Day Two in Cinque Terre

 The Trip  No Responses »
Sep 192010
 

After a good nights sleep, only interrupted for a short period of some severe lightning and thunder, we awoke to a sunny day (finally!!).  We actually slept in a little more than we had planned, still just trying to catch up on the sleep we missed from the transatlantic flights.  We got ready and went to the buffet breakfast at the hotel, which is included in the price of the room.  They had various pastries, but would bring you cheese and ham if requested, or also make you any style of eggs.  Knowing we were going to do another hike today, we opted for some scrambled eggs for Stephanie, and fried eggs for me.  Of course, we also had to have some bacon.  It was all very good.

More Steps on the Monterosso to Vernazza Trail

Terraced Trails – Monterosso to Vernazza

Today, the planned hike was for the longest lower trail, which connects the cities of Monterosso and Vernazza.  We had read suggestions to walk the trail in this direction, from Monterosso to Vernazza since there are a total of about 700 steps at the first part of the trail.  They are not continuous, but there are only a few breaks in between long sections of steps.  Since it was Sunday, and since it was very nice and sunny weather after all of the rainy days, there were a lot of people doing this particular trail.  There were many places where you had to stop and let other hikers go by that were traveling in the opposite direction.

Sometimes, it was in the very narrow terraced areas for the farmland on the hillside.  In reality, that is the main purpose of these trails, they were originally made to go between the towns, but also to go to the various farming areas on the hillsides.  The farming is all done on large terraced areas, and some of the trails are actually at the base of the walls of the terraces.  Mostly, there are grapevines being grown, but some areas also have olive trees.  The grapes are interesting, there appeared to be both white grapes and red grapes growing together.  The grape harvest is sometime near the end of September or the beginning of October, so the grapes are very large and in large bunches on the vines.

Town of Vernazza From The Trail

It took us about 2.5 hours to complete this portion of the hike, there was a lot of stopping to let others pass by, both going in the same direction as us, but walking faster, and in the opposite direction.  We finally made it to Vernazza, and went into the town for some lunch.  After lunch, we actually started up the trail between Vernazza and the next city to the south, Corniglia.  We mainly went up the beginning of the trail for photos of the town.  We then headed back down to the Vernazza train station and took a train to Manarola, the fourth city in the line of cities as you head south.  Our plan was to walk the short trail between there and Riomaggiore again since it had be rainy on this part of the trail on the first day.  It was a lot less crowded by this time, most of the large tourist groups had already arrived and departed.  It was a nice walk without all of the people.  We took some nice photos, and then headed into Riomaggiore to walk around.  This was a nice town, similar to Vernazza, but a little more hilly and harder to walk in.  We headed down to the marina area to walk around and take pictures.  Each of the cities has a small protected harbor, but during storms, they pull out all of the normally moored  small fishing boats with an electric winch and lift, and keep them on land for protection.

Coastline at Riomaggiore

The boats are rolled on dollies and spread out in the main streets of the town.  Apparently, before we initially arrived in Cinque Terre, there had been some type of major storm in the area, and all of the boats had been pulled out of the water.  It was easy to see why this is done.  Even though there was no storm while we were here, there was some large surf, and it was still pretty rough even in the small protected area of the harbor, and by small, I am talking about 100′ by 50′, if that.

We visited another grocery store and bought a bottle of wine, the same wine that we had drank with our pizza the night before.  It was very good compared to some of the others we had tried, much smoother, and was actually made in the Levanto area..  In Riomaggiore, there was a nice area down near the water where we sat on some of the large boulders protecting the coastline to enjoy our wine and watch the sunset.  We did noticed that the walkway went on farther around the side of some large cliff areas, and we walked over to see where it ended.    On around to the side, there was a beach area that people were sitting on to watch the sunset.  We headed over to join them on the beach. The entire beachfront area was filled with very smooth, rounded stones from a few inches in diameter, to about a foot in diameter.  There was absolutely no sand on the beach at all.

After Sunset on the Rocky Shoreline of Riomaggiore

There were some large waves breaking, and it made a very strange noise as the water ran back out over the rocks and into the sea.  We waited about an hour for the sun to set, and it was very nice.

Afterward, we headed back up into the town and ate dinner.  We both had a seafood dish, Stephanie’s was seafood spaghetti that was served wrapped in foil.  It was full of mussels, small clams and some shrimp.  I had the seafood risotto, which had the same types of seafood in it, but mixed in with the risotto.  Of course, we had some wine with dinner, as well as fresh baked bread.  It was a very good dinner.  We headed back to the train station for the train back to Levanto, arriving back at the hotel after 10:00 PM, another long but fun day.

Town of Riomaggiore After Sunset

Tomorrow, we head over to Pisa, but we are planning to take a ferry boat ride along the coast to see Cinque Terre from the sea before we leave for Pisa in the afternoon.

Day Three in Cinque Terre – Moving on to Pisa

 The Trip  No Responses »
Sep 202010
 

Our plan for today was was a simple one; to try and get up early, eat breakfast, pack our suitcases, check-out of the hotel, temporarily store our luggage at the hotel, walk to the Levanto train station,  take a train to Monterosso, buy a ferry boat ticket for the ride to Riomaggiore, ride the ferry boat, train back to Levanto, get our luggage from the hotel, walk back to the Levanto train station, take the train to La Spezia,  buy a ticket for the train to Pisa Centrale Station, ride an hour on the train to Pisa, walk to our hotel check in, and then walk to the Leaning Tower for pictures. Just wish we had a few more things to do so we were not so bored.

Cinque Terre Ferry Boat

Actually, it all went according to plan.  We had wanted to see some of the Cinque Terrre towns form the Mediterranean Sea, so we thought  the ferry ride would be nice, if the weather was good.  It turned out to be a beautiful day, and the ride along the coast was really nice.  If you want to see how adventurous the ferry can be, just do a search on U-Tube for Cinque Terre ferry boats.  It is amazing how they can get the boats up to the pier, and tie off at the bow of the boats.

Town of Manarola From The Ferry Boat

Everyone then takes a ramp from the boat to the dock, and it can be really amazing when the seas are rough.  Thankfully, it was a really calm day this morning, and we only had to get on once and off once. Overall, the ferry boat ride was about 40 minutes, and we stopped at all but one of the five towns.

Riomaggiore From The Ferry

We happened to make good train connections, and were on our way to Pisa by about 12:30 PM.  We arrived in Pisa at about 2:20 PM, after the ride and connection in La Spezia.  All we wanted to do in Pisa was visit the Leaning Tower, hoping that all of the scaffolding that was on it 2 years ago was gone.  Unfortunately, we had found out earlier today that there was still scaffolding near the top of the tower.  We found this out from an Australian couple that we chatted with at breakfast this morning at our hotel in Levanto.  They had been in Pisa the previous week and had visited the Leaning Tower.

