I am on a "Flixbus," an intercity bus from Munich to Freiburg, for 7 Euro, which is about the best bargain I've encountered on my trip. They have complimentary Internet (I am typing this now while listening to Jason Mraz on my headphones!) and they even give you free pretzel. I am headed back to my original city to pick up my other suitcase, and then head to the Frankfurt airport tomorrow for departure.
Well, the voting is in, and I must say Munich is the winner as my favorite city. My hotel, the Platzl, is right around the corner from the Hoffbrau House (NH). The HH may not be the place where everybody knows your name, but it is the place where everyone is friendly, and soon language barriers go down, and everyone is laughing and drinking giant glasses of beer and listening to a Bavarian band over the din of everyone else carrying on.
I arrived Saturday afternoon, and after getting settled in my lovely little room, I headed over to the Hoffbrau and ordered a tall beer and a pretzel, and there was a fellow at our communal table (where eight people were seated -- you just grab an empty spot anywhere you can) named Sean (or Shawn, not quite sure) who hailed from Atlanta (a retired school superintendent and military retiree) age 52 who spent quite of bit of time in Chicago, and was very familiar with Wisconsin -- Madison, Prairie du Chein -- and soon we were swapping stories.
I had dinner at a different restaurant of sausages and sauerkraut, which were delicious, with more beer. I went back to my room after that, and went to bed, tired from the beer and the 6 hour train ride from Berlin.
The next morning, Sunday, I had the hotel's lovely buffet breakfast, which is included with the room. I then bought a ticket for the city tour, with my major stop being the BMW museum and showroom. This is Munich's No. 1 tourist attraction, and it's easy to see why. The complex itself is beautiful, and the museum is topnotch. I have never owned a BMW, but it's easy to see why they attract so many devotees. I wasn't too interested in their motorcycles, but their cars are fascinating through the decades with their "3-series" being their most successful line. Loved their little one-seater that I think of the "Cousin IT" mobile from the Addams family movie; the car opens from the front like the door on a refrigerator. From the museum, I went to the showroom and got to sit in several BMWs, all of which were the sedan and limousine varieties (I am not built for the sport models!). Oh, and did I mention that the normal 8.50 Euro admission fee was waived today. Outstanding!
I caught the tour bus back to the stop closest to my hotel, and then changed into the terry robe and slippers provided and went to the hotel's Turkish spa and soaked my feet in the footbath for about one half hour. What an absolute treat. The perfect treatment for my tired and aching dogs. From there I stripped down naked and sat in the wet sauna and had a luxurious experience in the shower habitat that has about a dozen nozzles that spray you in about every direction except one, and I'll leave that one to your imagination.
I changed into street clothes and walked over to the HH, which was not as busy on a Sunday and they had a different band. I sat at a table with only one other person, who I soon learned his name was "Pete," born the Black Forest region of Germany, but currently lives and works in Switzerland for the government weather department as an IT person. Spoke enough English that we could carry on a very nice conversation about many things. He really wants to visit the United States and visit Washington DC, and Gettysburg of all places because he is a big historian of the US civil war ever since he saw the movie, and he wants to visit the place where it happened. Can you imagine such a thing? Anyway, we spoke at length about the South and if it different from the North and whether racism still exists there and other things. He also bought me another giant beer, which was very nice of him. Both times I went to the HH I found friendly people. Pete raved and raved about the Deutsches Museum, and how I must go if I like science and technology, and I told him I wanted to go, bit I thought all museums in Munich and Germany were closed Mondays, but he checked his Smartphone and found the museum was open Monday, so I am SO going! I was planning to simply visit the city market, and spend the day in the hotel spa/fitness center, but I guess my dogs will have to last me one more day. I simply cannot pass up this opportunity. If you visit their website, you will see that there are so many things to see there that you cannot see anywhere else in the world.
