Extravelganza!: Praha, Salzburg, Munchen

Where to begin? It´s been a while so here are the last three places we´ve seen. We visited Prague first, Salzburg second and Munich third, but technology eludes me and I can´t get the order correct on the blog. Cest la vie. Deal.

Salzburg - We couch surfed Salzburg and had another awesome experience but I´ll get to that later; the really important thing is that we did the Sound of Music tour!! Soooo cheezy, but so fun. Basically this horendously large bus painted with the entire von Trap family cruises through the city and points out all the places where the movie was filmed in addition to taking you out to the countryside to see the hills in which Maria and the children frolicked. Please note that all the while an extremely flamboyant tour guide is cracking the lamest jokes ever and yodeling for your attention...oh, and the soundtrack is playing in the background too. It was well worth is as Salzburg is one of the most beautiful places I think we´ve visited. It is perfect; it´s almost as if one would need to invent a word which encompases preserved, beautiful, quaint, lush, historical and idyllic.

We stayed with 6 college aged kids and basically felt like we were all hanging out with old friends. We watched the football game, drank some beers, and because the weather was so perfect, we had a big outdoor barbeque with them, us and a bunch of their other friends. Later that night, our host took us to a club built into a rock face that used to be a WWII bunker. It was like nothing I´ve ever seen. At first sight, it just looked like a cliff with an awning but when you walked in the ceiling was low and you walked down a 30 foot reinforced tunnel until coming to a T-intersection where you had the option of entering any of 5 rooms now featuring a bar, a karaoke area, trance music, punk music, or live music but which I´m sure used to hold guns, ammo, food, bombs and probably still some alcohol; the bar even had bars all around it like it used to be a prison cell. That was a pretty amazing night and did not make getting up early to catch our train to Munich any fun.

Tourists!

Wow!

As close as I could come to singing and spinning on the mountain-tops

They don´t let you jump inside the gazebo anymore because a few years back an 80 year old lady broke her hip while hopping from bench to bench for her photo-op

I am 16 going on 17... (which by the way is a totally sexist song)

You may recognize this as the lake the kids fell into in their curtain clothes

For the moms

Prague- I´ll be blunt: not my favorite. Pretty, yes; cheap, yes; overridden with North American tourists, oh yes. After spending so much time in small medieval towns in eastern Europe, it was hard for me to see past the hundreds of tourst shops lining the street or the packs of American kids being herded from bar to bar on the apparently obligatory pub crawl. There are so many beautiful towns just like Prague that have maintained their charm whilst accommodating tourists. That being said, it wasn´t all bad; we were able to meet up with another one of the guys we have been traveling with and together we managed to party like the stories I´m sure you´ve all heard about Prague lightlife. The others hold a more favorable opinion of the city, but as I am writing this blog, my opinion is the opinion.

One of the best breakfasts we´ve made ourselves. Mmmm

Praha

View from the top of the castle

Munich - Munich was an unexpected blast; we only went because everyone we talked to along our travels said we simply couldn´t skip it, and it turns out they were correct. We took a walking tour of the city, and I know I´ve said this a billion time in this post, but the weather was beautiful; spring in Europe is amazing. The trees come alive, the people come alive, everything is bustling with energy. We had a great guide who really knew his history as well as carried a love of the city as a whole. Over the course of 4 hours, we learned about the extensive Nazi history and the even more extensive action the city has taken to wash it out. Interesting fact: Only four buildings in Munich were left standing after WWII and all the rest are no more than 60 years old, but were reconstructed to look exactly as they did pre-war. Also, the only busidings with any remaining shrapnel marks are the university, so that the students growing up to run the country will remember the history, and government buildings so the people running the country don´t forget their history.

We of course drank our share of beer there too. It seems a liter, served in a stein which could easily kill someone is used correctly, is standard accompanyment to any meal. Munich is currently in the midst of a lesser publicized beer festival called Maibach - or May festival. The beer gardens were overflowing and the glasses were swinging back and forth with the cheers of happy drinkers.