Day Ten – Saturday, June 9 – Budapest, HU

We had a somewhat slow moving morning, with a bit of online research to determine itinerary highlights since we had limited time and no book. The hotel gift shop didn’t offer any particularly useful books so we figured we’d start with Buda Castle, try to get to one of the thermal baths and see how far we got.

Since the breakfast buffet wasn’t included with our room, we passed and walked a couple of blocks to Vací utca, a pedestrian shopping street. We had what turned out to be a two-phase breakfast. First, we each had coffees in an outdoor café, but since it was around 11:00 by now they weren’t serving any breakfast pastries, we couldn’t help but notice a couple of girls who had been asked by the rather stern waiter to eat their yummy looking chocolate covered cream-filled donuts outside the restaurant perimeter while their dad had a beer. On the way out, we asked the dad where they had gotten them, and he pointed to the McCafe down the street. Hmmm? McCafe, eh? It turned out that the McCafe, which is attached to the McDonald’s but has more of a Starbucks feel, was quite a find. Another round of café lattes, fresh squeezed orange juice, croissant and a dense biscuit topped with a Parmesan type cheese, for quite a bit less than just our coffees had been at the outdoor café. And good, too!

As we headed toward Buda Castle, we bought a couple of tickets to an evening dinner cruise on the Danube – opting for the late sitting at 10:00PM. Again, a super touristy thing to do, but why not! And it was really not a bad deal at all at about $35/each for the cruise, champagne, dinner, wine and desert.

We walked across the Chain Bridge and took the funicular up the hill to the Buda Castle area. (missing a chunk here, I’ll need to come back and edit:

Fisherman’s Bastion, Lunch at St. George’s Residence (Annette: stuffed cabbage with pork chop, sausage and bacon on top, sauerkraut and sour cream sauce; Paul: perch-pike), Labyrinth,

Walk to Gellert baths, and thermal & large pool. Walk back to hotel across green bridge (??) to hotel for rest.

Laundry, posting on blog, emails,

Dinner cruise at 10:00, back for posting pictures, etc.

Day Nine – Friday, June 8 – Vienna to Budapest

There was still a long list of “want to see or do”s in Vienna, but we carved it down to two things we could squeeze in before driving on to Budapest – where we knew there would also be far too many things to see and do for the time we had available.

The famed Lipizzaner stallions do their “morning exercises” on an almost daily basis starting at 10:00AM, so we had an early breakfast and pack and hopped the Metro to the Winter Riding School at the Hofburg. Prior to watching the horses practice parts of their routines, we got a crash course on the Spanish Riding School and the breeding and training of the Lipizzaner horses by touring the small museum across the street. The Winter Riding School room is something to behold if you haven’t seen it. It looks like a typical baroque grand ball room, except that the floor is sawdust and the dancers are horses and their riders. Since the exercises aren’t a full rehearsal for the evening performances, but rather are for strengthening and limbering the horses, we didn’t get to witness the full pageantry of the event or the more acrobatic equine choreography. But you still get a sense of their majesty and discipline even if, like me, you’re not a particular fan of horses (I personally have had a somewhat estranged relationship with horses ever since Tommy Champion got bitten on the thigh by that pack horse in Tuolomne County when I was about 10!).

At around 11:00, we headed back to the hotel, checked out, and drove to the Prater to ride the Riesenrad (giant ferris wheel). The Prater is a huge park with an amusement park section that is now filled with carnival games, roller coasters and water rides that resemble a Six Flags park, but we were only interested in the famous, old ferris wheel that dates back to 1896 and had most of the original cabins burned during WWII in 1945. The cabins are the size of, well…small vacation cabins, or perhaps modern shipping containers. Some of them appeared to be pre-set with dining tables and linens for catered events. We enjoyed the 360 degree views on the slow once-around, then had to say good-bye to Vienna and head out of town around 1:30.

In the parking lot of the Prater, we discovered that the SD Card-based European map database in the Nuvi didn’t cover Hungary…or Croatia! Arrgh! It contains all of Western Europe, UK, Scandanavia and even has Greece and freakin’ Albania! But no Hungary, Croatia or Slovenia on the version 8.0 that we have. Perhaps the later version has added them…don’t know. In any case, we had to wing it with a map, which was OK for the main roads, but got hairy once we arrived in urban Budapest. As part of the “McDonald’s Quest!” we stopped at a roadside exit that had both a gas station and a McD’s and got one of the Austrian specialty burgers.

About 5 miles before the Hungarian border, we got our first speeding ticket in the new car. Oops, but I guess we had to get that out of the way early. Annette got nailed for going 148 KPH in a 100 zone in a speed trap that the Austrian police have clearly set up to extract that last little bit of revenue from travelers before they head over the border, and there was another car that was waived over at the same time.

We arrived in Budapest around 4:30 having realized that not only did the Nüvi offer no help, but we had managed to skip Budapest in our guide book buying, so we had no city map at all upon entering the city. With the help of directions from a cab driver, we were able to get (with only one dead-end street U-turn) over to the Pest side of the city where we finally saw a major hotel where we could stop and get a map and directions. With map in hand and directions in better English, the route to the Marriott Budapest was clear, and only the brutal Friday afternoon traffic delayed us. All told, only about an hour was wasted from arriving in the city limits to getting to the hotel…we figure it could have been much worse.

The Marriott Budapest had been booked via Priceline bidding, and as we had read, the location was fantastic (right on the river on the Pest side, between the Chain Bridge [Széchenyi lánchid] and the Elizabeth Bridge [Erzsébet hid]) and the interior rooms were comfortable and remodeled. The hotel was undergoing a major renovation, but again as in Vienna, there was fortunately no significant noise to contend with.

