Muddling through Europe (an uplifting tale)
Day Minus Seven
I never thought that this would happen, but here I am on the brink of a two-week European dream vacation. In preparation for the German-speaking portions of our trip, I’ve been brushing up on my elementary German by listening to a German language audio book. I’ve also been putting in some time on the treadmill to prepare for the amount of walking that we will surely do in Europe. The anticipation is thrilling – and nerve tracking. It’s T minus one week and all systems are go…as far as I know. What could go wrong? 6 hours in Friday-before-a-holiday traffic to the airport. Spend a nominal one hour in Friday-before-a-holiday security line. Then catch the always reliable WOW Airlines, 7PM flight to Keflavik, Iceland. Then we connect to Amsterdam. Pretty simple so far, huh? Oh, did I mention that I have never been out of the country, haven’t flown in over 30 years, and am afraid of heights? Then we make train connections to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Innsbruck, Venice, Verona, Milan, Tirano, Chur, Geneva, Paris, and back to Amsterdam. Perhaps a checklist would help.
Refill the Valium prescription… check.
Day Zero
So the plan has changed. Now we’re leaving on ‘day 0’ evening and getting a hotel half way to the airport in order to avoid the aforementioned holiday traffic. Clever, huh? I’ve been trying to move my sleep schedule up to pre-adjust to ‘Europe Standard Time’ and it’s now 3:27 AM EDT (9:27 AM EuST) on day 0. The trouble is, I didn’t go to bed until 10:00 PM EST last night (that’s 4:00 AM EuST). Oh well.
Get 5 Hour Energy shots… check.
Day One
Garage door spring was broken when I got home, ready to leave. After a trip to Lowe’s and 30 minutes of pre-trip sweat, we were on our way. Turns out that the hotel that I booked was off a different highway than the one on which we were traveling. Just a little 40-minute detour. Luckily like the highway that I thought I had booked at, the highway with our hotel takes us straight to the airport. With a good night’s sleep, we will be on our way. Maybe all our travel snafus are behind us.
Knock on wood… check
Day One
We got up early enough to make it to the airport with time to spare. The flight left on time at 7:00 PM. After two beers and a pre-flight Valium (actually two) at the airport, it was reasonably stress-less… except for lack of sleep. I don’t have much (any) experience with major airlines’ seats, but let’s just say that WOW’s were less than comfortable. About 15 minutes into the first six – hour leg of the trip my bottom was crying for mercy. None was to come. After a one-hour connection in Iceland and our next liftoff, the 15 minutes of non-butt-torture from the first leg of the trip seemed plenty merciful. I did manage about an hour of sleep, however. We landed in Amsterdam without incident. Europe, here we are. Calm down, Sparky.
Day Two
Upon arrival at Schipol Airport in Amsterdam, my first tasks were to get a European Sim cards for my phone and some Euros. For some reason, our debit card wouldn’t work at the mobile kiosk at the airport, so I decided to wait until we got into town to get the SIM card, but I did get some Euros. We took the tram from Schipol into town and in the excitement, I forgot about getting the SIM card. My next goal in Amsterdam was to eat an incredibly yummy-looking toasted cheese sandwich like I’d seen on a YouTube travel video from a place called Toastable Konnigsplein. Not having a working cell phone with GPS made finding Toastable take a while, but it was worth it. The layered sandwich of melted Gouda cheese and tomato on toasted corn/wheat bread was devine, especially after having had only two beers and a Valium (okay, two) in my stomach for the previous 36 hours. The Toastable sandwich was followed by a good stout Belgium beer at an dark, old, Dutch bar. Then it was on to the staple of Amsterdam tourism for Americans, a ‘coffee shop’. Coffee shops are the places that Dutch authorities allow to sell weed. I hadn’t smoked any in years, but when in Rome… After the coffee shop, we wandered aimlessly around town for a while, but as it grew later, and in our sleep-deprived, weed-whacked state of mind, the street crowd took a turn for the worse. We saw an impending fight, a deranged Jesus shouter, and several other unsavory groups. We decided to head for the train station, even though our overnight train for Munich didn’t leave for another four hours. After getting our backpacks out of the train station locker, we found the only “comfortable” chairs that they had and we’re prepared to wait for our departure time. I had mentioned to my wife that we had seen a total of zero