14 June 2010

After another hearty breakfast, we hiked to the train station to learn that our train to Berlin was running an hour late. When we finally left Prague, we used the 5-hour ride to sort through our pictures. We actually remembered what most of them were after some discussion. The ride from Prague to Berlin took us through some very pretty countryside, with the odd castle thrown in here and there.... Read More

15 June

We had a well above average hostel breakfast, and then walked to the nearest hop-a-bus stop to do the grand tour of Berlin. The weather was very cool, and we could have used warmer jackets, but it sure beat melting in the heat. We made the complete bus circuit to get our bearings, then got off at Checkpoint Charlie, where the Russians and Americans used to stare each other down through their tanks' gun sights. We toured the very thorough museum there and learned all about the history of the wall and the various means of escape employed by East Germans during the Iron Curtain days.... Read More

16 June

We debated staying one more day in Berlin, but our hostel was booked full for tonight, so we would have to move. We decided to go to Munich.

After another unique elevator ride, we checked out and took the Metro to the central train terminal and caught the 0952 train to Munich. I should mention that the main train station in Berlin looks like something out of Star Trek. Very impressive – and very organized and easy to navigate, even for a redneck.... Read More

17 June

It was still rather cool today, but not raining. We packed up, stored our packs at the hostel, and went on a guided walking tour of Munich. The guy leading the tour was very entertaining, as have been all of our tour guides, and he gave a lot of information about the WW2 years that we didn't know, especially regarding Hitler's rise to power and the German resistance. We came away with much enhanced respect for the German people of that era who worked and risked everything to undermine the regime.... Read More

18 June

After a night of hard rain, we awoke to steady light rain. We got a load of laundry done before riding the train into Tübingen to do some shopping. What a wonderful thing is a washing machine. After 2 months of doing laundry in sinks, we've decided one of our first acts upon returning home will be to kiss the washer and dryer. I found a long-sleeved t-shirt for 5 Euros and we bought about forty pounds of groceries and two large pillows. Fortunately, I took my big backpack along to carry everything. Daniel met us at the station and escorted us shopping, and we all rode back together. The weather had cleared nicely, so Janene and I walked to the bank to try her ATM card. To nobody's real surprise, it was rejected. We stopped at the local bakery to buy dessert and had an in-depth conversation in German with the counter lady about Germany's loss today in the World Cup soccer match. We don't think she ever truly grasped that we had virtually no clue what she was saying. Megan fixed a delicious soup, and the dessert was excellent. I fired off a pithy email to Capital One after supper, describing in detail our troubles, so I'm sure it will all be resolved soon. And people will start bothering me on the streets for autographs, thinking I'm George Clooney.

Escargot on the Hoof	Gemeinde Dusslingen (city hall)	going shopping
colorful balconies	Dusslingen river	Dusslingen river video (6s, 2MB)

19 June

It was raining again this morning, but we rode the local train into Tübingen for the day. We wanted to return to the non-tourist shopping district and continue questing for Joe's fleece jacket. First we got disoriented, then we got lost, then we wandered around in the rain for a while, but we eventually stumbled into the area we sought and found a suitable jacket. We also stocked up on fruit and chocolate; two staples for every traveler. The rain stopped as we finished shopping and we walked around in the historical/touristy part of town. Tübingen is a very nice, moderately-sized university town. It was spared bombing, so has a very nice old section. There were lots of people in the streets and shops, but not so many as to be a problem. We walked through the local castle and admired the views before catching the train back to Dusslingen. When we got off the train in Tübingen today, we looked at the posted schedules to verify the return trains. When we went back to the station to go home, we again checked the posted schedules and could not find Dusslingen listed anywhere! At first, we thought we had both had strokes, but then we noticed that the schedules were on bright, shiny paper. We now believe that they posted newly printed schedules during the day and, since Dusslingen is a very minor stop, didn't bother to list it on most of the trains. After some moments of panic, we asked around and got on the correct train. We had to push the "Stop Requested" button, like one does on a bus, but we made it home for supper, got our laundry done, and started packing for tomorrow's departure.

