Deutscher Trip 2015 – Part Four: Salzburg

March 2, 2015 by Brad

Despite not being in Germany I’ve wanted to visit Salzburg for a long time. Salzburg is just under two hours by train from Munich and made for a great day trip.

After getting off the train, I found the tourist office to get a map and directions to the key things I wanted to see: Mozart’s Birthplace, the Cathedral and the Fortress.

The tourist office provided me with a suggested path I walk through the city to get to the Altstadt (old town) where most of the tourist attractions are. This path was meant to take me through a beautiful park, but unfortunately, many of the gates and sections of the park were closed due to snow.

Eventually I found my way into part of the park which was rather pretty in the snow, and then crossed a bridge into the Altstadt.

Deutscher Trip 2015 – Part Three: Zugspitze

February 27, 2015 by Brad

The third part of my adventure in Germany was a day trip from Munich to Zugspitze, the highest mountain in Germany.

I began the day just before 6am putting on many thermal layers and then looking like a bit of a fool catching the U-Bahn to the München Hauptbahnhof. From München you catch a train for about an hour and a half to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, where you switch to the Bayerische Zugspitzbahn (cogwheel/rack railway) to get to the mountain.

Halfway along the railway you can switch to the Eibsee Cable Car that takes you directly to the top of Zugspitze. This is what I did as it was the fastest and most spectacular way to get to the top of the mountain.

Deutscher Trip 2015 – Part Two: Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Würzburg and Nuremberg

February 26, 2015 by Brad

As I have visited Munich before, my friends who I was staying with decided that they would show me more of Bavaria instead. So early on Saturday morning we hit the autobahn and traveled up to Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

Everything along the autobahn was covered in snow which was spectacularly picturesque (although my photos don’t really do a good job of showing this). Along the way we stopped at a rest area so I could make a snowman.

Deutscher Trip 2015 – Part One: Arrival

February 23, 2015 by Brad

In early February I decided to take a last minute trip to Germany to visit some good friends who I have not seen in a number of years.

Booking a major trip five days before leaving is completely opposite to my usual modus operandi, but things fell into place really well and I saw myself flying from Sydney to Munich via Abu Dhabi on a Thursday afternoon in early February.

I was last in Germany a little under two years ago and I have such great friends there that I simply had to go back. It’s a long way from Sydney and there are no “easy” ways to get there. On my last trip I flew with Etihad and had a good trip up, but a bad trip back. While there were other airlines who offered trips with similar flight lengths and prices I ended up flying on Etihad again as they had the best arrival time into Munich (mid-afternoon).

The first flight, 14.5 hours from Sydney to Abu Dhabi went well. It is a very very very long flight, and despite having done a few of these ultra long-haul flights now one still gets restless over the final few hours. I had been dreading spending the layover in Abu Dhabi after a bad experience there two years ago, but this time we arrived at a different terminal which was super clean and the three hour layover went relatively quickly.

Goals for 2015

January 2, 2015 by Brad

Continue learning German
Learn python
Go to Europe
Read 20 books

Happy 2015 – Fireworks from Sydney

January 1, 2015 by Brad

I spent New Years Eve in Sydney with friends overlooking the harbour. This year we went to Athol Lawn, Bradleys Head on the North Shore.

After being sent in the wrong direction by security, we got inside and found a good spot on the lawn looking between the trees across the harbour to the bridge and the city. We then had a eight hour wait for midnight, firstly in direct sunlight and then being cooled by cloud in the late afternoon.

The views from Athol Lawn were impressive. We were further from the bridge than we thought we would be, but being able to see five or six barges along the harbour is a view that I haven’t been able to see before. Glancing back at my photos from previous years, this is one of the best views of the whole city that I have seen.

2014 – The Year of Growth

December 31, 2014 by Brad

Another year comes to an end. During this year I have achieved many of the goals I set myself in January:

Continue Learning German – and go back to Germany.
- I did well with the German in the middle of the year, but in the later months I have done none.
- I still have a massive desire to return to Germany.
Summit Mt Kosciusko
- Fourth year in a row that this hasn’t happened. But I did go skiing in the Snowy Mountains.
Read at least ten books – including the six paperbacks I currently have unread.
- I have read 36 books! But have now amassed 14 more to be read. In May I decided to start reading on the bus in the morning rather than reading Facebook and Twitter on my phone.
Buy a VF Commodore – I’ve wanted a Holden since I was in my teens.
- Still a pipe-dream
Keep this blog up to date.
- I blogged fewer times than any previous year, so I avoided the problem.

The year has had many highlights: