CROATIA
On the train from Budapest to Zagreb: We ended up getting kicked out of the first six person car we sat in as, despite being told by two train employees that nobody needs reservations for this train, a large group of teens came on and said they'd reserved the only 1st class cars on the train. Luckily we found another car further down the train with seats and managed to only moderately disappoint the three young men sitting in the car, all spread out, when we asked if we could join them. We passed a lovely large lake and I read a lot of my book. Roger did some champion napping, especially after our fellow travelers departed. (They said "hello" as a goodbye.) Daytime train times are fun and relaxing.
We did have our first run in with serious border customs. On other trains, usually night trains, we've had our passports checked on our way to bed or the steward has taken them for checking while we've been asleep. On the Slovenia/ Croatia border police and customs officials swarmed onto the train and slowly made their way through every compartment. three separate people came by and looked at our passports. The third person, a lady customs agent also sternly asked us several questions. "Anything to declare? Any food/ alcohol/ goods bought in other European countries?" "No." "No gifts?" "Oh, well, postcards, a shirt, um some earrings..." Gold?" "No, no cheap ones." At this she smiled and moved to the next car.
In Zagreb we got off the train around 7:40pm and went to inquire about means of getting to Plitvice National Park. Only bus, no train, so we purchased our night train to Munich for the third (two days later) and made the trek to the bus station about 15 minutes away. There is an amazing wall of street art lining the way between stations. I went back to photograph it when we returned to Zagreb on Sunday. We purchased bus tickets for 5:45am the next day and began wandering to find a place to stay. This initially proved more difficult than other cities. We couldn't find anywhere right near the station (though later we discovered one block over were five or six accommodations.) When we found a hotel with an open sign we went in (despite the ominously flickering nature of its brown sign). The man who was working the desk was watching a football game when we came in. Slowly he rose and walked through the smoky room to the check in desk. We asked if we could get a room for the night. He surveyed us- looking us from head to tow, giant backpacks, ukulele, big coats- said something in Croatian, and then shook his head at us with a grave, "No." "No." while standing in front of a wall of room keys. We didn't want a room in your smokey hotel, anyway, judgey Mac judgerson. (We did, we did actually, but we pretended like it was a mutual break-up.)
After twenty more minutes of wandering with backpacks that weigh a bit more than the backpacks I carried in high school and while teaching we found our way to ______ hotel. 550 croatian for a night.
A note about money in different countries: We have been in several countries where the currency is not the Euro. At the beginning of our trip I converted our budget from dollars to Euros/day and pounds sterling/day. From there it has been a good math exercise to do the mental conversions in each country to know the approximate amounts we're spending for, say, a sandwich.
In the Czech Republic we divided by 300 (I loved the decimal and divided by 3) to get the the Euro equivalent. In Hungary it was divide by 100 multiply by 3.5. In Croatia it was divide by 7.
Great mental math. Real world conversion math problems: how much will a BMW cost you if you buy it in the US or Germany? Are the prices equivalent in value?
As we were checking in the lady warned us that there would be no mirror in our room and asked if that was okay - they'd been doing renovations. We weren't worried about it and, after surrendering our passports briefly for her check in paperwork we went up to our room.
Note on passports: In general, my passport resides in a thin beige waist pouch, like my timy marsupial ticket in and out of countries. I had to get used to writing my passport number in check in books -- I feel like the messaging around passports to U.S. citizens is keep it secret, keep it safe. On night trains they often take the passport until the morning. Customs officials might take it for a bit on the train and jam it into their shoulderbag computer. The hotel check in -- come back in a while or when you check out -- was the strangest and the option to leave it @for a while@ out of sight only, I think, happened at hotels in Croatia.
When we got to our room we found out the lady had not meant @no mirror@, there were two, but no curtains on the window. Welcome to the show, Zagreb. If you're up at 4:45am it might be an interesting morning.
Walk to the train station and onto a bus bound for Plitvice National Park. In Zagreb there'd been no snow to speak up. An hour into the bus ride there was a good foot or so on the fields next to the road. After a 20 minute stop (For bathroom use, maybe? we stayed on the bus) we settled in for another haul only to find ourselves being told to disembark along with one other youth about fifteen minutes later (around 7:30am). We got out at the end of what looked like a driveway with seven foot plow piles on either side. We started down the drive/ road. Is there a town nearby in walking distance? There were two hotels quite near the road. We debated for a moment and decided to check into one of them, just in case the town was too far away. We later discovered we'd made a good decision as the other fork of the road led into the national park, not a village.
