blogs-from-europe

[blogs-from-europe]

Rothenburg / Flight from Europe

If you’ve been keeping up with us (Kath and Matt!) lately you’ll know that we’re back home in Australia, counting down the days until we’re allowed to finish our two week government-mandated quarantine. To maintain the narrivtive tension of the blog, please pretend you don’t already know that.

PS. if you just want to see photos you can check out our album on Memories Ninja.

After a nice couple of days in Innsbruck we decided to head into Germany to see the picturesque town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber (”Red Castle over the Tauber River”) and go on some day trips. We drove ~6 hours from Innsbruck to Rothenburg. 

On the way to Rothenburg we visited Neuschwanstein castle, which looked beautiful from a distance, but a little crappy when you get up close. The story of the castle was our favourite feature of the visit. Neuschwanstein was built by a 19th century king of Bavaria who was a massive nerd, and if born into our modern era would certainly play World of Warcraft and collect anime figurines.

Ludwig II of Bavaria loved Wagner and held a very romantic view of the middle ages. He wanted to build the perfect middle-age castle so he could hang out there with his friend Wagner all the time (no, really, like a 12 year old in a tree house). Ironically he partially demolished a historical middle-ages fort in the process of building the castle. He apparently made so many changes to the architecture of the castle while it was being built that the architects no longer wanted to put their names on the drawings. What a pain in the ass! Tragically he died soon after the completion of the project and the castle was soon opened up to tourists - meaning no one ever really lived in it. In a way, this was the original McMansion. We left Neuschwanstein with mixed feelings about the historical meaning of the castle.

Soon after we arrived in Rothenburg and very tentatively drove our rental car through a narrow portcullis onto the town’s cobbled streets. We did a great one hour audio walking tour which we found on a free podcast that filled us in on the place. (we recommend podcast-based audio tours)

From what we learned, Rothenburg was a really important merchant town from around the 9th-17th centuries, but then the German 30 years war happened and the town fell into an economic slump and no one could afford to remodel their houses for a few hundred years. This sucked for the residents until the 20th century when old houses become cool again and here they are now, running a big live-in museum. 

There was no shortage of shops selling out of season Christmas decorations, bric-a-brac, nutcrackers, giant steins and swords! (Note the fully-functioning chastity belt on the right hand side)

They also have a sweet church...

...and a surprisingly good torture museum (I know you’re rolling your eyes). The museum suffered a little bit of scope creep in their subject matter and included topics like the history of royal seals, law and jurisprudence in Germany, accreditation of tradespeople, religion...

and passive-aggressive workplace posters from the 60s.

Rothenburg was nice. After 2 of 4 days there we felt like we had maxed out on things to do in the town and were starting to look at day trips, but at that point the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Germany and France were ~2000 each. Note that there are 2300 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Australia at the moment and now there are ~60,000 and ~40,000 cases in each country, so expect a lot more COVID-19 in Australia in the next few weeks.

We were getting worried about the rest of the continent becoming like Italy (which as already bad then) and decided that it was time to leave Germany for the UK. We bailed on our accommodation with 2 nights left, drove 6 hours straight to Paris, dropped off the rental car, took a train to the airport and stayed the night in a nearby hotel and flew to the UK the next morning. The airport in Paris was quite empty

We flew into Gatwick airport in the UK and stayed the night in a surprisingly nice historical pub which had been converted into a hotel.

Now, at this point, in retrospect, we should have called off the holiday here. It was becoming clear that the virus was not being contained in Italy and that it was only a matter of time until things became serious in the UK as well. Still, we had saved up for and planned this holiday over a 12 month period and were pretty committed to keeping it going. We had our MUST HAVE FUN blinders on.

So rather than fleeing home we rented a campervan! We rented it for two weeks with the intention of maybe extending the rental a little further. It was super cool! It had a double bed, toilet, shower, sink, fridge, stove and dining table, in addition to being a fully functioning motor vehicle. The rental was ~$150 AUD per night, which isn’t so bad when you count it as both accommodation and car rental.

