Frankfurt
Our first stop in Germany was Frankfrut - we got up at 3am to make our 7am flight and it was one of the most exhausting things ever! We arrived in the afternoon both dying for a nap but knew we had to stick it out at least until it was dark outside!
We jumped on the train and headed into central Frankfurt. It was a Sunday, which means that EVERYTHING is closed (something I am still not used to and still annoys me) but luckily the Christmas market was open so we had something to do!
We wandered through the main Christmas markets in central Frankfrut, which were a little all over the place - everytime we turned a corner and thought they had ended there was another section in a different area. In the above photos are some of the cute little decorations they were selling at the markets - there seemed to be no end to the amount of Christmas related decorations and ornaments being sold!
Of course after wandering through markets filled with amazing smells it was necessary for us to get crepes - I got one with milk and white chocolate and it was AMAZING, albeit slightly sickening (totally worth it) - Michael below with his caramel crepe yummmmm!!
The markets are filled with all kinds of amazing Christmas themed goodies! There are plenty selling food, some of the pictures below are of amazing looking toffee apples and marzipan, which they seem to be really into in Germany in general. There are also heaps of stalls selling pretzels and gingerbread, which is always decorated with an abundance of icing and seems to be super popular (stall in the bottom left picture).
Above pic, bottom right: jagermeister is so popular over there that they have special machines to dish up shots! Definitely something I think we need in Australia (and London for that matter).
That was about all we could handle for one day and we (being very boring and insanely tired) headed back to our hotel room to sleep (for a long time).
The next day we headed off to explore more of Frankfurt, first stop (after a long sleep in) was a cider tavern in an area south of the river called Sachsenhausen. The cider tavern was called Dauth-Schneider and as with all the other cider taverns in this area is renound for serving apfelwein aka apple wine - it pretty much tastes like a much less bubbly and not particularly strong apple cider.
While we were here we ordered some typical German food to share - I got a sausage platter, which included four different kinds of various sausages and bratwursts (I am still in the dark about the difference between these) and Michael got some pork, which I cannot remember the exact name of but it was served cold, which was kinda interested. Both dishes included very generous portions of sauerkraut - which doesn't taste too bad but I definitely can't deal with it in giant doses!
Me enjoying some apfelwein - I must admit I still think I am more of a cider fan at heart but it wasn't too bad!
After a long, filling and delicious lunch we headed back to check out some more (yep, more!) of the Christmas markets on the way home through Frankfurt - they really come alive at night (it gets dark here at like 3:30pm, if you can call that night).
We headed to Romberberg, the central square in old town Frankfurt to stroll through the Christmas markets in this part of town. They look absolutely beautiful all lit up and the festive atmosphere is infectious!
While a midst the Christmas music, bright lights and amazing smells we couldn't help but stop and get ourselves some Gluhwein (mulled wine), which is very Germany and very Christmassy! Below is a selfie of Michael and I enjoying our wine - you have to drink it pretty fast though because cold mulled wine is very unappealing!
The best part about the mulled wine in Germany is that they serve it to you in personalised little ceramic mugs (better than the paper cups in London), which you have to return after you are done.
There is a lot to see (and eat) at the Christmas markets in Frankfrut and they seemed to be endless! Once again there were hundreds of stalls selling Christmas ornaments and other Christmas related decorations and presents - most of them were hand made and really cute (but definitely wouldn't travel well). In the above photo is the biggest sausage BBQ I have ever seen! There were heaps of stalls like this, there was just a giant BBQ filled with sausages, bratwursts and burgers cooking over a huge BBQ pit - people were buying them like crazy so they were constantly restocking!
The below photo does a pretty good job of capturing the atmosphere at the Christmas markets, they were filled with people enjoying food and of course mulled wine!
This section of Romerberg is famous for the houses in the background (behind the merry go round), I can't say I am exactly sure why they are famous except for looking historical and typically German.
Some more photos (sorry, they will end soon) of the amazingly lit up and festive Christmas markets in Frankfurt, I do love things that light up and all the decorations were amazing!