We were given the option to look at two rooms: one economy and one luxury room at the Plitvice Hotel. The luxury room had an anteroom with a half bathroom, a couch, a tub (uncommon in our European experience) and other roomy items. The economy was a regular hotel room. Seeing as we weren't expecting to host any foreign dignities we went with the less expensive option.
The front desk lady was quite friendly and, after I had to make a call to my credit card to clear up a fee, offered to speak to her manager about a discount on the call (hotel fees are redonk. There was no pay phone anywhere nearly, however). We took a several hour walk through the park.
It was beautiful and snowy. Most of the paths had several feet of snow on them -- the more popular ones were mostly pre-packed by previous visitors. While not as blue as advertised (Courtney and David) the lakes and the craggy mountains were stunning in the winter sunshine. We were able to glimpse a bit of the clarity and blueness near some of the waterfalls in the park. It was the perfect temperature for hiking - cold but sunny and with a lot of walking you'd warm yourself up enough to not need the extra extra layer.
We got back to the hotel around 2:00 starving. We'd only really had some nuts, part of a chocolate bar, and some Coke around 6:00. We decided to check out the advertised restaurant next door. When we entered we found a giant room full of people eating off of what looked like the tail end of a fancy buffet. About 80% of the people were staring at us. About 100% of the people looked like they worked in the service industry. It took us several minutes of wandering around, surveying menus to decide we couldn't get any food there and went to the restaurant in the bottom of our on hotel.
We arrived as the only couple in a giant carpeted ballroom filled with tables. Our waitress reminded me of Amanda's mom. We had Croatian beer (delicious), cucumber salad (giant pile of cucumbers.), some sort of Croatian soup that was like a hearty chicken soup with variable bits of pig (maybe?) in it (I believe the name started with an L), grilled squid with potent garlic sauce and I had a pork fillet wrapped around sausage, egg, peppers. Dessert was apple strudel and ice cream -- the strawberry ice cream tasted like the amoxicillan medicine I used to get as a child.
A nap, some Croatian TV about traditional garb for festivals and how it was made (awesome). Seeing as we were a captive audience we went and had dinner (alone) in the same restaurant. Shrimp pasta and mushroom pork. Bed!!
In the morning we decided to catch an earlier bus back to Zagreb -- we'd booked a 5:00 pm which would get us in just before our train to Munich. I spent the time reading Sarah's book, The Sleeper, The Dreamer. Entertaining bus fare to say the least.
In Zagreb I did some photography of the street art wall and we went on a walk about. Moving out of the city center a bit we found some lovely streets and a (mostly) walking area with many bars and restaurants open. Fact about Zagreb: regular shops are NOT open on Sunday. At all. But you can get delicious street funnel cake balls, beer, and internet cafes are open.
We picked up our things from Friday night's hotel and made our way to the train station for some reading before our train.
On the train we found we were bunking with an elderly lady and a young man. The lady got herself switched into another compartment (too smelly? too giant of bags?) and we fell into conversation with who would soon become our new friend Srdan (@Sir-John@). He is from Croatia but works as an architect in Munich. We stood and reclined (I reclined on my top bunk) for the first few hours of our journey discussing travel, stereotypes and preconceptions of people about other people etc. He told us a story about the most stereotypically American thing he'd ever seen: A man in a cowboy hat walked out of the Louvre in Paris and proclaimed, @We got that under our belt.@ while making accompanying belt-hitching gestures.
In the morning we exchanged information, with plans to meet up for dinner sometime during our Munich stay.
MUNICH, GERMANY
6:45am arrival = bleary and somewhat tired. We hung around until 7:00 to get our tickets to Copenhagen and then stowed our things in a locker before heading out into Munich. We spent the first couple of hours wandering about the streets, the center and large swathes of the park. Also quite pretty and full of snow. Surprisingly sunny. Very cold.
While attempting to take some good wildlife photos of tufty-earred red and black squirrels we wrote a bit of a song:
(To the tune of Turning Japanese)
I think I'm Squirreling 'round some trees (x3) I really think so.
I think I'm Squrreling (x4) round some trees.