police since we had arrived in Amsterdam. While waiting on the international departure area, which had the now heavenly feeling seats, we saw a uniformed officer hustle a guy through the turnstiles with his hands behind his back. He said something to the guy like, “what did you think you were going to get away with here, buddy”. After that, I noticed about six officers standing near the station entrance. I mentioned them to my wife, who had observed the officers hustling the other guy out earlier. She had a feeling that something was badly amiss, but I poo pooed it. About 5 minutes later, we were asked to leave the lobby immediately. I thought that it was because we had been sitting there too long and made my best Dutch questioning gesture to the station security officer. Now I don’t speak Dutch, but it was obvious that he said, “Get the hell out, now!” By the time we got out, they are evacuating the entire station. Sirens were blaring and we decided that putting a little distance between us and the station might be advisable. We sat on the steps adjoining the station, but were rousted from them by uniformed officers. Then we spent some time on some nearby steps leading to a canal and at a nearby bar. But as our departure time approached, we got a little nervous. At t-minus 30 minutes, I ventured back to the front of the station to find it back open for business. Hallelujah; we had nowhere to stay and the streets of Amsterdam were getting progressively meaner as the night wore on. We caught our train and got a couple of hours of sleep on the train’s rock-hard sleeper couchette beds on the way to Munich.
Day Three
We arrived at the Munich main train station, which was very nice and had some delicious Bavarian strudel. I got my first opportunity to speak German there and it was, for the most part, understood and received politely. The train station looked like a mall in the US, as did the airport in Amsterdam. The day was off to a stellar start. I bought a European Sim card at the Munich train station and was told that it would work all over Europe. Two for two! We found the correct tram to take us near the hotel at which we were staying and walked the rest of the way. They didn’t have our room ready yet, so we left our backpacks (which was all that we packed for the trip) there and walked the grounds of Nymphenburg castle. It was very nice. Then we walked back and checked in to our quaint little room at the Hotel Laimer Hof. The hotel and room were small, but oozed Bavarian-ness.
After that it was off to Munich proper. A short walk and quick tram-ride found us in our next destination, Marienplatz. It was gorgeous. The “new” town hall, a neo-gothic delight, built at the turn of the twentieth century, was its centerpiece. Then, after several wrong turns on foot, we found our way to the Viktualienmarkt, Munich’s street market. To our disappointment, very little was open; only a beer garden. The disappointment waned as the Weissbier went down. Our next destination was the Englisher Garten, Munich’s larger version of Central Park in New York. It was gorgeous. But what was I thinking? We had been in Germany for ten hours and had not tasted real German bratwurst yet. That omission was remedied at an Englisher Garten bier garden. The bratwurst was okay, but the accompanying sauerkraut was excellent. The also-accompanying Paulaner citrus bier was interesting, but not my style. My wife loved it however. Exhausted from the sleepless flight and semi-sleepless train ride, we made our way home. Before calling it a night, I thought that I might try one of the mini-bottles of tequila that I bought at the duty-free store at the airport before our flight. I asked our hotelkeeper, Herr Rosch if they had a drink machine, since I had nothing with which to chase or mix with the tequila. He replied, “What is a drink machine? “, as if it was the stupidest concept that he had ever heard of. I had seen drink machines at the train station, so I thought that maybe he just didn’t get out much. He did have some soft drinks in his refrigerator, including a cola-lemonade drink that he said was very popular in Germany. It was pretty good. The pre-bed tequila and cola-lemonade was the perfect prescription to send me to never land for the night.
Day Four
The day began dubiously. We woke up early for our 9:32 train to Garmisch-Partenkirshen. I began brushing my teeth without my glasses on and thought immediately that European toothpaste tasted like shit. I had picked it up from beside my wife’s toothbrush and had not looked at it carefully. It turned out to be her tube of face cream that I had grabbed. It was going to take a couple of beers to get rid of that taste.
