Thursday 27 September 2007

Cold and rain-soaked times at Oktoberfest

We arrived in Munich to clear skies and warm sunshine, which lasted all of one day and then it poured and that´s all it´s been doing since! But nonetheless that didn´t stop us enjoying Oktoberfest 2007!

We met up with a mate of Matt´s from work and his two mates who he´s traveling around with. What a group we made - Jay, Hitch, Mika, Matt and I. We had heard lots of stories of waiting in queues for hours to get a seat at any of the 12 beer halls, so we decided to get there early to claim a spot. We arrived, completely soaked and freezing, at 9:00am and there was no one about, apart from the other dedicated Aussies much like ourselves. We got comfy and the beers came promply at 10:00am. Man those steins are massive!



By 2:00pm Jay and Hitch had to drag Mika to a cab (he´d gone a little too hard too early, but it was hilarious anyway!). By this time the Hofbrau-Festhalle was getting very busy. So much so that there was hardly standing room left - apparently that hall held 10,000 people, so you can imagine it. We thought it would be a great idea to go outside, where it was still raining mind you, and go on some of the rides. For those in Brisvegas, imagine the Ekka but on a much larger scale. It was maddness. Although unfortunately one of us had had one too many bratwursts and after one topsy-turvy ride had to go home and pay a visit to Spew City (hence why the name Mattspew is relevant now...mwahahaha!). We lasted until about 7:00pm which I thought was quite alright considering we were straight off the mark at 10:00am.


The next morning we decided to go back a bit later and see what it´s like after dark this time. So after doing boring laundry we headed back around 2:00pm, met up with my friend Emma from soccer and her sister Sally and proceeded to do it all over again, still with the cold and rain! This time Mattspew paced himself on the bratwursts and lasted a bit longer. But after so many stiens we lost the taste for beer (and Mika again..he just walked off never to be seen again!) and decided to go and finish the night on some vodkas.


Anyway needless to say we didn´t get to see a lot of Munich - saw the inside of a lot of McDonalds and Burger Kings - but unfortunatel not much of the city. We´d booked a late train to leave this arvo to go Frankfurt but the rain still hasn´t eased and it´s just not fun being tourists when you´re soaked and freezing!

Bring on Oktoberfest 2008! :)

Monday 24 September 2007

Innsbruck in two days...

...and I would think that if you weren´t into extreme sport of any kind you wouldn´t need anymore than two days in Innsbruck. We had two full days and managed to experience pretty much the whole town. It´s quite small, but it´s beauty lies in the surrounding villages and massive mountains.



We didn´t know too much of Innsbruck and we only really decided to go there because we didn´t want to leave Austria too soon. We probably could have stayed longer in Salzburg but we´ll know better when we come back here in the winter time! And as it turned out we really liked Innsbruck - we´ve come to the realisation that we prefer the smaller towns and Innsbruck would be the smallest town out of Salzburg and Vienna.

You pretty much can´t go anywhere in Innsbruck without being confronted by mountain ranges and it´s gorgeous. Really makes you feel so small in comparison though. And it was probably about this time that we realised that Mount Cootha is no mountain when it comes to the ones in Innsbruck! Most had a bit of snow on the top but we can imagine how fantastic they must look in winter. And apparently Innsbruck is a bit of a hot spot when it comes to skiing. Maybe we´ll have to give it a go...

What we did do on our two days was go for a bit of hike. We weren´t planning on that at first, we were planning on taking a fernicular half way up a mountain and then catch the cable car from there to the top for some views. But when we got to the fernicular stop we discovered that even though it was on the map it construction hadn´t yet been finished! So we thought, stuff it, we´ll go for a wee walk, doesn´t look that far. Well it was, it was about 1km and in the general direction of up. Gosh!



But we enjoyed it after we´d cooled down and had about 2 litres of water (cause we hadn´t packed water for our fernicular ride, had we?!). The cable car ride definitely proved to be worth it. I´m a little bit nervous on them, but it was quite smooth. At the top, the views were spectacular and looking down we could see lots of moutain bike paths - this lead Matt to thinking about hiring a bike and going down the mountain! Crazy stuff! But he didn´t end up doing that, mostly because it just wouldn´t have been safe by himself - as if I´d go!! There were also para-gliders but again, I just couldn´t bring myself to do it cause it just scares me!



We also hired bikes and rode about 30 km to see some surrounding villages. And again, just like Vienna because the bike tracks are so smooth and flat it´s very enjoyable. And it was great because we rode along the River Inn which looked like you could drink from it, so crystal blue. Everyone seems to use the bike tracks as well, lots of joggers, cyclists, and rollerbladers.

Matt also tasted his first bratwurst, but now that we´re in Munich, I´m sure there´ll be lots more to come!!

Vienna: The Green City

So our only day of really bad weather was when we took the train from Salzburg to Vienna. So good traveling weather really, being stuck on a train for 4 or so hours. It only became really annoying when we got lost trying to find the apartment we rented and it was raining ... blah to that!

So yeah we had to rent an apartment because it was difficult to get any other type of reasonably priced accommodation. But it turned out to be great - much more comfortable than any hotel we´d stayed in so far, and it had a kitchen, which meant home cooked meals, yay! So we had three nights in Vienna and it really was lovely.

We felt our first really cold weather though - all our days were filled with sunshine but there was a really really cold wind and it was bitter. I haven´t bought a coat yet so I had to layer up!

I have to admit that I was expecting big things from Vienna. But we weren´t blown away. Maybe that´s because we´ve become used to magnificent buildings with fantastic architecture and attention to detail. Big cities really are looking the same now. But that doesn´t mean we didn´t like Vienna or that it wasn´t worth a trip, we´re glad we went for sure! The people were great and the tours that we did were beautiful.

Speaking of which, we hired bikes (again!) and they came with a free city tour and a guide that told us a bit of information at each big sight. That was fun. We spent 3 hours stopping every 10 minutes to figure out where to go and what we were supposed to be looking at! But it was a great way to see the city as it´s so flat and the ride was quite enjoyable (coming from me!!). It´s hard to get past the greenery either, it´s so so green, everywhere.

And our tour guide on our next tour (of the Vienna Woods and the largest sub-terrainean lake in Europe, woo!) who was very kooky and very patriotic, told us that 51% of Austria is green. Green is everywhere. He also told us that 85% of Austrians are Catholic, which was good to know on Sunday just gone when ALL the shops were shut...no Sunday trading here! He did tell us lots of other facts, but I don´t really remember them because I spent most of the time on my mobile getting progress updates on my soccer team´s semi-final game! But the tour was good - not as good as the Sound of Music tour, but good nonetheless. It was nice to get out of the city and see the surrounding parts of Vienna.


We also sampled quite a lot of apple strudel (with warm vanilla sauce) in Vienna and some other delicious cakes and coffee. Matt is now officially addicted to coffee and needs to have at least two a day to function! I´m more addicted to the hot chocolates, but so far nothing has beaten the one I had in Italy which was pretty much to die for!

What we didn´t get to do, which was a bit disappointing, was go to see a Viennese Opera. It would have been nice, but I´ll admit that we were a bit put off because we´re budget travellers you know, with budget travel wardrobes and probably would have looked a little out of place. Maybe next time we go there we´ll remember to pack some posh clothes!

From Vienna we took a 4 h train to Innsbruck...