Day 3, 4 and 5

It would seem that we were still recovering from Oktoberfest as we are both still very drained. We still ended up heading into town to get internet access and found ourselves in an internet café as we were unable to get a free connection with the laptop. I also picked up a new wallet at the mall as mine has already broken. We did some grocery shopping and then called it a day.

While Anna is away for the weekend we hung out in Regensburg planning our adventures through Europe. We have realized that we need to have some idea otherwise we waste time and money driving back on our tracks. That being said, we went to Anna’s place tonight (Sunday) and hung out with her and stayed at her place, the nights are now around zero. We ended up doing our laundry and hanging out for another day before we took off towards Dresden. Yes we are going north even though it is getting colder. Sounds crazy doesn’t it?

Day after Oktoberfest

Surprisingly, we woke around 11:30 feeling well. Most of us turned out to have had a slight headache most of the day. They attribute this to the strict rules in what can go into a German beer. As a result there aren’t any preservatives so you end up feeling better than expected if you're used to drinking beer with preservatives. We went over to Michael’s place that night for pizza and to have a much needed shower. Later on we went to a birthday party, but unfortunately Julie and I were still pretty drained from the previous night and weren’t up to party much. So around midnight we made our way back to the van.

Oktoberfest

Despite being up an hour before we had to meet up with Anna and Michael, we were very rushed, Julie more than me. Dressed in the traditional dress, me in Lederhose, Julie in a Dindel, we made our very early walk to Anna’s. I have to say I felt very weird, Julie was smiling though, something unusual to see so early in the morning. I was hoping to get a coffee from the Black Bean, and Julie was hoping for a Chai, but as tight as our time table was, we had to skip out on it. Once we arrived at Anna’s, we made our Pilgrimage to the central train station. We made it to the train station at 8:40, our train left at 8:45 for Munich, so we rushed to go get a ticket. You see, they have an offer for Oktoberfest that for 25 euros, up to 5 people can travel to Munich from anywhere in Bavaria. At least, there seems to be a catch in Regensburg. The train for Munich leaves at 8:45 and the special pass is only valid for travel after 9am, the next train for Munich would leave at around 11. So we needed to make this train to be sure to get into a beer tent. We were unable to purchase individual ride tickets for the first 15 minutes because of the lack of time we had so we rode illegally until 9am. Luck at least was on our side, because the guy who was checking train tickets did not come by us until 9:05 and there was one stop made during that time. It would have been a 40 euro fine each for riding without a valid ticket. So at 9am, Michael handed out the provisions, funny how only the guys wanted a beer. About two hours later we were in Munich’s main train station, I still had my second beer with me and was walking around the station. This was another weird situation for me, as I couldn’t believe that it is completely legal to drink alcohol in public. The group of Police men that walked past us didn’t even give us a second look. So far it was turning out to be a great day. We stopped off at a small bakery in the station and grabbed ourselves a toasted open faced cheesy bacon sandwich and some medium sized pretzels. Emerging from the subway with the hordes of people we made our way to the festival grounds. At first glance it appears to be like any other fair. They have rides, games and food stalls. Except some of the food stalls sell more then your average snack, they sell full meals as well. Oh, and then there’s the beer tents. Now most fairs have beer tents too, except there are around a dozen here and the one we went into can hold up to 10,000 people inside and another 5,000 in the beer garden. It was roughly 11 when we made our way into the large tent it was only about a quarter full. Some people were already drunk though. It was decorated with large wreaths with blue and white ribbons (the Bavarian colours and the colour of the flag) and in the center of it all is a raised platform for the Oompa band which started playing at noon. They also had the symbol of the beer being served which I can’t remember. It was a fantastic day. We met lots of people and experienced much as well. All in all, it ran us 90 euros for the day/night and we were pretty sloppy (me especially) by the end of it. You can tell by the photos that we were all ruined when we decided to leave to catch the last train home. By the end of the night it was pretty difficult to walk around the place as there were so many people. We can’t wait to do it again. Next time though, I’m going to get a place in town as the train ride/walk home was pretty rough. Just ask Julie.

Regensburg Round 3

This time we came to Regensburg to head into Munich for Oktoberfest with Anna, Michael and Sebastian. We managed to arrive in town early and where even able to find parking at the same spot, this time I made the van level right away which was no easy feet. We had lunch and then made our way into town to find our friends. We had no luck though, as they were out with Michael’s parents for the day. Because it was Germany’s national holiday, the day of unity, all the shops were closed. This didn’t, however, deter people from strolling the streets. It seemed as if everyone was out for a walk. Anna and Michael showed up at our van around dinner time and we went back to Anna’s for a shower and to learn about the plans for the morning. Julie and I learnt that we had to be up and ready at the earliest time ever, since we arrived in Europe – 7am.

Plattling

Since we arrived in Germany we haven’t had an early morning and today was the first one. We managed to be on the move at 10am, heading to our next stop to dump our toilet and spend the night. It was only a 40 minute drive so we had plenty of the day left over to go explore. Or so I thought. Once Julie started to clean up the bathroom area, she decided to clean the floors and the counter tops – and then it was a cleaning spree. Everything was taken out of the van for cleaning, especially the stuff in the storage above the front car seats. Since the weather has been cold at night and warm in the day, condensation has been a huge problem but we were able to curb most of it with the dehumidifier we picked up in Wolfrathausen. However, since the weather hasn’t been nice, we don’t open the van up to air out like before and the storage area above our heads started to produce mold. Pretty much everything needed to be cleaned and dried. So we spent most of the day dealing with this mess and decided to spend two nights instead of one. The next day we ventured into town to pick up groceries. Oh, and we witnessed that even if there is a huge (50 camping spots) area set aside for camper vans, that people still try to come up with their own. In this case they liked to choose the student parking lot at the school, which was across the street. Silly bastards.

Vilshofen

We made it to Passau without any incident, only the worry about running out of gas. It was an extremely frustrating ½ hour looking for a place to park when we gave up and headed to a McDonalds to cool off. We had only intended to walk around the town anyway and were told it is a real nice town because 3 rivers join up here. That being said, we decided it was not worth the visit and left to our parking lot in Vilshofen, about 15 km away from Passau. Whenever we park the van by a river I quote Chris Farley’s line from Saturday Night Live “We’re living in a van down by the river” this is completely wasted on Julie though, as she has never watched Saturday Night Live. For shame. We were parked along a river again, and decided after lunch to head into town to make our biweekly call home. Cory I love yah, but that phone call cost us 14 euro and we usually keep it to around 4 or 5 euros so you can let mom know that’s why I’m not calling home for the next few weeks. Anyway we managed to get caught up on life back home and learnt that the weather in Southern Ontario is much nicer then it is in Germany, guess we chose the wrong summer to leave. We also learnt that Julie’s bother had decided to move back to Sudbury as he has been living in Burlington for the past year. Best of luck to him. The town we stopped at was extremely small and it was a Sunday so we made our way back to the van and Julie decided to feed a lone Swan.

