Tourism on Luiyología

The German Romantische Strasse

Sun, 30 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Some weeks ago I had the pleasure to make again an awesome road trip with my friend Agatha, this time through the German Romantische Strasse. It is not the first (and most probably will not be the last) trip together, you can read about my trips with her through Scotland, Austria, Brittany or Normandy (and we have made a few more).

I’m adding the German adjective to the title because last year I also traveled through the Austrian Romantikstrasse. We discovered after that trip that a similar one existed in Germany, so it was about time to travel the german one at least to compare. For your information, there are similar routes in Japan, Korea and Brazil. I neither confirm nor deny that now I want to follow those as well (damn completism).

I really needed some holidays to disconnect (this year has been difficult and complex in several ways) and I love to travel in December through central Europe to feel their passion for the X-Mas season and the mulled wine or glühwein as they call it. Sadly we couldn’t plan a lot in advance (again) but we could at least prepare a draft planning of the places we wanted to visit in those eleven days. We planned (and booked) a couple of days for Dachau and Nuremberg at the beginning of the trip and some days in Munich at the end, 2-4 days depending on the required time for our main priority: The Romantische Strasse.

Map from the official website: 29 towns in 460 kilometers

In 11 days I drove 1.035 kilometers, we visited 20 towns/cities, I took almost 1.200 photos and we found 30 caches!!

Let me summarize our experience in the main stops of the trip. Let’s start!

Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site

After having visited Auschwitz and Mauthausen more or less recently, I was not as impressed as others can be with Dachau but that is only my bias, because Dachau Memorial clearly is worth of a visit.

The preserved part of the original camp is minimum, so the special attractive of Dachau for me was the permanent exhibition located in the former maintenance building, the biggest standing building from the original camp. The explanation about what Dachau was, how it worked and its role in the overall strategy of the Nazis is quite detailed and interesting. They were so proud of the (awful) results that they exported it to other concentration camps as the Dachau model.

At the end of the original concentration camp there are several religious temples of different religious faiths. Some of them were closed but in the end they mainly aim at religious people from that specific faith. Nothing to do with the spectacular memorials in Mauthausen, for example.

Dachau - Memorial sculpture by Nandor Glid erected in 1968

Nuremberg

We spent almost 1,5 days in Nuremberg, a wonderful place that exceeded my expectations (and they were high). Everything was invaded by tourists because of the seasonal stuff so we happily joined the flock and we walked calmly through all the X-Mas Market stalls, with special attention to the Glühwein ones. We walked a lot through the city center and I loved almost everything that we saw: the Henkersteg (Hangman’s Bridge), the Maxbrücke, the Ehekarussell, the Handwerkerhof (Craftmen’s Courtyard) and lots of other beautiful streets and buildings. The only locations that we visited properly were the Imperial Castle and the Toy Museum.

The Toy Museum would be interesting just for the fact of having an entire building packed full with toys (some of them new but mostly vintage). Children will enjoy it but also adults of all ages, going through several cabinets of what could have been their toys. One section was entitled for the evolution of the toy concept, where they emphasized the current phenomenon with children flooded by short-lived play stuff, often endangering their creative playing skills. An interesting thought that I mostly share.

The Imperial Castle is probably the main attraction in Nuremberg. As almost everything else it was vastly destroyed in the II World War but they successfully rebuilt the entire complex as it was before the war. The exhibition is quite interesting, combining clear explanations of the elements of the Castle in their historical context with information about the Holy Roman Empire and the role of the city in that late Middle Ages. I still raise my eyebrows remembering the visit to the Tiefer Brunnen (The Deep Well), you should not miss it.

Haupmarkt and the Frauenkirche of Nuremberg in X-Mas time

I loved to see Nuremberg in X-Mas but I will try to visit again in another season as there is a lot more to see.

Würzburg

In Würzburg we repeated the tactic. We arrived in the evening to see the city after dawn, and in the next morning we visited the main attraction: the Würzburg Residence, a clear masterwork of German Baroque.

Würzburg Residence main entrance

Here we found again some of the places closed (some of them closed for the entire winter) but in overall the town looked fantastic and also worth for another visit at least to see the Gardens and the Marienberg Fortress (that was closed for the entire Winter).

Tauberbischofsheim

After leaving Würzburg we made a quick stop in Tauberbischofsheim. We could just visit the Saint Martin church as the rest was closed for the winter, but the visit was worthy anyway. The medieval old town is fantastic and very well preserved, including an interesting Neo-Gothic town hall. We left after a quiet meal watching an intense rain fall through the windows.

Tauberbischofsheim Market Place panoramic

Bad Mergentheim

We left Bad Mergentheim after one evening and part of the next morning without been able to visit the Castle of the Teutonic Order and the Teutonic Order Museum but in overall it was again a nice visit because the old town was splendid, specially with the seasonal lights and stalls. The heavy rain continued so we had little more to do.

Weikersheim

Weikersheim was one of the biggest surprises of the trip. The old town was also cute, but I want to highlight the Weikersheim Castle, a fabulous Renaissance palace with Baroque gardens.

The 40 meters long Knights’ Hall at the Palace is the most astounding thing that I have seen in ages. It is dedicated to hunting and secret worlds, and any visitor will be amazed by dozens of life-size three-dimensional figures of wildlife animals made in painted stucco, mostly of those that could be hunted in the surroundings but also including exotic pieces like an elephant. The wooden ceiling is also entirely covered with pictures of hunting scenes mixed with local legends. A unique place.

Statue from the Dwarf Gallery in the Weikersheim Castle

We enjoyed a lot the Castle, if any of the other places that we found closed are similar the Romantische Strasse will clearly worth a second visit.

We also visited the Sternwarte Weikersheim Observatory, just in case it was open, but we were unlucky again.

Röttingen

Röttingen was another quick visit before lunch. Their well preserved medieval fortifications and old town deserved a visit. The Brattenstein Castle looked nice, it was closed but we could at least see that it also serves as a small open air theater. Another interesting place in seasons with better weather conditions.

We also discovered a sun-dial hike trail around the town, with a different type of sun-dial in each stop. Nice also for longer stays.

Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Rothenburg ob der Tauber was probably the town that I enjoyed the most from the entire Romantische Strasse. It does not have an iconic place (like a fine Palace or a landmark Castle) but the entire old town is somehow magical. The battlements that surround its huge medieval center can be traversed (and we did it) for a length of 2.5 km, allowing anyone to surround from the heights almost the complete perimeter.

We only visited one Museum out of pure curiosity, the German Christmas Museum. The Museum itself is interesting but not an unforgettable place, but the free-entry Christmas decoration shop behind (or around) it is completely amazing and singular. In fact, the Museum is inside this huge shop that belongs to a famous German company that sells Christmas decorations in several stores across Germany and in some other locations worldwide. This one is the head office and it is open all year long, claiming to have the world’s largest selection of traditional Christmas ornaments. It totally deserves a visit, if you are disciplined and you can resist the temptation to buy things like crazy.

During the highly advisable Night Watchman walking tour we heard some interesting stories. One of them caught my attention so I will summarize it for you, after having confirmed its authenticity. March 1945, II World War is about to end but some German soldiers are barricaded here taking advantage of the huge city wall. Lots of bombs are dropped killing dozens of people and destroying >300 buildings, several watchtowers and part of the wall. In that moment the U.S. Assistant Secretary of War, John J. McCloy, knowing (allegedly) about the beauty of Rothenburg orders to stop immediately the artillery attacks and gives three hours to a small group of American soldiers to negotiate the surrender of the town, or it will be bombed massively. At that moment in time Rothenburg was not as touristic as it is today and it was pure luck (almost miracle, according to the watchman) that the mother of Mr McCloy had a painting of the town at home that the Assistant Secretary of War had seen several times as a child, hearing wonderful stories about the place. The local Nazi commander, agreeing on the importance of preserving the city, betrayed Hitler’s direct orders and committed treason surrendering the city. Since November 1948 McCloy is also honorary citizen of Rothenburg.

The Watchman gave us also another thought provoking insight: Rothenburg was severely depopulated in the 17th century by the Thirty Years’ War and a bubonic plague outbreak and its economy was a mess during a couple of centuries. It was not until the end of the 19th century when several artists from the german Romanticism visited the place with the first tourists and some regulations were created to prevent major changes in the old town. In some way, as he told us thankfully, all the current economic wealth is thanks to a long lasting extreme poverty that preserved the 16th-17th century state.

I really need to stop writing about this place if I want to finish this chronicle, but before going to the next one let me show you the most picturesque, photographed and painted place in Rothenburg.

The most picturesque, photographed and painted place in Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Dinkelsbühl

We stopped at Dinkelsbühl during the lunch time, in order to eat something nice there and apparently we made a usual plan, according to the huge amount of restaurants that Dinkelsbühl has. After lunch we made a nice walking tour though the city center with some daylight surrounding the whole town center inside and outside the city wall.

There are interesting places to see/visit here like a 3rd Dimension Museum but my suggestion is to at least walk calmly through it, passing through some of the splendid gates of the wall: the Wörnitz gate, the Segringen gate, the Nördlingen gate or the Rothenburg gate to name the most beautiful ones.

One of the nicest streets in Dinkelsbühl

Nördlingen

We arrived in Nördlingen in the evening, so again we walked through it at night, to enjoy the seasonal decoration and the X-Mas Market delicacies, and we walked it again calmly in the following morning.

Again, as in Dinkelsbühl and Rothenburg ob der Tauber, this is the third fully walkable battlements that can be traversed (the only three in Germany) surrounding, in this case for more than 2.5 km, an almost perfectly preserved medieval town center. I suppose that reading this summary it all sounds quite similar but in reality each town had its own personality and touch, so our visits were not overlapping with the previous ones but adding a lot to a great overall experience.

The amazing battlements of Nördlingen

The city was built in the middle of a meteorite impact crater, so they have the the Rieskrater Museum dedicated to the crater explaining some geological facts. Another important museum in Nördlingen is the Bayerische Eisenbahnmuseum with more than one hundred original railway vehicles. We could not visit them but for a longer stay here they are quite interesting.

Augsburg

We spent the rest of the morning in Donauwörth (nice but nothing remarkable) to finally arrive in Augsburg again in the late afternoon.

Augsburg was for me, undoubtedly, one of the most special stages of the trip. The seasonal markets were again everywhere with a noticeable quality in the products and decorations, even in the Glühwein (I plead guilty of tasting them all) and the city itself is gloriously beautiful. Lots of buildings and scenes breath history through their doors and walls.

Again, we could not visit everything we wanted (for example the Mozart House, where the composer’s father Leopold was born and the musician visited several times) but the places we visited were amazing. The Maximilian Museum of decorative arts was remarkable, the Cathedral was nice but the most clear must see of the town is the Goldener Saal (Golden Hall) in the Town Hall, a >550 square meters hall with large murals and numerous ceiling paintings all of them richly adorned with golden frames and decoration. Astonishing. During the visit we learned that it was badly damaged during the II World War and it was renovated and redecorated between the 80s and 90s, according to historical photographs and blueprints.

