Photo of the Week: Rottinger

This is typical of the small German towns along the Romantic Road in Bavaria. Rottinger doesn't even warrant a mention in most guidebooks, and there's not a whole lot to do other than wander around, but if you have a car, it's fun to stop and see a little bit of what "real" German life is like, as opposed to the touristy areas right next to the train stations.

Dinkelsbuhl

Many travelers following Germany's Romantic Road would love to find a town that is the non-touristy equivalent of the picturesque Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

Unfortunately, such a town does not exist, as Rothenburg's preservation as a medieval city was only made possible through its fall in the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) and the ensuing poverty that lasted until the 20th century.

One town, however, comes close - Dinkelsbuhl.

Dinkelsbuhl sits along the Romantic Road less than an hour away from Rothenburg by car.

With many of Rothenburg's charms - a medieval wall, a Gothic cathedral, cobblestone streets and excellent local eateries - Dinkeslbuhl is less crowded and feels more like Germany and less like Disneyland, but it lacks the historic significance of Rothenburg and the myriad restaurants.

I visited Dinkelsbuhl in 2006, and I found it to be worth a stop on the way to Munich if you have time. It seems like much of the wall has been taken out, but substantial portions still stand. You can't walk its length like you can in Rothenburg, but after Rothenburg, you should have your fill of walking around the walls.

There are a few shopping streets in Dinkelsbuhl, and you can find the sorts of shops the locals typically frequent. Rather than Rothenburg's tourist traps - where sellers hawk spoons, beer steins, fake medieval weaponry and Christmas decorations - Dinkeslbuhl's shops include clothing stores, soccer shops and grocery stores.

What Dinkelsbuhl has that Rothenburg lacks is a lake full of swans and a nesting spot for the birds atop one of its buildings. (There's a chance the nest is for a stork, but swans are on the lake).

When I visited Dinkelsbuhl, I wandered around the town's uncrowded streets, visited the cathedral and had an excellent serving of apple strudel with ice cream at a small restaurant near the cathedral recommended by one of the helpful locals.

One of the trips I want to take in the future is a bicycle trip along the best sections of the Romantic Road, with more time to explore each individual town and the surrounding rolling green hills.

Hundredth Post - My Five Favorites

After 99 previous posts, I have a few I particularly like, so I'll just list them here.

I'm not sure if I like them for the merit of the writing, the subject matter or from remembering the experience, but they stick out to me as my favorites. Click on the bold text for the original article.

Paris Throws a Party
This was my first blog post, and I originally wrote it as an assignment for my column and review writing class in college. I had a habit of procrastinating, and that assignment was no different. I wrote it an hour before it was due in The State Hornet newsroom while the fire alarm was going off over my head and my editor was interviewing me for a copy editing position (no joke). It worked out, since I got an A on the assignment, I got the copy editing job and the school didn't burn down.

Bruges: Belgium's Jewel
In the movie In Bruges, the characters hate this canal city that was the financial capital of Europe in the past. I happen to love it, and I plan on returning. It's tied with Rothenburg ob der Tauber for my favorite small town in the world.

Prague at Dawn
I really enjoyed Prague. It had a special appeal as it was my first trip to a former Communist Bloc country. Wandering around the city by myself an hour before dawn and watching it wake up was a unique experience, and one I hope to replicate the next time I'm in Paris.

A visit to Normandy
Having minored in European history in college, and having been interested in World War II before that, Normandy always held a special fascination with me. Growing up, I never thought I would get the chance to visit the battlefield.

The Mad King's Fairy Tale Castle
Schloss Neuschwanstein is the epitome of a fairy tale castle, and it should be at the top of the list for anyone visiting Germany. Disney based a castle on it, and it has graced thousands of postcards, TV shows and movies. The views from the top of the Alps and the nearby lowlands are fantastic, and a walk across the wood-planked bridge nearby isn't for those with a fear of heights.

The Taste of Travel: Sausages in Nuremberg

It was by accident that I found what claims to be the oldest sausage restaurant in the world.

Wandering through the old section of Nuremberg with my family a few days before Christmas, 2008, we were arguing over where a restaurant we had seen the night before was actually located. After asking several locals, we got as many different sets of directions.

My mom wanted someplace "cute," and I just wanted to eat, so when I saw a quaint-looking building around the corner, I pointed it out and said, "We're eating there."

That building happened to be the Zum Gulden Stern, a sausage restaurant established in 1419.