Once we had booked out campervan we took a train to the garage, picked it up and drove to Stonehenge, where we walked around the fields and had a nice picnic.

There was a bit of a disaster where we walked for about an hour trying to get into Stonehenge based on some shitty advice given to us by some idiot at the entrance who yelled at us, but other than that it was a really nice afternoon, until....

...until we ran out of wine. Wanting more wine, we decided to drive to the nearby town and pick up a few more bottles to see us through the next couple of days. This was when we realised that the car was bogged.

I (Matt) have never driven a vehicle as big and heavy as this van so I didn’t think parking in the soft wet earth for a few hours would be a problem. It was. The left wheel was spinning out, and there was no way we could push the van out of the hole it was in. We tried.

Luckily a solider from the nearby army base was walking his dogs down the road and found us struggling. He helped us forage for some wood, rocks and carpet on the roadside and spent at least an hour helping us try to get some traction in the mud. The guy was a champion, he got very stuck into it and very muddy. He tried really, really hard to help us get out. Unfortunately we had to give up as night fell. Thanks anyway Steve!

That night we were stuck in the mud and out of wine, when another problem cropped up

We got this article linked to us from several friends and family members and a lot of people were suggesting we come home. At this point we cracked and decided to come home. Stonehenge was closing the next day, the Australian borders were potentially shutting down and flights were getting cancelled. Even if we went full mobile-hermit in our campervans (the plan), a lot of tourist sites were being shut down and we didn’t want to get locked out of Australia.

The next morning I (Matt) walked into the nearby town, bought a shovel, carried it back and dug out the van. At least that was covered! We drove to the nearby town and got a big English breakfast to raise our spirits.

After breakfast we booked our flight home for two days later and tried to enjoy the remainder of our holiday. We took a day trip out to Old Sarum, an ancient hill-fort that was the site of a ruined royal castle, and spent the night in a caravan park. The owner of the park said that this was the last day that they were open based on government orders - so our trip was truly screwed even if we had pushed on with the camper van.

Next day we dropped of the van early, didn’t get a refund for our unused days, took an Uber to Heathrow airport and holed up in a nearby hotel. The hotel was cheap and reasonably nice, but somehow this bland room service meal cost $100.

Next day we got up at 5am and took the shuttle into Heathrow airport. It was a zoo in there. Sadly we saw a lot of Indians in line getting pulled out of line, because their trip home was being blocked by the Indian government. 

After 2 hours in line we got our tickets and proceeded to take three 7h flights to Dubai, Singapore and then home.

Now we’re back in Australia, waiting out our two week isolation period in Portsea.

[blogs-from-europe]

Cham / Interlaken / Innsbruck

Sick of the Parisian rain, but with no firm idea of what we were going to do next, we decided to rent a car for two weeks and drive somewhere. We decided to head off to the mountain valley of Chamonix. This was Matt's idea, inspired by sister Nat, who has spent a lot of time there. We had intended on skiing in the Dolomites originally, but the coronavirus had other plans. 

So we drove from Paris to Chamonix. For six hours. In torrential rain. The weather was downright oppressive with constant hard rain.There were also a lot of tolls - a lot! That said, the pit-stop baguettes cheered us up.

Matt's mum Sue insisted we get a car with winter tyres. She's very safety oriented (thanks mum <3). Our car did not have winter tyres. This was fine until we approached the Chamonix valley in the dark and it started snowing. Fortunately we had picked up chains on the way, so we fitted them and very, very slowly made the final stretch along the freeway to our accom.

For the uninitiated, fitting snow chains in the dark once it’s already pretty snowy is not at all fun. We also had to do some quick online research to determine if our car was front or rear drive - all good fun in sub zero temperatures!

