Thursday, May 9, 2024

Europe April -May 2024 Part 1 France

The Capital in Toulouse

This trip was planned because we had a large travel credit from Air France due to COVID. Although I’m not a big fan of France (esp. the area around Paris and their airports), I have wanted to do the Canal du Midi for decades. This canal linked the Atlantic to the Mediterranean and is a UNESCO World Heritage site because it was one of the greatest engineering achievements of the 1600’s. Of course, Air France change their refund policy and left us to pay our own way. We didn’t want to fly that far for just a week, so Germany, Austria and Slovenia were added to the agenda.

The Saint Nazaire and Saint Celsus Basilica


La Cite in Carcassonne

We flew Lufthansa to Frankfort and then on to Toulouse, France. We spent half a day in touring Toulouse, before taking the train to Carcassonne to see the historic La Cite. This a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of its architecture and planning of a medieval fortress town. We moved on to Homps, where Le Boat has a port for rental boats. This was where we stayed at LeJardin d’Homps Hotel, easily with the best hospitality on our trip.

Palm Trees at LeJardin d'Homps
Our 38 foot canal boat

At Le Boat dock, a mechanic spent two hours with us showing how everything worked, and then we took a test drive. We were surprised to find out that all of our gray and black (i.e. sewage) water needs to be macerated and dumped into the canal on a daily basis.  No swimming on this trip!  We departed the next day and had 6 days to cover 80 km, and 16 locks. Unlike our previous canal trip in England, we did not have to operate the locks, there were lock keepers for that. But there was a fair amount of rope work involved in securing the boat as it dropped in the lock. For a boat this size, 38 feet long, two active adults are the minimum required to accomplish this. This trip was planned last Sept. when Pat was walking and hiking. By April she was having severe knee pain and hopping in and out of the boat to secure lines was painful. I was busy trying to hold the boat in place so she could safely get in and out, and also hold the bow rope.


Thread the Needle


House Painting

During the planning stage, I was concerned that being April, we might get a rainy week. Actually, most of the time in France was sunny and sometimes hot. The biggest problem while boating was the high wind. Initially, I was driving slowly, because I didn’t want to hit another boat on this narrow canal, but the wind was pushing me all over the place. I was wearing myself out trying to keep the boat straight. Once my Physics and vector math education kicked in, I doubled my speed, and suddenly I had control of the boat!

Sometimes docking space in town was hard to find.

Collegiate Church Saint Etienne in Capestang

Rainbows over the canal

Commercial tour boat entering the Malpas Tunnel

On the fourth day of the trip, we passed through the Malpas Tunnel, the first canal tunnel ever built in Europe. We decided to stop to get some pictures. There were no docks available so we pulled the boat next to the grassy shore, and Pat threw the rope toward the bollard. I was trying to keep the boat near the shore when she jumped from the boat to the shore. The next thing I heard was a splash and Pat was screaming “I’m in the water”. I ran down to help her get out of the water, she was in up to her chest. I got her out, but nothing was holding the boat in place, so I jumped to shore to secure the rope. I missed and now I was in the canal and needed help. Fortunately, some people walking by secured the boat while we tried to figure out what happened. It turned out that the tall grass we jumped into had extended out pass the bank, but from the boat it appeared to be covering the bank. Now we had a pile of wet and dirty (dilute sewage) clothes. We would not get to a laundry until the following evening.  I realized I didn’t have my glasses on, so I searched the boat - no luck. About this time, I was regretting my decision not to bring a spare pair, so it was either in the grass or in the bottom muck of the canal. Fortunately, I found them in the tall grass. We did start using a portable gangway when we did not have a dock.



Driving over a  river on a canal bridge

Last night on the canal

Pat’s last challenge came at the Fonserannes Staircase, a series of seven back-to-back locks. Considered a great engineering achievement for its time, the canal dropped 71 feet over 980 feet. This was a killer for Pat with the jumping in and out of the boat (no grass here!) and managing the ropes. We worked through another four locks before we docked near a laundry. I picked up a cane for Pat and it helped a bit. The following day we made it to our final stop. The next day we took a train to Marseille and flew to Munich. We said good bye to the warm sunny weather of South France.


