Travel and Leisure
We did a big trip recently, our longest European vacation by far. This is part 1, the two weeks we spent getting from Munich to Copenhagen. More of a memory trip for me when I am thinking, "where did we go in Germany again?", here's a brief photo essay on our itinerary.
Munich: First stop was Munich, not for any reason in particular, other than it's a big international destination with lots of flight options. It has a surprisingly historic old town, given the destruction that occurred in many/most large German cities during WWII. As we usually do, we don't plan a lot for our arrival day, and we used Munich as our decompression stop from the trans-Atlantic flight.
It was unseasonably cold there, and so we abbreviated the Rick Steves walking tour around the old town area. We did go to the Residenz, which is pretty cool and well preserved. The weather prevented us from enjoying some of the outdoor eating and drinking areas, like the Marienplatz market.
Füssen: This town was our second stop, as we wanted to visit the fairy tale castle of the Mad King Ludwig. What made this side-trip even more fun, was that our friends from Zurich came up for the day to visit with us and see the castles. We toured the inside of Hohenschwangau, as it was actually used and lived in, whereas the Neuschwanstein one was never finished, as Ludwig died before completion.
Nuremberg: The next stop took us to the "recreated" old town of Nuremberg. WWII destroyed about 90% of the Altstadt, but instead of re-building with new structures, they spent decades trying to preserve the medieval landmarks and buildings in the historic core.
Rothenburg ob der Tauber: This "forgotten" medieval town, sat for centuries after economic challenges and the black plague ravaged the population. It was an easy day trip from Nuremberg, and is definitely a highlight of the Bavaria region.
Leipzig: Rather than taking another long train ride all the way to Berlin, we broke it up into two, and stopped overnight in Leipzig. Again, many sites had been restored in this city to original appearance after the war, and there was plenty of historic things to see. The Leipzig Forum of Contemporary History was excellent, and free as well. The Old Town Hall dates from the mid-16th century, and is now used as a museum and event space.
Potsdam: With so much to see and explore, we set up in an Airbnb for four nights in Berlin. But with weather and museum closure timing, it seemed like our first full day there was the best to do the day-trip to Potsdam. It's kind of like visiting Versailles from Paris; Potsdam is a brief, 30 minute train ride from Berlin. However, unlike Versailles, the palaces in Potsdam are spread apart, so we rented bikes to tour around the Potsdam sites and the old town area.
Berlin: While Christine had been to Berlin before, it was a long time ago, and she says that they didn't have the money to see and visit the places we went to. It's hard to sum up in a handful of pictures, but the Rick Steves walking tour did an excellent job of guiding us around town, and then we did our own tour of the Wall, and other sites that represented the division between Communist East Germany and the West. We also stayed in a great area of town called Prenzlauer Berg, which was great for restaurants and another Rick Steves walk.
Hamburg: We had put Hamburg on the list of places to go in Germany, as it was along train route required to get to Copenhagen. We booked an Airbnb here as well, knowing that we'd want to do one last load of laundry before getting to the ship in Copenhagen. We ended up picking one in a great neighbourhood, a short walk from the main train station. For touring, Rick Steves recommended doing the hop-on hop-off bus & harbour cruise combo, so that's what we did.
We had one glitch in our travel plans, as there was some sort of construction on the rail line we needed to get to Denmark on, and the alternative was a 6+ hour bus ride. So we pivoted to flying to Copenhagen instead, which made for a much easier day.
Next up: Scandinavia and the Baltics!
