Germany is a land known for castles. But I have not really been to any of them. As you can see I am not really into this castle and palace stuff. However many people have told me Neuschwanstein was different. So I decided what the heck, lets visit it!

The touring party this time comprised of only the people I knew well – Renu and Ginu both relatively new comers and Ann the veteran who had come all the way from Hildesheim to meet us. We decided to take the first connection from Stuttgart and that meant we had to cut our Sunday sleep again. Anyway Neuschwanstein was not too far away, changing 4 trains to reach Fuessen and taking a bus from there we reached the village of Hohenschwangau. From there it was either a walk, by bus or by horse carriage. We took the most modern transport of them all and not surprisingly the fastest and more importantly the less tiring ;)

The first view of the castle itself told me that this was different. They don’t really allow self explorations inside the castle so we had to take the guided tour for 7 euros. To be honest it was totally not worth it. You get to see some 4 or 5 rooms inside. Ok, they are exquisite and looks good, but you don’t get to spend too much time there to really appreciate it all. We came out and the skies which were a bit cloudy and foggy started clearing. We walked towards the Marienbrucke which was just 5 minutes away. The view of the castle from there was breathtaking and the Gods were kind to us to give us some very clear weather. This is something you should not miss. I kind of got the picture why this was nominated as a candidate for the new seven wonders of the world (it didn’t make it btw).

The king who built this (Ludwig II) was described as a mad eccentric king. Hmm.. I don’t know about that, but sure this guy had a great artistic mind and a vision. This was definitely *the* place to build a castle. Most of the beauty of the castle lies in its location. Really a fairy tale castle. Classic! It is a pity that he was killed before the castle was completed (which never happened). He had the power to turn his dreams into reality but never lived to see it done. Hope I had that much vision (yeah and off course the money) to build something like that… Yeah I know, dream on Anoop, all you are going to build is some computer program ;)

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Getting there:
From Stuttgart/Munich take the train to Fuessen. It takes around 4 hours from Stuttgart. From Fuessen take Bus #78 to Hohenschwangau. Buy the tickets from there for the guided tour which I don’t recommend. You can walk upto the castle in probably 30-40 minutes. A mini bus (2 euros) takes you up in 10 minutes and there is an interesting horse carriage ride too which we took while coming downhill. It was not too bad.

I had gone for a trip to Bonn last weekend with Ginu and Sandeep to meet the latter’s cousin. The main purpose was not to see the city, but anyway we roamed around the place – the old capital of West Germany. It was a bit surprising, the city was too small to be a capital of any country! But small does not ever mean bad. It is a pretty little city by the river Rhine and the ‘Friezeit Park’ was quite nice.

After the initial roaming Sandeep’s cousin, Soumya chechi agreed with us to make chicken, even though she didn’t know heads and tails of how to make it. So I decided to take the lead. Yeah, it was an risky experiment with just 3 months of cooking experience but I decided to give it a try. With all the resources obtained we started out joined by Saumya chechi’s brazilian roommate Maria. She said she will make us a nice Brazilian Omlette while I tried my luck with the chicken. It wasn’t the best of conditions, but anyways it did turn out good., atleast better than what I expected ;) and I even got a compliment in Brazilian Portuguese for my cooking.. who would have thought!!

The recipe is simple – (ok, most of this is copyrighted by Mathew who is the total inspiration behind my cooking): Take chicken, marinate it with curd and masala (any variety you could get) for a while. Grill the chicken for about 20 minutes. After that fry some onions till golden brown, add some tomatoes, salt, pepper, chilli powder, masal till cooked. Then add the grilled chicken and cook for about 15 minutes. There you have it, the delicious Chicken Bonn is ready! Serve Hot!! :D

Sunday we bid goodbye to our excellent hostesses and headed towards Koeln (Cologne). This was my second visit there and since it was mostly unplanned we had the option of just walking around. It was really good. This city is truly nice. I had always thought of coming to Cologne again and exploring it properly, but even this time we didnt have the time to do it. So by afternoon, we took the train back to Stuttgart. A nice short inexpensive trip and fun too, thanks to the Chicken Bonn!

Finally I got a chance to take on the autobahns of Germany. And it was a lot of fun! With a bit of coaxing Mathewji, finally agreed to trust me on my driving and we set off in a rented Toyota Avensis. It didn’t start off too well, with me being not very comfortable with driving on the “wrong side” and with the might and size of the 178 bhp Avensis compared to my poor old Maruthi 800 that I became too used to in India. But it all took just a little bit of time to get used to. Once I was in the autobahn, it all came back to me… I touched my personal land speed record of 120kmph in less than 60 seconds and rewrote history to go up to 218kmph. That is a number that I am not going to forget for quite a long time.. woohoo! :)

Our first destination was a place called Obersalzberg. We intended to go to a place called Eagle’s Nest up the mountains, but unfortunately too much snowfall meant that we couldn’t go. We headed towards the next place in the list Berchtesgaden. The main attraction was a visit to a salt mine that was constructed in 1518 and still in operation. We had to wait for 3 hours to get in, but it was well worth it. We had a great time going deep underground and seeing how stuff works inside. It was excellent with a roller coaster like ride down a shaft and a lake inside (yes an underground lake!) complete with a boat ride through it! It was so much fun.