In the shiny Goldener Saal (Golden Hall) of Augsburg

Landsberg am Lech

Landsberg am Lech was a last minute addition to our trip. We initially discarded it but we finally went there and we did not regret at all. It is a small town, with little to see apart from its nice streets but at least I wanted to visit in person a picturesque tower that is located there: the Mutterturm.

What we found was a lively town center with several people enjoying the X-Mas market delicacies (yes, lots of Glühwein again) that forced us to extend our stay. In our way back from the car, after putting a new parking ticket, a fabulous sunset with a bright rainbow totally surprised us. A perfect spot with the perfect timing.

Sunset panoramic of Landsberg am Lech, the rainbow appeared later

Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau Castles

The municipality of Schwangau would not be a stop on any route if it were not for the two wonders that it has in its touristic suburb of Hohenschwangau: the Hohenschwangau Castle and specially the Neuschwanstein Castle.

with the fabulous Neuschwanstein Castle behind

The Neuschwanstein Castle is one of those worldwide known locations capable itself of receiving millions of visitors from all around the globe. According to Wikipedia, more than 1.3 million people visit the castle annually making it one of the most visited places in the world. I’m not surprised, especially after having visited the Castle personally.

Visiting Neuschwanstein is a comfortable and amazing experience. Our german friends have managed to allow its thousands of daily visitors to enjoy the castle without queues, almost without big crowds and without being shoved. In order to do this you just need to book your ticket in advance for a very specific day and time (they claim that you will not be able to enter if you arrive slightly late), as the castle can only be visited with a guided tour that lasts about 40-45 minutes.

As an alternative, and that is what we did, you can always go to the official ticket center in Hohenschwangau to buy a ticket for any tour with available capacity for that the same day. We took the risk, arriving the ticket center almost an hour before the opening time, and the plan worked perfectly. With only a dozen of people in front of us (maybe a hundred behind when the doors opened) we were able to get the tickets we wanted for both castles at the most appropriate time slots for us.

But there are thousands of pages and books about the place and the logistics, so let me focus again in my experience there.

Neuschwanstein is the perfect climax for the Romantische Strasse. It is an incredible combination of the best architectural techniques and craftsmanship with the overflowing imagination of the most creative artists of that time. The overall theme are the operas of Richard Wagner based as well normally on medieval legends: The Ring of the Nibelung, Tristan and Isolda or Parsifal among others. As you probably know the castle was commissioned (and paid out of his personal fortune) by King Ludwig II of Bavaria that was admirer and later friend and (so they say) even lover of Wagner himself.

I left the castle, after the non-stopping breathtaking tour, with the feeling that everything was perfectly located, designed, painted or illuminated, to the smallest detail. If at some point I become a millionaire, and that is difficult because I do not steal neither play any lottery, I think I will build a similar castle themed in fantastic genre legends. Dreams are cheap.

Bonus recommendation: Even if you hike to the castle don’t forget to go further up to the Marienbrücke, a spectacular steel bridge (originally made of wood) that crosses a huge gorge from where you will have the best perspective of the castle. The bus that takes you to the castle for non-hikers has its closest stop to the castle near the bridge.

Panoramic of the Neuschwanstein Castle as seen from Marienbrücke

Hohenschwangau Castle is a 19th century palace built by King Maximilian II of Bavaria, and childhood residence of his famous son King Ludwig II. According to the Wikipedia, Hohenschwangau has 300k visitors per year, far away from the astounding numbers of Neuschwanstein. It’s clearly not as spectacular but having visited the location it does not make sense to me that 75% of the visitors leave Hohenschwangau without visiting this second marvel.

Hohenschwangau Castle from below

You can also (and probably should) visit the Museum of the Bavarian Kings. It is nothing compared to the Castles but will give you more insights and an interesting context if you visit it before going to the Castles. Also, you don’t book any specific hour to see it so you can use any free time slot during the day to go, quite convenient.

Munich

I will be very brief, because this post is already too long and also because I am quite sure that I will go back sooner than later for a detailed visit because I loved the city.

The famous Town Hall of Munich surrounded by X-Mas

Munich, the famous capital of Bavaria, could not and did not disappoint us. It has a well deserved appreciation from tourists, and during the X-Mas it is perhaps more remarkable because it is one of the most popular Christmas destinations in the region, along with Nuremberg. Again, we could not visit some of the main attractions but visited some amazing places and we enjoyed ourselves strolling though its streets and X-Mas market stalls.

Upon arrival we visit the Nymphenburg Palace, a wonderful Baroque palace surrounded by a huge garden in which we could only see a corner. It was raining and sometimes snowing during our visit so the garden will probably be also my first visit if I go back again to Munich during the sunny part of the year.

The Palace served as Summer Residence for the Bavarian royal family for centuries, King Ludwig II was born there in August 1845. The visit is really worth it as you can enjoy several rooms and pavilions with lots of artworks and rich decoration. My favorite attraction there was the Gallerie of Beauties of King Ludwig I, a set of really nice portraits by the same painter (Joseph Karl Stieler) on behalf of the king to 36 beautiful women from all social classes of Munich. The audio guide described the best-known works with all the relevant context but a few others made me curious, maybe one day I will research more about it.

We also wanted to see at least one of the many important art galleries of the city, and I think it was a great choice to visit the Alte Pinakothek. The Old Picture Gallery name refers to the time period covered by the collection, as they also have the Neue Pinakothek nearby. I was amazed by many great painters, most of them new to me: Carl Spitzweg, Gabriel von Max, Walter Crane, David Wilkie, Ludwig Richter or Johan Christian Dahl to name just a few.

I could not remember all those names to the point that after visiting the museum I made the complete tour again very very quickly taking photos of the pictures and the inscription plates of my favorite ones to discover more at home. I made it walking very fast, almost running, so even a nice elder man stopped me to say: “see, they sell the collection catalog in the shop so you don’t need to picture everything and leave if you are in a hurry”, I explained him that it was my second round and that I was in love with the museum and we laughed for a while.

Bonus recommendation: Do not visit this museum without using the audio guide, it was one of the best ones I have ever used. Not only they described the masterworks, they did it with nice music along with the texts and sometimes mixed with stories that gave a complete new meaning to the picture. At least the one in English, I always use the English one as sometimes it is more carefully prepared or detailed.

The other remarkable and marvelous location that we visited was the Munich Residenz, the larges city palace in Germany where you can visit more than 130 rooms and pavilions. It is impressive not only because of the size but also because of the importance and beauty of the collection. Many things to highlight: The Hall of Antiquities, the Ancestral Gallery, the Grottenhof, the Royal Apartments, the Golden Hall,…

A complete panoramic of the Munich Residenz Antiquarium

As my twitter followers know (more details in this thread), we had an unspeakable amount of Glühwein during this trip. They served it always and everywhere in ceramic or crystal mugs, avoiding the usage of non re-usable cups that normally end up in the floor or overflowing trash cans. They charged a 3-4 € deposit so you were also free to keep it as a souvenir. Furthermore, in each town (and in the bigger towns even in each market stall) they served the mulled wine in a different mug, some of them nicer than others. We were tempted to keep all of them, but it was not scalable (neither in money nor in luggage requirements) so finally I just kept three from my favorite towns of the trip: Nuremberg, Augsburg and Munich:

Three Glühwein mugs from my favorite towns of the trip: Nuremberg, Augsburg and Munich

And that is all!! I hope that you enjoyed the guide!

Featuring my new Travel Curriculum Vitae

Sun, 26 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I was eager to introduce this section on this site for a long time, after seeing it on my favorite travel blog: Dendarii.es, written by my dearest Yami. Yes, it’s about travels since I enjoy more and more traveling and reviewing my trips.

My Curriculum Vitae as a traveler contains two main parts:

A Leaflet map with all my visited countries with a link to the review that I could have written here in the blog.
A chronological list of all the trips that I have made (as far as I remember)

Looks like I’ve visited 18 out of 193 countries (among those recognized by United Nations), almost all of them in Europe. Looks like the time has come to expand the range of my trips.

Copying the model in dendarii.es to this blog took about 10 minutes. Updating it with my trips took a few hours (researching in calendars, several digital photo albums and even Google Maps Timeline) but the greatest effort (at least in time) has been the aesthetic redesign. I could have left the styles as they were but I’m happy with the result.

I hope you like it, you will always find a link to it in the header.

Scotland: a brief opinionated guide

Sun, 27 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Some weeks ago I had the pleasure to make an awesome road trip through Scotland with my friend Agatha, my travel companion lately. You can read about our trips together through Austria, Brittany or Normandy.

It was my second time in Scotland, after a great trip three years ago to visit mainly Edinburgh. So, this time the Scottish capital was discarded as a destination and the goal was to visit as much as possible of the rest of this beautiful country.

In six days we drove around a thousand miles and hiked almost 40 kilometers, without taking into account the countless walks through cities and towns. And we found more than 25 caches!!

What to expect from this guide

Again (and it’s starting to be an issue) we had to prepare the trip in just a few days. Some places were more or less familiar to me and for years I’ve had a terrible desire to visit the Isle of Skye, but apart from that all the initial research was full of positive surprises.

Let me show you the initial map of Scotland must visit destinations prepared by Agatha, except the Isle of Skye prepared by myself. Sadly we couldn’t visit all of those places because we decided to do as much hiking as possible and we took it very easy in general, but we managed to visit almost all of them.

Map with the main places to visit in Scotland, mainly prepared by Agatha

Let’s start!

Day 1: Loch Lomond National Park, Puck’s Glen & Oban

We landed at Glasgow International Airport very very soon to make the most out of the first day. We lost some of this advantage struggling with the car rental company. In the end the experience with them was OK but it started horribly bad. They gave us a car smaller than expected (and booked, and payed) but at least it had automatic transmission and in the end it was comfortable enough for two and very appropriate and comfortable to drive on normally one lane roads.

Our tiny Huyndai i10 - CC BY-NC-SA

Our first destination was Balloch, on the southern shore of the beautiful Loch Lomond, the largest inland stretch of water in Great Britain by surface area. We visited the castle gardens and walked through the main road (including our first beers of the trip, mine without alcohol). Balloch is a popular destination because lots of ferries leave from there to navigate the lake. The only ship that we boarded was The Maid of the Loch, a beautiful paddle steamer (the last to be built in Britain) that is coupled to the pier and serves nowadays as a cafeteria. Apparently is being restored by a charity whose aim is to return her into operation again.

The next stop was Luss, a touristic small town a few kilometers up the lake shore. The center of the town was very beautiful, specially the surroundings of the Parish church, but there was a disproportionate amount of tourists. Before leaving we had a nice lunch in a quaint restaurant, including the best chicken chipotle wrap that I’ve ever eaten. Seriously.

After another nice drive through a marvelous countryside we arrived to the starting point of Puck’s Glen, probably the most beautiful walking trail that I’ve seen. Puck’s Glen is amazing, the pictures cannot capture the atmosphere in the whole place. Looks like it’s named after the character of William Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream and it surely resembles a fantastic dream: huge trees, dense forests, breathtaking viewpoints, uncountable water streams, picturesque water falls, steep ravines,… The hike is not very long and it’s easy to follow so you should not miss it if you come near the area.

