A Wet, Wet Bavaria

Rain in Königssee (King’s Lake), Bavaria, Germany

Another quick picture post coming up. I am really, really short of time. I feel like being sandwiched on all sides by tasks and responsibilities, which I have no way of completing within the short time that I have. So what do I do? Take a break and post this…

Yeah, back on the Europe story, we headed back to Bavaria Germany after a night in Tyrol Austria. The weather was 'fabulously' rainy and wet. Rain is delightful when it is in dusty, hot Arabia, especially in summer when you least expect it. Rain in summer, in Europe, when you’re in a once in a lifetime trip? Sucks! Big time! But what can you do? Make the best out of it! Here’re pictures of a wet, gloomy, soaking Bavaria. Enjoy!


We were supposed to go on a boat ride to some beautiful island with a traditional Bavarian church in Königssee. We had a look at the rain and fog and decided to go somewhere else. Where? Wait for the next post hehe


Our hotel near Königssee, Hotel Köppeleck – Königssee and the area around it would be a nice place if it wasn’t for the rain. This was Hitler’s favourite place (and headquarters) during his leadership of Germany. There’re lots of places of interest in the area related to Hitler’s reign, but we visited none of that. We’re staunchly anti-Nazi. …OK, it’s the darn rain & fog!






Us in Schönau am Königssee, Bavaria, Germany


This would be a picturesque Bavarian country-side picture, instead of something from the Evil Dead or something like that, if it wasn’t for the grey skies and gloomy rain! – Parish Church of St Sebastian (Pfarrkirche St Sebastian), Ramsau bei Berchtesgaden, Bavaria

Here’re some pictures from the Stupidest Day of Our Lives, i.e. the day we visited Neuschwanstein. We stopped at Wieskirche (Pilgrimage Church of Wies) and Oberammergau after leaving Neuschwanstein headed for Innsbruck. As you can see, the rain was similarly out in full force!








Wieskirche, Bavaria, Germany


Oberammergau, Bavaria, Germany




The painted houses of Oberammergau

The Stupidest Day of Our Lives

The great oppressive Arabian summer has started. And summer always brings back memories of Europe. I’m continuing with our Europe Trip 2015 story from where I stopped the last time, Liechtenstein. From there onwards, it was a continuous spell (well, almost) of rain and fog for the rest of our trip. The day after Liechtenstein, we did the stupidest thing in our lives. No, actually it was a series of stupid things, all in one day!


Gloomy weather over Neuschwanstein Castle, Bavaria, Germany

From Liechtenstein, we headed to Bavaria, Germany. We booked a night in a hotel in a little village called Schwangau, near Füssen in the Bavarian Alps. We were there for only one reason, to visit the famous fairy-tale castle of Neuschwanstein. Neuschwanstein is the inspiration behind many of the fantastical castles you see in the Disney cartoons. It’s also the inspiration behind Disneyland’s main castle, which you’ll now see every time you watch a movie from Walt Disney Pictures! I’ve visited Neuschwanstein Castle before, way back in the summer of 1994, during my student backpacking trip. I remembered it to be a fabulous day when we visited. Clear sunny skies, fresh mountain air, not hot, not cold. Perfect! It was one of the most memorable days of the trip. That’s why I had to bring the missus (and the kids) to see this magical castle.

Except for the thick blanket of clouds in the sky, everything went OK at first. We woke up very early in the morning (earliest we ever woke up during our entire Europe trip of 14 days). We wanted to get to the ticket booth before 8.30am, as advised by the travel books (there’ll be long queues, the tours are guided, with a limited number of people per guide, and so on, and so forth). The ticket booths are about 2 km away from where we stayed. But what the heck, we have a car!

We finished breakfast close to 8.30am and decided that we’ll come back later to check out. (After all it’s ONLY 2 km away). We had no problems reaching Hohenschwangau where the ticket booths are, queued up and got tickets for Neuschwanstein Castle and Hohenschwangau Castle. Yes, there’re actually 2 castles in the area, and there’s a gap of about 2 to 2.5 hours between the guided tours, I think 10.00am for Hohenschwangau and 12.30pm for Neuschwanstein, something like that. The ticket includes horse carriage rides / bus rides to the castles! Great, no worries!


The kids and I, Hohenschwangau, Bavaria, Germany


Neuschwanstein Castle above the village of Hohenschwangau


Just look at the number of tour buses in Hohenschwangau!