We looked at the menu, decided the price was quite reasonable and went inside to be seated at a long communal table next to a kind, elderly German man.

We ordered half-liters of Tucher weissbier, and I asked the older German man what is good in my poorly accented German.

Fortunately, he was more than willing to tell us all what his menu favorites were, bang glasses in a toast (teaching us that the thick bottom of a pilsner glass is where they should actually be hit - useful information for any wannabe beer snob), explain the history of the building and talk to us about life in general.

I wish I could have understood three words of it. He sure was nice, though.

We all ended up ordering the same thing - plates of eight sausages and potato salad. The sausages, as small as one of my fingers, are a Nuremburg specialty, and they are absolutely delicious. I've never had another sausage that tasted quite the same, and nothing I've had in the States even compares.

As for the potato salad, it wasn't the creamy, cold, onion-infused picnic food we have in the United States, but chopped potatoes with a vinegary sauce that complemented the sausages very well.

The sausages - available in orders ranging from six to 12 - were not very expensive, with six coming in at about 7 euros and 12 costing slightly more than 12 euros. You can also get them in eight- and 10-piece orders. By the way, "stuck" means "piece" and "beilage" means "potato salad."

For more information about the restaurant, visit the website. (You'll have to be able to read German, but the address is listed on the home page).

Photo of the Week: A Church on the Main

This is a church on the Main river just across from Frankfurt's altstadt, or old town.

A Free Bike Tour of Munich

While I usually prefer to discover things on my own with the aid of a good guide book and stay away from group tours, there is one tour I wholeheartedly recommend - the Discover Munich Free Bike Tour.

I know nothing is free, but really, the only expenses you will have if you take one of these tours - and you should - are the beers you drink, the food you eat and the tip for the guide. Bikes are provided.

On Munich's birthday, which was full of festivities and revelry, I was standing with my sister in the square in front of the New Town Hall (home to the famous glockenspiel) on Marienplatz watching the celebrations when an American walked up to me and asked if I'd like to hear about a bike tour.

At first, I thought he was a tout and was just trying to milk me for a few euros, but he insisted it was free and handed me a flier.

"If you want to go, just meet me at the fish fountain at 11:30," he said.

The flier said the tour was comedic, and with our other option being yet another city bus tour, my sister and I opted to give the bike tour a try, especially since the June day was so perfect weather-wise.

We assembled at the fish fountain in front of the New Town Hall building with about 20 other English-speaking tourists in their 20s and followed our guide to where the bikes were parked.

"They don't have bells," he said, "so if you get close to someone, just say, 'ding, ding,' and they will move."

The bikes were surprisingly new and well-maintained, and we set out on our tour, stopping in front of the many historic sites for information and a healthy dose of jokes. The guide had a dry sense of humor, which I liked, and he was very easygoing and friendly. Best of all, as an American, there was no straining to decipher an unwieldy accent.

We passed churches, original Bavarian building facades that were undamaged in World War II, government buildings museums and, of course, the famous Hofbrau Haus. At each place, we got just enough information to decide if we needed to explore it further.

As we rode through the English Garden (think Central Park), our guide pointed out the nudists' section, to the amusement of most of us, as well as some of the other sights in the park.

We made a stop at a sign that said "No Surfing." I thought for a second about Munich's geography. It's about as far away from an ocean as you can get in Germany, and I saw the quizzical looks from the other tourists. Our guide then led us over a bridge and pointed down.

To my surprise, a man was surfing in the river. Apparently, some landlocked surfers had chained a park bench to the bridge's pylons to create a wave, and they would come out, clad in wetsuits, to surf Munich.

The next stop was the one we'd all been waiting for - the Chinese Pagoda Beer Garden.

Located in the English Garden (Englischer Garten), the beer garden is a huge Chinese Pagoda building surrounded by picnic tables capable of seating 11,000. As I was there while Germany was hosting the World Cup, they were all full at night, but it was only about half-full during the day.

Our guide told us about the qualities of the different beers, including a warning to stay away from the dunkel (darkest of them all) unless your gastrointestinal tract was used to it.

Going through the food line, I opted for a sausage and potatoes with an amber ale (that I think was 9 percent alcohol). The cute jungfrau asked me if I wanted a large or small beer, and really, the only answer I could give was large, but I was surprised when she handed me a liter in a glass stein. It was just before 1 p.m., I hadn't eaten anything all day, and I was about to consume the equivalent of a bottle of wine in alcohol.