We enjoyed some wine from the minibar (a reasonably priced wine from a minibar…a first in the history of the hotel business!), and jumped on the Internet to get a quick city overview and some restaurant ideas. We found a place recommended on WikiTravel, and headed off on the #2 Tram, which runs along the Danube river and it took us to a nice, tree-lined neighborhood north of the Margaret Bridge [Margit hid] that seemed to be mostly filled with locals.

The Restaurant was called Pozsonyi Kisvendéglö (on Radnóti Miklós utca 38), and was a qualified success. A large glass of Dreher Beer worked – hard to miss on that, and Paul’s pork goulash was tasty, but Annette’s grilled pike perch, was unfortunately smothered in a pasty lemon sauce that needed to be mostly scraped away to reveal the fish below. The salad had lots of good, mild, crumbly cheese but the cucumbers were a bit bitter. But, a nice atmosphere and we struck up a conversation with a couple next to us (he was British, she was Hungarian) who worked in the film industry and had recently moved back to Budapest from London.

After dinner, we took a short walk up Szent István Ut from the Margaret Bridge, and then strolled back down along the river, enjoying the magnificent views of the lighted Parliament building and Buda Castle across the river. The river walk was not at all crowed, but there were a number of other walkers and several couples enjoying a romantic moment on a bench with champagne or wine and tidbits of food (all with real glass stemware – no plastic cups if you intend to get romantic in Budapest, please!). We walked back to the Marriott and off to bed.

Day Eight – Thursday, June 07 – Vienna

Vienna, day two, was a continuation of our ambitious agenda. We enjoyed another morning breakfast buffet – but are now (finally) seriously starting to slow down on the overeating. Since the limited number of spaces that the hotel rented in the garage were all spoken for (as we had been forewarned when we checked in), we moved car to an outside parking spot in front of hotel, which was off the street under an overhang and seemed as safe as in the garage.

Thursday was Corpus Cristi day in Austria, a religious holiday that meant that most major stores were closed and traffic was light, but fortunately all the sights were open.
We took the U3 subway and #58 streetcar out to Schloss Schönbrun. The Schönbrun Palace was, like Versailles, a “summer home” which was largely build out during the long reign of the Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa.

We bought the “Classic Pass – Light” (love that name) which gave us an audio tour of the first floor rooms, the Privy Garden, shrub maze, and access to the Panoramic viewing area on the top of the Gloriette. The first floor tour shows both ceremonial and private rooms used by Franz Joseph who was born at Schönbrun and lived most of his live there as he ruled from 1848 through his death at the palace in 1916 and lived most of his life there. His wife Elizabeth (known as Sisi) seemed to have spent most of her time traveling around Europe being beautiful and avoiding the Viennese imperial life which she found stifling. There were also many rooms that had been decorated for the court of Maria Theresa who ruled from 1740 to 1780. MT and her husband had 16 children, including the unfortunate Marie Antoinette, who had been married off to France’s King Louis XVI and lost her head in the French Revolution.

After soaking up centuries of Habsburg imperial history, we stopped for a quick Radler and rest in the garden outside the maze. We continued up to the Gloriette, which is a neo classical arcade on a hill in the garden -- large structure which looks like a triumphal arch (or series of arches) and is basically a huge gazebo, since it’s really part of the garden and doesn’t have much function other than as a “social spot” with an amazing view. It was built in 1775, and it helped us understand the relative context of the time to remember that the American colonies were on the verge of declaring their independence from England in the east, and in San Francisco, Mission Dolores and the Presidio were about to be established.

After admiring the view from the top of the Gloriette, we headed back the same way we came and had lunch near the Hofburg at the “little Hungarian restaurant”, Ilona Stüberl at Bräunerstrasse 2. This was another restaurant recommended in our Eyewitness Guide, and, in preparation for our trip to Hungary, Annette had paprika chicken and a Radler, her new favorite drink, and Paul had brossai – a spicy fried pork and potato dish and an Edelweiss Weißbier. For desert, we could resist sharing an Ilona Palatschinke: a crepe filled with apricot jam and cream cheese topped with chocolate syrup…another late and heavy lunch, as is becoming our custom.

By the time we got to lunch it was around 3pm and so all we had time for after lunch was the Schatzkammer (Imperial Treasury), the spectacular display of crown jewels and imperial vestments exhibited at the Hofburg.

We headed back to hotel for a quick change of clothes and took the U-bahn to the VolksOper (http://www.volksoper.at/) to see La Traviata. Neither of us are opera experts at all, but we’ve been to a few over the years, and we both thought this was a good performance. The leads, especially Melba Ramos as Violetta, were all strong, and the staging, costumes, choreography and choral numbers were all excellent. Since we had been at a bit of a loss with following the plot when we watched the marionette version of Don Giovanni, we had boned up on the internet by reading a couple of plot scenarios. This was helpful since the supertitles projected overhead translated the Italian libretto into German, of course.

The opera started at 7:00PM and was 2 and a half hours long, so we had time afterward to head back to our neighborhood for a bite to eat. We walked back to the Spittleberg pedestrian areas and shared a bit of soup and salad, wine & beer at the outdoor seating area of the Creperie-Brasserie Spittelberg on Spittelberggasse 12. They were closing down the outside area at 11PM, so we finished up and headed back to the Savoy.
Annette’s quote of the day: “I’m not ready to leave Vienna yet!”

Day Seven – Wednesday, June 6, Vienna, AT

One of the potential issues that we hadn’t been aware of when booking the Hotel Savoy (Garni!!) online was that there was a major construction project underway directly across the street. And, needless to say, our room faced the street. We had heard another couple complaining to the front desk about the racket, but to our relief, the noise was not a bother at all.

