Onwards to Amsterdam

We're both sorry we didn't have more time to spend in Belgium.  Generally the people we've spoken to have been lovely.  I've had some very nice glasses of wine, and Matt, of course has LOVED the beer.

We spent several days staying in a lovely  apartment just off the Big Square

Our evening view

Matt thought the ceiling was a bit low...

 We took a tour with Steven from Wings and reached most of the local Trappist Breweries.  My favourite part of that was exploring the ancient ruins at Orval. 

I think we all know what Matt liked best. :-) 

Brewing Museum

 

 

We also stayed for several days in beautiful Bruges - in fact if we could have stayed an extra night we would have but our hotel was already booked out.  Once again we were right near the old part of town and we spent many hours wandering around.  The local tourist commission has an excellent ap which allowed us to plan our walk and view information about various sites off line - meaning no need to carry a map or our guide book!  There were so many sites of interest we didn't get to see that we think we'll need to plan another trip.

Our last night in Belgium was a very quick trip to Antwerp before we caught the train onwards to Amsterdam.   Our hotel room is lovely with a big shower - and the STEEPEST staircase I've ever seen!  We spent the afternoon catching up on a few essential chores and for dinner took in a rijasttafel.  Enormous amounts of food and so nice to have something spicy again!  (And no, I don't mean the Amsterdam sort of spicy, I mean the Indonesian sort!) 

Two kinds of sate, prawn curry, beef curry, chicken curry, vegies in coconut milk, gado gado, pickles, toasted coconut, tempeh, prawn crackers, steamed rice.  All this for two people?

We walked back after dinner through the red-light district which was certainly an eye opener!  And I confess I did spend several minutes wondering who I could buy the his and hers naked, 3D, anatomically correct BBQ aprons for...



We have this morning to explore independently before joining our ship for the next leg of our journey, a river cruise to Budapest.  I'm disappointed we were unable to purchase tickets for Anne Frank House (they were sold out when I tried over a month ago) so we'll see where we end up!

Belgium and Beer, another bucket list ticked for Matt

Over the last few days I have wondered if we are the only Australian tourists here because of beer not battlefields.  However our trip to Brussels meant Matt managed to visit a number of Trappist Breweries and that had to be a holy pilgrimage.

To be accredited as a Trappist brewery there are a number of conditions that must be met.

1. The beer must be brewed within the walls of a Trappist monastery, either by the monks themselves or under their supervision.
2. The brewery must be of secondary importance within the monastery and it should witness to the business practices proper to a monastic way of life
3. The brewery is not intended to be a profit-making venture.  The income covers the living expenses of the monks and the maintenance of the buildings and grounds.  Whatever remains is donated to charity for social work and to help persons in need

(Given the price of Trappist beer in Australia compared to in Belgium our Federal Government clearly sees themselves as a very well deserving charity).  There are only twelve breweries in the world that are accredited and most of them are in Belgium and the Netherlands.  Thanks to the help from Steven from Wings Tours Matt has visited as many as were possible over the last few days.

On Tuesday we went to Orval and Chimay.

 

Matt and Steven, our fantastic guide.

Like my souvenirs, I like to ensure my photos are all class.

There are also a few in other countries we think we might be able to reach; one in Austria (guess what!  Our ship goes right past it!), and one in Rome (unlike the Belgian ones, not hard to get to) which we hope to visit.  We might leave the one in the USA for a few years.
I confess,  my favourite part was exploring the ruins.

The Grave of Duke Wenceslas in the ruined Abbey of Orval.  Not the same dude as the Christmas Carol (but our guide Steven had never ever heard of him)

View from our unit in Brussels.  We said we wanted to be close to the big square!

Some people thought the ceiling in the loft bedroom was too low.  Really, some people are just too tall.

Our accommodation really was in an amazing spot, just off the big square but still with a great view of it and we enjoyed live music from just one step back.  The only down size - well we DID have three stories of spiral staircases to ascend to get into it!

We really wanted to stay an extra day in Brussels but couldn't without moving so we continued on to Bruge today.  We were surprised with another free upgrade (a garden room,  YAY, no stairs!!) and again are staying very close to the old city centre.

Matt gives thanks for beer.

Not all breweries are within sacred spaces, but sometimes they give rise to a holy moment.  Or...Not.

You get a neat hat when you say how wonderful the Waterloo beer is without bunging on an ABBA accent.  I did suggest Matt go back tomorrow for a second glass and hat so we could pass on one each to the youngest nephews.  Just to save fights of course. 