I see you wan tah/take my picture,
But I'm squrreling just to confuse you
Yes I'm squrreling/so you can't see me
squrreling just as fast as poo
Squirrely, squirrely, squirrely, squirrely, squirrely, squirrely, squirrely, squirrely
where are you?
Squirrely (etc)
you're fast as poo
More snowyland wandering and then time for a coffee shop and a delightful morning of reading S.S.'s Dex Frorunner novel while drinking many lattes and having a homemade yogurt from a jar covered with an apricot or mango sauce as bright as a farmfresh egg. Wandered outside some more and purchased my Munich earrings from a Peruvian.
Eventually it was time to check into our room. Found it on airbandb. Renting a basement room from a German lady. No internet but cozy and with an entrance that seemed private.
Side note: it is quite popular in Europe for people to give you skeleton keys to use for door openings. They are awesome but a bit heavy.
Too tired from the night train we voted for local doner and snacks from an organic shop nearby. In bed by 7 and asleep soon thereafter.
Day 2 Munich: Andechs.
Morning time is laundry time. Trek to a laundromat, wash and dry and writing tons of post cards. (note: as of about a week later they still haven't been sent. I'm not great at remembering to find post offices... all those changing stamps) then off to Andechs.
Now those who know Roger have likely heard about a magical place where monks brew beer and a man who serves food in the kitchen will serve you a slice of delicious pork loin in whatever width you negotiate with subtle motions of your hand ---a little bit more, no no, too much, yes, there. That much pork. This day we went to Andechs.
We arrived in Hirrshing? late morning and began looking for the pathway up to the monastery. The signage is not exactly precise. Directions to remember when returning to Andechs: a right out of the station, a LEFT at the next T and then follow the signs. There's a coffee shop on the corner of one of the neighborhood streets that you'll follow to get to the path and their bathroom is outside so you don't necessarily need to get a coffee in order to access it (though the coffee is lovely). Winding through a neighborhood, up the hill and then onto the path. It is quite lovely in the winter. The path is covered in snow, though fairly well packed with beer and pork seeking people (also it seems to be part of a network of walking paths so likely it's not all for pork). Be sure to wear hiking boots instead of slip-ons if returning in winter. All's well that ends well but there were some exciting and slippy moments.
We took what we later discovered was the more difficult path up. Particularly near the monastery the monks had some impressively smooth snow/ice paths. Thankfully the hand railings were well smoothed by hundreds of other people so no danger of pork-seeking splinters.
At last after several kilometers we found ourselves at the top. While the @a bit more, less...@ action didn't go exactly as promised the slices were generous and covered in a healthy rind of crisped fat. On the side a vineray potato salad and a giant pretzel with mustard. A liter of beer and (unwisely chosen) appelwine to drink and we sat under the sky looking out at the tops of the trees from the high monastery courtyard. Delicious.
After a quick walk about the grounds we took a different path back to the station. It was much less steep and, with full bellies, more leisurely a journey.
When we got back to Munich we called Srdan and met up with him in the Marienplatz and took an evening stroll around the city. As an architect he had observations and ruminations about the city that added another layer to Roger's recollections. We ended up at a Hafbrauhaus mini beer garden where beer, pretzels, spaetzel and excellent conversation rounded out the night.
Day 3: Munich: Neuchwanstein.
Earlier rising as the train takes more time, croissants and coffee and onto the train.The train was quiet and to my surprise and delight the Alps appeared quite soon after we left the Munich city limits and grew in the window as the train wound through snow-covered German countryside.
The town where the train stopped << >> is quaint but besides a stop to look at a map in the info center and find out that our destination was about 5 kilometers away we didn't spend much time there. The walk between the town and the base of the hill with the castle (that's what Neuchwanstein is) is plain and often runs directly beside the road. However, as it is winter, the number of cars and buses wasn't overwhelming and we weren't killed by exhaust. We saw a sign for a creepy looking grated cave up off of the road and a tree trunk that had mostly eaten a sign.
At the bottom of the mountain we grabbed some lunch and I experience my first quesaschpaetzle. It's a lot like mac and cheese but with different noodles. (Mom, speatzlel reminds me of your homemade noodles for your chicken noodle soup. Also, Mom, you should teach me how to make those because they're delicious.) The chef was not shy with his cheese and I'd wager I ate enough cheese to clog a nacho stand before the meal was over. (Also a side salad with frilly, frilly lettuce and a bubbly water that ended up only being 10 cents cheaper than Roger's beer). Roger had a glorious weinershitzel with mushroom sauce and vegetables.