Kath had booked a "chalet" for us in Cham. Turns out it was a spare bedroom in a gorgeous house occupied by two elderly locals (Francois and Sergei! Who put on a great breakfast spread for us each day - we gave them a glowing Airbnb review). The next day was sunny and clear so we rented some ski gear and went to Les Houches for a day of skiing. The view was awesome and the snow was good. Unfortunately Kath's boots didn't fit well and were a not-so-figurative dagger in her side/calves. Lunch was somehow 45 euros for a lasanga, chips and two beers. There was an interdiction against picnicing *everywhere*.

Later that night we got burgers and watched a wild-ass party in the bar across the street. People were literally steaming as they walked out.

 We skiied the next day as well. Kath had the same issues with her boots so she spent some of the time just chilling at the top of a gondola in the sun and reading.

It’s hard to believe but it was actually really sunny and nice up top. No, really - I sat up there for about an hour and red my book and it was very nice!

We finished skiing early and visited Annecy, the "Venice of the Alps" (famed for its canals), which was quite pretty. 

I bitched endlessly about the useless public exercise equipment around the lake, while Kath made the best of things.

On our third day we rode a big gondola to near the very top of Mt Blanc. A lot of people were skiing down the back-side of the mountain.

That’s us below, the people writing this blog.

Chamonix in the valley.

We also drank some apres Aperol-spritz in the sun, on Nat’s advice.

After Cham we drove to Interlaken in Switzerland, in order to break up the drive to Innsbruck in Austria. Part of the highway was blocked so Google Maps instructed us to board a train in our car. That's right, a train for cars that goes through a long dark tunnel. Only in the Alps. 

The rest of the drive was quite picturesque but there was a low fog over Interlaken so we couldn't see all the glorious mountains that surround the town. The town itself was kind of bland, with the most notably feature being the "Bettie" cartel of restaurants, which included a traditional Swiss restaurant, Irish pub and "Cafe du Paris", which ALL SERVED THE SAME FOOD. This is to say that the menus had the exact same items, with the exact same photos. There was also a Hooters and a casino. Sickened by the gross stranglehold that Bettie had over the town, we spent $50 at McDonalds for lunch instead. Next day we drove 4.5 hours from Interlaken to Innsbruck. The weather was poor for driving. We went a little stir crazy from sensory deprivation. As entertainment for our long drives, we’ve been listening to a podcast discussing the Star Wars prequel films in excruciating detail (for anyone who’s interested, check out the podcast Blank Check from c. 2015). 

Cham was a mixed bag and Interlaken was a disappointment, but Innsbruck has been pretty cool so far. The weather has been great. Matt spent the day skiing at Igls, and might have rented equipment from one of Nat's friends (Wolfgang!). 

Kath visited the alpine zoo and toured the city. Tomorrow we head to Rothenburg in Germany to look at the old village and do some day trips to other towns in Bavaria.

We'll probably head back to the UK soon because the coronavirus is kicking off in earnest now and we don't want to get caught in a quarantine in a non-English speaking country. But no need for concern on our behal - we are eating very well and sleeping in every day so we’re in great health and high spirits! 

[blogs-from-europe]

Paris

We did not intend to come to Paris. We had planned ot head to Venice, but the coronavirus outbreak in northern Italy was kicking off and it seemed stupid to charge into the middle of it. Instead, we re-routed to Paris with no real plans for what we were going to do for the next month.

We took the Eurostar high speed train from London to Paris: there was wifi, cushy chairs, and some catered snacks we purchased from Marks & Spencers. The dining in London was meh, but their store-bought snacks blow Australia out of the water. Down with the Coles / Woolworths duopoly!

