Nessie!!!!

Just one of the many vistas through the Cairngorms.
Cairngorms National Park, Scotland

Day 4 in the UK took us up to Inverness and Loch Ness. This was the farthest north we travelled, but I would have loved to go even farther to see some of the northern islands like Skye and Shetland. I think Scotland is the most beautiful country we have visited; our drive went through the Cairngorms National Park, and I made Joe stop the car several times so I could take pictures. It really is a wild landscape with few cities marring the view. The weather reminded me a little of Florida, in that it rained every day, but it was also sunny every day. It wasn’t hot and humid though.

A fresh water plesiosaur obviously lives here.
Loch Ness, Scotland

We arrived on the shores of Loch Ness around lunch time, so we popped into the Clansman Hotel for a quick lunch before our 1 o’clock boat tour with Jacobite Cruises. The food was excellent and we managed to order, to eat, to pay, and to make it down to the docks in under an hour—a rarity in Europe. While we ate though, a storm was gathering.

Our tour was to take us across the Loch to a spit of land where the remains of Urquhart Castle stand. Here we would disembark and explore the Castle and gift shop for an hour before the boat returned for us and sailed back down the Loch.

Top left: could that anomaly be Nessie? 

On our outward voyage, the clouds followed through on their threats and unleashed a storm; the weather was perfect. With rain and wind the surface of the Loch became choppy and shrouded in a thin layer of mist; the exact weather I imagined would plague the Loch on a regular basis. Under these conditions, I easily believed in the monster. Loch Ness is the 2nd deepest lake in Scotland at 755ft and is fed by the River Ness. The river and loch have been stained black by the peat they flow over. The black water limits visibility to about 12 inches, but our vessel came equipped with sonar for detecting any underwater anomalies (Nessie!). In fact, on the way back from Urquhart Castle we observed a curious shape in the sonar screen—perhaps the legends are true.

Remains of Urquhart Castle
Loch Ness, Scotland

As I said before, Urquhart Castle stands in ruins, and in this case, a ruin means almost no roof. Since it was still pouring, we didn’t spend long wandering the castle’s grounds. My parents gave up and went inside, but Joe and I defiantly, albeit quickly, explored all the sections of the castle before joining them in the gift shop. We were soaked, but we got our money’s worth. In the gift shop we sipped hot beverages while waiting for the boat to return. I wish I could say we were warm and dry by the time the boat docked, but damp and chilled is a more accurate description.

A dog in the Loch Ness Brewery
Loch Ness, Scotland

During the ride back down the Loch, the storm cleared up, so by the time we reached our next destination, The Loch Ness Brewery, we were reasonably dry. Breweries are always fun places to visit, especially the smaller ones, as I think microbreweries have more flavor. The Loch Ness Brewery is on the shores of the Loch, and it incorporates this locale into the names of the beers. All the beers end in Ness; HoppyNess, WilderNess, RedNess. The brewpub was small and dog friendly; we met a small, friendly dog inside. The beer was tasty and we were able to mingle with locals—but we still felt like tourists.

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Cairngorms National Park
The Clansman Hotel on the Shores of Loch Ness
Jacobite Cruises Homepage
A History of Nessie from PBS - Back to Roman Times!
Urquhart Castle from Historic Scotland
Loch Ness Brewery

München, again

Weisses Brauhaus
Munich, Germany

We pass through Munich a lot, usually taking the train. Whenever we arrive in the Munich Hauptbahnhof or main train station, we like to take a brief pit stop at the Pizza Panini stand in the station. There is something amazing about eating a slice of delicious pizza on the move after being cooped up in the train. We tried to mix it up this trip, and after lunch at our favorite beer hall, Weissesbrauhaus, we succeeded in visiting new venues.

The first was the Bier und Oktoberfest Museum. Most of the exhibits were in German, but there was enough English around that we weren’t totally lost. The admission was surprising low; I think it was €2.50 a person.

