Having arrived in Switzerland from Nepal, we took a few days rest, meeting with family etc. and finalizing the route for our 3 week road trip to the East.
The planned route below is just under 3,000km and we did it in 23 days.
The weather is getting a bit colder and sights on the horizons are often a bit hazy.
Day 1:
Drive via Vaduz (capital of Lichtenstein) to Innsbruck for lunch. Pretty, old town centre. Continue drive to Salzburg.
View across the old town towards Fortress 'Hohensalzburg'.
Day 2 & 3:
Taking in some of the sights of Mozart’s birth city. The view from the ‘Kapuzinerberg’ gave us a great view of the old town and the Hohen Salzburg castle. A walking tour in the old town and of course a visit to the ‘Augustiner Bräu Stübl’, or beer hall.
Salzburg 'Dom' Cathedral
Day 4:
Drive to Vienna via Linz.
Day 5 & 6:
Vienna… Stephan’s Dom and city walk under the guidance of Rick Steves. The next day we took the city ring-strasse tram tour along where the old city walls used to be, now a major avenue passing many fantastic buildings.
St. Stephen's cathedral
Hofburg
Parliament building
Day 7 & 8:
Drive to Schonbrunn palace for a walk in the gardens, then of the Bratislava and visiting Devin where the old castle on the rocks overlooks the area and the Danube river. A monument remembers the many who tried to swim across the river into Austria during the Cold War time.
Next day we went to see the Devin Hrad (castle) and then walked down to the old town centre and explored by foot.
In the evening our hosts Vladislav & Monica took us to a Slovak vine tasting with the top 100 wines. No we did not try ALL of them.
From there we went for a traditional St. Martin Goose dinner, first the liver, then the roasted meat. Very mice, but way too much food.
Day 9 – 11:
Drive to Budapest, then a couple of days in the ‘Paris of the East’.
Interesting city with a lot of potential still lurking. Budapest clearly had a great past and a lot of renovating important buildings makes this a nice city today. There are however still a lot of Bohemian areas in the shadows of its past.
Panorama from the Castle on the Buda site over Lanchid 'Chain' bridge towards the Parliament.
Parliament building
Fisherman's Bastion and St. Matthias church.
Jewish memorial at Dohany synagogue.
Day 12:
Drive from Budapest in Hungary, crossing through Slovakia to Krakow in Poland. Rather long drive as hardly any highways exist and the roads pass through many villages, allowing only for slower driving. First check during this trip, just after crossing the border into Poland, Only time across 8 countries, police was checking our papers. Time for a walk into the old town in the evening.
Church of St. Peter and St. Paul
Day 13 – 15:
Joined a ‘free’ walking tour in the centre of Krakow. Interesting stories and some sights we would otherwise have missed. Weather was cold and even some drizzle rain during the walk which started at St Mary’s church and ended at the Wawel cathedral and castle.
Market square at night.
St. Florian's Gate.
St. Marie's church in the old town centre market square.
Kracow Cathedral from Wawel castle.
Trip to visit the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps about 80km from Krakow.
Whist Auschwitz houses the museum and exhibitions telling the story of the Nazi atrocities in the former armed barracks converted to house prisoners, Birkenau is the site 3km away where the few remaining buildings in original condition, but more so the fields with the chimney stacks from the dozens of huts once there show the huge scale and organization set up by the Nazis to ‘process’ and exterminate over a million people.
Infamous "Arbeit macht frei" entry gate to Auschwitz.
Birkenau
Entry to Birkenau where trains with the Holocaust victims arrived through this gate.
Back in Krakow, a second walking tour, this time with a walk to the Jewish quarters and ghetto across the river.
Temple Synagogue.
Krakow Ghetto Memorial
Day 16:
Drive from Krakow to Prague.
Day 17 – 19:
Prague has an amazingly well preserved town centre. Normally completely overcrowded by tourists, so the cold weather has at least the advantage that crowds are not too bad. On the other hand with the fog and mist hanging over the city, not that many photo opportunities for great pics.
Wenceslas Square with view towards the National Museum.
Astronomical clock installed 1410, and the only one still working.
Took another ‘free’ walking tour in the old town and Jewish quarter. Aussie guide living here, very entertaining. He pointed out a pub ‘Lokal’ with Tank Beer during the tour, so of course we had to go for a few samples….!
Wandering in the old town of Prague.
Powder Tower
The next day we strolled to the old town again, but this time turned to the famous Charles Bridge. From there we made our way up to the castle complex in time for the big ‘Change of Guard’ at lunch time. The castle complex is one, if not the greatest castle complex in Europe.
The most impressive building at the caste complex is the St. Vitus Cathedral.
In front of St. Vitus Cathedral on the castle hill.
Charles Bridge and view towards the castle and St. Vitus Cathedral.
Day 20:
Drive from Prague to Munich.
Day 21 – 22:
Revisiting Munich after many, many years.
We spend most of our time in the old parts of Munich build around Mary’s column and the Old Town Hall. A self-guided walking tour took us to many of the key sights in the city centrum.
The most famous beer hall, the Hofbräuhaus!
Yes we love a good beer or two...
A 'Maibaum' at Victuals market.
Bavarian State Theatre.
Of course, whilst in Munich, a beer or two…
New Town Hall with 'Mary's Column'.
Old Town Hall.
'Theatinerkirche' at the Odeon place.
St. Jacobs Place
Munich Synagogue
St. Jacobs Place.
…did I mention beer???
Day 23:
Drive home from Munich to Entlebuch.
We were generally lucky with the weather. Whilst cold, foggy and misty at times, we had light rain for only for half a day. Today was the first day it was raining lightly all day. Reaching Switzerland, we could see snow from last night in the fields. Arriving in the higher areas of Entlebuch, it was snowing.
So we had it completed our road trip just in time before the winter takes hold!
othmar & wichit's space 