Pfarrkirchen

Another small town on our travels to Passau and we finally arrived (construction detour) around 2pm. Since it was still pouring rain, we decided to head to the grocery store we passed to pick up essentials. You know, wine etc. It was here that I managed to find Julie an anniversary present, too bad I had to buy it in front of her. She does not own a toiletry bag and refused to buy one for herself so I bought her a Dove bag that came with soap, shampoo, conditioner and lotion and was essentially a toiletry bag for 8euros. As I mentioned before, she did not want to drive on our anniversary, which is tomorrow so we spent two nights in Pfarrkirchen. I know, you want to know what we did for our anniversary. Nothing as spectacular as last year in Niagara Falls but great all the same. We had a very lazy morning of sitting around and talking. We ventured into town as well to find internet and catch up on things. It was a great day, sunny and warm. Unfortunately we couldn’t find free internet so we stopped into a very shady internet/sports bar/casino/cafe and Julie bought me a coffee. Afterwards we wandered around and sat on a bench, the town centre was surrounded by a walking path and benches kind of like a mini park, it was nice. Later that night we had a candle lit dinner (one of many) with wine and pasta something called naan brot with some kind of tomato yogurt spread and veggies. Something else that happened that I found strange, we heard at night what sounded like jet fighters flying over head.

Obing

This was our second farm stay and not as pleasant as the first. This could be because we arrived so late in the night (around 9) and it was pouring rain. This stellplatz was cheap and claimed to have bathrooms and a dump area. However, we couldn’t see them and when we spoke to the lady in the morning she had no idea what we were talking about but was happy to take our money. So we left Obing to our next free stay place at Pfarrkirchen.

Berchtesgaden

We said our goodbyes to the Aussies and made our way to Berchtesgaden (Ba-tis-garden). The drive was fortunately fairly uneventful. When we got off the autobahn and started driving on the main secondary roads we started to see the beginning of the Alps. To this point, our most enjoyable drive, the scenery was amazing. As you can imagine, there were lots of hills, and old blue didn’t take to them well. At times only being able to drive at 40km/h she managed to make it to the campsite located by Lake Konigsee, Germany’s largest Alpine lake. It was around 3pm when we arrived at the campsite and we decided to spend two days based on how much we needed to get done and what we wanted to see. Laundry was #1 on our list, and since we learnt our lesson at the Regensburg campsite, we bought the washer machine token as well (6 euros for both tokens). A young lady helped us decode the German instructions on the washer/dryer. Julie is translating this blog into French, and happens to be extremely behind. I believe she has up to Tournai, Belgium completed. That being said, it was Julie’s turn to use the laptop for productive reasons and get as far as the Fairy Tale road. Honestly, I can type quite a bit of useless stuff so I feel her pain, but laugh anyway. The backdrop we had at the campsite was stunning. A jagged mountain, a crystal clear spring and trees pretty much everywhere, the air is fresh but the air is extremely cold. This was our second time using the heater for the van, the first being the first night in Regensburg. The next day we intended to go for a hike but the weather turned sour and we were held up in the van. We have not been able to find affordable rain gear yet. The campground was located about 6km from the center of town, so on our last day we drove into town to find out about the Eagles nest. The Eagles nest is located on top of a mountain, only accessed by bus and an elevator. The tourist office was extremely helpful in showing us a route that is not as steep as the direct route. I enjoyed the bus ride up as it was the first time I was able to appreciate the scenery without worrying about driving too. I think Julie enjoyed not having to navigate too. We took many pictures and most of them are really great, but this is all because of the location and not because we are getting any better at taking pictures (though I have managed to keep the camera level lately). It was a bright sunny day with some clouds and up on the mountain top it was freezing. Can’t imagine why we decided to stay up there for two hours instead of 1 (our options), but maybe it was because of the 18euro price tag to get up. The elevator was large and was made to look like gold, the ride up is packed with people and the ride down isn’t. Watching how fast the clouds move and change shape was really fascinating for us. Within seconds a cloud could come in or move away. The building itself wasn’t all that impressive, but the fact it was built so high up makes it so. After the Eagles nest I tried to convince Julie to head into Salzburg on our way to Passau with no luck. Our time table is too tight and Julie doesn’t want to drive anywhere on our three year anniversary (she wants it to be a stress free day) and doesn’t want to be in Salzburg for it either. So it’s off to Passau.

Wolfratshausen/Munich DAY 4

The next morning we felt great, so we got ourselves ready and made our way into the shop to see what they had to offer us and to buy some propane. We found a dehumidifier for pretty cheap, as we find our van gets pretty wet now with the colder weather. They had other stuff too, but all too expensive or not really needed. We were about to head out to Batchesgaden when a guy approached me, asking if I was from Canada. You see, most people look at the license plate and very rarely look at the flag in the front window, but since he was traveling similarly to us, he knew to look elsewhere. It turns out he bought his rig from a company in England that provided about the same services ours did in the Netherlands. So we all started talking, he and his wife (John and Linda) are from Sydney, Australia. They had been traveling for about 2 weeks longer than us and were planning on staying in Europe for the year too. Since they had started their travels though, their rig keeps breaking on them. They were at the Servo to see about getting their shower cord lengthened, as it could only move about a foot. They didn’t have any luck getting it extended. They also told us that they were broken into while they were in the van, they had mistakenly left their backpack on the front seat and someone through a rock threw the front window – a smash and grab. We stood and talked in the parking lot for about 5 hours or so, before we decided to break for dinner and meet up later. Oddly, Julie and I both got a tan that day.