So I woke up Monday morning with a "new plan" to see the museum. I had another delicious breakfast, purchased a ticket online for a Flixbus ticket, then checked out of the Platzl and took a taxi to the Deutsches Museum and got right there when they opened at 9 a.m. The place is so frickin' huge I knew I couldn't see it all, but I wanted to see, in no particular order:
* the underground mine (takes about an hour by itself), musical instruments, technical toys, printing technology, photo and film technology, computers, microelectronics, and chronometry of course (time measurement). I am not exaggerating when I say you could easily spend a day in each section, but I did the best I could with the 4.5 hours I had there, including about a 15 minute snack/rest break. The collections are absolutely fabulous, and even though I had to put up with teeming hordes of school children (I guess some things are the same all over the world!) it was so incredibly worth it. My inner nerd was certainly well fed today.
From the museum I caught a taxi to the central bus station, and caught the 15:05 Flex to Freiburg. We were on the Autobahn for a while, but now our driver is on the twisty turny local roads for some reason, and the Internet keeps popping in and out, and it feels like I am on a carnival ride. After about two hours, the driver makes a 15 minute break stop to use the toilets in a small train station, grab a snack form the one concession stand, or do whatever else needs to be done. There is a toilet on the bus, but it appears tricky with the bus rocking and rolling all the time.
The last half hour into Freiburg is a gorgeous ride down the mountainside with switchbacks and tunnels and steep grades. This was a great experience coming by roadway and see the scenery in a completely different way. We arrive at Freiburg at 8:05, and the InterCity Hotel is right there, and I luck out getting a single room without having a reservation. This will allow me to get a few hours sleep, shower, and shave before reclaiming my extra bag, and boarding the 5:52 a.m. train to Frankfurt Airport to begin my journey home.
I am trying to think of something profound to say here at the end of journey, but I am tired and have been fighting a cold since last Thursday that has been dragging me down. I guess I must go back to last Spring when I decided that the winter getaway would have to be forsaken in place of this trip because, financially, I could not afford to do both. As luck would have it, we had a very bad and unforgiving winter this year, and I kept thinking: "I wonder if the trade off will be worth it? Will this trip to Basel and to Germany be worth all the sub-zero temperatures, the snow shoveling and snowblowing, and frozen pipes?"
I can now answer that with a resounding, "yes."
Love,
Bruce
Monday, April 7, 2014
Friday, April 4, 2014
Chocolate of the Gods
Friday April 4
There is a chocolate company in Switzerland called Laderach, and they have stores in Freiburg (and I'm sure other German cities) and one of their specialties is all kinds of chocolate bark -- white, milk, and dark -- filled with all kinds of delicacies from fruits to nuts to caramel to toffee. They cut the bark into squares, and stack different flavors, wrap them in a plastic sleeve, and sell them by weight (kilo) so what you end up with is something like this:
This package cost me 13 euro, and I enjoyed about half of with a cup of Starbucks for an afternoon snack; the rest I had after dinner as a dessert. One of my favorites was the white chocolate with almonds and pistachios. Another was the strawberry cream with bits of crystalized strawberry. And the chocolates were heavenly, as only the Swiss can make it, creamy and melting at body temperature so you cannot hold it in your hand for very long. I think the Swiss do that on purpose to get it inside your mouth as quickly as possible!
My last full day in Freiburg was not very eventful, except to ride the tram (trolley) and explore a bit more of the old town portion. I did get a little bit of scare when I checked my hotel bill on Thursday to avoid any surprises on checkout day. I found there was a miscommunication and that the hotel had booked me as double rather than a single. This was based on a letter I had sent them back in April 2013 in which I said I might bring a guest (thinking I might be hooked up with a girlfriend by now, silly me) but as departure time approached and it became evident I would be going stag, I neglected to contact the hotel and tell them for sure I would be arriving single.
