Touring Bavaria with the Family

I must say I have calmed down considerably after another awful round of European weather-induced traffic nightmares. Our flight from Munich to Berlin was canceled yesterday at the last minute because there was too much ice or something in Berlin. Are you kidding me? It's the 21st century! Why haven't we figured out how to deal with this kind of challenge by now? It's not like ice and snow don't happen every year.

Sorry for the rant; but, after being stuck in a car for 12 hours last week, having our train delayed by an hour on Saturday, and then having the entire Berlin airport shut down indefinitely on Monday when I had to fly to Munich, I have a lot of pent up frustration with travel at the moment.

With that said, here are a few more jolly updates on this Christmas Day. Until today, I’ve been relatively internet-less as I spent a bit of time in Munich with my family. It's been very exciting to have my family come visit me in Germany, since outside of my dad, they’ve never visited Germany before.

We split our trip between Munich and Berlin, and after finally taking an overnight train from Munich to Berlin, we’ve finished the Munich leg of our trip. During our few days in Munich, we had a great time exploring some of Bavaria’s highlights.

After my delayed arrival from Berlin on Monday, we simply walked around and visited the main Christmas market at Marienplatz. We took lots of pictures, and my family got to try German bratwursts for the first time. Glad they liked them!

On Tuesday, we slept in, and when we awoke, we took a train to Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Center. I had only visited Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp near Berlin twice before in 2007 and 2008, so it was a good experience to see another concentration camp (as odd as that sounds).

In contrast to Sachsenhausen, Dachau Memorial Center seems to be financed much better due to its state-of-the-art visitor center and well-kept museum on the camp grounds. The museum gave its visitors a broad background of the Nazi’s rise in Germany and the atrocities that took place at Dachau as well as at concentration camps across Europe during the 1930s and 1940s. Overall, I’m glad we had the chance to visit Dachau.

The next day, we woke up early to go on a tour to the most famous royal castles of Bavaria—Linderhof and Neuschwanstein. I had actually done the same tour in the summer of 2007, but with my family in town, I figured it would be a great idea to go back on the tour, especially with a snowy winter.

Turns out, the idea was a more of a romantic one as the castles themselves were a little bit more restricted in the winter than in the summer. At Linderhof, where I had previously taken pictures of a huge gold fountain and walked around gardens with flowers and statues on every corner, the statues were all boarded up and the fountains off with snow covering the entire area. There was even a wooden board across the top of the castle façade.

We were able to tour the inside though, and I was very happy to walk around with my family as I’ve always only been able to tell them about my trips and show them a few pictures or postcards. This time, they could actually experience it too.

After taking a few more pictures outside (since we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside), we headed back on the bus to head to Oberamergau, which is a small Bavarian village that is famous for the Passion Play, a play that takes place every 10 years. It just so happens that it played this year, ending on October 3. One of my fellow Fulbrighters from Marburg actually went to it this year and mentioned that he was probably the youngest person among all the elderly folks who showed up.

We bought a number of gifts there, and we had fun checking out other souvenirs from Bavaria.

After that, we went back on the bus for our last stop at Neuschwanstein. Last time I was there in 2007, we were able to go up to the Marienbrücke, which offers the best view of the castle. However, with all the snow, both the buses that run up to the bridge and the bridge itself were off limits. As such, we simply had to take the 35-minute walk up the hill and into the castle for our tour.

Even without the great views from the Marienbrücke, we were still able to take some great pictures and visit the castle on a tour. Unfortunately, they had our entire tour group of 72 people tour the castle today, which made hearing the tour guide quite difficult. Even so, we had a great time exploring the corners of the castle and taking pictures of the Bavarian landscape where we could (as again, we could not take pictures inside).

After yesterday’s daylong adventure, we took it a bit easier today. We slept in and then took our time getting to the castle of Nymphenburg in Munich, which I had never been to before. It was quite nice though, and we were able to take lots of good pictures. There a number of swans, geese, and other birds on the ponds outside the palace, and we took our time strolling across the gardens.

Once we finished there, we headed back toward the city to take pictures around Marienplatz. We stopped by the Church of St. Michael, which was aptly decorated in the Christmas spirit.

My old friend from high school, Kevin, was also in town with his girlfriend and her family, so we met up briefly for a beer while my sisters went shopping. Very nice to see more familiar faces in Germany.

After that, I met up with my family again, and we headed to dinner at the world-famous Hofbräuhaus, which boasts the largest beer hall on Earth. I was quite worried about possibly not getting a table, since it’s usually completely full. But we managed to find a huge table that was wide open by the door, so we sat down and ordered food soon after. I think the waitress was especially nice ‘cause we spoke in German to her.

We enjoyed both dark and light traditional Hofbräuhaus beer and a range of German delicacies (I’ll only write the German names here, as I can’t exactly translate all of them)—Schweinsbraten, Hendl, Würstplätl, and Wienerschnitzel. Outside of the potato dumplings, I’m glad that my family liked everything. We had a good time listening to the live band too and enjoying the delicious Bavarian beer.

Yesterday morning, we walked around Munich to take a few more pictures around Marienplatz, Odeonsplatz, and the Hofgarten. We also climbed St. Peter's Church for a better view of the city. We headed to the airport after that, but since the flight was canceled after a few hours, we had to wait in line for two hours just to figure out the next step. Our options: wait to fly out at 3:50 PM today or get train vouchers for a train yesterday or today. We found an overnight train that required a reservation, but according to the service center, we could ask the conductor if we could get on. Luckily, it worked, and we were able to make it to Berlin finally around 9 AM this morning.

Today was Christmas, and we did not arrive until 9 AM after the 12-hour overnight train. We're traveling pros now.

Since we were pretty tired though, we just spent the day at my apartment. I made Thai Chili Chicken, Butter Chicken Curry, Tom Yum Soup, and a vegetable dish for my family. It was like everything I've learned to cook in Germany combined into one huge meal. I even made chocolate mousse for dessert. Good stuff. It was nice to cook with my mom.

Tomorrow, I'll show my family around Berlin and then spend some time at the Pergamon Museum. We have plans to meet with some friends for coffee and German snacks in the afternoon. Then at night, I'll be meeting up with a friend from Dream Project, which will be exciting. Looking forward to another day in Germany with the family! After all that ridiculous travel mess, I'm glad to be back for a few days at least. :)

Until next time,

Sam