Killarney and the Ring of Kerry

Ireland is beautiful.  I think Paul and I both have questioned whether book-ending our trip with Ireland was wise.  It was the cheapest round-trip flight but we ended up flying between Ireland and mainland Europe both times.  However, it has been the perfect way to end this trip, and we are both very glad we included it.

We flew from Amsterdam to Dublin, stayed the night in a hostel, and headed out to Killarney via train to visit the Killarney National Park and tour the Ring of Kerry.  It's obvious that Ireland is really best done by car, since so many sites are inaccessible or inconvenient by public transportation.  However, we wanted to use our rail pass and didn't want to drive.

Our first night, we wandered around Killarney National Park and saw some amazing views:

The second day, we took the Ring of Kerry bus tour.  Not my favorite way to see an area, but our only option without a car.  The first stop was a bog village for an extra fee, so we opted not to participate.  It didn't look very interesting.  Then, we stopped to take some pictures here:

We also stopped at a sheep-herding demonstration.  We both weren't super-excited about it, but it ended up being really neat.  There were three dogs who all knew the same commands but had different signals for them.  There was a full set of whistles and a full-set of spoken commands for each dog.  These included left, right, forward, back, and stop, I think.  A dog's hearing is incredible!  The shepherd spoke pretty quietly, and the dogs could hear him way up the hill.  Here's a movie of the dogs in action [visit the blog website to see the movie]:

More views:

Ireland makes up for its (usually) drab weather with colorful buildings.

Unfortunately, scenery photos with mountains in the distance just don't turn out well, so most of our other photos of the Ring of Kerry aren't super-exciting.

After the tour, we rented bikes and toured more of Killarney National Park.  We saw some deer:

And took more pretty photos:

Ross Castle

"Füssen" Means Feet in German

Liz again, back guest blogging!  We had such a wonderful time in Füssen, I couldn't cover it all in just one post.  The adventures continue.

Our one full day in Füssen was dedicated to a nice, long hike through the surrounding woods and mountains.  Füssen lies along a river called the Lech, which has an interesting milky blue color.  I don't know where the color comes from, but if I ever find out, I'll leave a comment to this post with the explanation.

Our first sight of the day was Lechfalls, where a bust of King Maximilian is carved into the rock wall bordering the river.  This is definitely how I want to be memorialized someday, except it would be better if my statute showed me driving a team of four lions (like on the Siegestor in Munich).

From Lechfalls we walked through some beautiful woods and along a few small lakes (Obersee and Mittelsee), before reaching a lovely lake right below the mountains called Alatsee.

After lunch along the Alatsee shore, I contemplated a swim, but the water was so cold that I didn't quite commit.

 We made our way partly around the lake, and then left it behind to climb a steep trail to a place called Salober Alm.  According to a brief Internet search, "alm" means a mountain/Alpine pasture.  I found it interesting to discover that Germany apparently isn't keen on switchbacks...for much of the way, the trail went pretty much straight up.

This part of the hike wasn't very long, and close to the top we found ourselves at a beautiful outlook with views back towards Füssen and Neuschwanstein.

And, best of all...there was beer!  All the way up there, by its lonesome self, stood the Salober Alm Berghutte ("mountain hut").  We had no idea it would be there, and were pleasantly surprised.  Naturally, we rehydrated ourselves, while enjoying the lovely mountain view, complete with even more cowbell.

Salober Alm was actually in Austria, just across the border.  For security, they had a sign:  "Attention, border!"

And there was a teeter totter!  I had to promise to behave myself, but Kate eventually agreed to play on it with me.

Back down at Alatsee, we found a beautiful spot for swimming and wading.

After that we made our way back to Füssen fairly quickly, as we were pursued by a bloodthirsty swarm of mosquitoes.  More beautiful forest.

And that was our hike!  Definitely a highlight of the trip for me, and I would love to go back some day to explore the area trails further.

Fun and Fancy Free in Fussen

[Note from Kate: As will soon be obvious, this is a guest post from Liz.  Also, I should fess up that I titled this post, so you can't blame Liz for it]

Greetings, friendly readers of No Cleaping Over!  Liz here, guest-blogging for Kate and Paul about our adventures in Füssen, a small town just below the mountains that border Germany and Austria.

We arrived in Füssen in the early afternoon, on a train from Munich packed with eager day-trippers and other tourists (boo).  Füssen is a popular destination for visitors of Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau castles.  "Mad" King Ludwig II of Bavaria grew up in Hohenschwangau, "High Swan Castle," which was a royal summer residence and still owned by the family.  King Ludwig II was fascinated by the romantic and idealized legends of German knights.  When he grew up, he decided to build a castle that epitomized his boyhood dreams.  Hence Neuschwanstein, the "New Swan Stone," which is pretty much in the backyard of Hohennschwangau.