Europe April -May 2024 Part 2 Germany

                                        The Nymphenburg Palace

We left the good weather on the other side of the Alps. Cloudy, drizzly, snowy, cool to cold weather was the norm for our time in Bavaria. From the airport we took the train downtown and checked into Hotel Opera (our splurge hotel for the trip). Since we were not going to take a walking tour, we took the Hop on Hop off Bus. We only paid for the city tour, but we somehow got the city and suburbs tour, so we saw the Nymphenburg Palace, which served as the main summer residence of the former rulers of Bavaria and we passed the site of the tragic XX Olympiad. 


The Banquet Hall at the Residenz
Dinner at Hofbrauhaus

We got a guided tour of the Nazi Documentation Center and stopped on the way back to watch surfers play on a standing wave in the Eisbach river within the English Gardens. We toured the Residenz, the former royal palace of the Wittelsbach monarchs of Bavaria, until Pat’s knee gave out. Fortunately, our hotel was able to keep Pat well supplied with ice for her knee. This was the only hotel so accommodating. We went to the HofbrÀuhaus for dinner and enjoyed the beer, pretzel, shredded pancakes with applesauce and the oomph music. We went to the center square to see the 9 PM performance of the glockenspiel, but it was very short and disappointing. We returned to the Residenz to see the Treasury, where the Royal’s jewels, gold smith’s works and other valuable collectables were on display.



Live oompah music

The Old Town Hall in Munich

Dachau's Furnaces

On our last day in Munich, we picked up a rental car and a wheelchair for Pat. We visited Dachau Concentration Camp, and I pushed Pat around the site and managed to pick up a cold. This turned out to be the only time Pat used the wheelchair, due to the difficulty of using it on cobblestones, slopes and the fact that disability access is nonexistent in Europe. Next, we went to the walled, well preserved medieval city of Rothenburg. We toured the very comprehensive Medieval Crime Museum and I took the Night Watchman’s tour. During medieval times, Night Watchmen were employed to walk the city at night, primarily on fire patrol but also helped reduce crime and thief due to their surveillance. Now they provide an interesting night tour of the town. 

 A Rothenburg specialty: Schneeballen - a coated ball of fried dough

The Rothenburg Glockenspiel

The Night Watchman

Rothenburg's Town Square

Hohenschwangau Castle

From here we drove south into the Alps. We had tickets paid in advance for the two big castles there, Neuschwanstein (the Disney World castle) and Hohenschwangau, but entry to the castles involved a lot of waiting outside, a long uphill walk or a buggy ride. Due to the snow, the roads to the castles were closed. With Pat’s bad knee and my cold, we passed on this self-inflicted torture. Carol suggested Linderhof Palace (a small version of Versailles) so we went there and that was much easier to visit and very pretty. From here we drove to Salzburg.

 

Neuschwanstein Castle

Fussen's Lech River Gorge

The road to Linderhof Palace

Linderhof Palace



Europe April - May 2024 Part 3 Austria and Slovenia

In Salzburg

View of Salzburg from the Hohensalzburg Fortress

Pat wanted to take the Sound of Music tour in Salzburg, so we did. The original story was based on fact, but Hollywood added some entertainment, music and drama to make it more popular. After that we took a short walking tour of town and took the funicular up to the Hohensalzburg Fortress, which overlooks the city. We drove to Hallstatt to tour the oldest salt mine in the world (7000 yrs old) and still actively mined. Now they let the water do all the work, and just separate the resulting salt brine. We moved on to Lake Bled, Slovenia and took a Pletna boat ride out to an island which we walked around and took the boat back. We checked out a bee museum, before heading to a rainy Lake Bohinj. The next day was beautiful so we returned to Lake Bohinj and hiked some of the Mostnice Gorge and took the gondola to the top of the mountain for spectacular views of the lake and surrounding mountains.