We made it to the hotel in Pisa without incident, other than I now have a problem with one of the wheels on my rolling suitcase.  I attempted a small repair when we got to our hotel, we will see how it works out.  We will be shifting some of the item from my bag to Stephanie’s to make mine lighter, and hopefully, take  some of the load off of the bum wheel.  Our hotel in Pisa, the Hotel Bologna, was very nice.  The room was large, and the bathroom was also very spacious.  It almost had a full size shower, a rarity in Europe. There was also an adjoining small room with two twin beds, in addition to the main room.  I would guess this is for families with children, but it served as our baggage room for repacking the suitcases.

We walked over to the Leaning Tower, and it was very crowded.   As we had heard from the couple in Levanto, there was a section of scaffolding on the Tower near the top.  It is more visible up close, but tends to blend in a little from afar.  One day, we may actually see it without any scaffolding at all!   Our plan was to also visit the Cathedral and the Baptistery on this visit, two things we did not do last time we were here.  We were not going to climb up the tower again, that was done on our last trip to Pisa in 2008.

Cathedral In Pisa

Leaning Tower of Pisa – Scaffolding Near Top

There were still a lot of tour groups in the Cathedral when we finally went inside around 3:45 PM.  It was pretty inside,  but certainly not as fancy as some of the other churches in Italy.  We lit a votive candle like we did in Notre Dame on one of our previous trips.  We then visited the Baptistery, and were amazed when a lady did a demonstration on the acoustics, specifically the echo inside.  There was probably about a 3-4 second delay in the real voice and the echo voice, it was pretty amazing.

We ate a small snack, and drank a little wine while we were waiting for the sun to set so we could take some pictures of the Tower in the sunset lighting, and to see if there was any night lighting photo opportunities.     While we were waiting for the sun to set, we did find a nearby grocery store and decided to buy some cheese, ham, bread and of course, another bottle of wine for our dinner tonight.  It was a very large grocery store called PAM, and we found a lot of fresh items for our “picnic”.

The sunset pictures ended up to be pretty nice, but we were a little disappointed that the Tower is not really lighted at night.  We headed back to the hotel about 7:30 PM, and had our picnic dinner in the room.  It was very good, the bread and cheeses were some of the best we have had.

Cathedral and Tower in the Setting Sun

Leaning Tower of Pisa at Night

We went ahead and repacked the suitcases, trying to lighten mine as much as possible.  We have a 6:30 AM wake up call tomorrow morning, and we need to get ready, eat breakfast at the hotel, and walk about 20 minutes to the train station for our 8:00 AM train to Florence.  Our plan is to make a brief stop over in Florence to visit a couple of the nicer churches in Florence before boarding our 2:30 PM train to continue on to Venice, which is where we will stay for the next three nights.  Yeah, and we hope to rest a little there…….and post some pictures.

Pisa to Venice – With A Stopover In Florence

 The Trip  No Responses »
Sep 212010
 

Yes, we had another early wake up call this morning at 6:15 AM. Stephanie and I thought we were on vacation, oh yeah, we are. Today, we are traveling from Pisa to Venice, with about a five hour stopover in Florence to see a couple of the sights.

We were trying to make a 8:00 AM regional train for the one hour ride into Florence. With a problematic piece of luggage, a 15 minute walk to the train station, and the possibility of fighting some crowds, we wanted to make sure we could get packed and eat breakfast with rushing too much.

We planned to give ourselves 30 minutes to get to the station from the hotel, and we actually made it out a little ahead of time. When we got to the station, we saw the train platform for the train we had planned to take. However, after going down the stairs to the “subway” that goes under the tracks, and then back up the stairs to that platform, we noticed on the electronic train monitors that there was an earlier train on another platform that was also going to Florence. So, we headed back down the stairs, then back up the stairs to Platform 1 and on to the early train. The only problem was that platform 1 is the one closest to the station, and had we noticed that earlier train was available on platform 1 when we forst got to the station, we could have avoided all the up/down stairs. Always fun when you have 45 lb. plus suitcases and a backpack. Great exercise at 7:30 AM in the morning, just what we needed!!

The Duomo in Florence

Once we got on the train, everything was fine, of course, but only after we cooled off.  It seemed warm to both of us on the train, I do not think there was much a/c. Some people had their windows slightly open, but we were sharing some seats with another man, and he was next to the window, so we did not get to open ours to cool off.

It took a little over an hour to get to Florence, and once we got off of the train, we headed to the luggage storage area inside the train station, and checked three of our bags. Seems like it is a little expensive at Euro 4 per bag for 5 hours, but that is the standard cost at all of the train stations.

Climbing Stairs Inside the Dome to the Top

We left the station and headed over to the Duomo, which is the main Cathedral in Florence to look around. The  Cathedral itself was not yet open, so we decided to go ahead and climb up to the top of the dome, which was open. It is supposed to be about 455 steps in total to the top. After paying Euro 8 apiece for the “exercise” and lugging up a backpack full of camera equipment, and some other stuff, we finally made it to the top. We were both sweating pretty good, it was a fairly warm morning, and a little humid, but really sunny and clear. We spent about 45 minutes walking around and taking pictures before heading down to the bottom.

Top of the Duomo Dome Overlooking Florence

We then walked around the outside of the Cathedral, which had opened while we were climbing up to the dome, and headed to the entrance. We went inside and looked around. It is not as beautiful inside as many of the churches in Italy, but it is fairly impressive due to its size.

After that, we headed over to Santa Maria Novella Cathedral, it contains a lot of artwork from the 15th century. Unfortunately, we could not take any pictures of the inside, it was not allowed. There were some really special construction techniques used inside the cathedral, the floor and ceiling get closer

Santa Maria Novella Cathedral

together as you go toward the front of the church, and the columns get closer together, front to back, as you go forward.  All of this was to give the church a perspective like you would expect to see in a painting, to give it a look of depth, which was the rage of paintings done during this period.

We got a bite to eat for lunch and afterward, it was time to head back to the train station and retrieve our luggage.  We had a 2:30 PM departure time for our ride to Venice.  We boarded our train, this time a Eurostar Train, which is a higher speed train that  the regional trains we had taken in Italy so far.  The biggest problem was finding space for our luggage.  We had to put it in the luggage racks on the next car since the ones on our designated car were already full when we boarded.  Luckily, the racks are on the ends of the car, so they were right next to each other.  The train was full, so some of the people had to put their smaller suitcases under the seats, but ours were too big to fit there.  The train was nice, each seat had a power outlet, so I was able to plug in the computer and work on the blog.

Our Train at the Venice Santa Lucia Station

It took a little over two hours to get to Venice.   Most of the people on the train departed before we got to the Venice Santa Lucia Station, which is the train station on the island of Venice.  The other station for Venice , Venice Mestre is on the mainland.