We arrived into Paris around 9pm and walked from the train station to our hotel. This may displease some of the parents reading this missive, but Matt and I did not check Smart Traveller before booking to go to Paris. It turns out that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade considers France quite dangerous! The whole country has been slapped with an "Exercise a high degree of caution” warning, and this isn’t because of the coronavirus, this is down to the amount of violent crime tourists are likely to encounter (armed robberies on trains, car theft, etc.) and the riots. Oh and the likelihood of terrorist attacks. We certainly noticed in France that the cops were heavily armed: we saw a police officer cradling a machine gun during a friendly exchange with a citizen to give directions.

On our Sunday night walk from the train station to our hotel, the streets were mostly empty. We passed a number of sex shops, massage parlours with red lights, groups of men standing around apparently doing nothing, sex workers, and suspicious men selling cigarettes on street corners. We were on high alert for pick-pockets and the violent crimes which Smart Traveller had warned us about: with our enormous backpacks we were effectively wearing neon signs saying ‘We are tourists! Please rob us!’. Despite our fears we made it to the hotel safely. The hotel was a last-minute booking as part of our rescheduling to avoid Italy so we didn’t have many options when booking online: I think it would be safe to say that our hotel was one of the worst in Paris. We were given tokens to access the shared shower down the hallway from our room: for our three night stay we were given four tokens, effectively rationing our showers for the stay. (Again, parents reading this may be troubled to learn that we only ended up using three of the four tokens – the person who only showered once has a name beginning with ‘M’ and ending with ‘atthew’.)    

Another charming feature of the hotel was the low ceilings, roughly only two meters in height:

For our first day in Paris, it rained all day. 

To stay out of the rain, we picked a couple of indoor activities: a visit to the Musee de Cluny (famous for its Lady and Unicorn tapestries and various other medieval art) and a visit to the Pantheon. After paying to get in, we realised that the Lady and Unicorn tapestries section of the museum was closed. Disappointingly, a promising section of the museum called ‘Treasures’ was also closed – I must confess, Matt and I did inadvertently go into the Treasures section and stole a fleeting glance at a magnificent tapestry before a strict Frenchman told us (in French so this may not be an exact translation) “Can’t you see this section of the museum is closed? No treasures for you! Get the hell out!”. Utimately we only got to see some old rocks and a bath. Overall rating for Musee de Cluny is 1/5. Matt observed that it should really be called the “Musee de Close-y”.  

Next we trudged uphill through heavy rain to the Pantheon. Matt had expressed his indifference towards visiting churches, but I thought Foucault’s pendulum (housed in the church) might be of interest to him. Turns out, the Pantheon has many great qualities: it’s an amazing sandstone church built in the 1700s. During the Enlightenment, the church became a sort of secular shrine to the great figures of France including writers, politicians, scientists, etc. In addition to looking through the church (which included a huge dome, Foucault’s pendulum and some cool paintings of Joan of Arc) we got to explore the crypt which was much more pleasant and well-lit than you might expect a crypt to be.

Contrary to popular opinion, we did not find the waiters of Paris to be particularly snooty (maybe this is because we are residents of Fitzroy, which is home to many snooty waiters – mostly with fluoro hair and ripped jeans) but we did notice that they would greet us assuming we were French with a ‘Bonjour!’ or ‘Bonsoir!’ and when we would respond in attempted French they lose a little of their joie de vivre and would immediately switch to English. This was obviously intended as a kindness and did make things easier for ordering and finding a table, but meant we were robbed of the chance to practice our French. This also suggests that our pronunciation of ‘Bonjour’ is so poor that we cannot even pass for particularly uncultured or stupid Frenchmen.

To get around we tried renting electric scooters and bikes via Uber, with mixed results: there was terror, joy, and some frustration with Uber’s capricious parking rules.

For the super-interested, here are some other things we got up to in Paris:

Montmarte: We rode our electric bikes to Montmatre, an area famous for Sacre Coeur, an old church with a fantastic view, and the Moulin Rouge. The ride was mostly uphill, but on the electric bicycle was quite easy.