Puck's Glen, a real midsummer night's dream - CC BY-NC-SA

We finished our first stage near Oban, a beautiful resort town surrounding a nice bay. It has a curious monument on top of a hill, McCraig’s Tower, and lots of restaurants and hotels. Despite this, we chose a promising Bed and Breakfast in a town nearby.

A nice panoramic of Oban, with a blue McCraig's Tower on top - CC BY-NC-SA

Bonus recommendation: the Grove House Bed and Breakfast exceeded all our expectations. They were extremely nice with us (including waiting until late for the check-in), giving us two rooms for the same price so we could sleep more comfortably. In the morning I took one my favorite breakfasts in the UK: smoked herring grilled.

Day 2: Beinn Lora, Glen Coe, Loch Ness & Eilean Donan

After the energetic breakfast, the first thing we did was another small hike, the Eagle’s Eyrie walk in Beinn Lora. The path had been recently improved by the logging company that exploits the area and it was very beautiful and interesting. Not so many days before everything was covered by huge trees but when we were visited only some remaining lumber and stumps were there. In some stumps we counted more than 60 rings, the entire area produced mixed feelings of sadness and beauty. Very curious, after all.

Beinn Lora, nature alive and dead at the same time - CC BY-NC-SA

Some kilometers up north we arrived the main attraction of the day: the Glen Coe National Natural Reserve, one of the most popular Natural Reserves in the UK. We visited the Meeting of the Three Waters and the Three Sisters, totally different things but separated by less than 1 kilometer. Despite the light rain, we decided to start climbing the Bidean nam Bian mountain massif to reach the Coire Gabhail, also known as Lost Valley or Hidden Valley because in order to reach this glacier formed marvel you need to climb 230 meters through a steep path. The ascension was fantastic and beautiful, but also very long and quite adventurous because the rain became more intense and the path was steep and wet. We were always safe but we ended up very tired and soaked after almost 5 hours under the heavy rain. It was totally worth it, anyway.

Soaked but happy, entering the Lost Valley at Glen Coe - CC BY-NC-SA

After a well deserved lunch at the Boots Bar in the Clachaig Inn, we decided to spend the evening with more relaxed visits, the first of them to Fort Augustus, a small village in the south west end of Loch Ness. It is very popular for tourists but the main attraction is the lake itself. We took the car again to reach the ruins of Urquhart Castle, but it was closed already so we couldn’t even enter. I visited it in my previous trip to Scotland, but at least Agatha could see the ruins with the lake behind and Nessie diving somewhere..

The rain continued and the sunset was approaching, so for the rest of our evening we left a quick stop at the Eilean Donan Castle. The castle has an interesting history but it’s private and it was closed, so we just crossed the bridge and walked around it calmly to enjoy the place as we were completely alone.

The majestic Eilean Donan Castle - CC BY-NC-SA

Day 3: Isle of Skye

We visited some of the main landmarks and popular hikes in the Isle of Skye. The fields in some areas were more brown than green, but the place is marvelous anyway. I want to go back, nut with more time and a mobile home.

Our first stop was to climb to the Old Man of Storr, a picturesque 28 meters high pinnacle surrounded by similar rock structures. Compared to the previous days with the entire paths for us, in this route we met many more people. The parking site was packed full, even in the shoulders of the road, and the complete path was full of people going up and down. Nevertheless, the climb is beautiful and not very hard, so it’s a strong recommendation.

A small lagoon beside the Old Man of Storr, with the sea behind - CC BY-NC-SA

After lunch, we make a quick stop to see the Mealt Falls, the Loch Mealt overflowing to the sea almost directly on a cliff. Interesting.

Our next stop was poorly planned and fatally executed, everything because of me. There are several ways to visit The Quiraing and I choose the worst one starting with the most difficult part, a very steep ascension with lots of mud and puddles. The idea was that the rest of the way would be to descend from there, but the path was not easy even after having passed the worst slopes. A Storm suddenly appeared, we had only a few hours of light and we didn’t risk it. After going down to the parking lot, attempting the shortest and easiest path to The Quiraing was not appealing so we went to the next stop.

Fairy Glen is a special and curious place to visit. It’s a small area formed by small magical hills eroded in spiral-ish waves. To the natural attractive the locals have added more spirals in the ground made with stones and towers of stone in equilibrium.

The magical hills of Fairy Glen - CC BY-NC-SA

After a long drive we arrived before the sunset to the Neis Point, the most westerly point of the Isle. There is a beautiful walk from the car park to the lighthouse, including an interesting ascension to a small summit where you can (supposedly) see whales, dolphins and sharks. But you don’t need to climb anything to enjoy a spectacular sunset from almost anywhere in the point. You should go there definitely.

The walk to the lighthouse at Neis Point - CC BY-NC-SA

As we couldn’t book anything more or less affordable in the entire area, we changed our plans and decided to drive a couple of hours after dinner to sleep closer to our next destination outside of Skye instead of spending one additional day around there. We probably made a mistake because with the hotel booked far far away and just after starting the trip, it began to rain torrentially. Our GPS’s two hours estimation was transformed into almost 4 hours driving under the rain, at night, mostly through 1-lane roads and after a long day driving and hiking. But we arrived, luckily without running over any wild animal.

Bonus recommendation: Near the Rubha nam Brathairean on our way to The Quiraing we ate in the Skye Pie Cafe, a cute place with a vegetarian friendly menu that serves mainly pies of spectacular flavors based on local products, including some sweet pies for dessert.

Day 4: Corrieshalloch Gorge, Rogie Falls, Cromatry, Fortrose & Inverness

After a nice breakfast we started again very early our day. Lots of things to see!!

The first stop was a quick visit to the Corrieshalloch Gorge, a spectacular 1.5km long and 60 meters deep gorge with a huge waterfall and a bridge that only supports the weight of 6 people. We suffered a fun moment being there making pictures with other 5 adults when a family with a big dog appeared at the other end :-)

A curious 'dancing' bridge to cross the Corrieshalloch Gorge - CC BY-NC-SA

A few kilometers later we stopped for another short forest walk to visit the Rogie Falls, a series of waterfalls that we could enjoy almost for ourselves. We enjoyed it so much that we had time to make funny pictures while looking for a cache.

Taking a nap in Rogie Falls - CC BY-NC-SA

Three more stops: Cromatry, an interesting small village with a nice port; the Fortrose Cathedral, a half-ruined cathedral build primarily with red sandstone; and the Channonry Point, a spit of land near Fortrose that is very popular because from there you can spot bottlenose dolphins, porpoises and grey seals.

And finally we arrived to Inverness, the capital of the Scottish Highlands. We spent the rest of the day there, looking for caches, walking around and enjoying the pubs. According to Wikipedia Inverness is one of Europe’s fastest growing cities, and it’s ranked very high in quality of life and happiest place in the entire UK, but I didn’t feel any of this. Anyway, it can be a special place to live but IMHO it’s not so special for a tourist. The castle and the town hall are nice but I would not have minded having skipped this stop.

Sleeping in the worst hotel that I remember did not improve my general feeling about Inverness.

Day 5: Cawdor Castle, Glenfiddich distillery, Cairngorms National Park & Pilotchry

Our first day started with a nice visit to Cawdor Castle, a private castle that can be partially visited. It contains a nice collection of art and it’s richly decorated but what I loved most was the gardens. They even had a garden maze, but sadly the path to the interior of the maze was closed.

The gardens of Cawdor Castle, with the main building behind - CC BY-NC-SA

Neither Agatha nor I are big whiskey fans, but we did not want to leave Scotland without stopping in a distillery and we chose one of the most famous: Glenfiddich Distillery. I tried to convince her to go to Laphroaig distillery but it’s far away from everything else so I accepted the change.

Glenfiddich has a huge distillery in Dufftown, they offer all kind of tours and most of the tours include a whiskey tasting at the end. For the designated drivers they offered a small bottle of Glenfiddich 15 to make the tasting at home.

The visit was interesting, after having visited some distilleries and several beer breweries what I needed was to learn something new or different related to the process. This time I learned that the shape of the swan necked copper stills affects the flavor, character and strength of the resulting whiskey. Brilliant, right?

The beautiful copper stills of the Glenfiddich Distillery - CC BY-NC-SA

We considered visiting also the Strathisla Distillery in Keith as the oldest continuously operating distillery in Scotland, but we decided to start going south to spend the afternoon in the Cairngorms National Park.

After some research in the copilot seat Agatha chose the Loch an Eilein hike, a beautiful 7-8 kilometer walk around the said Loch. The entire route is astounding, including an idyllic view of a small island near the shore with an ruined castle. The best part was that we were almost alone in the entire area, more silence and quietness is impossible.

Calmly enjoying the Loch an Eilein - CC BY-NC-SA

We finished our day with another short walk to view the Falls of Bruar just before sunset and a nice dinner in Pilotchry, one of the most touristic towns in the area.

Bonus recommendation: Although they made a mistake in the order and they took almost an hour to serve us our dinner, you should consider visiting McKays, a lively pub, hotel and restaurant with live music and nice decoration. We were seated in a saloon with the ceiling full of golf clubs and golf-themed pictures on the walls. We had dinner in front of Ballesteros and Olazabal :-)

Day 6: Killin, Trossachs, Doune Castle, Stirling & Glasgow

Our first visit, near our hotel with views to Loch Earn, was to see the Falls of Dochart. These broad falls are formed at the junction of two rivers, just beside an old stone bridge at the entrance of Killin. Quite a spectacular view.

Panoramic of the Falls of Dochart, in Killin - CC BY-NC-SA

Also spectacular was to drive through the Great Trossachs Forest and the Duke’s Pass. For my next visit I must spend more time in this area.

After a quick shopping stop and ordinary lunch in Aberfoyle we arrived to another of the places I wanted to go since my last trip to Scotland: the Doune Castle, a medieval stronghold that is famous because several scenes of Monty Python and the Holy Grail were filmed there.

As a huge fan of Monty Python I was curious about the place, and specially (I recognize it) about the merchandising that they could sell in the castle shop. We finally didn’t visit the interior of the castle to have more time in Stirling, and the merchandising in the shop was a bit limited (a few t-shirts, mugs and books) but the visit was worth it because Doune is close to Stirling so we didn’t spend a lot of time.

Emulating King Arthur, at Doune Castle - CC BY-NC-SA

We arrived to the Stirling Castle with the full afternoon available to enjoy it calmly. It remind me (no surprises here) to the Edinburgh Castle and during our visit with the audio guide I tried to compare what I remembered from the other one. We could visit the place with less tourists that expected so it was more or less quick so we also spent some time walking through the Stirling town to grab a fantastic multi-cache with interesting stops: the Old Grammar School, Argyll’s Lodging, Mar’s Wark, the Church of the Holy Rude, the Old Town Jail or the Merkat Cross.

The day was cloudy, and from the castle the views of the National Wallace Monument were astonishing, even more than from behind the monument itself.

Views from Stirling Castle, with the Wallace Monument in the background - CC BY-NC-SA

After enjoying Stirling, we arrived with the last sun rays to Glasgow. We walked the downtown, surprised by the huge amount of bars and restaurants. We knew that Glasgow had a good atmosphere but it seemed disproportionate to us in a positive way.