We then proceeded to nicely waste our time, and about 15 minutes before the time of our Hohenschwangau Castle tour, asked about getting onto the horse carriage. “Oh, the trip only takes 8 minutes.” “When’s the horse carriage coming?” “Oh, in about 15 minutes.” “Huh? But our tour is in 15 minutes’ time!” “Well, you can walk. It’ll take 10 minutes if you walk fast, up those steps.” We ran, carrying a baby, and a pram, and pulling a 6 year old kid, who knows nothing about what urgency is. And reached, just in time, to join the rest of our tour group. “Whew, that was close!”






From the grounds of the Hohenschwangau Castle


A swan fountain – the people here are crazy over swans. Every other thing is named after swans (Schwan in German) e.g. Neuschwanstein (New Swan Stone), Hohenschwangau (High Swan Land), Schwangau (Swan Land)


Neuschwanstein Castle, seen from Hohenschwangau Castle

The Hohenschwangau Castle visit was over in about umm 30 – 40 minutes. There was still about 2 hours till our Neuschwanstein tour. We promised the hotel that we’d check out at 12pm. If we waited till after our Neuschwanstein tour, it would be way past 12pm. Since we had so much time in hand (and thinking that we’re marathon runners), we decided to walk back to the hotel, 2km away. After all, the German countryside looked so pretty, even in cloudy weather. There goes another stupid decision.

After 20 minutes of walking, joking and taking lots of photos of the pretty countryside (yeah, even in gloomy weather), we realized that we had walked barely 300m. OK, so what, it’s only 2km and if we take the car, we’ll have to pay the parking fees again, and there may be no more spaces to park when we return (actually, there’re tons of spaces, but just a little further off). And so, we made a stupid decision to stick to our earlier stupid decision.

After about 50 minutes of walking briskly, we reached the hotel panting. We packed up hurriedly (that’s how I lost my phone charger), paid and proceeded to head back to Hohenschwangau. There’re buses to Hohenschwangau from Schwangau, we thought about waiting at the bus stop, but every person we asked had no idea when the next bus would come and our visit was in about 30 minutes’ time. We decided to abandon the bus stop (which we would later learnt to be another stupid decision) and jogged, ran and panted our 2km back to Hohenschwangau, with pram, baby, kid and high heels (Anu had to have high heels on a day like this!) And did we reach in time? Of course not. The bus from Schwangau overtook us about 10 mins before we reached our destination. Damn! Should’ve waited. (Told ya it was a stupid decision).


The nice road connecting Hohenschwangau to Schwangau, where our hotel was - It's 2km long. Notice high heels on Anu? Imagine walking the entire distance, and back, in an hour, in those shoes? That's what girls can do

And that’s not all yet. We learnt that to get up to the entrance of Neuschwanstein Castle from where we were, is another friggin 1.5km on a steep hill road (didn’t look that high to us?!?) This would take able adults, wearing hiking shoes (instead of high heels), 30 minutes to walk up. Either that, or wait for the bus… And since we had already screwed up our entire visit, what the heck, we decided to wait for the bus. But not all is lost. When we reached the castle, we learnt that we could still go in! We just had to reschedule our ticket with the officer in charge.

We got it rescheduled, Group No. ummm 241 or something like that. I told the wife, “Honey, there’s good news and bad news. Good news is that, yes, we’ll still be able to visit. Bad news is that we’ll have to wait till bloody 4.30pm, …over 3 hours to wait.” What I didn’t realise at that time, was that the officer had actually written 14:30, not bloody 4.30! What in the world made me think it was 4.30pm, still beats me to this very day. Anyway, we proceeded to waste more time, since we had such a long wait ahead of us. And then, for some reason or other, I had a peek at the Electronic Display Board and saw them calling our Group No, …241. “Can’t be, it’s only two-ish…” and that’s when it dawned on me! I quickly reached for the ticket, and saw it written, in clear German handwriting, friggin 14.30! We ran for our lives, for the fourth time in the day, and reached just before the rest of our group disappeared through the entrance. We were in such a hurry that we didn’t notice the free audio guides at the door. But we got in! And that’s what matters, right? For the next 30 minutes or so, when everyone was deeply engrossed in their headphones on what it was saying, we made up our own stories… “Oh, this was where the fairy godmother stayed, …and that’s the stairway to the room that had that spindle that put everyone to sleep, …and that’s where the magic mirror of the wicked queen was kept, etc”. Until someone from our group started staring daggers at us and showing that shush, finger on the lip sign. “Spoilsport, why can’t you just concentrate on what that headphone of yours is talking about…”

Oh well, at least we didn’t waste our trip. But the weather was horrible (it started raining in the afternoon during and after our trip, and Marienbrücke (Marie’s Bridge), which was one of the nicest place to view the castle, was closed for maintenance! (What a bummer, why can’t they wait till off-peak season for maintenance??!) Auf Wiedersehen, Neuschwanstein. If we ever meet again, I hope it’ll be in better circumstances.


