Spring 2012 Europe, Part 2 of 4

Spring 2012—Europe

May 20-22, Munich.

When we got out of the train that arrived on time at 6:30 a.m. in Munchen, we were literally blown away by the amount of trash and debris on the platform and all over the station and outside. We just couldn’t figure out but quickly B guessed right that there was a soccer match the previous night between Chelsea, England and Munich though he didn’t know who had won. Later that evening at the English Garden while chugging down some welcome beer, a German who was at our table informed us Munich had lost. He was sad. He had traveled about 7 hours from Hamburg to attend the game the tickets for which he had won in a lottery that had a million entrants and only a thousand winners.

Soon after we left our luggage at our hotel, we decided to travel to Salzburg, Austria. Had the train not been late, we would have missed the train, whose timing we discovered only after getting to the station. It was a lovely journey though through several industrial towns and once we got to Salzburg, we went to the tourist office, and bought two hop on hop off bus tickets. The guided tour was beautiful and we crossed the river Salzache a couple of times and after spending a few minutes at the Mirabel Gardens attached to the Mirabel Castle, and listening to some great music in the garden, shooting a few photos of the garden and the environs and the small arboretum, we returned to the bus and the very friendly female driver. After surveying our map, we decided to get off at sop number 5 and walk around as there was a cluster of buildings in this area, which included the 8th century Salzburg Cathedral (http://www.kamml.com/en-salzburg_cathedral.shtml). The narrow, glitzy and winding streets sporting many high-end shops and small delis turned out to be relaxing experience. The highlight of this most attractive and most visited shopping street in Salzburg, named Getreidegasse (http://www.kamml.com/en-getreidegasse_salzburg.shtml), was visiting Mozart’s birthplace Mozart's Geburtshaus (http://www.kamml.com/en-mozart_birthplace_salzburg.shtml) that is a museum now. After a quick dash through this sanctified place, we ate some lunch, a panini and soda ands chips. The English-speaking attendant at the deli obliged to my request to him to use a fresh pair of gloves to handle my panini. Without my asking, he even used a fresh knife and served the two halves accompanied by a broad smile.

As we sat at a bench and ate our meal, numerous well-groomed, high-bred, dogs--several identical to each other in a pack of even six or more-- were sashaying down the street their owners sporting a proud smile. Later at the hotel in Munich, when we inquired about this, we were told that a three-day Annual World Dog Show was in progress in Salzburg. What a treat this unorganized parade was for us!

Next, we headed for Mozart Square dominated by a Mozart statue and a fountain and we were in for another treat, a band consisting of mostly young men sporting shorts in suspenders over their short sleeve shirts playing lively music. After about 90minutes,we returned to our bus stop and covering more spots, including a quick stop across from the von Trapp family of the Sound of Music movie fame. We caught an earlier fast speed train back to Munich and were back at our hotel by 4:30.

After freshening up, we walked through Old Town covering churches, closed shops in Marineplatz, the new Town Hall, Odeonsplatz, and reached the English Gardens via the Residenz. The famous Hofbrauhaus on the way was too noisy for us.

After that long walk, it was heavenly to wash down pieces of a huge pretzel with some chilled beer, which we almost missed out on as the refreshments kiosk was just closing. The setting was idyllic and under the open blue sky in the balcony of the Chinese Pagoda (Chinesischer Turm), a band played some great hits. Behind me, a group of Indians was making a hell of a racket. I heard some Hindi songs, and I joined them and tried belting out some oldies in my drunken state forgetting a lot of the lyrics. It turned out, Ms. Desai was trained in classical music and so no wonder her singing too sounded trained. The three youngsters (two gals and a guy) in the group were college students and the middle-aged woman was the mother of one. Bala was lost in conversation with our German friend from Hamburg talking about the previous night’s game that Munich lost, the economy, Angela Merkel (the German didn’t like her domestic policy but liked the impression she was making on world stage), EU, and German health care system where everyone was covered. The German didn’t like the word socialist applied earlier by Bala to Germany’s public policy. Earlier, one thing the German and I both had agreed on was that individuals must take more responsibility on their own for their health.

After B & I returned to our neighborhood, we went looking for food. It was quite late, so we picked up a falafel and a wrap and diet coke and returned to our room, turned on the nightly news and ate in. We learned that early that morning, there had been a pretty damaging 6.0 earthquake in Bologna, 81 miles southwest of Venice, killing several people including a 106 year-old in her bed. Quite beat from the day’s activities, we went to sleep on a lumpy mattress.

Next day bright and early after a nice sit-down breakfast, we went back to the station to inquire about travel to Fuessen the next morning. The stern-looking woman at the DB counter handed us a printout in German. Our later disaster between Fuessen and Konstanz might have been avoided had the text been in English. Ah, who knows why things go wrong?

Next, we headed to the Tourist Office outside the station which promptly opened at 9:00 a.m. Here, we learned how to get to Nymphenburg Palace (Schloss Nymphenburg) by tram, bought a day pass and soon hopped on the tram across from the Office. It was nice ride and the schloss was well worth a visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nymphenburg_Palace. This is where “Mad King” Ludwig II was born whose Neuschwanstein Castle was the reason for our visit to Fuessen (I think I should compose a song about Fuessen!) Much as we decry monarchy, but for them, who else could exemplify excess and opulence? They were the standard bearers for excessive indulgence worth emulating by others in all generations who wished/thought they were royalty, which in some ways, they probably are!

