Munich and Oktoberfest - Prost!

At this time of year there are crowds of people heading into Munich in Germany for one thing only - Oktoberfest! After leaving Vienna Dan and I joined the crowds streaming into Munich.

We were really excited to get amongst it in Munich but also meet up with our friend James. For those of you that know us pretty well, James is the reason Dan and I met (as he likes to remind us pretty regularly) and we were pretty excited to meet up with someone from home! We spent a few nights staying in Wombats hostel in Munich, before the prices nearly quadrupled for Oktoberfest weekend.

Given the planning we had put into getting to Munich for Oktoberfest, we decided to really get into the swing of things and buy lederhosen and a durndle for me (for the uninitiated, that's the little dress that females wear while the boys wear lederhosen). We spent a whole day trawling the city, looking at both new and secondhand traditional clothing. We were offered lederhosen from the 1800s costing about 1500 euros, but decided to go with the cheaper option of outfits from C&A (similar to Target or Myer). Stoked with our purchases, we headed to an Augustiner beer hall that night where the boys had beer and I had a radler (aka shandy) as well as pork knuckle, roast chicken, potato salad, apple strudle and more traditional Bavarian food.

We also planned to visit Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial, and jumped on a metro train one morning and headed to the town just outside of Munich. While it could never be described as an experience I particularly looked forward to or enjoyed, I think everyone who visits Germany should visit one of these memorials just to commemorate the atrocities that were committed there, to ensure we never forget and never let it happen again. It was so sad walking through each building and reading all of the memorial material, and disturbing seeing the preserved crematoriums and gas chambers.

On a happier note, we also did a fantastic free walking tour of and learned the full history of Bavaria and Munich. It was creepy to hear that one of the beer halls we walked through is considered the "birthplace" of the Nazi party. The roof used to be covered in swastikas which has since been painted over.

Munich's most famous beer hall

The day before Oktoberfest began we moved to our campground and into our tents to join the world's biggest festival. Having not camped since high school, this wasn't an experience I was particularly looking forward to. Coupled with the fact that it rained torrentially for two full days meant the overall experience was quite wet and dreary! I did really enjoy getting dressed up in traditional clothing, the opening parade on the first day and and the atmosphere in the beer halls. We also had a pretty good time on some of the rides like the dodgem cars. Overall, Oktoberfest is a must-do, once in a lifetime experience full of Bavarian culture.

All dressed up in our traditional costumes

Some of the floats from the opening parade

In the beer halls

From Munich we moved away from beer-country into wine-country in Italy, which is a lot more my style...to be featured in my next blog.

Lapping up the culture in Vienna

After leaving behind Prague we arrived in Vienna in Austria, back into German speaking territory. Knowing we were heading to Munich the following week to meet our friend James and spend four nights camping at Oktoberfest while consuming copious amounts of German beer, we decided to take it easy in Vienna and relax and enjoy a bit of the culture.

On our first night we did a tour with our fellow Busabout-ers throughout the city. After seeing all of the sights, including the cathedral, town centre, Hapsburg palace and the museum precinct, we headed to eat our first schnitzel and strudel. As you can see from our photos below, the schnitzels were absolutely massive, but we managed to get through them and enjoy apple strudel for dessert. Dan also enjoyed his first one litre stein of beer, which he was really excited about.

Giant schnitzel and salad

We were really excited to find out that our wombats hostel was directly opposite the main food market in Vienna, the Naschmarkt. We spent a few days in Vienna relaxing around the hostel and wandering across the road intermittently to devour falafel, hommus, fruit and veges. Due to the awesome kitchen in the hostel, we also made some really cheap home cooked meals - with the markets across the road, all of the ingredients only cost us about five euro - bargain!

There were two highlights of our time in Venice - an awesome wine-tasting tour we did to the Wachau Valley and our trip to the opera.

The weather on our tour to the Wachau Valley was absolutely perfect. We headed on a bus out of Vienna to the valley and enjoyed hours of chatting with our fellow tour mates while drinking white wine in picturesque vineyards. Wine from the Wachau Valley can only be bought locally in the region, with specialties including varieties of white wines, especially Riesling.