And it was good. Very good.

You're supposed to return the steins to get your deposit back, and on the bike tour I couldn't carry one around with me, but I talked my sister into stealing one for me when she returned a year or so later.

Once we'd all reassembled, at varying degrees of intoxication, we started riding through the rest of the tour. At a stoplight, our guide called us all close.

"Okay," he said. "You've all been drinking strong German beer, and we're riding our bikes past these nice Mercedes and BMWs. If you hit one, you need to tell me immediately. Don't think about just riding on and hoping no one notices. Tell me, so we can all ride like hell and get out of here."

Laughing, we continued on to see the Imperial Pavilion, with the best acoustics in the city, and the nearby tree under which Adolf Hitler supposedly lost his virginity.

Near the end of the tour, we saw the State Chancellory, which was heavily damaged in World War II and rebuilt with glass to demonstrate the transparency of the new government.

We ended up back where we had started and returned our bikes. Our guide took his backpack off and set it on the ground, asking us to put tips inside. I'd read somewhere that nine or 10 euros is customary, and I considered that a bargain for the three-hour tour.

If you want detailed history of the city, with a focus on what king did what and when, then this isn't for you. I'd recommend a textbook. If, however, you want to take a leisurely paced bike ride through the city and learn the general overview of its history, from how it was founded by monks and made its fortune in the salt trade to the Nazi regime, then this is the perfect tour. You also get the added bonus of going places the buses can't and the stop at the beer garden.

For more information, visit the company's website here.

Please do remember to tip your guides. As someone who used to work for tips myself, I can promise you that it makes all the difference. As they say on their website, they need to get their drinks too.

Oh, and the verbal "ding, ding" really did work wonders.

Yes, I occasionally drink out of my stein. It holds almost exactly three pints (the bottle in the picture is 1 pint, 9 ounces)

Drinks in Hell

I've been to Hell, and it was actually quite nice.

Hell, it turns out, is a restaurant and bar in Rothenburg, Germany. A nicely restored medieval city oozing charm, Rothenburg is surrounded by a stone wall and is usually clogged with tourists, but well worth a trip.

Since the city is so old, most of the original houses were built in the 1600s, but one stands apart, with its foundation having been laid in 980 - more than a century before the First Crusade. The date of the walls is "nothing impressive," according to the resident night watchman, who makes the old building a stop on his tour, since they were only erected in the 1500s.

Aside from just being the oldest building in one of the best-preserved medieval cities in the world, a metal sign with a cut-out of Satan hangs near the door - earning it the name Hell.

(Yes, that's a Christmas tree in front of Hell.)

It's unclear how the name and sign came about, but the restaurant and bar is a well-established business now, and a popular stop for locals and tourists alike.

When I went to hell, I was accompanied by my sister and another American we'd met earlier in the day who was traveling alone before meeting up with his family for Christmas.

It was a cold night, and we hustled over the cobblestone streets to reach Hell. It was warm inside, and we grabbed a table in one corner. It was immediately apparent that the building was old. The floor was on several different levels, and a narrow stone staircase led to the building's bowels.

We ordered beers from the server and toasted to "dining in Hell," with the obligatory references to the movie "300." Never mind that we weren't dining, just drinking.

We only had time for two rounds of beer, since it was pushing 1 a.m., and Hell was closing, but we got a good feel for the restaurant and the fare as we watched food served to a few late diners. It didn't look like anything out of the ordinary as far as German food goes - it was lots of meat, potatoes, vegetables and beer - but it all looked good.

When Hell finally closed its doors and we had to leave or be kicked out, we paid our bill - which was very reasonable - and hurried up the deserted streets to our hotel.

Having a few beers in Hell was one of those traveling novelties I just had to do. The name is really the only thing that sets the building apart - the foundations aren't really visible, so the fact that they were laid in 980 is cool, but not overawing.

Hell is, however, open somewhat later than most other restaurants and bars, and like the night watchman says, if you're out in Rothenburg at night, you can walk along the city's wall, or you can go to Hell.

Lodgings: Gastehaus Uhl

If you’re looking for a medieval city, Rothenburg ob der Tauber (Rothenburg o/T) in Germany is one of the best. Being such a charming historic city, many of the hotels are expensive, but it is possible to stay inside the walls at a very affordable price without sacrificing comfort or services.