3400 yr old wooden staircase preserved in Hallstatt salt mine

 

Pat outside salt mine

Bled Castle and lake

Pietna Boat Rower on Lake Bled

View of Lake Bohinj

Pat at the top of the gondola

Mts around Lake  Bohinj

The main scenic road through the Julian Alps was closed due to avalanche danger, so we took the alternate route into Italy to get to Bovec, Slovenia. The area was very pretty with some nice waterfalls. Next, I toured the Skocjan Cave, another World Heritage Site. Pat didn’t go because it involved 500 steps, which was about the limit for my heart. But it was spectacular, not for its formations but for the sheer size of the rooms, making it among the largest caves in the world. We toured the Postojna Cave, another cave so big that you ride a train to get into and out of the main chamber. Here we saw room after room of cave formations, so many we actually got tired of them, but what an amazing huge cave.
Boka Waterfalls

The main scenic road through the Julian Alps was closed due to avalanche danger, so we took the alternate route into Italy to get to Bovec, Slovenia. The area was very pretty with some nice waterfalls. Next, I toured the Skocjan Cave, another World Heritage Site. Pat didn’t go because it involved 500 steps, which was about the limit for my heart. But it was spectacular, not for its formations but for the sheer size of the rooms, making it among the largest caves in the world. We toured the Postojna Cave, another cave so big that you ride a train to get into and out of the main chamber. Here we saw room after room of cave formations, so many we actually got tired of them, but what an amazing huge cave.


Virje Waterfall

A Lipizzaner Stallion

We went to Lipica to see the Lipizzaner Stallions perform. They could stand on their rear legs and jump forward three times. It takes many years of training to perform such a feat. We continued on to Ljubljana and from there I wanted to do the Vintgar Gorge hike. From our remote parking lot, it was a one hour walk to the ticket booth. This was too much walking for Pat so she returned to the car to wait for me. I told her I should return in 2-3 hours. I got to the ticket booth and waited in line for 20 min. only to find out that I couldn’t enter the gorge for another 2 and ½ hours due to a timed entry policy. That would leave Pat waiting 5 to 6 hours for my return. I gave up and walked another hour back to the car. I knew this place was popular, but this was a weekday in April! 

Postojna Cave

Ljubljana

Grossglockner High Alpine Rd trip

We returned to Austria and drove the Grossglockner Alpine Highway that had just opened for the year. It is the highest alpine road in Europe. The original plan was to do the Werfen Ice Cave, but when we realized it involved over 800 steps, we both had to pass. Instead, we drove back to the beautiful town of Hallstatt (where the salt mine is that we visited) - unfortunately the parking lots were full so we turned around and found another beautiful area to explore away from all the crowds. On our last day of touring, a truck threw up a rock and cracked the front window of our new rental car. The next day we completed our drive back to Munich, returned the rented wheelchair and headed to the airport. After we returned the car and checked in, Pat realized she didn’t have her phone. After a thorough search of her clothes and backpack, we determined she must have left it in the rental car. At this airport all the rental cars are returned to the same place, so several cars a minute are being processed. It had been 20-30 min since we returned the car, so who knows where it might be by now. I returned to where the cars were being processed, looking for the guy who checked us in, but I didn’t find him. One of the employees explained that this was not the same bay that they were using 30 min ago. We walked to the next bay and the car was still there. I found the phone in the center console. 

Hohenwerfen Castle

The flight back was uneventful - all the plane parts that left Munich made it to IAD. It was an Airbus, not a Boeing plane. In the past, we had a terrible experience at Dulles Airport with major delays getting through Customs and Immigration. This time we had Global Entry and we buzzed right through with barely a wait. 

Site were the children were taught to sing, Doe a deer....

Reflections on the trip:

Canal Trip: We had envisioned a relaxing week doing the canal, but this was not the case. Pat’s knee pain made it difficult for her to perform the required tasks. She did it anyway. Another couple would have made a world of difference. The wind made steering difficult, going through narrow passages and entering locks required you to slow down, but doing so gave the wind control of the boat. We were surprised we had to dump our waste overboard. Being at the start of the boating season the canal was well flushed this time of year, so there was no odor, but you could not forget that the water was not clean. There are more than 20 canals in Europe where you can rent a boat, and many have pump out stations. These trips can be fun and relaxing.

Weather: France was warmer and definitely windier than expected. Germany/Austria was considerably cooler and wetter. Slovenia had several gorgeous days.

Crowds: Most of the travelers we ran into were European. The only times when crowds were a problem were in Slovenia at the cave tours, and Vintger Gorge, and in Hallstatt Austria. How bad are these areas during peak travel season?

Air travel: We had four flights with Lufthansa and we had no problem with them or their planes. We will never fly Air France again.

Research: I used 4 Rick Steves guidebooks to plan this trip, and found them very useful. I used a couple Canal du Midi books.