At checkout, the young desk clerk told us that he had just returned from three weeks of holiday in Northern Germany. After asking how it was, he explained that the people there are so much nicer and that we would be wise to spend our next German holiday there. It seems that he was from Hamburg, in Northern Germany and had a bug up his ass about southern Germans. We listened politely and then explained that we had a train to catch and bid farewell. The walk and tram ride to the station went well and the train ride to Garmisch-Partenkirshen was breathtaking. An overcast sky gave way to scattered clouds for most of the journey. We saw the Alps in all of their splendor, including castles, sheer cliffs, bucolic pasture land, and quaint alpine valleys…and drank more German beer.
At Garmisch, we took the cog-wheel train to Mt. Zugspitze, Germany’s highest peak. It was overcast on the way up, so views are less than spectacular. There were snow flurries and some snow on the ground when we reached the intermediate station where you transition to a gondola to reach the summit. After eating a pretzel and drinking some beer and wine, we made our way up to the rustic chapel above the cog-wheel stop and restaurant. It was cozy and splendid, reminding one of something out of a movie – complete with a life-size carved Jesus peering down from the timber frame trusses above one’s head. We spent a little too much time at the intermediate stop and determined that time would not permit the final leg to the summit. Our train to Innsbruck left at 3:02 and continuing up would have been cutting it to close. It was beautiful at our stop however and we got some great pictures there.
Seated across the aisle from us on the cog-wheel train trip down, was an elderly lady with a teenage girl laying across a seat and her lap. If the lady had looked our way, I was prepared to say in German that the girl looked so tired, but the she seemed fine. But in true, stern German fashion, the lady looked straight ahead and I decided not to intrude. At the bottom, we walked across the street to the Garmisch train station for the next leg of our journey.
The ride from Garmisch to Innsbruck was just as scenic as its predecessor. We arrived in Innsbruck and caught a bus to the campground where we had reserved a sleeping barrel for the night. At check-in, I wasn’t sure if the clerk spoke English and just said my name. He replied, “It would be preferable of you would speak in full sentences”. I responded in German that we had a reservation for the night and he lightened up. Geez! We were escorted to our sleeping barrel by an overly-enthusiastic man and shown in. The sleeping barrel was a really neat, wooden barrel, laying on its side. It measured maybe eight feet in diameter and twelve feet long. It had two single beds elevated over a storage area at the back and two facing cushioned benches at the front, with a table that pulled out from under the beds. After settling in, we heard people talking at the deck situated in the middle of the sleeping barrels and decided to join them. It was a pair of thirtyish American men and the wife of one of them. We drank and talked and drank some more until the11:00 PM, quiet hour arrived and then we retired to our barrel for a good night’s sleep.
Day Five
We left our barrel in time to run up the hill and catch the bus into town. Then we walked from the bus/train station to the funicular (cable pulled tram) from Innsbruck to Hungerburg. It was overcast and misting, but the village of Hungerburg was charming. After spending an hour or two there we boarded for the trip down. We were joined by a group of Austrian school children – maybe 5 or 6-year-olds – dressed in matching primary color rain slickers. Through the entire trip down they screamed “OOOOO!” in unison. It was so cute. After arriving back in Innsbruck, we wandered through a city park, which was charming, and ran in the group of children again. I got one of my favorite pictures of the whole trip, when they happened to enter the frame of a pond photo.
Now it was on to Venice. The train ride from Innsbruck to Venice started with the same fantastic alpine scenery like the earlier leg, but after a couple of hours and in the span of only a few minutes, we left the Alps and were on flat land. I was amazed at the amount of corn that we saw growing, especially between Garmisch and Venice. There were also a surprising number of apple trees, which then transitioned more to grapes the farther south we rode. But still plenty of corn.
We arrived in Venice at 6:00 PM to find the rudimentary directions that we had to Martina’s BNB inadequate. We wandered the streets and alleys of Venice for two-plus hours, making the 20-minute walk there, but finally made it. We weren’t speaking to each other at this point, but we made it. Her place was sassy and cute, with lots of plants and funky fabrics. Martina was very nice. We crashed at 9:00 to fight another day.