I think he'd make a cute beer maid.
Joseph Satava at the Bier und Oktoberfest Muesum
Munich, Germany

At Oktoberfest, the beer maids have to be able to carry 7 litres of beer per hand. At the museum they have mock liter mugs so you could compare your strength to that of the trained beer maids. Those mugs were heavy; I don’t have what it takes. Joe and Steve on the other hand could, with a little training, try out to be beer maids next year.

Our next stop on the tour was the Munich Residenz. There are 3 portions of the palace you can visit, and we only managed to visit one. This is another palace used by the Bavarian Kings because honestly, who only has one palace?

Munich Residenz
Munich, Germany

The Residenz was heavily bombed during WWII so a lot of the interiors are reconstructions, but there were a few original pieces. Like most royal palaces, the Residenz was decorated in all manners of opulence; I half expected a miniature giraffe to gallop by. There were a few standout rooms that broke up the monotony of audience rooms and bed chambers, but this tour is exhausting. There are over 100 rooms to tour, and I can’t imagine living here. What if I left my book at the opposite end of the palace? It would take me an hour just to get the thing. However, it would be awesome remarkably easy to get some private time and it would make a fabulous setting for an epic game of hide and seek.

Munich Residenz
Munich, Germany

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Munich Residenz Museum

Bavarian Castle Pass

Bier und Oktoberfest Museum

I’m Seeing Hogwarts!

This trail was ridiculous.
Holyrood Park, Edinburgh, Scotland

Our 2^nd day in Scotland was easily my favorite. We started out with a hike in Holyrood Park, the very large nature park adjacent to Holyrood House, the Queen’s residence in Scotland. We rose early and spent some time climbing a ridiculously steep path shortly after sunrise. We walked for about an hour before returning to our hotel for a shower. This park is one of the many reasons I want to return to Edinburgh; the views were great from midway up, but I want to reach the summit.

The view from the midway point.
Holyrood Park, Edinburgh, Scotland

Our next stop was the Elephant House, an unassuming coffee shop with views of Edinburgh Castle. The castle sits high on a rocky crag and has various towers and turrets rising from the rocks. Below the castle is Prince’s Street Gardens, a park on the site of a former lake. The Nor’ Loch was drained when the residents realized the health hazards associated with using the lake as a sewage dump.

I ordered a jasmine tea and a shortbread cookie in the shape of an elephant. Snack in hand; I wandered into the back rooms of Elephant House to see the castle. Looking out the windows at the castle, and imagining a clean lake below it, I saw Hogwarts Castle appear in my mind’s eye. And perhaps I was looking at the inspiration for Hogwarts; before the mania, JK Rowling used to sit in this café and write.

The Elephant House Coffee Shop
Edinburgh, Scotland

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Holyrood Park

Holyrood House

Elephant House

Craigmillar Castle

Craigmillar Castle is a veritable rabbit warren.
Craigmillar Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland

 On Tuesday, Joe returned to Germany, and my sister and I continued onto Edinburgh, Scotland. We took the train from King’s Cross Station and arrived in about 4 hours. Shortly after arriving, we took a bus to the outskirts of the city so we could explore Craigmillar Castle, a ruined castle abandoned since the 1700s. I wouldn’t say uninhabited though—some very brave pigeons have taken up roost, and they do not enjoy being disturbed. When we visited, there was only 1 other couple on site, so it’s possible the birds aren’t disturbed often, thereby increasing their ire when it does happen. Rarely would we enter a room and not be greeted with the sudden, frantic flapping of wings—a sound that has always made me duck and cover my head, lest I get pooped on.

Every castle needs a pleasure garden. Craigmillar Castle's
had a pond in the shape of a P for Preston,
former owners of the castle.
Craigmillar Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland

Abandoned castles tend to have very high ceilings, but in their prime, the rooms were much shorter. They had wooden ceilings that have since been lost to time, thus a single story room now would have been a two storied room then. This accounts for the doorways and windows some 10 feet off the ground. However, in Craigmillar Castle, the windows above the ground seem ordinary, not extraordinary. The castle has been altered so many times; it’s a veritable maze with dead ends, switch backs, and secret stairways.