King Ludwig II died fairly young, before Neuschwanstein was finished and when only some of the rooms were completed.  Immediately after his death, the castle was sold to Bavaria to cover the king's debts.  It seems fitting to me that a castle designed to represent idealism was never actually used, and could have also been called The Money Pitt.

The area immediately around the King's Castles is quite touristy and feels a little like Disneyland.  The scenery, though, was stunning.

Fields and villages! 

Mountains and trees and a lake!

Friendly faces!

We had reservations to tour both castles, starting with Hohenschwangau.

Sadly, no photos allowed inside.  We saw a number of rich furnishings and artworks, many of which our tour guide described with a surprisingly biting manner.  ("This chest is made out of lapis lazuli and enamel.  But that wasn't fancy enough for the family, so they had it embossed in GOLD.")  Everything was beautiful, but the tour was only 30 minutes long, and we were left wanting more actual information about the castle.  The rooms were also surprisingly dark and small (to me, at least).  With almost all the walls covered with murals, it felt more oppressive than comfortable.  The views from the windows, though, were gorgeous.  And...I claimed Hohenschwangau!  Even with 4 squares, this places me absolutely nowhere near the lead in Kate and Paul's game of Carcassone

On to Neuschwanstein.  Recognize it?

Again, no photos allowed inside.  But the finished interior rooms were pretty similar to Hohenschwangau, except even fancier.  King Ludwig II was quite friendly with the composer Richard Wagner, and many of the wall paintings were inspired by his operas.  Imagine if some eccentric rich person today (Mark Zuckerberg?) decided to build their own mansion based on the movies of James Cameron, calling it "New Avatar," and you pretty much get the idea behind Neuschwanstein.  There was one particularly memorable room that was essentially an indoor cave.  I wish we had a picture of that to share.

Leaving Neuschwanstein, we proceeded to Marienbrucke, a bridge spanning a waterfall on the Pollat River.

Kate was very brave to stand on it.  The bridge was built during King Ludwig's time, was swarming with tourists, and didn't look particularly sturdy.  I think it really made Paul question European safety and construction standards.

Next came my favorite part of the day:  walking back to Hohenschwangau through the Pollat Gorge, with the river tumbling headlong over and around rocks.

Someone had built a "waterslide," but we didn't try it.

We all had a friend of ours in our thoughts:

[Note from Kate - the picture doesn't really do it justice, but that is a seriously big slug - a good 4 inches in length.  I'm not great at bug identification, but my best guess is that it's a Spanish slug.]

And finally, we shouldn't leave the King's Castles without a few photos of the paragliders we saw soaring over the Castle, which definitely gave me a reason to come back someday.

Next post:  hiking!!!

Three Trains, a Bus, and a Boat

That's what it took us to get to Hallstatt.  Normally, it would be two trains and a boat, but flooding has caused some problems in the area.  The train tracks from Stainach Irdning to Hallstatt aren't doing so well, so the train stops, you board a bus, travel past Hallstatt, and then get on a train to go back to Hallstatt.  Then, you take a boat (the Stefanie) across the water to Hallstatt itself.

Additionally, a river that runs through town decided to change directions the week before our arrival.  Switzerland responded by sending in the army to help sort things out.  The river was back to its usual course by the time we got there, but crews were still working on cleanup and repair.  Also, we discovered that a bridge had washed downriver into the lake:

Sorry, taken from a bus. That bridge belongs quite a ways upstream and not in the lake

So, what did we do in rainy, cold (50 degrees or so) Hallstatt?  A fair amount of hiding in our hotel, which was quite nice:

We took the short Rick Steves walking tour around town and were impressed by the trees growing along the buildings:

We visited the ice caves and saw... ice!

Along with about 30 eight-year-old Austrian schoolchildren.  Awesome.  The English speakers got to stay at the head of the group so the tour guide could tell us about the place before everyone else caught up.  Then she repeated the spiel in German.

We also toured the charnel house in Hallstatt, and by that, I mean we walked in and stared at all the skulls in this tiny room:

I felt kind of bad taking a picture (although the above is actually one that Paul took).  These are real skulls.  In Hallstatt, due to limited space, bodies stay in graves for only about 10-15 years, and then they are removed.  Previously, it was a practice to bleach the skulls in the sunlight for quite some time and then paint them with the person's name as well as with flowers, laurel leaves, or similar.  This practice has pretty much stopped, although I think people can still request it if they want.  The last person to do so was in about 1995.

We also went on a nice long walk on the day it didn't rain very much.  Austria really takes its walking paths seriously:

We enjoyed some lovely views:

That's Hallstatt nestled at the base of that hill.

Wenger in Wengen!

There are only two things you need to know about Wengen.

1. I tried to pretend my name was everywhere (the sign actually says "Wengernalp"):

The sign says Wengernalp AND Wengen.  :)

and 2:

That folks, is more cowbell.

Okay, fine, a third thing = even more beautiful mountain views!  (This one isn't actually in Wengen, but is a not-terribly-long train ride away):