We feasted on another wonderful buffet, booked tickets to the Thursday night performance of La Traviata at the VolksOper through the front desk, and headed off for some mega-sightseeing. We started off by checking out the recommended “shortcut” route to the nearby Neubauger U-bahn station (which involved cutting through the front of a neighboring hotel and the shopping arcade), then headed off on a walking tour of central Vienna.

Our path took us past the huge museums of Natural History and Kunsthistorisches Museum to the Hofburg complex. Given our limited time in all the amazing cities we’re visiting (Munich, Prague, Vienna, Budapest and Salzburg), we’ve resigned ourselves to seeing a slim selection of offerings from the rich offerings available. Since there is no way to see it all, we cherry-picked a few museums and sights upon which to focus. Our first selection was the fantastic collections of musical instruments and arms and armor housed in the Neue Burg building, which is part of the Hofburg array. This massive curved building was commissioned by the penultimate pre-WWI Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph when he might have been better focused on other things (crumbling Habsburg Empire, perhaps?). Although the Neue Burg was never completed to its original, enormous conception, the interior details (marbled halls and grand staircases, etc.) are certainly a worthy legacy of late imperial might and wealth, and the music and armor museums were fascinating.

We continued around the Hofburg Quarter, past the Albertina Museum (one of the great ones for which there’s not enough time to tour), and had lunch at the wonderful little Reinthaler Café on Gluckgasse 5. We’d found this place through the Eyewitness Travel book, which has been generally very good on its recommendations. Paul had Bauerngulash mit Knödel (goulash with bread dumpling) and Annette had “special of the day” potato dumplings with bacon and one stuffed with sausage. Yum.

For the afternoon, we continued our walking tour past the Opera House, through NaschMarkt (a little bit of the Middle East, right in the midst of Vienna!) and then caught the Ringstrasse tram, which circumnavigates central Vienna. We got off on the Schottenring section at Borsegasse, and walked around the Freyung square area. We had the requisite Jause (the 3d meal between lunch and dinner consisting of kaffee and cake) at what turned out to be the annex to the famed Café Central, rather than the original one we’d been aiming for (half a block away), but nonetheless enjoyed Sacher tort and triple chocolate cake with coffees in a lovely courtyard. We continued walking through the VolksGarten, and saw Parliament and Neue Rathaus (neo-Gothic town hall). Since it was starting to rain, we opted for the subway back but managed to get out of the station at the wrong exit and found ourselves 6 blocks from the hotel instead of one little short-cut away.

At this point we needed a siesta (or whatever they call it in Vienna), but didn’t really nap – just a break for journaling and chilling out. With a freshening-up and a change of clothes, we headed out for dinner to The White Chimney Sweep (Zum Weissen Rauchfangkehrer), a restaurant recommended by Paul’s parent’s, Dick and Jo. What a treat! We had an expensive but absolutely fantastic dinner:

Wine - Olivin 2000 Winkler-Hermaden

For Paul:
Velvet soup of river crayfish with watercress and cauliflower terrine
Saddle and shoulder of lamb
Gratinated herb-semolina and shallots-olive ragout

For Annette:
Stuffed squash blossoms w/ braised artichokes
Saddle of venison with red wine cherries, blettes and potato-cream noodles

Dessert - Woodruff parfait with braised white peaches & almond blinis

…and the toasted pumpkin seeds and another desert “treat.”

After dinner we walked down Kärntner Strasse, a major pedestrian-only shopping street running about 6 blocks from the Stepansplatz to the StaatsOper. We admired the exterior of the Stephansdom church, with its multi-colored, elaborately patterned shingle roof illuminated and bought a chocolate from a bride-to-be who was out with her girlfriends at what we were told was a traditional bachelorette ritual of selling chocolates and condoms to strangers on the street. Perhaps a recent tradition???

Now it was time to head home, so we caught the U-bahn, and bought a 24 hour ticket which would get us through the next day’s extensive travels. Annette’s quote of the day: “I LOVE Vienna!”

Day Six –Tuesday, June 5 - Cesky Krumlov, CZ to Vienna, AT

The hotel U Mesta Vidne featured another wonderful breakfast buffet, but by this time Paul’s “wow, look at all this stuff!” greed has actually having to slow down and become more selective. We showered and packed and left the bags in the room to spend a few more hours in Cesky Krumlov to explore the castle area. The tower was a “must climb” attraction, and by now Annette’s calf muscles were up for more ascent/descent!

Since a visit to the castle interiors required a guided group tour and was going to take more time than we had, we skipped that and walked through the extensive garden instead, which feature both formal, terraced, symmetrical areas with an elaborate fountain and a wilder, forested area in the rear.

After a couple of hours, we checked out, packed the car and headed toward our next destination – the Abbey in Melk, Austria. Given our issues with the GPS on the way to Cesky Krumlov, we referred to a print-out of the route as recommended by ViaMichelin online web site. For some reason, again, the Nuvi wanted to recommend some smaller roads, so we “agreed to disagree” with the Nuvi and stuck to the other route which involved more large roads.

We headed south and crossed the border into Austria, past the city of Linz and then east toward Vienna. We stopped in the small town of Melk, which is noted for the enormous Benedictine Abbey perched on a hilltop which overlooks the Danube River and the small town below. We grabbed a bit of pizza for lunch (unfortunately not up to the standard established by Don Corleone’s, and probably a C) and chatted with a few Americans who were passing through Melk on a weeklong, fully supported bicycle tour put on by a Berkeley, CA based company.

The Abbey, or Stift, was huge, well restored, impressive, and had beautifully designed exhibit spaces as part of the tour. The displays, which were very contemporary and quite daring in their art direction and use of media (sculptural forms emerging from walls, projections, video, mega-graphics, etc.) were actually about the history of the Abbey and the ups and downs of the Benedictine order and Catholicism in general in Austria. Much better than the usual stuff!