So anyway, the hotel was prepared to bill me almost 2,000 Euro for my stay. I spoke nicely to one of the assistant managers and suggested to her that the clerk who checked me in might have clarified whether I was a single or double. All guests are required to show ID upon check in, so if I had a guest with me, would it not be logical to assume the clerk would have required ID from that person as well? Well, she agreed with my position and said she would speak with the manager, and most likely adjust the bill. When I checked back in about 1/2 hour, they had adjusted the bill to 982 Euro. I was so relieved that I bought the lady a small box of Laderach chocolates, and hand delivered them to her with my thanks. So the lesson here is never be afraid to check your bill before checking out, particularly on a long stay, and particularly in a European hotel, where they charge by the person, and not by the room. I cannot imagine the fracas that would have ensued had I been forced to make this argument on the day of checkout.
My train ride on Thursday April 3 to Berlin was 6.5 hours, and I passed much of the time transcribing an interview I had conducted at Baselworld with the general manager of Eberhard. I also read a good quantity of "Divergent," which I had loaded onto my Kindle prior to departure, I was introduced to the "water closet" aboard the intercity trains. Men are expected to pee sitting down on the toilet, by the way. Saves errant pee from splashing due to train rockage!
The main Berlin train station (Bahnhoff) was a veritable maze of tunnels and passageways on three levels, connected by multiple escalators. I accidentally exited the rear of the building on street level, and of course could find no "Europlatz" where the city buses stopped. After wandering around for while (and talking with some passers-by who spoke no English), it finally dawned on me that I was perhaps at the rear if the Bahnhoff rather than the front. So I walked through the station, exiting the other side, and BINGO signs were all over the place for the Europlatz and the city buses.
Buying a ticket from the surely driver of Bus #142 for 1.50 Euro, I endured a thankfully short ride clinging to an overhead strap (I was certain the driver was deliberately trying to make people fall!) until I reached the Rosenthaler Platz, the location of my hotel, the "Circus." I am in the former East Berlin, and the city has an entirely different vibe to it than Freiburg. The closest thing I can liken it to is Greenwich Village in New York.
Friday April 4 (today) was my main day in Berlin, with a walking tour of part of this city's section, including the Brandenburg Gate, the memorial to the murdered Jews, the site of Adolph Hitler's bunker where he and Eva Braun committed suicide (now an open air parking lot with just a small sign marking the spot; the actual underground bunker has been completely filled in and is no longer accessible) and other sites, It was a very excellent tour, led by our historian "Sophie," who is a history major originally from Wales, United Kingdom, who has lived in Berlin for four years, and has been with Sandeman's tours for two years. I think the most haunting part of our visit was the site of the Humboldt Law Library, where on May 10, 1933, the Nazis burned some 20,000 books on the square in front of what is now the law library. A small memorial has been erected which is a small square (maybe 2 meters square) of glass that looks underground to a small room with bookshelves that are empty, A small brass plaque is affixed to the ground in front of the glass which, translated, reads, "Wherever they burn books, in the end will also burn human beings," which was prophesied on that day (or shortly after) and would become reality eight years later when the Nazis began the "final solution." The quote and the memorial brought shivers to my spine. The tour did end on a high note with Sophie emphasizing the significance of the fall of the Berlin Wall, saying that the tour we just took would not have been possible prior to 1989, and that the falling of the wall symbolizes the ongoing challenge of humankind to focus on and celebrate our similarities rather than fight over our petty differences,
After that, I caught a taxi to Fassbender and Rausch, where I had a 2:30 lunch reservation. They gave me a very nice window seat on the café level, which is upstairs from their retail chocolate shop. I started with a glass of Reisling, and they brought a small basket of light rye bread baked with flecks of coarse ground cocoa and a spread made of something delicious which I did not know what is was, but it was a "gift" from the kitchen so I spread it on my bread, and it was delicious. For my main course, I had "Gezupfter Entensalet," which was warm marinated duck breast slices served over greens, with cucumber, bean sprouts, tomato, yellow beet, orange sections, and chunks of milk chocolate with hazelnuts. You might not think it would work, but it was delicious.