Playing on the Curtain Wall
Craigmillar Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland

I loved climbing the curtain wall and being in the guard towers. They provided wonderful vantages of Edinburgh and the Firth of Forth leading to the North Sea. It was a mostly peaceful way to spend an afternoon, and I only say mostly because every flurry of wings caused minor heart attacks.

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Craigmillar Castle

Chawton Cottage

Winchester Cathedral
Winchester, England

Our journey back to London from the beach took us by Winchester, and we stopped for a quick visit. This was a very cute town, and it reminded me of home. Chagrin Falls with a cathedral and some ruined castles.

Winchester Cathedral is a typical British cathedral from the outside, and probably inside too, but we weren’t willing to pay £8 each to find out. That’s approximately $12 a person to visit a church, and we felt that was a bit steep, so we admired it from the outside only. Inside is the burial place of Jane Austen, a very itinerant writer; many English places have a Jane claim to fame. Winchester is her final resting place, and it was here she spent the final weeks of her life.

King Arthur's Round Table

Winchester seems to house many remains, including the remains of King Arthur’s legendary round table. While the identity and reality of King Arthur are sometimes questioned, this round table is real and round, though it is no longer a table. The table was carbon dated, and is from the 13th or 14th century, so it is not actually a relic of the mythical king. The legs have been removed, and it is hanging in the Castle Winchester Great Hall overlooking all of Winchester. The Great Hall is all that remains of the Castle Winchester and it was originally used for legal purposes. King Henry VIII had it painted in its current colors. At the other end of the hall is a giant, vining mural of royalty and Hampshire members of Parliament since the 1200s.

Ancient plumbing isn't pretty.
Wolvesey Castle
Winchester, England

Back at the bottom of the hill were the remains of Wolvesey Castle, a Bishop’s castle from the 1100s. The rooms were quite spacious, and the ruined walls stood out against the sky. Bishop Henry of Blois also had indoor plumbing—a marvel in his day, but a bit of a cesspool now.

Wolvesey Castle Ruins
Winchester, England

When we finished imagining what was once a beautiful castle, we returned to Main Street for dinner. My sister and Joe wanted to check out a restaurant we walked by earlier that smelled good. The previous night we had eaten at a pub near Temple Tube Station that had the best onion rings. We were on an onion kick. The two were shocked when the menu didn’t have onion rings. I should explain . . . they had onions on the brain and thought the place was called Onion Jack’s. It was actually called Union Jack’s, like slang term for the British flag. Since they didn’t have any rings, we moved onto the next destination: Chawton.

Winchester was where Jane Austen died, and Chawton was where she lived and where she wrote. While Austen was living in Chawton Cottage, Sense and Sensibility, Pride & Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma were all published. Her former home has been converted into a museum and gift shop, but these were closed when arrived. But for me, it was enough just to see the place where she wrote. I’ve read some of her letters and the village and houses were exactly as she described. I also liked thinking that the town provided her with people to study and helped her create her own characters that continue to inspire and captivate.

Chawton Cottage
Now the Jane Austen House Museum
Chawton, England

The onion twins were also satisfied. Across the street was the village pub The Greyfriar. They each ordered a side of onion rings with their meal. When my turn to order came, I asked about the soup of the day since I was feeling sick. The soup was potato and leek, and being unsure about what exactly leeks were, I asked, “Those are like onions, right?” At the time, I didn’t think much of it, but Joe pointed out that since all 3 of us ordered onion rings, it looked like we wanted onions on everything, and the waitress probably thought we were all crazy. My favorite part of being in the UK though, besides the onions, was all the cider! On tap! In bottles! Flavored! Subtle! LOVED IT!

We were seated right next to the fireplace, and we got to observe the people of Chawton in their local pub. Our waitress owned the place with her husband, and they had a giant dog. This guy was about 3 feet tall and very shaggy; he reminded me of a Muppet. When we finished, we reluctantly returned to the hustle and bustle of London.