Schloss (Castle) Neuschwanstein, Bavaria, Germany


The countryside, from Schloss Neuschwanstein – with a view of the Hohenschwangau Castle in the distance


Here’s a photo of Neuschwanstein I found from the web which shows Neuschwanstein in its full glory, clear skies and sunshine. Source: http://www.travelandleisure.com/trip-ideas/neuschwanstein-castle-germany#neuschwanstein-castle-bavarian-alps

Across the Alps in One Day

Rain in Ehrwald, Austria, with the Zugspitze, Germany’s highest mountain, in view

This month is a mad month. 15 FRIGGIN TENDERS in 1 month! It’s like not even 2 days per tender (not counting weekends, OK?) So, it’s gonna be picture posts for the time being until work returns to sane levels.

Here’s a continuation of my previous post. As I was saying, we decided to leave Munich after only 1 day, because the brilliant weather forecast website that I relied upon when planning our trip, said that weather in Munich will suck, from Day 1 (which it didn’t). And not only that, it’ll suck for the entire German-speaking area which we planned to visit (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), for the next few days (well, it was still beautifully sunny in Munich when we left). Anyway, I got our rented car, and drove across …the Alps (what else?), in one day, to Italy.

No, it’s not too far away. Europe’s not that big, or is it? Hell, I’ll even take the less travelled route, not the main boring autobahns (expressways) that goes west towards Lake Constance, and cut south through the western edge of Austria. No, I’ll drive south from Munich itself, to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, cross the Bavarian Alps, then cut straight across Austria using the shortest and most direct route, into the Romansh-speaking part of Switzerland (I’ve seen the French, German and Italian parts of Switzerland in 1994, but never the Romansh part, …always wanted to see how this part looks like, not to mention the allure of St Moritz, even if just in passing, hehe). And there we were, in quiet country, with rain and cloudy weather, even in friggin Italy, and arrived in Lugano, Switzerland (where we had planned to spend the night), 5 minutes before midnight. Lugano is inside Switzerland. We effectively crossed 4 borders that day, Germany to Austria, Austria to Switzerland, Switzerland to Italy, and Italy back to Switzerland, in 1 day. (Imagine the face of Anu, who had to tend to the 2 kids while yours truly do the driving. …Well, how would I know that the roads in the Lakes Area in Italy would be so narrow, and that it’d rain non-stop??)

And here are the pictures, till another freer time.


Gloomy weather in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria, Germany


Justin, Papa & our trusty rented Opel Zafira, at Garmisch-Partenkirchen


Rainy in Ehrwald, North Tyrol, Austria


In Switzerland, right after the Austrian-Swiss Border – the hills in view are in Austria


The Village of Ramosch, Grisons, Switzerland




The road less travelled, between Ramosch and Scuol, Grisons, Switzerland


Bridge to Tarasp, Grisons, Switzerland


The Grand Hotel des Bains, St Moritz, Grisons (or Graubünden, or Grigioni, or Grischun). In Switzerland, everything has 4 names. There’re 4 official languages, and so 4 versions of many of the place names. The canton that St Moritz is in, is called Grisons in French, Graubünden in German, Grigioni in Italian, and Grischun in Romansh

And that’s all folks, for the day. …As it then became too dark to take anymore photos. It became completely dark after the Maloja Pass. So from there on, and the entire part of Italy from Chiavenna, to Menaggio (beside the famous Lake Como), and then into Lugano, was driven in the dark, in drizzling rain, almost the entire way.


OK, here’s a photo of Lugano from the next day – with the weather still cloudy, and greyish – and the weather forecast said that Italy / Southern Switzerland would be sunny!?! No, I don’t trust European weather forecasts anymore.

Thinking back, it seems like quite a good idea now, that we've decided not to go anywhere this summer, ...especially with the spate of terrorist attacks in Europe, and the plane accident in Dubai. Scary.

If All Summers Were Like This…

Yeah, if only. Unfortunately for us, we’re gonna be stuck, baking in Dubai, for this entire summer. So here’s something from our holidays last year – a hot summer’s day in Europe, the day we arrived in Munich, Germany from Dubai.


Kids frolicking in the fountain at Frauenplatz, Munich, Germany


Street café, Frauenplatz – no, I’m not posting pictures of Munich’s famous twin tower church, Frauenkirche which overlooks this square. What, with all that scaffolding covering one of the towers?!?