From Melk (after snagging a beauty shot of the new car with Abbey in the background for posting on bimmerfest ;-)), we drove along the Danube up the Wachau valley to the town of Dürnstein. This town is historically notable for the imprisonment of Richard the Lionheart (Richard Lowenhertz) in 1192, and has a ruined castle overlooking the town. In spite of Annette’s still sore calves, we made the hike up to the ruins which were a bit farther than we’d been led to believe (it’s NOT a 10 minute walk…more like 20). However, as a reward when we got to the top around 6:00PM, we were compensated with extraordinary, but somewhat overcast, views of the Wachau wine country.

When we descended to the town, there was nothing going on yet at the restaurant of the Hotel Richard Lowenhertz, and rest of town was equally quiet, but we found a nice spot with outside deck with locals drinking wine. We each enjoyed a glass of the local white and headed on another hour or so to Vienna.

From here, our Nüvi proved flawless in getting us to the Hotel Savoy Garni in Vienna, which was a good thing since it was on a one-way street which would have proven frustrating to find without GPS assistance. Before the trip, we had learned from Paul’s dad, Dick, that the designation “Garni,” as fancy as it sounds, actually signifies a hotel without a restaurant. Talk about turning a bug into a feature (it’s not just a hotel, it is a Hotel Garni!).

Parking in the hotel garage was more of a challenge than one might expect. Upon arriving, we saw an open garage door under the hotel, pulled in and found ourselves a space – S.O.P. Then the door closed and the lights went off. We picked our way to the front with suitcases in tow, felt around in the dark and found a push-button light switch. OK, step one complete. Failing to find the hoped-for staircase upstairs or an electric eye that would open the door, after a few minutes of slightly increasing concern, we discovered another switch and went with the “Auf” direction. Free at last from the temporary garage imprisonment, we went upstairs and checked in.

The hotel was a great find. It has a good location within walking distance of most of the major sites in Vienna and we were welcomed by a wonderfully helpful desk assistant who supplied us with maps, advice and clarified the garage situation. We headed off to dinner in nearby Spittelberg area, which is a pedestrian district with galleries, shops and lots of outdoor restaurants. After zig-zagging through several streets, we ended up eating on the charming patio of the Gasthaus Witwe Bolte on Gutenberggasse 13. The meal was OK, (Prosecco aperatifs, Wiener Schnitzel, Filetsteak “Bolte”, disappointing asparagus soup – a B or B-), but totally hit the spot after a full day of activities.

After dinner, it was another “straight to bed” night. Since the rain and cooler temperatures that had been with us in Munich and Prague had given way to warmer temperatures, we found the hotel room very hot (hotter than the hallway or outside temperature, it seems). Fortunately the room was equipped with a large rotating fan on a stand which was a lifesaver, especially at night.

Day Five – Monday, June 4 - Prague, CZ to Cesky Krumlov, CZ

In the morning, Paul hit the fitness center for a quick workout, and then we enjoyed another round at the breakfast buffet at the Andels Hotel. We packed and checked out; leaving our stuff in the trunk of the car parked in the hotel garage, and took the metro from the Andels station. We had carved out the morning for a bit more Prague sightseeing, and headed to the New Town area to wander around Wenceslas Square and see the Powder Tower, State Opera and other sites.

Annette’s calves were very tight from the previous day’s stair climbing and miles of tourist trekking, so this morning’s pace was a bit slower and less ambitious, and included the requisite stop at the art nouveau Hotel Europa Café along Wenceslas Square (which is really more of a wide, three-block boulevard than a traditional “square.”

We got back to the hotel around 12:15 and started what seemingly must have been the most indirect route possible to Cesky Krumlov. At one point we actually stopped to check if the Nüvi GPS was set on “scenic” or “longest possible” mode since it insisted on keeping us off the freeway and primarily on narrow, two-lane roads filled with trucks and country traffic. Fortunately, we passed through some lovely countryside and the bit of rain that we encountered along the way stopped and the sun re-emerged through billowy clouds.

Eventually, around 4:00PM, we arrived in lovely Cesky Krumlov, although we did have to deal with another detour (road construction) right outside of town -- so close, but not quite there! We rolled onto the cobblestone streets of Cesky Krumlov and followed the signs to our hotel, U Mesta Vidne (Hotel Vienna), which, like all of our hotels, had been pre-booked online. Since the central, old part of town is a UNESCO protected architectural area, they have established a series of large parking lots that ring the area, and after checking in we headed off to Parking Lot #2 (which again involved us getting slightly lost and caught in the detour loop again!). Our room was small, but very clean and cute, with a single window that cut through the sloping roofline and provided a cozy feel.

We dropped the bags and headed immediately out to look for food, since we hadn’t ended up stopping for lunch. [Paul had been hoping to keep the bizarre and nonsensical tradition of eating at a McDonalds in every international country visited – focusing on the “national specialties” that are not available in the States. The aim had been a McCountry, which we suspect may be a pork double burger based on the Czech fondness for pork and the light color of the patties pictured in front of the many Mickey Ds outlets in Prague that we’d walk past]. We wandered a bit around the town and found a riverside café where we enjoyed an extended snack of a cheese plate (B…pretty good, especially the rye bread), almonds (C+), and fried calamari (C-…what were we thinking???? Fried calamari in the middle of the Czech Republic?) and some of the local beer, Eggenberg. Annette had one of her new favorite beverages – a Radler – made with the local Eggenberg.

After relaxing and enjoying the riverfront locale for a bit, we explored the rest of Cesky K, which is small enough to cover in a few hours. We had picked up a small guidebook at the hotel which was nice for some background information, but as is often the case, was filled with a level of details (dates, names of various unpronounceable Czech architects or muralists) that are destined to be quickly forgotten. When reading aloud to each other, sometimes we made an attempt to pronounce the name (particularly when it is an important or recurring figure) and sometimes the particulars were replaced by “some guy you’ve never heard of” or similar phrase.

