fairy-tale lubeck's charm and oodles of snow definitely helped cheer me up!
wandered around the 'town of short distances' (completely true), visited a cute natural history museum that seemed to have a thing for whales (COMPLETELY ok by me), the towns numerous lovely churches and cute little streets, and the main square, complete with ice-skating and snow-covered market stalls.
michael and marty picked me up with the van - unfortunately named lupus - and we drove off toward amsterdam! not much to report here, just intense triple j hottest 100 singalongs during a very long drive.
amsterdam was.... amsterdam. i'm afraid that once again i left feeling underwhelmed. probably didn't spend enough time there, but i still feel like the van gogh museum is the only reason i'll go back! although the canals were pretty, and there were swans doing their best to give me the perfect photo! and i am indebted to the netherlands for their classic 'local delicacies' - burger king's twisty fries and delicious hot brownies. soon any money owing between michael and myself began to be calculated in said brownies. i promise they were safe, they were just THAT good.
after amsterdam we drove south towards alsace, stopping at aachen and trier on the way. aachen was all charlemagney and wonderful - a beautiful cathedral and a very impressive town hall! also apparently full of fountain...s (this is why you should read lonely planet guides BEFORE you head into the town, not the day after) we saw the puppet fountain, and one where the water was sucked into a plughole called 'the taxman' while people clutched at money around it.
trier was well roman, so of course i LOVED it. (thanks deej :)) pickles compulsion to climb things took us up the porta nigra (roman city gate) for a great view of the lovely city. we walked the tourist route to a nice town square, where apparently 'could i please have aioli on my chips' means 'CURRY! GIVE ME CURRY! LOTS OF IT!'. so that was interesting.
the amphitheatre was grassy and great, although some of the caverns smelled a little worrying. i got very excited pretending we were roman while michael, of course, judged the hell out of me. yay.
kept driving with the gps set for 'bitche' - no we're not immature, manny told us to go! and pa, it turns out qi is USEFUL, not smutty. bitche had an amazing citadel atop a hill in the middle of its lovely little town, which wasn't open but was still awesome to walk around. also had some very entertaining inappropriate scultpures, featuring ladies’ behinds, but perhaps i shouldn't discuss that...
Drove towards lembach, in order to see some castles on our way down south. Turned off to a magnificent ruined, the name of which i can't remember for the life of me (started with w? i think? i'm sure i took a photo...) anyway it was perched on top of some rugged rock on a hill amidst beautiful woodland. I got freaked out by the steep steps and the falls on either side of the outcrop, but Michael got some beautiful views from up the top. any mr pullman fans out there, i could picture count otto or little adelaide storming down the steps with the adler any second, it was awesome :)
thennnnn we had issues cos self-serve petrol stations wouldn't take our cards! being a sunday, nowhere else was open. Found nice French fam – the father didn’t speak English but his ‘woman’ did, put petrol in our car on their card and we gave them cash. Michael decided to test out the fwd capabilities of our van, taking us off on a farm road that ‘will totally meet up with the main road.’ It didn’t. went looking for a castle, couldn’t find it, but the scenery was beautiful, snowy trees yay! we got lost on purpose,as long as the gps still knew we were on a road we figured it could get us back. snow, snow everywhere!
next castle was Chat. de. Haut Barr. Once again some steps for what I’m sure would have been some beautiful views, if everything hadn’t been white with mist and snow. Fairytale magic. Kept driving through the forest, gorgeous trees covered in snow, saw a HUGE deer (thankfully did not hit it). Found a camping place near shirmeck – a municipal camping ground that was closed but kept its aire open for free all year round. it snowed again during the night, in the morning huge flakes were floating down, but it never got in the way of our driving, just enhanced our photos!
we drove on pretty scenic roads, often the Route de Vin, although mostly quite by accident, to Haut-Koenigsburg, a huge fully restored castle. Drove along route de vin – beautiful vines in the snow! Often vines right in the middle of town. Couldn’t find eguesheim, sorry dad. Went to riquewhir but it was undergoing major roadwork so right on to Colmar. I was hoping to have a traditional Alsatian meal but everywhere was shut, so we walked around town til they opened. M not very impressed by ‘little venice’ with its very shallow canals and sinkingboats. kept looking for somewhere to eat that WASN'T in the michelin guide, couldn't manage it so splurged on an excellent meal with even better wine. Michael ate a huge chunk of meat while i ordered the only thing on the menu WITHOUT meat - it still came with prosciutto. that's pretty much vegetarian over here, i think.
the snow cleared up and we had perfect blue skies for the neckar valley - beautiful shimmering river and cute towns. Burg Hornberg was a good contrast to H. Koenigsburg - left in its ruined state. I made a cat friend at schoental kloster, where everything was unfortunately shut (but we did peek in the church!). then it was on to the romantic road! we stayed overnight at the parkplatz in rothenburg ob de tauber - it was the first place we would have had to pay for but the machine was broken - oh dear.
So, the Romantic Road. we walked the walls at Rothenburg, enjoyed the beautiful burggarten and its views of the tauber. Cute little towns with 'historisches altstadt's to admire every way we looked. Stopped at Nordlingen for the night, another walled town, where we decided to splurge and stay in a guest house - we needed showers BAD. Gasthof zum Storchen was lovely - pretty, clean, friendly service.... and terry towelling bedding. that part was not so comfortable. a completely bizarre choice i don't think i'll ever be able to get behind!!
Continued along the romantic road. It was amazing to see the Bavarian Alps slowly become clearer and clearer, after rising so suddenly from the land before them. Stayed in a snowy Peiting, eating at a guest house. Spatzle, I cannot stay away! The next day we tried to follow a Bavarian band along the streets but unfortunately they disappeared into a hall, with apparently the whole town behind them! Instead found a gorgeous high baroque church in Rottenbuch - an old abbey church that remains the parish church to this day. Next it was off to the big sights - the Wieskirch, which was beautiful but oh-so-busy, with literally busloads of tourist constantly flooding through - Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau, the castles of the Mad King Ludwig!
Anyway i'm in a maccas in poland, near the Tatras mountains, and its snowing like crazy. should probably try and find somewhere to sleep. Will continue this update asap, and hopefully be able to add photos when my computer stops being such a n00b!
for people who can't be bothered reading the whole thing (and i can't blame you) or looking at ALL my photos (again, i sympathise) i'll just be posting the photo highlights on here!
love love love you all and miss everyone loads!
xx
