The Danube Valley

One of the earliest routes we had planned before we left London was the highly scenic stretch of the Austrian Danube between the towns of Melk and Krems. Eric had journeyed through here with the family back in '87 and could remember 'lots and lots of castles', but add to that the mighty Danube river, cycle paths and vineyards galore and you have quite an attractive mix really. Plus after years of belting out Strauss's 'Blue Danube Waltz' in the school orchestra, I was dead keen to see if the Danube was really blue...

A boat load of John Deere tractors cruising on the Blue Danube

Room with a view, Grein

Our first stop was a place known as Stift Melk, and despite its name it's a quite a serious place really. It's one massive behemouth of a Benedictine abbey, originating from the 11th century, rebuilt in flamboyant Baroque style following a fire in the 18th century (as the saying goes, if it's Baroque, don't fix it).

Stift Melk

The library. Wow! check out the ceiling!!

As impressive as it really is, a visit through its museum, coupled with the heat, did get quite heavy going at times, with the highly overwhelming religiousness of it all - relics of somebody famous' fingernails and all. The grotesqueness of a skeletonal saint enclosed in a glass case in a side chapel of the cathedral really finished me off and I was keen to move right along down the river before the 'melk' curdled for me any further.

Yes, that really is a skeleton in a glass case

Enlightenment

Krems is a very pretty town half an hours' drive down stream. It is also situated in the heart of the Wachau wine growing region, and was full swing in the middle of its spring wine festival. Every town in the region appears to have a "kellergesser", a street where all the wine growers live, and whose gardens form the actual vineyards as such. In good Wachau tradition, each neighbour takes it in turn to throw open the gates to their backyards and create a mini wine garden, offering the fruits of their labour, coupled with some seriously good home cooked food (if only at 1b Fisherton St!). It was quite an experience to be sitting in someone's backgarden of a late Saturday afternoon and sampling their wares at 80 cents a pop!

A neighbourhood tasting

Hey-diddly-ho neighbour!

As friendly as the locals were, it didn't take long for someone to offer to come and photograph us. In this case it was a very interesting older Austrian gent, whose excitement at finding out our origin led to a story about his former pupil's decision to immigrate to NZ a few decades ago (quite radical I gather from the conversation). Turns out this chap henceforth met and married a Kiwi, and their daughter happens to be none other than Claudia Reigler, our current NZ Olympic representative skier! (gotta love Austrians!).

View from the kellergesser

We had great weather during our time here in this particular bend in the Danube, so that offered us the perfect opportunity to hit the cyclepaths. We headed back up stream past a couple of likewise pretty villages - Durnstein and Spitz, passed ruined castles, wild flowers, the flowing river and more vineyards. Thirsty work indeed!

Cycling past Gruner Vetliners

So privileged to be travelling here alongside yet another mighty and famous European river, and quite exciting to know that we will be hooking up with her again soon - as she journeys through the big smoke of Budapest, and on to create the border between Romania and Bulgaria on her way to the Black Sea...we'll report back on her soon!

Dusk falling on the Danube

Cesky Krumlov

We had been wanting to visit Cesky Krumlov for several years now, with so many of our friends raving about it. Lonely Planet calls it a "pocket sized Prague", and given that the capital wasn't on our itinerary this time around we were even more keen to get to Cesky.

Most importantly though were the bears. Our mate Tane had been going on for years about there being bears in the castle moat in Cesky Krumlov, but for most of this time I hadn't believed him. I mean, how could there be bears in a castle moat? In this day and age?? (Perhaps he was meaning 'beers'?!). We just had to go and see for ourselves...

The very pretty town of Cesky Krumlov

The town of Cesky Krumlov sits in a bend of, in fact almost encircled by, the Vltava river, watched over by the impregnable fortress-castle. It is indeed a very quaint, and very picturesque village full of very well restored Renaissance and Baroque buildings, narrow cobblestone lanes and an elegant town square. It seems to have managed to escape much of the wrath of two world wars.

View of the castle

Pretty, pretty, pretty!

We had a good amble around the old town, through the castle grounds and to the local brewery, but once again we were quite keen to limit our exposure to the crowds of tourists descending upon us - although it was pleasing to see as many local tourists and school groups as American summer schoolers and large Texan families.

View from the Round Tower

The artisticly "interesting" example of 'Tromp l'Oeil' architecture - there's no blocks, it's just painted on!

The other priority for Eric was of course the Pilsner. It was a bit of a shame that we didn't manage to make it to Plzen, the actual spiritual home of the frothy amber liquid, and Eric's favourite beer in the entire world, Pilsner Urquell (well next to Grolsch at least). But we were able to taste a fresh brew at the local Eggenberg brewery followed by a trip to the supermarket to obtain a bottle of Urquell with our very last Czech Koruna, which made a good compromise.

Oh, and about those bears? Yes! There were indeed bears in the castle moat!!!

And here's some proof...

If you look really hard...

Blimey it's a real bear!

And yet another!

Isn't he cute?