Cesky Krumlov is in a valley surrounded by woods and farmland. Looming over the town at the top of a steep cliff is a huge chateau decorated with Renaissance era trompe l’oeil exterior paintings with courtyards, gardens and a bear grotto. The town features a serpentine river that almost scribes a moat around the central part of the town. We managed to cover most of the winding, cobblestone streets of the town, and part of the Chateau before settling in at the Krumlovsky Mlyn a restaurant housed in a riverside mill that dates back to the 12th century. It is a two-part restaurant, and one half (the part with the water wheel) was booked for a private party. Fortunately, the other half (which also features a hanging collection of mechanical objects ranging from farm tools to giant bellows, to vintage “CZ” motorcycles. We feasted on Pecene uzene koleno s krupavou kuzickou podavane s krenem, horcici a feferonkou [baked smoked pork knee with crunchy skin, served with horseradish, mustard and feferonis] , a cucumber salad with garlic dill dressing, french fries, and Eggenberg dark beer (Cesky Krumlov speciality). Everything earned a solid A! The amount of smoked pork on the pork knee was astonishing. It would have been enough to feed a family of four, with left-overs for midnight snacks.

Well stuffed, like little piggies ourselves, we rolled back across the bridge and back to U Mesta Vidne, where we were soon asleep.

Day Four – Sunday June 3, Prague, CZ,

Included in our room rate at the Andels was a great, Euro-style breakfast buffet. This being the first buffet day, both of us overate; unable to resist the meats, cheeses, muesli-yoghurt, eggs, bacon, sausage, fruit, breads, jams, Nutella, etc. etc. And this didn’t even involve taking advantage of the miso soup and other Japanese items or the spaghetti or ratatouille!

After breakfast, we booked tickets for evening entertainment, got some helpful advice from the hotel staff on tram routes, and headed out. We caught the #20 tram (right in front of Don Corleone’s Pizzeria) which took us down Stefaniva Street and caught the Malá Strana funicular which climbs to a beautifully manicured rose garden. We walked to the Petrin lookout tower and climbed the 300 steps to the top of this structure that was based on the design of the Eiffel tower, but on a smaller scale (sort of like the one in Vegas at the Paris hotel, but not as close a replica). By this time, it was starting to rain, so our panorama of Prague was somewhat limited and grey, but exciting nonetheless. It was a great place to start the sightseeing, since we could get a birds-eye vantage point of the city and the Vltava River.

After carefully descended the wet steps, we continued to walk down a path which took us to the Prague Castle area. Having discovered that my new semi-Euro-style Puma shoes had “slippery when wet” soles, I was forced to take tiny, cautious steps and grab hold of any available railing. Annette’s full-Euro-style new Pumas, however, gripped the sloping path like cleats and she confidently bounded along. We were quite a sight as a couple.

Prague castle and Hradcany is really an entire small town – not just a “castle” as I had pictured it. Contained within the walled town is the phenomenal St. Vitus’s Cathedral, which has some beautiful stained glass windows done by modern Czech artists. The church was started in 1344, but the front half was built in the 19th and 20th century – a data point to keep in mind to help put extended and frustrating remodeling projects into perspective.

We also really liked the Royal Palace, especially the stately, vaulted-ceilings of Vladislav Hall, and were fortunate to see the noontime “changing of the guard” by the entry gates to the Castle, complete with fanfare. The view of the proceedings was obstructed by the sea of umbrellas in front of us, but we were able to catch a reasonable glimpse. Our only disappointment was “Golden Lane” a hokey little street of shops that were actually an “attraction” that required a ticket. The shops date back to the 16th century as housing for guards and gunners, and they’re now filled with “artisan shops” which are mostly ersatz shops that seemed about as authentic as Disney’s Main Street USA.

We headed from the Castle down the hill and had a brief lunch at a spot called Café Gourmand (Salade Nicoise, smoked salmon sandwich –OK, but nothing special). What was special was the single scoop chocolate gelato cone, which we enjoyed as we strolled through a nearby park. Then, it was on to one of the “street by street” walking tours laid out in our Eyewitness Travel tour book, which took us up Nerudova Street, which we found very reminiscent of a street in Granada, Spain that leads up toward the Alhambra – except the souvenir shops featured kitschy Prague junk instead of kitschy Granada stuff. From there, we headed back to the Charles Bridge, which we had passed by but hadn’t crossed before. As beautiful as the bridge is, the sight is somewhat spoiled by the masses of caricature artists, cheesy souvenir kiosks and other touristy junk that has spread on the bridge and the streets on either side like a cancer.

The Old Town Square (Staromestske namesti) was a real highlight. The Church of Our Lady before Tyn has some of the most “fairy tale castle” roof turrets imaginable, and we returned at 6:00PM to watch the astronomical clock on the Old Town Hall tower go through its full animated antics, which date back to the late 15th and 16th century. In addition to the skeleton representing death, who initiates the series of movements by pulling on a rope he’s holding, there are other symbolic characters including “The Turk” representing lust, (why not?, let’s pick on the hated Turks!), “the Jew” representing avarice (complete with Shylock-style hook nose and money bag!), and vanity represented by a guy (actually appears to be a white guy, imagine that!) holding a mirror and admiring himself.

