Füssen, Germany

After we left Innsbruck, we jumped on a train ride up to Munich, and then transferred on a train heading south again down to Füssen. The town of Füssen is famous namely for being so near to Hohenshwangau and Neuschwanstein – two very famous German castles. Neuschwanstein, probably the most famous of all castles in Germany, was build in the late 1800′s by King Ludwig II (AKA “The Mad King” / “The Fairy Tale King”). We checked into the Altstadthotel Zum Hechten for 2 nights and did an evening wander around the small town, picked up a sausage bun, some treats for dessert, and ended up back at our hotel for dinner, which had a quaint little restaurant with very tasty and good-priced food.

Train station in Füssen

The next morning we woke up to a great breakfast at the hotel, and gained enough energy to jump on the bus to Neuschwanstein. The views from the castle are absolutely astounding. I was here once before, about 7 years ago, and it’s so nice to see it all again.

After our tour of the castle, we wandered down the hill and jumped in a bus back to town where we did some more meandering until we found a nice little place to sit outside and have a pint of Weißbier (as wheat beer is known in Bavaria). We didn’t manage to get up to much else except a nap and some reading, after which was a grueling dinner where Dan munched down his first Pork Knuckle in Germany, and Carly found herself a yummy Hungarian Schnitzel.

That brought our time in Füssen to a close, as the next day we jumped on a train back to Munich where we spent the next 6 days.

I really enjoyed our time in Füssen. It’s a town full of friendly people, and you can walk around the entire altstadt (old town) in about 30 minutes if you find all the little side streets. The town has a lot of charm, and the breathtaking Alps are all about. I can’t imagine spending a ton of time here, unless you really just want to find a place to relax, and/or a town to base yourself in for trekking up into the Alps or going on those types of excursions, but it’s definitely a place that’s worth a visit.

Innsbruck, Austria

On July 21st, we left Venice in the boiling heat around noon-time and boarded an extremely crappy Trenitalia train with busted air-conditioning and thought that today might be the day we die of heat exhaustion. If that weren’t enough, when the train arrived at Brenner on the Italian-Austrian border, we had to get off the train and wait for buses that had been dispatched to drive us to Innsbruck since there were forest fires on the train tracks, and the train was unable to carry on.

All the frustration aside, in the end I think it was almost worth all the hassle. The 30Km drive from Brenner to Innsbruck ranks among the most absolutely stunning scenery Carly and I have ever seen. Sharp green mountains, deep valleys with green fields in a milion shades and beautiful Bavarian style houses throughout. Mind-bogglingly gorgeous.

After arriving at our accommodation around 8pm, we headed (of all places) to a Punjabi restaurant for some dinner where we piled back some butter chicken, chicken tikka, dhal, vegetable curry and other Indian goodness. After that it was back home to crash for the night.

On Sunday, pretty much everything is closed. I remember that from 7 years ago or so when I was in Germany with my Grandma, but it’s still a pretty impressive thing, to see a town that’s usually quite a bustling and busy place, turn into a ghost town overnight. We made our way to the station first thing and picked up train tickets to Füssen (our next destination, in Deutschland), and also found some free wireless access (at long last) to finally put up some long overdue blog entries. We had some awesome food for lunch, Carly had a tasty goulash and some salad, and I had myself a huge pile of Speckrahmspezeln (basically small home made noodle-dumpling thingers with cream sauce, bacon and onions). We had a great dinner as well, where Carly scored an excellent Weiner Schnitzel, and after dinner we stumbled across a movie theater that was screening Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in English. Not a bad way to end your evening.

Innsbruck is not exactly as I remember it being, but then again, I was only here for an hour, about 7 years ago, so I suppose that’s not so surprising. There isn’t much that I imagine you’d do here unless you were big into skiing or snowboarding, but the scenery and mountains surrounding the area are absolutely fantastic. If nothing else, it’s a great place to relax for a couple days if you’re heading through Austria. All of the food (and beer) that we had was particularly tasty, so that should be reason enough for a visit.

Venice, Italy

17-July
Ahhhh, Venice. Indeed. Carly and I have had a fantastic time in Venice. The city is without question a bit of a magical place, quite unlike any other city we’ve been to. Both of the guidebooks that we have basically say that “if you don’t get lost in Venice, you’re not doing it right.” Despite this, we had a great map that led us easily to the B&B we were staying in – a super awesome place run by Sandra and Leonardo. We stayed in their house in an “attic room” that is beautifully decorated, and thankfully air-conditioned given that temperatures seemed to float between 37-40 degrees with very high humidity.

The rest of our first afternoon involved a bottle of Spumante (Italian equivalent of Champagne) on a rooftop terrace overlooking the city, some gelato (of course) and unfortunately, a terrible dinner a the not-so-pleasurable “Pleasure Cafe” (warning: avoid). To get rid of the terrible dinner food from our palates, we decided we’d happily have ourselves another gelato.

View from our rooftop balcony at the B&B where we stayed.