Day Six
We resolved our differences in the name of the trip and had a great day in Venice. The endless winding alleys, “streets”, and canals that had so frustrated us the prior night, proved enchanting on this day. The two highlights came late in the day. The first was a pasta-to-go place called Dal Moro’s. My wife had it on her list of things to do in Venice and it was well worth it. Ease of finding it was not one of the things that had given it a great rating on Trip Advisor. Even with my GPS now working, it wasn’t an easy find. But man, was the pasta good.
After the wonderful meal, which we ate on the steps leading down to a small out-of-the-way canal, we made our way back to St. Marks square, where there were three different Italian quartets playing in front of restaurants. The first two were playing classical and classic jazz fare, which was beautiful. But as we approached the third, I made out the opening chord progression of Procol Harem’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale’. The quartet played more modern music and proved to be fantastic, with a comic showman as violinist/front man. It was a beautiful, breezy evening and we sat for an hour or more savoring the music and the night. We strolled home to an all-night love-making session. Not really. We went back and were asleep within minutes. It was however, probably more romantic than an all-night screw-a-thon. Boy, am I getting old!
Day Seven
It was time to move on again. The next stop was Verona. It was a last-second addition to our itinerary. Since we were going by on the way to Milan, we decided to spend a few hours there. It turned out to be more than worth the stop. The train station was in an ordinary-looking area, but a 20-minute walk led to a picture book Italian village, complete with marble-paved pedestrian walkways and two of the most ornate churches one can imagine. The religious significance escaped me, but they were certainly beautiful. One of the churches had an area inside with glass floors that revealed excavations of the foundations, some columns, and a crypt from an earlier church. We spent several hours there, looking through churches, taking gigabytes-worth of pictures, and oh yes, eating more pizza and drinking more beer. What a great day.
Then we caught the train to Christina’s BNB in Milan. Her directions, unlike Martina’s were spot on. She met us there and went over her in-depth house rules, directions, points of interest, and commuting advice (was she of German ancestry by any chance?). Her place was great with one exception – the air was off when we got there and she seemed surprised when I asked how to turn it on. She showed us how, but the second night with the windows open proved cooler than the first with the air on. We had sweated more on this trip than either of us had in years. Laimer Hof in Munich, the barrel in Innsbruck, nor Martina’s in Venice had had air; nor did they have fans. What was it with these Europeans? Cristiana’s place had a small washer, but no dryer. We took the opportunity to do a much-needed, small load of clothes (we both had only backpacks) and let them hang on a rack overnight.
Day Eight
Our day in Milan began with a tram ride to the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of Science and Technology downtown. We apparently loved it, judging by the 4 hours that we spent there. And it was fantastic. There was a tonne (metric ton) of historical information about da Vinci along with copies of codices and models made from their drawings and specifications. There were also plenty of non-da Vinci technological and scientific artifacts like old machines, clocks, radios, and computers. There was also a refurbished clock-making shop from a century earlier.
After the museum, we decided not to go in the Duomo or the church that holds da Vinci’s crypt, but instead wandered around Milan before calling it a night.
Day Nine
Okay, this is the one I had been waiting for – Bernina Express day. The Bernina Express is a scenic train route from Tirano, Italy to Chur, Switzerland. It traverses over one hundred bridges and fifty-something tunnels. It is the steepest non-cogwheel rail line in Europe. It is also designated as a Unesco World Heritage Site. I couldn’t wait.
We made it to the Milan train station in time. As we waited to catch the Trenord train from Milan to Tirano, a 40s era-looking train approached the adjacent platform. We joked that it was probably our train until we saw ‘Trenord’ written on its side. Humor turned to horror. But it wasn’t, and when our train arrived, it was a relatively modern one and the trip was fine. We ate pizza and pasta in Tirano, waiting for the Bernina. Mine was the best pizza that I had the whole trip, including Venice. We had beer and wine with our meal (duh).