We only spent a short time in Frankfurt before it was time to move on, although not particularly busy it was a really nice and clean city and the Christmas markets were amazing, definitely a highlight of our trip!
Nuremberg
Off to Nuremberg where there were more Christmas markets! The Christmas markets in the central square (Hauptmarkt) of Nuremberg, or Christkindlemarkt, are famous for being some of the oldest and most famous markets in Germany.
We only had the morning to walk around and we spent most of our time checking out the markets again - Michael got a burger (which you can see he was extremely happy about) and I got a bratwust (still don't know the difference between these and sausages!).
Michael at the Christkindlemarkt in front of the Frauenkirche (Church of our Lady), which is a central feature of the Christmas markets.
Again, as you can see the church is a main feature of the Christmas markets, there are hundreds of stalls in this square alone and more as you enter or exit.
After we were done exploring the Christmas markets, we were off to buy our own Christmas feast - this is the part where we really messed up. We headed up the supermarket at around 2pm, only to discover that most of them close around midday or 1pm - we DID NOT expect this! Here we were heading off at 2pm 'just in case' only to discover everything was closed!
This was a fairly earth shattering moment because we had no other food with us and soon discovered that the entire city had shut down! Fortunately we had some German rescuers - the woman who we were renting our apartment from offered to bring us some food from her freezer (which we paid for) and we were rescused with the biggest frozen ham ever (almost 1kg), some vegetables and most importantly WINE! These certainly were desperate times!
This is the result of our Christmas 'feast' which was scraped together with the help of our German rescuers!
It actually turned out far better than we could have expected, the pork was delicious and we managed to make our own sauce by cooking the pork and vegetables in water (it kind of made a marinade).
Some photos of us on Christmas day enjoying our small, but still delicious, pork feast (there was so much leftover!). Our Christmas day was spent sleeping in, cooking this HUGE chuck of pork, watching as many Christmas movies as we could get our hands on and drinking delicious red wine! It wasn't our traditional Christmas but it was relaxing and enjoyable and still turned out pretty damn good, despite our major road block!
Unfortunately, despite our efforts to travel to another country we didn't quite get the white Christmas we were hoping for!
Munich
Our final destination city was Munich, in southern Germany. This is where the snow started! As you can see from the photos below we arrived in Munich just as the first snow for the season had started to fall!
We arrived quite late in the afternoon and by the time we had checked into our hostel and made our way towards central Munich it was already starting to get dark and it was pretty damn cold! We headed to the central square, all the Christmas market stalls were packed away but this huge Christmas tree was still on display and looked pretty festive.
Michael and I in the main square of Munich: Marienplatz. The square is dominated by the New Town hall (photo on the right), which we actually thought was a gothic church - it looks pretty amazing as it is the central and stand out feature of the Marienplatz.
From here we made the very wise decision to head straight for the Hofbrauhaus! Pretty sure everyone has heard of this famous beer hall that Germans have been eating and drinking (copious amounts of) beer in since the 1800s - this is THE original Hofbrauhaus, Germany's biggest and most famous tourist attraction!
It's safe to say that Michael was in beer HEAVEN! The Hofbrauhaus has an amazing atmosphere and is completely packed with people at long tables drinking 1L steins of beer. In the below photo I am standing in front of the traditional Germany string band and there is a shot of the long beer hall.
The Hofbrahaus is a little different to the kind of restaurants we are used to, you kinda just wander in and find a place to sit - it's literally first in best dressed, if you find a place to sit you run for it and snap it up or you might be walking around for hours (which we did see some people do). We were lucky enough to wander in and find some space to sit within about 15 mins = winning!
I absolutely loved the rowdy, cheerful atmosphere at the Hofbrauhaus, there were a lot of tourists (well, it is huge and very famous) but also local Germans enjoying a post Christmas stein and meal. Our food was quite plain looking but tasted AMAZING! Michael got the most delicious pork knuckle ever and I got roast pork (you have to like pork to survive in Germany) - meals in Germany often come with their version of dumplings (they look like potatoes on our plates), which are kinda moist, spongy potato like lumps that soak up all your gravy.