But our flight was scheduled to take off very very early, so to avoid last minute issues and traffic jams we returned the car and booked a hotel beside the airport. Next time I’ll consider spending a full evening in Glasgow if I fly there.

I hope that you enjoyed the guide!

Brittany: a brief opinionated guide

Sun, 31 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

As explained in the previous post, I’ve recently been in Normandy and Brittany with my friend Agatha. After publishing the first part of the trip (Normandy: a brief opinionated guide) now I proceed to do the same with Brittany.

It has been quite complicated because we saw a lot of awesome things and for me it still takes a lot of time (several hours) to write this kind of articles.

What to expect from this guide

I don’t like to repeat myself, so I invite you to read the disclaimers in the Normandy article. I’ll simply put here the map of Brittany prepared by Agatha.

Map with the main places to visit in Brittany, prepared by Agatha - CC BY-NC-SA License

Let’s start!

Dol-de-Bretagne

Our first stop in Brittany from Normandy was precisely in a town that was besieged several times by the Normands. In 1924 the town changed its name from Dol to Dol-de-Bretagne, maybe to discourage a new attempt by their neighbours.

Dol-de-Bretagne deserves a quick visit, not only to see its Cathedral and the quaint Grand Rue des Stuarts (Dol is considered the origin of the famous royal House of Stewart) but specially to see a huge menhir (the estimated weight is 125-150 tons).

Dol-de-Bretagne menhir - CC BY-NC-SA License

Cancale

We arrived Cancale at the right time, just before lunch. This fishing village is famous for its oyster beds, its oyster farmers everywhere, its popular oyster market, and its countless restaurants where you can order oysters. According to Wikipedia, the oyster beds of Cancale cover more than 7 square kilometers, and they harvest about 25,000 tons of oysters each year. Impressive, even for someone like me who finds eating raw oysters quite disgusting.

Panoramic with lots of oysters beds and the popular Oyster Market - CC BY-NC-SA License

Cancale’s Oyster Market is famous because in the stalls they sell freshly caught oysters on a plate or tray with a slice of lemon, and people eat them right there by the sea. The initial plan was to visit the market before lunch so that Agatha could satisfy her appetite. After seeing one after another the handful of stalls that were there open, the rumors say that Agatha did not find the idea very pleasant and had to settle for trying the oysters in the restaurant.

There were countless restaurants, I suspect that in high season it will be difficult to come and eat in a decent place without reservation.

Bonus recommendation: Restaurant Le Cancalais, one of the finest restaurants in Cancale, although perhaps also one of the most expensive. Great menu with several seafood and fish dishes.

Saint-Malo

Saint-Malo was one of the main positive surprises of the trip. With an historic center that is itself a walled citadel, Saint-Malo was in the past notorious for its privateering and pirate activities. Today, it is considered the most visited place in Brittany.

Although the day was windy it was not very cold, and with a vin chaud in the hand we took a very cool walk over the city walls. I thought initially that it was the standard insipid posh town with glamorous sites everywhere but I found a charming town with (yes) lots of glamorous places everywhere. Maybe I put a lot of my part, but I perfectly imagined the streets and beaches full of corsairs.

Panoramic on top of the Jardin des Petit Murs, Saint-Malo - CC BY-NC-SA License

Bonus recommendation: Café La Java, by pure chance we stopped for a coffee in this spectacular place. The decoration was based on dolls, puppets and lots of circus material. The chairs on the bar were swing chairs hanging from the ceiling… everything was incredible, even the blow they gave us when we asked for the bill.

Dinard

After the positive surprise of Saint-Malo we decided to visit Dinard, another famous tourist destination for wealthy people in this case mainly from the United Kingdom. We took a short walk after the sunset that did not allow us to see much but we ended with the feeling that the place looks nice for the spring and summer but it’s basically dead in the low season.

The most remarkable moment, and it was not prepared in advance, was the photo that I took next to an statue of Alfred Hitchcock with an Alfred Hitchcock’s t-shirt. Hitchcock visited several times the town for holidays, to the point that the locals even claim that the house used in Psycho is based on a still standing villa of Dinard. The statue is full size a replica (or vice versa) of the trophies for the winners of the Dinard British Film Festival, held here every year since 1989.

In Dinard, with Sir Alfred Hitchcock - CC BY-NC-SA License

Dinan

Dinan was also one of those villages that could deserve a relaxed weekend getaway. We quietly walked through its center despite the rain, crossing countless streets and squares with picturesque facades and shops. We couldn’t climb La Tour de l’Horloge to see the views from up there, but maybe you should.

I think that Dinan was the first town where we enjoyed a town center more or less protected from the cars and the traffic. This helped a lot to improve our sense of comfort there. As happened in Saint-Malo, the town center was full of nice shops and restaurants, giving the pedestrian the feeling of being inside a spectacular outdoor mall.

Panoramic in Dinan - CC BY-NC-SA License

Côte de Granit Rose

The Côte de Granit Rose (Pink Granite Coast) is a >30km stretch of coastline famous due to its unusual pink sands and rock formations. This is an unique place, and several curious and picturesque areas can be seen from different places. Beside the coast and the cliffs, most of the house and chalets in the area were also built with this pink granite.

We went first to some viewpoints inside Perros-Guirec and then to Ploumanac’h, close to the main area for visitors to the Pink Granite Coast in the Pors Karmor bay. It is supposed to be more startling during the summer because there is more sunlight, but it’s a recommended visit at any time of the year.

Panoramic in the Côte de Granit Rose - CC BY-NC-SA License

Bonus recommendation: Restaurant Le Ker Louis, again we ended there a little bit by chance, because we tried before in several places that turned out to be closed, and it was a tremendous luck. Our lunch was spectacular, very well prepared and quite inexpensive.

Rumengol and Le Faou

We planned Le Faou and Rumengol (a small village that belongs to Le Faou as well) as two quick visits in our way from the northern coast of Brittany to the Pointe du Raz, and we were not mistaken.

Rumengol has a curious church (Notre-Dame-du-Tout-Remède) that hosts a significant pilgrimage ceremony, one of the main ones in Brittany. We only saw the church from the outside and after the sunset, but it looked very special and quite different from others. Le Faou has a couple of cute streets, nice but nothing remarkable where almost all the villages have the same.

Pointe du Raz

Pointe du Raz is one of the sites that most impressed me on the trip and one of the places that I will remember the most. It is a rocky promontory that is just embedded into the sea, but the sensation there with strong waves crushing the cliffs and hurricane winds was really special. Totally overwhelming, to the point that it seemed dangerous to go near the edge of the cliffs in case the wind blew you away. I’m not surprised that the French considered it the end of the world.

From the headland, you can see several lighthouses of different sizes located on rocks or small islands. It’s the place that I know where more lighthouses can be seen.

Notre Dame des Naufrages looking into the sea - CC BY-NC-SA License

Locronan

We really wanted to see Locronan and we were not disappointed. Narrow streets, cute shops, houses made of stone and slate,… Our only problem was that we arrived exactly when dozens of workers and gardeners were conditioning and decorating the entire town in a big way for XMas. It was full of vans, tractors, boxes, sacks,… but despite all this, the town looked beautiful.

Locronan is a deserved member of the Les Plus Beaux Villages de France (The most beautiful villages of France) association. Le Faou is also a member but there are huge differences in terms of beauty and care.

Panoramic of the Place de l'Église in Locronan - CC BY-NC-SA License

Bonus recommendation: Ty Kouign Amann, one of the finest chocolate shops we’ve seen in the trip. It was so tempting that we left there with a bag full of chocolates.

Quimper

Among all the large towns (or small cities) that we visited, Quimper was one of the ones I liked the most. Several gardens, beautiful houses and the usual town center full of nice shops, boutiques and restaurants. Also, the Cathedral has a feature that makes it special. The main nave is bended in the middle, so much that it is clearly perceived both inside and outside the temple.

Bonus recommendation: Le Sistrot, this marvelous place is both cider house and refined restaurant, they served us one of the best meals of the entire trip. They had in the menu dozens of different ciders from all over the world and of many different types, for example I ordered one made of 5 different kinds of apples. I was left wanting to order the add-on for the menu that included a different cider to match with each plate, dessert included.

Ville Close

The Ville Close (Walled Village) is a fortified island forming a medieval small village inside the town of Concarneau. It was nice but somehow disappointing because it’s very very small and 90% of the shops and restaurants inside the fortress were closed. It is sized for many people, and they even had an outdoor theater, so surely in other seasons it will be much more attractive.

Panoramic of the Ville Close and the Marina of Concarneau - CC BY-NC-SA License

Pont-Aven

Pont-Aven is mainly known for the Pont-Aven School of Arts, a group of artists in the 19th century led by Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin that painted every corner of this town. Now Pont-Aven is full of tourists, restaurants and art galleries.

To reinforce the impressionist atmosphere that inspired (and inspires) the painters and charms the visitors, the entire village specially around the river was illuminated in a very special way. I’m not sure if this is always like this or only on these pre-XMas dates.

Panoramic of the River Aven passing through Pont-Aven, with nice colours and lights - CC BY-NC-SA License

Auray

We made a quick visit to Auray, just to walk a while through the center and to have dinner. It’s nice, not as interesting as other places in Brittany but I’d recommend a visit if you pass near there.

Carnac

Carnac is renowned for the Carnac stones, one of the most extensive Neolithic menhir collections in the world. Within the limits of the town you can visit several areas with kilometers of alignments of stones of different sizes, some of them over two meters high. I’m not sure what is more impressive, the fact that they could do that around 4500 BC or that most of them in this area are still standing in the 21st century.

Near a couple of alignments you can also find a huge menhir, brilliantly called Le Géant du Manio, with more than 6m of height. Le Géant is hidden inside a forest, so you need to walk for 10-15’ to reach there but the short walk is worth it because the forest is impressive. I would love to have forests like that near my house.

Inside one of the stone alignments in Carnac - CC BY-NC-SA License

Vannes

Vannes was also a positive surprise. It’s quite big (more than 50K inhabitants), but the town center is again very well preserved and luckily for them restricted to vehicles. Narrow streets with nice shops and restaurants everywhere.

One of the differential elements of Vannes is his port, built in an elongated way to take the sea into the center of the city.

Panoramic of the Port-de-Vannes, with the famous Place Gambetta in the left - CC BY-NC-SA License

Bonus recommendation: Restaurant Rive Gauche, possibly the restaurant that we liked the most. The plates were spectacular, refined and inexpensive. It’s very small, so you should book in advance.

Malestroit

We only had time for a quick walk through the center of Malestroit and it was raining a lot, so we couldn’t see this small village as calmly as we normally do but what we saw was very beautiful. They were celebrating a charity market, and we were able to buy them vin chaud so our memory of them will always be positively biased.

La Gacilly

La Gacilly is famous for two things: it’s local craftsmen stores (not as valuable as they were described) and Yves Rocher. This cosmetic company was founded here, and everywhere you look you’ll see something related to it: shops, restaurants, cafés, spas, hotels,… the company even maintains a botanical garden in La Gacilly, open to the public without charge.