Munich

Munich has long been on our list of places to go but one too many horror stories of the infamous Munich Octoberfest beer festival has put us off til now. Here you can be sure that any local can quickly spot an Antipodean accent, as this is where over the past few years plenty of Kiwis and Aussies have continued to work on lowering the tone to new depths.

Despite these stories Germans we have met on our travels have always recommended Munich highly, and wow were we pleasantly surprised by what we found!

We stayed at a fantastic campground on the side of the Munich river 6kms up stream of the city. A cycle path follows all the way along the river into town making for a nice cycle in each morning. The river has been landscaped in such an impressive way too, with forest and parkland on either side. All the way along this stretch canals have been created to control the flow and divert it however they choose. One section was covered in beaches; another made to look like a fast following mountain river with rapids and rock pools, and the regular sight of beer gardens adds a nice touch too.

One of Munich's may city riverside beaches

The weather picked up nicely when we arrived and the whole of Munich seemed to be out enjoying the river. In true sign of holiday brain we thought it was Thursday and marvelled at how the 35 hour working week was being used to great effect. A day later we actually found out that it was Saturday! Oops.

A very entertaining English guide led us on a walking tour of the city pointing out all of its quirks and history, the English Garden being an interesting highlight where nude sunbathing is the norm and only just a stone's throw from downtown. To be honest, to us it seemed any bit of park or riverside was fair game for stripping sunbathers! Before anyone gets too excited, be warned that 90% of these are elderly men and have been in the sun for far too long already!

Also on the tour we encountered another use that the citizens of Munich have found for the river; no coast in sight so why were there so many people wandering about with surfboards? Answer was the standing wave, where keen locals attempt to ride on man made rapids! Brilliant! check out the pictures...

Looking down the rivers rapid

Surfing on the standing wave

Hum... not that anyone took any notice!

After the tour we went in search of the beer gardens Munich is so famous for. It seems quite the done thing in this town, and we were impressed to see people from all different walks of life enjoying a beer in the afternoon sun. There were even a couple of wedding parties (sophisticated ones too) being hosted in a beer garden! The one thing we couldn't quite get our heads around though was the size of the beers everyone - including a few grandmothers - were drinking, an entire litre at a time!! Impressive to say the least.

Was that the first or third litre?

But the one highlight for the both of us had to be the Deutches Museum. Now normally a science and technology museum wouldn't be a top draw for Sharon, but it has to be known that this one was so thoroughly enticing that we both lost an entire day in its 6 floors of exhibits, everything from a complete reconstruction of mining through the ages, to how metals are created, tooling workshops from last century through to now, welding, musical instruments (including some very scary bagpipes with the animals still attached), printing presses, food technology, the development of flight (although we were disappointed not to see any mention of Richard Pearse or Jean Batten) complete with real Messerschmitts, several floors on astronomy and space exploration, mapping and geodesy, textile production, the development of computers and programming, electronics, telecommunications, marine navigation, bridge construction, pharmacology...and the list goes on! We were so utterly exhausted by the time we were escorted out at 5pm, but had only managed to see about half of it. You could really spend an entire day just trying to absorb one subject matter. And of course, what made it really interesting for us was to see the development of some of these areas from a German perspective and not neccesarily a British one for a change.

1800's engeneering work shop, all in working order too!

One of the first 'minature' steam tirbine engines

Amazing aviation section over 4 stories high

We really enjoyed Munich, a really great, compact city, and the Deutches Museum was an absolute thrill for us - definitely one of the top highlights from the entire trip so far! We definitely hope to come back sometime...

The Rhône Valley

Our original plan, before embarking on a rather long detour down to Valencia, was to travel up the Rhine and down the Rhône. But Team New Zealand qualifying for the semi finals of the America's Cup's Challenger series put well pay to that. Instead, it offered us the opportunity to follow the Rhône up from the Mediterranean towards its source in the Alps, on our way back on track to central Europe.

Chateauneuf-du-Pape was our first stop. After this we made a beeline for another, more natural beauty - the Pont d'Arc - the world's largest natural stone arch. Funnily enough, we hadn't even heard of this, until back in Dongen at the start of the trip Christien showed us some postcards of when she and Opa had holidayed there with Eric's mum. It looked amazing then and was even more impressive in real life!

great view of the pont

The weather wasn't quite on our side so swimming beneath it didn't quite have the same appeal as we thought it would, so we skipped that in favour of a drive down the twisting and turning Gorge d'Ardeche which begins at the Pont and led us nicely back into the Rhône valley.

end of the gorge d'Ardeche looking out to the Rhone valley

It was comforting to be back on a river and with the age of towns along it mostly being medieval, it's a great reminder of how important these routes were in those times. Plenty of old castles, ruined or otherwise, lined the hillsides, testifying to how much these waterways were once fought over and depended upon to extract as many tolls from passing traffic as possible.