Michael and I stayed for several hours, enjoying several drinks, our delicious pork meals and also some traditional apple strudel for dessert - YUM!
We attempted to get some photos of us outside the Hofbrahaus, which is actually just looks like a giant square building from the outside.
The walk home proved to be interesting as this is when the snow really set in - you can see in the below photos (hopefully they are clear enough) there was plenty of snow fall (this was only the beginning) - fortunately we were a little tipsy and had been wishing for snow for the last week so we were pretty excited.
As you can see the snow got pretty intense, my beanie got absolutely covered more than once in the trip. By the time we had headed home (bottom right photo) the snow was starting to accumulate on the footpaths - with plenty more snow forecast we were in for a cold few days ahead.
A few other random shots I took in Munich. This is the New Town Hall during the day and after several days of snow - it's quite beautiful and there was a surprising amount of people braving the cold, snowy weather to take photos.
And... another day another beer hall!
This was a more local beer hall called Augustiner Braustuben, again it was packed with both Germans and some tourists, sitting on long benches and chugging 1L steins - I love the fun atmospheres in these beer halls!
We got some more delicious foods - Germany is definitely not a place for vegetarians as they love their huge plates of meats covered in gravy! Of course Michael relished a second opportunity to indulge in another litre stein of beer!
Dachau
We spent one of our days in Munich visiting the nearby town of Dachau, the main aim of the day trip was to visit the Dachau Concentration Camp but we took some time to walk around the central town (this translates rougly to: we got lost but took some nice photos).
These photos aren't of anything special but Germany had turned into a magical, snow covered, winter wonderland and we couldn't help but take some photos of our beautiful surroundings - as you can see the snow was quite relentless!
We got on the bus towards Dachau Concentration Camp.
This is a really haunted and somber place but one I thought was really important to visit. The camp is a memorial site, which features a museum that details that history leading up to Nazi reighn and the happenings at Dachau Concentration Camp - a lot of what we learnt was quite mortifying and difficult to stomach but a really worthwhile experience.
This is a photo of the front gate of Dachau, where the prisoners were marched through - they passed through a gate with a sign that said 'Arbeit Macht Frei' - which translates to 'work sets you free' - a very ironic and sombre slogan.
Unbelievably enough this sign was stolen about a month ago....
Dachau concentration camp was the very first of the Nazi Concentration Camps in Germany and originally opened with the intention of holding political prisoners - so basically anyone with opposing views to the Nazi party. It was opened by Heinrich Himmler, the chief policeman, with the intention of imposing forced labour on political prisoners and eventually was used to imprison Jews.
As you can read above, Dachau was the first established concentration camp and served as a model for all later concentration camps - it was seen a a training ground for SS men who were taught how to inflict violence and hate onto prisoners. Above is also pictured some of the bunkers prisoners were forced to sleep in. The camp was originally built by the prisoners themselves and designed to house roughly 6,000 prisoners but by the end of WW2 it was catastrophically overflowing and housed roughly 63,000 prisoners.
Dirty, cramped living conditions mean that there was not only not enough food or water to go around but the spread of disease was rampant and thousands died from disease such as typhus and pneumonia.
The camp was divided into several sections including: barracks for prisoners, a barracks for medical experiments, an administration building at the front gate, a prison block (the bunker) and a crematorium area with a gas chamber - this is a concept that I am fairly certain makes most ordinary people shudder... The gas chambers at this particular camp were not specifically used for mass murder but instead prisoners were sent to other concentration camps for this purpose. Nonetheless, thousands of prisoners were murdered at the hands of vicious guards, killed as a result of brutal medical experiments and left to die as a result of disgusting and unsanitary living conditions.
The sign is a memorial sign for all the Jewish and other prisoners that were housed in Dachau, it reads:
"May the example of those exterminated here between 1933-1945 because they resisted Nazism, help to unite the living for the defense of peace and freedom and in respect for their fellow men."
