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Bamberg

Posted November 10, 2008

Bamberg was another step in my personal quest to explore South Germany. Bamberg is considered by all the travel guides like one of the most beautiful cities and one of the main touristic destinations in this country and the entire city is protected by UNESCO since 1993.

Bamberg emerged from WWII without being bombed. The night it was supposed to be bombed there was very bad weather and the bombers headed instead to Würzburg and Frankfurt. In that night Würzburg lost 80% of the medieval city and that’s the reason in Würzburg we have a beautiful modern downtown and Bamberg instead still has a wonderful medieval old city.

Little Venice in Bamberg

Bamberg probably looks now like it looked 400 years ago. The historic center is full of very narrow pedestrian streets and extremely old houses. As the entire old city is protected by UNESCO, the city is very well preserved because the people that is actually living there can’t change anything and they are forced to keep their houses clean and beautiful. Now that I think about it, it must be a nuisance for them.

In Bamberg I met Petra, a very nice couchsurfer who kindly spent the entire day with me. She was the perfect host because she has been living in Bamberg for the last 13 years and she loves to walk around the city telling anecdotes and histories about it. She says that it helps her to realize how beautiful is the city and I can’t agree more with her. We had fun together drinking smoke beer (she hates it!) and making silly jumping pictures.

Petra and me, in the Altes Rathaus (city hall)

Petra's funny jump :-) in Kloster St. Michael

Making silly jumping pictures

I think that I visited the city at the perfect time. In late fall, the streets looked specially beautiful because the trees were starting to lose their leafs. Bamberg’s streets are clearly beautiful by itself but that day they were specially interesting because they were painted with amazing multicolor natural patterns.

Yes, I'm touching her tit. She is Spanish! (It's a Botero sculpture)

I'm just saying hello to the best spaniard girl in town

Stuttgart, Ulm and Tübinger

Posted November 7, 2008

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This was another weekend trip traveling in the South of Germany. This time I went to Stuttgart which is only 2 hours by train from Würzburg. Stuttgart was founded in the 10th century and it’s the 6th largest city in Germany. It is most famous for its automotive industry - both Porsche and Mercedes-Benz have their headquarters in Stuttgart and both have car museums. Actually the museums are what makes the visit worthwhile. Once I arrived at Stuttgart train station and after climbing the tower situated in the train station, I headed to the Mercedes-Benz Museum.

Stuttgart Schoss Platz looking at the Neues Schloss

Stuttgart Main Square

The Mercedes-Benz Museum was newly built in 2006 in an astonishing architecture. For me was an amazing experience. I’m not really into cars, but it was very interesting to discover the origins of the company, which is linked to the origins of the motor industry. The museum is arranged to lead you through the history of the automobile, and also show some context of what was going on in the world around it. It was really specially interesting the WWII period in Germany and what happen with the company after the war.

At the beginning it's showed the earliest motors and some of their uses. Here is one on a motorized bicycle, Probably the first motorcycle

After the first rooms, where there were some very old engines and cars cars and the history about how Daimler and Benz invented the car concept, they finally get to a question I had wondered… where did the name “Mercedes” come from. A board member of the Daimler company, designed a “modern” car, specifying that it must be named after his daughter, Mercedes. This new car was a big hit, won lots of races and was loved all over the European motoring scene. After two years of great success, the company decided to brand all cars with the Mercedes name.

Here is the first one.

Mercedes

What I liked more about the museum? Something that probably no other would appreciate. The museum is designed to visit from the top floor up to the main floor and it has a main course and a secundary or optional one. Following the walls of the main course there is an overview of the technical, medical or political advances in the XX century and in the background there is an amazing collection of pictures related to historical events. Most of them are not car specific and they have very interesting historic pictures. I thought that I was not going to be the only one interested in that collection and I’ve tried to find information on the internet but I couldn’t find any references of the Mercedes-Benz picture collection and of course I couldn’t find any historic collection with good quality for free. Those pictures are very old and they probably are in public domain. Do you know where I can find them?

PapaMovil

In the night I was hosted in Ramses’s and Alberto’s home. Ramses studied with me in Valladolid and Alberto is a new friend that loves to speak about economics and politics. Of course we had a very interesting evening eating Spanish food and drinking German beer. Thanks for the nice evening and for hosting me, boys!