My hotel of choice is the Gastehaus Uhl. Located just a five-minute walk from the market square, it is very close to the town’s major attractions, and the view from some of the upper floors is a beautiful scene over the top of the wall through the valley beyond.


Far from being just a place to stay, the Uhl family has run the historic building as a café and bakery for 30 years. At the top of the list for me are schneeballen (snowballs) – basically deep-fried balls of pie crust coated in sugar, chocolate or flavored icings (on the lower-left shelf below).

Aside from the great geographic location and the fact that the building dates to the 1600s, the things that make Gastehaus Uhl the perfect place to stay are the rates and the friendliness of the owners.

In a city where comparable rooms cost 80 euros and above, I stayed at the Gastehaus Uhl in December of 2008 for 55 euros per room.

When I went to Rothenburg in 2006, I had not reserved the room for the first night, thinking I might stay somewhere between Frankfurt and Rothenburg. When I arrived in Rothenburg, I found Gastehaus Uhl full until the following night. Robert Uhl, who somehow manages to work six or seven days per week and remain cheerful, managed to get me a room in a neighboring guesthouse for the same rate, and let me use his parking spot for my car.

The rooms are comfortable, but small – like most in Europe. I’ve always stayed on the fifth floor, and there aren’t any elevators. The whole building is spotlessly clean, which is something of the norm in German lodgings. Both of the top-floor rooms have showers, and one has a view of the street while the other has a view of the countryside and wall. The room with the street view has a tropical mural on the wall, which always makes me laugh.


The café is reasonably priced, and the menu features a wide selection of German favorites. I really, really liked the wiener schnitzel with potatoes. The cookies, pastries and other desserts are excellent, and if you are up early enough, you can probably get them fresh out of the oven (or fryer, in the case of schneeballen). The schneeballen are softball-sized, and the Uhls sell about 25,000 each year.

The Gastehaus Uhl sits on the Plonelien, a street that keeps popping up in postcard shots. The half-timbered buildings with the nearby tower that spans the street make for a good photo, as I tried to capture below. (The building with the light on top that shines at the tower is Gastehaus Uhl).

In my stays at Gastehaus Uhl, I have yet to find any reason to stay anywhere else. With the location, prices and friendliness of the staff, it would really be hard to beat.

The Café and Gasthaus Uhl is located at Am Plonlein 6-8, Rothenburg ob der Tauber 91541, Germany.

Photo of the Week: Kepler was Published Here

This is an original printing house from the early modern era in Nuremberg, Germany. As the city was 97 percent destroyed by allied bombing in World War Two, most of the "Old Town" is actually reconstructed (ironically using the Nazis' documentation as a reference). Walking through the town, however, it's possible to spot some of the older buildings.

They don't look new. Though they are repainted and well-kept, the original buildings have a certain rustic quality that is unmistakable when they are viewed next to the postwar ones.

While I was on a bus and walking tour, I saw this building as we passed it and asked my guide about it. She told me that, yes, it is an original building from the 1500s, and was actually a printing house. It was where the famous astronomer Johannes Kepler first published his theory of a heliocentricity, meaning that the sun was the center of the solar system.

Popular belief at the time, backed by the Catholic church, said Earth was the center of the universe, and Kepler's challenge of that was one of the great advances in astronomy.

As we walked away, it occurred to me that the house was not even a side note to the regular tour, and made me appreciate just how much has happened in some of these cities.

The Taste of Travel: Bratwurst Roslein

Though Nuremberg is famous for its small sausages (of which I ate many), there are times when you need to sit down and have something more substantial. The city has its share of restaurants, but eating at the Bratwurst Roslein, near the main square in the old town, gives you the chance to eat in a typical German fashion.

From the outside, it didn't look like much. Stepping through the door, however, I stopped and looked at row upon row of long tables heavily laden with beer, meat and potatoes. Unlike most European restaurants I've been to, the place was huge and packed with people.

A hostess led us to a table with four empty seats. We sat down as the local occupants scooted over to make way for us. The man to my right fortunately spoke English, and being in town on business, he wanted someone to talk to. Unlike the United States, where dining is typically a very private experience and speaking to anyone else eating in the restaurant is a rare occasion, the typical Hofbrau Haus-type atmosphere of many German restaurants encourages diners to sit next to complete strangers and get to know each other.