Wolfratshausen/Munich DAY 3

Our three day train passes included discounts on various attractions, like the BMW museum, and we decided to check out the Deutches Museum of Science and Technology. The museum we went to was located right near the grounds of Oktoberfest, and this was our first glimpse of it. However, Julie didn’t want to visit it until we were really going to the festival, in a few days time. So we wandered around trying to find this museum. Once we found it, I looked at the booklet and realized that the museum the discount was for was the Deutches Museum, not the Deutches Museum of Science and Technology. Damn. Well, from what we saw through the glass, we didn’t miss much. It appeared to be a transportation museum. So, once we figured out where we had to go (opposite direction), we jumped back on the subway to find this museum. The museum itself is huge and would take more than one day to visit entirely. We managed to see quite a bit and were blown away by the sheer size of it. Whenever they could, they had life size displays, most of the time being interactive too. Well worth the visit, though it would have been nice to have more of it in English. It was roughly 6 o’clock when we arrived at the Haufbrauhaus. On most days, this would have been too late, as it usually fills up at noon, and has a lineup until midnight when it closes. The beer hall can hold 5000 people. When we showed up, we couldn’t tell if there was a line up or not. Security guards were outside, and lots of people, but no real line. Once we decided to venture inside to have a look, we could see that it was pretty full. We didn’t have to walk far though to join a table. At this table sat 5 Americans and 1 German. The two that sat directly next to us, wore Mexico T-shirts but said they were from California?? The other 3 guys were from California too but didn’t know the two with the shirts. No one knew the German guy. And here we sat and talked and drank. Julie had a Raddler again, she would have two for the night, which would equal one full mass beer, way to go Julie!! Unfortunately, the table to our left got thrown out. I say unfortunately because one guy was so pissed off at his friend that he threw a beer on him and punched him in the face. It took two guys to hold him down and all those security guards and what not came in after a regular (you could tell) ran to get them. Julie tells me that the manager called the police right away. Roughly 8 police showed up to kick out the large group, two tables it turned out, of people from England. The guys at our table decided to film and take pictures of everything going on. Once the table was clear and cleaned, it was promptly filled. We witnessed another guy get kicked out, but that was because he kept standing on his chair singing in attempts to get the rest of the hall to join him. He succeeded a few times, the poor guy was just having too much fun. Our table mates left soon after (one of the Mexicans guys told Julie she had nice lips as they were leaving, but Julie didn’t tell me until much later), and Julie and I slid down the table to join the remaining two people. Another couple sat down next to us, but only spoke German so we were unable to say anything but “Prost!”. The couple that stayed at the table when the American guys left turned out to be from America as well, this time being from Colorado. Donna and Eric had rented a car and were traveling around it had not been their first time to the area (seasoned travelers). We had a great conversation, and Donna offered us the use of their hotel shower, but unfortunately by the time we left that night, it was too late and we would have missed our train. Eric and Donna did however buy Julie and I a beer, god love them! So by this point I was pretty buzzed after drinking 3 liters of beer, and I’m proud of Julie because they had ordered two regular beers, not a raddler for Julie and she drank it anyway. Personally, I think Julie is starting to like beer. Thanks again Donna and Eric the drinks were very appreciated, and the company more so. Before I move passed the beer hall, I have to say that Julie had 3 marriage proposals that night. Two guys from Finland and one from Sweden were at our table closer to the end of the night and were part of a larger group. They were mostly fisherman down on holidays for the Oktoberfest. It was a great night and Julie tells me that I need to go back with my friends (people that actually like drinking beer), so guys, anyone interested in getting that planned out? 40 minutes on a train is longer when you’re drunk. Most people get hungry when they are drunk, and this was the case for Julie and I. We took the slightly longer way back to our van, as it passed by a McDonald’s. We had been using the McD’s bathroom instead of the one in our van as it was roughly 5 minutes away. I figure because Julie is so short, she managed to walk right by the management and into the bathroom. I on the other hand was stopped in my tracks. They were closing up the restaurant, but keeping the drive-thru open (when they have a drive-thru over here they call it McDrive, but this one had a supper classy café area so it was called McCafe instead of McDonalds). Julie and I told the manager that we wanted to order some food and she told us that we needed to use the drive-thru. Well we didn’t have a car. So she told us to walk up, something that isn’t really allowed back home. So, as we made our way to the order window we saw two staff members outside smoking and we asked them which window we should order from. Turned out to be the one right next to them, so in the door she went to take our order, and there we stood waiting for it. To her credit, she thought her manager was being a bit silly, as she was laughing with us about the whole situation.

Wolfratshausen/Munich DAY 2

With the exception of our last day heading into Munich, we managed to miss the train by moments every morning when heading into Munich, luckily they have a train every 20 minutes so we never had to wait long. Saturday was the official start of Oktoberfest, and it starts with a parade of the 6 main families that brew beer in Munich. They ride on a decorated horse drawn carriage, with the entire family waving and drinking beer. So, with us missing the first train and getting ready too slowly in the morning, we didn’t get a good spot to view the parade. I tried to take some pictures for Julie to see, but I didn’t have much luck either. You know, large crowd so everyone shoots their arm in the air to take a photo and comes up with other arms holding cameras and the tops of people’s heads. Anyway, after the parade was done we made our way to the column in Marienplatz to meet up with our tour guide Travis. Julie and I were about 10 minutes early, and at first, the only two there. Travis is from Brisbane, Australia, has been living in Munich for 5 months and is an artist (which I guess is why he is doing these tours), he also had a pretty crazy appearance (bicycle mustache, glasses, red hair, lederhoze and a hat) and was a great guide. The only thing we knew about the tour was that it was free and we had to meet someone in a red shirt at 11:45am at the column in front of the Glockenspiel. There is a tour agency called New Europe that provides great tours for free in some of the larger cities. We learnt that they do these tours in Berlin, London, Edinbrough, Paris, Amsterdam, and Munich – we heard they are trying to set one up in Madrid, so I am keeping my fingers crossed for that one. The walking tour took us through many of the most important parts of Munich, with a history lesson on each part. It was roughly 4 hours long and was well worth the money…...we tipped Travis as that is the only way he gets paid. The tour started in Marienplatz and we learned that the new town hall is actually older than the old town hall due to the war (most of the city was destroyed). After that brief introduction, we watched the amazing glockenspiel come to life; it wasn’t actually that entertaining especially since the bells weren’t working due to it being under renovation. After its triumphant finale (what every coo-coo clock does…) we made our way into the beer garden of the old town hall and sat to listen to another history lesson, this time on Munich’s beginning. Did you know that Munich means Monk? We walked to Frauenkirche church which was built in 13 months (a record for church building over here) and looked pretty unimpressive, the only interesting thing was the story of the foot print at the front of the church. Basically, the devil helped build the church so fast because he thought it was dark and depressing, he only thought this because he couldn’t see the windows from the entrance he stood at. When he came in the proper entrance and saw all the light coming in, he was naturally upset for being tricked and stomped his foot leaving his footprint. We guess it was the architect’s footprint. Remembering the other stories we’ve heard about the devil and churches, Julie and I started wondering how much of the “devil” is left behind in churches? Once again we made our way back to Marienplatz to hear the history of the column we had met at earlier. Then he took us over to St Peters church, where there is a good place to climb up to have a view of the city (we didn’t get the chance). Near the church was another market where we stopped for lunch. Julie and I had currywurst and beer (Julie had a Raddler). We met back up with the group after our 20 minute break to continue the tour, this time to the Haufbrauhaus. Unfortunately for me, it was just a walk through the busy, famous beer hall, into the beer garden to stop just outside of it on the street, to hear about the famous failed beer hall putch led by Hitler. It was from here that we made our way to the most expensive and exclusive street to shop at in Munich, Maximillianstrasse. Apparently there is a coffee shop that sells coffee for 12 euros a cup and it’s not the coffee that’s good, but rather it’s being seen drinking a coffee there that’s good. I saw a Ferrari parked next to the sidewalk, so it was worth the walk (probably the café owner’s car). We made our way to Maximillianplatz where there is the Opera house and the Residenz, the royal family’s place of residents, but now turned into a 140 room museum. Apparently this building is interesting because it displays different architectural periods on each side. We then ended our tour at the Feldherrenhalle and learned that this is where 11 bullets missed Hitler, but hit his bodyguard, during the beer hall putch. Hitler was sent to jail for this attempt at power by force. What’s odd is that there aren’t memorials regarding these historical occurrences, I guess they have them, but they are hidden in plain site – if you know to look, you’ll see it, otherwise you walk right over it, or by it. It was like that for all of Munich. The tour was over, and we were stuck with what to do next. I suggested a walk through the English Garden, as a change of scenery and in hopes to see the surfing thing. Julie figures I wanted to go to the English garden to see naked women sunbathing, as they allow nude sunbathing in this particular park. The English garden is so large, that we missed the surfing thing because we were tired of walking after the tour and we had already spent roughly 2hrs wandering this park without any idea where it is (what’s German for manmade surfing thing?). So we gave up our pursuit and went to another smaller park just outside of Marienplatz to access free internet and try to get caught up on emails and to view our blog for comments. This was sort of hit and miss, as we were able to view our emails and facebook, but were unsuccessful with the blog. Julie was ready to head home to the van at this point as we were both very tired. Unfortunately, I wasn’t. This caused an argument only because I was under the impression that we were heading out to Batchesgaden on Sunday night, it was Saturday night and my second time in Munich, and it looked to me as if I was going to miss out again on the most famous beer hall in the world, the Haufbrauhaus. Julie reassured me that she didn’t know I intended on leavin on Sunday and that her intentions were to take me the following day and spend another night in Wolfrathausen before making our way to Batchesgaden (I think it’s pronounced “Ba-Tis-Garden”).

