Places

Strong beer festival at Paulaner am Nockherberg
1 March 2008

Every year during the fasting time all the beer breweries in Munich celebrate the Starkbier festival. During the short period, they brew the Starkbier (Strong beer), a type of dark beer with more than 7% alcohol. Among them, Paulaner brewery is the most popular with their Starkbier "Salvator". We went to the Paulaner am Nockherberg restaurant on 5. During the festival, there is €1 entrance fee just to enter the beer garden area. The situation is similar like oktoberfest, many people are wearing dirndl or lederhose. 1 Maß beer(1 liter mug) costs € 7,95 and the food price are quite acceptable. I ordered a Steckerlfisch(grilled Mackerel), which cost me € 9. The other food also cost from € 8 - € 13, just like normally. But be careful with the Starkbier. Because of the higher alcohol percentage, many people told me not to drink more than 2 mugs.

Nürnberger Christkindlesmarkt
9 December 2007

Christmas Market (Weihnachtsmarkt or Christkindlesmarkt) in Nuremberg is the most famous one in Germany. It's also probably the biggest, although it's not as big as it looks in pictures and television.

In the market stands, you can find many varieties of ginger bread (Lebküchen). The ginger bread is mostly sold under the name "Nürbernger Lebküchen", showing that it's the speciality from Nuremberg.

Jesenwang to Schwangau in 1 hour
Southern of Bavaria - 30 September 2007

Yeah.... on this day Christ and I finally experienced the probably once in a life time opportunity to join Capt. Jan to fly. After being postponed 2 times, finally the weather and the wind direction allowed us to fly. We started from Jesenwang, that's the place of the flight school, which is located about 30 minutes southern of Munich, where Capt. Jan already booked a Cessna 172 P, an old airplane from 70th.

We could take off from Jesenwang at 10 am after worrying for a while about the wind direction. The problem was with a wrong wind direction, 3 of us would be too heavy for the Cessna to fly over the forest during the take off.

Koenigssee - King's Lake
Berchtesgaden, Bavaria - 23 September 2007

Koenigssee is located in Berchtesgaden region in Bavaria, not far from the border to Austria. It's possible to go there with the public transportation, but we decided to rent a car to go there. There are 2 things you can do in Königssee, the first is going with the boat to the middle island with the St. Bartholome church. Other possibility is to go up to the mountain with the Jenner cable car, go on hiking or seeing the Kehlsteinhaus (Eagle's Nest). We decided to take the boat trip until the St. Bartholomä. The view of the lake and the mountains from the boat is amazing. During the boat trip, the boatman explained a lot about the Königssee and he also played a trumpet where you can hear the echo back from the mountain.

Schloss Neuschwanstein
Schwangau, Bavaria - 22 September 2007

Castle Neuschwanstein, I think it is the most popular castle in Germany. Mostly because of the remarkable postcard photograph during winter, showing it on top of the cloud.

Castle Neuschwanstein can be reach within 3 hours by train from Munich. The cheapest method to go there is to use the Bayern Ticket, which costs 27 € and valid for 5 people. It is easy to go there from Munich. You just need to take a regional train until Füssen and from there take a bus to Hohenschwangau.

We went there on 4, Lila, Greena, Sony and me. We were lucky, since that day was the opening day of the Oktoberfest 2007, so there weren't so many tourist in Neuschwanstein. We reach there around 1 pm and without any queuing, wet got the ticket for the guided tour at 2.30 pm.