Fruit and Veggie stalls in Venice

Gondola

Sandra and Leonardo prepare a fabulous breakfast. Coffee, fresh-squeezed orange juice, fresh-baked cakes and pastries, cheese and cold cuts, breads, and all sorts of goodness. After breakfast we began wandering the streets. We picked up our train tickets that would take us to Innsbruck in a few days time, and decided to “get lost”. We basically just wandered through the alleys, over bridges, through little tunnels and squares for hours before we found ourselves at the magnificent San Marco square. Stuff on the square is insanely expensive, Espresso running you €5.00, a Cappuccino €8.20. This compared to another amazing little coffee shop close to our B&B which ran €0.70 for an Espresso and €1.20 for a Cappuccino.

Walking the streets provides no end of amazing little shops with hand-made carnivale masks and fantastic glassware made on the little island of Murano just off the coast of Venice.

San Marco Square

On the 19th of July, we set off for a day trip to Burano and Murano – two islands off the coast of Venice. After paying €13.00 each for a 12-hour Vaporetto ticket (the Venice equivalent of a public bus system, ‘cept with boats) we headed off.

Burano is famous for lacework, while Murano is famous for glass-blowing. Walking around the small island of Burano with its bright colors and quaint bridges was really a great time, and stopping by the glass-blowing factory of Formia on Murano was also really amazing. Being able to stand there and watch is fabulous.

Canal on the island of Burano, about 40 minutes from Venice

Houses on Burano

Glass blowing on Murano island (about 5-10 minutes from Venice)

Our last day in Venice was mostly a day of wandering and relaxing. Carly and I split up in the morning to do a bit of shopping on our own. While Carly was off looking for pusrses and whatnot, I wanted to try my luck at heading to the Jeweler where we brought Carly’s new ring to be sized. The side story here: In Rome, since some @&$%# stole all our stuff in Tel Aviv (including Carly’s wedding ring, and another ring I had bought her when we first started dating, WAAAYYYY back in the day) – we stopped at various Jewelry shops trying to find a simple replacement for Carly’s wedding band so she could have a ring to wear. She found one that she really liked, and we bought it, but didn’t have enough time to have it sized in Rome. Venice was the first place we found where someone would be able to size the ring before we left, but even so, it wasn’t supposed to be ready until the 21st. While Carly was out shopping, I stopped by the shop and the ring happened to be ready. This was great news for me, because Carly is darn near impossible to surprise for anything. After picking up the ring, I found a shop that sold little necklaces with glass hearts on them, made in Murano of course, so I picked one of those up and slipped the ring on the necklace along with the heart, and tucked it in the side pocket on my shorts.

We found each other around 1pm and I left Carly to wander for a few more minutes while I ran to check my email, and when I got back she had just finished witnessing a bit of a brawl. A tall-skinny guy was running past her, with a short-stocky guy chasing after him. The short-stocky guy tackled the tall-skinny guy to the ground, and after they both got up, the short-stocky guy head-butted the tall-skinny guy in the face. Carly’s impression was that the tall-skinny guy had stolen something from a shop, and we sat and waited there, watching until the cops came, heard the story from the short-stocky guy and then dragged the tall-skinny guy away. All in a day’s work.

Good looking girl, funny looking man

In the evening, Carly and I got dressed up for a nice dinner out, and headed to the Jewish Ghetto where our guidebook recommended a great restaurant. The evening could not have been more perfect – the square was very quiet, the evening was cooling off, and we ate outside on the square with only a few other couples. Dinner was slow, long and fantastic. After dinner, in a re-enactment of the way I gave Carly her first ring, I reached for her under the table (but the table was too long for me to reach her) – so I told her to hold my hand. She seemed a bit hesitant, so I said “it’s very important”. She reached for my hand and I put the end of the necklace into her hand. She had to pull it away from me until she found what was on the other end – the heart and the ring – and gave me a great opportunity to ask her to marry me, again. Lucky for me she said yes, I’m glad she hasn’t changed her mind. All in all, a perfect evening, and a perfect way to end our time in Venice.

Carly on a nice little bridge

Good looking girl (again!)

We had people tell us they loved Venice, and people tell us they couldn’t stand it. To be honest, I don’t know how you couldn’t love the place. We had an absolutely magnificent time. Tomorrow we head off to Innsbruck in Austria for a change in culture, scenery and hopefully cooler weather.

Florence, Italy

We made it back to Florence after our time in Cinque Terre refreshed internally but externally quite rough around the edges (particularly legs and chin )! With Giulia agreeing to keep our large packs, we had packed light for the short journey to the coast.

Replica of Michelangelo’s David

One thing you must do in Florence is visit the Uffizi museum, which we dutifully waited in line 3 hours for in order to get inside. Neither of us could believe that one building could contain so many pieces of art. Room after room (45 main ones in all) were loaded with paintings and even a few statues. Every hall in between rooms also was lined with statues and portraits. Your eyes could really only take in so much in a day and after a couple hours we couldn’t see straight anymore.

