Germany

We left Switzerland and headed for Nurnberg. I had no idea what we were going there for, but Greg said it was home to some important WWII sights. I soon learned that Nurnberg was the city where the Nazis held their war rallies. We saw huge stadiums and parks, all of which was built and devoted to causing hype and excitement over Hitler and his power. I learned a ton of WWII history, and even enjoyed myself in the process!

From Nurnberg we went to Eisenach. Why would we go there? Well we wanted to visit the Wartburg Castle - the place where Martin Luther hid when he was excommunicated from the Catholic church. Not only did we see that, we also saw Luther's house AND the place of Johann Sebastian Bach's birth. Bach's birth house is a huge museum - tons of info from his life and music. They even had a section explaining polyphony, urtext scores, and more.

We made a quick stop in Dresden, especially to see the Frauenkirche. This was once a very old, Lutheran church until it got bombed during WWII. It sat in ruins for years until 1992 when the two decided to rebuild it. They used as many of the old stones in the building of the new church, each of which is visible on the exterior of the church. Next on the list of German cities was Leipzig. Yet another city of music. I went to Bach's house and to Mendelssohn's house. A highlight was visiting St. Thomas Church: Luther preached there, it turned Lutheran after that, then Bach came along and worked there for 27 years. It is quite a place of history and I enjoyed every moment.

We made another quick stop in Wittenberge, being the good Lutheran's that we are. The Luther museum was excellent - we enjoyed seeing Cranich paintings and woodcuts, and some of the original versions of Luther's German bible. We also saw the place where Luther burned his bull of excommunication. And, of course, we saw the castle church where Luther nailed his 95 thesis.

Now we are in Berlin. We have been here four days and have only scratched the surface of what can be seen here. War is a much more present, real topic in this city. You can easily see places where the destruction of war happened. The Berlin wall, although no longer physically here, continues to have a presence that effects the majority of the city. We've visited churches, synagogues, wall sights, museums, and monuments, all of which have been very good. I really enjoyed seeing the East Side Gallery: a section of the Berlin wall now under monument status because of the art that was painted on it shortly after the fall of the wall.

That is the quick German update. We eat allot of wurst, normally drink more than 2 liters of beer a day, and ride the Metro everywhere we go because the city is so big. Off to Hamburg tomorrow and then back to the Netherlands!

Swizterland!!!!!!!!

Hello everyone! and a special hey hey to our buddy Claudio from Winterthur, Switzerland!!

We arrived here on Monday and have been having a wild time. We are staying with a friend that we met in Calgary a year ago. He was coming through and couch surfing on another friends' couch when we met him. Now here we are visiting him!! Here he is BBQing us some food:
Between hanging out with Claudio and his great friends (and always drinking a few too many beer and getting rowdy) we have been able to take in some Swiss sights. This is the Rhine River Falls:
On a day trip to Zurich, we ran across Zwingli's church!! Zwingli was a reformer during Martin Luther's time. He was responsible for the reformation in Switzerland. This is the church that it all happened in:
Some Swiss Chalet's anyone?
A typical street in the old part of the city of Bern. We spent an afternoon here in the rain.

So between sight seeing and drinking beer, Claudio has been very hospitable and let us shower and eat and do laundry and catch up on email. He's also shown us how to party... We spent an impromptu night in St. Gallen when we had a good time with some friends and the city's fountains.

Tomorrow we are off to Germany to take in the many, many sights there. Thanks for reading everyone, and thanks for everything Claudio!!

More pics...

The Fisherman's Bastion in Budapest, Hungary:

There were so many spiders on the Chain Bridge in Budapest:
This is the Turkish Bath we went to; this is one of about 20 different pools:
The Central Cemetary in Vienna; from left to right, Beethoven, Mozart (kinda), Schubert:
The famous ferris wheel in Vienna:

Picture Catch-Up

Remember to check our previous posts for more info on the following pictures...