The fountain at Karlsplatz, Munich


The Neues Rathaus (New City Hall) at Munich’s main square, Marienplatz – the green balconies in the middle of the tower is the famous Glockenspiel, something like a musical clock with animated figurines that played at certain hours – no, didn’t watch it, don’t even know when it’ll play…


Café inside the Neues Rathaus, München




Views of Marienplatz, Munich, Bavaria, Germany

Munich (or München in German) is quite a nice city. I remember it from my backpacking trip in 1994 in my student days. (It was like my second favourite city of our 1 month long Europe trip then, after Prague). And I remember how spell-bound I was with Neuschwanstein Castle in nearby Füssen. So, here I come again, Bavaria, with the wife and kids in tow this time.

I was pretty sure it’d be nice, IF …the darn European weather was kind to us. No, don’t get me wrong. The day we arrived in Munich, the weather was beautiful. It was hot and sunny, and our hotel room which was right on the top floor, had no air-con, nor fans (air-cons and fans don’t exist in this part of Europe, they’re for the people in the tropics, OK?) The hotel manager said that Munich gets only about a week of hot summer weather in a year, (…maybe she hadn’t heard of global warming), and asked us to open the windows to sleep. (Imagine going to Germany to experience Malaysia!)

So there we were, in the room with this amazing window. After twisting and turning it a bit, we managed to open it, …one corner of it anyway (and I thought I friggin broke it! What lousy windows they make in Europe I was wondering then, and I thought the Germans were technologically superior… This one must be made in China). One corner was better than nothing anyway, and we slept in our sweat, listening to a group of drunk boys outside, in the park beside our hotel, challenging each other to fights, in English of various European accents, till the friggin sun rose! I made sure we closed the window nicely before leaving the room (hell, made in China or not, this is Germany, …how much do you think they’d charge us if they found out that we’d broken their lousy window??) I found out not too long after that (in another hotel) that windows like these are the norm in Europe (the German parts which we visited anyway), and they’re not friggin broken. They’re made to open horizontally, like a door, and also if you choose, to open vertically, like an air vent - what a marvel! Don’t remember coming across these in 1994! (They’re called Tilt & Turn Windows by the way). …This brush with technology early in our trip was a blessing looking back, because all the other places we visited later had the same window or glass balcony door design like this, and by then it was a piece of cake for yours truly, ahem.

We left Munich after one day. Why? Because when I planned the hotel bookings, the weather forecast said that Germany and the entire friggin area around this part of the world would be blanketed with clouds and thunderstorms. That was to include the first day of our arrival in Munich, which turned out to be quite the opposite. The last day of our trip which we would also be spending in Munich, was forecasted to be beautiful, and it turned out to be a brilliant day, of heavy rain and clouds! See what we did then here.

Anyway, we spent about 5 days of our trip in Germany and we had ONE beautiful hot summer’s day, and FOUR miserable wet and gloomy days! So, thank you very much, oh great weather of Europe, for making our trip such a memorable affair. I officially hate you now. I hope you’ll be better the next time we visit… Can’t wait for that to happen actually.

Here’re more photos of Munich till that happens.


Munich International Airport


A street musician playing a beautiful tune on a cimbalom (I googled it, OK? Thought it was a harpsichord, but harpsichords have keyboards, this one doesn’t)


The streets of Munich – Sendlinger Strasse (Street)


Anu at the Sendlinger Tor, Munich


Asamkirche (Asam Church) – no it’s got nothing to do with the Assam State of India, Asam is actually the family name of the owners / builders of this private church. It’s small, but the details are simply astounding


The exterior of the Asamkirche, on Sendlinger Street


The Neues Rathaus at dusk, with the Frauenkirche (the twin-towered church) in the background, Munich


The Hofbräuhaus – How can a visit to Munich not include a beer hall? The Hofbräuhaus is I think, the most famous of the lot, but nope, we didn’t try the beer here (too darn crowded). We skipped over to the place below to try out Bavaria’s famous beer and pork knuckle, hehe


Pork knuckle (Schweinshaxn) at Haxnbauer, Munich – eating with the kids was near impossible. First, there was the jet lag, and Justin and Jayden were both sleepy. Second, the place was crowded and service wasn’t what you’d get in Asia (this is Europe, OK? Live with it). Third, the place was stifling hot and stuffy – these Germans, despite being so technologically advanced, dunno nuts about the trusty air-con and the humble fan. Pity them. And us. Gotta take turns carrying the little one, so that we could eat. And Justin ended up eating only a few mouthfuls before he fell sound asleep in the noisy, stuffy restaurant. Well done, Justin!

And here’re more pork knuckle adventures in Munich, if you’ve not had enough.