Daniel’s favourite painting was Leonardo Da Vinci’s 1472-5 The Annunciation. I (Carly) really enjoyed a set of 7 paintings by Piero del Pollaiolo. Each of these paintings where one of either the three theological virtues or the four cardinal virtues. All of them were a single woman with special symbolic items for the virtue she was portraying (Hope: eyes up with praying hands, Faith: chalice and cross, Charity: burning flames and suckling baby, Justice: sword and globe, Prudence: mirror and serpent, Temperance: pouring liquid from one vessel to another, and Fortitude: shining armour). How all of the symbolism is reasoned is beyond me. I did find it most interesting that the painting of Justice made direct reference in its accompanying script that she held the typical sword and globe rather than the scales that we usual see in our courts today.

Gelato, a daily necessity (at least once)

Gelato shop

That evening, Giulia took us to a neat tapas place on the river. It still seems so strange, as a North American, to see people drinking freely on the streets or in the park. Here we were, spumanti in hand, wandering on the street alongside the river. The concept at the restaurant, buy the drink (8 Euro) and eat as much as you’d like from the tapas bar, was super neat.

Ponte Vecchio (the only bridge in Florence not destroyed during WWII)

Another one of our days in Florence, we joined Giulia and her friend Pamela, as well as two Italian guys Pamela knew for a day on the lake. It was an artificial lake, not the most scenic, but the company was grand. We swam, sunbathed, and had BBQ. I’d never seen so much meat consumed during one meal in my life. Maybe not surprising seeing as it was the guys who where in charge of purchasing the food. I had my sausage and a piece of the beef steak, but I’m afraid I really had to pass when the bacon was then cooked up along with some pork chops. Just meat, you ask? Well, of course not! We had wine too. I must add that I don’t think I’ve even seen, or would like to see that thing they called bacon again. I may be crazy, but I think I might have heard some faint squealing of what once was as it headed down the boys’ hatches.

Left to right – Giulia, Carly, Pamela

Yummy, yummy, yummy beef.

On our final day, after a very unexciting laundry outing (8 Euro for a load), we relaxed the very very hot day away wondering the streets and piazza’s for Florence’s city center. Internet, shopping, lunch and reading. That evening we took a short train ride up to Prato where Giulia met us after work. She had arranged a final dinner at a local pizzeria with her family (Dad, Mom, brother Giovanni and cousin Chiara). Very neat to meet everyone I’d been seeing photographs of for years! It was especially great to see Chiara again after her exchange and stay with us from Italy in Sept. of 1994. I think Giulia was more than happy to have another person (Chiara) ready and willing to do some translation. Hard work! It was a delight to chat with Giulia’s mom (also a teacher), Dad and brother. We very much enjoyed our meal together.

Interesting things I learned from Giulia and her family about Italian culture vs. our North American culture:

Work days for Italians are often 9am-8pm. Why so long? They have a LONG lunch break. It is most common that you would go home for lunch. This is the biggest meal of the day with pasta, meat or fish and fruit. It is not uncommon for the lunch break to be a couple hours long. Their dinner time is often 8 or 9pm. A lighter meal of bread, cold-cuts, cheese etc. Giulia was so surprised that we would eat dinner around 6pm. Don’t you get hungry before bed? I mentioned in our home, we often would have a tea time with toast or something before bed…but mind you, our dinners are often our largest meal of the day because we haven’t seen one another since morning and our lunches are packed (ie sandwich) and quick.

Giulia said that she’d never had an “English Breakfast”. When I asked her what that was, she said bacon and eggs. We don’t have that very often, I noted. Maybe something special for the weekend. Her breakfast is typically biscuits (sweet cookies) and milk. When I said I never really drank milk (like a glass), she was astonished. Then again, cereal isn’t common for them, nor is yogurt. Toast was mentioned but perhaps only for dinner with meat and cheese, not with something sweet like jam. Gelato is a staple! Because of the length of time between lunch and dinner, it is common to have gelato around 5pm.

Pizza or Pasta everyday. Ham and Pineapple (Hawaiian) is unheard of! Chicken in your pasta? Craziness. In Italy, the family of ingredients for Pizzas and Pastas are limited (ie ham and cheese) , however, the variety and diversity of these few ingredients is surprising. Never had I heard of so many kids of ham (cotto, prosciutto, speak etc.) and such interesting cheeses for pizzas (pecorino, mozzarella, mascarpone, parmesano, etc.) One of Daniel’s favorites quickly became speak with mascarpone. Cheddar. What is that? No one in Giulia’s family had ever heard of that kind of cheese. Yet, if you said to a North American to name the first cheese that came to mind, they surely would say cheddar. We didn’t even know how to describe it or its varieties. Hmm.

Italian coffee is like a great kiss. Not watered down, makes your heart skip a beat (or ten if you make the mistake of pouring yourself a cup full) and keeps you floating, or shaking, for hours (as long as your bladder isn’t as efficient as mine). After dinner coffee is the final say. You wouldn’t dare have anything else once this had been drunk.

Other tidbits: most bread we had in Italy was unsalted, oil and vinegar or butter with bread is largely unheard of, Christmas dinner will also see pasta, it is not uncommon to live at home until marriage at 30 or 35 or ….even still sharing a bedroom with your sibling. Dad and Mom, I’m coming home!

I sure hope that I got all of this accurately. Of course, there are always exceptions to the trends. I’m sure Giulia will quickly correct any of my flaws here.

A resounding grazie to Giulia, as well as her family and friends!