From: Rainer
Subject: Rainer's Europe Trip 1998 -- part 20
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:42:09 EDT

Hi all,

Sorry for the long silence.  Some of it is due to lousy phone systems in
hotels
in Europe.  Most of it is due to the explanation attached in the note.  I'm
trying
to get back in the groove.  Hope all is well with all of you.

Cheers,
Rainer

Tuesday, 10/13 -- part 20

Note:
	This is a difficult entry to write.  It's really 10/22, ten days
	later, that I'm writing this.  I'd written it all once before,
	while in Liechtenstein, when during the proof reading phase the
	stupid PC locked up and I had to reboot.  When I recovered, this
	file was empty and my writing gone.  It put me in a rotten mood.
	Coupled with my preoccupation with what's going on in Scottsdale
	and at work I didn't feel like writing any more.  So I quit.  My
	vacation state-of-mind was gone and I guess I was a pretty lousy
	travelling partner for some days.  Patience from my travelling
	companions, encouragement from them and from emails, as well as
	the better part of a liter of Italian vino have put me back on
	track.  I've made some notes yesterday outlining what I hadn't
	written about.  I'm resuming the journal at this point and will
	play catch up from our three-day stay in Santa Margherita
	Ligure.  The next 10 entries or so will be flash backs and will
	be somewhat tainted by what's happened in-between.  If you've
	been waiting to hear from me, now you know the reason for my
	absence.  So, back to the journal.

We awoke to rain in Mittenwald which died off after a meager breakfast
with underboiled eggs.  We visited some of the shops that were closed
the night before and did the tourist trinket thing.  Monika and Vera are
collecting trophy pins for their hats, although I've not seen either one
of them wear any pins yet.  Monika stopped wearing her beret after we
left Paris.

We left Mittenwald and headed down the Alpenstrasse (later we found out
that we weren't really on it but it was still very pretty) and stopped
to walk through the Partnachklam, a narrow gorge cut through the Alps
near Garmisch P.K. (a city with way-too-long a name).  The Partnachklam
is something my parents took me to see in 1957 when they revisited West
Germany after immigrating to the  U.S. several years earlier.  I was 10
then and remember much of the trip quite well still.  Vera and Monika
had never heard of this place and didn't know what to expect.  They were
quite impressed by the whole thing.  There are places in the gorge where
sunlight probably never hits.  The trail is built into the sides of the
gorge itself.  In places the trail is actually a tunnel blasted through
the sides of the cliffs.  It was an unexpected thrill for my family to
visit this place and walk through the narrow gorge.  I was glad I
remembered it.

On the little road to the gorge we wondered why so many people were
walking.  It wasn't until several days later when Vera was reviewing a
brochure that we bought at the ticket booth that we discovered you're
not supposed to drive where we did.  No one mentioned anything to us and
I didn't even get another parking ticket.  Sometimes being ignorant
works out fine.

We completed the short drive into Garmisch P.K. for lunch and did the
frustrating activity of finding a parking spot (never easy in European
cities) and figuring out if you needed to put money in the meter, then
realizing that you don't have the coins in this currency and trying to
get change from tourist shops that just hate to do that sort of thing.

You could see the Zugspitze, the highest point in the German Alps from
the restaurant.  The sun was out but the clouds were playing
hide-and-seek with the top of the mountains.  You had to be quick to get
a photo of the summit.  Some of us ate pizza (margherita, the safest
choice) and some of use just had soup and salad.  The beer is still not
great, even though schwarzbier is available in the bottle.

With the sun fully out now, the drive towards Fuessen to see the Schloss
Neuschwanstein took us through a tip of Austria.  The Alpenstrasse
actually stays in Germany, but the dip into Austria was an unexpected
and beautiful digression.  We actually drove around to the backside of
the Zugspitze and from the little village of Ehrwald stopped to take
many travel-agency-style poster pictures of green valleys surrounded by
steep, snow-capped mountains.  It was just ideal with the afternoon sun
off the mountains and the clear blue sky.  You'll have to see these
pictures (one day I will have them available, promise).