Wolfratshausen/Munich DAY 1

Wolfratshausen is approximately a 40 minute train ride from Munich, and it also has a free stellplatz. That is about all I can tell you about Wolfratshausen, as we only stayed there to visit Munich. The stellplatz itself was at an RV repair shop/sales centre. We decided on the Munich run, because we didn’t want to be rushed, if we had gone north, we would have been on a very tight schedule, basically 6 cities in 12 days, one of the cities being Berlin, which our guide books say you need at least a week and is around 1000km round trip. Driving the rig in larger cities is extremely stressful for Julie and I, and we find that in larger cities taking the transit is pretty effective. This is why we purchased a train pass that lasted 3 days and allowed us to use all transit types within Munich’s center (Wolfratshausen was considered inside the center, but was the last stop) and it set us back €60. Well worth it, as our first stop was the BMW museum in Olympia park which was two train transfers from the Hauptbanhof, Munich’s central station. The museum itself was pretty boring for Julie; I was enjoying myself but did leave it thinking it could have been done better (more cars, and possibly a test drive??). To their credit, the museum was relocated because the original location was being renovated. The BMW buildings were impressively designed from my point of view. Just looking at the buildings themselves was worth the commute. We opted out on touring the Olympic park and decided to head back to the centre. This is where Julie spotted a Pizza Hut sign displaying the exact pizza I wanted to try before we left Canada (it had mini mozza sticks as the crust for dipping) but never found the time. She did promise to buy this pizza for me back home in Canada, so she decided to keep her promise and that’s where we went for our lunch. However, there must have been a communication error, because we didn’t get the pizza I had wanted (just stuffed crust), though it was cheaper so we went with it. After lunch we used the subway to get to Odeonplatz to visit Feldherrenhalle, this site was mentioned to us by one of Anna’s friends as a must place to visit. The monument was huge, and as we later learned, has some history, but at the time it was just an impressive monument with two huge lions at the front and what looks like a Roman soldier and a lady in the centre. From here we wandered down some streets back to Marienplatz instead of using the transit. The streets were packed with people (it was the day before the start of Oktoberfest) and there was an odd guy wearing a white mask listening to a “boombox” picking up cigarette butts and listening to Elton John. Only in large cities can you see this. I took a few photos during our walk to Marienplatz, arguably the most famous square in Munich, because of the Glockenspiel. Once here we didn’t really know what to do, so we just walked around for a bit until it got pretty dark then we caught the tram back to Wolfratshausen for the night.

Regensburg round 2

On Wednesday we went out with Anna and Michael to purchase some traditional wear for the Oktoberfest. If you ever wondered how Lederhoze felt guys, you don’t even want to imagine it, let’s just say that there is a reason they start drinking so early. Julie’s Dindle is black, although she did try to find some with color (red or green, even purple), but they just didn’t look right. The traditional dress was very important to Julie and I think I will have fun participating in this event. So, on Monday, we went grocery shopping and tried to figure out our plans from Thursday to Oktoberfest on October 4th. Our two options were to head north and tour Dresden, Berlin, and Leipzig and maybe Bamburg as well, option two led us in the opposite direction, towards Munich, Batchesgaden, Passau and passing through the Bavarian forest. You’ll learn soon which option we took, so for now we’ll leave you in suspense. Monday night was spent in a beer garden, and Julie had a ½ Liter of beer mixed with ½ liter of sprite, and I had a full Liter of beer (Mass beer). We sat and enjoyed the company of Anna and Michael, and at one point during the night we noticed that two ladies behind us were speaking in English, we later learned that they were from Ireland and California and had been working in Regensburg for the past 5 years. Tuesday was spent wandering the town, mostly at night. We also went to the other Black Bean, to see what it was like, this is where I had my first Caramel Macchiato. On Wednesday, we had already explored much of Regensburg, so we went to the bamboo Black Bean (the first one) to kill some time.

Weiden

This was my second trip to Weiden, the first was again three years ago with Curtis. I have to say, I was glad I was able to show Julie some of the places I visited the first time I came to Europe. We stayed at Anna’s grandparent’s house, and were spoiled rotten. First off, they had a large array of food set out for us, all of which Julie and I had never had. After we got settled in our room, Anna, Michael, Julie and I went out to a local pub to meet up with some other friends. Unfortunately, they all showed up too late, as we were leaving the bar as they were coming in. We would have stayed longer, but Michael still needed to study that night, and we had a busy day planned for tomorrow. After a great sleep (and sleep in) we had our showers and were greeted with a great breakfast. So I had a boiled egg and a pretzel bun (awesome idea) and some coffee (3 cups I think). By the time Julie made her way upstairs and had breakfast, it was nearly time for us to head out to Michael’s house for lunch. Once again, I am unable to tell you what we ate, nevertheless, it was great. Michael’s dad was an English teacher and so it was fairly easy to communicate with him, his mom spoke English very well too, she even said a few words to Julie in French. There were many questions about Canada and our current trip. When lunch was finished, I was served my first espresso. Despite what I’ve heard about it being a very strong drink, it was rather good which surprised me. Since Michael had to study some more, we went back to Anna’s to pick up her grandmother before we headed out to visit Flossenburg, one of the extermination camps. It is very hard for Julie and I to say we are glad we went to this camp, we don’t regret going, but we wish we never had to go in the first place. Definitely something everyone should do, once. I won’t go into too much detail, but I will mention that it had a new museum which was pretty informative. With our moods down, we went to a garden center to buy some pet fish for Anna’s grandmother’s fish tank. Julie and I both found this weird, because they don’t actually have pet stores here, or I guess they do, but they are garden centers too. Later that night, Anna, Julie and I made our way to the town center to listen to Niko’s band. They were pretty good, playing cover songs of American bands. After their set, we wandered over to a bar to have some drinks. Michael’s bother happened to show up at this bar, so we got to meet him and his girlfriend. Many beers and many conversations later we headed back to Anna’s grandparents for some rest. The next morning Anna’s grandparents took us out for brunch at a local restaurant that has a great location. It is at the foot of a volcanic rock hill and overlooks the town. At the restaurant we tried a knodel that tasted to me, like stuffing. Since it was such a great day, we sat in the backyard and hung our laundry out to dry. We also had the time to call home and speak longer than a few minutes. We did end up heading into town to see some sites with Anna, but since it was a Sunday, most things were closed. Julie and I had a great weekend and are so grateful for all the hospitality shown to us and hope we can pay it in kind in the future. Back to Regensburg to get some Lederhoze and a Dindle!

