Guten morgen mein eN-Zedder freund. As promised, Fridays are for OE dreaming and planning. Last Friday we tripped around the Balkans. Today, we’re off to Germany. It’s easy to get to, cheapish and simple to get around with more trains than you’ve ever seen before, and best of all, Germans are as wholesome and friendly as apfelstrudel mit vanillensauce. Most speak English and they’re friendly and helpful (the people not the strudels).
Visit Berlin for apfelstrudel mit vanillen sauce with a view of Checkpoint Charlie, but if you’re too young to know about the Berlin Wall, skip that and go to the Brandenburg Gates which are near the Reichstag. Maybe take a John Le Carre to read on the flight over or a proper history book.
You can get to Berlin from anywhere by train, but don’t buy your ticket on the internet and don’t buy it at a machine at the train station. Go chat to the kindly Frau in the ticket office and ask about day tourist passes, which are complicated, but she’ll help and it’ll be cheaper and better. And European trains can be a bit stressful because some tickets don’t let you onto all trains and sometimes the train stops at a random station and they unhook a few carriages and carry on. It really sucks if you happen to be in that left-behind carriage. So, you know, get your tickets and information from the Frau.
Germany’s the land of beer. Real beer. Really good beer. They have purity laws to protect their beer’s quality because beer’s serious stuff here in Deutschland, as it should be everywhere. In beer we trust.
Pork’s big here too. In Munich, you must, must, must visit Munich and a beer hall. Yes, the cathedrals and galleries and parks are all good, especially Marienplatz at noon, but in Munich, go to a bräuhaus and ask for a ‘mass’ (a litre glass) which you’ll use to wash down your caveman dinner of a roasted schweinhoch. That’s pig leg in English; saying it in German sounds better. The Hofbräuhaus is probably the best of them for its décor and rowdiness, but I mean happy-rowdy not rude-rowdy like our Aussie cousins do, you know. Hans is likely to be there, and Karl, playing an accordion or a trumpety-horn thing. You’ll be expected to sing or stamp-your-feet along with Hans’ and Karl’s music.
You’ll have heard of Oktoberfest…, in October, the beer halls go outside. Maybe Hans and Karl yearn for some sunshine. All I can say about Oktoberfest is ‘stay away’ lest you be spewed at or on by one of our western neighbours, maaate.
Handy random tip for beginner OE-ers: Always take a jar of vegemite (or marmite if you’re that way inclined), but not in your hand luggage because the grumpy security people will bin it. Germany does amazing bread and toast, but it doesn’t have the eN-Zed essential.
Just like around the Balkans, when in Germany stay away from backpacker hostels because of you know who from you know where. German 2 and 3 star hotels are cheap. You’ll have a private room and a private bathroom and they do amazing buffet breakfasts. More than enough to keep you going all day, supplemented by a few schnitzels and strudels and black forest cakes and the occasional bread roll for your vegemite. (I know the V comes from you know where, but life’s not black & white).
If it’s the right time of year, go watch a footy game. The Bundesliga’s fans are way better behaved than the English Premier League ratbags and the footy’s of a far higher standard.
Dampfnudeln! It’s a sweet, steamed (dampf doesn’t mean damp like damp house, it means steam like sauna) yeast bun, served with a small jug of vanilla sauce. It’s a very, very gut breakfast but you have to go south to find them. Neustadt-an-der-Weinstrasse is a smallish town way in the south; dampfnudel-land. It’s also Riesling land. ‘An-der-weinstrasse’ means ‘on the wine route’; surely this bodes well. And bode it does! There’s nothing more um… intoxicating than a summer day riding a bicycle from vineyard to vineyard drinking chilled Riesling Shorle, which is a big glass of Riesling and sparkling water. And while down in the south, look out for Flammkuchen, a super-thin crust pizza, sort of, with white cheese rather than tomato sauce and topped with fried onions and bacon. Sneak some vegemite on it and it’s first class!
Neustadt-an-der-Weinstrasse is the perfect place from which to launch a day or weekend trip by train to Strasbourg for a sneaky-peek into the epicurean jewel of France’s Alsace-Lorraine region. By way of an appetiser, let me just say, ‘duck and blackcurrant pies’. Oui, forget Paris and the Louvre, this is the France that you and your puku must visit. A day or two in Strasbourg while visiting Germany will give you plenty to think about during the yukky long squished flight back to eN-Zed.
eN-Zed 