But that is all about to change. On Thursday, Michael and I packed our bags and headed off for Euro Trip #4. We were heading away for a dual purpose. We were lucky enough to be invited to a family friend's Birthday party, so given that the party was so far away from Munich, we would make it a long weekend. I took Thursday off work and we hired a car, making our way north towards the township of Weiden. (I might add this took place after finishing and uploading my final assessment piece for my masters unit for 2013!)
I might also add that this was the first time for both of us driving in Europe. Yes, this meant driving on the right hand side of the road... and on the autobahn. It was scary and awesome at the same time. There will be discussions about this later.
I had bought a new dress just for the occasion and I felt very good in my outfit!
The problem was that it was super cold outside so for the journey between hotel and party venue, I had to rug up. Happily, I had bought a brand new coat 2 weeks ago and I simply adore it. It went very well with my outfit!
So the birthday girl happened to be someone we met 3 years ago, when she and her entire family visited Australia for my tante Christa's 70th birthday party. My mum had helped to sort out accommodation for everyone and had organised the party as well.
So we had grown to know this family really well and when they found out that Michael and I were moving to Germany, they were excited (although they thought we were crazy) and made us promise to visit at some point.
So when Birgit and her husband Michael said 'come to my party', we thought it the perfect opportunity to see the whole family. We didn't realise that they had kept it a secret from the rest of the family. The looks on everyone's face when we walked into the room. It was priceless. They were all so happy to see us and they made us feel so super welcome. We couldn't have asked for more.
The one problem with our night was that Michael and I took hardly any photos on the night. I didn't even get a photo of the birthday girl Birgit! But Michael did get one photo of me with Maria, Gerhardt, Sandra and Markus. For the sake of my family, I can tell you that they are all very well, and Sandra & Markus's boys Mattius and Simon are all grown up! Mattius is now 9 and he's a string bean like his father! Simon is 5, and it was hard to grasp as the last time I saw him he was in a pram.
The entire family kept asking about how all the Australians were! They are desperate to visit again in the near future.
Having said all that, we did get our standard food photos. I had a delicious smoked trout for dinner.
Michael had sausages and sauerkraut.
And beer. Natürlich!
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Day 2
After a lovely bufffet breakfast in our hotel, we headed out to look around the township of Weiden. Being a public holiday in Bavaria, there was not much open, and it was very quiet. It was also very overcast and cold.
We wandered past churches...
... monuments...
... more churches....
... some with really cool chain fences!
We eventually found the main street of Weiden and the old city hall, Die Alte Rathaus. We later found out this was where our friends Birgit and Michael got married last year. It was a beautiful old building and we could just imagine how it would look during the summer!
We found this statue and two very old trees known as the Jubilee oak (planted 1824) and the Peace oak (1871). They were quite pretty to observe despite the lack of leaves.
But we were quite worried that the statue head was kept inside the box.
We wandered down to the river, but by this stage we were getting really cold!
We made our way back through a park to the upper gate of the main street and stopped for a nice hot cup of coffee/hot chocolate.
We also were quite impressed with many of the buildings in this street, with strange roofs that were just for show.
Apologies to Birgit and Michael in advance. I am absolutely in love with their little man so I may have gone a little overboard with the photos. But he's too cute for words.
This is Elias with his beautiful mum Birgit.
We bought Elias a present which he opened with gusto.
But then found the packaging much more interesting!
Eventually he showed us that he also really liked the present!
Then he had some cuddles with dad Michael.
They really are the cutest little family!
Then it was my turn as we headed out for dinner. Elias and I happily walked hand in hand!
(my) Michael captured this great photo of Elias reaching for a light.
At dinner, Elias was getting tired poor pet, and he just laid his head down in dad's hand, ready for a sleep. This was before his meal came!
But then the food did come, and it was amazing! Michael and I really do love our food, and Germany's cuisine suits us down to the ground.
Michael had venison with sauce and dumpling (so yummy and melt in your mouth), and I had a dish that is best described as a juicy steak covered in roasted onions, with a cranberry sauce, beans and my favourite roast potatoes.
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Day 3
When we got out of the car, in the middle of the carpark, there were posts. At the top of every post, there were this little men with binoculars. A very peculiar sight!
We decided to head up towards the Kaiserburg, the castle that was at the top of the city, and from where the walls of the city extended.
On the way we passed this church. The steeples were viewable from just about anywhere we went.
Alot of this town contains art from the artist Albrecht Dürer. I took the opportunity to stand next to him!
We eventually found the castle after a huge hike.
This was one of the main castle entry doors.
We started with a tour of the palace, through the halls including the chapel (complete with its double storey chamber), and the private sleeping quarters. There was also a display of artefacts and wall carvings in one of the chambers.