Gitter those fliegens!

escalator ramps

canned power tool

Tübingen town hall	old houses along the river	Hohentübingen Castle	castle info sign
castle courtyard	archery at W end of castle	zoom on archers

20 June, Sunday

We walked to the station with Daniel and Smokey the Dog under cloudy skies, but no rain for a change. We made our connection in Stuttgart and headed north for Mainz. Once again, we had our own little compartment, so we were able to catch up on the trip log, eat lunch, and relax.... Read More

21 June

It's the first day of summer, and we're wearing jackets! I showered again this morning, just to be sure I used as many of Hilton's resources as possible, and pocketed another apple from the checkout desk on the way out of the lobby. We had apple strudel from a local bakery for breakfast while waiting for the river boat to Koblenz to start boarding. When we were in Budapest, the Danube River was full to the banks, so much so that it appeared that boats would have trouble getting under some of the bridges. Some villages in Hungary had been evacuated due to severe flooding. The Rhine also appears to be well above normal, but we've heard nothing about flooding associated with it.... Read More

22 June

We spent a couple of hours at the Chocolate Museum today. Finally, a museum I can understand! After lunch on a bench beside the Rhine, we wandered around through the business district and window shopped. We looked around the German version of an REI store, looking at tents, packs, canoes, etc. We've decided that instead of guarding our passports and credit cards, we should be watching our Gore-Tex rain gear like mother bears. Everything is much more expensive here than at home. If we see anyone wearing North Face or similar clothing, we'll know they are either well off or a shoplifter.... Read More

23 June

We caught the 1010 train out of Koln, headed for Copenhagen. The train took us through a lot of farming country in the Holstein region of Germany. At times, it seemed like we had been shrunk and set into a very nice model train layout. We had our usual private compartment at the back of the last car and managed a couple of catnaps during the ride.... Read More

24 June

Germany won, but both teams advance due to prior performances, and everything seemed to be functioning normally this morning. Our hotel must have good windows, since we heard very little horn honking and shouting from the streets last night.... Read More

25 June

Denmark lost last night, but seems to be taking it well. We did the hop-a-bus thing today, and then finished our walking route.... Read More

26 June

We traveled by train to Stockholm today. The countryside reminds me a lot of the Yukon and central Alaska, but without mountains. Lots of evergreens interspersed with birch or alders and many small ponds. Even the buildings appear similar. There are reportedly a lot of moose, but we sadly saw none. We bought 3-day metro passes, rode the train to our hotel stop, found the hotel and checked in, and went back into the city. We walked around Old Town till nearly dark and watched the sentries change personnel at the palace.

Stockholm Royal Palace

Stockholm Royal Palace

palace sentries

Midsummer Pole

Storkyrkan (city's oldest church)

The Royal Armoury (museum)

National Museum (art museum)

Sea God Statue

af Chapman at Skeppsholmen

looking E to Kastellet Stockholm

Stadsgården Cruise Ship Terminal

27 June, Sunday

After breakfast, we rode into town, intending to ride the hop-a-bus. When we located the Tourist Bureau, we realized that we had both left our credit and ATM cards at the hotel. I had 9 Swedish Kroner and Janene had 40 Euros. We went to a money changer and got enough local money to buy food for the day, but not enough for bus tours or boat rides. Fortunately, we had our Metro passes, so we rode here and there on the city buses, stopping to explore likely looking areas. We viewed the Pippi Longstocking museum only from the outside (Thank God). We liked Stockholm a lot, but can't really say much specific about it. No magnificent buildings, understated palace, but just a really nice city with nice people.