Regensburg round 1 (sorry for the long post)

We should have only driven for 1 1/2 hours to make it to Regensburg but while we were leaving Nuremburg we came across 2 accidents, the first we have seen since being in Germany. Instead it took us an exhausting 2 and ½ hours. Needless to say we were very tired and extremely hungry. Getting to the campsite wasn’t all that difficult. A few things happened at this campsite that left an extremely sour taste in our mouths. Anna insists it’s our license plates. The owners of the campsite, from the moment we arrived, were treating us as rudely as they could. They provided us with no information, talked short with us and even criticized my backing in because I didn’t do it in one movement. They were the first rude people we have met on this trip. It got worse the next day too. When we went to leave the site to go free camp, they tried and failed to lock up our electrical cord, yelled at Julie when I wasn’t around for driving between the hours of noon and 3 pm, then he showed me a piece of paper with German on it looking at me as if I knew what it said. Then when 3 pm came around we went to leave, but they were busy bringing in new customers, at one point it seemed to us that they were trying to keep us so they could charge us for another night, well, we paid the night before so as soon as the last van blocking our exit was led to a spot we peeled out and didn’t look back. Anyway, we used the internet in the bar to find out if Anna was online so we could let her know we made it and find out about plans for the next day. Lucky for us, she was online and we were able to talk for only a bit as the internet was 2 euro for 30 minutes. Julie said when the 30 minutes were up that we should call her because it would be cheaper. We spoke with Anna after 3 messed up calls on our part (ran out of money for the call) for only 5 minutes and it cost us over 5 euros. Lesson learned. After Julie and I had a quick bite to eat and much needed showers we went off to meet Anna at her new apartment. It turns out that she was only about 1.4 km away from where we were camping so we were pretty happy about that. Anna has a much larger apartment than her last one I stayed at 3 years ago and it’s downtown too, so it was a great location for us to meet up for the remainder of our stay. We met two of Anna’s friends and Anna’s boyfriend Michael. We weren’t originally going to go to the HB, but other cheap food places were closed and they really wanted to show Julie and I traditional German food. We went really out on the edge too, we both tried Schnitzel and knoodle on the side. What surprised me was that Julie had no idea what Schnitzel was. To her surprise she liked it (I did too), but we both have trouble trying to describe what knoodle is exactly. So think of a round white ball that is almost like dough and potato mixed together. It’s good and soaks up the beer pretty good too. By the time the food was done, one of Michael’s friends, Jonas, stopped by for a quick beer with us. It was a great pub, with good food and even better company. But we didn’t stop there, we made our way to another bar for another drink, this one was fancier and Julie was able to have some wine, as she still doesn’t fancy beer, can’t remember the name of the place though.

Day 2
The next day we took our time getting ready, as we wanted to use up every last minute we paid for at the campsite. One thing we tried to do was our laundry. We washed it by hand as usual, but we needed to dry them that day so we placed them in the dryer for about 2 hours and they came out warm and wet. Just another thing to make our stay at the campsite unpleasant. Around 3pm we took off to Anna’s place as Michael was going to try to help us find a free, safe place to park. However, we needed to park the van somewhere before we met up with them. We drove around for about 20 minutes trying to find a place to park that was close enough to Anna’s, as well as free. We ended up finding a spot in a 30 minute zone outside a church. Now it should have only taken about 20 steps to get to Anna’s, but we went right rather then left and walked around for about 15 minutes before we got to her apartment. Once there, it was clear sailing to a parking spot on the side of a road, near a school and the police station. Michael and I walked back to Anna’s, but since Julie had our back pack and all our clothes, I didn’t have the GPS to mark the van, so unfortunately for Michael, he had to show us back to the van the following night. That night Anna treated us to some delicious pizza and Augustiner beer, according to locals, the best beer you can get in Munich and probably Bavaria. I have to say I did enjoy the beer. Lots of people showed up for Anna’s party, one of which I remember from my first visit here to Germany, was Niko – he invited Curtis and I to his birthday party last time around. There were so many new faces Julie and I have trouble recalling all their names. The first bar we hit up was called the Orange club, a 70’s style bar where Julie and I were treated to more beer, cocktails and shooters (thanks again Michael and Vera), around 3am the bar was closing so we made our way over to the Wunder bar which was down a flight of steps and was very crowded as most people venture here for the longer hours. This bar was also pretty alternative, the music they played was alternative and some of the clientele were dressed up. Nonetheless, it was another great bar and Julie did try to drink some beer but gave up after half. It was around 4:30 in the morning when we left this bar to get some food at a WurstleTony – basically a hot dog vendor, but selling all sorts of sausage dishes, along with fries etc. We waited outside for it to open (opened at 5am), and at first we were only a few people. At 5am though, there were so many people lined up and they all started pushing forward to order their food, it was like being in the front row at a concert. It was just craziness. Julie and I did spot that same vendor in our wanderings of the town and it was not nearly as packed. I tried a Knacker, sausage on a bun with sweet mustard and Julie tried currywurst with fries. We both enjoyed the food suggested to us by our friends, which surprised me because I’m not a huge fan of sausages. Instead of having Michael guide us back to the van, we opted to just sleep at Anna’s to make things easier, as we were all meeting up for breakfast that morning around 10ish.

Day 3
We all managed to sleep despite Anna’s cell phone beeping every few minutes (we didn’t know it was her cell phone until the morning when we actually cared to see what it was). Michael, Anna, Niko, Julia, Anne, Julie and I all went out for breakfast at a small café. We both tried the English breakfast, bacon, eggs, baked beans, toast with jam, salad and orange juice. It was good, as was the coffee I had and the continued conversations with the group. Music was a popular conversation topic, as I couldn’t believe how much American songs are played on the radio and both Niko and Michael are in bands. That Sunday was special in Regensburg, as all the shops were allowed to be open; they called it “Jazz Shopping” because most of the stores had Jazz bands playing. Julie finally bought herself a jacket at the extremely affordable H&M (it wasn’t a black jacket!!!). We took a stroll to pass the Cathedral and went inside to have a quick look. After our brief stay there we went to the old bridge to have a look at it and the river Danube. Both Anna and Michael were very knowledgeable guides; however we still went by the tourist office for more information and a city map. Since the next week Julie and I would have 5 days to go exploring on our own. Shortly afterwards Anna drove us up to Walhalla. Walhalla is a huge monument overlooking Regensburg and the River. It is pretty impressive and during the summer months it is a popular place to get drunk. However, since it was pretty cold (too bad), we didn’t hang out for to long and headed back to Anna’s place. While we were out we went by a grocery store and Anna was nice enough to explain what some of the things were. We also found something like Kraft Dinner but fancier for about 59 cents and so far it’s not bad. For dinner we had fried Camembert with a berry sauce (preiselbeeren), that reminded us of berries that you would find in the bush. We also had fried Eggplant on healthy bread, this of course was prepared for us by our gracious hosts Anna and Michael. Once Anna started nodding off, we headed back to the van and tried, for the 5th time since we started to watch the movie, to watch the end of Transformers with no luck. The past few days were pretty draining on Julie and I so we just decided to laze around today in the van before we met up with Anna and Michael to hang out. They put on a western spoof made by two famous German comedians, it was pretty funny – Blazing Saddles would be the English equivalent.

Day 4
The next day we headed into town to have another look at the Dom and some other sites. The Dom is pretty impressive from the outside and pretty decent on the inside, one thing that could use some work is the crypt, it wasn’t very large or very interesting when compared to others we have been in (we haven’t been in many). Julie really wants to buy a traditional dress for Oktoberfest so when we saw the stores we went in to have a look. It’s a pretty expensive outfit for a one time wear, but Julie intends to wear it for Halloween as well when she gets one. We wandered around some more, down some alleys and came across some interesting, and some not, stores. We didn’t buy anything though, just looked around. On our way into town we spotted Anna riding her bike – she was in a world unto itself so she rode right past us for a few meters before realizing someone had said hello to her and turning around. We didn’t talk long, but we did learn where the cheap bike store was. For 20 euros we could have had a bike that wouldn’t be worth stealing. But since walking is doing us fine at the moment, we decided to sleep on it. That night we went over to Michael’s place for dinner. Diner, once again was great. We had meatballs with schupfnudeln and salad. We hung out talking until late in the night.