We had dinner at Klub Architectu, (Betlemske Namesti 169/5A), the restaurant where we had intended to eat last night before Don Corleone’s pizzeria made us an offer we couldn’t refuse. We’re glad we made it on the second try. The restaurant is in a subterranean grotto, with vaulted stone ceilings and an intimate, wine-cellar like feel. We chose to have a light dinner – a delicious garlic soup, an appetizer of ham rolled around an apple horseradish cream filling, piquant pork with asparagus and red peppers (which was somewhat like a stir-fried Chinese dish, a la Czech) and small salad, and headed off to see a puppet version of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni. I had read about the tradition of marionette theater and opera in Prague, and although it seemed like a rather touristy thing (again), we figured “where else are we going to see a marionette version of Don Giovanni?” This production was performed by the National Marionette Theatre of Prague and we had learned when in the Old Town Square, that this was not the only marionette version of Don Giovanni running in Prague.

It reminded me of the story I heard on NPR about Tiny Kiss and Mini Kiss, the two Kiss cover bands made up of midgets and dwarf that have been engaged in a struggle over which is the authentic little person Kiss cover band. Since we only saw one of the productions during our stay in Prague, we’ll never be able to offer an opinion on which is the superior production. The one we saw was quite amusing, with seven puppeteers working the opera characters and a Mozart conductor and keeping it light with a fair amount of slapstick puppet humor. The costumes and sets were a bit threadbare, but the “performances” were excellent and it was certainly a unique way to spend a couple of hours. The efficient Prague Metro zipped us back to the Andels station and we were “home” soon.

Day Three – Saturday, June 2 - Munich, DE to Prague, CZ

Up at 7am with alarm – giving us a good 9.5 hours sleep, but even then we hit the snooze for a few more zzzzs. I enjoyed a “swim” at the 3rd floor pool, which had a lovely view, but was rather small for any sort of laps. Having done some “geriatric style paddling” for a few minutes, I settled down into some “laps” which consisted of pushing off after a flip turn, gliding and taking one pull stroke which led into the next flip turn, push off and repeat. It wasn’t really big enough to put two strokes together, but with the rapid fire flip turns, I managed to get a bit of aerobic exercise before jumping into the Jacuzzi and sauna and returning to the room.

On the road shortly after 10am, heading toward Dachau. My boss and friend Deepak had expressed some surprise when I had told him that we planned to visit the Dachau concentration camp on our second day in Germany. “Don’t you want to have a chance to like the Germans first before you see that?” he’d asked. We figured we could handle it, nonetheless.

Having hit the road without breakfast or morning coffee, we stopped for a croissant & ham breakfast at a lovely, high-end McDonald’s along the way. Yes, of course we realized that we were in Germany and should be enjoying local fare, but there is a history here…let’s call it “Paul’s McDonalds challenge”. I’m not a huge McDonald’s patron in everyday life in the USA, but I have made a point of stopping at a Mickey D’s in every country possible to have something – usually the “local specialty” not available in the US. I’ve tasted McDonalds in Australia, Morocco, Hong Kong, etc., etc., and – what do you know – it all tastes pretty much the same!! But still I carry on with this stupid quest…

We arrived at the KZ Gedenkstätte Dachau at a little before 11AM and got ourselves a pair of the self-guided audio tour hand batons. Both the displays and the audio tour were very informative and well done, but the effect of seeing a site like this is hard to describe. The experience is very emotional and almost surreal…it’s hard to believe that human beings can become so anesthetized to engage in the mass torture, abuse and murder that went on for years in a suburb of Munich. But there you are, walking around on the very spot where this happened realizing that this was only one of many Nazi concentration camps. There was also an uplifting aspect in the stories of the survivors and bonds of the inmates who came from a diverse selection of “enemies of the Reich” including Polish Catholic priests, gypsies, gays, labor leader and, of course, Jews. But given the circumstances, I’m not sure that I wouldn’t have joined the people who purposely crossed one of the exterior boundaries in the suicidal hope of being shot and killed as an attempted escapee.

We left Dachau around 1:00PM and headed toward the Czech border. There was a nice stretch of speed-limit-free autobahn, so it was Annette’s chance to see what the new car could do. She got it up to about 125 mph, but didn’t want to push too hard without a bit more experience behind the wheel of the new ride.

About an hour later, we were getting hungry, so we decided to let the Nuvi find us a place to eat along the way. As we were driving, we punched instructions to find a restaurant. It ID’ed several options and we chose the “Park-Café Reichl”, based on the fact that it was a couple of miles away and had an evocative name…as good a reason as any, we figured. We turned off the autobahn and wound down into a small town, Bad Abbach, to the restaurant, which had the look of a classic Alpine roadhouse, complete with exterior wooden beams, and geraniums in flower boxes. The inside wasn’t as charming (or Disney-esque, depending on how you look at it), but we enjoyed a simple German lunch of sausage salad (Schweitzer Wurstsalat mit brot) and toasted ham & cheese sandwich (Schinken-käse sandwich mit salat), and, of course, beer – in this case Paulanerbräu, which has always been a favorite for me based on name if not taste. Annette, who’s never been a big fan of most beer (with the exception of Leffe Brune, one of the great dark Belgian beers), tried a drink which has since become here favorite – Radler. Radler is the unlikely combination of beer and sparkling lemonade, and turns out to be better than it sounds. Much better!

We were back on the road by 3:15 – heading toward Pilzen. The only stop scheduled in Pilzen (Plzen), home of the wonderful Pilsener Urquell, was the Pivovarské Muzeum (beer museum). The museum is housed in a brewery building that dates back to medieval times and displays everything from dioramas of ancient Egyptians laboring over bread and beer making to dozens of barrels, grain roasting kilns, bottling machines and other brewing tools. After a brief stop in the museum, we went to the attached bar to cash in our token for a Pilsner Urquell, then back on the road.