For dessert, I had hot chocolate (milk chocolate) mixed with espresso, and a "mini torte" of caramel mousse atop dark chocolate sponge cake, wrapped in a sleeve of dark chocolate, and topped with a layer of gooey caramel, presented as a cylindrical tower on a dessert plate with two sticks of white chocolate stuck in the top of the tower. It is a new creation among their "mini tortes," so they do not have a picture of it on their website, but I have a photo of it on my camera, which I will share later. It is a work of art, and almost too pretty to eat ... almost! It was completely delicious down to the last fleck of chocolate.
In all, my bill was 31.80 Euro (about $44) and worth every penny. I was there for 1.5 hours. I would rank it the best meal on this trip, and among my best meals ever. I also spent another 15 Euro on chocolate in the retail store, and took pictures of the current chocolate sculptures, which included the Brandenburg Gate, and a five foot model of the Titanic, which I found a bit strange,
A taxi ride brought me back to my hotel, where I took a nap. I unfortunately seem to have caught a cold (upper, in the sinuses, with runny nose and sneezing) which I guess was bound to happen with the tons of people here crammed into so many public places. I will carry on the best I can. For dinner, I visited a nearby "wurst" stand where I had hoped to score a bratwurst with sauerkraut, but to no avail. The local "wurst" predominant in East Berlin is something called a "currywurst" and is a knockwurst type sausage seared on a flat top grill, sliced into sections, and a served on a small plate without bun and drowned in ketchup and sprinkled with curry powder. It was that or nothing, so I tried one, and it was good, and I ordered another sausage, but asked to hold the ketchup and curry powder, and just ate it plain, for which I got the "look" from the proprietor that said "vulgar American." No matter; the naked wurst was delicious on its own. For 5.40 Euro (including a tasty beer) it was plenty, and a cheap dinner after my extravagant lunch.
Tomorrow I am off to Munich for the final leg of my journey.
Hope everyone is well.
Bruce
There is a chocolate company in Switzerland called Laderach, and they have stores in Freiburg (and I'm sure other German cities) and one of their specialties is all kinds of chocolate bark -- white, milk, and dark -- filled with all kinds of delicacies from fruits to nuts to caramel to toffee. They cut the bark into squares, and stack different flavors, wrap them in a plastic sleeve, and sell them by weight (kilo) so what you end up with is something like this:
This package cost me 13 euro, and I enjoyed about half of with a cup of Starbucks for an afternoon snack; the rest I had after dinner as a dessert. One of my favorites was the white chocolate with almonds and pistachios. Another was the strawberry cream with bits of crystalized strawberry. And the chocolates were heavenly, as only the Swiss can make it, creamy and melting at body temperature so you cannot hold it in your hand for very long. I think the Swiss do that on purpose to get it inside your mouth as quickly as possible!
My last full day in Freiburg was not very eventful, except to ride the tram (trolley) and explore a bit more of the old town portion. I did get a little bit of scare when I checked my hotel bill on Thursday to avoid any surprises on checkout day. I found there was a miscommunication and that the hotel had booked me as double rather than a single. This was based on a letter I had sent them back in April 2013 in which I said I might bring a guest (thinking I might be hooked up with a girlfriend by now, silly me) but as departure time approached and it became evident I would be going stag, I neglected to contact the hotel and tell them for sure I would be arriving single.
So anyway, the hotel was prepared to bill me almost 2,000 Euro for my stay. I spoke nicely to one of the assistant managers and suggested to her that the clerk who checked me in might have clarified whether I was a single or double. All guests are required to show ID upon check in, so if I had a guest with me, would it not be logical to assume the clerk would have required ID from that person as well? Well, she agreed with my position and said she would speak with the manager, and most likely adjust the bill. When I checked back in about 1/2 hour, they had adjusted the bill to 982 Euro. I was so relieved that I bought the lady a small box of Laderach chocolates, and hand delivered them to her with my thanks. So the lesson here is never be afraid to check your bill before checking out, particularly on a long stay, and particularly in a European hotel, where they charge by the person, and not by the room. I cannot imagine the fracas that would have ensued had I been forced to make this argument on the day of checkout.
