We travelled the breadth of France at 315 km p/h from La Rochelle to Stuttgart on the TGV train, it took only 9 hours including our 2.5 hr wait in Le Gare de Montparnasse in Paris. Young soldiers barely out of adolescence patrolled the station with machine guns. That clashed with our sensibilities! You wouldnt want anyone to bump the trigger on one of those things. Our next train crossed the border without any passport fuss and we got off in Stuttgart to be met by old friends Thomas and Sigi, parents of Julia (Yulia) who had stayed with us in nz a few years back. We arrived during Oktober Fest which the city was celebrating in leder hosen etc drinking beer eating sausage etc. We were showing our age, far too tired to join the festivities. Every year Germany celebrates the coming down of the Berlin wall and it was Stuttgarts turn to host the proceedings, so some important dignataries were in town to officiate. We just wanted to get our weary bones horizontal and eyes shut so we would not be eyeless zombies for the next days activities. The next day we saw what looked like draculars castle jutting out of the horizon on a mountain top. No thunder and lightening, no bats or organ music. It was a beautiful sunny day and we were headed for castle Hohenzollern. It is fully rebuilt and most impressive. I think people still live in parts of it. You enter the walls over a short drawbridge and with footsteps ringing, you walk up the winding cobblestone horse tunnel where, if there was going to be a ghost it would feel right at home in the damp darkness. A little scanty light filters in through deep slots. The grounds inside are of course picture perfect so that my heart strings thrummed pleasantly. The chapel interior is as majestic as a cathedral. Lots of baby cherub angel paintings and muscular soldiers with dogs elegantly posed in sleep upon mediaeval battlefields. Wood panelling, inlaid wooden parketry floors etc. While the guide rattled on in German I gazed out the lead-light window onto the beautiful green valley far below with its forests and villages and fields with crops and sheep and thought maybe it wasnt that different from the old days, seen from this distance at least. The part I really want to see is always the living area, the kitchen and bedrooms etc where real life went on. Our tour guide never showed us a kitchen but he did unlock the rooms where the Friedrich Wilhelms lived with their families, they were disappointing rooms even though they were meant to be the most beautiful rooms of all. I found it all too ornate and richly decorated. Over the top. It all looked rather showy and uncomfortable. The rooms were gold encrusted, jewel bedizenned, masterpiece infested thoroughfares. I much prefer the French less is best approach. And a bit of privacy with soft furnishings, cushions, rugs, log fires, untidy book shelves and at least one plain wall with a simple unlaboured painting thats not preaching at you or giving you a compulsory history lesson. Now that wouldve hit the spot. I think the Germans are more industrious than the French, they dont shut shop for a 2 hour lunch every day. The cities we saw are cleaner but not as beautiful. It does seem the French are still a bit prickly toward them since the war, like the Irish are toward the English. But thats just speculation based on my limited observations among the people I was with. During my limited period of observation I also noticed that Germany is positively moving toward being eco friendly. Solar panels cover a high percentage of roofs, there are even little solar farms dotted around the city of Tubingen. The government obliges grid operators to pay a set price for the power people put back into the grid. The house we stayed in was solar heated, heavily insulated and is toasty warm even when the temperatures hit below zero and the snow a meter deep. Gas kicks in to top it up in sunless periods. There is an electric volks-wagon now that is in high demand. They seem serious about drastically reducing their carbon emissions. We went to the Saturday market in the old town centre. That was fairly buzzing with hordes of people pouring through the narrow lanes like a molten lava flow. I was standing up by the town hall with my camera pointed down at the flow of people pouring between the buildings and market umbrellas, when a very rude man put his hand over my camera lens and said it is against the law to film people without their permission. He demanded that I delete any image he was sure I had of him. I said I was sorry and let him see as I deleted the film I had been taking. When I told this to Thomas he said no such law exists in a public place. If he doesnt want to be filmed he should stay home. I speculated to myself (as I tend to) that maybe he was a public figure up to mischief with his fancy friend and feeling camera shy for obvious reasons. He was probably just a rude and cantankerous control freak. Never mind. The time came for us to say auf wiedersehen to Sigi and Thomas and catch the train to Frankfurt, to catch a China Eastern plane to Shanghai where we had a 7 hour lay over till we could board a good old Air NZ plane bound for home sweet home. Our short time in Shanghai was interesting. We arrived at the Pudong Airport terminal 1 at 7am after no sleep to a very wet and humid 24 degrees and no air conditioning. It was difficult to find our way to our connecting flight as there were no helpful signs and we had to ask official people who were quite snappy and preoccupied and not terribly clear with their directions. We eventually found our way to where we were meant to be, wheeling our bags for what felt like kilometres inside the airport building to terminal 2, glad we werent pressed for time. We bought 2 cups of coffee for 66 yuan and a bottle of water for 11. That seemed a lot! It turned out that it was expensive but not overly by airport standards. 50 yuan is worth around NZ$9.50 Though we lost quite a hefty percentage of the euros we exchanged. We finally sat down to wait out the rest of our 7 hours feeling the temperature rise till I was in a puddle of sweat feeling totally dishevelled and gross after a day and a night of travelling and now this sweltering heat. I went and stood outside in the rain where it was cooler and tried to take in the reality that I was in China! This was Chinese rain, those are everyday Chinese people in that noisy tooting stream of cars going about their everyday business in a very real and present China! It didnt sink in. I think a large portion of my soul was still trying to catch up, we were moving way to fast for it. We got to Auckland after another sleepless numb-bum foot- tingley flight in economy to be met by our dear Mauri and a 2 hour drive home to heaven. The whole trip took 36 hours and I was quite bewildered and ready to cry from exhaustion. That was 3 days ago I think, feeling better now so will get out of bed soon as I post this. Here ends the final account of our very first trip to Europe. Thanks awfully for reading them all.
Posted on: Sat, 12 Oct 2013 02:45:21 +0000
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