Veiw across the Rhone from a castle top

Further up the valley the Rhône began to narrow quite suddenly with the hillsides rising up dramatically. This signified the begining of the upper Rhône wine regions which generally are more sought after than those in the wide open valley to the south. Every south facing hillside of this stretch is covered in beautifully terraced vines. The piece de resistance beng the hill of Cotes Hermitage, which has for many centuries been prized well above all the rest.

Cotes Hermitage

Being in a bit of a rush to head east we didn't dare stop for too long, long enough though to pick up a kilo of freshly picked cherries and apricots for lunch. We said goodbye to the Rhône at Lyon where its course veers off to the east towards Geneva. We still had some way northeast to go to find Munich.

Chateauneuf-du-Pape

On our last tour with the Tanvan in '98 we drove right through the Neuf du Pape without even blinking an eye, so we were well keen to repent our sins this time around, and stop in to pay our respects.

Chateauneuf du Pape was built in the 14th century as the summer residence of the pope. It also happens to be the home of one of the most powerful and celebrated wines not only of the Rhône, but of the whole of France. All we can say is that the pope obviously must have had very good tase in sacriment wine!

Remains of the "Pope's New Palace"

Eric lounging in the bay window

View from the palace with the Rhône in the distance

The town itself is very pretty, very Provencale, with honey coloured buildings roofed with red tiles. It reclines against a hill in the sultry shadow of the popes's palace, standing proud and strong - even in it's ruin - casting an eye out across the vines towards the Rhône as it snakes by. The streets are, of course, lined with cellars inviting you downstairs and inside for taste of the papal juice. Very hard to resist.

Chateauneuf-du-Papes with the Chateauneuf-du-Pape in the background

The wine itself is a melange of 13 different grape varieties, (of which the two of us could only name 4), and is rich and luscious and very expensive. So we were very ready to take up the generous offer of a tasting as we browsed the shelves of a particularly inviting cellar. The cellaress was more than obliging, particularly after inquiring upon our country of origin - la Nouvelle Zelande, oh la la!

Eric with a new friend

Castles of Carcassone, plus Nimes extra

While Sharon was in the UK for a family bereavement I went in search of some seriously medieval castles. Sharon flew out of Carcassone which is a great part of France for castle action as the area was formerly the border between France and Catalonia (or north western Spain as it's often called), a fact that is still seen in today's landscape by the way of bilingual road signs. Great also for Sharon too as I didn't need to drag her about the ruins, which needed plenty of imagination to understand what it was like before becoming ruins.

The border was contested by the Cathars (and others before them) in numerous wars from the 10th century onward and these castles were are built in various periods around 1100-1200s to protect it and the local citizens. A treaty was signed in the 1600s which moved the border further south to the Pyrenees. This made all these castles obsolete and hence pretty much all of them were abandoned and left as they were to this day. Great as many of the castles we've seen in the past have since been converted into palaces with all the trimmings... ho hum, give me a real castle any day ;)

A short drive from Carcassone was the castle of Lapradelle which we gimpsed on the mountain range the previous day. Great castle with fantastic saw tooth walls built 500m above the village of Puilaurens. Not so well known, but my favourite as it turned out in the end as it was the most authentic and also hardly a tourist about.

Precariously pearched on the 500m high ridge

Inner courtyard, complete with intact catacombs below!

Nice view too!

From there I went to some of the more well known castles in the direction of Perpignan, passing through plenty of famous Roussillon wine regions.

Maury vinyards at the foot of Cucugnan

Ominous aproach to the castle up the zigzagged pathway

View from the top across to Perpignan and the coast

Next up was the Cucugnan whose only entrance was on one side of a rocky outcrop 750m high, the other sides were sheer cliffs! Great views and a good tour about the castle gave a great impression of how it was in times of seige when they often had to hold off armies for months on end before help arrived. All the goodies there, places to pour boiling oil down, precisely angled slots for longbows and crossbows too, plus a really neat dungeon to top it all off. Amazingly it only took 20 people to defend the whole castle!

Across the valley from here was the castle of Peyrepertuse, actually more of a fortress than a castle per se and it sprawls along a ridge above the village.

Look closely and you may spot the citadel on the ridge above the town

Look closely and you may spot the citidel on the ridge

Looking back accross to Cucugnan castle in the distance

Huge ruins and took a few hours to ramble through them, by the end of this one I was definitly a bit castled out and the inner castle geek in me thoughly exhausted... well for now at least!

Ok just one more , spoted this en route... Aguilar castle

From here I went up to Nimes where Sharon was flying back the following day and went mountain biking around the Pont du Gard, nothing better than finishing this off with a swim beneath the Pont, my all time favorite roman site. A truly remarkable feat of engineering, several 100ft high aqueducts that supplied Nimes with fresh mountain water.

Great place for a swim

Truely amazing engineering and 2000 years old!

Managed to get lost on the way back to the campground (should only have been 2 kms away) after following one too many brilliant downhill tracks that I couldn't pass up, and subsequently had to walk back up after ending up in the wrong place. Them's the breaks but still made it back in time to visit Nimes amphitheater and pick up Sharon on time too.

Nimes amphitheater with hommage to the Toreros