The next day I headed to Ulm, the place where Albert Einstein was born, a town at the edge to Bavaria in Baden-Württemberg. In Ulm is the cathedral with the tallest steeple in the world (161,53m). It was an amazing experience to climb up there. I needed 20 minutes to climb the 768 steps. But it was worth it. It was an amazing view. In a clear day you are supposed to see up to the Alps, but even it was a perfect day I couldn’t see them. It was quite impressive because the city is small and there are no tall buildings so the cathedral appear to be way taller than it really is. You can see the entire region including closer cities from there.

Ulm Munster

No, it's not Google maps. On top of Ulm cathedral.

No, it's not google maps. This is the view from Ulm's cathedral

After Ulm I went to Tübinger, an university city with a very well preserved medieval downtown and a very relaxed atmosphere. It was not bombed in WWII and it looks much as it would have in the 1600s. I was only for a few hours in the city but I fell in loved with the charming medieval streets and I really liked to just walk around the medieval downtown. I want to visit it again in a more relaxed way in the near future because Tübinger seemed a very beautiful place.

This is Türinger, a student city located very close to Stuttgart. It has a lovely medieval downtown.

Tübinger

On my way back, I stopped again in Stuttgart and I went to the Cannstatter Volksfest which is considered by many to be the second largest beer festival in the world after the Oktoberfest. I came here last year with Clerigo before moving to Canada and this year we met again. It was nice because actually I had not seen him since Volksfest 2007. We spoke about how is life living in Germany. He had been in the festival for the entire day drinking like an authentic German (He has been living in Germany for almost 2 years now) but I arrived in the afternoon and all the tents were completely full. It was impossible to enter in the huge beer gardens so we were just speaking for a while and then I headed back to Würzburg.

Clerigo and me on the VolkFest in Stuttgart

Weekend in Spain

Posted November 2, 2008

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I visited Spain for a couple of days after living abroad for almost half a year, and obviously I was eager to see again my family and friends. It was also good to taste again my grandmother Spanish food. After eating huge amounts of rice in Asia and a combination of beer, pretzels and sausages in Germany, It was so good to eat the kind of food my body is better adjusted to. Jamón and Paella. Is it there food more Spanish?

Paella!

What was interesting was my reaction to be exposed again to the language. I was completely used to live in countries where I didn’t understand the language. In this time I discovered I really like to be able to completely disconnect from what surrounds me when I’m in public spaces.

In contrast, in Spain my brain was constantly working, catching conversations I should not pay attention to. I got tired of understand everything. I was in the streets sneaking into other people conversations. I shared complete conversations on buses and trains. I got completely frustrated. I could’t switch off my brain and It was exhausting.

Another interesting thing was realizing that doesn’t matter what you do, the world change but only if you want to accept the changes. I changed a lot in this last year. I’ve been traveling and I had the opportunity to become influenced. I become a lot more open minded sharing pieces of my life with interesting, silly and funny people from all around the world. I’ve living immerse in a completely different culture and I’ve questioned lots of things that I usually gave for granted. All in all I realize we are small persons in a big world and each one of us have different dreams. Each one pursue they dreams in a different way and all of them are valid because there is always a reason behind. Looking back to how I was one year ago, I can easily see that I changed a lot. However all my friends continue being the same way. Of course this is not bad but I didn’t realize how much I really have change until I returned to my hometown.

In conclusion, I really like to be living in a place where I don’t really belong. Yes, you lose contact with your family and friends but It make you more conscious. It’s easier to question why the things are like they are. You become more critical about what it is around you. And I feel more positive and comfortable with myself.

Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Nürnberg

Posted October 30, 2008

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On my third weekend in Germany I decided to travel alone to Rothemburg and Nürnberg. Rothemborg is a amazing medieval city that (surprinsingly) looks the same as 400 years ago. I was really lucky because I visit the town on time for their annual celebration and there were lots of locals wearing medieval customs, playing medieval musical instruments or selling stuff in medieval markets all around the town.

Medieval camp in Rothemburg. There were lots of people wearing medieval customs

Medieval militar camp in Rothenburg.