Once we got off the train, we exited the station and headed over to purchase multi-day Vaporetto tickets.   The Vaporetto is the local “water bus” in Venice.  We took the Number 1 Vaporetto to the San Silvestro stop, and then started our walk to the hotel.  We only had a little difficulty navigating to the hotel using the directions we had gotten off of the internet.  There just is not much signage on the building telling us it was the hotel.

We checked in, and headed to the room.  It was on the second floor, and has a view out onto a courtyard.  After doing a little unpacking, and washing some clothes in the sink, we headed out for dinner.  We asked for a recommendation from Marco, one of the hotel proprietors, and he directed us to an Osteria, which is the Venitian equivalent of an Italian  trattoria, or small restaurant.   It was called La Patina, and the food was very good.

Small Quartet Playing Music in St. Mark’s Square

After dinner, we wandered around the city, looking in some stores, and just trying to get our bearings.  We headed over to St. Marks Square, and listened to some of the small concert bands that play at night outside some of various restaurants around the square.  The various establishments set up tables outside, and then charge exorbitant prices for everything they serve.  For example, one bottle of just average wine is about Euro 49.  You can see the impact of the economy on these establishments.   From past trips, we know that there used to be at least  six or seven different bands set up around the square, now there are only three.  Several of the other places that used to be on the square are closed down and the buildings vacated.   We did like most people do there, just stood outside the designated seating area and listed to the music.  That way, you can alternate between the bands as they take thier breaks.

We headed back to the room for the night, and that is when we discovered the only issue with our room,  it appeared the air conditioner was not functioning.  It does not seem to blow any cold air.  Not having air conditioning is mostly a problem in the early evening, the room gets a little warm from the sun during the day since room faces to the west.  Also, there are no window screens, so there are some mosquitoes to deal with in most places in Venice after the sun goes down, and inside the room if we just leave the windows open.  The hotel is more like a bed and breakfast, and the owners are only here until about 8:00 PM each night, so we did not discover the a/c issue until after they had left.  We will ask about it tomorrow.  Everyone staying here just comes and goes using the front door key for access to the building.

Tomorrow, we plan to go and see some of the churches and parts of the city we had not visited before on our last trip here.

Venice – Day 2

 The Trip  No Responses »
Sep 222010
 

We slept in a little bit this morning, we did not have to meet any scheduled train departure, or other time dependent activity.  We just made it to the breakfast, they only serve between 8-10 AM.  Breakfast is served on the same floor as the room, so it is easy to get to.   The breakfast menu is more limited than we had in Levanto, the choices are cereal, some sliced ham and cheese, rolls, yogurt and croissants.  Nothing is prepared to order, it is just a basic self serve buffet.

Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frarie

Our plan for the day is to visit about five different churches around Venice, starting with the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frarie, which is one of the largest in the city, and is close to our hotel. Of course, we  got a little bit lost getting there, the map of the city we have does not show a lot of the smaller street names.  Once there, we paid the admission price and went in.  Like most of the churches in Venice, they do not allow any type of photography inside at all, I guess to help preserve the art work from camera flashes by people who either can’t, or don’t know how to turn off the flash on their camera.  There were some pretty side chapel altars and artwork inside the church.

Looking Across the Grand Canal into St. Mark’s Square

We then headed around the corner to a building called Scuola San Rocco, supposedly famous for some paintings by Tintoretto.  We decided not to go inside, and so we headed to the Vaporetto stop to catch the water bus to go to see the Santa Maria della Salute Church.  When we got there, we found it was not going to reopen for the afternoon until 2:00 PM, so we went out to the tip of the island for pictures looking back across the Grand Canal to St. Mark’s Square.  There was a statue out on the very tip of the island that was of a young boy holding a frog.  We will have to look up on the internet to find out what the significance of that statue is, but it was guarded 24 hours a day by the police.

After the pictures, we headed to find some lunch, eating at a sandwich shop near the Vaporetto stop we needed to take across the waterway over to the Guidecca Area of Venice  We saw a discount grocery and decided to check out their wine prices.  It is amazing that you can go into a store and purchase bottles of wine for Euro 1.79, sometimes even lower.  Of course it is not the best wine we have ever had, but it was decent for the price.  We stopped off at a church called Chiesa delle Redentore, but it did not look very impressive inside, and the cost to enter was Euro 3.00 apiece.   We did not want to go broke paying to go into all of these smaller churches, so we did not enter.

Venice from the Bell Tower at the Church of San Giorgio

We headed back to the Vaporetto, and headed to the Church of San Giorgio.  It was free to enter, and they allowed no-flash photography,  There was a bell tower that was accessible by elevator, and, yes,  you guessed it, Euro 3.00 apiece.  We did pay and ride to the top of the bell tower so that we could get some good pictures across the water of St. Mark’s Square.  After coming back down from the bell tower, we toured the inside of the church.  There were some nice paintings inside, but the church was rather plain inside.

Altar in the Chiesa della Salute

Next, it was another Vaporetto ride back to the  Chiesa della Salute (chiesa meaning “church”) which had been closed earlier when we were in that area.  It was free to enter and you could take no-flash photos, which is how I think all churches should be.  It was fairly decorative inside, at least the main altar was very ornate.

Then we were off to do some shopping in the open air market area near the Rialto Bridge before heading back to the room to get ready for dinner.

Tonight, we just wandered around to a few restaurants near the hotel, we had forgotten to get another recommendation from the hotel staff before they left for the evening.  That makes it a little tougher to find a place that is not too touristy, with touristy prices to match.  We settled on a place that had tortellini on the menu, something Stephanie wanted to eat again in Italy ever since we were in Rome 2 years ago.  It was funny, the place was actually run by some people from India.  The food was good, but it was not as good of a dining experience as we had the first night.  When it is late, and you are tired and hungry, sometimes you just have to settle for something that you hope is good, which was what happened tonight.  We will make sure and ask about some more dining options from our hotel staff for `tomorrow.

After dinner, we wandered around and went over to St. Marks Square to listen to some more orchestra music.  This time, we had our own bottle of wine, so we sat on some of the stacked structures that are used as elevated walkways during flooding periods in Venice, drank wine, and enjoyed the music.  We talked with a group of four young people form California, they had just gotten to Venice yesterday, and were in Italy for about 10 days.  It was their fist time here, so we were trying to give them a few pointers.

Since it was getting late, about 11:00 PM, we headed back to the room.  Tomorrow, we are visiting the fresh seafood and vegetable market nearby, and then heading over to Murano to look at the glass artwork.

Venice – Day 3

 The Trip  No Responses »
Sep 232010
 

Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Market in Venice

Today we are going to go to the local seafood market in the morning, and then taking the Vaporetto over to Murano to look at the glass artwork.  The weather was really nice again today, and after a late morning breakfast, we headed out around 10:00 AM.  The market was bristling with activity.  There are two sections, one is for the vendors selling vegetables, and the other is for vendors selling fresh seafood of all types.  It is really interesting to compare the seafood here to some of the item we normally may see at home, but there are a lot of other things here that we don’t normally see.   There are especially interesting varieties of squid, some that look like normal squid, others that have a lot of the squids ink on them.