The GPS did a great job of directing us to the Andels Hotel. The Andels Hotel is a very trendy, modern hotel in the Andels district of Prague, which is similarly modern. Our plan was to head into the Old Quarter for dinner, but we realized we had no Czech currency for the subway (which was about a block from the hotel). A nearby ATM served up the Czech cash, but the metro ticket machine wanted coins. Thus, we ended up across the street at Corlione’s Pizza Restaurant, where a quick drink in order to break the big bill, turned into dinner. The simple, thin-crust pizzas were really good and hit the spot for a couple of weary travelers. Before too long we were under the covers in our “design hotel.”

Day Two – Friday June 1- Munich, Germany

The flight was scheduled to arrive at 9:25AM, but pulled into the gate about 20 minutes late. Baggage pick up, Passport control and custom was swift and easy. We had learned on Bimmerfest about Rolf Raffelsieper and his well known airport pick-ups. Since Rolf was already booked for Friday morning, he had arranged for his colleague Peter to pick us up. As promised, Peter awaited us with a small BMW European Delivery sign, and helped us with our bags to his 3 series station wagon parked outside. Wasting no time, we headed directly to the E.D. center, as Peter pointed out a few Munich landmarks along the way. We got to the center by around 11:00AM

The delivery process was incredibly smooth and quick (for us, at least). After we got our complimentary coffee and pastries from the breakfast bar and only had to wait less than half an hour before our names were called. We met another American couple – the Smiths from North Carolina – who were the folks that Rolf had picked up, and unfortunately for them, the speed of service was not universal. They had already been there about 40 minutes when we arrived and were still waiting (and understandably getting a bit testy) when we headed off with our deliver center associate to meet our new shiny new, Montego blue, hot little 335i couple..

We never caught our guy’s name, but he was very helpful and thorough in running through the paperwork and car operation. (except for the Comfort Access, AKA Convenient Access feature, as we later discovered when we couldn’t figure it out!). By a bit after noon, we were on our way to do a couple of quick errands on the way to our 1:15 factory tour.

We stopped at the large BMW retail dealership on the Frankfurter Ring to pick up some of the safety vest that we had learned (again, via bimmerfest) were required for driving in Austria. While we were there we picked up a couple of BMW souvenirs (cap, keychain) to celebrate the new acquisition. Directly across the street from the dealership is an ADAC office (the German equivalent of AAA), where we bought vignettes (window sticker road permits) for driving in the Czech Republic and Austria, and some maps (free as AAA members).

Finding the BMW factory was less of a challenge then finding were to park! After a bit of confusion over the directions from the guard at the gate, we got to the tour assembly area a bit late, but in time for the start. Our tour guide was Rolf (which he had told us when we met him with the Smiths at the ED Center), and he suited us up with our personal earpieces and wireless receivers for the tour.

The manufacturing tour is really spectacular. Seeing car bodies being created from giant rolls of flat sheet steel is amazing. We started in the stamping shop, saw “families” of robots spot weld unibody pieces together, and then moved to another part of the factory where a cluster of 12 robots glued and welded the internal body sides, roofs and exterior “skin” together in an incredibly choreographed array. We saw the painting operations, attachment of body to drive train, assembly of interior, and adjustment & testing.

Our plan for the first day in Germany was to dive directly into activities, have an early dinner and bedtime and push through jet-lag. After the factory tour concluded at around 3:30, we had a bit of time so we headed to the Schloss Nymphemburg for a cultural “snack”. This summer palace and gardens of the former Bavarian royalty was pretty much on the way to our hotel, so it was an easy and quick bit of sightseeing. We opted for the main palace only, since neither of us thought we had the stamina to handle the carriage house, bathhouse, porcelain shop or other offerings. This was a wise choice.

The gardens were lovely, but compared to some European palaces, the interior was a bit underwhelming, IMHO. It was amazing to think about the fact that Bavarian royalty was, as recently as the late 19th century, cavorting with the nobles of other empires and nation-states in a manner that wasn’t that unlike their ancestors had for many hundreds of years before. Boy are those days over. Of course we have our celebrity “royalty” today and mega-billionaires, but it just ain’t the same.

We followed the Garmin Nüvi GPS’s directions to the Arabella Sheraton Westpark and checked in around 5:30. The hotel choice was driven by the fact that we would only be staying in Munich for one night initially, and Paul was able to get a great deal using Starwood points. The room was comfortable and spacious, and the U-Bahn stop was about 50 feet from the door. We hopped on the subway to Odeonsplatz and walked to the HofBrau Haus from there. We were in the mood for beer, hearty German food and a loud, rowdy atmosphere – even if it is a notoriously “touristy” place.

We sat at a table with a German couple name Dieter and Hana (or Leni??) who were from Köln and vacationing in Munich before going to the Chiemsee. We feasted on Masses of HB beer, schweinsnaxon, veal sausage, pretzels, etc. When we’d pushed ourselves to a good point of exhaustion, it was time to call it a (LONG!) day. We were in bed and asleep by 9:15.

Day One – Thursday May 31 – Foster City CA to Munich, via Boston

In spite of the excellent pre-planning, including Paul’s newfound neurotic desire to “test pack” several days before the trip to make sure everything would fit into a single rolling carry-on, there was still a bit of last minute running around, looking for a particular missing paperback, while the taxi idled in front of the house. Fortunately, Friday morning traffic was light and despite our cabbie’s unfamiliarity with local roads (even with a nav system suctioned to his windshield, he still managed to miss the well signed on-ramp to the 101 freeway!), we made it in plenty of time.

At SFO, we grabbed a scalding hot Peet’s decaf, took our seats in the First Class section (ahhhh), and settled in for the first leg to Boston. Within minutes of sitting down, Annette was zoned out, mouth slightly open (the sure sign that she’s really asleep).