Rothemborg is one of the tipical german turistic attractions and there were lots of tourists as me. It was nice to walk all around the town because there are no cars in Rothemburg. I visited a very interesting store where they sell cute chrismas decorations all year long and I also visited the KriminalMuseum, a place were I saw instruments of torture and penalties of shame and honour. There were very interesting pieces, like the ones used for problematic couples, used to chain husband and wife in a way they were facing each other but they could not fight. They were chained until they stopped complaining or yelling to each other.

KriminalMuseum in Rothemburg. Mask of shame, chastity belt and penalties for couples.

The next day I went to Nürnberg, a very historic city. Nürnberg was an important strondhold for the Nazi party and here were celebrated the huge nazi party conventions glorified in Nazi propaganda films before and during the World War II. At the end of the world, German officials involved in the Holocaust and other war crimes were taken in front of an international tribunal in Nürnberg.

Of course I visited the Reich Party Rally Grounds (Reichsparteitagsgelände)< where I could see the remains of the Zeppelin field used to review troops and the Gross Strasse. I’m not a big fun of museums but I also visited the Medieval Dungeons (Where they imprisoned people) and the Documentation Center at the Reich Party Rally Grounds (Dokumentationszentrum Reichsparteitagsgelände). This last one was really interesting showing how the Nazis rose to power and how the Nazis fascinated the masses.

Zepelin Field. How it looked before World War II and how it looks now.

The city was completely bombed at the end of the World War II. After the war the old city and the most important landmarks were rebuilt. That’s the reason modern Nürnberg still has lots of medieval architecture and monuments . The nazi monuments were dismantled or even bombed and the remains are concentrated in a public park. They are still in use but instead of Romanic monuments to glorify the reich, now are normal streets, lakes, museums, a racing pod and a open concert park. In the inner city there are lots of interesting landmarks but the most important is the castle that dominates the entire city.

Top: Zeppelin field during huge nazi party conventions. Bottom: How it looks today

It was a nice trip and I want to come back because there are still some landmarks I couldn’t see. For example both the Nuremberg Underworld (Nürnberger Felsengänge) and the Courtroom 600 where the Nuremberg Trials were held, were closed.

Maybe I will come back in a few months, stay tuned!

Munich, Füssen, Neuschwanstein and Hochschwangau

Posted October 28, 2008

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This was a fast weekend trip with a Philippine coworker. We arrive at Munich on Friday night and we explore the city on Saturday. This was not my first time in Munich. In the 2006 I came here with Alberto and Borja so I already knew the city. But this time I was exploring the city as a tourist. We visited the the central part of the city, Marienplatz and the Neues Rathaus. We saw the Glockenspiel moving (Not really interesting after the first 10 seconds). We also entered in Michaelskirche and Frauenkirche and we walk a around the Residenz. We had lunch in a traditional brewery and then we walk around Viktualienmarkt. In the afternoon we headed to the English Garden where I discover that Germans like to get naked in public as there were lots of people completely naked on the garden. And nobody was surprised or socked but us!

MarienPlatz panorama taken from Peterskirche tower

Munich, at the right side Marienplatz and the Neues Rathaus

In the evening we took the train to Füssen. This small city is located at the end of the romantic road. The most beautiful German castles are only 3 kilometers away. We arrive in the night, so the next day in the morning we went to explore the beautiful castles Neuschwanstein and Hochschwangau. Neuschwanstein is a fairy-tale castle, known worldwide. It’s totally worth it to come here and enjoy the beautiful views of the castle and the beutiful background. Hochschwangau is directly across from Ludwig II’s fairy-tale castle. This castle served as Ludwig II’s home while he was growing up and it looks completely different from the Spanish ones. In general these two castles are architecturally more beautiful and with better decoration that but they are way smaller.

Hochschwangau castle

View taken from inside the Neuschwanstein Castle

Beautiful view from inside the Neuschwanstein castle

In our way back, we explore Füssen for a few hours walking around in the streets and visiting he beautiful church. After that, we needed almost 6 hours in bus and train to return to Würzburg.

Neuschwanstein castle

In conclusion, It was a nice trip because the weather was fantastic and we were always on time everywhere. We were lucky because we decided our route a few hours before taking the first train. In consequence this has been my the first trip with almost no planning. And everything has resulted perfect! I’m now preparing my next weekend trips, there are still lots of interesting places in Germany!