We spent about an hour wondering around and watching the locals buy seafood, and watching the vendors clean the fish.  The vegetable market is also interesting, they have a lot of items there that we had never seen before.

Fresh Seafood Market

After leaving the market, we headed across the Grand Canal on a Traghetto, which is a gondola that is used to ferry people across the canal, just from one shore directly across to the other side.  It is bigger than a normal gondola, and has two oarsmen.  We went on it so we could take a shortcut by walking over to the side of the island closest to Murano, and avoid the one hour ride if we took the Vaporetto from this area near our hotel to the same place.

We rode the Vaporetto over to Murano and began looking around at all of the glass work.  It seemed to me that there was not the large, really pretty glass that I had seen on my first trip to Murano in 2004.  However, we think we found out why.   We were trying to go to the upstairs area of one of the manufacturers, and we were told we needed to have an escort (read “pushy salesman’), and could not go up there just to look.

Stephanie on the Traghetto

They wanted to know what were were looking for, be it a vase, or some other specifics.  Since we were “just looking”, we were not allowed to go.  I think it is a combination of them wanting to get you corralled upstairs, and give you the really hard sell, combined with them not wanting to waste their time just showing off their glass.  I also think that they do not want other competitors to see their glass since you are not allowed to take photos anywhere.  I also think they are trying to protect their specific art style from being copied by the Chinese glass blowers.  We saw lots of signs in the store proclaiming that there was “No Chinese Glass” in them, it was all hand made in Murano.

You can only look at glass so long, and most of the stores carry about the same items in the small glass pieces on display.  Stephanie was looking for a glass ring, so we spent some time doing that.  It was hard to fine a ring she liked, and for it also to be in her size since they are all just randomly made, and you have to keep trying various rings on to see if they fit.

Canal in Murano

We took a break for lunch, then bought a couple of other small items, and headed back to the Vaporetto stop to return to Venice.  Once again, we took the shortcut walk across the island, and took the Traghetto back across the canal to the area where our hotel is located.  We wondered around looking for places to eat near our hotel so we would have an idea of where we might want to go for dinner that night.

We headed back to the room to rest a little before going to dinner.   We did get a couple of recommendations from the hotel staff, but when we found the restaurants, we did not see anything on the menus that we wanted to get.  We did find another alternative, and sat down for our dinner.  It was pleasant, and the food was good.

After dinner, we spent some time over near the Rialto Bridge taking pictures of the two of us with the camera on the tripod, and the bridge in the background.

Rialto Bridge at Night

When we finished that, we headed back to the room for the night to complete our packing.  We will be checking out tomorrow morning, and then spending the remainder of the day in Venice, before heading out on the night train to Vienna, Austria.

Venice Day 4 – Moving On To Vienna, Austria

 The Trip  No Responses »
Sep 242010
 

Today is our last day in Venice.  The weather has been beautiful for the entire time here, something that does not always happen.  It has been cooler at night, and first thing in the mornings, but warmer during the day, actually warm enough for shorts.  We have to check out of the hotel today by 10:30 am, so we had to pack up the suitcases again last night so we did not have to face that task in the morning.

After we ate our breakfast in the hotel, we took our suitcases downstairs and put them in the storage area.  The hotel was nice enough to give us a key to get in to the front door later on in the evening, just in case they were not there when we came back for our luggage.  Our night train to Vienna, Austria does not leave Venice until 9:05 PM, so we did not want to have to pay to keep our luggage stored at the train station.  After checking out, we headed to the Vaporetto to take it to St. Mark’s Square to look at the Bridge of Sighs.  Unfortunately, when we got there, we realized it was in an area that is under renovation next to the Doge’s Palace.  You could still see the small bridge, but it was completely surrounded by a painted landscape that is also part of some advertising  After seeing it again. we recalled that this same advertising  has been there since our trip to Venice two years ago.

Heading to Murano on the Vaporetto

We then decided just to take a nice long Vaporetto ride to Murano, and hopped on the next one.  We were able to ride in the stern and take pictures as we went.  Once we got to Murano, we decided to go ahead and take another Vaporetto from there over to Burano, famous for their lace and linen.  We had not gone over to Burano before, mainly because it is about an hours ride there by Vaporetto from Murano.

The boat ride was nice, but we had to stand the whole way since the Vaporetto was a little crowded.  We got off and walked into the small town area.  We were surprised to find that it was a very clean and brightly colored town, similar to Murano, but nicer.

Colorful Burano

All of the buildings are painted with very bright colors, and appeared to be well kept.  Since it was time for lunch, we stopped at a local eatery and split a pizza and a half liter of red wine.

We really enjoyed the lunch, we ate in a covered area outside, and the weather was just beautiful.  We walked around the town, most of it was on a single loop that we easily walked in about an hour, stopping every once and awhile for photos, and to look into a store or two.

We headed back to the Vaporetto stop to return to Venice.  There was a boat loading up so we ran to get on before it left, only to find out they are on a schedule, and were not going to leave for several more minutes.  That is different from most of the normal Vaporetto stops, you only have about 30 seconds to get on after they stop, let people off and on, and then depart.  If they are ready to go and you are no on the boat in time, they will leave with you standing right there on the platform.

Colorful Burano and a Leaning Bell Tower

The ride back took about an hour and fifteen minutes, we had to stop at three places along the route back.  We ended up departing in an area near St. Mark’s Square, but a little ways away from all of the crowds.  We took a shortcut around the really crowded areas, and found a grocery store that we had not seen before.  Stephanie went in and bought a large bottle of Diet Coke for later on.  We headed over to the area around our hotel and stopped off for a glass of wine.  We drank a really good Rosso wine, and we wrote down the name hoping we could find it in a grocery or wine store to take with us on the overnight train ride to Vienna.

We looked in several wine stores, and also in a couple of different grocery stores, but could not the wine.  Since we had some time to kill, we actually ended up walking back to the train station from

Catching a Nap on the Vaporetto Back From Burano

our area of Venice looking in various stores for that wine. We did find a much larger grocery store near the train station that we did not know was there, but alas, they too did not have our wine.  We purchased something different to have on the night train and headed back to the hotel to get our luggage.  By this time, it had started to rain, our first bad weather since arriving in Levanto last Friday.

Umbrellas in hand, we made it back to the hotel, retrieved our luggage, and headed to the Vaporetto stop for the ride to the train station.  It was a little after 7:00 PM.  The Vaporetto ride took about 30 minutes, and with a short walk from the Vaporetto stop to the train station, we arrived around 7:45 PM.  We grabbed a quick bite to eat at the station, and saw that our train was at the platform about 40 minutes before our departure time, so we headed over to board.  We found our car and our compartment without any difficulty, and boarded.

