France - Part One: Alsace-Lorraine

More crap weather.
We spent the morning organising the rest of our trip and thought we better make good use of the rest of the day, so went to the Memorial L’Alsace e Moselle, a tribute to the people of Alsace-Lorraine & Moselle, an area which has changed countries quite a few times in the last couple of hundred years, as it’s right on France’s border with Germany, and we all know how much heed they used to pay to whose country was whose.
It is an incredible museum (although for 10E each, it would want to be), so well done and we both loved it, so much so that we fast ran out of time to look for somewhere to stay that night, making it to the information centre with minutes to spare, but then deciding that actually, it would be worth driving the two hours up the road to the castle we’d stayed in last time we were in France. I called the woman there, and it was all sorted, until we got on the road, and all of a sudden the raindrops took on a rather snowy look… as did the roads, but we kept going, passing cars with snow chains on (uh-oh) until we rounded a bend on a mountain road to find a couple of lorries in trouble in the snow. Even the snow plough wasn’t enough to convince us that pushing on through was a good idea, so I called the castle lady back, cancelled and we headed back where we came from.
We met a couple of Brits in the hostel that night, who were in this part of the country to do some skiing – when we said we hadn’t realised there was a ski field near, one of them wondered aloud why anyone would go there in winter if they weren’t skiing… good question! They did say that the weather on the coast as they had driven from Calais was lovely though, so this perked us up a bit, and Kent decided that we’d attempt to drive most of the way to Normandy the next day in the hope that we might find the sunshine... fingers crossed!
X

The Hills Are Alive

We had our first day apart in ages here, as my primary purpose for making Kent drive all the way here (I don't have an international permit) was to see the sights from The Sound of Music… he reluctantly agreed to come, but refused to go on the tour with me, something about it being a girls’ film. Fair enough, as it left him with time to wander up to the Fortress that overlooks the city, and to be honest, much as castles are great, I can have too much of a good thing.

The other four people on the tour were horrified that I was unaccompanied, but the driver was very spirited and had us all chatting in no time. Am disgusted with myself for admitting it, but I did nearly cry when I saw some of the sights (yes, am well aware of how pathetic this is). In my defense, it is one of my favourite films, and as a fairly latecomer to travelling, it hadn’t ever really occurred to me that I would ever be anywhere near the gazebo where Ralph and Leisl sang ‘You Are 16, Going On 17”… Ahhh. The tour was fabulous, going past the lake where the children and Maria fell in, the tree lined lane where they hung as Captain Von Trapp drove past, the house they used as the façade for the house, etc etc etc. We finished up in the lakes district, well out of the city in Mondsee, home of the church that Maria and the Captain get married in. After that, our tour group convened in a café eating apple strudel…mmmm!
Don’t think Kent’s exploits were as great as mine. He disagrees.


