Wai's Travels!: Humboldt

Friday, November 13, 2015

2015 - Eastern Europe Summary

Duration: 18 days (arrived on the morning of Saturday September 12, 2015 and left in the morning on Tuesday September 30, 2015)
Cost: Flight from Toronto to Munich and Prague to Toronto ($1,108.42 CAD), 3 trains ($214.15 for three people), overnight train (67 € I think for private room just three of us) Hotels (819 € + $1,519.45 CAD for two), $342.83 for car rentals, roughly 17 € per meal in Germany and Austria, 4,000 Forint per meal in Hungary, 300 Kč per meal in Czech Republic and local transportation and admission.

Highlights (in no particular order):

BMW Museum in Munich, this museum has given me a greater appreciation for the brand and makes me almost want to get a BMW for my next vehicle. I believe that even if you aren't interested in what BMW makes, you will like the layout, flow, and collection that is housed in the BMW Museum. In my opinion, it is a must see while in Munich.

BMW Museum

Dachau Concentration Camp in Munich, make sure to sign up for the guided tour and jump back to a time where things were different in Germany and learn about what happened here and how things were back then. The guided tour lasted roughly 2.5 hours and well worth the small cost of it.

Dachau

Salt Mine in Salzburg, while I didn't know what to expect nor did I actually know this was part of the plan (I didn't really look at our plan well), this was a surprise and the two slides plus the train out were excellent and worth the day trip here.

Salt mine slide #1

Salt mine slide #2

Linderhof / Neuschwanstein in Munich, while there were cool looking palaces in the other countries that we visited, these two really stand out the most in my mind (outside of the metal bird in Schönbrunn palace). Take a day trip and visit the two to travel back to a time where palaces were built with grand ideas and locations in mind and just wander and enjoy your surroundings. I feel that overall, Linderhof is my preferred palace of the two, but odds are, you will visit both given their proximity to one another. If you visit them, I would suggest Neuschwanstein first since it seems to be the busier one, but in my opinion, Linderhof is more enjoyable.

Neuschwanstein

Linderhof

Lowlights (in no particular order):

Kutna Hora, expectations were too high for me for this one. It is a small room, so much sure to visit the town nearby otherwise you spend a lot of time just to see this location. Make sure to go early because it gets pretty busy by 10:00am.

Kutna Hora

Must try food places:

Humboldt in Salzburg, was quite the surprise restaurant for me. It was the only place that we visited where I enjoyed all of the entrees that we got and unfortunately Humboldt was never topped for me for the rest of the trip.

Humboldt

Wratschko in Vienna, is a restaurant recommended by Anthony Bourdain and I would suggest it as well. Just note that the service was lacking for us but in my opinion, the food makes up for it.

Wratschko

Szazeves Etterem in Budapest, is a restaurant recommended by Allison's brother and worth visiting. Come on a Friday and be entertained by the live music there. Good food, good service, recommended.

Szazeves Etterem

What would I change?

Vienna could have been shortened to 3 days for us versus 3.5 days that we spent there. Budapest could have also been shortened to 2 days versus 3 days. Otherwise, I think the trip worked out well and everything worked out for us even though we were quite worried about the migrant crisis at the time which turned out to be a non-issue by the time we arrived.

I know that this is a common path that tours take and I can see why since it is very convenient to get from place to place. I do feel that we started on a high note and ended on a softer note which made me feel a bit bored by the end. Not so much due to planning, but the variety of things to see disappears after awhile and I think that happens to me a lot during longer trips. Not to fault the countries that we visited.

In hindsight, it may have been better to reverse the order of the cities, but that meant that we would hit Munich during Oktoberfest which is something that we didn't care to visit due to the additional cost.

Until next trip!

Monday, November 9, 2015

2015 - Eastern Europe Summary (Salzburg)

Duration: 3.5 days (arrived Wednesday September 16, 2015 in the evening and left on Saturday September 20, 2015 in the morning)
Cost: Star Inn Salzburg Zentrum ($712.64 CAD for 4 nights), manual transmission car rental ($108.40 CAD for 1 days), average meal was roughly 17 € a person for us, and admissions to sights and transportation.

Highlights (in no particular order):

Salt Mine (Salzwelten), initially, this was just something to see since we planned to visit Hallstatt and this is up there with the BMW Museum and Dachau as my highlights of the trip so far due to my low expectations. The slides are fun and I wish there were more, the train to get out of the salt mine was fun (watch your head due to the low ceiling), and overall, it was an enjoyable experience.

Hallstatt slide #1.

Hallstatt slide #2.

Hallstatt, this place is as nice and pretty as the pictures make it seem. If we had more time, I would have liked to have wandered around the area. It is a very quaint little town which may be ruined by all the tourism that happens here. It doesn't seem like there is much to see here, but well worth the stop if you like how online pictures look of this place.

Hallstatt.

Lowlights (in no particular order):

Ice Caves (Dachstein), originally we planned to visit Eisriesenwelt, but it made more sense to visit Dachstein due to its proximity to Hallstatt and the Salt Mine that we visited. I'm not sure if Eisriesenwelt would change my opinion of Ice Caves, but Dachstein was a bit of a disappointment. I walked in with the idea that we would be in enormous caverns that is covered in ice and we can wander around, but it was actually a guided one-way follow the path tour. Maybe if we did this before the Salt Mine, I would have appreciated it more, but I felt that I would have paid to do the slides again in the Salt Mine compared to coming here to see the Ice Caves again. But, you may think differently than I do about this one.

Dachstein ice cave.

Must try food places:

Humboldt while it was our first restaurant, I think it was the best restaurant that we visited all trip. All three entrees that we had I thought were very good and for some reason, we never came back even though we tried quite a few restaurants here, none compared in my opinion to Humboldt, so do try to make a stop here.

Humboldt.

What would I change?

Looking back at what we did, I think you can probably fit most places in Salzburg in roughly 2 days, with 1 extra day for Hallstatt, Salt Mine, and Ice Caves (which we did all in one day). I do feel that we probably could have squeezed everything into 1.5 days or possibly just 1 day depending on what you want to see. This part of the trip was a bit more relaxed, so, the extra .5 to 1 day is fine since we weren't rushing to see everything. Note that if you plan for a shorter stay that most tourist locations close at 5pm or 6pm, so you will need to plan accordingly.