We left Ehrwald, looking back often at this pretty little Alpine valley
and stopping to take one more picture when the opportunity arose.  I
don't recall right now if I've mentioned this before, but there are few
if any places to pull out and look at a scenic spot from along the
highway.  So, stopping for a picture is often an issue.  Especially if
the passenger hints strongly that she'd like to stop to take a picture
and there are 17 cars close behind you on a little twisty road down
which you're driving faster than you really want to because you want to
enjoy the scenery a little also.

We left Austria, even bought gas, without converting any money.  Visa is
universal.  Back in Germany we made our way to Fuessen and followed the
traffic to Schloss Neuschwanstein.  I remembered this place, too, from my
childhood tour of West Germany.  Paid parking, curio booths, dozens of
tour busses, and international crowds kept us from going any closer.  A
few pictures from the road and it was bye-bye Neuschwanstein.

We agreed that we would backtrack to Ehrwald and spend the night in that
beautiful Alpine valley we hadn't ever heard about.  As soon as we
crossed the border we converted the remaining Deutsch Marks into
Austrian Shillings and went through the mental exercises associated
with switching from 1.65 exchange rate to one of 11.01.  The drive back
went easy since the GPS had been tracking each and every turn since
Mittenwald today.  "I think you should turn here."  "No, the GPS says we
came from there." Sometimes technology is great.  The view going back
was better than leaving because we were facing the mountains instead of
driving away from them.

Not having any idea what we'd find, we stopped at one of the first
hotels, The Alpen-something-or-other.  It felt like a places that was
going to be way too expensive.  They were full anyway, but were kind
enough to make a call to the Sonnenspitze, near the center of Ehrwald,
and hold a room for us.  We even got a map of Ehrwald with the
appropriate marked spots of the Alpen-something-or-other and the
Sonnenspitze.  We drove into town, stopping at a couple of other hotels
along the way and found out that they were full, too.  So the
Sonnenspitze sounded better and better.  After we asked to see the room,
and found it to be in a corner with a fantastic view of the mountains
from two sides, and with an phone line suited for modem use, and found
the rate to be only about $57, we spent the night here.  Next day I
found out that the unbelievable rate was indeed unbelievable, because
the $57 was per person!  But it was worth it anyway.

Vera and I went had our happy hour in the Sonnenspitze bar while Monika
had her happy hour on-line.  We waited until dark to go and find a place
to eat.  Like in Mittenwald, it was a blessing here in Ehrwald that the
menus are posted outside the restaurants.  There are few street lights
here, and the lit up menus act as beacons on the dark roads.  We stopped
at several beacons to study the menus and decide who might like to eat
what.  A lot of weird stuff.  Finally, as a result of almost a wrong
turn we ended up in front of the Mooswirt.  We got out to read the menu
and everything just clicked into place.  The filet, the Bauernplatte,
and the roestis fit everyone's palate.  The waitress was a genuinely
friendly person much like the night before in Mittenwald.  We
contemplated staying a second night in Ehrwald just because it all was
perfect.  But, the Mooswirt was having a Ruhetag (rest day) tomorrow and
the following day.  The weather also wouldn't last -- but we didn't know
it at the time.  The waitress even stuck her head outside to give us a
weather forecast -- it was "stern klar" -- you could see the stars.  It
had snowed this morning in Ehrwald and you could feel it being much
colder than anywhere else on our trip so far.  We had a good dessert and
coffee and said good night.  Two for two so far.  Two days in a row with
great accommodations and meals just like I'd hoped it would be.
Unbelievable.

Having a nearly full tank of gas and full stomachs we decided to go
cruising around the other side of Ehrwald (which isn't much) and ended
up on the road to Bieberwier.  The road was empty and we spotted a fox
jump the road shortly after the highway sign for "watch for wildlife"
appeared.  That was cool.  Bieberwier is about the size of Ehrwald, but
the place was locked up tight.  We did find an ATM and decided to try
our luck -- and failed -- at getting more shillings.  We headed back to
Ehrwald, stopping for a bit on one of the rare pullouts to look at the
night sky.  The Milky Way was dramatic in the cold night.
Constellations that are easy to find in city lights were hidden amongst
the myriad lights.  There was no moon.  It was cool, literally.  We got
back in the car, turned on the heater this time, and headed "home".  We
saw the fox again, this time on the other side of the road, near where
we saw him the first time.  That was cool, too.  The day/night ended on
a good note.