map of Stockholm (larger map)	Sergels torg (plaza)	map of Djurgården (larger map)	swan & cygnets
Gröna Lund amusement park	vertical spinning coaster video(15s, 1.7MB)	Fritt Fall (Giant Drop) video (23s, 1.5MB)	clown & kids
boats at Junibacken dock	Pippi Longstocking author	glass balloons in tree by Junibacken carpark	metro art
Gustaf Vasa Church altarpiece
	Stockholm Public Library	Söder Torn	sculpture at Fatbursparken

28 June

We packed up and caught the 0740 commuter train to the city, where we transferred to the train for Oslo. Our Metro passes still had about 30 hours left on them, so we gave one away to a Japanese tourist and left the other one by the ticket machine. We had a couple of Swedish ladies for seat-mates on the trip from Stockholm to Karlstad. We showed them pictures of Portugal and Croatia and they gave us hints about Norway.... Read More

29 June

The train ride from Oslo to Bergen was one of the best we will likely ever experience. We went through some beautiful alpine country above tree line. Some of it reminded me a lot of the Summit Lake area of Alaska.... Read More

30 June

We had to leave at 0700 to catch the Fjord boat, so we missed the rush to the TWO toilets at the hostel, We had a 5.5-hour boat ride up the Sonja fjord to Flam, then a really, really scenic train ride to Myrdal, where we connected to the main line to return to Oslo. The day started out windy and rainy, and pretty much stayed that way. The cloud ceiling ranged from 300 to 800 feet most of the time, so the tops of the mountains were often obscured, but it was still very pretty. The towns, especially, always seem to have that model train layout look to them.... Read More

1 July

We left our packs at the hostel this morning and walked to the ferry terminal to secure overnight passage to Copenhagen. That done, we moved our stuff to the ferry terminal lockers and spent the day around Oslo. We rode buses and trams and picnicked in the botanical gardens for lunch.... Read More

2 July

The ferry arrived in Copenhagen right on schedule. We were some of the last ashore because we finished watching "The Weakest Link" on telly before leaving. We walked about one mile to the nearest Metro station and rode to the central station. We had about 1.5 hours till our train to Germany – the same one that tried to leave us on the northbound trip – so we had plenty of time to change our Swedish and Norwegian money back to Euros.... Read More

3 July

It was a day of trains and buses today. We rode from Göttingen to Kassel on the wrong train, got off, got on the correct train, and continued on to Munich. Because we were running 45 minutes late, we were going to miss our connection to Salzburg, but fortunately, there were others in the same boat, and they held the train while we hustled aboard. We had to scramble a bit to catch the bus that took us from Salzburg to Berchtesgaden, but we made it.... Read More

4 July, Sunday

Happy Birthday, USA!! Today was pretty much devoted to Hitler and his mountain hideout. We rode a city bus up to the Dokumentationszentrum Obersalzberg, a museum built on the site of the Berghof, which was sort of like Camp David for Hitler. It sits on top of Hitler's hideout bunkers, and they are part of the tour. This is a very thorough analysis of the entire Hitler & Nazi cult phenomena, and pulls no punches about how Adolf and his henchmen were able to get most of the country to "drink the Kool-Aid." It's all very depressing, but important information, nevertheless.... Read More

5 July

It was raining fairly hard when we arose, and continued to do so while we walked to the bus station and rode to the Salzbergwerk salt mine. The bus ride was a bit of an adventure. We knew we needed to get off at the third stop, and we were on a bus without a display showing the name of the next stop. Stop #3 was in the middle of nowhere, and we learned too late that it was actually stop #5. Apparently, nobody asked to get off at a couple of the earlier stops, rendering our counting method of navigation useless. So we un-bussed at stop 6, walked across the road, and waited about 30 minutes in the rain for the next bus. There was at least a little shelter in which to wait.... Read More

6 July

Rain continued as we traveled from Salzburg to Munich, and on to Füssen, Germany. We were scouting around looking for lodging when we passed by the "Happy Sleep House". It's run by a young lady from Hong Kong and our room is about like Harry Potter's spot under the stairs, but it's cheap for this town and will give us conversation material for a while.... Read More