Wine tasting: We also did a wine tasting via Airbnb. Key takeaway: Chardonnay in France is not aged in oak barrels, meaning it doesn’t have that strong oaky taste (which I often find to be kind of cloying). Matt and I never really liked the taste of Australian chardonnay, so this was probably because of the barrel flavour. We also learned about tannins (broken down grape skins which appear in red wines) and about how rose is made (red grapes, but the skin is taken out sooner!)

Catacombs: There are old mines under Paris, which were the source of the sandstone used to build many of the city’s great buildings. These were later filled with bones after the central cemeteries were filled. We both regretted visiting the catacombs as it was very somber and confronting: millions of bones, hundreds of years old, piled on top of each other in a network of disused mines. Who enjoys this stuff?? We both felt sad and flat after the Catacombs, but then stopped for a hot chocolate and apple pastry which improved the mood. Afterwards we agreed to not visit any more mass graves.

Champs Elysées: We walked past the Louvre and gardens, Champs Elysées, Arc de Triomphe – a lovely area. We stopped for crepes and paid 1.5 euro (~$2.50 in Australian dollars) to use a public bathroom.

We also spent some time watching street hustlers. In the photo below, just below the Eiffel Tower you’ll see a ring of people in black. 

We watched them for half an hour or so. They stand together all day pretending to play a three-shell game, betting 100 euro a pop. The idea with the game is that the dealer hides a ball under one cup, then quickly shuffles all three cups to ‘hide’ the ball - the person who paid to play can then pick the cup which they think holds the ball. If they are right, they get 200 euro; if they are wrong they lose the lot. We inferred the people dressed in black are working with the dealer, spending all day pretending to play. They win some, they lose some, they clap and say “bravo!”. The idea is to make it look like riotous good fun for people passing by so that they might be tempted to play. They’re essentially just shuffing money around within their group. A key part of the scam is that after each shuffle one of the group picks a cup which, if you’ve been paying attention to the shuffle, clearly does not hold the ball - the incorrect guess is jeered at by the group and then someone else guesses correctly to much cheering. This makes the game look easy, and probably fools observers into thinking they’re especially good at the shell game because they can find the ball every time. I can only assume that when someone is playing the game for real, the shuffle is much faster and tricker to follow.

After watching for a while, we saw a middle-aged tourist approach the group, watch from the side for a while, and then scurry away to pull cash out of his money belt. His friend tried to talk him out of it. He played anyway. We watched him lose. His friend walked off in disgust. He lost again. He walked off to find his friend. The shell game people packed up after that. I assume they also pick your pockets when they can.

There were a few more tourist-scams going around, but we didn’t have any trouble. We don’t know why these three golden retreivers were standing sentinel outside the subway...

... but we can only assume it was a part of some kind of elaborate hoax.

Matt and I are now in Chamonix, a ski town in the French alps. He is practicing the ukulele and I am writing this. We’re staying in an Airbnb - our hosts are have at least three cats (two of whom have deigned to let me pat them) and we were warned that if we hear a noise like someone tapping on the window during the night it is just the local deer inadvertently banging their horns on the window while they try to eat whatever bits of grass near the house aren’t under snow.

[blogs-from-europe]

London

With the recent news of a coronavirus outbreak in Italy, we had to reconsider our travel plans. We were heading to Northern Italy in a few days, but hundreds of cases of the virus were found in towns near Venice, where we were headed. We decided it wasn't worth going, and decided to go to France. France isn't so bad, right? It was disappointing, but given a once-in-a-century global pandemic, whaddaya gonna do?

We left Dubai early for an 8 hour flight to London. It was really, really easy to get into the UK. We didn't talk to a human, fill our a form, or get our bags searched. We had been coaching each other on getting our story straight on where we were travelling next - time totally wasted.

Once in London we picked up an Oyster card each and got the Underground to our hotel.

