Germany and Austria Rock

“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

Bamberg, Regensburg, Salzburg, Berchtesgaden, and finally Munich were wonderful. I’m very grateful to the hundreds of folks that helped all six of us out, translated my terrible, broken German and hand waving, and generally made everything enjoyable.

In 12 days I took 2718 photos with my Nikon D80 and my little Panasonic FX-01. I drank 43.5 liters of excellent beer in numerous beer gardens, usually a Helles or Pils, a Maß at a time. I ate like a king, probably several pigs worth of pork, a bunch of roasted chickens a half at a time, roasted fish, pretzels, and those amazing huge radishes, salted of course. I know that sauerkraut should be sweet, good beer can be very smoky, and onions are awesome when stuffed with meat and baked. And I walked it all off, 5 to 10 miles each day. We didn’t drive in the cities once we got there, but we did bicycle in Munich, which was great. The Autobahn is very nice. Germans are serious about driving and it’s refreshing. I got to just over 222 kph in a Mercedes S-350 and felt comfortable the whole time. We also had a Mercedes CLS, which was definitely built for speed. Its tires were rated to 240 kph. Navigation systems are a must in strange territories, but even so, getting lost can be awesome. I probably learned as much German from the navigation system as anywhere else. :-)

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.” – Jack Kerouac