Bruges is only a little more than an hour from Brussels and we are again in the central district. We nearly got washed away in a thunderstorm of almost Australian proportions but are looking forward to exploring the town over the next far too short a period - I can see why Mum and Dad keep coming back to little Belgium.   We have managed the obligatory moulles and chips (the mussels were tiny and I'm sorry but not as nice as ours) but I'm still looking for that other famous specialty, the chicken vol au von.

Mission Accomplished

We traveled to Friedrichshafen in the hope of better luck with Zeppelin this time round.  Last time we were here we had a cruise around Lake Constance booked and it was cancelled because of bad weather.  Number one item on Matt's bucket list for ever has been a ride in an airship - and topping that was getting to fly one.  So he booked into the Pilot Experience about a year ago.  It's run infrequently for a maximum of six participants, all pilots.  While he went off to the first day of the course I decided to take myself off to Switzerland!

It's only a 40 minute ferry ride from Friedrichshafen to Romanshorn but I was still disappointed not to get a stamp in my passport!  Most people were on the ferry to continue on, by car or train.  I had a delightful walk around the foreshore gardens but as there really wasn't anything open (even the old church was locked up tight) I returned earlier than I had planned.

A great use for an old dinghy!

And a jolly good thing I did because I returned to find this note under the door of our room!

It was 15:15 when I got back - and I'd been on the bus which only runs hourly on weekends!  Before I knew it I was joining Matt (and some others) and taking off in the lighter than air Zeppelin NT.  I'm sorry I could only get the back of his head, but that really is him taking off/flying/landing in the video below.

Possibly the happiest day of his life?  Going on his expression after he landed I'd say so!

Is the other aircraft undertaking or are we overtaking?

lining up on the Dornier Museum...

Keine Ansicht!

We had a lovely dinner in the steak restaurant at the Zeppelin Hanger with the lecturers/captains and other course participants (and their hangers on) after the days work concluded.  Matt has returned to Zeppelin for the second day of the course and the lovely host at our hotel has told me I can use the room as long as I like even though we've officially checked out.  So terribly kind of her - I thought I might have been sitting outside in the rain!  She also gave us a bottle of wine, thank goodness we've still got the room as I had to repack my baggage so it could fly to Frankfurt with us this evening! 

Munich and Dachau

After a very long overnight flight (full plane, sadly no extra seats for us this time) we arrived to a cold and overcast Germany on Tuesday morning.  Matt was delighted to find a currywurst stall immediately on exiting the airport and thought that was JUST what he needed.  With the bodies most urgent needs satisfied we purchased train tickets and headed into town.  It was wonderful to be able to check into our hotel early and have a shower and drop off the bags.

In the afternoon we visited Dachau  which proved to be a sobering and thought provoking experience, with both of us drawing inevitable comparisons to Manus Island, Guantanamo Bay and man's ongoing inhumanity to those they perceive as inferior or dangerous.  Yet, as uncomfortable as visiting the memorial site was, I believe that it is important to witness and remember the events of the past in order that we can see how easy it is to normalise atrocities; to preserve and remember our history in the hope that one day it might never  be repeated. The exhibition in the museum told personal stories with photographs and a few small items, as well as providing an overview of of the rise of the Nazi party, their crimes, and the course of the war.  What struck me most was not the remaining buildings, it was the sheer number of barracks foundations which could be seen and the enormous size of the forecourt where the 40-50 thousand prisoners were gathered for the twice daily roll-call.

After a very thoughtful trip back to Munich we returned to our hotel.  Hotel Mariandl was a beautiful - if a bit run down - building from the Belle Epoque.  Our room was enormous and the feature was definitely the free-standing bath, prefect for soaking away the aches of travel while tasting a local wine.  This evening we dined in and were treated to dinner music by a jazz string quintet - I think we were told their usual day jobs were in the Opera Orchestra.





 The following day we joined a bus trip to Neuschwanstein, Oberamagau, and Linderhof.  Two palaces from "Mad King Ludwig II" (poor bloke, was either a vampire or had the worst social anxiety ever) and the home of the Passion Play. We would never have managed these in a day under our own steam and our guide was excellent, informing us of the history of the Barvarian royal family as well as providing commentary on many of the places we passed.  My outstanding question still remains - given the size and importance of the local dairy industry WHY can't I get a decent flat white made with moo juice not UHT?

The yellow castle - Schloss Hohenschwangau; seen only in the distance

Yep, that's my lovely pink parka so I don't get lost in the snow.  Yes, there was snow.  I prefer it as below - outside the bus window while I'm in the warm. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Schloss Neuschwanstein.  You can see where Walt got the idea for his castle from!