Sighted in the subway tunnels of London - a very refined lobster:

Kath picked up some cheap theatre tickets and we went to see the Mousetrap around 6pm. It's an Agatha Christie whodunnit that's been running in the same theatre for 60-something years. Some reviewers say the production is showing its age after 60 years but Tarantino apparently checked it out a few years ago which gave it a reputation boost. The play was great, except that we fell asleep halfway through due to jetlag. Matt and I are still speculating about who the murderer is (since we missed that part while we were asleep!) - we’re not sure if we should book cheap tickets and go to see the show again or if we should just read about the ending on Wikipedia.

Next morning after 6 odd hours in our hotel room we ventured out for breakfast, finding a vintage diner serving English-style breakfast. We saw a guy eating nothing but chips and eggs. Everyone carried on as if this were normal. A stern matronly waitress bellowed which meals were ready for pickup: "BEANS TOAST EGGS", we were anxious that we'd miss our orders.

Readers who are fans of bubble and squeak may be pleased to hear that we ordered some to go with our breakfast. This was our first ever time trying bubble and squeak (after a childhood hearing about it as a staple meal in my parents’ childhoods). Verdict: bubble and squeak cannot compete with the wonders of hash browns!

We took a 2 hour free walking tour in the soft London rain, seeing Trafalgar square, Buckingham Palace, Parliament House, and a few other Westminster staples.

Kath found some lions that she and Meg had climbed on as a child. Climbing has since been banned - a message communicated via a vivid and amusing sign:

We were soaked by the end of the walking tour. We fell asleep at 3pm soon after. Damn jetlag.

Today we took a morning stroll through the rain in Hyde Park and checked out the British Museum. I (Matt) had heard a lot about the amphorae (Roman jars used to hold wine and olive oil) from the Fall of Rome podcast, so it was cool to finally see them in person.

We finished up the day by checking out Piccadilly Circus, the "Times Square" of London. There's a weird trend of Americana in London - the Hard Rock cafe, Pizza Hut, strip clubs, Burger King, etc. It’s like they took all the tasteless crap in the city and decided it to put in all in once place so that the rest of city could be nice. There was a “M&M world” for fuck’s sake. I for one don’t think M&M lore is sufficiently deep for them to get their own world.

Tomorrow we're getting a high speed train to Paris.

[blogs-from-europe]

Dubai

Kath and I are currently sitting in our hotel room in Dubai, trying not to fall asleep at 3pm.

The flight over was fine, as far as fourteen hour flights go. We arrived at 5am Dubai time. There was some anxiety about how modestly Kath needed to dress for the airport and streets of Dubai. We had a headscarf packed just in case. After all that fuss we were a little dissapointed by how immodestly everyone was dressed. I saw a woman’s knees! Kath dressed like a dork for nothing.

The airport was appropriately palatial.

We got a taxi to our hotel. dropped off our bags and began walking towards the world-famous Dubai mall that was nearby. After 20 or so minutes trekking through the world’s biggest carpark we found that the mall was actually ~10km away. 

We got a taxi there and had 6 hours to burn before our check-in. In that time we got breakfast, visited the aquarium, went ice skating, saw a movie (Frozen 2) and I went to the barber for a shave. It was the longest that either of us has spent in a shopping centre.

It was like $200ea to go to the top of the ~800m Burj Khalifa tower so we didn’t bother. 

We did manage to find this guy though:

Kath checking out breakfast previews on an iPad (great idea)

While I was getting a shave Kath was exploring the local supermarket. You might scoff at this but she found some pretty cool stuff. There’s a specialized pork section for infidels

Also they sell Camels milk! We haven’t tried it yet. Update: Matt just tried the milk. CAMEL MILK REVIEW: ‘Maybe superior to regular milk... because of the camel... It just had a certain creaminess to it.”

I’m glad we’re hoofing it out of here tomorrow because this city is totally soulless. Editor’s note: probably not fair to judge a city based on its shopping mall. The supermarket was cool. Counter note from rival editor: the city is world famous for its shopping mall and not much else.