Day 5
The following day we did absolutely nothing.

Day 6
So the day after that day, we headed into town as early as we could muster and finished our explorations of the city center, we also finished exploring the mall, critiquing the dinnerware. We intended to eat at a restaurant that Anna recommended but were unable to find it. So we once again went to McDonald’s to eat. This is our third time since we have arrived in Europe and we hate going in, but this time we were rewarded. Our dinner meals came with coke glasses. Since we have only been able to drink out of our metal camping mugs, this is an ideal change and we have made plans to go back and get two more the next day (for when we have company). We continued exploring a bit more before we met up with Anna and Michael that night. We all went to a bar called the Büro which serves 1.50 beers on Thursday’s. We ran into one of Anna’s friends at the bar, Nina, one we remember from Anna’s birthday party too. Julie had her first beer here, well sort of. She had a Raddler, which is half beer and half sprite. I’m glad to say she liked it and has ordered it more often (probably because her normal drinks aren’t available and because Raddlers are cheaper). After the pub it was home for a rest.

Day 7
Friday was a more interesting day for Julie and I. We were running a little late that morning as we left our van to meet up with Anna for coffee and a light lunch. Since we didn’t know where the cafe “Black Bean” was, we met her at the Dom. Luckily for us she was running a bit late too. It was a short walk (about 5 mins) to the café; there are two in Regensburg both with unique styling. Both have a very relaxed, lounge like feel. However, the one we went to was decorated with Buddha’s, rattan furniture and plants. Since it was an extremely nice day (the nicest since we arrived in Regensburg) we chose to sit outside the store in the sun. We went back to these coffee places twice more before we left Regensburg, and I tried my first Caramel Macchiato and Cappuccino, whereas Julie had her favorite Chai Tea Latte. The Macchiato was quite nice, not as sweet as I had expected. While we were chatting, Tobias (one of Anna’s friends) happened to see us and stopped by to join us. Since I don’t have a watch, I can’t tell you how long we sat for, but I am pretty sure we made Anna late. Afterwards, Tobias offered to show us a very inexpensive but good place to have lunch. On the way he also showed us his new office and explained how they were going to fix it up a bit over the weekend. Once we arrived at the restaurant, he joined us for a bit, helping us order and decode the menu. He was right, the place he took us to was fairly inexpensive (10 euro for the two of us) and quite good. On top of that, we couldn’t have asked for a nicer place to enjoy our afternoon. We sat in a small courtyard, surrounded by an old church on one side and the museum on the other. The courtyard was extremely quiet because it was cut off from the busy Maximillanstrasse just outside and beautiful because of all the plants. Julie and I continued to explore for at least an hour or so, because Anna and Michael were coming by later that night to pick us up and bring us to Wieden.

Nuremburg

We think we might be getting the hang of navigating with the GPS unit. We say this, because we aren’t arguing as much, or even at all when we drive somewhere. This was the case for Nuremburg. Being a big city in Germany it was easy for us to pick this as a pit stop on our way to Regensburg. Finding the free stellplatz was extremely easy; in fact we only had to drive for 3 blocks before we were parked. It was further away from the town center than another one, but it was free. Located in a park parking lot, we felt safe, had a nice view, and at first only had a few neighbors, and it also had public washrooms. Completely ideal for our stay. We walked into town after having a delicious meal of instant noodle spicy Thai soup, pate and cheese on baguette and crackers. I then strapped on the pack and Julie and I started our 2 km hike into town. We had two tourist offices to choose from, but our guide book recommended the one furthest from where we parked. The first market square we came into was the Hauptmarkt where we got to see the impressive Pfarrkirche Unsere Liebe Frau church. Apparently the figures atop the church dance around at noon, but we didn’t stay another day to witness this. We took some pictures and walked through the different vendors looking for any good deals, Julie is still looking for a suitable plant to put in the van to soak up some of the humidity and brighten up the place; I think the van shakes too much for a plant, so we will see. After that we made our way towards the recommended tourist office (we actually saw the other one first, by the church) passing many statues and fountains along the way. We came across a street performer making a marionette dance to music as well. We always enjoy coming across street performers, though I imagine the locals wouldn’t care for them much. The town map listed all the important sites to see, there were quite a few of them so we narrowed it down to the free ones. The first stop took us outside of the city center by about 10 meters, as we needed to cross a bridge. The city center is surrounded by a wall which we got to see when we made our way over to the medieval area. Extremely small shops and alleys, all with tourist shops and medieval themed stores made up the area. We stopped in one shop looking at wine goblets trying to find metal ones that would work for us; the only problem is that they are all too small. We did come across some nice metal plates but decided not to tempt ourselves with a price, more wandering in other stores around the center led us to the same plates and they were selling for 200 euros each. We stopped by another church and a few more fountains before we made our way back to the van. That night we decided that we would visit the Dokumentation zentrum the following morning. We ended up spending four and half hours visiting this museum learning more about the Nazi’s and what was going on in Germany before and during Hitlers reign. It took so much out of us because of the mass of information being thrown at us but we both agreed that it was entirely worth the visit. It also gave us a view of the war that isn’t taught in school. It was getting late so we decided to head to Regensburg and eat at the campsite we intended to stay at while visiting Anna for her belated birthday party.

The Fairy Tale Road… Backwards (Bremen to Hanau) DAY 7

The next morning we took our time and headed into town. We’ve been pretty frustrated with the constant cool weather we have been experiencing since we started this trek south and decided that we wanted warmer jackets or at least some rain gear. Unfortunately we couldn’t find anything that looked good, cost next to nothing and fit our needs for slightly warmer gear. We looked at our town map and found out where the statue of the frog prince was and went off to find it. After one complete circle, we could see no sign of the little green dude. As I just happened to dodge someone on the left hand side as opposed to the right as I did the first time round, I saw the extremely small statue of the frog. He wasn’t a prince anymore because someone stole (broke off) his crown.



Our final stop for the FTR was Hanau, the city where the Grim Brothers were born. We found parking just outside the city center and made our way to the tourist office. The girl was very nice and offered us suggestions on what there is to see in Hanau besides the Brother Grim’s monument. We took our pictures of the large monument of the brothers. In the market where it was located it appeared that they were just finishing cleaning up after a large food market of some kind. It turns out that it is an attraction they have during the summer in the square, very similar to any others we have visited in the past. Julie and I then found a place to sit to look over what there was to see in Hanau. Although the museum on Utensils was pretty compelling and the marionette museum was located in a pretty cool area we decided to make the 2hr drive to our first non-FTR location. The town is called Neubronn and is located somewhere between Frankfurt AM and Nuremburg. When we arrived at the stellplatz in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere, we were approached by the owner and he laughed when I asked “Is this it?”. Every place we have stayed at up to this point has been a parking lot or a campsite, where this was actually a spot designated on the guys farm. We chose this stellplatz because it had free showers and was only 6 euros for the night. Once we parked, we fell in love with the location. It was quiet, beautiful and very homely. The showers were located on the first floor of one of the houses and we had to walk past the cows and chicken coup to use them. I laughed every time we walked past the cows because they always “Mooed” at us. Julie loved all the animals and especially the straggly looking dog that was always so eager to say hi to her. The couple that owned the farm was even nice enough to offer Julie and I one of their spare beds because they were worried it would be too cold for us outside that night. We declined but kept it in mind. The next morning we felt very tired, maybe it was the country air, maybe it was the huge slope we were on, or maybe it was that it was so cold over night, who knows? We had some difficulty paying for the site as we couldn’t find anyone that actually lived or worked at the farm. When we did find them, we found out that the price was doubled. This however wasn’t their fault, but ours, you see Julie’s German isn’t always 100% and mine isn’t much better. We didn’t mind though, as we really did enjoy the stay and it was such a change from what we are used to. So it is now off to Nuremburg!

