Europe Trip Uddate

Well, hello again. It has been several countries since I last had a chance to blog so we have quite a bit of catching up to do. Get yourself a drink and make yourself comfortable before you start reading. Sorry its so long, I hope it isn’t boring.

The Netherlands.

The Netherlands was beautiful – and yes there were windmills everywhere, although, unfortunately we weren’t in tulip season. Amsterdam (where we stayed) is mostly famous for the sex and drugs of the red light district. Although most of the tour group went to the red light district to see the “Sex Show” and experience the coffee houses (where they are legally allowed to sell cannabis, our severe jet lag (or more specifically my severe jet lag) gave us the perfect excuse to stay in our hotel room and get some sleep instead. The next morning we got free time to wander around the city and check everything out. Amsterdam should be famous for much more than sex and drugs – it is beautiful. It is basically a canal city like Venice is famous for and has streets running along the canals full of beautiful houses.

We also enjoyed Dutch food. And, although I have already experienced poffitches (spelling? Small Dutch pancakes – you know what I mean) Rob hadn’t so we had them for lunch.

Germany.

After our morning in Amsterdam we headed straight into Germany and stayed the night in the Rhine Valley at St Goar. St Goar is a village not a city and is so quaint and beautiful and is literally right on the banks of the Rhine River.

Germany is much prettier than I imagined it would be. Everything I have ever seen about Germany before has been about the war and only shows the concentration camps and similarly depressing sites – but Germany is full of beauty – the architecture of the buildings, the landscape, and the food are all just amazing. And Germany, along the Rhine, is full of castles. I am struggling to find enough adjectives to describe the beauty of the places we have been passing through.

St Goar is where German beer steins are made so we got to go to a shop specializing in them and learn all about them. I liked the pewter ones the best, but they are very heavy and expensive so Rob bought a glass one (plus they’re the ones he likes best).

St Goar is also right near the Black Forest - the origin of Teddy Bears, Cuckoo Clocks, and Black Forest Cake. We were given Black Forest Cake with dinner and it was yummy. It tasted exactly the same as Mum’s but they put more kirsch in theirs and give you a smaller piece so you don’t get too sozzeled.

This is the world’s largest free hanging cuckoo clock- its in the Guinness Book of Records and it is in the tiny village of St Goar.

After leaving St Goar we travelled on towards Munich (or Munchen in German). The countryside went from just looking cold…

To being covered in snow.

In Munich we checked out the Glockenspiel (like a big cuckoo clock really)

St Peter’s Church

And that night, The Beer Hall. In Germany beer comes in one litre glasses called steins. You can’t order anything smaller than a litre in the beer halls. Beer Halls are the best place to get good, cheap, German food so we went along. You all know how I feel about the smell of beer, but I am extremely pleased to report that German beer does not stink like Australian beer does so I was able to enjoy the atmosphere of the beer hall, watch the locals and enjoy the German food. German food is all about pork, cabbage, and pretzels. We enjoyed all three. Rob had what they call a pork knuckle which was like almost an entire roast of pork to himself. I had the wurst because I like wurst the best. We both had sauerkraut – it actually wasn’t bad at all, I would eat it again.

Rob had a stein of beer, but he doesn’t drink much so he went with the beer mixed with lemonade option. I had a mini stein of wine (wine comes in a smaller stein than beer). My wine was also watered down somewhat with mineral water so it was a little fizzy as well.

The next morning when we were leaving Munich, Cindy (our cute little French tour manager. We have a Scottish driver as well) surprised us with two extra stops that she doesn’t normally take the tours on – BMW Welt and Dachau Concentration Camp. Dachau was far more of a highlight for me than the BMWs, though. Dachau was the first concentration camp they ever built in Germany and became the model for all the others to be built on. It was a very somber place to be as literally thousands (yes, thousands) of people died in that concentration camp alone, but I’m so, soooo glad we got the opportunity to go.

Austria

After leaving Dachau we went straight into Innsbruck, Austria. Innsbruck is a small city – the origin and home base of Swarovski crystal. I thoroughly enjoyed the Swarovski shop and exhibition and I would have taken home almost everything in the shop if I could have done.

Austrian cuisine is all about trying to get you drunk on schnapps. We tried the schnapps at a free tasting in one of the shops (I liked the cappuccino one and the strawberry one) and then when we had dinner in the hotel the dessert (a chocolate mousse type of thing) was absolutely drenched in it as well.

The real highlight of Innsbruck, though, was when it snowed. We have seen a lot of snow, but this was the first time it had actually snowed on us. Even the Americans on the tour who are used to snow were amazed by it. They described it as snowing in balls rather than flakes – the snowflakes were huge!

Anywho, that’s a giant post so I’ll let you all go back to whatever it is you are supposed to be doing at the moment.