Question: What do you do with a travel blog when you’re not traveling?

Answer: Re-define the word travel.

There are many kinds of journeys, and it’s a rare day when I don’t go somewhere – to the market, to the tennis club, out through the Caldecott Tunnel, across San Francisco Bay, or just around the block. Most frequently the journey is inward, a thousand years into the past to a time and place I can only imagine (with a great deal of help from academics who have gone there before me).

So, as I expect to be more or less chained to my desk for the next six months, at least until the 47^th  International Medieval Congress next May in Kalamazoo, MI, this space will be devoted to a different kind of travel, as the spirit moves me.

Beware: the pictures I post are likely to be pretty random and whimsical. The photo below is a good example – a creepily cool statue in Budapest as well as a film I yearn to see.

Anonymous

Yesterday’s post was short due to a fading laptop battery. Now that I am recharged and have paid the big bucks at the Hilton for some internet time, I want to write a little more about Budapest.

Yes, we are staying at the Hilton…the choice of the cruise line, and not a bad choice, really. The hotel earns a stop in Rick Steves’ tour of Buda’s Castle Hill because when the hotel was built in the late ‘70’s, the architects preserved the ruins of the 13^th century abbey beneath it and opened them to the public. Behind the hotel, the 19^th century Fisherman’s Bastion overlooks the Danube and Pest. And here’s the not too shabby view from our room.

Chain Bridge and Castle Hill, Budapest

Last Wednesday night, in Vienna, we attended a Mozart and Strauss chamber concert. The musicians, singers and dancers were sublime. The concert master, a renowned violinist with a Stradivarius under his chin, stood in front of the musicians to conduct in the same way that Strauss used to do it. Watching him was a joy. Alas, we were not allowed to take any pictures AT ALL, not even during the closing bows.

The venue was the Palais Auersperg, where Mozart and other composers premiered their masterpieces… marbled walls, crystal chandeliers, phenomenal acoustics. Loved it.

Next day we toured the city – as much as one can in a matter of hours – then stopped in at the Café Sacher for, well, you know…

We have been in Budapest for three days now. This is a lovely city, in spite of the misery it has endured for the last 100 years. Today I saw the last “Must See” item on my list: The crown of St. Stephen, which dates from A.D. 1000, and perhaps even before that, depending on which history book you read. This is my last post from this trip. Tomorrow, we fly to SF. Looking forward to being home, and back to work! Thanks to all who have been reading. Hope you’ve enjoyed the reports.

Last Friday we woke to fog shrouded windows and beyond them, to frost on the rooftops of Fussen. Later, as we drove north along the Romantic Road, the outside temperature registered -.5 degrees. Frost covered the trees and fields, but a scattering of dun-colored, velvet-pelted cows seemed unperturbed by the chill. Our itinerary called for stops at three of the many towns along the well-travelled Romantische Strasse, and by the time we made it to the first stop, Nordlingen, the sun had burned off the frost and the fog, but it was still cold.

Nordlingen

Nordlingen is a modern-day village dropped into a medieval setting. It doesn’t feel like a tourist destination, just a place where people have been going about their business in the same houses for the last 700 years. It sits within the impact crater of a meteor that hit 15 million years ago, and I climbed the tower of the gothic St. Georgskirche, 320 steps, to see if I could spot the edges of the crater. No luck. The Rieskrater Museum had some great photos, though.

Rothenburg ob dur Tauber in the fog

Hohenschwangau

The life of Ludwig II of Bavaria was enchanted, tragic and bizarre. It would make a great opera (he was fond of Wagner), and for all I know someone has already written it. We took guided tours of two of the castles associated with him. Photography was forbidden inside, but we were told we could take shots through the windows, as the government has not yet figured out how to copyright the landscape.

The first schloss, Hohenschwangau, was a little getaway home where Ludwig and his certifiably mad elder brother (who was under care all his adult life) spent halcyon days in their youth with mum and dad. It has been a museum for many years, but looked much as it did when the family lived there, complete with a queen’s apartment that had a secret door leading upstairs to the king’s suite.