Engine for the Night Train to Vienna

The compartment was actually set up to accommodate 3 persons, it had three stacked bunk beds that folded out from the wall.  It was a little smaller than we had envisioned, but was set up with a small table, a sink area, a closet and a shelf for storing our luggage.

When we first got to the compartment, all of the beds were folded down, and there was only one seat in the compartment.  We discovered that the lower bunk made into two seats if it were folded up, so we folded it up, and also folded up the middle bunk.  We knew it was going to take some help from the car attendant to put the bunks back down because it required a large square key to release the locks.  However, we did not want to sit on the beds for the initial part of the journey.  Unfortunately, we did not take any pictures of the compartment set up with the bunks laid down.

Stephanie in our Night Train Compartment

The train left right on time at 9:05 PM.  We noticed it was not very cool in the compartment while we were at the station, and hoped the air conditioning would work better once were were moving. I do not think the cars had air conditioning, it never got much cooler even after we were underway.  The attendant came by and took our breakfast order, nothing special, some yogurt, coffee, juice, and rolls with ham and cheese. There was a window that would open, so that became our source of cooler air.  After getting everything situated, we put on some more comfortable sleeping clothes for the 11 hour journey to Vienna.  We sipped on some red wine, and watched the scenery go by until about 11:00 PM, when we got our bunks lowered, and went to sleep.

The train was quite loud, and a little rocky.  We did make a few stops during the night.  Both of us slept pretty well considering the motion and stops, but certainly not as good as we would have in a hotel.

Vienna, Austria – Day 1

 The Trip  No Responses »
Sep 252010
 

We woke up about 6:30 AM on the night train from Venice.  Our scheduled arrival time was about 8:20 AM in Vienna, or Wien as it is spelled there.  We cleaned up a little at the sink on our compartment, then got dressed into our travel clothes.  Having the sink in the compartment was nice, but the water was not drinkable.  There was no toilet in the compartment, it was a shared facility located at the end of the train car.  Our breakfast was delivered to our compartment by our attendant at about 7:30 AM, and it was not too bad, some coffee and pastries, water and fruit.  We put together our suitcases, and waited for our arrival at the Wien Westbahnhof Station.

We actually arrived a little early, and after departing the overnight train, headed down to the Underground Station underneath of the main train station to catch the U3 subway to the stop nearest to our hotel. During the night, we had changed from a Trenitalia (Italy) train engine to a OBB (Austria) train engine, and had added some cars to the end of the train.  We we departed Venice, we had been in the second to last car, and now there were at least 7-8 more cars behind ours now.  It appeared that these cars were just normal passenger cars based on the number of people who got off of them.

After purchasing our two Underground tickets, we (thankfully) took the elevator down several floors to the platform for the U3.  The stairs would have been rough with all of the luggage.  We took the U3 train to our designated stop, and got off.  Again, we were thankful that there was an elevator to take us up to the street level.  Once outside the station, and in the city,  it took us a few minutes to get out bearings.

There was a nice map of the area outside the elevator exit, we just had to look at a few surrounding street signs to help us to determine which way we needed to go to follow the directions I had written down for getting to the hotel.  It was about a 12 minute walk, pretty straightforward, and we arrived at the doorway to the building that the hotel was located in.  It is actually a Pension, which is just a simple version of a hotel, sort of like a Bed and Breakfast, but less fancy.  We rang the buzzer, but found that the door to the building was already unlocked, so we went in before anyone had a chance to reply to the buzzer.  This was our first little mistake.  Once inside the main building, we found that the building had 7 floors and no directory.  We got on the elevator and stopped at the second floor.  This was the next little mistake, as we were really on something called the “K” floor when we first got on the elevator, not the first floor, which we skipped entirely going to the second floor.  We looked around there, but did not see a doorway for the hotel, just other residences, so we went to the third floor, only to find the same, no hotel.  Stephanie went back down the stairs and that is when we realized that the hotel was on the first floor, which we had unknowingly skipped.  When we got there to check in, the receptionist told us that she had answered the ring at the outside door, and told us to go to the first floor, but we had already entered the building and missed these instructions.  Not sure why they don’t post that on their web site, nothing in any of the information I had read told us which floor the hotel was on.

St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna

Our room was not yet ready since it was only 9:30 AM, and too early for check-in.  We left our locked luggage inside the hotel and headed out to see the sights of Vienna.  We initially stopped at a church near the hotel, it was not real large, but fairly fancy inside.  It did not appear to be set up for “tourism”, there were no signs bearing any restrictions,  but we did not take any photos, not knowing if the general rule in churches in Vienna allowed non-flash photography.

Altar in St. Stephen’s Cathedral

We then looked over the city map and decided to go ahead and visit the large Cathedral in Vienna called St. Stephen’s.  Unfortunately, on the outside, at the front of the church, they were doing some restoration, and it was covered in scaffolding with a rendition of the covered portion painted on fabric covering most of the front of the church.  It was the same on the front, right corner of the church, it to was under repair.  We took a few photos anyway, and then went inside.

There was no fee to go into the church, but in order to access the center portion, the nave, we had to pay euro 3.50 apiece. It was worth it to get away from some of the crowd, and also to be able to get closer to the main altar.  After about an hour looking around inside, we decided to pay to climb the 343 steps in the taller bell tower.

Up and up and up we climbed,  almost all of the steps were in a small circular staircase, and it was the same staircase for going up as for going down.   It was tough to pass others heading in the opposite direction, especially with the one backpack we had.   The view at the top was good, the biggest problem being that it was an overcast day, with a chance of rain later on, not great for colorful photos.

View of the Ground from the St. Stephen’s Tower

After visiting St. Stephen’s, we just walked around that area of the city, and started to look for somewhere to eat lunch.  It was surprising to see so many coffee shops there, which only served coffee and a variety of sweets and rolls.  We never really saw a spot to get some lunch, and were already back at the hotel, so we just decided to go to our room, check it out, and ask the receptionist for a recommendation on an eatery.

The room was really large, but simple.  It was a corner room, so we have windows on two sides.  The bathroom was large, with a nice size shower.  However, we discovered that there was no shampoo or soaps supplied, so we were going to have to visit a grocery to get some.  After dropping off some of the unnecessary items from the backpack, and getting some additional warmer clothing to carry, we headed back out to get some lunch.  We went to an establishment called Toni’s, which was one of the recommendations.  We both enjoyed our lunch there, I ordered pork cordon bleu, and Stephanie ordered  pork grilled on a skewer with french fries.  Both were really good.

