Bacharach

My hostel..the castle!!!

I had an amazing time in Bacharach...what a great place!

It is a really small town on the Rhine River between Mainz and Kiblenz. Very medieval looking, very picturesque...walking down the cobblestone streets was like taking a trip back in time.
I stayed in a hostel that is actually a renovated castle called Burg Castle...my directions from the train station being: Get off train, turn right at the church, look up, start climbing.

Hiking up to my hostel castle!

View from the top!

My dorm room.

Climb I did...about 20 minutes straight up with a 45lb backpack. Now THAT was a workout! I earned my dinner but it was well worth it!

The next day didn't go exactly as planned, but turned out to be a really great day.

I planned to go on a Rhine cruise then to St. Goar and check out Rheinfels Castle there, only to learn that the castle is shut down to the public until Saturday. I was very disappointed but decided to hop a train and go to St. Goar anyway to at least take a look at the outside  in hopes that a brilliant plan on what to do instead would come to me.
At the train station I ran into some american tourists who said that they went to Marksborg castle yesterday and it was really good...the only problem was that it was on the opposite side of the river and I had no idea how to get there (they had driven so had no idea either).

My new goal: Get to the other side of the river.

When I  got to St Goar I came upon a beer stein shop a bought a really cool one...not a cheap tourist souvenir, one but a real one. I was so excited and then as I was walking along the pier back to the train station I noticed some tourists standing near one of the docks waiting. I waited nearby hoping a boat would come by and not 5 minutes later a ferry pulled up. I haphazardly jumped on ...not knowing it's destination or even if I was supposed to be on it....Turns out I enjoyed beautiful 2.5 hour Rhine cruise on the top deck while I took pictures of castles and suntanned! Then when it pulled into a small town I hoped off. Better yet, no one ever asked me for money or to see a ticket!  So yeah for me! Free cruise! I think I was a castaway as all the other tourists, about 50 of them, seemed to be familiar with each other..oh well, no one questioned my presence there.

Now my new first order was to find out where I was...turns out there is no way to ask someone that without looking like an idiot.  I was told I am now in the town of Rudeshein......where is that you ask?! Well, it's on the other side of the river!!!
My excitement of being on the right side to visit Marksborg Castle was only momentarily clouded by thoughts of how to get back over to the other side at the end of the day...oh, well.....Castle first, worry about that later.

The castle was super cool and was a good 30 minute hike up from a town called Braubach. I am just burning up the calories these last 2 days!
I showed up just in time for the last guided tour of the day. It was only in German but a nice fellow tourist was nice enough to translate into English for me!

View from Marksborg Castle.

I hoped back on the train at the end of the tour and the nice train ticket checker gave me directions back to Bacharach. It turns out there is a train bridge up ahead in a town called Koblenz and then a train change there. I even managed to find a ticket counter in Koblenz in between my trains and pre-book my Munich trip today.

I was just tripping over horseshoes all day!

Well, I just arrived in Munich and now much find food! I'm starving. Tomorrow I plan to go to the Dachau concentration camp.

Berlin Day 2

Today I went to the Jewish museum, it was really good. The architecture was amazing!

I also went to checkpoint Charlie museum which was my favourite of the two. I wish I had left myself an extra day in Berlin, there are a few things I wanted to see that I ran out of time for today. I didn't factor in the amount of time it would take me to figure out where I'm going next, find a hostel, call and make a reservation and go  to the train station to book a seat on the train...I didn't get out of the train station until  14:30 today so that took up a lot of my day. Good thing the museums are open until 10pm on Mondays!

I have decided my next stop will be Bacharach, Germany on the Rhine river. I have booked a room in a hostel which is actually a castle! It is called Burg Stalech Castle and was renovated into a hostel a few years ago. I want to take a Rhine River cruise when I am there and check out a couple other castles along the river over the next couple days.


RANDOM OBSERVATIONS ABOUT EUROPE SO FAR!

• They don't have door knobs here, not even in people's houses...only industrial looking handles.
• Driver's DO NOT yield to pedestrians.
• Germans are bad dressers! In fact, I should take some fashion faux pas photos and sub,it them to cosmo! Very punk with baggy army clothes, pink hair, chains and mohawks everywhere! 80's hair too!
• Driver's are polite on highways...they drive in the right except to pass then right back over.
• Diet coke is called Coke Light.
• Everyone has a basket on their bicycle and no one seems ashamed on it!
• In Demark, it is standard practice to leave your baby outside in a stroller while you are shopping, eating in a restaurant or at a wedding, dinner party etc... they just bundle them up from the cold ad leave a baby monitor by their heads!
• Germany MacDonald's' have a McKraut burger and a crispy Hawaiian burger. The McFlurries are more expensive for a cup 1/2 the size.