My train ride on Thursday April 3 to Berlin was 6.5 hours, and I passed much of the time transcribing an interview I had conducted at Baselworld with the general manager of Eberhard. I also read a good quantity of "Divergent," which I had loaded onto my Kindle prior to departure, I was introduced to the "water closet" aboard the intercity trains. Men are expected to pee sitting down on the toilet, by the way. Saves errant pee from splashing due to train rockage!
The main Berlin train station (Bahnhoff) was a veritable maze of tunnels and passageways on three levels, connected by multiple escalators. I accidentally exited the rear of the building on street level, and of course could find no "Europlatz" where the city buses stopped. After wandering around for while (and talking with some passers-by who spoke no English), it finally dawned on me that I was perhaps at the rear if the Bahnhoff rather than the front. So I walked through the station, exiting the other side, and BINGO signs were all over the place for the Europlatz and the city buses.
Buying a ticket from the surely driver of Bus #142 for 1.50 Euro, I endured a thankfully short ride clinging to an overhead strap (I was certain the driver was deliberately trying to make people fall!) until I reached the Rosenthaler Platz, the location of my hotel, the "Circus." I am in the former East Berlin, and the city has an entirely different vibe to it than Freiburg. The closest thing I can liken it to is Greenwich Village in New York.
Friday April 4 (today) was my main day in Berlin, with a walking tour of part of this city's section, including the Brandenburg Gate, the memorial to the murdered Jews, the site of Adolph Hitler's bunker where he and Eva Braun committed suicide (now an open air parking lot with just a small sign marking the spot; the actual underground bunker has been completely filled in and is no longer accessible) and other sites, It was a very excellent tour, led by our historian "Sophie," who is a history major originally from Wales, United Kingdom, who has lived in Berlin for four years, and has been with Sandeman's tours for two years. I think the most haunting part of our visit was the site of the Humboldt Law Library, where on May 10, 1933, the Nazis burned some 20,000 books on the square in front of what is now the law library. A small memorial has been erected which is a small square (maybe 2 meters square) of glass that looks underground to a small room with bookshelves that are empty, A small brass plaque is affixed to the ground in front of the glass which, translated, reads, "Wherever they burn books, in the end will also burn human beings," which was prophesied on that day (or shortly after) and would become reality eight years later when the Nazis began the "final solution." The quote and the memorial brought shivers to my spine. The tour did end on a high note with Sophie emphasizing the significance of the fall of the Berlin Wall, saying that the tour we just took would not have been possible prior to 1989, and that the falling of the wall symbolizes the ongoing challenge of humankind to focus on and celebrate our similarities rather than fight over our petty differences,
After that, I caught a taxi to Fassbender and Rausch, where I had a 2:30 lunch reservation. They gave me a very nice window seat on the café level, which is upstairs from their retail chocolate shop. I started with a glass of Reisling, and they brought a small basket of light rye bread baked with flecks of coarse ground cocoa and a spread made of something delicious which I did not know what is was, but it was a "gift" from the kitchen so I spread it on my bread, and it was delicious. For my main course, I had "Gezupfter Entensalet," which was warm marinated duck breast slices served over greens, with cucumber, bean sprouts, tomato, yellow beet, orange sections, and chunks of milk chocolate with hazelnuts. You might not think it would work, but it was delicious.
For dessert, I had hot chocolate (milk chocolate) mixed with espresso, and a "mini torte" of caramel mousse atop dark chocolate sponge cake, wrapped in a sleeve of dark chocolate, and topped with a layer of gooey caramel, presented as a cylindrical tower on a dessert plate with two sticks of white chocolate stuck in the top of the tower. It is a new creation among their "mini tortes," so they do not have a picture of it on their website, but I have a photo of it on my camera, which I will share later. It is a work of art, and almost too pretty to eat ... almost! It was completely delicious down to the last fleck of chocolate.