The guys at wombats hostel reception insisted that the number one thing to do in Vienna was visit the opera - and with standing tickets only costing four euro, there was no excuse not to head along. We pulled out our best looking clothes (nice to get out of our dingy backpacker clothes for a while!) and headed to the opera house two hours before the show to line up for standing tickets. While it was a long wait, it was definitely worth it, as we enjoyed a 90 minute opera for only 4 euros each. We were also excited to find we had picked a lighter, more romantic-comedy style opera, rather than the dramatic and tragic style that I was expecting. The standing stalls also had small screens translating the opera into English, so we could understand the whole show. We had an absolutely fantastic night, and topped it off by visiting an Australian bar where I enjoyed some Vegemite toast and Dan had Australian beers. It's really funny to notice the little things you miss when you are away from home - the vegemite toast tasted like the best I had ever had!

Inside the beautiful opera house

Vegemite toast at the Aussie pub!

After four days in Vienna, we were keen to jump back on the bus and meet James in Munich ready for beer-drinking, pretzel eating and beer halls - you'll have to wait until my next blog to read about this!

Fairytale cities - Prague and Cesky Krumlov

From our first eastern city of Berlin we headed into the Czech Republic to Prague and Cesky Krumlov. We were excited about going to these places for a couple of reasons - the photos we had seen looked fantastic and we were staying in hotel rooms, as the exchange rate for the Czech Crown is quite good compared to the aussie dollar. Hey, we had to have a break from hostel rooms at some point!

After the brief introduction our Busabout guide gave us when arriving in Prague, we knew it had a rich history. Like our Busabout guide said, I thought some of the older people in Prague looked quite sad and worn down - due to years of first being under Nazi rule and secondly enduring decades of communism. As we soon discovered, Prague has developed into a new world city and is now flooded with tourists.

The highlight of our trip in Prague had to be a three-hour private segway tour we did to see all of the viewpoints. After seeing segway tours in other European cities, we were itching to join one. As the Prague tour was rated number one on TripAdvisor, we decided to give it a shot. For those of you who have never seen a segway, have a look at the photos below. They are basically a two-wheel vehicle with an intricate balancing system inside (yep, that's the extent of my technical knowledge). There's no accelerator or brake, you simply control the movement with leaning your body. It was a warm sunny day and we enjoyed the hours zooming around the heights of Prague, looking down over the city and seeing, in my opinion, the most spectacular city views in Europe. The photos I've posted here don't really do justice to just how picturesque these viewpoints were. We also took some time out to have a beer, and watched  in amazement as our segway guide carried three beers and managed to operate his segway with no hands (no pictures sadly).

Releasing our inner nerd on the segway tour

This picture doesn't really do justice to how beautiful this lookout was

Looking over Prague

If when you think of Europe you imagine castles, old bridges, historic medieval archways and buildings from centuries gone by, then that is Prague in a nutshell. We enjoyed walking along the historic Charles Bridge, dating back to 1357, and visiting Prague Castle, the largest castle complex in the world, with buildings dating back to the 10th century. Walking around the city at night was even more beautiful, as we saw the old buildings and castle lit up in the distance.

Charles Bridge with Prague Castle in the distant background

The gothic cathedral in the middle of the Prague Castle complex

While in Prague we also took a boat tour along the Vltava River, and visited the Eiffel Tower. No, I'm not confusing this post with Paris, as I'm happy to say that I have now climbed the Eiffel Tower - Prague's version that is. Built shortly after the real Eiffel Tower, it sits on top of one of Prague's highest points and has spectacular 365 degree views at the top.

Prague river cruising

Eiffel tower...Prague style

We also enjoyed some amazing food in Prague, upon the recommendations of our tour guides. A highlight was the river boat permanently moored alongside a bridge which has been converted into an Italian restaurant. For just AU$20 each, we feasted on pasta and dessert, as well as wine and beer - and enjoyed the level of impeccable service you'd only expect in a five star restaurant. 

After spending about an hour and half wandering around a bus station and finally managing to buy tickets from someone who spoke English, we were excited to jump on a Czech bus service to Cesky Krumlov. After hearing great recommendations from friends, we were so excited to get to Cesky and enjoy what we hoped would be a highlight of our Eurotrip - a river rafting pub crawl for around AU$15. Sadly, due to bad weather (and other people not having the will and determination of aussies), all other prospective participants pulled out of the pub crawl on the day, so we couldn't go. After much deliberation, we headed into town and hired rafts to make our own way down the river on a three to four hour paddle to the next town. What ensued was one of the low points of our whole trip for me. We spent about two hours paddling by ourselves through driving rain, thunder and lightning, praying the end of our journey was just around the next bend. By the end of the trip we were cold, shivering and completely over it - to cap it off I fell into the river as we were trying to pull our raft out, and watched as my thongs went floating away. What was even more regretful about this was that I had to pay AU$20 for the only pair of new thongs I could find in Prague - although they are Rip Curl ones I believe they are leftover ones that customers in other countries like America or Australia didn't want, because they are pretty bad! One thing we did enjoy about our trip to Cesky was the cool group of Aussie and kiwi couples we met and had meals with a couple of times. We hope to catch up with them again somewhere during our travels.

