Ciao ciao!

We spent four days in Munich where we did a bit of sightseeing and also took some time to recharge. First off, we went to the BMW museum which was very impressive. Dain particularly liked the motorbikes, even being able to sit on the bikes in the showroom section…. and hasn’t stopped talking about getting one since!

Dain on his new bike (he wishes!!!)

We went to Neuschwanstein castle at Fussen, which was a bit of a hike out of Munich. The castle is said to have been the inspiration for Walt Disney’s castle. . It is a very impressive building, up a very big hill and the surroundings there were just beautiful.

The castle

We also went out to Dachau which was the first concentration camp of the Nazi regime. It was initially used for political prisoners, but was expanded over time to include all prisoners. It was never used as an extermination camp, but still around 40,000 people died here. It was a sad and eerie place, fittingly cold and drizzly on the day we were there, but also very interesting looking at all that went on, the organisation that was involved - and even the fact that the SS who used to run the camp were then imprisoned there by the allies!

"Work brings freedom" - On the entrance gate

We descended down to Innsbruck in Austria where we went to the Swarovski Crystal ‘World’, which was not exactly what we expected. Expecting a wonderful, perhaps a little whimsical place which displayed creations made primarily out of crystals we were instead great by weird modern art things, many of which had little or even no presence or relevance to crystal.

On the day we left Innsbruck a stage of the Giro d’Italia (Italian version of Tour de France) was starting. We wandered around the start area, seeing the support vehicles and various motorbikes, as well as getting freebies. We watched the signing on of most riders (they have to sign on at each stage) and saw some interviews. We then took a position for the start, just around the corner, where we could see the riders approach and go around the corner.

Our view of the Giro

Off to Vienna then, where we again did some sightseeing and some recharging. We found an English speaking cinema around the corner from where we were staying so we went to see Angels & Demons. We were very happy with the place we stayed (so if anyone has plans to visit, we’ve got a recommendation) and thoroughly enjoyed the food (schnitzels, bratwurst, potato salad- all yum!).

Susan with a baby elephant at the front of a museum in Vienna

We’ve just spent four days in Italy - 2 days in Udine and 2 days in Bologna, where we’ve been enjoying the food and wine very much (we both tried the spaghetti bolognaise in Bologna!). It’s been quite a dramatic change to leave the order and cleanliness of Switzerland, Germany and Austria into the bustling, vibrant and passionate chaos of Italy. We are enjoying every minute of it!

Now we're in Europe!

We arrived in Zurich very early in the morning, with the city covered in very thick fog. Even though we were quite tired, we spent most of the day wandering around Zurich. Being Sunday, most shops and restaurants were closed although local Zurichers like to walk around the lake on a Sunday afternoon, so there were people everywhere. We did manage to find an open Sprungli café (as in Lindt-Sprungli) for a hot chocolate.

After a couple of days in Zurich, we headed up the mountains to Interlaken. It’s a beautiful town completely surrounded by snow-capped alps. We decided not to go right up to the top of the mountains as the weather was quite patchy and by the time we got up there, we could've been surrounded by cloud.

Instead we headed to Kleine Scheidigg (about 2100m). On the train trip up, it was magical watching the trees which were quite dense & covered with icicles down the bottom disappear until a completely white landscape opened up. At the top, it looked like it had snowed in the past few days as everywhere off the main trails was undisturbed. To see the view, we needed to trudge through the snow which at times was knee-deep! Needless to say, wet socks and ankles were the result but it was well worth it.

Dain going for a stroll through the snow

Susan knee-deep but maintaining her balance... temporarily!!

Snow bunnies

After the mountains we travelled north east to Constance, a town on the border between Switzerland and Germany. It’s a gorgeous little lakeside town with a delicious custom of having great big bowls of ice cream with liqueur on the main pedestrian thoroughfare in the afternoon, which was very elegant indeed!

During our stay we chanced upon a little market selling fruit & veges, meat, cheese and bread. We stocked up with some produce for a picnic lunch and then we rented a couple of bikes. We rode around the edge of the lake for a few kilometres and found a nice point to enjoy our picnic lunch and feed the ducks. An absolutely glorious day!

We’ve just finished 4 days in Munich where we’ve visited the BMW museum, Neuwanstein castle and Dachau, the site of the first concentration camp. We’ll write about all of that in our next post!

Africa continued

We finished our last blog post with our lion encounter…

The following day we went to see Victoria Falls which were simply incredible - well what we could see of them anyhow. There is so much water from the wet season upstream, that it was difficult to see the main part of the falls, even from the lookouts less than 100 metres away. We managed to get ourselves soaked just from the spray that rises up from the falls.

A small section of the falls (this was the best view!)

That night we went to The Boma - place of eating, which is a traditional African dinner with entertainment as well. We both had some face painting done, ate warthog, eland, ostrich, impala and a mopani worm which was like a chewy fat grub. They had some traditional dancers as well as an interactive drum show. We both had an absolute ball!

Us with our faces painted at The Boma

A beautiful sunset over the waterhole at our lodge

Our next stop was Zanzibar. We had an incredibly quick flight over to the island (15 minutes!) at the crack of dawn. Zanzibar was known as the spice island because of all the different spices produced there. On the way out to our hotel we stopped into a spice farm and saw cardamon, turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, lipstick tree, lemongrass, coffee, pepper and about 10 more we can‘t recall. The rest of our time in Zanzibar was spent relaxing by the beach, working on our tans and drinking cocktails.

A dhow off the beach at our resort

We were a little sad to leave the 2nd leg of our trip behind, having seen some amazing things in a very interesting continent. Dain has since started reading a book about the problems in Africa and how the current situation has come about which is extremely interesting.