PatCH

Grüss Gott

Frankfurt, Heidelberg, Munich, Innsbruck, Vienna. Greg and I have been traipsing about Germany and Austria the past eight days by train, little more than our overloaded backpacks and train tickets in tow and the merest hint of what to do when we arrived to wherever it was we ended up that day.

We flew in to Frankfurt last Friday and we've been seeing most of the countryside by train, ending up in the various cities and making daytrips from there as we see fit.

Everywhere we go, in the centuries-old castles and cobblestone streets, history and beauty and human drama saturates: from the manmade grotto in mad King Ludwig's fantastical Neuschwanstein Castle near Füssen and the chilling and cramped room marked Bransebad--"showers"--at Hitler's concentration camp in Dachau, to the picture-perfect Innsbruck at the foothills of the Alps and the intricate vaulted ceilings of the soot-covered church in Stefansplatz.

And the food, oh, the glorious food.

Double helpings--and then one more--of hearty and seasonal martinsganskarte at Palmbraü Gasse in Heidelberg (to where we escaped Juliette Lewis and her band chowing down before their concert), multiple servings of wiener schnitzel (in Vienna, most naturally), bratwursts and smoked meats and döner kebabs and sidewalk roasted chestnuts, sampling everything at the outdoor Naschmarkt to the delight of the stall owners hawking their wares, sipping slow cappuccinos and einspanners at the ancient Viennese Kaffehauses (where the tuxedo-clad waiters were disappointingly polite), hunting down the Sacher Hotel for its famous Sachertort chocolate indulgences that are nothing short of sinful.

It's 5pm on Friday as I write this, and we are on the train heading from Vienna back to Frankfurt, wending west through towns and cities, through woodlands and meadows, trading Grüss Gotts for Guten Tags, all suitably exhausted and our bellies full from gorging on Viennese pastries. We fly back home tomorrow, our feet weary, and, as with any good vacation, looking forward to the normalcy of it all again.

And that's one of the best parts of a vacation, isn't it? The heading back home, I mean.

A few photos here.

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