And then we were off. The Bernina Express lived up to its billing and much more. The Alpine views were stunning. From verdant mountain faces to silver – aquamarine lakes, to century-old, 200-foot-high stone arch trestles, it was almost too grand to bear. I think that I had a traingasm. Our cell phone cameras overheated. We saw an oriental guy shooting pictures with a DSLR in one hand and a cell phone in the other. My wife joked that he looked like a gunslinger, with blazing six-guns in each hand. We had a really good Austrian beer on board and by the time we pulled in to Chur, Switzerland, we were satiated beyond belief.
A short walk up the hill from the train station brought us to the Hotel Post, or lodging for the night. Our room was on the top floor with low, hip-cathedral ceilings and two tilt-out skylights. Upon opening the skylights, we discovered a magnificent view of the town and the surrounding Alps. It was dream-like. We toasted the view and the day’s excursion before turning in.
Day Ten
From Chur, we traveled to Geneva via Zurich. We had more great mountain views leaving Chur, which yielded to the more mundane verity the closer we got to Zurich. The one constant through our travels was corn. We saw it growing in every elevation and every country. We rode by tens-of-thousands if not hundreds-of-thousands of acres of the stuff. Vineyards with corn between them; apple orchards interspersed with corn fields; and just plain acres of corn. It wasn’t grown on the scale of the American Midwest, but it was pervasive nonetheless.
We ventured out briefly in Zurich, before catching our train to Geneva, but did not have much time. When we arrived in Geneva, the directions to our BNB once again proved insufficient. We asked a guy on the bus if he knew where our address was. He was kind enough to get off of the bus and walk us to the correct neighborhood, but we still couldn’t find the house. I called the host who asked me to describe the corner where we stood. I told him that there was a business in the corner called Car Invest. He said that he had no idea where that was. It turns out that it was less than a block from his house, but he said that he had never noticed the name of the business. Strange, huh? Anywho, we got settled in and actually watched part of the movie 2012 in English on Italian Sky TV. It was a treat hearing our native language spoken by natives for the first time in 10 days. We conked out before it was over though.
Day Eleven
It was our penultimate pleasure day in Europe and this was the second most anticipated day of the trip for me – our tour of CERN, the home of the Large Hadron Collider. I’ve always had a fascination with particle physics and have read about it quite a bit. I’ve had the opportunity to share tweets with Jon Butterworth a CERN physicist, who wrote the book Smashing Physics about the discovery of the Higgs boson. So I was psyched. Our tour almost didn’t happen though. It turns out that CERN tours are booked for months in advance. I was crushed when, two weeks before our visit, I tried to book one and was informed that they were not available. Their website said that some tours come open from people cancelling and to try every morning. I got lucky two days before our departure and scored two tour passes.
We weren’t disappointed. Our tour guide was a twenty-nine-year-old Ukrainian Ph.D., named Remmy, who is a researcher at CERN and chooses to guide tours in his spare time. He was articulate, enthusiastic, and eager to answer questions within the time constraints of the tour. I had a lot, but another man in our group took the majority of Remmy’s question-answering time. On the tour we saw the ATLAS experiment’s control center, several videos about the workings of CERN, and got a feel for the life of the researchers there. It was AWESOME! The only disappointment was that they didn’t have the tee shirt saying, “Physics gives me a large hadron” that I wanted to buy for myself and a colleague. I settled for a tee shirt and polo shirt with the CERN logo on them for us.
We left CERN by tram and wandered Geneva before catching our 5:32 train to Paris. The Thalys train to Paris was nice, but we ran into the ‘lack of sufficient directions’ problem again finding our hotel. Not knowing what Paris was like after dark and not knowing where we were going was stressful for me. I could see what a beautiful city it was at night, but getting to our hotel preoccupied my thought process to the detriment of beholding the city’s glory. A good Samaritan who saw us looking at our map led us in the general direction of our hotel and after asking several other people in my best French (no French at all) for directions, we got there. My wife wanted to go back out, but I was spent. We slept.
Day Twelve
We semi-accidentally slept late on this day and rushed to get our complimentary hotel breakfast before the 10:00 cutoff. The staff was quick and efficient in serving our last-minute fare. It consisted of juice, coffee (for my wife), a fresh baguette, a croissant, butter, and marmalade. It was delicious.
