layla | Last travelogue update

Once we were done with Treviso and Venice, we drove north through Austria to Germany.

Northern Italy is full of various churches, castles and fortresses sitting on hilltops and clifftops. This one is a good example, although a lousy picture since it was taken from a moving car.

Another interesting thing about northern Italy is that most of the places have both Italian and German names on all the maps and signs.

Austria was really pretty, although we only ended up spending about half a day there ... about as much time as it takes to drive through it. :D It would have been nice to have more time, but we wanted to have at least a day to spend in Munich, which turned out to be a good idea.

After over a week in baking upper-90s temperatures and flat farm country, this Alaska kid was incredibly happy to be back in mountains and forests. I don't think I'm cut out for tropical vacationing.

Since we didn't have reservations in Munich, we left the freeway that evening before getting into the city itself and stopped in the first small town we came to, where we stayed in a small pleasant hotel in a tiny little town surrounded by forests and fields.

The next day we abandoned the car entirely and took a train into Munich. This day also happened to be my 29th birthday.

I'm sorry, it's horribly touristy of me, but I just found the name of this business incredibly funny.

This may be one of the most inexplicable things we saw on the whole trip -- an escalator that had been turned (apparently on purpose) into a planter. It was one of those subway station entrances with the stairs in the middle and the escalators on either side coming up to the street -- you probably know what I mean. Well, the stairs were fine, and fully functional, but the escalators were roped off and FULL of plants. I absolutely cannot imagine why.

This was right in the middle of the city. Actually, this was something we noticed all throughout Germany and Switzerland -- although very urban in places, they just don't have the sort of all-encompassing urban sprawl that American cities tend to spawn. Riding the train into town, we passed through fields and woods interspersed with small towns right up until we got into the city itself. In the US the city would have been surrounded by acres of strip malls, parking lots and Super 8 motels.

Sometimes I'll admit that we did yearn for a large all-in-one store of the Wal-Mart type, but in general, it was very nice.

Another view from the pedestrian bridge over the river.

Munich had a lot of these painted plastic lions, each one unique, scattered throughout downtown. I assume it was some kind of civic pride/fundraiser sort of deal. Chicago did a similar thing with their Parade of Cows.

We walked by this building at sunset, just as the glow was lighting up the gold leaf on the fresco. It was gorgeous.

I was terribly bad in Munich ... we had already ordered a copy of the new Harry Potter book, which was waiting for us at home, but we walked past a gigantic display of the books (in English!) and I thought, you know, it's my birthday and I'm not getting anything else for my birthday, not even a card, so ... what the hell. I bought a copy and read most of it on the train and later that evening while we ate dinner in a Bavarian beer garden. It was a good birthday. :D

Next day we were going to do more sightseeing in Munich, since it was right on our way to Frankfurt and we had to drive through it anyway. However, we spent, literally, an hour looking for a parking place somewhere close to downtown, and gave up and just drove on. We made up for it by stopping a little later in a naturpark and walking on some trails in beautiful beech forests. Refreshed, we pushed on to Frankfurt ... had dinner there ... and next day, it was 14 hours on a plane, flying home.

(Note: Coming back was longer than going, because the flight had a stopover in Whitehorse, YT.)

Last travelogue update - Munich

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