Berlin

Well, here I am in Berlin!

It is 8 hours ahead here. The 8 of us went our separate ways. Greg F, Greg T and Ross went to Amsterdam to do drugs and pick up chicks; Jeff flew toWinnipeg; John went to Dublin and spent his birthday and St. Patrick's day day ion a pub; Sue and Guy went to Greece for their honeymoon and Kristin and Alex flew to London to visit family.
As for me, I hopped a train to Berlin.

I am staying in a really nice hostel in what used to be East Berlin. I got in yesterday evening on a high speed Eurorail train from Hamburg.

My hostel room!

The city is very easy to get around in, they have an excellent underground subway, above ground subway and bus system. I managed to navigate a Eurorail change as well as an underground change to my hostel with relative ease.

There are restaurants and take-out food stands everywhere and with so much competition between them you can eat a very good meal for 3-4 euros...lots of great food!

Berlin is fascinating! I wish I could have been here 15 years ago before the wall came down, or even 5 years ago for that matter! The rate for restoration, renovation and the buildings going up is unbelievable! I would imagine the debt run up is enormous.

You can look at pictures of what the street looked like, even a few years ago and they are unrecognisable.

I can walk around the corner from my hostel and since they are just beginning to restore the buildings here you can fine many examples of beautiful looking building right  next to buildings with bullet holes and bomb damage from WW2...a really fascinating contrast that won't be around for long.

Restored building on the right, WW2 damaged building on the left.

I went on walking tour of Berlin today. I had a great time! The guide grew up in London and went to work for the British embassy in Berlin in the 1950's...he has spent most of his life in Berlin and has seen all the changes first hand. He was a walking history book and told great stories about his life in Berlin over the last 60 years.

Remains of the Berlin wall...people pick away the cement...it's down to the re-bar!

Tomorrow I am going to checkout checkpoint Charlie, the Jewish museum and climb the tower at the parliament building.

I should probably figure out where I want to travel to next and try to book a hostel. I think I will head for the Rhine river...perhaps Bacharach or Heidelberg..Stay tuned!

Denmark

Sorry I haven't written yet since I've been in Europe but there was no internet access in the small town I spent my first week in in Denmark.

The plane ride was loooong but we had a good time on the plane...crappy movie though (Never see the Truth about Charlie...Worst. Movie.Ever.) They lost some of our luggage on the plane connection in Frankfurt but they sent it to the place we were staying the next day. It was a long 20 hours of travelling but we made it in one piece.

We stayed in a huge house outside of a little town called ...Middlefart, yes, you read that correctly! I've noticed many German and Danish words sound dirty...for example Meitwagon...hah!

Denmark is very nice, it was similar in climate to Vancouver...rainy and foggy. We did get 3 beautiful days at the end though. It is the start of spring here, the grass is turning green, the hedges, vines, perennials and bulbs are blooming and budding leaves and the temperature has been between 5-10C. It's been raining half the time but a nice change from the snow!

Our house has 6 double rooms, a pool, hot tub, sauna, lounge, kitchen and sun garden. It was right on the shore of the ocean and incredible! Everyone speaks fluent English here so it is easy to get around.

We spent a day in Arhous, where there is an old town form the 1600's that has been restored onto an open air museum (kind of a really old heritage park)  It was fun but a bit chaotic with 8 people.
The next day me, Greg F, Greg T, and Ross separated form the group and went to see Fredricksborg castle, which is amazing, and then to Copenhagen.

Copenhagen is a great city, we somehow managed to show up 5 minutes before the changing of the guard at the kings palace so that was neat to see...Ross made one guard laugh which was hilarious.I can't believe how well people are dressed here! Everyone dressed like they are going to a job interview at all times, I felt like a slob.

The wedding was great and it went off without a hitch. Sue looked great, the church was 900 years old and very romantic, the dinner was unbelievable and we danced until 2am.....what more can you ask for?!

On Friday Sue's friend Lour held a huge house party for us in her apartment in Odense. From what I remember it was fun...the last thing I remember clearly is bonging beer (it's kind of head to refuse with 30 Danish people chanting your name)...but seriously though, I am never drinking again. I've said that before, I know, but I really felt like crap the next day!

Next we drive back into Hamburg and I say goodbye to the wedding crew to hop a train to Berlin!