This painting bothered me. Its not until you took a proper look that you realised that the same face was on every single man in the picture. It was like the 1800s version of 'Being John Malkovich'.
Paintings on ceilings and scale model 3D maps... impressive!
And the royal crown.
We then made our way back out side and headed towards Sinwell tower, which we climbed. It didn't look so bad from outside but I was pooped by the time we got to the top.
But the view from the top was great. And we also saw lots of comparison photos of the same view pre-war, and immediately post war. The town of Nüremburg was almost completely wiped out during world war II.
So following all that stair climbing, we made our way down from the castle, stopping for lunch at a little pub.
Naturally Michael had sausages and potato salad. I had wild mushroom soup. Really yummy!
We then made our way down into the central part of town where we saw some beautiful examples of historical buildings and structures amongst the new.
This building captured Michael's attention as the windows at the top were smiling at him.
One last church on the opposite side of the river before we started to make our way back to the car. It was a beautiful city and one we were really pleased we took the time to see.
We were also really lucky as it had rained almost the entire way to the town, and then it rained most of the way back. Yet we didn't need our umbrellas once while we were out of the car!
Then, in the evening, we had been told by Birgit and Michael how good the food was at the restaurant in our hotel. We invited them to come and join us for one last meal so we could say goodbye. They happily joined us and we had a lovely meal together, complete with Mr Elias and I playing and wandering around the restaurant together. He also ate a huge plate of spätzel!
But the best bit was the gift that Michael and Birgit gave me. They had visited Ikea earlier in the day and they knew how I loved the macabre Wolf/granny toy from there. So they bought me one!!! By the time we got back to the hotel room after saying our goodbyes, Granny had already been swallowed and given a second chance at life, and even a third!
While it was sad to say goodbye, we know we will see Birgit, Michael, Elias and the whole family again soon.
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Day 4
Today we packed up the car and started to make our way back to Munich, with a stop over in the Unesco listed town of Regensburg.
First stop was Walhalla, a fascinating monument building which gave a new surprise at every turn.
We didn't know what to expect, as we thought it was just a monument building on a hillside. We headed inside to find a huge chamber full of famous Germans. Mostly musicians, artists, kings and scientists. We were hurried out as it was closing but we wanted to read every name on the busts and see every little detail.
The carvings were amazing, including the ladies holding the ceiling up.
The floor engraving told us that it was commissioned in January of 1808.
We found Mozart pretty quickly.
Michael recons I was hanging with my homies!
The king and Michael....
Some sense of scale, the hall was massive!
Michael was very interested in reading every name.
And then we looked back at Walhalla. It was simply massive.
Michael walked even further down the stairs to get this view. I was still standing at the top of the next flight of stairs.
We couldn't help but take some awesome column photos.
Although we were technically breaking rules. You can just see the while line in the photos. People are told not to step over the white line as serious accidents have occurred here. You can see why - there are no railings and 10m drops to marble surfaces... and yet parents were still letting their kids run amok. One dad was even encouraging his daughter to explore on a big ledge near the stairs that was clearly an out of bounds area.
We were careful at all times I promise.
So finally we got into the central part of Regensburg itself. We walked through the town and spotted the old roman wall remnants, and some crazy street signs.
We stopped for lunch at a lovely Italian restaurant, and then headed towards the old town hall (another rathaus). But as we left lunch, it started to bucket down with rain. Luckily it did only last about 10 minutes.
We wandered along the river front until we got to the town's oldest bridge.
We also found a bike!
There was alot of dedication to the story of David and Goliath in this town too, which surprised us. This was painted on a building opposite the Hotel Goliath.
This was St Peter's church. It was unbelievably big, we strained our necks to look up to the top. Sadly it was in a state of cleaning and reconstruction with scaffolding in front of parts. But it was still spectacular to look at.
As always though, for me, there were asymmetrical parts to this church, the two spires were not identical and it bothered me greatly the whole time we were looking at it.
Finally as we made our way back to the car, we got some beautiful sun as we walked through the park.
I pretended to be a dear!
So finally on our last leg, we had to include a photo of our little car. We were supposed to have a BMW, but they had run out. We got an Audi A3 instead. Not bad!
Finally, the autobahn. It was awesome. We both took very little time to get used to the road, the only mistake being that we both reached for our gear stick on the left, only to find our hands bashing into the car door before we remembered to reach to our right instead.
But the best bit was being able to do this! 180km per hour!!!!
But don't worry, we were safe!
What an absolutely fantastic lot you managed to fit into 4 days. Love the fact that you got an Audi A3 - I can tell you on good authority that they are a great car.
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