After walking so much over the last days, we decided to take a hop-on, hop-off tour bus on this morning. We saw much more of Paris than we would have by foot, but may have missed some of the finer details in the bargain. And what a grand city it is. The architecture of Paris is just amazing. We saw buildings that would cost a billion dollars or more to build today, and they were everywhere. And these were just normal buildings, not to mention The Louvre, Notre Dame, Saint Chapel, and the plethora of other famous ones. At about 3:00, we decided to head back to the hotel for a ‘Paris-nap’ and then to rest up for the night.
At about six, we rousted ourselves and headed out for the night. We took some Paris night light pictures before being drawn in to a small café by the piano music and vocals that drifted out. The menu looked okay, but it was the music that made us stay. An older woman (maybe our age) played the piano with an intensity and flare that captivated us. Then a younger, oriental-looking woman began singing with the voice of a diva. Every other song was done on solo piano and then with vocal accompaniment. The murmur to roar of the crowd who couldn’t seem to appreciate their incredible artistry was the only drawback to the night’s musical fare. We both choose salads for dinner, having largely passed on vegetables since arriving in Europe days earlier. Mine was a simple tomato and baby mozzarella dish with sea salt and an olive oil and vinegar drizzle. My wife’s was browned goat cheese and lettuce on toasted whole wheat bread. Mine was delightful in its simplicity, while my wife felt that hers left something to be desired. She had asked the waitress, who said that she only spoke little English, if the goat cheese was breaded. The waitress apparently only heard bread and responded affirmatively, thinking of the bread under the cheese and lettuce. It ended up being slabs of goat cheese on slightly burnt toast, with a little lettuce and oil and vinegar. But, the music more than made up for any deficiency in her fare.
After dinner, we decided to try the Siene River boat cruise that was included in our bus ticket. To our dismay, the boat tours were winding down and we missed the river tour. It was getting late anyway, and we had a very early morning looming, so we moseyed back to the hotel.
Day Thirteen
I had set the phone alarm for 4:45 EuST, but woke up a little early. We got ready and were out of the hotel by 5:00. Two nights earlier, the hotel clerk had said that to get to our train station all we had to do was walk to the McDonalds at the corner and a bus would take us directly there. That didn’t prove to be the case. The bus stop that we found didn’t show one stopping at Gare Nord, our train departure point. Our train was scheduled to leave at 6:24 and get to Amsterdam just in time to clear security and make our 12:40 flight home.
We walked in the general direction of the train station and asked several other early risers for transit directions in our modest attempts at French. Finally, my wife spotted a Metro stop and a young lady there understood enough of what we were asking to help. And what a help she was. She ushered us into the Metro tunnel and shepherded us through buying our transit tickets and finding our subway platform. I made my best attempt at telling her in French that she was a saint and judging by her broad smile, succeeded. We caught the subway and made it to the train platform with eleven minutes to spare. Catastrophe avoided.
The Thalys train coach from Paris to Amsterdam was the nicest of our trip. Its distinguished red, black and gray interior contrasted with our tennis-shoed, cargo-panted, haggard appearance. Fuck it; we made it. Breakfast on the Thalys was a joyful surprise. It consisted of juice, coffee (once again, for my wife), a wonderful croissant-like pastry with apple filling, yogurt, a scone with walnuts, a bowl of grapes, and some swirly, ham-filled flat bread creations. It really hit the spot. The ride was silky-smooth and the scenery was pastoral.
Unbeknownst to me, our train stopped at Schipol Airport before the Amsterdam’s main train station, negating the need to take a tram back to the airport and saving us 30-plus minutes. We made our flight with time to spare.
The flight home was as uncomfortable as the flight over had been, except for some intermittent sleep. We shuttled back to our car and made it a couple of hours out of town before stopping for dinner. After jumping the curb at the interstate exit, we decided to stop for a much-needed night’s sleep.
Day 14
We got our sleep and proceeded back to home, sweet, home. Our trip was over, and home felt great. We have our memories, our pictures, and hopefully not an Interpol file with our names on it. Through all its twists, turns, train trips, steps and missteps taken, and experiences gained, our journey was all that we had hoped and much more. But where to next?