Tuesday 7 May 2013

Traveling, Voyage, Viaggio

Today on this day 7 Mai 1664, the Sun King Louis XIV inaugurated the Palace of Versailles.

After yesterday's good news, the trip to Europe is back on schedule, though somewhat truncated, we will not be going to Dresden or Meissen or Bayreuth, this we can do later this year. Instead we will fly to Frankfurt and then with DB we will travel to Munich for a few days and on to the Whitsun Festival in Salzburg. On the return leg we stop at Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau Castle.


What is great about Frankfurt airport is that the train station is in the basement of the airport. So you get off the plane go get your luggage and proceed through Customs and Immigration and down the stairs you go to your train. How easy can that be? The first time we did this, I thought to myself why can't we have such integrated services in Canada. This is something you find in many German cities, trains, subway, airports are all integrated in one hub, clever really.

We have been planning this trip for one year and it is a return trip for us to Munich and Salzburg.
Favourite restaurants, sites, cultural venues etc....

The website of the Whitsun Festival gives a good idea of what is on offer with Cecila Bartoli as Director this year. Click on the trailer on the website to get a glimpse of what it is like. We have been going for a few years and enjoy it immensely.  http://www.salzburgerfestspiele.at/whitsun

Hotel Bristol, Salzburg

Because Salzburg is a small city and all the music venues  are all in walking distance, restaurants are around the venues and it is not unlikely that you are sitting next to an artist you have just seen on stage. What I also like is the offering of Asparagus ''Spargel'' in May, many restaurants have them either white or green with ham or sausages. On arrival in Salzburg, we will go to Café Bazar for lunch, since 1927 it has been a wonderful place for something to eat in a decor of wood panelling and large windows which has not changed. The food is excellent and the Café is on the river Salzbach.

Café Bazar, Salzburg


Munich is a beautiful city, Capital of the Kingdom of Bavaria, prior to 1918, home of the Von Wittelsbach family.  We went to Munich on different occasions, either for the Christmas Market which is wonderful or at other times of the year. On our return we will visit the two castles famous for their architecture in a style reminiscent of Wagner's Operas.


5 comments:

  1. If I can fit into one of your suitcases, can I come along? Sounds like a superb trip!

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    1. We are very much looking forward to this trip, we enjoy it each time we do it.

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  2. So glad it's coming together - again! Please promise lots of blog posts so I can enjoy it vicariously.

    CP

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  3. Re Frankfurt airport, it depends how far your flight arrival is from the train station...it is an enormous and alarming airport in my experience. We call it Franz Kafka Airport after a 5am arrival from Chennai, transferring to a plane to London, had me leaving J's boarding pass in a copy of The Brothers Karamazov on the plane. Gone in five minutes. The ensuing nightmare I won't bore you with, but it took us three hours and several missed planes to sort it out. Fortunately they didn't charge us for another flight but 100 Euros for a lost boarding pass, in this age of computerisation, seemed steep. We saw the German character - much as I usually love it these days - at its inflexible worst.

    Good news, anyway, that you get most of the planned pleasures. I'll wave to you from nearby Goettingen.

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    1. I am only the faithful or fateful traveling companion, I just follow Master Will, he takes care of all these details.

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