7 July

Janene let me take the bus to Neuschwanstein Castle this morning instead of walking, but then we climbed probably 500 feet of rise on the path to the castle and 300+ steps inside. The day was perfect and the castle was good, although only a few rooms were actually finished and furnished, since Ludwig II died (was murdered?) before he could get everything finished, and all work apparently stopped when he did. Still, it was a fun day.... Read More

8 July

We said goodbye to the Happy Sleep House, bought fruit and pastries on the way to the train station, and left Füssen. We rode a train to Augsburg, then caught a bus to Adelsried, Germany, where we met Jutta Krause, a friend and former landlady of Janene's brother, Mel. She welcomed us with fresh cake and a very nice room where I didn't have to duck to get through the door. While we were sitting on her patio, we saw three deer emerge from the nearby woods. Until now, our wildlife photography has been limited to birds, a few lizards, slugs, and snails, so this was quite exciting for us. We had a great home-cooked dinner and a really nice visit with Frau Krause and her friend, Elisabeth.

Update on the deer: we learned that they are being raised in an enclosure for venison, so we technically photographed livestock, not wildlife.

leaving Füssen

Train to Ausburg

Ridmonument in Rieden

bus to Adelsried

deer in the distance

wildlife livestock

Joe on patio	sorting photos	Janene & Joe	J&J with host
	group photos
		looking at travel photos

9 July

Frau Krause dropped us off at the bus stop on her way to work. We rode to the Augsburg train station and stored our packs so we could explore the town unencumbered. We saw the Golden Hall at City Hall, and climbed the 260 steps to the top of a church steeple.... Read More

10 July

We got our laundry going and went with Daniel into Tübingen where we got a tour of his lab and office where he is doing research into Prosthetic Vision. We're not sure we understood all of the nuances, but we feel that we got the gist of the program. Think of Geordi on Star Trek: The Next Generation. After the tour, we did some shopping and walked through the local flea-market. Janene bought a bathroom scale for 2 Euros, so she no longer suffers from garage sale withdrawal. She also got her hair cut.

Tübingen University Eye Clinic

11 July, Sunday

We took the walking tour of Dusslingen today and tried to puzzle out the German historic markers. We figured out that there used to be a large agricultural machinery manufacturing plant and a brewery back in the day, among other things. Janene took pictures of the signs so Daniel can translate them later. We did one final round of laundry and stayed up late watching Spain win the World Cup.

transformer station	"The princely grave" (larger image with translation)	"The inns" (larger image with translation)	"The JRUS Works" (larger image with translation)
playground	Fire House	old house	cement sculpture
cemetery	cemetery	Peterskirche by cemetery	organ at Peterskirche

12 July

We bid a final Auf Wiedersehen to Dusslingen and headed for Switzerland via several train changes. Some of the connections only allowed us a few minutes to make our move, but we made them all and arrived in Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance in time to visit the zeppelin museum.... Read More

13 July

A reasonably short march got us to the train station just in time to hop aboard for Bern. This train had AC and we got a private compartment in which to enjoy the ride and catch up on the journal and picture processing. I had my first casualty of the trip yesterday when I blew out the toe of a sock, so I used one of our free Spanish-train sewing kits to repair it while we rode.... Read More

14 July

We left our bags at the hostel and took a train to Grindelwald where we transferred to a cog train to Kleine Scheidegg. From there, we hiked 8 miles in 5.5 hours down to Wengen. I say down, because that is the general direction, but there was plenty of "up" involved as we traveled across alpine meadows, along gorges, and eventually through dense woods. The last several miles were a pretty steep descent, which is almost as tiring to me as ascending.... Read More

15 July

It was cloudy and cool this morning after overnight showers. Switzerland uses a unique electric outlet system, so I went foraging for an adapter in order to be able to charge our laptop, GPS, and camera. Between breakfast and departure, we had a short walkabout around town.... Read More