The Fairy Tale Road… Backwards (Bremen to Hanau) DAY 6

While we rested and talked about our day I discovered that we missed a pretty impressive castle in Kassel, and a huge statue of Hercules. We made the decision to go back to Kassel and visit castle Löwenberg, but to save Hercules for when we go to Greece (if it’s there). It was absolutely pouring today and we still haven’t found cheap rain gear. Julie was extremely disappointed at the distance from the castle we had to park and the cold bitter day. Backtracking is something we both hate to do but we also hate to miss something good. The only way to see the castle is by guided tour, and lucky for us the common language was English, though once again, I was the only monolingual person there. We did the tour with a German couple, an Italian family and a lady from Turkey. It was pretty interesting to hear all the languages being spoken and the constant search for words by all parties. The castle itself looks amazing and offers a pretty nice view of the city, but they mostly boast about all the original pieces of art work, armor, furniture, tapestries etc. that survived the war. Impressive, but we would have enjoyed the castle more if they didn’t survive the war. We then drove south again to the town of Neukirchen to visit the fairy tale house, but after parking and having a discussion about it, we decided to just move on and that it wasn’t worth our time or money. Alsfeld is a small town and is on the FTR for its link to the Frog Prince, another Brother Grim fairy tale. Once we parked at our stellplatz, we headed into town as we were in need of a toilet. The tourist office was closed, but like the town in Neinburg, they had a town map outside its doors. We took a look at the map and made use of the free public bathrooms. Since we were in town we decided to explore a little bit as it was only 5pm. The town hall differed from all others we have seen as it had a huge open area as its first floor. The building was perched on arches which gave it an odd look.

The Fairy Tale Road… Backwards (Bremen to Hanau) DAY 5

Our 5th day on the FTR turned out to be more stops than planned. Our first stop was Sababurg, the castle of Sleeping Beauty. The town this was outside of was so small, and old that it still had the original town walls. The castle itself was up a small hill and the steps seemed to be original as well. The castle was true to form, as it was completely covered by vines as in the story. A lady met us at the gate entrance in full dress and provided us with an English story/brochure on the castle after we paid our 2 euro entry fee. The brochure she gave us told us the Sleeping beauty story on a guided walking tour of the castle. Julie read the story to me as we went from each metallic guide post along the route. The castle has been partly restored, some of it is used as a hotel and restaurant and the main hall is an open theatre where they still have plays. It is truly a place Julie and I would visit again, the next time in summer, we would take in a play and spend the night in one of the rooms. Kassel is a very large city on the FTR and was our second stop for the day. If we had a free place to stay we could have spent at least 2 or 3 days visiting. However, we are on a tight schedule and only visited the Brothers Grim Museum. The top two floors were dedicated to the Brothers Grim, but was only in German as were the first two floors but these were dedicated to all Fairy Tales. For the most part it was a waste of time and money but we did use their bathrooms so it wasn’t all lost. We left Kassel right after that, as we only put enough money into the parking machine for 1 hr. We did once again argue about where to park the van, as most places seemed to be reserved. The next stop had a castle that we both wanted to see but never did as we couldn’t find the tourist office to get directions to the castle. We left Gudensberg for our free stellplatz in Homberg/Efze feeling pretty drained from the long drive and many stops.

The Fairy Tale Road… Backwards (Bremen to Hanau) DAY 4

Day 4 on the FTR found us in Hameln, where 130 children disappeared from the town in 1284 and the Brothers Grim created the Pied Piper story on this event. Every day during the summer the towns people put on a play of the Pied Piper story in the town square. Many people showed up to view this play, as well as us and we were surprised to hear the story in so many languages before the play began.



Once it was over we made our way back to the van and were pulled over by cops once we left the parking spot. We passed these cops walking back to our van, as they had set up a road block on the street. Apparently there was a large week long rock/punk concert and they were pulling everyone over that looked questionable. Julie says she saw one cop taking of a glove that was “dirty”. Anyhow, it was mostly the van we figure they suspected, but we were summoned to pull over. When they asked us where we were heading off to, I am pretty sure they had a laugh afterwards as I handed him the FTR map and pointed to the next town…. they let us pass without incident. It was off to Polle to visit Cinderella’s castle. We arrived in the town and found parking. The town was very small, I would say around 1000 people and the tourist office wasn’t open for a bit. However, it was extremely easy to see the castle ruins from pretty much anywhere in the town so we made our way up the path to visit the castle. The castle itself was pretty pathetic and we were pretty disappointed to see “Cinderella’s” castle, it did however provide great views of the surrounding area.




Ten minutes later (yeah, that’s how big the castle was) we were off to see if the tourist office was open yet as Julie wanted to pick up some info on Polle for her records. We had to wait 15 minutes still so we called home to speak with our parents. Trendelburg was our last sightseeing stop for the day and was in a very high village that contains Repunzels tower. We parked in front of a church and had no idea where or if the town had a tourist office. Before we could make our way to the tower, Julie noticed a very oddly built home. The entire front was not flat but concave. Really bizarre. Speaking of bizarre, the town was so quite, so dead. It really felt like we came across a ghost town. It was just plain creepy. The tower was pretty high, and the castle that was left is now a restaurant. The views were spectacular, but it was a shame we couldn’t climb up the tower itself, we did show up after 5, so the place was probably closed for the day. The weather today was great, it hadn’t rained all day but it did later that night, the first day for sunshine since we arrived at Bremen 5 days ago. Our last town for the day was really only for the free Stellplatz in Hofgeismar.