Rochefort-en-Terre

Rochefort-en-Terre was perhaps the most anticipated destination by Agatha. During the entire year is just another nice village with stone houses, attractive restaurants, galleries, cute shops… but during the last days of the year it changes entirely to transform the entire village into a magnificent XMas market. It’s true that after the sunset the environment is magical with all those lights and even some artificial snow flakes in some streets. The magic disappears partially because it was infested with visitors, even more than Mont Saint-Michel.

That night we slept in another small town close to Rochefort-en-Terre so in addition to seeing it at night, the next day we walked by there with sunlight and it was also interesting, specially because we were almost alone. The bad thing is that everything was closed that early in the morning.

Rochefort-en-Terre at night - CC BY-NC-SA License

Josselin

Josselin is considered one of the most beautiful medieval villages in Brittany. In addition to having the typical facades with wooden beams, here I had the impression that they were painted with more care and style. We took a good walk but we could not enter the castle, things that happen when the monuments are privately owned.

Josselin's colourful facades - CC BY-NC-SA License

Brocéliande Forest

We really wanted to spend a few hours hiking through the forest of Brocéliande (a legendary forest commonly considered to be the Paimpont forest in Brittany) but two things crossed our path once we started the route: a copious rain and a sign forbidding us to continue. The forest, at least the part that tourists cross, is privately owned and that makes it possible that the main forest area only opens from April 1st to September 30th.

Anyway, our limited walk was great specially under the rain.

Inside Brocéliande forest - CC BY-NC-SA License

Bonus recommendation: Crêperie La Fée Gourmande, we had a lot of trouble finding a place to eat in Paimpont because everything was closed, but in the end someone told us how to get to a creperie in the outskirts that would surely be open. La Fée Gourmande is not in the center of the town but it’s amazingly located in the shore of the Étang de l’Abbaye de Paimpont and the galettes were amazing. a total success because they were also very nice with us.

Fougères

We were on the verge of not being able to go to Fougères due to the lack of time and I’m very glad that we could finally make it, even if it was at the cost of having cut the walk through Brocéliande.

The Château, a huge stronghold built atop a granite ledge, is one of the most famous attractions in the area. It’s very well preserved and the visit with the audioguide explains clearly the history of the castle and the city in the Middle Ages.

As in many other places, we were almost alone so we could make funny things like climbing two different towers so we could take each other a picture on top of the other tower. I have several epic pictures in this castle, it’s a pity that I didn’t have my bow and some arrows to pose properly.

Panoramic inside Fougères Castle - CC BY-NC-SA License

The town itself is nice, specially because it’s located on top of a hill and the views are magnificient both from the village to the castle and from the castle to the village. The garden surrounding the Cathedral was full of lights and XMas figures (and people).

Rennes

Our visit to Rennes was slightly disappointing, we planned one evening and a morning there but we could only see the Cathedral. We tried hard to visit the Parlament de Bretagne but they exhausted us by making us cross the center of the city to go to a tourist office that later turned out to be closed… Rennes is very big (10th largest city in France) and it seemed to be a very lively city but they did not prove to be very well prepared for tourists out of season.

I would not mind coming back and spending a quiet weekend here.

Typical pedestrian street in Rennes, the house on the left is unique because the wood is painted in 3 different colors - CC BY-NC-SA License

Vitré

Vitré was our last stop in the trip through Normandy and it was not a bad culmination. We were able to take a pleasant walk under a light rain, and after lunch we visited the castle. The part of the castle that you can visit is small but interesting, the other part holds the Town Hall and other official dependencies.

The entrance to Vitre Castle - CC BY-NC-SA License

Bonus recommendation: Restaurant Le Petit Bouchon, it’s outside the historic center, so it’s almost impossible for you to end up eating here if it’s not after a recommendation. We ate very well and were treated perfectly. Their Café Gourmand is delicious.

Le Mans

Le Mans is not in Brittany, but it was on our way to Charles de Gaulle to return the car and flight back home. They claim to be the second most known French city around the world, and this is because since 1923 the city hosts the famous 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance car race.

We couldn’t enter the Cathedral but we liked a lot the rest of the town center. It’s nice and very lively. They have a cute area around the monument to the 24H of Le Mans race, which is indistinguishable from a shopping mall due to the amount of shops of all kinds.

The Museum of the 24 Hours of Le Mans is full of real sport cars and bikes with a few replicas, very interesting to any aficionado of the races. The vehicles were grouped by category and year, so it was easy and educational to follow the evolution of the technological improvements. One of the most curious things were some showcases with miniatures of all the cars that participated every year.

The last items in the collection of the Museum of the 24 Hours of Le Mans - CC BY-NC-SA License

In addition to the museum, it’s possible to do a walking tour through the Circuit de la Sarthe. The visit includes access to the stands, bleachers and the pelouse area. I enjoyed it but it would have been nice to be able to visit other interesting areas like the boxes, the workshops, the VIP areas… or even lending us a car to make a whole lap to the circuit :-)

Circuit de la Sarthe, the main part of the 24 Hours of Le Mans Circuit - CC BY-NC-SA License

I hope that you enjoyed the guide!

Normandy: a brief opinionated guide

Wed, 13 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Some months ago I wrote in the blog about my road trip through the Romantikstraße in Austria. I shared the trip with Agatha and it went great, so we took advantage of the fact that we both had several pending holidays for this year and repeated the experience in two of the most beautiful regions in France: Normandy and Brittany. This post will be a summary of our experience in Normandy and hopefully I’ll be able to write a similar one for Brittany.

What to expect from this guide

The trip was decided and confirmed like four or five days before leaving so we couldn’t prepare a lot but at least Agatha was able to prepare a list of places to visit in both regions. Specially for Brittany she even made the effort to collect several articles with comments and recommendations of places. Being honest, we could not follow most of them (they were written for other times of the year and other kind of travelers) but it was very helpful anyway.

So, our trip started with many places to visit, a few notes and very few hours of daylight to see things. We had to be very practical and extremely flexible, but in the end almost all the decisions went well so I decided to relate the trip from an opinionated point of view, as I have been asked by several colleagues and friends.

Map with the main places to visit in Normandy, prepared by Agatha - CC BY-NC-SA License

For each place, I’ll summarize our experience there with the list of places we visited and some comments on them. There is much more to visit, It is not intended to be an exhaustive list of the essentials of each city or town.

I will not include purely practical info like ticket prices and opening times, it changes a lot and sooner than later it becomes obsolete info. Alas, we were forced to visit some places only during the evening/night with all the museums and attractions closed.

The entire trip was made by car and we booked all our stays in the same day. Normally around 5-6pm and some days even later, the advantages of traveling in the low season.

I’m afraid I’ll forget a lot of things, maybe in the next trip I’ll choose to be copilot so I can take notes during the trip.

Let’s start!

Rouen

After landing in Charles de Gaulle around 3pm, we picked the rental car and our first destination was Rouen, capital city of Normandy. The city is known for its gorgeous downtown, its famous gothic Cathedral and for being the place where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake.

We arrived later than expected so everything was closed. The Cathedral was supposed to be open (according to the web) but it wasn’t. Luckily in front of the cathedral there was a Christmas Market so we had our first vin chaud to warm ourselves for a walk the town center.

Places we visited:

Notre Dame Cathedral, it’s huge and awesome, specially from the outside. One of the finest gothic cathedrals around Europe.

Notre Dame Cathedral, Rouen - CC BY-NC-SA License

Gros Horloge, a fourteenth-century two-sides astronomical clock, not as spectacular as the one in Prague, for example, but you should not miss it as it’s close to the Cathedral.
Place du Vieux Marché and the Church of St Joan of Arc. Joan of Arc was burned alive for heresy in this square in 1431, there is a small memorial with a huge cross marking the spot. The church was completed in 1979, quite modern but the place it’s very interesting. The stained glass windows are from the 16th century, retrieved from other church, and the building itself is worth the visit. It’s very long, crossing almost entirely the square, and evokes both flames and an overturned ship. There is also an interesting gourmet market beside the church, following the same design.

Place du Vieux Marché, Rouen - CC BY-NC-SA License

Church of Saint Ouen, the largest gothic temple of Rouen that started as an abbey church but was vacated and it serves now other purposes as part of the Town Hall. When we entered, there was an organ concert and a moder art exposition.
Church of St Maclou, this 15th century gothic temple is much smaller than the other touristic temples but in my opinion it’s the most quaint one. Also, the best streets to find a good place to eat or drink (as a resident told us) are the ones surrounding St Maclou.
Aître Saint-Maclou, It is one of the rarest ossuaries remaining in Europe. It’s origin as a normal cemetery dates back to the Black Death. After a new epidemic in the 16th century it became necessary to increase its capacity so they build galleries with several rooms to contain the bones.
Other interesting places we couldn’t visit properly: the Musée des Beaux-Arts, the Musée Le Secq des Tournelles and the Tower of Jean of Arc.

Bonus recommendation: Restaurant L’Anticonformiste, the food was great and they have an interesting atmosphere and decoration. It was full of locals, but the place is tourist friendly.

The Normandy Abbeys Trail

This interesting trail starts with the Church of Saint-Ouen in Rouen, and continues near the city following down the course of the Seine River.

Saint-Georges Abbey in Saint-Martin-de-Boscherville, sadly it was closed so we couldn’t enter (not even the gardens) but there is a remarkable bakery that compensated us.
Jumièges Abbey, it was a Benedictine monastery, now turned into a nice ruins. The remains are perfectly preserved and the audioguide tells a lot, but maybe I missed more context information about the place. We had the entire place almost empty for ourselves, I feel that the visit will lose a lot if crowded with people.

Jumièges Abbey - CC BY-NC-SA License

Saint-Wandrille Abbey, we arrived late for the guided visit (in French) so we had to settle for being able to take a walk around. The place is still hosting a community of monks, so you cannot see a lot without a proper tour. Nice but you can skip it if you are not going to enter and visit the place properly.

Étretat

Étretat is known for its cliffs, including three natural arches and a pointed formation called L’Aiguille (the Needle) which rises 70 metres above the sea. We lunched there the typical mussels before walking through the beach to get to a cave by which you can cross to another rock beach to see the largest arch and the Needle, not visible from the town. As many other things around here, with high tide you cannot reach the tunnel so we were more or less lucky. There is also an interesting trail through the cliffs, so we hiked for a while and enjoyed a couple of viewpoints.

Bonus recommendation: La Salamandre, the typical restaurant to eat Mules e Frites (mussels with french fries), the waiters were friendly and both the building and the decoration are unique.

Étretat beach and cliffs panoramic - CC BY-NC-SA License

Honfleur

Sadly we had to choose between Le Havre and Honfleur (the northern and southern banks of the estuary of the Seine River, respectively) and we opted for the latter to continue exploring the good rural taste of Normandy. Probably we made a good choice because we loved Honfleur, a lot, and we only regret not having been able to walk it during day.

Honfleur is full of restaurants, boutiques, chocolate shops, art workshops and galleries. Almost everything was open until late so I can imagine that they are used to receive a big bunch of tourists. Lucky us, we visited everything almost empty and we could had dinner in a great restaurant without a previous booking.