When we arrived in Boston for our short layover, we were greeted by Stephanie, who had come out to Logan Airport to join us before the next flight. We popped into the Legal Seafood restaurant at our arrival terminal, and Steph, having waitressed at the Cambridge location of Legal Seafood when she was an undergraduate, guided us to a few favorite items on the menu. Even though we knew we had a meal ahead on the next leg, we were hungry and enjoyed a bottle of wine, soup, salad, fish & chips, tuna & some calamari. What was going to be a little snack for us turned into a major meal.

After heading to Terminal E and saying goodbye to Steph, I had to log on for a quick little email exchange with work, causing Annette a slight bit of discomfort as I was the last to board the plane. I was sitting with my laptop right by the loading area, and the airline gate attendee ladies were saying, “don’t worry, there’s still plenty of time”, but meanwhile inside the jet they were announcing “we’re waiting on one passenger to board, then we’ll push off…” so when I strolled into the Business Class section I receive a bit of a look.

The leg from Boston to Munich (Lufthansa # 425) was very uneventful for me. I slid the very high tech seat into as flat a position as possible, put on the eyeshades from the complimentary “grown up goodie bag”, took an Ambien and headed off to sleep. Annette watched Blood Diamond, enjoyed part of the meal and got some sleep herself.

When we touched down, it was Friday morning in Munich

EURO TRIP - 2007 - The "pre-trip" trip

This trip initially grew out of the idea of buying a new car in Europe, which grew out of the conclusion of the lease on Annette’s current car – a Chrysler Crossfire. The Crossfire had been lots of fun, but we’d chosen to go with a lease since we weren’t sure if a two-seater (and new model) would still hold its allure after 3 years.

Having seen an ad for the new 3 series coupe, in October of 2006, I was driving along El Camino Real in San Mateo and stopped by Peter Pan BMW to check it out. I saw a gorgeous graphite coupe with RED leather interior and aluminum trim and announced “I found your next car” to Annette when I got home. In the end (after a fair amount of debate), this wasn’t the color combination we went with, but the car itself stuck. Neither of us had owned a BMW before, but this new coupe’s graceful lines – and the 300hp turbo-charged engine – told us that the time had come.

With a little research online, I learned about BMW’s European Delivery program and the idea was hatched to pick up the car in Munich and take a European vacation with the new wheels. Fortunately, between the two of us, we had enough United Airlines Mileage Plus miles to convert into two round-trip “super saver” fares to Munich in Business Class. Ironically, since all the “super saver” fares in Coach were already gone, it would have cost us more points to fly coach under the “regular” allocation. That didn’t stand much of a chance.

I had started doing some online research on the car, what people were paying and tips on the European Delivery program. There are several good forums on the Internet, including bimmerfest.com, e90post.com (for 3 series) and bimmerforums.com. Bimmerfest.com has a forum dedicated to European Delivery and was the source of lots of information about the process and also suggestions for travel.

We had also decided against getting a GPS built into the car, but instead opted for a Garmin Nüvi (yes, they really do spell it with the umlaut!), which is a very slick, portable unit. Our thinking was based on a couple of conclusions: a) we rarely need a GPS when doing daily driving or much around the Bay Area; b) we have multiple cars, and if we do need GPS for a local trip it would be nice to be able to move it from one vehicle to another; and c) most times we need it is in an unfamiliar city in a rental car, when it doesn’t do much good to have one built into the dash of the BMW sitting in the garage at home! Thus, the Nuvi, which we “gave ourselves for Christmas” and first tested in Phoenix in January when there to watch Stephanie run in a marathon with her Team in Training group from Boston. Via Bimmerfest, we were able to find someone who would loan us his SD card with European maps, so we were set for Europe!

We also decided on a different color scheme than the graphite and red. Although the "coral red" leather interior was striking, Annette decided there were too many greyish-silver cars on the road and it was too safe and boring. So we went with the bright, Montego blue exterior with saddle brown leather seats and dark walnut trim. As Annette would say, "a head turner." This girl has always had a thing for hot cars.

Meanwhile, I began my rather obsessive trip planning phase.

It wouldn’t be an understatement to say I’ve never been much of a planner. That’s always been Annette’s role :-). But for this trip, I built a spreadsheet with several possible trip scenarios, using the viamichelin.com road planner to estimate distance and time for travel between cities and towns. Once we had settled on an ambitious but, we hope, still relaxing and realistic agenda, I researched and booked hotels through a variety of online sites (expedia, Travelocity, venere.com, hotels.com). It was surprising that the prices were not the same on different sites, nor did one site have the consistently best deals. The site that was easiest to use as a “master” site was http://www.tripadvisor.com/, which then links to multiple booking sites where one can compare available deals. Tripadvisor also has extensive reviews from travelers and average ratings. Like any online review site, it is prone to attempts to “stack the deck” with bogus reviews, but it’s pretty clear in reading a few reviews which ones have the sort of specific details that indicate that it was posted by a real traveler and which ones read like a marketing brochure. We also booked a couple of hotels using the priceline.com auction site, which tend to be large, American-style hotels like Marriott.

Our goal in setting the itinerary was to have a variety of cities, towns, coastal and alpine resorts, and a corresponding variety of lodgings – large American style hotels to B&Bs. Balance and variety. Tweak it some more. Is this too much driving for one day? On and on.
It had clearly gone too far when I pasted little photos of the hotels into the spreadsheet, and I had to be restrained from further obsession with the planning grid.

Introduction and Disclaimer

In order to aid our rapidly failing memories and allow family, friends, colleagues and interested strangers in on details of our trip, Annette and I have decided to forego the former hand-written trip diary format and set up a blog.

But we’re not sure that one size fits all. Since this is a multi-purpose document, there will inevitably be a depth of detail (or sheer length) that are boring or meaningless to some readers. For us, the details will trigger memories when we read them later, and perhaps in the meantime they may evoke a smile from some.

Feel free to skim!