To the right of Michael is a building referred to as the Bunker. This building held political prisoners or those who opposed Nazi beliefs or were caught acting out against the Nazi party. This was a particularly brutal building in the concentration camp and was used to terrorise, torture and humiliate prisoners. Methods such as standing cells (built to an exact size where you could only stand and not sit down) and pole hanging (tying a person by their wrists and allowing them to hang from a pole) were carried out to interrogate prisoners but also for the Nazi's sick and twisted entertainment and goal of humiliating and belittling prisoners. We read several accounts from prisoners who were given lengths of rope and told to do with the rope what they pleased - some were later murdered and this was used to pass off their death as suicide, fortunately others had the remarkable strength to withstand such punishment and lived through such torture, despite the Nazi's best attempts.
Dachau was a concentration camp in which many horrifying and dehumanising medical experiments were conducted on prisoners by Nazi doctors. These involved exposure to icy tubs of water and being strapped outdoors naked in freezing temperatures to test which organs first shut down during the process of freezing to death. High altitude experiments and experiments in which prisoners were subjected to diseases such as malaria were also conducted. Hundreds of prisoners died during these brutal and inhumane experiments - this was something that I found particularly hard to read about as some of the experiences were so exasperatingly horrific, it's hard to believe that someone would have such little of a conscious that they could do such things to another person.
The camp was the only Concentration Camp that was fully functional for the entire length of the war and was thankfully liberated by US troops in April 1945.
Visiting Dachau was a powerful and moving experience, it is hard to imagine the atrocities that occurred here to thousands of innocent men and women during Hitlers reign but I believe it is important that we are able to acknowledge and learn from such tragic events in history to prevent the recurrence of such horrific events.
Innsbruck
Ok.
Moving onto more less sombre events.
We decided to take a day trip from Munich to Innsbruck, Austria - as you do! We jumped on board an early morning bus and battled the never ending snow to get to Innsbruck, a beautiful little Austrian town in the Tyrol Alps.
It more or less snowed from the get go so we had to brave the weather to do a little sight seeing. We spent most of our time wandering through the Old Town style streets of Austria, most of the shops were closed (DAMN SUNDAYS) but there were still plenty of people out exploring (despite the fact that it was -6 degrees and snowing).
The snowy Old Town streets of Innsbruck.
Innsbruck has a very charming Old Town, at the time of the year it was still filled with festive Christmas decorations and lights. As you can see from the photo below, the snow seemed like it would never end! After weeks of wishing for a white Christmas Germany and Austria had certainly delivered on the snow front, even if it as rather intense.
Below left is Maria-Theresien StraBe, the main pedestrian street of Innsbruck, which is situated at the base of the Nordktte Alps (on a clear day you can see them in the backgrounds but not so much on this day).
Behind Michael is not only a giant Christmas tree but to the right is the Golden Roof, a rather famous tourist attraction (although, to be honest, not very exciting) - it's considered to be one Innbrucks most famous attractions and a landmark of this small city.
We ventured up the Hungerburg Funicular, which is a very modern mini railway that transports you to the beginning of the Nordkette Mountains. It was about a 20 minute ride up the funicular to a beautiful viewing platform that provided a panoramic view of the small city of Innsbruck.
Unfortunately on a snowy and misty day, like the day we visited, the view was somewhat obscured by snow and fog. It was still amazing to look out over the entire city but it would have been nice to have a more clear view.
We spent some time walking around this small around, which was mostly filled with ski lodges and the base for some resorts (you can catch more funiculars higher up the mountain to access ski slopes, however, the thought of this makes me to envious to contemplate).
We only spent a short amount of time checking out the view and this local area because it was bloody freezing!
After our small mountaineering adventure we headed back to the central part of the Old Town of Innsbruck for some well deserved food (it was about 4pm at the point). We stopped at a traditional Austria restaurant called Augustiner Brau, which was somewhat similar to the German beer halls in that you had to just take a seat when you could find one but had a slightly more restaurant style vibe (we had our own table and everything!).
