I made it to the castle!!

It has been a while since I did a blog entry, I am sorry but slackness is a forte of mine as you all know. After a strong worded email from my friend alana – I promise I will put more of an effort into this over the next few months and make them as detailed as I possibly can without boring you all to tears!

So we’ve had a couple of full on weeks. Today is my first day at work after a 5-day trip to Munich in Germany but its been a quiet day so nothing to complain about! I finally got to see my castle – and was totally blown away by how beautiful it is around Munich and further south near the Austrian/German boarder. Almost like being in the south island back home.

We arrived in Munich on Wednesday afternoon (the airport rocks too!) and spent the day wondering around the city and wishing we had learnt at least a few words of German before we arrived! Even now I still don’t know how to say hello, thank-you or good-bye! That’s when boyfriends come in handy…..Although like Paris, everyone in the city spoke english which made it a lot easier. We attempted most times to order in German with our trusty lonely planet phrasebook – which resulted in smirks&giggles more than anything! We had our first stein – 1L of beer. I swear the glass was bigger than my head. I chickened out and opted for the radler – which is 50% lemonade, but we all know my tolerance to alcohol – so it was more than enough!!

On our 2^nd day in Munich we went along to a place called ‘Mikes Bikes’. They do bike tours around Munich city and we also got conned into signing up to a bike tour down to Neuchwanstein the following day. Wow who thought that getting on a bike for the first time in 10 years would be difficult?! I was like a drunk on speed. But within 5 mins of avoiding pedestrians we were on our way. We were taken on a 4 mile trip around the city, stopping at all the main historical sites. We rode through the English Gardens, which was stunning – they are supposed to be about 4 times the size of central park in New York!.

In the gardens they have the 2^nd largest beer garden in the world which can hold up to 8000 people. We stopped here for a ‘beer break’ consuming yet another litre of beer with chicken wings before cycling past the gardens nudist area and an artificial river surf break. There are about 20 people on our tour, all good sorts but also all American. I could go on and on about how irritating that is, but I will spare you the boring details.

Friday morning we were up early with very sore bums looking forward to another full on day of cycling near Neuschwanstein. We caught a coach down there with another tour group full of Americans. The castles are about 2 hours out of Munich so we got the chance to check out a little bit more of Germany. The villages we passed were gorgeous, and full of little cottages with white picket fences and smoke coming out the chimney. Once we arrived we were given a bike and another guide who was a South African magician call Brad. He was an interesting guy – would you believe that the way he got home everyday way by paragliding off a mountain to his village? Bizarre but true!

Brad lead the group through farm fields to Swan Lake which we could see some amazing picturesque views of the castles. Out came our cameras and out came the shrill noise of Americans being amazed. (Last complaint of our American companions I promise).

After a gruelling hour of tramping up a hill we reached a bridge which had breath-taking views of both the castle and the german villages beneath it. Yet again out came our cameras. To be fair though it really was beautiful, we were a little bit unlucky in it raining for the majority of the day, but in some ways it made it more magical. That might sound ridiculous but with the low cloud on the cliffs it made the pain of a tramp, all worth it. The tour inside the castle was not that impressive but I have no complaints because it was still spectacular to see it all from the outside.

The day before we left in Munich we decided to visit the Dachau concentration camp just outside of Munich. It was the Nazi’s first concentration camp and although there are claims that no gas chamber killings occurred there, there were still thousands of prisoners that died within its walls, it had a very eerie feeling about it.

It is hard to explain what it feels like to be walking around the prisoners chambers, and the cremation area….(to use zanes description) – an extremely sobering experience. The size of the place was mind-blowing as well. The concentration camp has been turned in a memorial site with a museum in one of the main buildings.

Before we left Munich I had the chance to go for a swim in a swimming pool for the first time in 5 months. It was awesome – 2^nd largest highlight of the trip!