In all, my bill was 31.80 Euro (about $44) and worth every penny. I was there for 1.5 hours. I would rank it the best meal on this trip, and among my best meals ever. I also spent another 15 Euro on chocolate in the retail store, and took pictures of the current chocolate sculptures, which included the Brandenburg Gate, and a five foot model of the Titanic, which I found a bit strange,
A taxi ride brought me back to my hotel, where I took a nap. I unfortunately seem to have caught a cold (upper, in the sinuses, with runny nose and sneezing) which I guess was bound to happen with the tons of people here crammed into so many public places. I will carry on the best I can. For dinner, I visited a nearby "wurst" stand where I had hoped to score a bratwurst with sauerkraut, but to no avail. The local "wurst" predominant in East Berlin is something called a "currywurst" and is a knockwurst type sausage seared on a flat top grill, sliced into sections, and a served on a small plate without bun and drowned in ketchup and sprinkled with curry powder. It was that or nothing, so I tried one, and it was good, and I ordered another sausage, but asked to hold the ketchup and curry powder, and just ate it plain, for which I got the "look" from the proprietor that said "vulgar American." No matter; the naked wurst was delicious on its own. For 5.40 Euro (including a tasty beer) it was plenty, and a cheap dinner after my extravagant lunch.
Tomorrow I am off to Munich for the final leg of my journey.
Hope everyone is well.
Bruce
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Let's Get Naked
April 1
BADEN - BADEN -- My spa day at the Friedrichsbad here is an experience I will likely remember for a long time to come. For only 55 Euro, I got to luxuriate in a classic Roman bath house for 1/2 day, and experience the "17 steps" to rejuvenation. It took about five minutes to get past the total nudity part (co-ed no less) but once that was accomplished I had an absolutely marvelous time. Here is a picture of the outside:
Tomorrow is my last day in Freiburg, and I'll probably just ride the trolley and explore more of the city, and sample some more of the beers in the outdoor seating areas, and hopefully the weather will be as nice as today. The hotel has offered to store one of my suitcases (the wardrobe) containing all my dress clothes, since I do not need them any more, and it's senseless to haul that extra piece of luggage to Berlin and Munich for five days. So I will pick it up on my way from Munich to the Frankfurt airport on the morning of April 8.
Hope everyone is well,
Love,
BADEN - BADEN -- My spa day at the Friedrichsbad here is an experience I will likely remember for a long time to come. For only 55 Euro, I got to luxuriate in a classic Roman bath house for 1/2 day, and experience the "17 steps" to rejuvenation. It took about five minutes to get past the total nudity part (co-ed no less) but once that was accomplished I had an absolutely marvelous time. Here is a picture of the outside:
and a promotional photo of one of the steps, which is the soap and warm water scrub step:
There are many pools and whirlpools and sauna rooms in between, and you just keep walking from room to room in your birthday suit, completing the steps. At the end, they do a cream lotion massage, and then put you in a "resting room" where they wrap you in a blanket and you lie on a bed to take a little nap if you wish. They finish you off in a lounge where you enjoy a snack, sparkling fruit juice, and choice of tea. You then return to the co-ed locker room and change back into your street clothes.
The train ride to Baden-Baden was very lovely, and I even had a little lunch at one of the plazas before catching a bus that took me back to the train station where I caught my 40-minute ride back to Freiburg.
Last night, I returned to Zum Deutschen Haus where I had a bratwurst plate with German potato salad, bread/butter, and a glass of Ganter pils. Tonight, I ate at a Greek place next to the hotel where I had a Gyros (carving the lamb fresh from the large spinning wheel of meat) with a diet Coke, which they call "Coca Cola Light" here.
Tomorrow is my last day in Freiburg, and I'll probably just ride the trolley and explore more of the city, and sample some more of the beers in the outdoor seating areas, and hopefully the weather will be as nice as today. The hotel has offered to store one of my suitcases (the wardrobe) containing all my dress clothes, since I do not need them any more, and it's senseless to haul that extra piece of luggage to Berlin and Munich for five days. So I will pick it up on my way from Munich to the Frankfurt airport on the morning of April 8.
Hope everyone is well,
Love,
Bruce
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