I thought the European Union thing was all about erasing borders and having passport free travel?
Well we first had our passports checked by the Italian Police at the frontier with Austria, then the Austrian Police had a look 5 minutes later, before the Germans had a crack after them. The nice Austrian policeman spent a couple of minutes trying to find my entry stamp for Italy before finally giving up – I have a well used passport and I don’t look all that Syrian or Eritrean. At the same time, along the road beside the train line we could see literally kilometres of parked semi-trailers I assume are lined up to be checked for illegal immigrants. An hour later they would be lined up cooling their brakes after a fierce downhill run.
But the scenery really gets its Eidelweiss on – I think the locals were amused at the 2 goofy Australians oohing and aahing at every new panorama. The photos don’t do it justice as they were shot out the slightly dirty window of a fast moving train, but I think you will agree on the biscuit tin lid quality of the scenery.
And then there is Innsbruck, clearly the most beautiful view from a railyard you can imagine.
But Austria is a blink and you miss it sort of place. For us, Austria was literally mostly downhill as the train raced down from the Brenner Pass and about 90 minutes later we were in Germany with the rivers were all flowing North. The German Police made a very cursory passport inspection – I suppose historically they have been able to rely on Austrians to be fanatically picky about who they let in.
A note on Austrian agriculture. For those reading this blog who may be familiar with the steep paddocks of South Gippy – have a look at these Alpine fields all around this peak. I am pretty convinced most of these are not natural clearings but are summer grazing.
An hour or so later we arrived in Munich. Amazingly, 10 minutes out of the city centre we were still looking at Wheat crops – they are nice and compact these European cities. Having missed lunch entirely, we were soon having dinner at a nice Italian restaurant in a Munich equivalent of North Fitzroy (but a little more vertical).
On why you should always take good photo’s before you start a war.
So for our full day in Munich we trotted down to the Marienplatz, which essentially the centre of the ‘old town’ of Munich. When I say old, most of the buildings seemed to be less than about 73 years old (count backwards, you’ll work it out). Due to the quality work of Messeurs Lancaster and Boeing, Munich had a fantastic opportunity for urban renewal which they used to essentially rebuild all their pre-war buildings but with straight lines and better plumbing. This work was so well done that it wasn’t immediately obvious as Jo and I had admired the lovely condition of the Cathedrals and Kirks (churches) that were so much better maintained than the Italians could manage, before Jo found an information board showing devastating bomb damage. So apologies to the Italians, but it is amazing how much better these old buildings look with new plaster and a lick of paint.
What was completely unexpected was the Bavarian tendency towards pastel colours and baroque plasterwork. If you have ever browsed a BMW or Volkswagen colour chart where even the red cars are grey, you would not expect the very bright building facades you see in Munich. And the church interiors were at least as ornate and way less somber than the Basilica’s and Cathedrals south of the Alps.
Now one of the great delights of the day was discovering that Tradies in Bavaria wear Lederhosen! I offered to let Jo buy a German leather outfit if she let me buy leather shorts, but no dice…….
Now there are a lot of Cuckoo Clock shops in Munich (if your tastes run to that sort of thing), but the Rat-haus (what a fantastic name for a seat of government) has the worlds biggest cuckoo clock built in. It takes till about 12:20 to finish chiming noon. Fully sick.