Not wanting another sausage, I asked the man next to me, Joachim, what he was having. He recommended sliced pork with potato dumplings, and it sounded good, so I ordered it. Ordering can sometimes be a problem if the menus aren't in English, but the Bratwurst Roslein has tourist menus with English and French translations as well as the German ones.

My food arrived with the half liter of hefeweizen I'd ordered. Tucher is the local brew, and it's as good as any. Being a German restaurant, the beer list included something for everyone, with lighter beers (in color, not calories. If you want an American-style light beer, you won't find it), ambers, wheat beers and others as dark as coffee.

I cut into the tender pork, which swam in a juicy sauce, and took a bite. It was very tender, and fell apart in my mouth. Joachim looked at me expectantly, hoping I liked his recommendation. I nodded approval, and he insisted I try some of the sauerkraut he had on the side.

The sauerkraut was a dark red color, and had a vinegary flavor that complemented the meat extremely well. I resisted the urge to eat all of his sauerkraut, as the meat was delicious by itself, but the next time I have the chance, I'll order the sauerkraut with it.

The potato dumpling wasn't what I'd expected. It looked good, but it was somewhat rubbery in texture, and even though it tasted fine, I left a little more than half of it on the plate. There were other potato options I could have had, and would try next time.

All in all, I had a great time at the Bratwurst Roslein. It was good to sit down at one of the communal tables and talk with the locals. A group of guys farther down the table laughed a bit when I took a picture of the food, and when I looked up, one of them smiled, spread his hands as if mimicking a label, and said, "German food." We talked with them a bit, and they were happy that we knew Nuremberg, technically in Bavaria, is really in Franconia (which ceased to exist after Napoleon had a hand in making it all Bavaria in 1806). The Nurembergers still consider themselves Franconian, and we all raised our glasses as they joked at Bavaria's expense - to the chagrin of their friend, who lives in Munich (the heart of Bavaria).

Getting the chance to talk with the locals and share a meal gives insight into a country that you don't get from visiting museums and reading brochures. Fortunately, most younger Germans and many older ones speak English, as it is the business language and taught in schools. Even if they don't, they're typically friendly and will sometimes chat with you for the entire meal, even though you don't know more than five words of each other's languages.

If you go to Nuremberg and want something of a traditional dining experience with excellent food, the Bratwurst Roslein is a great place. The prices aren't too steep (My meal was about 12 euro), and your tablemates can help make it a memorable experience. The restaurant is located by the town hall, on Rathausplatz 6, and is open every day from 11 a.m. to 1 a.m.

Misadventures: Good German Beer?

In addition to all the usual reasons to travel to Europe, including history, culture, sightseeing and fun, there is another benefit to Americans who have yet to turn 21 – the seeming lack of any enforced drinking age.

On my first trip to Germany, I was a few weeks away from reaching that all-important milestone in my life, and I had every intention of taking advantage of legally drinking good German beer.

Oh yes, I had had beer in the States, but it had always been limited to whatever I could score at parties or convince older friends to buy for me. It was the typical mix of Budweiser, Coors and Corona – but I knew there were better beers out there. In Germany, I wanted to find them.

My first opportunity came in the town of Bacharach, which sidles up against the famous Rhine River. I had just visited a medieval tower with my family, and the climb to the top had left us all hungry, so we glanced in a few shops before finding a mom-and-pop lunch counter.

Inside, the friendly, middle-aged couple greeted us in English, and we ordered sausages and potatoes. Next to the cash register was a refrigerator with a glass door – and it was chock-full of beer.

Each shelf was devoted to a different brewery, and all the labels were in German. I was able to discern many of the words (lager, bier, braurei, wasser and hopfen). The pictures on the labels consisted of everything from country landscapes, old buildings, a monk with a stein and coats of arms.

My anticipation grew as I imagined what my first sip of true German beer would be like. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it had to be special or people wouldn’t make a big deal about it. Being 20, I was of the mindset that more is always better, so I reached in for a one-liter bottle that was only €2.50.

The woman working the counter popped the top off, and I joined my family at a small table. My first taste of the beer was sadly anticlimactic, and it didn’t taste all that different from anything I’d had before. Nevertheless, I drank the whole thing.

The two owners came over to our table to ask us how the food was, and we spoke with them a bit, and the woman asked, “Do you want moisture?”

We all stared at each other, and she repeated herself. My dad pointed to the condensation on his water glass and said, “moisture.”

The woman looked confused, then picked up a bottle of mustard.