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Winchester Cathedral

Castle Winchester Great Hall

Wolvesey Castle

Union Jack’s Pub Menu

History of the Union Jack (The British Flag)

Jane Austen House Museum

Jane Austen House Museum Online Shop - Where You Can Buy a Facsimile of the 1st Edition of Sense and Sensibility

The Greyfriar Pub in the Village of Chawton

Inside the Castle Mount

Prince Carlo's Shield

After a near vertical climb up a final hill, we reached the town of Montecarlo. Montecarlo means Carlo’s mount. The fortress is built into the side of the hill and was commissioned by Prince Carlo IV before he became Holy Roman Emperor. Carlo’s shield is on the fortress, but it lacks a crown because at the time, he was not yet King. At the time, it was common to translate the names of the leaders. Therefore, the man is Prince Carlo in Italian, Karl in German, Karel in Czech, Charles in English, Carlos in Spanish, and Carl in French. Family trees can become confusing easily with all the intermarriages, translations, and successors. We found it interesting that man so famous in Prague had roots in rural Italy. In Prague, Charles lends his name to many monuments, including the Charles Bridge, connecting the two parts of the city. He also spearheaded the construction of Prague Castle and the St. Vitus Cathedral.

                                                       

Montecarlo Fortress

Inside we received a tour of the fortress by the owner himself, a former Nato employee, and now retired Admiral, Walter. How does one come to own a castle fortress? Well around the turn of the 20^th century, Walter’s, wife’s grandfather purchased it with the intent to restore it to its former glory. The renovations are ongoing, and funds from visitors help to purchase authentic, period materials. Walter related to us a story of a particularly interesting renovation. He was chiseling away a concrete wall because it was dilapidated and needed to be rebuilt, when he heard a hollow sound beneath his chisel. He continued to hammer away until he found a space behind the wall. It was an area for housing guns, with a hole in the outer wall for shooting. The hole had a small panel over it, and it was closed. He removed the panel and then found himself in his neighbor’s bedroom! When that gun hole had originally been built, the house next door was only one story, and the guns would be fired over the house.

Courtyard inside the Montecarlo Fortress

The fortress is actually composed of two sections, a more ancient one, and a modern one. The modern section was completed in the 1500s, so I use the word modern here a bit loosely. The fortress and gardens are very beautiful, and it’s easy to believe that people would want to use the area as a wedding venue. We were also able to climb the towers and walk the ramparts of the fortress, affording us an excellent view of the town of Montecarlo and the surrounding Tuscan valleys. Walter was an amiable guide, and the love he feels for his home is evident. In one of the rooms he sells small souvenirs, such as little recipe books and paintings. I bought the only 3 books in English, and am now the proud owner of The Use of Garlic in Tuscan Cookery, A Taste of Tuscany, and Cooking with Olive Oil. These books are small, about 4 by 6 inches, and contain not only recipes, but also information about the area and the ingredients. At €4.50 each, they were a steal, and now I can cook authentic meals at home.

Montecarlo Wine

After our tour of the fortress ended, we walked to a nearby farm for lunch. This farm really specialized in a single crop, grapes. Yes, Fattoria Torre was a vineyard, and we participated in a wine tasting during our meal. We were supposed to tour the farm before lunch, but we arrived well after 2 o’clock, and as we were behind schedule, we had to skip the tour of the vineyards, and dive right into the delicious food. The meal was multi-coursed, starting with hors d’oeurves of olives, breads, and sliced meat and cheeses. We were served 3 pours of wine, and then received our pasta entrée. Following this, we received a round of dessert wine. This wine was very strong, like any after dinner drink. They served it with anise biscotti, and indicated that we should dip it in the wine. I preferred to sip it instead, as I felt that the biscotti weren’t imbibed with as much flavor. The meal and drinks were very satisfying, and when we finished our meal, we were able to buy the wines we had experienced.