Hanging by the Vltava River in Cesky Krumlov

Halfway through our four hour paddling journey, where we had to stop to empty rainwater out of our raft. I'm completely saturated here but looked worse at the end of the trip.

I had to put this photo up of Dan as he looked pretty funny 

We said goodbye to the Czech Republic and set off on our next busabout adventure to Vienna in Austria....the subject of my next blog!

Ich bin ein Berliner

...these were the words of John F Kennedy in 1963 as he stood in Berlin and declared support for West Berlin in the middle of the Cold War. Visiting Berlin for me was like stepping back in time to a Modern History lesson from years 11 and 12 in high school, as all of my memories of learning about World War 1 (WWI), WWII and the Cold War came flooding back. So this blog will take a bit more of a historical tone, as this is what I most enjoyed about the city.

Our first views of Berlin when arriving on the bus were neighbourhoods from former West Berlin. This side of town looks much like any western city in the world. We soon crossed town to the former East Berlin, and it was almost like being in another city. Each building had a real 'communist style', usually grey and very plain.

Any history buff would not be disappointed by Berlin. The quality of the memorials and the monuments is fantastic, and you can enter most historical sites free of charge or for a small ticket price. There were a couple of main highlights for us - Checkpoint Charlie, the 'Topography of Terror' Berlin Wall memorial and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Most of the history I'm detailing here also comes from what I learned during a fantastic four hour walking tour.

Original Checkpoint Charlie sign

Part of the reason the history of Berlin is so fascinating is it was divided by a wall for several decades. Just as Germany was divided into East (Soviet communist) and West (British, American and French democratic), Berlin was also divided. To stop people leaving the communist east and moving to the west, the East Berlin government erected the Berlin Wall, which happened overnight, without any warning. Standing on the road where the wall used to stand, it's hard to imagine being cut off from your neighbours, friends and family just across the road. Checkpoint Charlie was the main entrance into West Berlin from East Berlin, and was heavily patrolled by the Americans and Soviets. The Checkpoint Charlie museum commemorates the numerous escape attempts (both successful and unsuccessful) across the wall. The ingenuity of East Berliners was amazing - from hiding in modified cars to creating a 'flying fox' and swooping over the wall in the night to dressing up as American soldiers. Each of these prospective escapees had to cross one side of the wall into the 'death strip' (where Soviet soldiers aimed firearms) and cross the second wall into the West.

Preserved section of the Berlin Wall

A fantastic free memorial dedicated to Nazism and Berlin during WWII is the Topography of Terror, near a preserved section of the Berlin Wall. I was blown away by the quality of this memorial - the pictures, written history and personal recollections of how Nazism took hold of Germany and the consequences for individual Germans really brought the history to life. On the same day, we also visited the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. This memorial is a whole block of land filled with cement blocks - the artist designed this memorial so each person can make their own interpretation, but I felt the blocks resembled gravestones. We then went underground into the memorial information centre and read stories of Jews who were persecuted during the Nazi regime. Reading letters, postcards and personal stories from these people was incredibly haunting. In particular, entering one black room where stories of what happened to individual Jews were played over a loudspeaker can only be described as heartbreaking.

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

When I just entered the city, my feeling over the first couple of days was that it was quite a boring, ugly looking city. But after being there for a few days, I really appreciated the history, culture and progressive feel of the city. Today, Berlin is quite multicultural, and continues to grow and develop. As over 90% of central Berlin was completely levelled after WWI, the city has a different feel to other European cities, some of which have much older buildings. We really enjoyed just walking around the city and seeing the old and the new.

Brandenburg Gate

During our time in Berlin we also took a train trip to nearby Potsdam, where former Prussian and German kings had their summer palaces. It was a great day trip and change of pace, as we viewed the palaces and gardens on a bus tour.

Castles in Potsdam

After getting a taste for Eastern Europe in Berlin, we were excited to travel on to Prague and Cesky Krumlov in the Czech Republic..stay tuned for the next blog!