“Mustard,” we said.

“Moo-staard!” she shouted to her husband, and he repeated it several times. Apparently a mystery of some sort had been solved.

But there was another mystery, and that was how I had just consumed a liter of beer, and was not feeling even the slightest buzz. At that time, a liter was enough to get me well on my way to intoxication, and I was really starting to wonder why this German beer, which I was told had higher alcohol content than American beers, was having no effect on me.

I examined the label a bit more closely, and read, “Clausthaler.” It sounded very German to me. Then I read the smaller print underneath the eagle logo. “Premium Alkoholfrei.”

I sat back in my chair, utterly defeated. I was 20 years old, a quarter of the way around the world, and I had just wasted a perfect chance to drink a German beer by buying something alcohol-free.

Since then, I’ve had many excellent German beers, and even sometimes fancy myself a beer snob when it suits me. I have found that there is definitely a difference between the average German beer and the watered-down stuff crowding our grocery stores like refugees over here (see – beer snob), and having a bottle of lager in Munich while the 2006 World Cup was going on made up for my first feeble foray into the world of legal drinking.

The Mad King's Fairy Tale Castle

It’s the perfect castle in the perfect setting. Perched high in the German Alps, Neuschwanstein Castle is the epitome of the fairy tale palace with its beautiful white limestone facades accentuated by numerous turrets and spires. Windows are carved out of every wall and help attest to the fact that it was built as a home, not a fortress.

Standing at the base of the path, I watched a bus loaded with tourists pass me and was glad I had chosen to take the 30-minute hike from the parking lot to the castle. Aside from nearby Hohenschwangau Castle, there isn’t too much else to do. Nor is anything else necessary.

Neuschwanstein Castle towers over the village of Hohenschwangau, which is just a short bus ride or drive from Fussen, where the nearest train station is located. The mountains are dotted with evergreen trees and conceal numerous lakes graced with swans, the royal symbol. King Ludwig II, who ordered the castle built in the late 1860s, was a nature lover, and the views along the hike are spectacular.

I watched the shadows of clouds float lazily over a landscape dotted with villages that, aside from the modern roads, might have looked the same for centuries. The lakes were a rich blue, and all the vegetation was a lush green. When I rounded the last corner and got my first glimpse of the castle up close, I just stopped and stared.

It rose out of the rocky foundation and seemed to flirt with the sky. I knew right then why Disney chose to build the castle in Dinseyland in its likeness. My tour wasn’t for 20 minutes, so I walked around the base of the palace and climbed to its upper courtyard.

From the walls, I took in the same scenery I had seen on the hike up, but I saw it now as Ludwig II would have. For a moment, I let myself pretend it was my realm, and I was overseeing it from my seat of power.

I looked across a gorge at the Marienbrucke bridge spanning a small stream and waterfall. It was crowded with tourists from all over the world, and I realized I was making it into a few hundred photographs. I wanted to walk over and join them, but it was time for my tour.

I found the line I was supposed to be in and waited for the rest of my group to show up. The group in front of me was German. Though guided tours are only offered in German and English, many other options are availably by audio guide, and I heard a plethora of languages, including French, Italian, English, German, Japanese and Spanish.

When enough of us were there, our guide led us through the doors and into the first rooms, which belonged to the king’s servants. With their oak-paneled walls and carved furniture, even they lived well.

The tour seemed to jump around a little bit due to the fact that King Ludwig II died under mysterious circumstances before the castle’s completion, and the building was never finished. He supposedly drowned in a lake with his doctor, but both were excellent swimmers, and Ludwig had many enemies in his government who thought he was squandering resources on his retreat.

Walking through rooms with finery I had only thought existed in Versailles, I marveled at the beautiful paintings and depictions of medieval legends and heroes. Every inch of the interior dripped with elegance.

The throne room was particularly breathtaking. Though there was no throne, the platform for it was flanked by tall candelabras and capped off by a dome on which was a painting of Christ and His canonized kings.

As we walked, our guide related some of Ludwig’s and the castle’s history. The two are equally intertwined with the composer Richard Wagner, a close friend of the king. It was in a letter to Wagner that Ludwig first wrote his concept for Neuschwanstein.

After seeing the rest of the interior, the tour was over and I found myself back in the courtyard. I gazed over a parapet down to Hohenschwangau Castle, which should be seen in conjunction with Neuschwanstein on the combined admission ticket for €17. It’s a sight in its own right, but is outdone by Neuschwanstein.