We met up in the afternoon and wandered around the old city, took in Mozart’s birthplace and some other stunning buildings (there are just so many of them and they’re everywhere, but somehow we stay interested) then walked back up the hill (366 steps) past the Fortress he went to in the morning for a lookout over the city – again beautiful, if only we’d had fine weather!
Our trip to the guesthouse was almost as eventful as the previous evening, as we opted to take the bus, which went near (or what we thought was near) to our street, and then walk the rest of the way. ‘Near’ was probably a bit of an exaggeration, but the exercise on the hike home was probably good for us.
We left the next morning in quite thick fog (notice a common theme here?) and figured that the scenic route we’d chosen to Lake Constance in Germany, via Innsbruck, would be anything but… but we were wrong. Pretty much as soon as we cleared Salzburg, the fog lifted, the sun blazed and we were treated to a breathtaking drive through the Austrian Alps! We lost count of the number of ski fields we drove past, many of them with lifts starting from the road – that is my kind of skiing… no perilous mountain roads to navigate before you get there either. The only downside to the drive was the unannounced toll at the top of an alpine pass (which neither our 2009 driving atlas nor the TomTom picked up…grrr). You might think this sounds a bit cheap of us, but there are tolls right throughout Europe and some of them are pretty steep, so we had been doing our best to avoid them… it ended up being one of two that we paid for the whole trip, so it’s not so bad.
The sun was still shining when we got to Innsbruck, but there was still quite a way to go before we got to our accommodation, so after a quick drive up the hill to see the ski jump that they used at the Winter Olympics in 70something, and a look at the cemetery, which was the first thing the skiers saw once they left terra firma on said jump, we took off again, bound for another location I had begged to add to our itinerary… Neuschwanstein Castle, back over the border into Germany. It’s the one Walt Disney based the logo on and all the guidebooks point to it being very picturesque… although it wasn’t ever finished, so we didn’t bother with the interior tour. Instead, we aimed the car up the hill and drove past all the suckers who opted to walk. The fact there were no other cars up there (and the filthy looks from walkers) would suggest perhaps we should have joined the masses, but there were no signs saying ‘KENT AND ERYN: LEAVE YOUR CAR AND WALK UP, YOU LAZY BASTARDS’, at least none in English, so we did it anyway, and no one said a word. Rebels, huh?
It was pushing dark now, so we roared towards our ‘open all year’ camping ground on Lake Constance, only to find it closed. So it was more a case of ‘open all year, except for when we’re not… which is now.’ It was a very small town, with not a lot of options, and our guidebook was all out of solutions, as so much of this part of the world closes down for the off-season. Luckily, Kent had thought to come up with Plan B, a hostel in a town about 20K away, so we programmed the satnav for Fredrichschafen and found it… only to discover it was the world’s most expensive hostel, but beggars can’t be choosers, so there we stayed. Despite it’s pricy-ness, it didn’t have a kitchen for guests to use, which meant we ended up cooking on our camping stove at 9pm in the freezing – oh the tales we have to share with our children!
Something you might not know about Fredrickschafen (go on, admit it, you’d never heard of it till now) is it’s where all the Zeppelins were made (the balloon-y kind, as opposed to Led-variety). It’s on the border with Switzerland too, so the Allies were a bit hesitant about bombing it. There’s a pretty good museum, with English translations, all about them… including some actual bits from the Hindenberg, which was well cool.
We indulged in our second bit of misbehaviour that afternoon, deciding that the Rhinefalls would be a good place to visit (I suspect the main reason Kent wanted to go was that he’s been there before and he loves to remind me how much more travelling he’s done than me…). The only bad thing about this is that it’s in Switzerland, which in itself isn’t a problem, but you need a special sticker to drive in the neutral land, but we refused to get one as you have to pay for a whole year and we were only planning on it being about 40 minutes. The Germans at the toll point said they thought it would be ok – at least that’s what we think they said, them not speaking English and us not speaking German. Thankfully, we managed to break into and back out of the country without being pulled over by one of their scary military conscripts at Swiss Army knife point.
We crossed another border (it’s still a novelty to get into another country without leaving the comfort of our car) and stayed that night in Colmar, France.
xxx

Bruges to Dierdorf to Salzburg

We escaped the hostel early the next morning, much to the delight of the people staying in our dorm (that'll teach them for snoring through most of the night!) and got on the road. Despite all these countries being next to each other on the continent, some of them, especially Germany and France, are massive and take some time to drive through. We stopped in Tournai, (still in Belgium) which used to be the capital of Gaul. I think Kent was hoping there would be some kind of memorial to Asterix there, and he was a bit disappointed when not only was there nothing about him there (I have suggested this is due to his being a fictional comic book character, but Kent was having none of it), but nothing much was open, as this part of Europe pretty much shuts up shop from 12 -2pm. Bugger.

Over the border into Germany, our next stop was Dierdorf, about halfway between Köln and Frankfurt, to stay with Patrick, an exchange student I went to school with, and Denise, his girlfriend. They’re both fairly outdoorsy, so it wasn’t a big surprise to us that they’d lined up a walk in the Rhine Valley for the next day… although the distance was a bit of a shock to my legs – 22km. Fortunately, most of the way the weather was lovely, warm enough for just a tshirt, and enough sun to give us a bit of a pink tinge. The scenery was just amazing, as we were on the top of the valley for a lot of the walk, and passed a number of beautiful castles, so Kent was in his element.