 

 

 

In contrast to the ideal medieval castle of Neuschwanstein, Linderhoff was all Baroque and gaudy.  It even had a miniature hall of mirrors.  Sadly, both castles banned photos on the inside in the hope you'd buy their stuff.  We thought of how long we still had to carry our gear and didn't.

the fountains and formal gardens of Linderhoff.

Our stop at Oberamergau was all too brief.  Fellow fans of Elinor Brent Dyer and Maud Hart Lovelace would still recognise the town from the authorial descriptions however, I refrained from playing at cowboys and indians in the river (FAR too cold) - or buying any religious icons/wood carvings.  Matt did say he considered having a beer while I took photos was a religious experience given that said beer was made by monks.

Happy Happy Singapore

Both of us really liked Singapore and in many ways it reminded us of Sydney with (better, greener) modern architecture side by side with colonial buildings.  We think we'll go back next time there are cheap flights!

We mostly walked - or caught trains which were easy and cheap.  Every time the train stopped at a station we were delighted with the announcement urging us to be "Happy Happy".  Of course, eventually I HAD to google what it actually meant and it was not what we thought we heard but "Hati Hati", instructing people to be careful as they disembarked.  The Malay version of "Mind the Gap".

The trains made it easy for us to spend much of our too short stay eating as we visited a number of different hawker markets, from Indian (where lunch was $1.50 and Matt bought himself a beautiful embroidered silk shirt, I wonder where on earth he will wear it) to the business district (near Raffles, best chicken rice I've ever tasted).  We used the money we saved on lunch to have a single drink in the rarefied atmosphere of Raffles.  Thank goodness I had a Singapore Sling on the plane so knew in advance they were disgusting and had a gin sling instead.

The Gardens by the Bay were stunning.  We only spent half a day there but could easily have spent several days exploring.  The tulip exhibition was a lavish homage to Vincent and Cloud Mountain had some unexpected blooms.

There HAS to be a way to rotate pictures, I just haven't figured it out yet!

look closely...

Time soon came to leave the tropical heat for the frozen north and after a long, full, overnight flight we arrived in Munich.

A series of fortunate events

In which Di makes a brief and boring blogpost to reassure our parents we've made it so far - we've managed the first leg of our journey safely and are living it up in our suite at the Novatel.  We didn't sleep through our alarms (I set three just in case) and by the time we cleared migration and the duty free maze our flight was just about to board.  Perfect timing!

Our first fortunate event was having an entire row to ourselves.  I think that today's flight has set a new benchmark in not actually horrible international travel! Also I finally got to see La La Land which I LOVED (after a lovely long nap).  Landing safe at Changi Airport we managed to make our way to our hotel by public transport - so easy, why isn't the NSW government taking lessons from places that actually MANAGE their public transport system?  We only said rude words to each other about where to go once! 

The second fortunate event occurred when the nice young man at reception took my passport as we checked in.  On seeing that tomorrow was my birthday he immediately organised us an upgrade to a suite on a "premium floor".  The bed is the biggest one I've ever seen!  There are two sinks in the bathroom so we don't have to share.  And if we don't want to sit together in the lounge room, there is a 2nd enormous tv in the bedroom.  Oh, it also has an impressive view from Clarke Quay! 

Biggest bed I've ever seen, I think Matt's worried I'll get lost!

Bigger than our lounge room at home.

Nice view!

Naturally we ignored all this and dumped our baggage and went out.  On our return (laden with soft drinks so we didn't use the pricey ones in the mini bar) the third fortunate things was waiting.  A delicious birthday cake for me!  Now isn't that just the best service you've ever heard of!  1000000 points to Felix @ Novatel Clarke Quays.

 

Sponge base with lemon cheesecake, delicious!

We've had a long walk to shake out the post flight fidgets.  Dinner was at Gluttons Bay (on the recommendation of my friend Bettina) and we ate lots of satay sticks, yum yum.  and chatted with lots of interesting people - as you do when you share a table at a hawker market.  It was a bit strange - we first shared with some other Aussies, who were replaced by some west-coast Americans, and finally were joined by a British couple who worked for BA.  It would have been nice to share a table with some locals and get the advantage of their insider knowledge of the city, however, it seemed  there was a bit of enclavism about who was willing to sit with whom.  Perhaps it was Matthew's Fierce bearded appearance?  Looking forward to spending a few more days exploring Singapore despite the rain that is forecast.

Mum, you might recognise the satay club style. :-)