Aching to see the castle from another angle, I took the short hike over to the Marienbrucke. And stopped. I don’t have a huge fear of heights, but the thought of walking out onto a bridge built more than a hundred years earlier and paved with wood planks made me hesitate. After all, I could see the castle just fine from the solid hill.

But I had to walk out there. It’s where the best photo of the castle’s side is. So I stepped onto the planks and rolled my eyes as they flexed with my movements and those of the rest of the tourists. I stared down at the waterfall farther below me than I cared to think about, and eventually let my eyes rise to see the castle again.

It was so easy to imagine the castle as the setting for any number of fairy tales. That it was real and I was standing, gazing at it took a while to set in. It simply awed me. To me, it will always be the most beautiful building in the world.

---This was first published here in a slightly different form.

Schnell!

The German Alps rose in front of me, and I eyed the snakelike steel track winding its way down the hill before me. Schloss Neuschwanstein, (you can read my article on it here) was a picturesque accent on the slope behind me. Then I pushed the stick on my black plastic sled forward, releasing the brakes, and practically flew down the mountain.

The sled vibrated beneath me, and I was going so fast that I was riding up on the sides of the curves, but I wasn't about to slow down. My sister was in front of me, and as I steadily closed the gap, I shouted, "Schnell! Schnell!" Knowing I would sooner rear-end her than slow down, she sped up, and we reached the end giddy with excitement.

I'd heard similar metal luge courses were once coupled with the ski resorts in the Sierra Nevadas, 90 minutes from my home, but they were long gone by the time I was old enough to ride them. The Germans and Austrians, thankfully, have held on to the rides. The tracks are heated to melt snow, making them a year-round attraction. They are the perfect way to spend a quick half-hour after seeing one of the nearby monuments.

At slightly less than two dollars per ride, the thrill is well worth it. My first run was marked with timidity, but that wore off quickly. On my subsequent downhill dashes, I pushed the limit. When the inevitable happened and I went too fast for the track, I found myself sprawled sideways, with two of the sled's four wheels off the track and my knee and elbow taking their place. My jacket and pants had gray patches from the metal, and my knee was raw.

I could have spent all day there, but time was limited, so I settled for three rides, followed by a bratwurst and a beer at the adjoining food counter before heading North to Munich. I was delighted, therefore, to find an identical attraction a week later while visiting Salzburg's Lake District. I repeated my experiences from Germany, minus the skin removal, and found that it was one of the rare things in life that can live up to expectations the second time.

World Cup Celebration

In the 30 minutes it took us to check into our hotel and get situated, Munich went from a ghost town to a carnival.

Game One of the 2006 World Cup had just been won by the Germans in Munich, and everyone was out to celebrate.

Two blocks from my quiet hotel near the English Garden the crowds swarmed the thoroughfares, which had all been shut down for the occasion. Soccer jerseys and national flags shone brilliantly under the streetlights. It was like they had come out of the woodwork – everyone was represented.

American sports teams can't win a championship without a riot breaking out, and that was what I expected. But the opposite occurred. I watched Brazilians loosely marching past Germans, French, Costa Ricans, Americans, English and a host of other nationalities. But everyone was more interested in sharing a drink than throwing a punch.

Standing with my back to a small park, I heard a noise behind me and whirled around. A young German man staggered toward me, a German flag painted on his cheek. He held two of the wonderful 1-liter glass beer steins. He made it a few steps past me and looked around, as if he was supposed to meet someone. He apparently gave up, because he simply shouted “Prost!” and banged the steins together. One shattered, so he shrugged, dropped it and took a hit from the one that was still intact before walking on.

I saw the Mexican fans and mingled with them for a bit, happy to use my Spanish. I paraded around with them, watching German cops showing themselves to keep the peace, but not having to do anything. Someone had started one of the European soccer songs and a fan kicked a ball to one of the cops. He gamely juggled it a few times before another fan took it away and dribbled down the center of the six-lane street.

It occurred to me that something was wrong. I was at what I imagined was the biggest party Munich had seen in some time (I could hear the sounds of revelry from blocks away), and I was without beverage. Fortunately, the Germans are ever close to their excellent beer, so I bought a Lagerbier Hell because I thought the name was funny and joined the crowd again.

Out of the corner of my eye, I heard a bunch of shouting and saw people running around in circles. Was this the fight I had been wary of earlier?

