displays in the passenger terminal before we had to go through customs and catch our flight to Birmingham on BA Connect. This plane was the smallest we had encountered on the trip: 2 seats on one side of the aisle, one seat on the other. On this day (a German holiday), there were few passengers; presumably this is mostly a commuter airline for European businesspeople.
After a few days relaxing in Tamworth, I headed off on the train to visit other friends in Tonwell, north of London. There we ate in a local pub where the steak & kidney pie was as good as I remember from 5 years ago. On Sunday my friends drove me in the early morning to Heathrow Airport, where I boarded a GulfAir flight for an uneventful, though long, trip home, with a stopover again in Sydney.