Two good friends from Chicago came for
a visit (finally!) and so we planned a road trip to Prague and, of course, a
little sightseeing around the Alps/Tyrolean Region. On the night of their arrival I prepared Rindsrouladen
for the first time on my own and they were really
great! I learned from an Austrian housewife and a Bavarian housewife, so it’s
no surprise. I served them with homemade Reibekuchen (something like hash
browns) and red cabbage. Naturally, beers were also on the menu. It was really great to have friends from home here with me in Bavaria.
All right, so we did all of the usual
things in Füssen like Kalvarienberg and Lechfall and Linderhof (but no visit to Neuschwanstein castle aka "the Disney castle" oddly enough). Then we drove all the way down to Partnachklamm (Partnach gorge)
which was closed due to "life-threatening" icicles. Whatever. So we four boarded
what I like to describe as a swinging tin can of death which resembled a relic
from some 1960s “vacation of the future” exhibit to view the gorge from above instead. It was certainly not
as good as being in the Partnachklamm—dammit—but it was an adventure.
Then we drove back past Plansee (Lake
Plan), a gorgeous fjord-style lake in Austria, which was frozen, of course.
Thankfully, my good friend Bea came through with spot-on dinner plans the
second and third nights of their visit. We ate well, which was a good thing
considering what would lie ahead in Prague.
We decided to go to Prague via
Salzburg and Linz, Austria. If you read my blog you know I’ve been to Salzburg
multiple times because I really love it. I think the boys did, too. We stayed
in a top-notch hotel in the old town (thanks, fellas!) and had a great time bopping around town,
drinking, eating, and laughing. The street musicians were particularly good. As we settled down for a beer at some café we noticed that we were
out of earshot of any musicians, which was a pity. A few minutes later I
noticed an upright bass and clarinet player spring up under an arch a few yards
away. There was something so funny about the way they appeared, and the way the
clarinet player held his instrument that we dubbed them the “sneaky musicians”
for the rest of the trip. Other themes were the song “Mistadobalina” and all
things stupid but I will leave that alone.
Most of the photos I will be posting
this time are from Prague and Regensburg, Germany (on the way back) since I’ve already photographed Salzburg
quite extensively and we were only in Linz for a short period of time.
To put our trip to Prague in a
nutshell, I would say it played out like a beer tour with food being an excuse
to sit down for another one. But great company, eye-grabbing architecture, and
the unique flavor of the street culture were the real stars. More to come.
The cathedral in Linz, Austria on the
way to Prague
The old town square in Prague
Wooden "cobblestones"
One of our most significant exports
The astronomical clock
A shitty photograph of a very cool, very telling mural (in a figure-8 formation.)
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