No. It was about 30 German students who had spilled out of a bar touting “exotische drinks” and now stood in the middle of one of the tiny alleys – which were the only vehicle routes open at the time. The ringleader raised his beer, and they all knelt down. He shouted what I took to be a soccer cheer in German, then counted ein, zwei, drei. Then his followers jumped up and danced around, chugging their beers.

And they let one car through. Then they repeated the process. I moved closer and saw that they all laughed hysterically, their cheeks glowing from the alcohol. They repeated the revolution several times before a carload of Portuguese were stopped. In the middle of the chant, a huge Portuguese flag appeared out of one of the car’s windows. The Germans laughed as they finally let the car go and shouted, “We’ll see you in the semifinals!”

All good things must come to an end, and as two columns of Polizei in green combat uniforms and black vests marched toward the impromptu roadblock, I stuck around to see if it would end peacefully or in teargas.

Using the logic the human brain unleashes only after considerable alcohol consumption, the ringleader calmly explained why it was absolutely necessary that they continue. Caught up in the festive mood, the police officer allowed them to continue, but kept most of the partiers on the sidewalk and ensured that about 10 cars could bass between songs.

The party started to break up after another hour or so, and I headed back to my room. Soccer fans now sat at outdoor tables, finishing the last of the night’s beers. Someone had thrown confetti all over. Broken glass lay everywhere along with the other evidence of partying.

I saw a couple of guys in lederhosen helping an almost-unconscious comrade into the backseat of a car before I stepped into my hotel and dropped into bed.

And by 10 the next morning, the streets were spotless, with only the most stubborn piece of confetti attesting to the fact that the previous night had been real. That’s German efficiency.

The Tower on the Rhine

I had to climb it. I’d built forts as a kid, so when I saw a real one, I had to explore it. Never mind that I’d done that for much of the past week. The Rhine River is full of towers and castles as it winds through Germany, and I wanted to see as many as I could.

I stared up at the tower, which loomed above a small park, its masonry strong, but showing its age. In the shadow of the centuries-old building, children slid down a slide and played on a swing set. The small town spread out below the hill.

The oaken door was invitingly open, and I stepped through, to the chagrin of my family, who didn’t seem to care as much as I did to climb another tower. Aware of their reluctance, I paid the entrance fee (50 cents per person) and started climbing.

The tower’s many levels were a museum of medieval weaponry and artifacts. Sets of black armor hung along a wall, pikes and halberds standing between them. Swords, daggers and crossbows were displayed in glass cases in the center of the square rooms. I think there were some butter churns and pottery and junk too, but who has time to look at that when there’s a battleaxe in the next case?

My parents and sister were softening up to this attraction not listed in any of our guidebooks, and were actually slowing me down (because they wanted to see the butter churns and pots).

On the top floor, I passed a small alcove where the curator sat, reading a magazine. He came out to talk to us, overjoyed to practice his excellent English. He asked us the usual questions – where we were from, how long we were in Germany, etc. We made some small talk, then he asked us to wait and scurried off.

When he returned, he held an old leather-bound book in his hands. He set it down on an ancient-looking table and opened it.

“I found this a few years ago when I was cleaning,” he said. It was the original guestbook from when the tower was opened in the 1920s.

“You see,” he continued, “they go all the way. There are many Americans in here.” He flipped through page after page, and there were, indeed, many Brits, Americans, Germans, French and Italians, among other nationalities.

“Then we had a problem,” he announced, turning to an entry dated 1940. It was the last entry until 2002, when they started again in earnest. It was as if the intervening years had never happened. There were new entries from Brits, Americans, Germans, French and Italians. I smiled and signed my name and the date of my visit.

The final level of the tower was its roof. I stood between two of the ramparts and took in the view. The cloudless sky was a brilliant blue, contrasting with the stark green banks of the river, which were dotted with buildings and farms, crops growing on the gentle slopes.

It was easy to see how the tower could be used to exert power. Sitting on a spit of land jutting into the river, there was no way a boat could pass without its lord’s permission. Like many of the towers along the river, this one probably served as a customs checkpoint on what was the main economic thoroughfare of the time.

It was lunchtime, so we left the tower, saying goodbye to the friendly curator, and found a restaurant.

I would love to tell people where the tower is. The only problem with that is that I have no idea. All I do know is that it is somewhere on the Rhine between Bacharach and Bingen.