Altar In St. Peters Church

 

After lunch, we headed over to St. Peter’s Church, which, on the inside,  is one of the most beautiful of all the churches in Vienna.  There was a free concert going on inside, a girls choir was performing.  We listened to that for about 30 minutes, and after it ended, we took some photos and looked around.  We decided we would come back in a couple of hours and attend Saturday Vigil Mass there at 5:00 PM.  We walked around on some of the nearby streets where a lot of high end fashion stores are located, heading toward the Hofburg Palace.  We saw the famous Vienna Opera House nearby to the Palace grounds.  There are a lot of really beautiful buildings in Vienna.  When we got to the Palace, we knew we did not have enough time to really look around before we needed to start back to the church for Mass, so we just walked a different route back to the church, enjoying the city sights.

Beautiful Buildings in Vienna

After attending Mass, we discovered that it was now raining outside, so with umbrellas in hand, we headed back to the hotel, via the grocery store.  When we arrived at the grocery, it was trying to close, but we did not realize that since it was only 6:00 PM.  We checked the hours on the sign, but were initially unaware that the week here, and hence the listing of store hours starts on Sunday and ends on Saturday, different from our normal week, starting on Monday and ending on Sunday.  This threw us off since we thought the sign indicated that the store closed early on Sunday night, not Saturday night (today).  We crossed over some baskets that had been put in front of the entry turnstile, not realizing all of that was due to the store closing, we thought they were for warning about the rain  floor being wet from the rain.  Oh well, we need a few things and they made some money.

We had decided to just eat some snacks of crackers and cheese for dinner since it was raining, and we only had eaten a late lunch at 2:00 PM that afternoon.  We were also tired from the train ride, neither of us had slept that well with the train noise and constant rocking motion, so we were going to call it a day.  The rain really intensified later, and we were glad we had not gone out, content to watch the rain from our hotel windows.

Tomorrow, we are planning to visit the Hofburg Palace grounds, if the rain does not continue as forecast.

Vienna Day 2

 The Trip  No Responses »
Sep 262010
 

It rained most of the night last night, at least during the time before we fell asleep at about 10:30 PM.  The rain made it easier for us to call it a night earlier than when we were in Venice, where we were staying out later.  It has also helped us to catch up on the blog, and on our rest.  Stephanie was fighting a little bit of a head cold yesterday, but felt better when she woke up this morning.

It was still cloudy this morning, and was much windier and colder than yesterday. After having our breakfast at the hotel, which consisted mainly of various hams and sliced sausages (salamis), we got ready to brave the outside elements.   We wore some colder weather clothes (finally, after lugging them around for a week), and took our heavier rain jackets, for both protection against the wind, and the possibility for more rain.

Gilded Centerpiece for the Dining Table – Hofburg Palace

Our plan for today was to visit the Hofburg Palace, the home of the Habsburgs, who were the last ruling monarchs of Austria, ruling until 1916.  We stood in line for tickets to see the Porcelain and Silver collection, the Sisi Musium (Sisi was the wife of Emperor Franz Josef, the last monarch), and Royal Apartments.  It was very interesting, although the Sisi Museum was a little crowded, and dramatic.  Apparently, she had a few issues with eating disorders, and was a recluse later in her life.  She  probably would have benefited from some Prozac.  Unfortunately, she was assassinated while traveling outside of Austria, although according to her writings, she apparently really longed for death.

The silver and the porcelain were very extravagant, one collection of silver dishes weighed over 1000 kilograms, which is about 2,500 lbs.  It was also amazing to see how intricate the settings were for the royal dinners. The silver and gold plated porcelain was also interesting, one set was never used for eating, it was too brittle to actually use for a dinner, apparently  just made for display.  It was a gift from one of the Queens of England.

Part of the Extensive Porcelain Plate Collection

It was amazing to see the opulence that these people lived in while entertaining, but for the remainder of the time, the Emperor actually lived in a very simply furnished room.  Sisi was a bit more extravagant, but was away from the palace a lot of the time.

The areas of the Palace that were shown during the tour were very interesting, there was a lot of  gilded furniture and gilded wall panels in the palace, and of course, all of the furniture had red coverings, and all of the carpets were red.  I guess if you are from royal bloodlines, you better like the color red in your house, excuse me, I mean Palace.

After leaving the Palace, we walked around the grounds outside, and then over to the National Museum for a few outside pictures.  We then walked over to the Burggarten, which is one of the gardens around the palace, and has a statue there to commemorate  Mozart (the classical music guy).

Then we stopped at a  Wurstelstand, which means sausage stand.  They are all over the town, and are small, outside walk up buildings that serve all kinds of sausages and beer.  Stephanie had a kasekrainer (a sausage with melted cheese inside) and I had a Bratwurst.  They were considered to be “hot dogs” which are sausages stuck into a roll similar to a french bread roll.  They cut off the end, and then jam the roll onto a pointed metal stake, and then inject mustard, and put the sausage inside of it in the hole made by the stake.

Schonbrunn Castle

We ordered two draft beers with the sausages.  It was a great lunch.  Of course, we had a little trouble ordering,  really trying to decide what to get without understanding the descriptions of the food in German, but luckily, we received some help from some locals eating there who spoke English.

We decided to go ahead and head over to the Schonbrunn Palace, which was the summer home of the Emperor.  We had to take an underground train over to this Palace from our location near the Hofburg Palace.

It was not as impressive of a house from the outside, but the gardens around it were VERY large and impressive.

You could not really see a lot of the total area of the gardens because of the trees, but the area behind the summer Palace was open and planted with a lot of colorful plants.

View Of  The Castle From The Gloriette

We wondered around and took a lot of pictures, and then went up the hill to the Gloriette, which was an elevated building overlooking the open expanse of the gardens and the Palace.

Unfortunately, it was getting more cloudy and windy, and the photos will not be as colorful as the gardens would have appeared on a sunny day.

When we finished looking around on the Gloriette, we started back down the hill to the Palace, and it started to drizzle more heavily.

Gardens of Schonburnn Castle

We were heading back to the underground station anyway, to head over to the train station to purchase a ticket for tomorrow morning’s train trip to Salzburg.

We then took the underground back to the area near St. Stephen’s Cathedral, and went to a cafe to get some desserts and some hot coffee for me, and a hot chocolate for Stephanie.

After that, we headed back to the hotel, but took a side trip to see the Danube River, which was not very pretty here, and certainly would not have inspired any songs.  It is contained in a concrete walled channel, and the walls are full of graffiti.  Maybe the graffiti Danube would be the song now, certainly not the Blue Danube.  We headed back to the room to pack since tomorrow will be a travel day to Salzburg for one night.   We are taking a the 8:20 AM train to Salzburg.

Vienna to Salzburg

 The Trip  No Responses »
Sep 272010
 

Yes, we had another early morning wake up call at 6:15 AM, seems to be a theme on this trip, so far.  We needed to dress, finish packing, check-out, and walk about 15 minutes to the Stephenplatz Underground Station to take the U3 to the Westbahnhoff Train Station.  We were trying to make the 8:20 RailJet train to Salzburg.  This train is newer, faster, and makes less stops than some of the others we could take to Salzburg.