We had a delicious meal that started with pretzels and dips - dips are somewhat non-existent in the UK and the vast majority of Europe (unless you want hummus, hummus and more hummus) so this was quite an exciting moment for us. The dips were some kind of salmon (maybe), a capsicum dip and another onion style, I am not really sure, but they tasted delicious on our pretzels!
Michael got a very interesting meal of a trio of boiled sausages with salads on the side and I got a meal of fried potatoes and meats (could have been anything), topped with a fried egg! Sounds really strange but I think it's quite traditional in Austria and, hey, it tasted great!
Of course, before we left Austria, it was essential to sample some more mulled wine - also, we were pretty damn cold and there is no better way to get yourself warmed up (although, you would be suprised at how fast mulled wine can cool down in below freezing temperatures).
We were lucky enough to walk through plenty of beautifully lit up streets and plenty of Christmas decorations yet to be taken down on our way back to our bus stop. I absolutely loves it when streets are lit up with decorative lights, especially at Christmas time, it gives the streets an amazing vibe, despite getting dark before 5pm!
I have absolutely no idea what this water fountain/monument is called and can't seem to find it anywhere online by Googling but it looked really beautiful all lit up in the snow!
Neuschwanstein Castle
Our final full day in Munich was spent venturing to Neuschwanstein Castle, in southern Bavaria. It was a frightfully cold (I think roughly -9 degrees) day and the snow was relentless but the receptionist at the hostel told us that it would be worth it to visit so we braved the elements and headed off. This castle is one of the most visited and most photographed sights in all of German so surely millions of tourists could't be wrong!?
After a two hour train ride and short bus ride we arrived at Hohenschwangau, a small villlage that forms a base to explore this region, this is also where the ticket office is located and where you can get transport up the mountain to the castle. The line to get tickets to visit the inside of the castle was ridiculous so we decided not to bother (we had heard that you could only visit for 35 minutes at a time anyway).
There were no buses or transport running up the mountain we we had to brave it and start walking (pictured in the above photo is Michael's brave face as we battled the snow and slush to walk uphill).
It took about 40 minutes of walking uphill in the snow and slush but we finally made it and fortunately the castle looked amazing!!
The Neuschwanstein Castle was built in the 1800s by King Ludwig II of Bavaria (also known as the Fairy tale King), it is deliberately designed to be medieval in design and although the outside is complete apparently most of the inside was never finished because the King died before he was able to pay for the castle to be fully finished.
Some up close shots of this amazing castle.
The most amusing thing about this beautiful medieval castle is that the King only built it as his summer palace - he didn't even live in it for the entire rest of the year WHHHAA!?
Michael and I wandered around the outside of the castle and took a short hike, despite the ongoing snow and below freezing temperatures, that circled around the castle in order to get a great view of every angle (when in Rome!).
As you can tell from the photos below the castle looks totally different from every angle!
The below photo is my absolute favourite.
The location of this enchanting castle is fairytale-like it itself, it is located on the top of a rugged and steep hill, looking out over the Bavarian landscape. We were both amazed by the beautiful and dramatic landscape that surrounds this amazing castle.
As a result of the intense snow and fog this photo actually looks like it is a black and white photo but I promise it is not.
This castle was the inspiration for the Walt Disney Castle, otherwise known as Cinderella's castle - the replica of which can be visited at Disneyland and is featured at the beginning of Disney movies.
We spent a short amount of time taking some photos and admiring the view of this amazing palace before the cold got the best of us and we headed back (by this point the snow was penetrating our not so waterproof jackets and it was starting to get super cold).
I have to admit, despite the insanely cold, snowy weather it was definitely worth a visit to this castle and we can both chalk it up as a once-in-a-lifetime style experience that I am glad we had to opportunity to undertake.
Well that about summarises our very wintry German Christmas! It was Christmas like no other and I am really glad that we got the chance to experience a different kind of Christmas to what we are used to (no sunshine and BBQ's this time!).
For now we are back in London, which feels really warm in comparison to Germany (who would have thought) and relishing the last few days of holidays before we have to go back to work!
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