If you subscribe to this blog you may learn something about places you have never been and end up wanting to go there and when you get there you will say "I owe this all to Norris-how can I ever repay him?". Dear Reader, you have already paid me by reading this and I am humbled that you have taken time out of your rigorous schedule to click on my humble blog. I am not worthy-but that will become painfully apparent once I start writing....
I take cruises but those are not going to be the subject of my blog-not now at any rate. I write big long Epic cruise reviews of the Princess Cruises I take on Cruisecritic.com and during a recent one a reader asked me about my land travels and I told them that the Cruise forum is not the place for those.
They suggested I write a blog so that they could travel vicariously with me which would save them all the business of flying and checking into hotels and such. I have already done that for them.
They were particularly interested in a trip I made to Germany in August 2013 as I had canceled a cruise because of it. The cruise would have been on the Ruby Princess to the Mediterranean stopping at shanty towns like Istanbul, Venice and Athens (not the one in Georgia).
I don't cancel cruises on a whim. I love them too much. However there is an Opera Festival in Bayreuth, Germany each year in July/August dedicated to the music of Richard Wagner. The theater-which was built by the composer (using other people's money) only holds 1925 people and there are 58,000 tickets sold for the 6 weeks or so that it runs but there are an average of 580,000 ticket requests each year so your name goes on a waiting list and you have to apply each year at a given time. Miss it and you go back to the end of the line. I was there in 1999 for the first time and 2013 would be my return after only 5 years on the wait list. They inform you in late March whether you are one of the lucky ones. Last March I was.
I cannot take any credit for this as I wasn't the one who kept us on the list , year after year. That was the work of Carol, my best friend and TC (Traveling Companion) and on all the travels you will read about and gasp! over during the next 50 years it will take for me to relate them, she will be by my side with her Guide Books. She is known as Guide Book Carol and her soul belongs to Amazon. com and Rick Steves in joint custody. So this is as much her blog as mine.
Here is a photograph of me in my Natural Habitat-a Beergarden in Munich...
This, then, is how most Germans see me...through the glass of a mighty beer Stein.
If you want a big one like this (and you should) then you ask for a Mass.
You'll notice on the table (tisch) in front of me are the things necessary for my survival, including a guide book, some cigarettes and I am wearing a watch which will let me know when it is time for my next beer, which actually is right about NOW!
Suitably refreshed I will get on with my story.....
So we canceled a cruise in the Med in order to go to Germany for the Wagner Festival which happens once a year in Bayreuth, Germany.
We flew there on an airplane (not surprisingly) from Chicago, where we live, to Munich in Bavaria the most scenic part of Germany in my book (not yet published but it's at the printers).
This takes about 9 hours but we traded in Frequent Flyer Miles and bagged Business Class seats which turn into beds if you press the right buttons. They serve good food in Business Class and the wine keeps a flowin'. Sleep comes next and we hurtle Eastwards at 550 mph, blissfully unaware.
Waking up in time for breakfast (hold the wine) one (i.e Norris) looks down upon the mountains and lush green valleys of my favorite place on Earth- Bavaria!! Guten Morgen!
From up here I can see an Autobahn and cars going really fast! Hooray! Hooray for German speed and attentive drivers!
The Pilot, having consumed less wine than I at dinner and having that " I don't want to die today" mantra running through his head, keeps his wits about him, remembers his training at Flight School and he landed the mighty craft with élan and soon we were through Customs and out into the sun in the beautiful "decompression chamber" that is the plaza in front of the Terminal.
Munich (MUC) is an airport we don't rush to get away from because of this courtyard. You know you are in Germany when there is an outdoor Beergarden for the weary traveler. There's a Burger King too if you fancy a taste of the USA. We opt for a couple of double espressos from the little food truck/airplane that you saw in the video. A nice sunny day!
Next stop with our luggage is the Hertz car rental lot to pick up our rental. As a Gold Member of 20 years standing I look for the board with my name on it and in the garage found that they have reserved a big Jaguar for me. Hmmm...it's rather long. Long means lots of room inside but long in Germany has it's drawbacks as some streets are very narrow and there are usually cars parked all along the sidewalks-in fact usually half of the car is on the sidewalk and some of the turns are very acute (as I would find out in Bamberg.)
I usually ask for a BMW 5 series as a preference as I am used to all the controls. I went back into the airport Hertz office to ask for a change but came back empty handed. I loaded the luggage into the cavernous trunk while Carol programmed the Navigation to get us to our hotel in downtown Munich.
I immediately warmed to the car once we were out on the autobahn heading for the city. It had a feature I hadn't experienced before but which is invaluable- a blind spot warning. When a car is close beside you but out of your peripheral vision it shows in your left side mirror-a yellow pictogram of a car lights up. Nice! Also the Navigation was first class-the dashboard was electric and so could change when there was a maneuver coming up....the tachometer would disappear and be replaced with a highlighted route representation with a countdown in meters (we are in Europe now so now more yards and miles). Brilliant!
So driving into the city was a breeze in this car, even if parking in it wasn't. The majority of cars you see in the German cities are small cars, most of them Diesels with stick shifts. This Jaguar XJ was a diesel but was automatic. I drive a stick shift in the USA and sometimes in Europe too. The automatic makes my task easier when I am unfamiliar towns where my focus is on not getting lost. The car also had the "economy" feature where it turns the engine off when you stop at traffic lights and starts it again when you take your foot off the brake (or go into 1st gear if it is a stick shift).
Soon we were driving along the familiar bonny, bonny banks of the River Isar which runs through this beautiful city and turning in to Kohlstrasse to find our hotel, the Admiral. We have stayed there since our first trip back in 2003 when I picked up my new car at the BMW factory. It is small and cosy. It is well situated for walking to the sights. It is a 2 minute walk to the fantastic Deutsches Museum and it has a quiet garden to sit in and take breakfast in. The staff are very friendly and the front desk staff speak English. I save my German (Rosetta Stone) for the kitchen staff who produce the wonderful breakfasts for us.
The Hotel has a garage in the basement which is hideously difficult to park in, unless you have one of those tiny cars or a big car that has a hinge in the middle so it can bend around the concrete pillars and brick walls down there.
I use a garage in the next street. It's a multistory, with about 4 levels and it's actually possible (with power steering and judicious use of all the mirrors on the car) to park a car this long. Once parked I was on foot and intended to stay that way for the rest of the day as Munich is a good walking city and I knew there were some beers in my immediate future.
The most famous landmark downtown is Marienplatz where the Town Hall is. There is a massive square lined with shops and outdoor cafes with hundreds of tables. There may be busking musicians or those remarkable "statue people" who stand still for a living, barely breathing.
The main attraction in the town square though is the huge clock on the Rathaus (Town Hall) and the animated equestrian jousters and dancers, operated by the mechanical genius that finds a home among German craftsmen. There are performances at 11 a.m, 12 noon and 5 p.m each day and they draw a crowd of tourists and locals. Lots of couples out walking the kids in their prams. Every seat filled at the cafes where waiters and waitresses in traditional Bavarian dress hustle food and drinks to your table with German efficiency.
Sunday, August 4th 2013 and I am where I belong...at a table in Marienplatz, Munich. Oh! the clock is about to strike 5 p.m and a crowd has gathered...
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