Germany: May 2011

This weekend I decided to do one of my favorite things ever: hiking. I wanted to go to the Alps and I asked for a recommendation from my mentor Fritz, who loves camping and paragliding in his free time. He recommended a place directly on the Southern Germany-Austria border called Mittenwald. It is very near to the heavily tourist-filled Garmisch-Partenkirchen, but Mittenwald is more off the beaten path that not too many people know about, including Bavarians.

Department picture during breakfast for Rob (in red) from Holland's last day of work. My boss Fritz is third from the right.

A little background on Mittenwald. It’s known worldwide for its violins. Violinists and cellists come from all over the world to buy violins from Mittenwald and to do apprenticeships and study the art and craft at the violin school. There is a violin museum here, but I decided not to go inside in favor of doing more hiking instead.

Mittenwald is a small town nestled in a valley between the mountains. I spent some time walking through the town a bit, but I spent most of my time hiking through the mountains and alongside two nearby lakes. It was absolutely captivating. I hiked about 20km (12 miles) and took well over 300 pictures and it’s going to be hard to choose ones to show on here.

The train ride alone would have been worth it

Paraglider

Hilarious Irish guys I sat with on the train

Mittenwald

You know it's a small town when the pews have name plates

I don't know how to do a panorama, so here goes my weak attempt...

Waterfall

My attempt at art

Finished the day with a guitar concert by Francesco Taranto from Rome. I was in the front row.

This weekend, Corey, Ben, Joey, and I met up in Passau to visit Justin. Passau is in Germany right on the eastern Germany-Austria border and lies at the intersection between 3 rivers, the Danube, the Inn, and the Ilz. As soon as we got there and got settled in, we headed up a big hill just outside the inner city to Andorfer brewery, a Passau favorite known for their wheat beers. Getting to the top was a struggle. We teased Justin the whole way up for not telling us it was all going to be uphill. It was totally worth it though because where we sat had an amazing view and the food and beer was incredible. I ordered Goulasch with Semmelknödel and a weizenbock. Mmmm it was so tasty.

After that we headed out to an Irish bar called Shamrocks and met a guy from Bavaria and a guy from Michigan of all places. Then they invited us to an extremely crowded club called Soda. If you know me, clubs aren’t my element but it was fun nonetheless. The highlight was seeing Herbie! Mom will like this...

On Saturday we walked into the inner city to grab some lunch and we got Turkish Döners which we were all very satisfied with. After that we walked around some more and stopped in a Back Werk to get some coffee and pastries. After that we decided to take a trip across the border into Austria to a small town called Wernstein that is known for its cider.

We thought the walk would take only 45 minutes but it turned into about 3 hours! We were feeling pretty tired already, but we had plenty of laughs and even distracted ourselves a few times by throwing rocks in the river haha. It turned out to be totally worth it though because the river and the forest and the fields were very pretty and once we finally got to Wernstein, we were not disappointed.

We all felt like James Bond walking across this dam

Throwing rocks a li'l bit

There's Wernstein in the distance. Almost there!

Me frolicking in the wheat

We walked across a sweet bridge in Wernstein that halfway across has a line between Germany and Austria. The town is very quaint and has such a homey feel to it. We found the brewery we were looking for and ate an exceptional dinner. We all ordered the same thing, roasted chicken breast with asparagus and potatoes with an amazing cider to wash it down. Side note, it is currently asparagus season here in Germany and they are absolutely crazy for it. They are huge and white in color and super delicious but the season only lasts from the end of April to the middle of June.

Deutschland/Österreich (Germany/Austria)

Hello ferry

Look at the size of that asparagus!

On Sunday we walked around the inner city some more and walked into St. Stephen’s Cathedral where the largest organ in the world is. Then we walked to the place where the three rivers combine and where you can see the original fortifications of the city wall still intact. Passau really is a very beautiful city. We stopped at a café to eat and we all were craving Currywursts. It’s sausage with a sauce and curry powder on top which seems odd, but it is super good. With it I had a cappuccino.