17 August to Oktober 5

It has been a pretty busy few months. I have had the luck of visiting or being visited on most weekends. Here's a bit of a summary of what has been happening.

Sonia and Denis 

In the middle of August I had the privilege of our Aussie-Italian friends come up from the south. After an Denis had an emergency beer and sausage stop shortly after entering Fussen, I took them on a little tour of the area and visited the local lakes and of course Castle Neuschwanstein. 

We also checked out a another Castle Linderhof and found a couple of new things on site. 

I had a bit of a hunger craving and followed the signs to the local "Kiosk" and this is what I found(centre). Not quite what we are use to in Aus, and worst of all no food available, not even a snickers bar:( We also discovered (right) the King's theatre that was built inside an artificial cave. In the past the king would sit in the shell while being pushed around by his servants, has he watched performances by the great actors of the times. And some people thought he was a little crazy:)

Emily and Laurent

A couple of folks I met at the German course paid me a visit on the last weekend of summer. After enjoying some fine Italian cuisine the night before, we decided to go for a bit of a stroll to wear it off. So we jumped on the Cable car to Tegelberg (a local peak), however the last few hundred meters required a little climbing. It was raining at the time and for most of it we were just surrounded by clouds. Very cool!

(left) One last photo for our parents in case any of us fell off. To make it a little more challenging we were wearing street shoes. Hiking boots are for whimps:) Also I think I was the only one climbing the mountain with an umbrella. (right) Token warning sign to be disregarded. 

(left) the path up to the peak (right) The cross at the peak. Looks small from the ground, but it is actually about 3m high. Very weird to look down and just see cloud. 

Next up we headed for the mountains on a beautiful warm summers day (4 degrees). As per usual there was a bit of the usual traffic (below right). The cows may seem to be a pain in the arse, but they are actually doi

We arrived at a great little town called Imst, which had as one of its key attractions the world's longest summer bobsled ride. A total of over 3 km in fact. You get up to the start of it by ski lift. It takes well over 10 minutes for the ride, and is quite a lot of fun especially if you don't bother with the brakes. 

Le Deb

After meeting a couple of not so rude/smelly French people, it was time to see what they are like in their own country:) I made my way down to Castres (pronounced Cast) to catch up with Deb which is not far from Toulouse. 

First night we spent getting to know Deb's new work mates/flat mates with a bit of a BBQ. I even showed them how to cook (burn) their snags properly (left) :) They are an interesting bunch from all over the place including Korea, England, Chzech, Japan and even a Latvian!

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To make the most of the fine spring weather we decided that we should head to the beach. It is less than 2 hours drives to some pretty nice beaches. First day was beautiful and sunny. We took it pretty easy, lay on the beach for a while then had bread, cheese and wine to get into the French way of things. 

Unfortunately the next day turned out to be a day for the snails:) When the rain comes out they are everywhere!

Although we would of preferred a little sunshine, we enjoyed a walk for a couple of hours through the rain.

On the way back we went in search of the authentic French country restaurant. We followed a few obscure signs off the main and eventually found this fine chateau. We quickly changed out of our wet clothes in the car, put on our crinkled shirts and went in for a classy dinner. 

We had the most amazing 5 course meal for 17 Euros ($30) each. Service was exceptional and the staff were great fun although they laughed at me when I asked where the toilet was in French:( One course involved some exotic cheeses. Who would of thought goat's cheese soaked in honey would be soooo good!

Unfortunately still couldn't find any smell rude French people. Maybe I will have better luck next time. How could such a stereotype be wrong?

Mum

In mid September I had the pleasure of my Mother coming to visit me for a few days. I took a couple of days off work and first up we checked out old Munich town with the BMW Factory (left) and Marienplatz in the center of town (right) where we enjoyed some of the local beers and of course German gourmet food at its finest, Sausages and sauerkraut!

Next up we did a bit of a driving tour of the area and found a couple of 12th century castles I never had seen before. Very cool, although they haven't really been maintained so well so they tend to be a little airy. On the way down we had a little rain. Turns out the goats aren't a big fan of the rain (right).

Mum wanted to see a castle so we did a tour of Schloss Hohenschwangau not so far from where I live (left). (Right) some things never change:)

With my couple days off work we went on a bit of a road trip to a place called Regensburg. It is a beautiful medieval city and from memory the 3rd or 4th largest in Bavaria. Below are some shots from it (left) medieval streets, (centre and right), an 800 year old bridge. Supposedly a feat of engineering when completed back then. Just to the left of their bridge there was also a sausage house that has been making sausages and serving beer for over 800years!

Frankfurt Motor show    

You may be wondering why there are no photos below, will brief you soon:) The Frankfurt motorshow was amazing. It had 10 huge buildings, each probably bigger than the Brisbane Motorshow alone. The major manufacturers had their own buildings. Mercedes in particular had a building where you went up an escalator and then traversed down 4 floors of vehicles. Very impressive! 

Oktoberfest

Nik and one of his mates came down to visit for the Oktoberfest. On the first night we decided to have a quiet one and just enjoy the local brews. 

Oktoberfest is just basically a huge fair ground with up to 500,000 people a day passing through its gates. There are a number of huge beer halls but you have to get in ealry, or use Nik Velde's skills of persuation (pushing through the croud). It took us believe it or not almost an hour to get our first beer, and we were trying pretty hard:) After my second beer someone decided to borrow my camera on a permanent loan so not many more photos of the night, although I did have a nice experience with the very efficient German police! The photo below shows a few of the folks we ended up with by the end of the night. 

Deb in Deutschland!

As part of our 5 weekly ritual, Deb paid a visit to me in Germany. It cooled down quite a bit when she got there (It was about 25 degrees at Oktoberfest), and on a local drive we noticed a little snow falling on the local mountains. So off to Austria we drove to find a high road, and ended up in this quaint little town. (left) Me and my snowy care, (centre left) Deb gets a little aggressive in the snow, (centre right) footsteps and (right) our snow woman or "Schnee Frau".

On the following day we decided to check out the snow on the local mountains. The day was a beautiful clear sunny day and wasn't too cold fortunately. On the way up we captured a few of these shots. It was absolutely beautiful up there although after about 6 hours of walking we were a little tired and grumpy by the time we reached the cable car to go down:)

To replace all our lost energy from the day before, we went for a emergency carbohydrate injection and found these beauties (the cakes) at the local cake store!