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Montecarlo Fortress
Fattoria Torre
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Prague Castle

The Rest of the Castle Complex

St. Wenceslas Chapel

Stag Garden

The rest of the highlights of the Prague castle complex include St. Vitus cathedral and the Stag Gardens. St. Vitus cathedral is the resting place of many Princes and Saints of Bohemia. King Václav or Wenceslas has a chapel in his honor over his final resting place. He is the King from the Christmas hymn. The Stag Moat Gardens are in the old moat of the castle, and were named for the herds bred there. Now the area is a public garden with many walking paths.

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Ghost Palace

Vladislav Hall

The tour wound us through the humongous Old Royal Palace, but we must have seen 60 locked doors or roped off staircases prohibiting access. It would have been nice to see the castle in its entirety instead of the 4 sparsely staged rooms that were part of the tour. The rooms that were open were quite large and airy, but were not furnished very well. I can forgive this because of the many signs along the tour informing visitors that much of the castle was damaged or destroyed during a fire. Perhaps they have only opened the rooms that have been restored since that fire, but as it was several hundred years ago, I can’t imagine it could have withstood time so well without some other repairs since then. We visited the Vladislav Hall, a grand ballroom type area, where many ceremonies of state occurred, including knights’ tournaments. These were made possible due to the riding stairs; shallow steps up to Vladislav Hall, allowing people to enter on horseback. My favorite room was the Regional Land Registry Office where scrolls of the state were kept, though they burned during the fire of 1541. However, the ceilings and wall in this room retain the emblems and shields of the clerks who worked there.

Regional Land Registry Office

Locked Door. You Just KNOW there is a Library Back There.

Defenestration Room

We also visited the most famous room of the castle, along with 30 Germans. The tiny, cramped, hot, crowded room was the scene of the Defenestration of Prague, a barbaric act preceding the Thirty Years War. We cowered in the corner until the tour left, but they didn’t take their heat with them. In this tiny room, Protestant Lords threw Catholic agents of the crown out the window. Even more amazing, they survived the 70 foot fall. There have actually been 3 instances of defenestration in Prague, but the instance described above is the most famous. Apparently the Czech/Bohemian people really enjoy throwing their enemies out windows.

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#1 of Prague's Top Ten

287 Steps Later, We were Rewarded with the View

Saturday was Prague Castle day. I’m caliing it a ghost castle because the parts that we toured were no longer used by the state. Please let me elaborate. While it is still the seat of government, the modern rooms are not open for public viewing, so we confined ourselves to the older buildings. Prague Castle reminds me of a college campus a little bit. There are tons of buildings all falling under the Prague Castle moniker, representing a range of architectural styles across the centuries. This area is in all the guidebooks about Prague, and as a result, all the tourists come to visit. This makes it somewhat difficult to navigate the area, avoiding strollers, canes, and photographers. Add to this mayhem guided tours in every language imaginable, with tour guides yelling to be heard, and the tourists marching along behind them, most unwilling to let you walk past them in any direction. Madness I tell you! This really ruined the ambiance of many of the sights. It’s very hard to contemplate 14^th century life, when some woman is yelling in Spanish through a megaphone. 

Look! It's Prague

The castle was interesting, but I think it was a bit overrated. We ended up spending the entire day touring the buildings and grounds of the complex, but still didn’t manage to see all of it. We were bogged down in some of the buildings, and spent time in others, where the payoff wasn’t that great. The Castle offers 2 ticket options, the short tour, and the long tour. Ignore the names and the times expected to complete each tour, because it will take several hours to explore everything. We bought the long tour, and I think it is the better deal the difference in price between the 2 tickets is 100 crowns, and I highly recommend the Story of Prague Castle exhibition if only for the artifacts they keep there, including an actual grave. Unfortunately, this ticket does not include 2 things that seem awesome, the South Tower of St. Vitus cathedral, and the Treasure of St. Vitus Cathedral. We climbed the 287 spiral steps to the top, rewarded with a view of the entire city. We were not able to make it to the treasury of St. Vitus, but that would be something I’d love to see on another visit. We also weren't able to tour all of the gardens surrounding the castle–there were just too many to see. 