From the palace we went to Olympia Park the 1972 Summer Olympics site by tram and subway and it was yet another treat. Here, we took in the lovely setting, took photographs, remembered the 1972 kidnapping of the Israeli athletes with sadness, visited the swimming pools, had lunch and before boarding the train back, visited the BMW Museum.

On our return trip, we got off at the Odeaonplatz (I fell in love with this spot; its Feldherrnhalle: http://www.aviewoncities.com/munich/feldherrnhalle.htm reminded me so much of the mandapams in south Indian temples): http://www.aviewoncities.com/munich/odeonsplatz.htm (we were in this square the previous evening on our way to the English Garden) stop near the Residenz Palace, which seemed closed, and then we searched for the famous Viktualienmarkt: http://www.aviewoncities.com/munich/viktualienmarkt.htm, wandered around the market checking the price of various things, returned to Marienplatz, had coffee and a black forest cake at a cafe here, and then positioned ourselves for the two Glockenspiel’sfiuve’s o’clock presentations--enactment of the 1568 wedding of Duke William V and Renate of Lorraine, complete with a jousting match and a rendition of a dance called the Schäfferltanz, first performed to mark the end of the plague in 1517. We returned to our room, freshened up and went to Rama Restaurant http://www.toytowngermany.com/munich/rama.html, which we had spotted accidentally on our way to Nymphenburg that morning and had a sumptuous Indian dinner. There was just one other guest besides us—the owner of Joto Abrasives, Nasik, India. We struck up a conversation and when he left he said hat he was happy to have met a sister.

We roamed around a bit on the tram, took in the long Maxmillianstrasse lined with upscale shops, glimpsed at River Isar, and then returned to our room around 10:30 p.m..

Next morning, as planned, we took the to 8:03 train to Fuessen. Once we got to Fuessen, I felt that we should have got into Fuessen the previous night. Fuessen was so quaint and so beautiful! “Mad King” Ludwig II was not mad after all.

After our wonderful trip to Fuessen, the minor incident that took place as described before, led to a happy encounter with Daniella who also was traveling to Lindau and who also was in the wrong car like us.

Soon after our train left the “famous” Immenstadt, a lithesome youngish woman with a lean face flustered burst into our compartment and asked if the train was going to Lindau. At that point, we had not yet realized our mistake, so we said, yes. She left our compartment and we didn’t know where she went. Later, the moment we realized we had a mistake and I ran into the next compartment to look for the conductor, I saw Daniella siting there. I informed her that we were in the wrong car. A few quick exchanges with the other passengers in broken German (Daniella) and broken English (the German passengers, although one Hispanic looking woman spoke better English—most non-whites in Europe spoke good English!) made us realize that we should get off at the next station which surprisingly came within the next few minutes. At the station was a friendly looking young man whose name was Allah! Yes, go figure. He was an Iraqi who had worked with the Americans in Iraq and finally chose to make Germany his home...at least for now. In his limited English, he communicated that he’d take us back to Immenstadt, which is where he lived, and put us on the next train to Lindau. What a relief this was! He even tried helping me with my luggage which help I politely declined.

Soon after we bid goodbye to Allah in Immenstadt, we went over to the Deutsche Bahn (DB) Office to make sure we had the right train information. Once again, the stiff uniformed assistant, when I explained to him our mistake and how the train from Faussen to Kaufbeuren was late thus “forcing” us to make the mistake we made, and how the DB agent in Munich had given us a schedule in German, from his printer, he whipped out a new schedule from Immenstadt to Kontanz in English.

At the station, Daniella and I became the best of friends. I don’t know why we connected so instantly. We were like two schoolgirls on an expedition. Daniella’s infectious spirit was the reason behind this I think. With no common language between us, still, we managed to communicate so much. When hearts meet, no formal language seems necessary. I learned that she had been trained in ballet for 20 years. She was from Transylvania, Romania. Just with hand gestures and an extremely expressive face, she “explained” that people in Transylvania were very nice but not so in Bucharest. She taught sign language to deaf-and-mute children in Valencia, Spain and in summer was going to Africa with a doctor to, pro bono, help children there. I was so touched.

She was also breaking up with her alcoholic boyfriend. We decided that we’d teach each other some English and Spanish. We’d point to the various pieces of our luggage and name them in the two languages. She pointed to a pigeon and said Pilomita and repeated it. Then I wondered aloud to her if Picasso’s daughter’s name Pilomina was derived from Pilomita. Indeed, I could imagine Picasso calling his daughter, his little dove. We both burst out laughing. I took her e-mail address and we promised to continue the lessons by e-mail. Soon the train arrived. After about ninety minutes, we all got off at Lindau and we hugged each other and bid goodbye and B and I dashed off to our connecting train to Friederichshafen.

Anyway, all is well that ends well, and we eventually, reached Konstanz at 8:05 p.m. without any more incidents, and still there was plenty of daylight left. I knew we were in for another treat

Ciao!