Neuschwanstein viewed from Hohenschwangau

The second schloss is an easy walk from the first one, even if it’s hailing. (Oh yes, we’re intrepid!) It is called Neuschwanstein (the swan was the emblem of the Bavarian royal family). You have seen it. Disney based his Sleeping Beauty castle on it. The outside is outrageously romantic, and the inside even more so – each chamber depicting scenes from one of Wagner’s operas. There’s even a cave.

The entire palace is a stage set, extravagant and opulent, built and furnished by a man to whom money was no object. It took 17 years to build, but Ludwig only lived in it for 192 days before he was arrested and deposed for his inability to comprehend the concept: Live within your means.

Two days later Ludwig and the doctor who had declared him insane were found drowned. Suicide? Murder? One of each? It’s a mystery.

The town of Fussen, near Ludwig’s castles

Black Forest

Next on our agenda was a drive through the Black Forest. I shall skim over the confusing, frenetic drive through crowded, trafficky Baden-Baden in search of a way OUT, and tell you that the Black Forest is lovely and, this time of year, not at all black. As we were driving along I noticed patches of white on the verges and wondered aloud if they were some kind of flower. The astute Canadian in the car responded promptly, “That’s snow.”

Snow dusted trees.

Autumn colors and an October snowfall….to a California girl this was mysterious and enchanting, as if being in the Black Forest wasn’t enchanting enough!

Charlemagne’s Casket

Charlemagne was buried several times. Once in a Roman marble sarcophagus; once, apparently, sitting bolt upright in a magnificent underground chamber that was opened in the year A.D. 1000 and has yet to be re-discovered; and finally in the silver and gold casket that is enshrined in the Aachener Dom, the remains placed there in 1215.

But wait. Not all of Charlemagne’s mortal remains are in his shrine. Some of his bones are in the Cathedral Treasury, in three of the four great reliquaries that made Aachen a place of pilgrimage throughout the Middle Ages.

The Arm Reliquary

First up, the Arm Reliquary, made from guilt silver, which holds Charlemagne’s right forearm. You can see it in the picture at the left, in the window below the wrist. The bones were placed there on 12 October, 1481.

Puppet Fountain, Aachen.

Aachen is not just about Charlemagne, though. The area surrounding the cathedral is brimming with shops, restaurants, galleries, medieval buildings, wonderful tea shops, fountains – Aachen began life as a Roman spa, and supposedly Charlemagne made it his capital because the waters eased his rheumatism. Aachen also has bakeries that sell decadent treats, which we managed to avoid. In Aachen, anyway. We’ve made up for that since. Trust me.

Posting the last two nights was difficult due to poor internet connection. So there will be two posts tonight.
Copenhagen to Hamburg by train took roughly 6 ½ hours. Did you know that they put the entire train on the ferry that goes from Denmark to Germany across the Fehmarn Belt? The whole train.

Sunset in Bremen

Picked up the rental car at Hamburg Bahnhof, complete with a g.p.s. we named Gretchen, and we were off to Bremen for our first night in Germany. Bremen’s Altstadt (old town) is on an island in the middle of the Weser River, and we were there just in time for the sunset, but too late to catch the 8 mummified bodies in the lead cellar of Dom St. Petri. Nuts!

Next morning we set out for Aachen, hoping to arrive in time to catch the once-a-day English tour of the Aachener Dom. The only way you can get up close and personal with Charlemagne’s tomb and throne is to take a tour. Did we make it? No. So we bought a guide book and took a German-language tour.

Charlemagne’s Chapel from the outside.

The heart of the Aachener Dom is the 9^th century Carolingian chapel that is the only remaining portion of Charlemagne’s palace. Over the ensuing centuries the cathedral has been built around this central, domed, octagonal, two-storied structure. When you stand beneath its dome, you are standing in a building that dates from 800 A.D., which is towards the end of the Dark Ages (not really as dark as you might think).

Lloyd was struck by the octagonal shape and the high dome. I was struck by the ambulatory and the inner arcades that encircle the cupola.

Cloistered vault and upper ambulatory.

Next up: Where Is Charlemagne?