Week 7 Update: Frugal Freiburg and Decadent Dam

Bish's Precis
- I have one week left on tour
- I forgot the precis last time. Sorry Bish. Suffice to say I went to Istanbul and Neuschwabstein castle in Fussen, which is in the Bavarian Alps. The former was incredibly good, the latter incredibly not.
- photos are up on Facebook from Paris and Bern. If youre not friends with me on there you should be. You can be by searching for this address (the profile pic is of a shoe)
- I will add links to photos for previous email when I get a chance, and send you links to the updated blog entries
- Freiberg: incredible hiking in the Black Forest, a beautiful city, I twisted my ankle very badly while on the hike and probably raised the dead
- Finding Black Forest cake is harder than you'd think
- Amsterdam: I don't smoke, so got through a lot in two days. Breakfast at Inner Amsterdam was amazing, so was the Anne Frank House and the Red Light District Tour
- Freiberg has heaps of interesting stuff for planners also
- Please send me tips for: Barcelona; and the Lake District, York, Bristol, Bath, and Cornwall in the UK

I am sending this while on a five hour stopover in Paris, en route to Montpellier.

Freiburg

When we last spoke I had just arrived in Freiburg.

Since then I spent a day hiking in the beautiful Black Forest. Just a day hike of about 6 hours, but the friendly staff at Black Forest Backpackers gave me some excellent tips on where I could go to get away from most of the tourists and traffic (to the extent that all pics taken on this day were self-portraits, a rarity). And to their credit they were spot on. I headed SE from the city, getting an excellent view of Freiburg and nearby Gunsterstall from the hills. I also climbed one of the larger hills in the area, Kibfelsen, which offered a lovely view. I came back to town via Kleiner Tal, Kappel and suburban Littenweiler. About 15kms in all.

It wasn't without drama though. About three and a half hours in, I twisted my ankle. The same one I did in Sorrento and Athens (that's three times in 17 days) but far worse. I hobbled for a bit but the one advantage of the quiet path I took was that the profanities I bellowed weren't heard by anyone I saw. But they would have put any local yodelers to shame. And raised the dead. But by the end of the hike I had walked it out and wasn't limping.

I had planned to do another days hiking the following day, but immediately realised it would now be difficult. So I decided to have a mini holiday-from-my-holiday: I satisfied myself with walking through the city, which really is lovely. It was market day in the main Munsterplatz, and I searched through the extensive selection of mobile fromageries and wurststands for some lunch (oooh, currywurst!). Still looking for something to do I wandered into the hills looking over the city and kept climbing until I reached the bottom of a new lookout over the city. Having come this far I climbed the 484 steps to the top for a beatuiful, peaceful (although somewhat sweaty) view of the city and forest.

The backpackers there was great, even if it didn't supply breakfast. At €13 per night you can't complain if you're frugal, although a fellow backpacker (an older bloke from New Jersey) had his camera and phone nicked from his bedside, so I guess you you can take being frugal and opportunistic too far.

The only negative thing I can say about Freiburg is that they have these open drains running along the side of the streets in the Old Town. The water is fine (kids etc are encourqged to play around in them), but the sound of running water constantly made me want to pee.

The afternoon before I was to leave I realised I hadnt had any of the local specialy, Black Forest cake! It took me an hour to find a place that sold it, which, frankly, is an outrage.

After realxing by a river in the late afternoon, I jumped on an overnight train to Amsterdam for a surprisingly pleasant ride. Infact, my recent rant about trains to Eagles Nest notwithstanding, DeutcheBahn is an excellent train company. Their website also is superb for planning travel all through Europe.

Amsterdam

Amsterdam I smashed through in two days. Not being a smoker, and therefore unconstrained by any pot-related lethargy, I managed to get through quite a lot - Anne Frank house (which is brilliant), the tongue-in-cheek (I hope) S*x Museum, Vogelspark, a general walking tour and an excellent walking tour of the Red Light District (both tours were run by New Europe). For the latter I chose a female guide which probably made it a bit better, but it was more than just t!tilation and gawking.

One image at the Anne Frank House was really breathtaking. In the annex where they hid, in the attic, there is a life-size picture of Otto Frank (the father and only one of the 8 that survived the war), standing, painfully alone, head slightly bowed, in the empty annex. It was really powerful and quite moving. This is the picture but the internet doesn't really do it justice.

Should also mention I stayed at the Inner Amsterdam Hostel, right near Vogelspark. It had the best brekky I have ever encountered in a backpackers, without question. More on that will follow...

And this morning I jumped on a train to Montpellier, to visit my 3rd (?) cousin Nat who is working there. Its also a great chance to get improve my French, although at this stage just eating Croque Monsieur would probably improve my French.

Been Spending Most My Time Livin' In a Planners Paradise

For those of you on the list that are planners (the rest of you have obviously just nodded off), Freiburg had some interestign stuff. Its a university town, has an excellent public tranport system, is surrounded by wonderful greenery, has a well preserved and very pedestrian friendly old town (moreso than most other Old Towns, which is saying something), qnd an excellent social scene that worked well in the Old Town - great small bars, beer stands on the street, people street drinking with beer in glass steins, mingling with trams and taxis and noone seeming to be bothered. Highlight though was the alternative energy. they way they have incorporated solar energy and wind power into building design there is really excellent. Its worth a closer look actually.

Amsterdam is well known as a bit of a planning utopia, but I was surprised with the bikes. The volume of them on the road/cycleways actually made it another barrier for pedestrians. Still, that is to be expected in the most densely populated city in Europe, if nowhere else.

--

Anyways, the last chapter of my mainland Europe trip is about to start. In a week I will be in London, starting two weeks through the UK before jetting to Perth. Any hints you can offer on Barcelona would be great. In the UK any hints on the Lake District, York, Bristol, Bath, and Cornwall would be excellent also.

Hope you are all well. Not long now!

PS. I forgot to mention the thing that struck me most about Turkey last week. Without question it is their patriotism and love of the founder of their modern state, General Ataturk. Its still in the constitution that you cannot speak ill of him. Seeing the locals' admiration of him I wonder why such a clause is necessary. There are flags everywhere too.