Travel Musings

 A full day today (Thursday), starting with a bike ride to the local Oberammergau ski lift, and a perilous ride back down on an Alpine Coaster. This is basically a sled on rails that plummets down the hillside, and all you have to control it is a brake lever - because of its design it cannot leave the rails, so they build in all sorts of twisting loops, bends and curves, all taken at whatever speed you think you can endure. It is great fun. Naturally, the views from the top of the mountain were spectacular. In the afternoon we cycles 40 minutes along an absolutely gorgeous valley floor to Lindenhof Schloss. This is the smallest (and least known) of Ludwig II's romantic castles, but his personal favourite. In fact it was the only one actually finished in his lifetime, and the only one he actually used. The interior rooms, and there weren't many of them, were all opulently guilded in 24 carat gold foil, and fantastically painted. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos i...

 Inevitably, the run of good weather is coming to an end, and rain is starting to affect our plans. It's not continuous rain, but there are enough showers to be a nuisance. On Monday we rode our bikes to a nearby village called Ettal. This is the home of a Benedictine monastery called Kloster Ettal, and it is simply huge..and beautiful. Being Benedictine they have a side line in brewing beer and spirits on the premises, and it is somewhat amusing to see that one of the beers is called Hell. I should point out that ordinary Pils beer in Bavaria is called Hell. The weather forecast on Tuesday showed a few hours free from rain in the middle of the day, so we got on the bikes again and headed off into the countryside. Germany is so well set up for cycling that it is almost a crime not to make use of this. And after a pleasant bike ride, what better than a plate of spaghetti with strawberry sauce? It is known as spaghetti eis, and is vanilla ice cream put through a machine to achieve th...

 Saturday was treated as a rest day. We had basically done all we could in Munich without starting to repeat ourselves. There are things I would like to go back to Munich for that I missed this trip, such as the Deutscher Museum - the equivalent of our British Museum. On Sunday we headed south towards them thar hills, and the drive was superb. The countryside below the Alps is lush, rolling and constantly appealing, with beautiful Alpine style houses in pretty little villages (we deliberately took a route that bypassed the motorways).  And then we started going uphill, and through deep wooded valleys with towering peaks way above us. Lovely! Oberammergau is a small town deep into one of these valleys, and is famous for enacting the famous Passion Play every ten years. Covid cancelled the 2020 performance which has now been rescheduled for 2022, and there is a special concert hall used only for this purpose. In the meantime, Oberammergau, has a few ski runs, so gets trade all y...

 On Thursday, Achim (an acquaintance of Giles and Linda from motor homing in Sicily, and who lives in Munich) decided to take us in his car on a tour of lesser known Munich sites. Now, Achim is not the type of person you usually meet. He has irrepressible energy and boundless enthusiasm, and is a retired German Army Colonel who used to command a force of Leopard tanks - however this has not transferred to his car driving skills - they were......less than adequate, but we survived. He saw service in Kosovo and Afghanistan, and had the "honour" of escorting the last Russian soldier out of Germany. Quite a character. He took us to the Royal Palace of  Schloss Nymphenberg, built in the late 1600's, and which is larger than Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately you can only see the grounds, but they were impressive: It is very easy to get out of Munich into the countryside, and you are rewarded with views towards the distant Alps: After a late lunch in a Bier Garden (as opposed to ...

 Germany is very welcoming to motorhomes, and always makes provision for them. Here in Munich we are parked up right outside the Bayern Munich FC ground, Allianz Arena. Although motorhomes are not allowed on match days, there is room for at least one hundred vans, at €15 per night. Basic sanitary facilities (ie toilet cassette emptying, cleaning and re-chemical loading by a machine!), fresh water and rubbish disposal are all to hand. Furthermore, there is an U-Bahn (underground) station at the other end of the arena, which takes you directly into the city centre, at the pleasing cost of only €5 for a day ticket.  We just spent Tuesday at the arena doing a little admin, for we knew we had three or four full on days in Munich ahead of us. So, Wednesday morning was a U-Bahn trip into Marienplatz, smack bang in the middle of Munich.  Some of the buildings there were magnificent, but the shopping area could have come from and large city centre - big names and high prices. The ...

 Saturday saw us take a take a sort of hybrid bus/train around Regensburg, and very good it was too. The narrow streets it took us on made it near impossible to take decent photos, however. After that it was another walk around the centre. In one of the churches was this piece of "art". It was made entirely from pairs of tights, and the shape of the central piece must be by design....mustn't it? On Sunday I took myself off for a bike ride to Walhalla - or Valhalla as we would spell it. This was built by Ludwig in 1842 and named after the mythical Great Hall in the heavens that was there to welcome heroes that fell in battle. Ludwig made it a place to celebrate any German speaking person that made a significant contribution to Germany. Set on top of a hill overlooking the Danube, the building itself and the views were excellent. However, being a Sunday, there were long queues to look at the busts and statues inside, so I didn't go in but arranged to cycle there again o...