By evening we headed towards Salzburg and crossed over into Austria. We had some trouble finding the hotel we were staying in despite excellent help from our navigation system. Anyway once we were there we decided to explore the city in the night. It was truly an enchanting place. No wonder it produced a musician like Mozart. Very peaceful and serene and well preserved too. Next morning again we had bad news. The famous ice caves were also closed because of the snow. So we decided to spend the morning in the Hohensalzburg, the castle overlooking the city. It was nice, and had excellent views of the city from above. There was also a nice Museum inside.

By afternoon since we had nothing else to do, we decided to do some road not taken trips. We drove to a place called Kaprun. The drive was excellent through small beautiful country roads of Austria. But even there we were unlucky as the treks were closed due to avalanche. Sigh! Spirits were a bit dampened, but we anyways headed back to Plochingen, and I also got a chance to drive in the city. It almost ended up in a disaster with me not judging a kerb properly, but luckily nothing happened except that my confidence was dented a little bit. Kind of like god’s way of saying – don’t get too comfortable son, you are driving in Germany! hehe.

All in all I did enjoy the trip a lot despite not being able to visit all the places. For me it was the journey that was important, not the destination.. I got to drive!! :)

This time the trip was to Venice – the queen of the Adriatic, a romantic city of canals, gondolas and paper-masks.

We took a bus from Stuttgart on Friday evening and reached there Saturday morning. After a bit of freshening up at the Tronchetto car park where the bus ends, we headed towards Murano – famous for its glass factories. There we were treated to a wonderful demonstration in glass blowing. The “glass-master” showed us his incredible skills in making a wonderful sculpture of a horse, in a matter of minutes. We then visited a number of glass article showrooms with great displays of art in glass. Though tempted to buy despite the high prices, we were prudent enough not to, just for one simple reason – glass breaks! :)

Our next destination was Burano, another island just a 30 minute boat ride away. It was a nice quiet place with a lot of shopping alleys selling among other things, the famous Venetian masks. I did grab one, had to go for a small one that wasn’t too heavy on the pockets. After loosing our way a little, we managed to get back to the boat stop and headed towards Lido, a beach on the coast of the Adriatic sea. It was crowded but the beach was nice and relaxing. We had a taste of authentic Italian pizza there, which tasted pretty much like any other pizza I have had, so I have doubts about the “authenticity”!

Next stop was St. Marco square – the most recognizable part of Venice. We had the most fun there. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of pigeons there. It was a lot of thrill feeding the pigeons. Put some corn on your hand and there they would come neatly picking off every single piece. The most well behaved pigeons I have ever seen! One even perched on my shoulder and posed long enough for the perfect photo :). We then roamed around the narrow alleys of Venice dotted with small shops, fantastic old buildings, churches and off course the canals. The gondolas – the Venitian boats – were tempting too, but this time the exorbitant prices and lack of time forced us not to take a ride. They looked really grand though. Maybe sometime later…

It is amazing how a modern city can still work without cars or trucks. Everything runs on boats – ambulances, government authorities, police, local transport… I have always wondered how they could do this practically, but during the time I was there, there was never a place that wasn’t accessible by boat or by a short walk! Spectacular!

By evening we head back to Tronchetto (which is Europe’s largest car park by the way), time to leave. After a comfortable ride, reached back Stuttgart on Sunday morning. It was a nice trip and well worth loosing sleep for 2 nights in a row! :)

And to all my Keralite readers – Happy Onam!

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Rheinfalls is a small attraction in Switzerland just a stone’s throw across the border from Germany (literally). We could travel there by train taking just the Baden-Württemberg state ticket and the journey took just two and a half hours from Plochingen. My first time out of Germany also meant it was the first time I had to take my passport out after the airport checks. But all was smooth and took just 5 minutes of our time before the policemen waved us through at the Schaffhausen railway station. We had to take a bus from there and I was instantly proud of my German as I successfully asked the driver to get us a group ticket. He didn’t even ask me back anything and I didn’t have to say twice. Good! I have improved a lot ;)

The bus was interesting, it ran on overhead electric lines but not on rails, my friends say it is common everywhere, but this was the first time I saw one, so found it curious. Anyway after a short ride we got down at Rheinfalls and a short 10 minute walk later we reached the place where the Rhein ‘falls’. It was good. It wasn’t big, but it was good. After a few uninteresting photo sessions we decided to take a boat ride. Boy.. This was good! We went close to the falls and I suddenly realized the falls weren’t as small as I thought initially. We could feel the whole power of the water thundering down. It was a very different experience.

Coming back, we found an Indian dhaba-wallah! Can you believe it? In Switzerland! Had some pav-bhaji and a nice masala tea. It did drain some Euros (Swiss Francs rather) unlike the dhaba wallahs back in India. The food was good, at least was glad to have some proper Indian food after a while. It was run by a Rajasthani guy who seemed to think Bangalore was a city in Kerala. So typical! ;) That proves he has been out of the country for a long long time as confirmed by him later. Anyways after restoring Bangalore to it’s rightful state we said our Namasthes and headed back to the train.

That was it actually. Not much to see, but what was there was good. Anyway this August 12th was a special day for me. It is not every year that you can celebrate your birthday in two countries ;)