Saint-Catherine’s Church, this temple was built almost entirely with wood and incredibly it is still standing. It is the largest church made out of wood in France. To add more value to the place, it’s said that it was built without using any saw, only cutting the wood with axes. It’s very beautiful both inside and outside.
Vieux Basin and Le Lieutance, close to the church you can find the picturesque old port, one of the finest that we’ve seen in the entire trip, and the old house of the Lieutenant.

Le Vieux Basin, Honfleur - CC BY-NC-SA License

Le Jardin du Tripot, one of those marvelous places that only locals, very well informed tourists and geocachers get to visit. Don’t miss it, I won’t tell more to avoid spoiling the surprise.

Bonus recommendation: L’Homme de Bois, Honfleur is full of restaurants for all pockets but this one convinced us just by crossing ahead. We could not have dinner better, I tried their grilled stingray fin and it was delicious.

Normandie Battle coast, museums and memorials

We visited several landmarks related with Second World War, the Battle of Normandy and the Normandy landings. We didn’t enter all the museums as they are apparently very similar, but we probably visited the most relevant ones.

Musée Mémorial de la Bataille de Normandie, one of the biggest collection of vehicles and weapons (mainly originals with some replicas). The way they present the collection may have aged too much, they would improve a lot if they changed the appearance of some posters and displays, and the approach of the signage in some areas.

Musée Mémorial de la Bataille de Normandie - CC BY-NC-SA License

German Cemetery, our first truly sad place of the trip. Many years have passed but it continues to impress me the amount of people involved in WWII. The cemetery was totally empty for us, and it was specially impressive thanks to a chilly atmosphere with some fog and the early sun.

German Cemetery - CC BY-NC-SA License

Le Pointe du Hoc, one of the most representative places of the Normandy landings, as it still concentrates most of the remaining bunkers, and dozens of huge craters caused by the bombings. Again, visiting the place almost alone was specially valuable as you could enjoy the silence and try to imagine the place during those terrible days. The storming of the place by a couple hundred American rangers is one of the most epic episodes of the entire Battle of Normandy.

Le Pointe du Hoc - CC BY-NC-SA License

Omaha Beach, maybe the most famous landmark and the one with less present day remains. The beach is huge, no wonder it was a key point in the landings being also the most heavily defended beach.

Omaha Beach - CC BY-NC-SA License

American Cemetery and Memorial at Colleville-sur-Mer. Another iconic visit, with its countless tombs overlooking the sea. The contrast with the German cemetery was huge, in many aspects. Curiously, a couple of big murals in the memorial helped me understand much better some concepts and tactical explanations that I’ve read the day before in the Normandy Battle Memorial Museum.

American Cemetery and Memorial at Colleville-sur-Mer - CC BY-NC-SA License

The German Batteries at Longues-sur-Mer, another typical visit with several German batteries preserved almost perfectly with only the damages caused by the war conflict itself. Walking by the closest ones to the coast, it’s enough to turn yourself to feel still threatened by the batteries that are still standing.

German Batteries at Longues-sur-Mer - CC BY-NC-SA License

Port Winston or Mulberry harbours. Most of the temporary portable harbour in front of Arromanches is still there, exactly where they were voluntarily sunk. They were developed by the British and meant to be used until the allies captured a normal French port. Another example of the logistical effort that both sides reached during the conflict. What a pity of wasted resources and talent.

Port Winston or Mulberry harbours - CC BY-NC-SA License

Mémorial de Caen, the biggest museum related to WWII in Normandy. The visit is supposed to be essential, but for us it was more and more of the same content. I’d recommend to visit it before going to the rest of the Normandy landing areas. Again, we could enjoy it a lot being almost alone in the entire museum, including a 25-30’ projection of a film in a 200-250 seat cinema for us alone.

Mémorial de Caen - CC BY-NC-SA License

Bayeux

Bayeux itself is nice and deserves a visit, but it’s specially advisable because it is the home of the Bayeux Embroidery. It has always been called the Bayeux Tapestry although it is not technically a tapestry, but this is a different story. It’s a 70 meters long embroidered cloth which depicts the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England. It was supposedly made in the 11th century, a few years after the Battle of Hastings.

The tapestry consists of about 60 scenes, like in a comic book, and was meant to be displayed annually in the Bayeux Cathedral so all the citizens could learn about the epic victories of William, Duke of Normandy. Now it’s exhibited in a specific museum with some interesting information about its construction and design. This museum is also sized for hundreds of tourists, and it was great to be able to enjoy it almost alone. The audioguide of the museum is mandatory, not only because of the detailed information that it provides but also because the locution of the guide forces you to go along the cloth following the story. A clever way to shepherd tourists.

Bayeux Embroidery or Bayeux Tapestry - CC BY-NC-SA License

Caen

In order to reach Mont Saint-Michel before the high tide, we dedicated Caen less time than it would normally deserve. We crossed the town center, viewing from the outside the main attractions: the Church of St. Etienne (a.k.a. the Men’s Abbey), the Church of Ste. Trinité (a.k.a. the Women’s Abbey) and the Château de Caen, that hosts a couple of museums that we would have visited if only we had 2-3 more hours to spare.

Caen - CC BY-NC-SA License

Mont Saint-Michel

A lot of people recommended us to spend the night inside the island of Mont Saint-Michel, even someone said that ideally you should spend two nights: one outside to view the island from the land and another one inside. This is a very poor recommendation, in my opinion.

It’s not that I was disappointed with the Mont Saint-Michel, on the contrary I loved it, but it’s extremely expensive and I don’t see the value of spending even one night inside. We slept in one of the handful of small hotels inside the rock, and for us it was not very abusive but the price of the same room during the high season was more than 400 euros, with an additional 19€ per person for the breakfast.

The restaurants were, as the hotels, very scarce and therefore very expensive. Normal menus for 40, 60 or even 80€. The specialty is a giant French omelette, normally with nothing at all (for about 25-30€) but sometimes with other ingredients as cheese, mushroom or even lobster, asking for up to 75€ per omelette. Ridiculous.

For the first time in the trip, we saw there several tourist groups but it was clearly below the normal occupation. Maybe in Spring or Summer it has more value to spend one night, as it can be the only way to walk by the streets, the walls or the abbey without crowds everywhere.

For me, the most impressive part is not the tides and the water going up and down covering the entrance to the island. The most impressive part is the abbey internals. In order to place the transept crossing of the church on top of the mount they had to build a lot of chambers, crypts and corridors to sustain the upper floors of the Abbey (and the church on top of everything). Again, it’s impressive the amount of logistical and technological talent wasted in superstitions.

Bonus recommendation: Spend some hours during the day, being aware of the tides schedule to see at least one high tide, but don’t spend the night. The visit to the abbey takes about 2h, and the rest of the mount can be seen calmly in another 60-90 minutes, so you don’t need more than 4-5 hours to see everything properly and leave with your wallet as harmless as possible.

Mont Saint-Michel at night - CC BY-NC-SA License

Follow the link to read about the rest of the trip through Brittany.

Romantikstraße, the Romantic Road (5 of 5)

Fri, 28 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This is the fifth and last part of my chronicle about our trip through the Romantikstraße, you can read the rest here:

Day 5

Our last stage started in Obertraun and ended in Madrid. After a fabulous trip around Austria, we decided to spent our last morning in a quite different environment, visiting the Mauthausen memorial.

Mauthausen

The Mauthausen concentration camp (1938-1945) was one of the first massive concentration camps in Nazi Germany, and the last to be liberated by the Allies. The construction started just two weeks after the Anschluss, when Austria was annexed into the Third Reich. Since the beginning it was labeled as Stufe III (Grade III), which meant that it was intended to be one of the toughest camps, and never lost this horrible classification. Mauthausen was mainly used for incarceration and extermination through labour of political prisoners, forced to work both in the expansion of the camp itself and in granite quarries nearby. Their daily lives were shaped by hunger, arbitrary violence and death.

The main complex in Mauthausen was declared national memorial site in 1949 and it’s also a museum since 1975, 30 years after the camp’s liberation. As they state in the web:

The Mauthausen Memorial is a former crime scene, a place of memory, a cemetery for the mortal remains of thousands of those murdered here and, increasingly, a site of political and historical education. Its task is to ensure public awareness of the history of the Mauthausen concentration camp and its subcamps, the memory of its victims, and the responsibility borne by the perpetrators and onlookers. At the same time it seeks to promote public critical engagement with this history in the context of its significance for the present and future.

The visit is completely free and you only need to pay for the guided tours and workshops, although there is a free audioguide app for the complete memorial and museum. We chose the latter option and it was very useful and interesting.

Several weeks have passed since our visit and I still remember perfectly the sensations that I experienced there. In addition, we had the bad luck that it started raining when we arrived and halfway through the visit it started to rain very very hard. I have seldom seen so much rain. Maybe it was good luck, because it forced us to stay inside the barracks and prevented us to hear anything else but rain and thunders despite being surrounded by groups of visitors in other buildings. The climate was aligned with the sad and withered spirit of the place.

Mauthausen wreaths - CC BY-NC-SA License

Before entering the remains of the concentration camp, the visitor has to cross a couple of dozen memorials, erected by various countries and collectives that lost their citizens in Mauthausen. Curiously, some of these countries no longer exist (like Yugoslavia), others did not exist at that time (like Ukraine) and most striking of all, one of the memorials is dedicated directly to the Spanish Republicans (as you can see in the featured image), since several thousand political prisoners from the Republican side were taken there. Some memorials were large and epic, others small and humble, but all were breathtaking.

Even now in 2017, there was not a single flag of Spain in the whole camp other than the Second Spanish Republic (1931-1939) one, even inside the secular chapel where the flags from all the victims waved. I think it is a lovely and wise gesture.

Spanish Second Republic flag in Mauthausen - CC BY-NC-SA License

Thanks to the deluge, during the last part of the visit we had the camp practically empty for us.

Mauthausen panoramic - CC BY-NC-SA License

After having visited Auschwitz last year, the visit to the rest of the concentration camp inflicted less impression on me. Some anecdotes and brutal events of Mauthausen are unique, but both the figures and how to show what happened at Auschwitz are much more overwhelming.

I won’t go into more details about the camp itself to avoid any spoiler. Mauthausen is an essential visit whether you have visited other concentration camps or not. Please go.

Romantikstraße, the Romantic Road (4 of 5)

Sat, 01 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This is the fourth part of my chronicle about our trip through the Romantikstraße, you can read the rest here:

Day 4

Our fourth stage started in Gästehaus Lauterbacher, a splendid guest house in Neumarkt am Wallersee. Quite off our route because we couldn’t find anything affordable in Mondsee. We wanted a good place to rest after a hard day 3, and Lauterbacher was more than good. The place itself was nice and the owners were marvelous with us. I’ll seriously consider returning to this place if I ever come back to the region.

And thus it began the most awaited stage of the trip.

Postalm

On our way to Hallstatt we droved through Postalm, a mountain pass which is part of a very well preserved and protected Natural Park. Just to cross the area you need to pay a tax (5€ per adult, 2 per children and so on). Normally you’ll pay to spend the morning, the day or the weekend inside: it’s full of hiking routes, mountain bike tracks and even several ski slopes for the winter.

As it was early in the morning, it was almost empty. We only came across a couple of cars and several herds of cows. The scenery was beautiful: everything was green, mist here and there, and almost no sign of mankind except a few piles of stacked wood and the road itself.

