Anzac Day

At the foot of the alps an hour south of Munich near Lake Tegernsee is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery. On Anzac Day, it seemed a suitable gesture on our part to visit the graves of the 2934 British, Australian, New Zealand, Canadian, Indian and Polish soldiers and airmen therein.

We were struck by the ages displayed on the headstones. It is sobering to think that I have lived the equivalent of three liftimes of many of the lost servicemen. 

It was a near-perfect, bird twittering, sunny early Spring day. In this place, it highlighted what is normally a half forgotten mixture of emotions relating to the bleak brutality and unfairness of war. By chance we have missed any first hand experience of this. It would seem to be important not to forget that the servicemen here did not share that same good fortune.

Surprise Visitors

With the volcano erupting travel in Europe was starting to become chaotic.  Thursday night I got a call from Craig and Sue who were supposed to be in London to say they were now in Frankfurt and were due in to fly from London to Rome on Sunday.  So Friday afternoon they headed down to Munich to come and stay for a couple of nights.  The main train station in Munich was extremely busy as the airport in Munich was still running, it closed that night.  Though busy it was all running very smoothly and it was great to see Craig and Sue arrive.  They had to stand all the way from Frankfurt having spent the night in Bonn.

A very tiring trip so the best idea for Saturday was to sort out trains for Sunday then head to one of the biggest beer gardens, Augustiner Keller.  The beer gardens had just opened so it was good timing.  We had a great day with Craig and Sue - long lunch, then a wander through the city and the English Garden before finding another beer garden.

 Enjoying a Mass (1L)

Sue makes a friend

 Craig with the Walking Man

 Our next beer garden

Czech Republic

We are finally getting around to writing about our amazing week in the Czech Republic.  The day after Mike and Pat left we headed off on the backroads towards Brno in South Moravia (southeast Czech), stopping in little towns on the way.  Crossing the border was an experience with lots of cheap stalls set up along the roads.  Once we got through the border town the countryside became a whole lot prettier. 

We stayed in Brno for a couple of nights, on the way passing the Moto Grand Prix circuit, much to Malcolm's delight.  We stayed in the old centre of the city which was full of beautiful architecture and a castle founded in the 1200s that was used as a military fortress in the 18th and 19th century  and opened again by the Germans in WWII.  We had an amazing dinner at a beautiful silver service restaurant that cost about the same as an average meal in Munich or Perth. 

From here we headed south.  We visited Austerlitz where Napoleon defeated the combined forces of Austria and Russia.  The château where the treaty was signed was beautiful and in its grounds was a golf course!  We saw many golf courses in Czech and want to go back some time and play a few.  

We then headed to the wine region and stopped off at Palace Valtice where we went to the National Salon of Czech Republic Wines which is in the long cellars of the palace.  Each year they judge the top 100 wines of Czech and we got to taste them!  It was very well set out and we have convinced the maths dept that it would be a great place for us to go.  

We travelled along the Czech Austrian border towards South Bohemia and saw many châteaus/castles that had been left after the war when Czech became a communist country.  We also saw lots of evidence of where the Iron Curtain had been along the border where the machine gun posts were still in use up to 1989.  

Our next stop was Ceske Budejovice another extremely pretty town with a large piazza.  With sunshine and daylight saving we spent hours just wandering around.  

Next off to Ceske Krumlov which is an extremely popular day trip from Prague.  This was the first place where we saw many tourists and the first place we heard a lot of English, elsewhere we had to get by on Malcolm's German.  It was a beautiful town enclosed in a river's arc with a castle overlooking it.  We finally got to do a tour of a castle in English - one good thing about there being so many tourists.

 Malcolm's impersonation of all the tourists

The next day we took the long way home which took longer due to Malcolm's determination to find the elusive Schwarzeberg canal.

Click here to see more photos of our trip.

Mike and Pat's visit

It has been great to have my brother, Mike, and his wife, Pat, over for a four day visit.  After living on the other side of the world for so long it is nice to know they are only a couple of hours away.  Since they have not been to Germany before we tried to find the most German/Bavarian things for them to see and do. 

The first day we went into Munich  We had to take a detour as the local train was halted due to the discovery of a WWII bomb near the line.  We wandered around the streets looking at many different monuments and churches, finishing the day having dinner at the our local Bavarian restaurant.

The next day was Good Friday.  Many places were closed but we got to walk around the gardens at Schloss Nymphenburg and had lunch and a walk at Freising, one of the oldest settlements in Bavaria.

Saturday we took a day trip out to Regensburg, a medieval town on the Danube.  It was a beautiful sunny day so it was great to walk around the town and have a traditional lunch (sausages and beer) outside followed by strudel! 

Sunday we had a leisurely walk through the English Garden (Europe's largest city park and bigger than New York's Central Park).  We got to see some local river surfing before going to the Hofbrauhaus for a late lunch before they flew home in the evening.

For more photos of our four days click here.