Op Vakantie

Well, one of the things you learn in Dutch vocabulary rather early on is the word for 'vacation'. Vacation is very important in dutch society, and as its now the school summer break, many dutchies are "op vakantie". It is the summer right-of-passage, and a very important part of Dutch culture. 'Ga jij op vakantie?' is the question in early summer. They live for vacation! Whether the warm temps and waters of Spain, or the mountains of Switzerland/France/Austria...any country that is different than the flat, rainy, mild temperatured Holland.

The Dutch enjoy many more paid vacation days at their jobs than in the USA...I'd say at least a 3 week average. Or on the high end you could get 43 holiday days a year (like the person I live with!....however that includes the gov't holidays and the 12 days extra he gets for working 40hrs/wk on a 38 hr/wk contract).

So, we did as any other Dutch couple would do- get outta town and go op vakantie. Due to the fact that we are living in a one-income household currently, we could not do something a bit more elaborate, such as go to Norway, as we have been wishing to do in recent years....but we did something still just as fun. We went by train to southern Germany and went camping!

We left the 18th, and spent 9 nights at the Campingplatz Tennsee, a camping place in the middle of tiny towns by the names of Klais and Krun. This was all within a few miles of the border of Austria. The nearest real 'town' is Mittenwald. I believe this area's only hope in their local economy is tourism- summer camping/hiking/holiday apartments, and in winter its skiing. It was such a beautiful area, the 2nd highest mountain peak in Germany was nearby, the Karwendel. The first thing we saw when exiting our tent in the morning was Karwendel. And the Tennsee (Tenn lake) was really more of a pond. Every night at dusk for about 3 hours, you could hear the hundreds of frogs/toads and crickets chirping and singing a melody to put you to sleep. (Or in M's case, since he hates frogs, he had bad dreams the first night thinking they were in the tent and he was trying to swat them away! haha!!).

The first day we took a cable car to the top of the mountain, over 2400 meters up. And we decided to hike down, even though it is easier to hike up a mountain than going down. It took several hours, as the first half is all loose rock, it was very slippery and dangerous! Quite a challenge. My legs muscles ached for days afterwards, it was difficult for me to even walk up/down steps after that b/c of my calves/quads/hamstrings. And the blisters on my toes and feet---I had problems with that all 2 weeks, my hiking boots were probably a size too small (you should buy one size larger than your normal shoe size apparently). It was quite painful to walk most of the time. I bandaged them and taped them up, which helped some in preventing more, but didn't help those already there. My feet are in pretty bad shape now.

The second day we hiked up another small mountain over 1100 meters, and around in our area. Saturday we went to Innsbruck, Austria by train, as it was only 1 hour away. Its a nice city in the valley between some large mountains. Sunday we hiked some more to Mittenwald and in gorge walking trail outside of Mittenwald. On this train we crossed the border into Austria.

Monday was supposed to be a 'break' for my feet...we were going to take the train/bus to Vils, Austria, then try to catch a bus to Fuessen, Germany, about 6 km away. This is where the castle Neuschwanstein is located, the fairy tale castle of Mad Kind Ludwig that was built in the 1800s and which Disney based their castle on. Well, the bus was over an hour wait, if it actually came that is...and we were told it was only 4km to Austria.

So we walked to Austria.

It took over an hour...and was probably more like 6 km to the city center. And by this time, the painful feet I had, I was stubborn and wanted to actually see Neuschwanstein again (I saw it in 1998) since we had already walked this far. But it was another 3km to walk. Oh the stubbornness that ensued (on my behalf). But through the heat and the blisters and the pain...we saw it. And 1/2 hour later we had to get on the bus back to Fuessen, to make sure we could get a bus that would take us back to Garmisch-Partenkirchen (where we could get the train to Klais and then walk another 25 min to our campsite). Just barely, it all worked out. Neuschwanstein is one of the most visited tourist destinations in Germany. Its fricken crazy there, and the busses don't leave when they should, so we almost didn't make our connection in Fuessen.

But we saw the castle!!

Tuesday and Wednesday we did actually rest my feet...because we biked. We rented mountain bikes on Tues from our campsite...they were a bit too small for us, they were made for teenagers. Imagine 6'7" M riding a small framed bike. With a 7kg backpack. It rained all day, pretty heavy at times. But it was beautiful ride. Wednesday was much better weather, we got better 'touring' bikes from a place in nearby Krun. We biked probably 60 km that day, up to the Walchensee (lake) - it was 24 km around it. It was such beautiful blue-green water,due to the mineral content in the water!!...unfortunately it wasn't as warm as Caribbean waters!

Thursday we went on a hike organized by the town tourism office of Krun. It was to the Hoellental. This means valley of hell. It is a narrow gorge you walk through (thru tunnels and walkways they installed along the wall/edge)...and it is one of the ways leading to the Zugspitze. It was really a neat hike, very enjoyable and scenic. Sometimes we were really near to the edge, a bit scary. However my feet were in so much pain the way down. Ouch.

Friday we made our way by train to Esslingen. We transferred several times, because we got a cheap ticket. But for 3 hrs we were in Munich. We had time to walk around a bit, and to eat lunch at the Hofbrau Haus. That was yummy. We met up with my host parents from 1998 and stayed with them for 3 nights in Esslingen. It was nice to see them again, and to sleep in my old room looking out to the city center, and drink wine with dinner on their balcony. Monday through Wednesday we were with my friend Anna-Lena (who was in the high school class there). We visited the city of Konstanz, which is on the Bodensee (Lake Constance) in southern Germany. We crossed the border to Switzerland by foot here!

Overall, it was a very nice time and a nice trip. I wouldn't mind going back there again. My Germany language skills slowly came back to me, as the first week I was totally confused in my head between Dutch and German. I wanted to say more dutch words than German, now i'm back to more German than dutch. Camping was enjoyable, but this camping place had mostly small RV's/camper vehicles. There were probably 40% Dutch people staying there. You could tell the difference between the children...the Dutch children were louder and more obnoxious than the German kids.

Things I like about Bavaria/Baden-Wuerttemburg: scenery, lederhosen, Fachwerk, little chapels in tiny corners of alleyways or along regular streets, bells on goats/sheep/cows so that you can hear them all the time, chocolate croissants, bakeries, kuchen (cake/tortes), WINE, sunshine.

The Germans have a stereotype of Dutchies in their heads...that they all drive with their caravans (campers) in the left lane of the Autobahns at 40 km/hr slower than everyone else...in mass exodus to southern Germany. Considering the number of campers that were in our camp site alone...and all the cars we saw on the road...I think its a pretty accurate stereotype!

For some nice photos, please check out my Flickr page:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/caclabots/sets/72157601200917965/

Fun Geography Facts:

• Crossed 2 international boundaries by foot 3 times in total (Austria and Switzerland)


• Hiked on the 2nd highest mountain in Germany (Karwendel)


• Zero passport stamps


• Sat on the shore of Lake Constance where the Rhine River begins (in this lake)


• About 87 km biked (54 miles)


• Unknown km hiked!


• Around 1900 km travelled by train


• Top speed of 300km/hr reached while on ICE train