Postalm, paradise of Solitude and Nature - CC BY-NC-SA License

I loved the place, although we only stopped a couple of times to make pictures. Another place that I hope to return in the future with my hiking equipment.

Gosau

Our next stop was Gosau. We also spent less time than expected here, we were eager to arrive Hallstatt as soon as possible. We crossed the town a couple of times, made some pictures, visited a lake,… great if it was not what we had been doing the past three days.

The catholic and evangelist churches, disputing the valley in Gosau - CC BY-NC-SA License

Hallstatt

And finally, we arrived Hallstatt, the main destination of the entire trip. I generally liked it and of course it’s very beautiful, but I must say that it might be overrated (IMHO).

The first thing that we did was to go up to the Salz Welten (Salt World) complex using a funicular. The views were as amazing as this during the climb:

Southern part of Hallstatt, with the Salzbergbahn station - CC BY-NC-SA License

Right after ascending you’ll find what they call the World Heritage View (with the corresponding restaurant and souvenir shop): an impressive viewpoint from which you can see much of the Hallstätter See lake and just below, small (because it is small) the old town of Hallstatt on the lake shore.

Hallstatt World Heritage View, with a group selfie using a drone - CC BY-NC-SA License

'Miners' sheltering from the rain in the Hallstatt Salt Mine - CC BY-NC-SA License

They claim that the Hallstatt Salt Mine is the oldest salt mine in Europe, but what they have there is more a tourist trap (as we guessed beforehand) than an historical or practical recreation. Yes, during the visit you go underground and they even give you a miner outfit, but the visit consists almost exclusively of videos and light effects.

What makes the visit unique are wooden slides by which you descend from some galleries to others. It’s curious, but after the second one it’s not that thrilling and with a big group visiting the mines it’s bottleneck after bottleneck. These slides are the reason behind the miner outfit, because apart of them the risk of staining or tearing your clothes is null. A curious thing, being a mine.

But maybe I’m biased, after visiting in 2016 the Wieliczka Salt Mine in Poland, near Krakow. Wieliczka is a really huge mine, the areas that are visitable are much more impressive and the information is infinite times more interesting.

Luckily for you as future visitors, the funicular ticket to visit at least the World Heritage View can be purchased separately from the entrance to the mines.

With that bittersweet flavor, we went down again to visit the old town, full of restaurants, hotels and souvenir shops. The best approach to visit Hallstatt is to lose yourself in its streets, alleys and stairs. I liked some hidden corners more than the typical streets or squares. In fact, what could be a very cool area for visitors (next to the church) is used as parking and therefore is full of cars. Cars and vans can be seen on any postcard picture, as this one:

Hallstatt from the 'postcard picture' spot - CC BY-NC-SA License

And I say postcard picture because since you enter the town there are signs for you to go to the spot from which the postcard picture can be made. Looks like the spot it’s important for them, so I added the viewpoint to OpenStreetMap :-)

We took dozens of postcard pictures and postcard selfies, struggling to avoid that other tourists could appear. It was packed full of people.

A very cool thing about Hallstatt is that the cemetery is located between the houses that surround the catholic church. There is so little place to bury people there that every ten years bones used to be exhumed and removed into an ossuary, to make room for new burials. A collection of elaborately decorated skulls with the deceased’s name, profession and date of death inscribed on them is on display in a small chapel.

Hallstatt Beinhaus, where you can show off your skull forever - CC BY-NC-SA License

Apparently it’s possible to leave written in your will that you want your skull to end there. Think about it.

Obertraun

We ended the day (and we could also say our Romantikstraße trip) in Obertraun, another touristic place just in front of Hallstatt in the lakeshore. Obertraun also has it’s own funicular with caves, mines and breath-taking views, the Dachstein Salzkammergut, but as it was raining and very foggy we prefered to stay in the lakeshore.

Despite the heavy rain and the mist, we took a couple of glasses of the wine we had bought in Kremsmünster and went for a walk. In the lakeshore there were several floating platforms, ready to receive bathers in the summer. We toured the entire village and we even entered a small forest in the mouth of the Koppentraun river to search for a cache (and it was worth it!).

After starting to worry about not find any open restaurant, we discovered the perfect place (and it was beside our hotel): Kegelbahn, a restaurant with typical local food, and a small bowling alley! After a delicious onion soup, a superb goulash and an exquisite cheesecake, we occupied the bowling alley until they closed the place. It was such a fun and unexpected moment.

In Obertraun, throwing bowls like there's no tomorrow - CC BY-NC-SA License

Our visit on the fifth and last day is not strictly part of the Romantikstraße route, but it’ll be part of my review anyway.

Stay tuned for the last episode!

Romantikstraße, the Romantic Road (3 of 5)

Sun, 11 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This is the third part of my chronicle about our trip through the Romantikstraße, you can read the rest here:

Day 3

After two days visiting splendid places with invaluable surprises, we finally decided to discard a short visit to Salzburg in order to spend more time on each stage of our trip. We wanted to take advantage of our rental car and Salzbug deserves to be visited more calmly (and you don’t need a car to go there). For similar reasons, we also ruled out going to the Hohenwerfen Castle.

I think it was the right decision, because it allowed us to make the most of the remaining of our road trip.

Sankt Wolfgang im Salzkammergut

Sankt Wolfgang im Salzkammergut is one of the most touristic places of Austria. I suspect that I’d have preferred to visit this town 15-20 years ago, now it’s excessively exploited touristically. In the narrow streets of the center I had the feeling of being inside a theme park, and unfortunately one with many more shops than attractions. It is possible that the shops and restaurants themselves are nowadays the attractions. Not for me.

Schafbergbahn trains crossing - CC BY-NC-SA License

But still we had a great time there.

We started the day by climbing on the Schafbergbahn, a rack railway leading in the warmer half of the year from almost the lakeshore of the Wolfgangsee lake to the summit of the Schafberg mountain (1,783 m). From the viewpoints of Schafberg it is possible to see 9 of the main lakes of Austria, countless mountains and an infinite 360º landscape.

Initially it reminded me to a small version of the Jungfraubahn, which I visited in 2013. Saving the differences because the Jungfraujoch station is the highest station in Europe (3,454 m), the line is more than twice as long and the amount of visitors is probably exponentially greater in the Jungfrau.

Unfortunately, due to some construction works in the railway, the train only reached the Schafbergalpe (1,363 m), an intermediate railway halt with a big guest house, a couple of private houses and traces of many hiking trails.

Despite not being on the mountaintop, the views were overwhelming. We wandered around the area, taking lots of pictures but as you can imagine they don’t capture the feeling of being up there surrounded by such a wonderful environment. For my next visit I promise to bring adequate equipment to do some hiking route.

Staring into the endless mountains at Schafbergalpe - CC BY-NC-SA License

After the descent came one of the funniest moments of the trip. As we saw in many other places, on the lakeshore of Sankt Wolfgang there were some boat-rental locations. Instead of renting a paddle boat, we chose an small boat with electric engine to try to make a longer trip through the Wolfgangsee lake. In the end, our boat wasn’t much faster than a paddle boat but at least could entertain ourselves doing the clown on board instead of pedaling.

Note to my wise readers: What translation to English do you suggest for “hacer el pertur”?

Sailing on the Wolfgangsee - CC BY-NC-SA License

Apart from amusing ourselves stupidly, from the boat we could contemplate the town from its best perspective. In the next picture you can perfectly see what I mean, a postcard view with the main landmarks: the catholic Church of Sainkt Wolfgang and the Im Weißen Rößl (The White Horse Inn). The inn (now an expensive hotel with a couple of fine restaurants) is very popular for a successful operetta of the same name in which the protagonist is a bartender of the inn desperately in love with the owner of The White Horse. The show has been performed several times mainly across Germany and Austria, but in the 1930s it was even featured on Broadway and the West End of London. There are also several movie and TV series adaptations.

Postcard picture of Sainkt Wolfgang im Salzkammergut, with the Church of Sainkt Wolfgang and the Im Weißen Rößl (the yellow building) - CC BY-NC-SA License

We tried to escape from the tourist traps as much as we could, but in Sainkt Wolfgang it was a really difficult task to achieve. Finally we had lunch in Hubertuskeller. It was very good and not absurdly expensive.

Bad Ischl

For the afternoon we improvised a visit to Bad Ischl and it was our main mistake of the trip, but it was our fault and not because the city is not interesting.

The center of Bad Ischl is very beautiful and it’s very well maintained, but the main attraction is the Kaiservilla, summer residence of the Austrian Imperial family, and we couldn’t see it because it was closed. The town is also famous for it’s salt mines and offers several health spas, but we didn’t have time to enjoy them. We walked through the center, we searched for a couple of caches and we left to reach Mondsee before sunset.

Post Office and the Trinkhalle in Bad Ischl - CC BY-NC-SA License

Mondsee

Mondsee is famous for the Mondsee Abbey and the Basilica of Saint Michael, inside which it was filmed the wedding scene of the film The Sound of Music. We did not arrive in time to visit the church but at least we managed to quietly stroll around the village.

Following a recommendation we tasted a local variety of wine and an assortment of local cheeses, and they were good but nothing special. We enjoyed particularly the Strandpromenade, from which we could see the sunset falling on the Mondsee lake. I’ve just discovered in Wikipedia that Mondsee is one of Austria’s last privately owned lakes. In August 2008, the owner announced it was up for sale. WTF! Fucking Private Property!!

Except for some detail, Mondsee is similar to other towns we had already visited in our trip, but surely it is worth spending more time here.

Waiting for the sunset at the Mondsee lakeshore - CC BY-NC-SA License

We were not able to find a reasonably priced accommodation here so we booked something about 20 km away and off our route, and surprisingly there we met the most incredible host in the world. But this story belongs to our next day…

Stay tuned for next episodes!

Romantikstraße, the Romantic Road (2 of 5)

Mon, 05 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This is the second part of my chronicle about our trip through the Romantikstraße, you can read the rest here:

Day 2

Kremsmünster

For me, Kremsmünster Abbey was the most positive surprise of the entire trip. A priori it looked like yet another abbey, and our first hour there not only was confirming that suspicion but also made us feel somewhat deceived. We paid a considerable amount of money to find out that the ticket didn’t include the visit of what we particularly wanted to see in there: The Tassilo Chalice, the Library and the Mathematical Tower. We could only access the public areas and the inner gardens where they temporally hosted a floral exhibition. The information was confusing, mostly in German only, and the variety of ticket options was the most complex that I’ve ever seen in a place like this.

Kremsmünster Mathematical Tower - CC BY-NC-SA License

After visiting the gardens and the Abbey Church we followed some unclear signs to the Tassilo, and when we were almost there a couple of exhibition guides insisted us that our tickets didn’t include this area, so they charged us again (without any kind of ticket) to enter the Treasure Chamber and a couple more rooms with minor interest. The Tassilo is an interesting piece of art and history, but the extra price to see it seemed disproportionate.

We were about to leave, almost angry, but in the end we bought another additional ticket to visit the panorama terrace on top of the Mathematical Tower even though it only included climbing up the stairs and going out on the terrace to see the views from there. The rest of the building was not included in our handful of tickets but at least we’d see some of what we initially wanted.

