Fussen - Mountains and Castles and Rivers, Oh My!

(September 15th) The difference between Austria and Germany couldn't have been more painfully obvious than when I entered a restaurant: in Austria, either no music or something highly classical would be playing.  In Germany, everywhere blasted American music.  Train upon first arriving at my hotel, Cee Lo Green when I sat down to dinner, Michael Jackson while I enjoyed a beer and pretzel for lunch, and Jimmy Hendrix as I wrote in my journal.  At first I figured that it was due to this being a highly tourist-centric area (and it still may be due to that), but after talking to a few locals, I got the impression that they rarely encountered Americans in this Southern tip of Bavaria.  Most of the tourists were native German speakers, with a healthy dose of Chinese and a sprinkling of British and others.  Every now and again, I'd catch a whiff of an American accent, but not much more.

The pedestrian mall of Fussen.

There's a lot to share about Fussen, so I'll start with the mountains and castles.  The rivers, town, and food will be next.  Since my time in Fussen was short, I decided to see as much I could in as short amount of time possible.  So, I grabbed my running backpack, camera, and set off.

Every so often, I do something that is, admittedly, stupid.  I know, at the time, that it's a bad idea, yet I'll do it anyways.  In part, this is usually because I have the proper equipment (water, energy bars, jacket and gloves...) to let me feel confident in doing the aforementioned stupid activity.  Once in a blue moon, though, it will backfire.  Today was one of those days.

Hohenschwangau Castle, as seen from Alterschrofen.

I started out my stay in Fussen by running through Alterschrofen to Hohenschwangau (a nice, relaxing 5k after Friday's 22.2 miles...).  From there I headed up the hill to Neuschwanstein Castle, then down to Marienbrucke bridge. 

The parapet of Neuschwanstein Castle, seen up close.

Inside Neuschwanstein Castle.

The front rooms of Neuschwanstein Castle.

According to my hotel's concierge, there was a nice, short path from Marienbrucke bridge around the back side of Neuschwanstein Castle.  I had wanted to go around the castle for some of the more picturesque visages, so when I saw the signs on the other side of Marienbrucke saying "Tegelberg, 3hr," I figured what the heck, I'm here and YOLO (you only live once for those of you who, like me, have no clue what the words coming out of teenagers and adolescents mean anymore).  The three hours didn't worry me so much as the time-based distances usually take me 1/4 to 1/3 of the time to run them.

The view from Neuschwanstein Castle's gate.  Keep this visage in mind as I eventually ended up running around the mountain that juts out of view to the right...

Marienbrucke Bridge, from Neuschwanstein Castle

Hohenschwangau Castle, as seen from just past Neuschwanstein Castle.

Neuschwanstein Castle, from the start of the trail to Tegelberg.

Fifty minutes later, after passing countless moments of vertigo from looking over the cliff faces that the trail climbed up along, and after snapping dozens of photos, I reached the summit of Tegelberg, about one kilometer above Neuschwanstein, and closer to 1300 meters above Fussen.

The reason for my madness...Neuschwanstein up front, Hohenschwangau in the background.

Seven miles of running up a mountain, over nobby tree roots, slick rock, and vertigo inducing cliff edges, I was ready to go home.  Too bad that the tram station, which I was relying on to get me down from here, was closed.  At five thirty.  On a Saturday during tourist season.  Seriously?

I mean, Seriously???

The rocky cliffs that I had the pleasure of running along.

So, that's when this stupid idea backfired on me.  I hadn't packed supplied for a round trip.  I had my jacket, luckily, since the misty/windy weather was moving in, but running back the way I came up would take longer than the journey up due to the increasingly bad footing (I'm sorry, but slick and wet rocks along cliff faces - not my idea of fun.  Maybe I'm just getting old, but...).  So, I did what any sane person would do: I took a completely different trail that looked like it was going down the backside of the mountain.  Good news: I was right.  It did go down.  Bad news: I was right, it went down the backside of the mountain.  I had a long evening ahead of me by the time that I finally hit flat roads again...

Finally down!  Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau as dusk approaches.

As I traveled back towards Fussen, the castles, as seen above, rose above the grassy plains.  Hohenschwangau had been lit up vibrantly while Neuschwanstein kept itself in a dark seclusion.  It was a difficult decision trying to figure out how to get back most efficiently, but in the end I decided to visit the last spot on my to-see list for this part of the countryside near Fussen: St. Coleman's Kirche.  This quaint, baroque church stood off on it's own in the middle of a field outside of Schwangau.  As night was fast approaching, it was clearly too late to step inside, but I was content, at that point, to just gaze at the stained glass windows and church tower.