The Fairy Tale Road… Backwards (Bremen to Hanau) DAY 3

The route for the FTR has towns marked every 10-30 km from each other, so making it to our next stop, Bad Oeynhausen, wasn’t stressful or complicated. Finding the tourist office however was. We strolled through the town; we saw a fountain with pigs, and another one with a lady lying down before we found the entrance to the park that contained many gorgeous buildings built by the Romans and the massive tourist office. This park was quite nice with many huge fountains, a large pond and many walking paths. There was a lot going on too. It seemed like there was some kind of wine fest going on and a couple getting their wedding pictures taken. The tourist office was in a huge building and we missed it because we didn’t tilt our heads up high enough to see the huge red flag bearing the information logo. The young lady that was helping us didn’t speak any English and knew nothing of the FTR. She did her best, even calling a co-worker that spoke some English; it took us well over an hour to finally learn that there was a fairy tale museum. We made our way to the museum and I’m sure if we lived here we would love the 2 hour lunch breaks, but since we are traveling here, it was not nice to learn the museum was closed for lunch. It was a pretty small building (might have been a house originally), we didn’t think they had English translations so we left the town thinking if the rest of the towns turn out to be this useless is it worth the drive to the others? Our new goal is now trying to find free internet to translate our map and visit the town’s tourist office website to see what they offer before we visit them. The next town we went to was again on the map, but they didn’t know it (Rinteln). We saw some pretty cool buildings, fountains and strange statues, one statue of a night watch man and one of a glass blower. This town did have a stellplatz, but we just used it to park for our trip into town. Our last stop had to be better, but turned out to be a dud too. We were unable to find the tourist office in Hessich Oldendorf so we spent most of our time walking up and down the market only to stumble on a VW touring club. We saw many nice VW’s and took some photos too. It was here that we also stumbled on a wine festival, they had a pretty large stage and a dance floor set up, but it was clear the party hadn’t started yet. After we had our fill of the town we went back to our van and proceeded to look for the Stellplatz. It was here, in this small town that had nothing to do with the FTR that we finally had free internet access. The Fairy Tale Road has its own website, and we were able to learn all about the road and the towns mentioned. The list went from 59 (60 including Bremen) stops to 11 and we opted to only do 10, as one stop was on the other side of the river and only mentioned that you might run into Puss and Boots.

The Fairy Tale Road… Backwards (Bremen to Hanau) DAY 2

We had three stops to make today, but only managed to make 2. Neither towns tourist office knew they were mentioned as a stop on the Fairy Tale Road. The first town, Verden, did have a theme park (Magic Parc), but it was aimed at kids so we passed. We did however stop at an Ice Cream shop. It is not our intention to spend money like this. The only reason we went into the Ice Cream store in the first place was to use their toilets, honest. Many of the town proprietors offer free use of their bathrooms; the tourist office has a sticker that marks them, because they have to meet a certain quality level. Julie and I felt a bit odd not buying anything and since we were hungry, as it was around lunch time, we shared a Hazelnut Ice cream desert and I had my second coffee of the day (Julie surprised me by buying me one to go at the campsite, what a sweetie eh?). We decided to skip our second to last stop (once again no info on the town) and headed for one we knew had a famous statue because of the picture on the FTR (Fairy Tale Road) map. It was pretty late when we arrived at the last town, Nienburg. This town also had a free spot for us to park for the night. It rained most of the day, and we arrived in this town as it began to stop. We took this opportunity to rush to the tourist office and find out about this town. We caught the office just before they closed and were able to get a map in English telling us the statues significance and all the other “sites” to see in town. Yeah, they only had the statue, but we did stay for free at the Stellplatz. Although we were ushered out of one parking lot to a neighboring lot by other campers, we aren’t sure why. The statue turned out to be the perfect Nienburg Girl, and was not that impressive but we were glad to have visited the town that night because we now knew we could leave early the next morning to our next stop. Julie told me much later (about 2 weeks) that if you touch a certain part of the statue you get good luck. Any guesses?

The Fairy Tale Road… Backwards (Bremen to Hanau) DAY 1

It is said that this route was created by the tourist board to offer a more exciting drive north, but since we were already north and heading to the last town on the route anyway, we decided to take the Fairytale road south. There are 59 towns listed on the map all following the Wesser River, and our original idea was to visit them all before we headed to Regensburg for Anna’s belated Birthday party. We didn’t stop at all of them though. All the info we had was in German so we couldn’t tell what each town had to offer, that is until we had internet access and dropped it to around 10 stops. Bremen is one of Germany’s oldest seaports, probably most famous for the “Town Musicians of Bremen” fairytale (what the guide book said) or to me, the home of Beck’s Beer. We chose to go to Bremen because of the write up (charming town, back alley’s reward wanderers, lots to see, etc) and it was suggested as an alternative over the larger (and sleazy) Hamburg. The campsite we stayed at in Bremen had to be the most expensive to date (53 euros for two days). It was very modern, had plenty of showers, bathrooms and sinks. It also had a separate area for cooking and washing dishes which we used in order to save propane (we ran out the morning we left the campsite). It also had a separate area for laundry, probably the best setup we will see. It was a nice campsite, but as we need to do this cheap, we are probably not going to visit a campsite until we head over to Regensburg. Stellplatz tend to be free or around 5-6 euro/night. If I haven’t mentioned what a stellplatz is, I will now (sorry if I already have), they are parking spots designated for Campervans only, no tents or caravans. Sometimes they are gated, and have all the amenities a campground would, or sometimes they are just a spot in a parking lot. During our drive on the Fairy Tale Road, we were able to camp for free the entire time using stellplatzes. Back to Bremen; we spent our first day doing laundry, dishes and cleaning up the van and empting our toilet. It was cold and rained most of the day which didn’t help us dry our clothes. The following day was much nicer, sunny and warm. We headed into town which was around a 6 km walk. Like usual, we spotted most of the landmarks before we even found the tourist information office for a map of the town. The first site we saw was the Dom, which was large and pretty much in the center of two markets. Right next to the Dom was the defender of Bremen, Roland (a guy on a horse) and in front of him was the towns most famous statue, The Town Musicians of Bremen. This statue has the rooster atop the cat, perched on the dog, on the shoulders of the donkey. They stood like this to scare away robbers in a house; the fairy tale was written by the Brothers Grim. It took us some time to actually find the tourist office that we stumbled upon Böttcherstrasse, a street mentioned in our guide book as being unique. I suppose it was considered unique because of the Glockenspiel (A column rotated around to reveal a scene, it was pretty cool), but it might have been the use of red brick, as we mostly see half timbered homes in old town areas. It was an hour after our search that we found the cleverly hidden tourist office, we walked past it 3 times. During our search Julie bought a Canadian flag to hang in our van as we are constantly mistaken for being Dutch (our license plate says NL, we need bumper stickers of Canadian Flags), we ate at McDonald’s and used their free bathrooms. The tourist office did have the actual map of the Fairy Tale road and a booklet to go along with it (but as mentioned above, in German) so we actually now knew the route to take south and which towns to visit. Our European camping book only mentioned 5 of the 59 stops and we knew there were more because we find our camping guide pretty useless when compared to the Shoestrings guide or even Fromers. We explored more of the city and tried to log onto free internet but had no luck. There was another street to have a peak at in Bremen called Schnoorviertel, so we decided to make the hike and see this street. The street first housed the sailors, then it was the red light district and is now the home of many small shops selling useless stuff. It was not as nice as Böttcherstrasse or the two markets but it was fun to see some strange statues and fountains. It was cold and getting late so we made our way back to the van and on the way we stopped to pick up some much needed groceries at Plus. Carrying 6L of juice and the rest of the groceries 6 KM is not ideal, and it had to rain on us too. It didn’t ruin our moods, but all we wanted was to get warm and stop walking. The night before we left I went to boil some water for Hot Chocolate in our van and was unable to light the stove; we were out of propane for the first time and decided to ask the campsite employee’s where to buy some. They did have propane on site, however none left in our size, 5kg, so the lady gave us very vague directions and we took off in search of the propane dealer. We (Julie says I) gave up within a few minutes of searching, the street it was on was going under some changes and certain parts were one-way, where it used to be a two-way street. I wasn’t concerned with finding propane as I have seen many gas stations selling them. It was on the way to our next stop that Julie spotted the store we were looking for, so I pulled the van over. We saved 2 euros buying from them as opposed to buying it from the campsite so we were pretty happy.