And there, waiting at the entrance of the tower, our luck changed with the stellar appearance of Anna. I’ll call her Anna as the most popular female name in Austria to preserve her identity, not because I don’t remember her real name.

The incredible kindness of Anna, her desire to practice spoken English and the fact that there were no more tourists in the visit, made our day radically better. Waiting to see if anyone else was joining the visit we told her about our bad luck and poor understanding of the information for tourists, and she empathized and wanted to compensate us in some way. She couldn’t realize that we’d bought like three different tickets to leave without seeing what we expected to see (the main attractions, by the way).

Xylotheque - Sternwarte Kremsmünster
Source: Reinhard Stiksel in Wikimedia - CC by-sa License

We climbed the Tower, but instead of going directly to the top we stopped at each floor and briefly visited the exhibition rooms. One room was a small Natural History collection with several stuffed animals, minerals, all kind of insects, other contained an interesting collection of vintage astronomical devices and globes, another presented diverse regional folklore, ethnology and popular costumes,… We didn’t make any picture acknowledging that the visit was unofficial, but I can still remember an amazing cabinet with a curious Xylotheque, pieces of different types of wood carved as books that contained their characteristic leaf, fruit or flower. I’d found a picture in Wikimedia, take a look right here.

Anna’s infinite friendliness did not end there. On our way down she offered to negotiate for us a private visit to the Library, guided by herself. She managed to convince her boss, and paying an additional ticket at a reduced price we got to see the rest of the art collections and the impressive Library. We visited the Imperial Hall, several rooms with a nice art collection (mainly paintings) and finally the Library. We could’ve spent hours there…

Kremsmünster Library - CC BY-NC-SA License

We’d planned to be in Kremsmünster just a couple of hours , but finally we were there all morning so we had to lunch just there, in a traditional restaurant inside the Abbey grounds: Stiftsschank. It was great so we recommend it as well.

Scharnstein

Scharnstein stands out for its variety of hiking trails, since it’s surrounded by forests and mountains. It’s also near Totes Gebirge, a picturesque mountain range part of the Limestone Alps.

Our extended visit to the Kremsmünster Abbey forced us to expend less time here, but at least we could do some light hiking. We made one of the typical routes: climbing from the town to the ruins of the Scharnstein Castle. Both the ascent and the exploration of the ruins were fantastic. We were lucky enough to be completely alone, so it was a relaxing experience and a total immersion in the Nature that surrounded us. The views were excellent, with the remains of the castle with the huge Almtal valley behind.

Relaxing at Scharnstein Castle - CC BY-NC-SA License

In Scharnstein you can also find an interesting Criminological Museum. We went there but it was closed, so we settled for a beer in a tavern located in the same Scharnstein Castle that hosts the Museum about Crime and another about the Austrian Federal Gendarmerie. The tavern was promising but they’ll have to admit that it has seen better days.

Traunkirchen

Our next stop was Traunkirchen, a small village known for its idyllic location on a small peninsula overlooking the Traunsee Lake. It’s probably the place where we took more pictures per minute, and that’s considering that the best pictures of the village are made from the lake itself. It was a short walk, but it was totally worth it.

On our way there we booked with our mobile a guest house in other village. If we had seen the Das Traunsee Seehotel before… we’d have spent the night there regardless of how much we were charged, and it didn’t seem cheap. The views and the back terrace of the hotel were incredible.

A pier in Traunkirchen with the Traunstein mountain behind - CC BY-NC-SA License

Gmunden

We planned to end our second stage in Gmunden, the most important town of the region and where the Traun River empties into the Traunsee Lake, at the foot of the Traunstein mountain and near the beautiful village of Traunkirchen. Yes, I agree with you, this village should’ve been called Traun Town.

Gmunden is a very lively town with a lot of summer resorts, shops, art galleries and restaurants. Curiously, most of the fashion boutiques exclusively had Austrian regional costumes on display on the storefronts. I left there with a real desire to buy one, they were splendid. During our visit it was very peaceful, but it was clear that it’s a popular tourist destination. The old town is surrounded by countless houses of all sizes from modest chalets to small palaces.

In the western lakeside, in front of the mouth of the Traun River and connected with the downtown through the Esplananade (a nice long promenade) is located the biggest attraction of the town: the Schloss Ort Castle. This singular Austrian Castle is set on a small island offshore, so it can only be reached by a long timber bridge. This 120m bridge starts from a beautiful green peninsula called the Toscana Park. We took a delightful walk through the park by the water’s edge where each stop seemed a special viewpoint and provided a unique perspective.

Gmunden's Schloss Ort Castle - CC BY-NC-SA License

We had dinner at the Weinhaus Spiesberger, conceivably the best tavern in town where Agatha dined, guess what, Traun Fische! We did not quite understand what kind of fish it was, as in the UK when you order Fish & chips and almost nobody is capable of telling you the specific type of fish. Anyway, it was a seasonal fish from the Lake (or so the said) and it was good so I also recommend this place at least for a beer.

Stay tuned for next episodes!

Romantikstraße, the Romantic Road (1 of 5)

Sun, 28 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

A couple of weeks ago I had the immense pleasure of making a road trip through Austria following what they call the Romantikstraße, Romantic Road or Romantic Trail in English. Interestingly, ours was a singles trip initially planned for three friends but sadly in the end we were only two because at the last minute Roberto had to cancel. I shared this great adventure only with Agatha and it was great (as expected). I suppose that in the eyes of any innkeeper or bartender we were a happy couple celebrating something.

Having said that, I didn’t notice any special romantic atmosphere beyond the surrounding beautiful landscapes, fantastic lakes and awesome mountains. Some might say that my sense of romanticism is broken, and it may be possible, but for me Nature is not romantic by itself. Luckily the shops, restaurants and villages in general didn’t focus on selling this concept to the visitors. In fact it was very unlikely to find a sign about the Romantikstraße off the main roads of the route. But enough talking about the commercial name of the route.

Let me summarize our experience, mainly anecdotes and tips. Prices, timetables and other General tourist information are easy to find and that info sometimes expires soon. I’ll love to read it in the future and it could be useful for anyone planning a similar trip. You can also read Agatha’s review in her blog (in Spanish). She prepared the route perfectly in advance and we mainly followed her plan, we only needed a couple of improvised detours.

TL;DR

The area covered by the Romantikstraße is totally amazing. Everything is beautiful, looks shiny, deserves a zillion pictures or to sit for a while to admire the landscape. Especially the latter
It’s not a cheap trip, but it’s not as expensive as Switzerland
We spent 4,5 days there and it was enough but the trip deserves at least a couple days more
Hallstatt is very beautiful, but it’s not (as they claim) the most beautiful village in the world. Covarrubias is (of course)

Preparing the Romantikstraße

If you are not as lucky as I was and you need to prepare the trip in advance, my first recommendation is to visit the official website of the Romantikstraße. There you’ll find a lot of info about the route and the main attractions. You can also request a brochure of the route in several languages for free, we did it and it was useful during the trip.

About the accommodation, depending on the dates of the trip it may be essential to book everything in advance. Some villages are very small and have few options to choose from. We booked in advance only the first night and a couple of nights we needed a considerable detour from the route, and it was low season.

Day 1

Schallaburg

After wasting more than 1 hour in the airport waiting the queue of the car rental company our first destination was the Schallaburg Castle, a >900 years old castle very well preserved located on top of a hill surrounded by forest. In addition to the privileged situation, the castle offers a very well arranged garden. This first stop reminded me of my bicycle trip through La Loire à Vélo.

The castle also hosts temporal exhibitions and a very nice restaurant in the courtyard called Schloss. Apart from the regional specialties, the restaurant changes it’s menu and decoration to match the running exhibitions. During our visit the main exhibition was about Islam and we could acclimatize to the country with a regional craft beer and some falafel.

The first funny anecdote of the trip arrived soon. From the parking to the castle we saw two different roads, both very steep. Ignoring a medium-sized sign in German we followed the nearest of them, because in OSMAnd I could see that it was more direct to the gardens and the castle. After visiting the garden, the courtyard of the castle, the restaurant and most of the open rooms (and some closed ones), we noticed that we had paid nothing to be there. We went back to the parking lot using the other way and confirmed that we’d skipped the ticket office. I leave to your imagination if we warned them of our mistake and paid the entrance.

Schallaburg castle's courtyard - CC by-nc-sa License

Before leaving, we found our first cache of the trip, less than 5 meters from our car :-)

Melk

Our next visit was to Melk and his famous Melk Abbey. Umberto Eco named Adso de Melk as a tribute to this abbey, and we were curious about it and the fact that the Austrians talk about this place as one of the most important monasteries in Europe. The place did not disappoint us at all.

We did a quick tour through the main elements of this baroque Abbey. The exhibition, the Marble Hall and the church are quite beautiful but what really impressed us was the Library, with about 100.000 volumes (1.888 manuscripts, 750 incunabula, a unique 13th century copy of The Song of the Nibelungs, …). In one room of the Library the fresco portrays an allegory of Scientia (Science), just like churches in Spain, right?

Melk Abbey Library
Source: Jorge Royan @ Wikimedia - CC by-sa License

The Abbey was also wisely located, on top of a hill and clearly standing out from the town of Melk. The visit is worth it just for the views from the balcony connecting the Marble Hall and the Library with Melk, the Danube river and forests everywhere.

The visit to the Abbey includes a nice English landscape garden with an interesting baroque pavilion and a small park full of works of art and fabulous hidden corners.

Don’t forget to find this awesome cache in the surrounding area. One of my all time favorites.

Steyr

Our last stop for the first day was Steyr, where (as they say) Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo meet each other in harmony. Steyr is in the confluence of the rivers Enns and Steyr, and therefore features more than 100 bridges. I confess that I expected to hear the comment The Venice of Austria but it didn’t happen. The old town is nice, all around the huge Stadtplatz (market square) that was, sadly, partially occupied with parked cars and even some tents for private events. Disgusting for the visitors and I’d bet that also for the locals.

Steyr's Nachtwachtern - CC by-nc-sa License

Our main goal in this city was to follow the Nachtwächtern Tour, a walking tour through the old town guided by a historian disguised as medieval watchman. Unluckily the tour was only in German, and we struggled to get the guide to understand that we wanted to follow him without understanding anything at all. The guide took pity on us, letting us follow him paying only half the price. As expected we didn’t understand anything, but we crossed the same streets and alleys, we looked where they looked, we analyzed in detail whatever they commented in detail, and we laughed when they laughed (maybe even some joke about Spanish tourists, who knows).

The Night Watchman Tour is also the only way for a tourist to climb the 228 steps of the Stadtpfarrkirche Steyr tower, a roman catholic Church dedicated to Saint Aegidius (I toast him!) and Saint Koloman. Even at night, the views are wonderful.

We had a delicious dinner with local specialities at Mader and returned to our guest house (Gasthof Bauer). I recommend both places but especially the second one, the guest house occupied several low buildings and houses in a small island near the old town, the rooms were almost small apartments and the attention we received was exquisite.

This is the first part of my chronicle about our trip through the Romantikstraße, you can read the rest here:

Stay tuned for next episodes!