It was still raining slightly this morning, although a lot less windy, and it seemed a little warmer.  We made it to the Underground station without incident, same for the Westbahnhof Train Station.  We had about 40 minutes until our train departed, so we grabbed a quick bite to eat inside the train station, and then went out and boarded our train.  We were a little nervous about the seats on the train, most trains that are faster require a seat reservation, and our ticket purchase from the machine yesterday gave no seat assignment choices.  However, once we boarded, it was clearly evident that no one had any seat assignments, it was just first come, first served.

The train seemed new, and was very comfortable.  It was about a 2 hour and 30 minute ride to Salzburg.  As we went westward, the skies cleared and the sun finally appeared once again after three cloudy days in Vienna.

View Of Salzburg From the Hohensalzburg Castle

The train ride was quiet and fairly fast, we saw speeds on the train information monitor of about 200 kilometers per hour, not super fast, but faster then a normal regional train.  I was able to catch up on the blog pictures and reduce some of the other photos that we have taken so that I can try to post them into a photo gallery, as soon as we have a decent internet connection again.  The hotel in Salzburg does not have Wi-Fi, and I think the hotel in Munich, our next stop, also does not have Wi-Fi , so it could be a few days.

After departing the train in Salzburg at about 11:15 AM, we visited the information office to get some instructions on using the city buses, mainly to see if we need to purchase a ticket before we board, or from the driver.  It seems that there is no consistency on that in Europe.  For Salzburg, you can purchase a ticket from the driver when you get on, possibly at a slight premium, but much easier than trying to find a machine at a tobacco stand where you normally purchase a public transportation ticket in many areas.

We found our bus at the main bus station located  in the train station area, and off we went.  It was only about five stops before we were to get off the bus near our hotel.  We had fairly good directions for the streets to follow, and it was less than a 5 minute walk to the hotel once we got off of the bus.

Hohensalzburg Castle

The hotel shares the building with a restaurant, so we were told to take the lift to the first floor (the bottom is floor zero or sometimes ground), and the nicest lady met us to check in.  Because we were a little early, she changed our room so that we could get into it right away.  We got a room on the third floor, with a window overlooking the narrow, pedestrian only street.  The hotel is very quaint, the building is about 700 years old.  All of the furnishings are in wood, and we got two twin sized beds, which is typical for Germany.  Today is our second wedding anniversary, so that was a little funny to us, but not a big deal.

After dropping off the luggage in the room, and freshening up a little, we headed out to see the sights.  We wandered past the Salzburg Cathedral,  and went over to the Funicular (cable car lift on tracks), which takes you up to the Hohensalzburg Castle.  The castle  sits atop a hill overlooking the town.

There were some old military museum exhibits there, it was also used as a military barracks for a time, and also exhibits showing some of the early rooms from the period that it served as a royal palace.  The best part of the visit to the Castle was the views over Salzburg from about 400 ft. above the city.  After heading down, we went back into the old city to find a bite to eat for lunch.

Special Christmas Egg Decorations

After lunch we visited a shop specializing in Christmas ornaments, and they literally had thousands of real egg shell ornaments.  The egg internals had been removed, and the shells were hand decorated in all types of Christmas patterns.

They had real egg crates holding the ornaments, by the dozens, and they were stacked in displays everywhere.  We ended up buying one of them, we hope it makes it back home unscathed.

Then we headed over to the Salzburg Cathedral to walk around inside.  It was quite impressive, but it is mostly new inside after having been restored from a bombing during WWII.

Salzburg Cathedral

Altar Inside Salzburg Cathedral

We walked around inside the Cathedral and took some pictures before heading to the crypts under the church, where one of the past Bishops and possibly some Cardinals are laid to rest.  There was also some of the old ruins exposed from the earlier church that was built on this site prior to the current church.  These ruins dated back to the early 1200’s, and the older church sat a little skewed to the current church’s orientation.

Stephanie then wanted to visit the Mozart Residence, so we headed across the river to take that tour.  It was somewhat interesting, they talked some about his family and his life.  It was sad to hear that his life was cut short by a plague, and to learn that he was buried in a mass grave with other plague victims.  It was amazing to learn what he was able to do with his music starting at about 6 years old.

We then wandered around the old town streets looking at stores, and at possible places to eat dinner later on.  We visited the grocery store for a few items, and then headed back to the room to get ready for dinner.

We just dropped off some of the extra stuff we normally carry around in the backpacks, and talked to the receptionist about some recommendations for dinner. She recommended three places, but we went to the one she described as having the best beer, it was called Sternbrau.  They did have good beer, and they also  had very good food.  It was a little funny, they served large soft pretzels with the dinner instead of any type of bread, and we were unaware that they charged for each one you ate (Euro 1.50 apiece), similar to the bread charges in Italy. They were very good pretzels, we even asked for another one after dinner instead of a dessert, thinking they were like the bread we get in the USA.  We still were unaware that there was a charge for them, we only discovered it when the bill came.  We had a good laugh about that.  We headed back to the hotel for the night, we have a 7:50 AM train tomorrow to Munich and Oktoberfest, so we have to get up early again, probably about 6:00 AM.

Salzburg to Munich & Oktoberfest

 The Trip  No Responses »
Sep 282010
 

Once again, we were up by 6:00 AM to pack up and be on the road again, well really the train, to head to Munich.  At least we are getting used to the consistent early wake up time, not really, it is still early.  Stephanie had asked about checking out early to make sure someone would be there when it was time to leave the hotel around 7:10 AM.  The proprietor of the hotel  actually told us she would be there at 5:00 AM anyway, and even have the breakfast set up early for us, even though it is normally served starting at 7:30 AM, well after the time we needed to leave.

When we went downstairs, everything was out for breakfast, and it was really good compared to the Pension in Vienna.  The staff were very friendly at the hotel, we would certainly recommend it to anyone going to Salzburg.  The rooms were not fancy, but they were quaint and comfortable, and with a comfortable price.

The only issue we had was that the room was heated, and we could not really control the temperature.  We had to open the window to keep it from being too hot, and the street below was a little noisy early in the morning.  It was cloudy again, and had rained some during the night.  Not sure what is going on with the weather in this part of Europe, it has been cloudy and rainy more than it has been sunny.  Without internet service at the hotel, we can’t check the weather to see what the forecast is for Munich.

We headed to the bus stop, and took the bus back to the train station.  We headed to the platform for our train, and made it there with about 20 minutes to spare before the train arrived.  We looked at the train diagrams to find out where our particular car number would be in the order of cars starting at the first one behind the engine.   Every train has a diagram on a board out on the platform to help you to orient yourself on the platform to be near your car number so you can get on the correct car where your reserved seat is located.  This train had originated elsewhere, so it was only passing through Salzburg, stopping  in the station for only 3-4 minutes before it leaves, so you have to be quick.  This is only the case for the higher speed trains where you have reserved seats.  Otherwise,as its the case on the regional trains,  all of this process of locating your correct train car is moot, you just get on anywhere and find a seat.