This is one of 21 hill-top monasteries at Metora, Greece:

Yes, it is pink - a fountain in Bucerest, Romania:
Budapest, the Chain Bridge with the St. Something cathedral in the background:
Franz Liszt's house; this is his piano:
Budapest; the Royal Residence at night:

Vienna (Wien) Musicians

Here we are in the music homeland!! I've had a hayday looking at music stuff!!! So far, I've been to two of Beethoven's houses (not counting the one I went to in Bonn, Germany), Mozart's house and the Musikhaus. Coming up is Haydn's place, a little Brahms and perhaps Strauss if time permits. I'm also headed to the Central cemetary to make sure all these composers are dead.

Mozart shit is EVERYWHERE here. It is very touristy here - Mozart's face is all over everything: restaurants, hotels, stores, maps, etc etc. People dressed in the classical style litter the streets trying to sell whatever they're selling.

Soon we'll be off to Salzburg to see some more Mozart shit and then that is enough for me. I like his music better than I like where he lived it turns out.

Cheers.

Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary

Ahhh yes...

So we took a 20 hour train ride from Thesseloniki, Greece all the way through Bulgaria and arrived in Buceresti, Romania. We were greasy and tired so we crashed at the first hotel we could find and grabbed some food from the train station.

Buceresti was different than the other places we've been. It is by far the least touristed city we've been to. People there happily sit in the streets along with their own garbage. It was common to see piles of garbage and places where the sidewalk no longer exists. People sit on boxes, chairs, old couches, etc right in the street. We checked out the Village Museum which is like Heritage Park in Calgary, or Fort Edmonton only for Romania. We also saw some wild fountains, and the Romanian Parilment building (the second largest building in the world).

From Buceresti, we headed to Brasov, Romania. Here, we payed an old, ugly lady for two beds in her house. We like it quite a bit - she was nice after all. This was our home base for checking out some Transylvanian countryside and also Dracula's castle (actually, NOT dracula's castle, but the castle that was made famous by the story of Dracula). The real Dracula, named Vlad the Impaler, had a castle a little further out which is now ruined.

Onward to Budapest, Hungary!!! We loved this place! Here is what we saw:
- the Chain Bridge
- The Royal Residence
- Parliment building
- Buda Laberynth
- Buda Castle
- Buda Walls
- many, many churches - can't remember their names right now
- Fisherman's Batalian
- I saw the homes of Franz Liszt and Zoltan Kodaly while Greg saw the House of Terror (WWII)
- the main market
- we spent an afternoon at a Turkish Bath (sooooo cool)
- Heros' Square
- and many other things...

We like Budapest so much that we stayed an extra, unplanned day to fit everything in!!

Athens Pictures

This is it - the Parthanon! Under restoration like most of the famous European sights however.......

This is the best preserved ancient temple in the world:

This is the temple of Olympian Zeus. It was one of the largest ever built:

The changing of the guard at the Greek Parliment:

This is Lykavitos (I kinda made that name up) Hill. We went up this sucker:

Capri and Pompeii Pictures

Here are some more pics. For more info, check our previous blog posts.

This is Pompeii - check out the volcano in the background, it is the one that covered the city:

This is one of the molds of a guy caught in the erruption of the volcano:

Greg jumping off the boat into the water at the island of Capri:

The island of Capri:

The grotto - that is light from outside the cave coming through the water:

Rome Pictures

Here are some pictures to catch you up with our previous posts...

The famous Colosseum (I really want to watch Gladiator again):

Some Roman ruins, some churchs, etc.:

The Michalangelo Room in the Vatican Museums; this painting has all the Bible big shots in it if you look closely:

The Sistine Chapel. Hopefully the security gaurds don't look at my blog otherwise I'm sure they'll leave a comment reminding me, "NO PHOTOS ALLOWED":

The pillars in the courtyard of St. Peter's Basillica at Vatican City: