Germany and Austria

 With finals ending about a week before my flight home, and enough funds for one last hoorah, a last minute, three day trip to Germany and Austria was scrapped together.

As most of our friends still had finals or had already flown home, it was just me and Erin on this adventure.

We had an early flight from Dublin on Wednesday morning. A big group of us went out on Tuesday night and then Erin, Brendan, and I pulled an all-nighter until our 5:15 bus from Galway to the airport. We boarded the plane and landed in Memmingen, Germany at around noon. The weather was sunny and hot (72 degrees, doggy) when we stepped off the plane, certainly a welcomed sensation. We took about an hour and a half bus to Munich and were checked in and ready to explore by around 3:00.

The first stop in Germany was the Augustiner Keller beer garden. We each got huge steins of German beer mixed with lemonade and shared a compulsory pretzel. After leaving the beer garden we headed into the central part of town called Marienplatz. This is the most famous part of the city and it was full of activity. En route to the Marienplatz, we stopped in to check out some of the famous German cathedrals in Munich.

For dinner, we ate at traditional German restaurant with outdoor seating. We covered all of the basics when you think if German cuisine. Sausages (numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6), Saurkraut, Potato Salad, Dumplings, pretzels. The sun was still out after dinner and the weather was beautiful so we headed towards the world famous English Gardens on the other side of the city. These gardens are bigger than Central Park, and on this particular evening more stunning than anything NYC has to offer. One of the main attractions in the gardens was the surfers. One of the rivers that runs through the gardens creates a permanent surfing wave that Germans in wetsuits, revel in that image, shred all day long, very similar to those things on cruise ships.

Dinner at the Bratwirstherzl

English Gardens

English Gardens, currently serving as my computer background

After it got dark in the gardens we walked back through the town and got some ice cream and then crashed in the hostel after not sleeping the night before.

We woke up the next morning and took a train to the Dachau (pronounced Dock How) Concentration Camp on the outskirts on Munich. This was without a doubt the most challenging place I have ever visited. It is one thing to watch documentaries or study these atrocities in school, but an entirely different experience to walk the same grounds where so many people suffered.  Dachau was one of the first concentration camps built immediately following WW1, and it served as the model for all that were to follow. The camp was eventually liberated by US Soldiers in the Summer of 1945. At one point there were over 30,000 prisoners in the camp living in 28 barracks, each of which were each designed to house 100. Do the math.

Entrance Gate

Read 'em and weep

"May the example of those who were exterminated here between 1333-1945 because they resisted Nazism help to unite the living for the defense of peace and freedom and in respect for their fellow men"

Barracks

Barracks

The most shocking part of the grounds was a building called Barrack X, which was the crematorium. Housed inside Barrack X was a gas chamber which although it was reported as never used, the likelihood is that some experimentation was done there. Walking on through the camp was just a somber reminder of an extremely dark past, which in reality wasn't all too long ago.  And although it was a completely gorgeous morning, I felt an overwhelming sense of utterly senseless violence and suffering as I walked along those grounds.  The Dachau concentration camp is certainly a memory that I won’t easily forget.

After the concentration camp, we trained back to the center of Munich. Thursday and Friday were both laborer days in the German state of Bavaria where Munich is located, so a lot of shops and even the famous food markets were all closed. We found a beer garden near the center of the city and enjoyed some ice cold beers and sausages (7,8). After lunch it was back to the English Gardens where for 5 euro we rented paddle boats and cruised around the massive lake in the center of the gardens. 

English Gardens Day 2

There is one giant beer garden that looks out onto the lake, so another drink/pretzel there was obviously necessary.

One of the biggest attractions in Munich is the Hofbrahaus beer hall. It is very similar to the beer tents during Munich’s famous fall and Spring festivals, and they serve food and play traditional music all day. We stopped here on Thursday night. We sat down next to two young German guys who had evidently been drinking during their entire day off. We ordered dinner (sausages, of course (9,10,11,12,13)) and chatted with these guys throughout the entire meal. Their English was decent enough to hold a conversation, although most of the evenings bonding arose out of them forcing us to chug beer and us watching them take shots of pear brandy.

Side note, the rumors are absolutely true: the beer in Germany really is much better than anything I’ve had in my life. Unbelievably refreshing.

After checking the number one tourist attraction off the list, we still had a lot of night left so we went back to the garden where we ate lunch and hung out in there until they kicked us out. As you may have guessed, we ate more sausages (14,15). The weather on our last night in Germany was some of the best I’ve felt in Europe, and it got me very excited form some warm Northeast weather when I get back home. The walk back to the 4You Hostel that evening was rich with street performers and watching a big ‘ol black girl sing Adele covers and Killing Me Softly and at a public piano in the middle of the city as confused Germans looked on, dumbfounded that so much sass could come from one person.




Lunch

 

 

Dinner, at the same spot as lunch

SAUSAGE

We woke up on Friday morning and took an 8:48 train to Salzburg, Austria. Salzburg is made famous from The Sound of Music and as the hometown of Mozart, and it was only about two hours via train to Austria.  Salzburg is a relatively small city so one day definitely proved to be enough.

Despite the rain, we were able to essentially see the entire city in one day. We started by walking down a scenic trail along the elevated park that overlooks the city. Every stop provided a better view of the city than the next. We took an elevator down from atop the cliffs at the Modern Art museum to the street level for 2 euro (nothing is free in Europe!) and then strolled through Salzburg.

Aerial View of Salzburg, Austria. Mind the rain...

 Some of the highlights in Salzburg included the Getreidegasse, which is Salzburg’s main shopping street, the Residenzplatz, Domplatz, and Mozartplatz. The three aforementioned Platz’s form the main square in the center of the city. The star of the city is the Dom Cathedral.  Despite all of the beautiful churches and Cathedrals that I have seen in Ireland and across Europe, the Dom in Salzburg will emerge as my favorite. The artwork on the ceiling was beautiful and it is deceptively large on the inside. Certainly the most memorable for me. Amidst all of the tourist attractions, Erin and I managed to find an Austrian food market and get a couple, yes you guessed it, sausages (16,17,18).

Domplatz

Residenzplatz

Getreidegasse

Interior of the DOM

Mozartplatz

After seeing most of the city sights in around four hours, we decided to head up to the Hohensalzburg Castle which dominates the city no matter where you are looking. You need to take a trolley car up to the fort and the best views of Salzburg and the surrounding area were achieved from here. The castle itself was fascinating, and construction had begun back in 810. The price of a trolley ride up included an audio guide which was a great way to learn about the history of Salzburg and the castle’s function over time.  The tour took us through the dungeon and torture chamber, then to the lavish rooms where princes and dukes lived over the years.

View From Atop the Fort

 Our last night of the trip was one of the best  I have had abroad. We went to the Augustiner Brewery which is an old Augustinian Church that has been turned into a beer and food hall. The Augustinians still run the show and they brew their own beer inside the renovated church. 

This is how the place works: After you buy a ticket, you pick out a mug from the wall and wash it out in a baptismal fountain.  Yes.  You then walk into a small corner room and give your ticket and cleaned mug to a nice Austrian man who pours cold beer out of an massive oak barrel. Easily the coolest beer drinking experience I have had. Dad, Uncle Steve, you guys would have LOVED this!! It was amazing to be drinking a huge litre of home-made beer in the same mess halls where monks and friars had lived and prayed hundreds of years ago. It was kind of weird see crucifixes and religious symbolism in every direction, but this beer was so delicious that I found the courage to enjoy it. They had all kinds of food vendors scattered around the rooms and we ate cheese stuffed sausages (19) and a mystery meat that remains the best thing I ate during the entire trip.

MEAT

Stop

After the Augustiner closed at 11, we went to another small bar around the corner. We watched a group of guys playing darts for a while. It didn’t take long after inviting Erin to join in their game and after we got talking to them before they were buying us free drinks. Austrians are by far the nicest people I’ve encountered. We finished our final night in a massive dance club, somehow avoiding to pay the 23 euro cover charge. A great night and a great way to end the trip.

I can guarantee that we were the first and only American study abroad students to ever step foot inside this place

Casually crashing an Austrian rave

The next day we woke up and checked out, then headed back into town one last time before catching a bus to the airport. On the way into town, we walked through the Mirabell Gardens outside of a Palace of some sorts. These gardens are world famous, and I will let the pictures do all of the talking. Besides the flowers, the people in the garden were just as spectacular.

Personal favorite attraction from the garden, these two

View of Salzburg from the Gardens. See the fort? Look at IT!


 

We went back to the food market from the day before for one last final sausage stop (20,21). We drank massive sodas from BK and shared some BK fries. Normally, that triple threat combo would satisfy the requirements for the “perfect lunch,” but throw in an Austrian music festival in the background, and Austria became an even harder place to leave.

This last minute trip proved to be my favorite one that I have taken so far. Two of us managed to consume 21 sausages of various shapes and sizes, and I probably drank more beer in three days than the previous three weeks combined. Everything just seemed to work out in our favor and both of this cities themselves were absolutely incredible.

I have ONE day left in Galway. I certainly have mixed emotions. Galway is incredible and it'll be tough to leave this place but the prospect of seeing the family and AMERICA but mostly the FAMILY is getting me ready to fly home on Thursday. Tears of sadness or happiness? World will never know...



And then I'm back home for what is shaping up to be the busiest three weeks of my life to date. I cannot wait to get back to the US, but I will try and enjoy my final moments in Ireland as best as I can!

SEE you all soon, for real this time.