The train was fairly empty at this early hour, but we may pick up more passengers at stations on the way.  We found our seats, and discovered that the seats have an electronic display above them, on the side near the window showing the originating station and the ending station for the occupants on the small information screen.  It also gave us some assurance that we were in the correct seats since it listed Salzburg and Munich as the starting and stopping stations for these seats, matching our itinerary.  The ticket attendant came by a little after we departed, and checked our tickets, all without incident.  We had purchased these tickets online prior to leaving home to take advantage of some special pricing, so we were a little apprehensive about the process of getting the ticket printout verified on the train.  The train ride is about an hour and 45 minutes, scheduled to arrive at 9:33 AM in Munich.

New Town Hall Glockenspiel

We arrived in Munich on schedule, and departed the train and headed for the Underground station.  We needed to take either the U1 or U2 trains to the Sendlinger Tor stop.  After purchasing our Underground tickets, we headed to the platform and rode to our stop.  After taking the escalators us to the ground level, we headed out to find the hotel.  We had pretty good directions, and found the general area, but had a little difficulty actually finding the entrance to the hotel.  What threw us off was the restaurant by the same name that was on the corner, which was not directly adjacent to the hotel.  The hotel was actually about another block down the street.

We passed by it the first time, the sign out front was really high up on the building, there was not much signage at all at the entrance.  As we had anticipated, the room was not yet ready, it was only about 10:00 AM in the morning, and check-in was not until 2:00 PM.  We put our locked suitcases in a storage area of sorts, and headed out to see some of the city.

We decided to go to an area in the old city called Marienplatz, which was sort of a market area.  The New Town Hall building is located there there with its famous Glockenspiel, which is a musical clock that depicts a scene to music, similar to the animated portions of a cuckoo clock’s moving and dancing parts, except this clock is about life sized.  After the noon show on the Glockenspiel, which lasted about 15 minutes,  we walked around and went into some of the other outdoor shops and then grabbed some bratwurst for lunch, which were really good.   Then we decided to head in the direction of the Hofbrauhaus, which is a well established biergarten in Munich.  Since it was a little cooler, and was raining slightly at times, there was nothing going on outside in the actual garden area, but things were hopping inside (beer pun).   We wondered around and found a spot for the two if us at a table where four men were seated, we asked if it was OK to sit with them, and they agreed.

Our New Danish Friends at Haufbrau House

We asked to share their menus, and Stephanie also asked for some help in determining which kinds of beer to get.  They were really nice and helpful, especially the one seated next to Stephanie, whose name we later learned was Kristian, and they were all for Denmark.

We sat with them for about 3 hours, sipping on our one liter beers, and listening to the band playing traditional German music.  We learned a lot about life in Denmark from these “new friends”, and they also told us about going to the Oktoberfest tents, and helped with suggestions on getting in.  At about 3:00 PM we all left, they headed to their hostel that was located very near to the festival, and we headed back to our hotel to drop off  our backpacks and get ready to walk over to the Oktoberfest park.

Liter of Beer at the Haufbrau House

It was about a 15 minute walk to the festival grounds from our hotel, pretty straightforward on a major street.  However, you had to make a turn near the park to actually get access into the festival grounds.

The first area we saw was the fair area where all of the rides were located.   This fair was like  a very, very large county fair, but the rides were much fancier, and there were a lot of them.  We made our way over to the area where all of the large “tents” are for the major beer breweries, which is where all of the partying goes on.  They were not really tents anymore, most seemed to have some sort of permanent structure to them.

Heading to the Beer Tent Area – Oktoberfest Fairgrounds

We walked into one, and it did not seem to be very festive, so we left and walked down the area to one that looked large and fun from the outside.  It was really packed inside, but was it not hard to gain entry, we were allowed in right away.  We wandered around inside looking for some space for the two of us to sit at one of the tables.  We happened upon one with just enough space for two, and Stephanie asked it if would be alright for us to sit with the gang already at the table,  so we could be served.  You can’t get a beer inside the tent if you are not seated at a table.  We think this helps with knowing who is ordering the large one liter beers, and more importantly, who is paying for them when they are delivered by the waitress.

They all agreed to share their space with us at the table, and we sat down and started to hear about our second set of  “new” friends we had met today.  There was a young army doctor from Hawaii that was in Germany on an eight week assignment, there was a couple from Canada, there was a German couple that had just gotten married on Saturday, and there was a brother and sister from the USA.  The brother had been living in Munich for 15 years, and his sister was visiting from Florida.

Our New Friend Christian From Munich

It was ironic that the brother’s name was Christian, the same name as the person we had met earlier in the Haufbrahaus that was here from Denmark, except for the spelling.  This Christian was in traditional German dress, the Lederhosen, as were the couple from Germany that had just recently gotten married.

Christian helped us to get beers ordered, and explained about the rounding off for tipping, and about the beer cheer songs.  He also explained about the amount of beer in the glasses and how to make sure they pour you the appropriate amount, and what do do if not.  He also explained what the limitations were for standing on the tables, that you can stand on the bench seats, and one foot can be on the table top for balance, but that it is forbidden to actually stand on the top of any table.

Inside the Beer Tent at Oktoberfest

There was a band there playing German songs, lots of beer drinking cheer songs where everyone sings, and you clank classes in a toast at the end.  We had a lot of fun.  It started to get a little wilder later into the evening, as the songs got more intense, and the place got really full of people, and of course, the beer was flowing.  We decided we had better head back to the hotel, and it was getting close to the time for the tents to close anyway, which was at 11:00 PM.

We headed out into the darkness, and found that it was raining slightly.  We thought we were heading to the same entry point at first, but then determined we were not and went in another direction until we saw the original entrance.  However, since the fair was closed, and it was dark, everything looked different.

Chuck & Stephanie at Oktoberfest

We also realized that when I changed rain jackets at the hotel earlier, I had left our Munich city map in the other jacket.  It had seemed an easy route to get to the fairgrounds earlier, so we headed out in the direction we thought was correct.  Somewhere along the way we did something incorrect, and got a little lost.  We had to stop at a hotel and ask for a map, then we had to try and determine where we were, and how to get to  our hotel.  It was not easy, and we walked a lot farther than we should have, but eventually we made it back to our hotel.  We were never that far away, but the streets do not go in straight lines, and the map names are very hard to read, especially in the dark and without my glasses.  We (Stephanie) asked a couple of times for help from some very friendly people we met while wandering the streets of Munich.  We never felt unsafe, there were a lot of people out on the streets, and we were never in what looked like any bad sections of town.  It was not all that late either.

Needless to say, we were very tired when we finally found our hotel, and getting to sleep was not an issue.  We had a great time on our one and only Oktoberfest night, we were too worn out to think about doing it again tomorrow.

Oktoberfest Fairgrounds at Night

Page 2 of 3 1 2 3