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Nurnberger

Interior of St. Lorenz Church

Joe says Nurnberger a lot now, similar to the character in 30 Rock who repeatedly says his own last name, Hornberger. This show is funny and weird, if you haven’t seen it, get on it, because it routinely cracks me up. Alright moving on . . . . to Nurnberg, Germany. This is yet another city that English speakers decided to translate, you may know it as Nuremburg, and while this confusing, I checked, and they are in fact the same city.

(Joe’s) Work brought us to the city at 10am. To make it there at this time we had to wake up at 5:30am, leaving ample time to accomplish various preparatory steps before we left. When we arrived we were quite tired, a little hungry (since we breakfasted at 6), and VERY cold because it was -7 degrees Celsius outside. Our attitudes coupled with the fact that we had visited the city in December during the Christkindlmarkt made us reluctant to tour around the city. We agreed to have lunch and then go back to Regensburg.

Destruction from WWII Bombing at St. Sebaldus

En route to lunch we popped into the first of 3 churches we would visit that day, St. Lorenz. This was necessary as it was not even 11:30 yet, and most places were not yet open for lunch. Inside the church, we discovered that giant cathedrals built hundreds of years ago tend not to have heat. So being inside the building shaves maybe 2 degrees off the temperature, making it a balmy -5 degrees Celsius. After lunch, we visited 2 more churches, Frauenkirche Nurnberg and St. Sebaldus.

St. Sebaldus inside St. Sebaldus Church

Each of these churches has managed to rebuild their glory following the destruction of World War II. Nurnberg was a hotbed of Nazi activity and it is estimated that some 6,000 were killed during the air raids, which leveled parts of the city. St. Sebaldus has a series of photograph posters, detailing the how the church rose from the ashes. Also inside St. Sebaldus church is St. Sebaldus, inside a richly detailed reliquary. I love reliquaries and pilgrimage churches, and there are 2 high on my list; Canterbury and Santiago de Compostela. More fun facts, Johann Pachelbel, as in Pachelbel’s Canon, as in I walked down the aisle to that song, was an organist in St. Sebaldus for over a decade.

Frauenkirche Nurnberg

Frauenkirche Nurnberg had a contentious history long before parts of it were destroyed by the Allies. It was built on the site of a Jewish synagogue following a pogrom in 1349. This parallels further treatment of Jews, during the Nazi regime, as Nurnberg was where all their rights as German citizens were revoked in 1935. To make amends for this treatment, the first of many war trials were held in Nurnberg (The Nuremberg Trials). I digress, back to Fraunkirche  . . . . It was designed to be the holding place of the Holy Roman Emperor’s crown and scepter, and was designed to appear as a giant case. Inside, it is small, further evidence indicating it wasn’t designed to be a large parish church, but a place for housing the symbols of the Holy Roman Emperor’s power.

Moving away from churches, Nurnberg has other tourist attractions. The city is famous for their Nurnberger Rostbrautwurst, which can only be produced in the city of Nurnberg (to earn the name). Joe ordered his to go in a bun, like a sandwich.

Nurnberg Castle

Nurnberg is a medieval city, still surrounded by the old fortifications. The wall is open to the public, with many places to walk along or through it. On top of a hill stands the old medieval castle, still protected by the walls. It is very quaint looking, and has a pleasant panoramic view of the city. The castle is now a museum and for a moderate price you can spend a couple hours following a guide around the castle tour.

And finally, Nurnberg is the home of Albrecht Durer. Unless your name is Megan Fox, you may be wondering who this guy is, and the answer is complicated. I knew of him from his prints, made by applying ink to wood or metal carvings and making copies. However, if you judge him only on these works, you will be missing huge facets of his other works. He painted and made altar pieces, and made star charts, and wrote treatises on mathematics and anatomy. Truly, a renaissance man, though I guess that is only funny if you know he is from the renaissance. Regardless, check it out for yourself, here is a link to a complete collection of his work http://www.albrecht-durer.org/