Tickets and another bit of a walk very recognizibly in the uphill direction. There are actually two castles in close proximity to eachother. One is a rich goldenrod yellow (we didn't visit that one) and the other is grey stone and looks like the classic castle that many girls and boys imagine if they grew up with a Disney/ fairytale tradition. Because of the popularity of the castle everyone decides what language they want to experience during the tour and then is assigned a group number and a time of entrance. If you try to enter before the exact time on your tour card, no dice. While waiting in the courtyard and admiring the grey and white and tree covered cliff face we also, in turn, admired <?> a family waiting for what, it turned out, was our tour. Baby in a backpack, young girl and boy (under 7) running about the enclosure. It also turned out, and we discovered after the start of our tour, that while the parents were comfortably bilingual the children were not. In any circumstance and location it can be tough to stay engaged in a tour guide's facts and figures regardless of age but especially so below the age of perhaps 7 and during puberty (should anything of a desirable sex be located nearby). When you can't grok the language, it's a bit worse. I appreciate wanting to take your child into a castle but when the rooms are echoey and your children don't give a piglet's shit about what's being said the noise created is not conducive to other people's enjoyment of said attraction.
Regardless of the above the castle was beautiful. It was the castleiest castle I've yet to see (thinking within the parameters of castles I'd want to live in in the present day @as is@). Every archway and vaulted ceiling, every wall and floor decorated in intricate detail. One thing to note about King Ludwig (besides his early death from unknown causes which occured several days after he was removed from office and additionally the only person who observed his decline and death, his physician, died at the same time) is that he had what might be termed a fascination with swans. Others might describe it as an obsession. Still others might decide to raise their eyebrows , <<move down >> and mime a swan beak with their hand ///and shrug suggestively. This gentleman had swans on everything. Door handles, on tables, giant life size porcelain-type statues that doubled as flower vases in the summer and humidifiers in the winter (bad-ass), painted into the murals in multiple parts of the house. Swan. King. Man.
He had a grotto made by scene makers. Looked like a sweet outdoor cave. He had several woodcarvers work for several years full time on his bed canopy (modeling a number of castles? he admired and had taken inspiration from in the designing of his castle.). He had a music hall created and completely muralized. Colors everywhere. Beauty beauty beauty. The throne room had two of my favorite details: a tile mural on the floor with a number of different animals (giraffe, wolf, horse, swan <shocker>, lion etc.) and trees represented and a painted mural on the ceiling of a sun with many many thin, wavy rays and stars. Deep blue and gold/ silver.
Our tour guide was interested and animated in his descriptions of various details and anecdotes. He also seemed to have a particular affinity for eye contact with Roger. All in all a worthwhile day trip. As we walked back to town we came across a sign that said @luxury shopping@ so we stopped in. A strange wonderland of terrycloth, printed porcelain and bedazzled small items rewarded our curiousity. I got myself a spreader with a squirrel on the handle.
Train back to town and another evening out with Srdan but this time at the Hofbrauhaus proper. Delicious mushrooms in sauce with a side of dumplings (meh to these dumplings) and a basket of pretzels. Roger got leiberquesa <sp> which he quite accurately described as a large bread-shaped slice of high quality hot dog. Quite tasty with mustard.
Now. Something to understand about beer in Germany, in general, and in the Hofbrauhaus in particular if one hasn't already experienced the level of beer there: they like to drink their beer a liter at a time. A liter. Think about <<< common liter items>>>. That's one beer. It is not uncommon to see people using two hands to lift their liter beers. Also, the beer is delicious.
On our second liter Srdan arrived (hurray!!!) and we proceeded to have yet another with him along with pretzels and good conversation. Periodically the oompah band would play a drinking song that everyone would join in with: "Ein prosit, ein prosit, ........ more German I don't remember ......." I recall the tune but not the words. After the third liter things got a bit bleary and unwise decisions were made about cigarettes and so, alas...
The last day in Munich
was mostly spent in our room save a last hour run to the doner shop that Roger frequented during his time in Munich. On the way I got the two penny visual tour of the Olympic grounds and apartments where he stayed.
On to a night train and another train to make our way to Malmo and more friends.