St. Coleman's Kirche

All in all, about 15 miles on the day over three hours, including photo stops...  Stay tuned, there're still many more sites to see in Fussen itself!

Choo Choo! Taking the Train to Fussen

(September 15th) All aboard for Fussen!  I'm not sure why, but I have a fascination with trying to take pictures through train windows.  I know that they never turn out well, that maybe one out of four won't be blurry, and that there'll invariably be the rain streak residue left behind on the glass that I'm looking through, but I don't care.

My train ride to Fussen was, by most measures, quite hectic.  I say most because the train itself, making it there on time, connections, and just transportation related issues was pretty easy going.  In fact, it was one of the easier trips that I've had in recent memory!  The hectic part was introduced by finding out that I was being nominated for an award and needing to complete the application, write sample letters for people to use as templates for letters of reference, contact colleagues asking for favors, revise my CV from 13 to five pages, etc., all in the course of five days (during which I would have extremely limited internet access, no computer, and only my smart phone that really, really dislikes being used in Europe as was evident by it resetting applications every two to three minutes...yeah, try writing a two page long word document with a smart phone that resets the open office application ever two to three minutes....).  So, hectic. 

Despite all the modernity of the German train system, one thing that always puzzles me is that there's no wifi access on most of the high speed trains (I say most as evidently there're a few that I just haven't been on yet due to them running only limited routes).  So, during the train trip I managed to write all of the support material, compose and queue up emails to my colleagues, and, when I looked up to catch my breath and see what the Asian tourist across the aisle from me was taking a picture of, enjoy the country side briefly.  Below is about 83% of the extent of my enjoyment of the countryside.  I'll leave it to your imagination to describe what I'm seeing as I only fleetingly saw these between phone resets.  Everything is in Germany, and that's about the extent of useful information that I can provide.  Enjoy!

Rolling hills and forests, quaint house, and no village in sight.

I really liked that lake and the cows for some reason...

Picturesque river with a church steeple standing up in the back.

Starting to get into Southern Bavaria...the foothills of the German Alps are off in the distance.

The next day, blue skies and majestic mountains.

See those mountains?  Keep that jagged sight in mind for my next post, especially the one on the right...

Vienna - Signs of the City

(September 15th) Just a short post to close out the visit to Vienna.  Hopefully I've not left anything out in my previous posts, but we'll see if I suddenly remember something one day down the road. This post is a collection of the signs I came across in Vienna.  I've done the best that I can to provide accurate translations where possible, but some, quite obviously, speak for themselves.  Enjoy.

Don't be a Strabag.

Some background:  back around the turn of the millennium, my good friend Jeff from Gonzaga got a VW Beetle.  Playing on his last name, Strahota, the car was subsequently referred to as the Strabug.  Well, in wandering through Vienna, I came across signs, such as the one above, warning about the nefarious Strabag.  I think this one is pretty self evident.  Clearly, the sign indicates: 'don't be the guy who yells at someone with his hand in your face...' So, don't be a Strabag kiddos.

Hundeverbot.

Now, my German is a little rusty, but from looking at this sign and others like it, I believe the literal translation is: 'Hovering robo-dogs (Hundeverbots) are forbidden.'  Other signs like this are a bit more clear to interpret as the ground under the hovering robo-dog is often omitted, reinforcing the hovering part.  The other images here, especially the middle left, clearly indicates that in case of a storm, panic. This is quite in contrast to the British mentality that I've been immersed in for the last two months of 'Keep Calm and Carry On.'  In fact, I'm quite surprised that I've not come across a sign in England that states that, in case of thermonuclear war, carry on as normal.  I'd imagine, though, that it'd look something like this:

Support your local anarchist.

English.  No translation necessary.  This graffiti was all around the neighborhoods that I ran through.

Defenestration Point

At first, I was expecting to see a slash through these two images.  That would clearly indicate that you should neither jump out the window nor throw trash out the window.  However, neither on these nor other such images was a slash present.  Upon asking the locals that spoke passable English, I learned that this was a defenestration point on the high speed train.  When you really need to get out while the train is in motion, or when someone just is being a pain in the bum (I think I've been in England too long since words like that instantly come to mind) and you need to thrown them off the train, this is the proper point for defenestration.  As a suggestion, the adjacent sign is in place as a reminder that if you had to throw some rabble rouser out, you should consider throwing a bottle at them as well.

I know some of you that speak German out there might disagree with these translations, but, as far as I can tell, I've relayed to you the spirit of the signs.

Time to take the train to Fussen.