Patrick’s aunt wasn’t very well the next day, so they went to visit her the next morning, leaving us with some recommendations: the Westerwald Open Air Museum, which was all in German, but gave us a good idea of some of the local history; Schloss Stolzenfels, a very pretty castle on the banks of the Rhine; and Deutsches Eck (German Corner) in Koblenz, where the Rhine and Mosel rivers meet… all of which we enjoyed, even without our escorts.
Denise saw us off the next morning as Patrick had left for Berlin for work, and we hit the road, in yet more rain, towards Austria, calling past Eichstatt, a gorgeous old medieval town, which we would have spent more time in, had it not been raining and mostly closed for winter! We also went in search of one of ‘Mad’ King Ludwig’s castles, near Prien, but failed miserably as it’s on an island in a lake and we couldn’t see it for the fog!
By the time we arrived in Salzburg, we were both a bit frayed by the constant weather, so it was really helpful that there are two streets named Bergstrasse in the area, and we chose the one right in the middle of town to look for our accommodation – of course, it was actually the one on the outskirts… but we got there in the end! It was a room in a woman’s house – she was lovely, very welcoming, and the house was toasty warm, although slightly creepy as most of the downstairs walls were covered in antlers from deer, thar and chamois...hmmm.
Adventures to be continued...
K & E x

Hull to Bruges

We're just couple of days into our driving trip to the continent, which started out being a month, but after realising just how difficult it is to dry your jeans at this time of year, and how hard it is to find a laundry in the first place, we've scaled back to a more palatable (and washable) 16 days.

It started auspiciously enough, leaving as we did from what is reportedly the worst place in Britain: Hull... we were only there for about 10 mins, so I couldn't possibly comment.
We caught the overnight ferry to Rotterdam, which was 10 1/2 hours, which we slept through, then it was off through the Netherlands to Bruges in Belgium.
We meant to come to Bruges last time we had the car over, but ran out of time, and we're so glad we finally made it, as this has to be one of the most lovely cities we've visited. The centre of town is really well preserved from medieval times, with narrow winding streets, gothic cathedrals, and lots of beautiful old buildings.
The highlight of the first day will have to be the Friet Museum... yes, an entire museum dedicated to fries/chips. To be honest we only went for a bit of a laugh, as we didn't think there would be much to see, and fries does seem like a ridiculous subject for a museum. My, were we wrong. As it turns out, fries are a national dish in Belgium, apparently they originated here, and they've been perfecting them ever since. There is even a medal system to recognise those who have owned or worked in the chippy industry for over 15 years... brilliant. It was really rather good, and the sample at the end beats English chips hands down - although they do cook them in beef tallow and horse fat. Ick.
Bruges is relatively small, so it's quite easy to get around almost all of the sights on foot, so we spent the rest of the afternoon doing a bit of a circuit around the outskirts of the centre, looking at the old windmills and canals etc.
The next day we walked up the Belfry, which is kind of the main landmark in the city, as it's so damn tall. There are quite a few steps up, but the view from the top is worth it, as is the sound of the bells (although they could warn you when they're about to go off, as I nearly leapt out the window when they started clanging away!) and the room where they control them from.
Still on foot, we went over to the Basilica of the Holy Blood, which houses some actual drops of Jesus' blood... which obviously were dried by the time they got them into the church but apparently they turn back into liquid during times of trouble. Riiiight. The Basilica itself was tiny but gorgeous, and worth the visit, blood or no blood.
There are a ridiculous number of museums, so we had to choose just a couple (Fries was clearly non-negotiable) and Kent snuck the Chocolate museum in to our itinerary... it was great, but a bit unfair for those of us who are allergic to chocolate, as it smelt amazing, and there were samples. It did mean he got my portions though, so I was able to negotiate a proper museum into the plan next - SintJan Hospital museum, which was home to a few gruesome looking medieval medical tools, and a whole host of amazing art from the church part of the hospital. Across the street is the Church of Our Lady, home of one of the only Michaelangelo sculpures outside Italy, Madonna and Child - it is just sitting there, in the church, for anyone to see... I'm constantly amazed by how open the access is to so many beautiful and famous things. The best part was that there was virtually no one else there, so there were no pesky bloody tourists obscuring our view and getting in the way of photos! Speaking of which, here they are (the photos, not the tourists. Obviously:


K & E xx