We arrived at the quarry, now a picturesque lawn with a lake, surrounded with white cliffs, and took the stairs that the slaves had to take whilst carrying these huge chunks of rock. Some of us had a hard time making it to the top despite the fact that we were all relatively well-fed (Eastern Europe notwithstanding) and not carrying huge blocks of stone. It was a sobering climb.
After the steps we went to see the camp proper, although most of it was chicken-wired off due to some recent storm damage. We went in to a room and saw a video about what had happened there - it was quite horrific, but there was some hopeful sides: the residents of the village eventually became aware of what was happening there and so, when there was an escape attempt, some of them hid prisoners and helped them to safety. Go good Germans!
After the camp we drove on through some stunning scenery straight out of the Sound of Music, to see some more good Germans at a traditional Barvarian Beer Hall in Munich. I ate this huge pork knuckle (haha dad - I have photos) and drank a massive two litre stein of beer. It was great.
The stunning scenery
The BeeeeerThe next morning we had a few hours free to wander around Munich. The first job on the list was to get a haircut! I had been hating my hair since India, as my short hair was growing out into one of those mullets that you get when you grow your hair. Eew. I found a place and got a reasonable cut, although the way he styled it I thought made me look like a German! Hehe.
After that I had enough time to see the church with the "Devil's Footprint" in it, and buy some Erdbeeren - strawberries - from a stall (they were nowhere near as flavoursome as the ones at home: we are so lucky!) before going to watch the famous Glockenspiel in the town square. For those who don't know, this is a big old clock (and when I say old, I mean before New Zealand was discovered) which has this funky little clockwork dancing figure parade when it chimes at certain times. They do a little dance representing the medieval wedding it was built to commemorate, or that is what I am told it is about. The chimes are out of tune and out of time, and the figures are somewhat weathered, but it is pretty amazing for something that old!
Back on the bus, we headed back to a beautiful part of Austria which is called Austrian Tyrol (hi Andrea's sister!). There some people went white water rafting while I sat warm and dry in a cafe and waited for them, along with the others who were too poor or too smart to do it (hehe). We picked up the drowned rats a couple of hours later and went on to our accommodations. This was not a hotel as it had been for most of the way since Rome; we were back to Contiki campsite accommodation. This was good because there was a book-swap shelf there! I left my Neil Gaiman book which I bought in Florence there and took a nice, big, generic fantasy book which kept me occupied until Amsterdam, our final stop.
Before Amsterdam we did the Swiss Alps, and St Goar, which is back in Germany. The Alps were fantastic - the scenery reminds me of the south of the South Island. Huge, snow capped mountains towering over skinny, glacier-melt-blue lakes or flat glacier-carved meadows. Fabulous. Only difference is in the South Island there are no rumours of submarines in the lakes, and no overhanging cliffs which are rigged to explode! Mad Swiss. Pretty cool though.
We stopped on the way at Lichtenstein (small, had bicycles, not much else), Swarovski, where I bought nothing (the cheapest thing I liked was about $NZ600, though there was plenty more which was much pricier... *sigh*) and then at Lucerne (nice bridge, cool statue or two) where I did spend money - I bought a Swiss (Longines) watch.
The camp site was nice, nestled right near a waterfall. I didn't have time to investigate that though; most of us caught a cog railway train up a mountain called Jungfrau to a place called "the Top of Europe". The ride took about two hours, and required us to change trains once, but it didn't ever get boring. The scenery was stunning. Snow all over the place, especially high up, and cliffs and waterfalls and views over valleys... yeah, very cool.
The view from the campsite
Out the window of the cog trainWe got to the top, and it was a) cold, and b) dizzyingly high up. Not from vertigo or anything; just from the lack of oxygen! I went to run up a set of stairs (I was feeling enthusiastic) and by the time I got to the top I was short of breath and dizzy. No, that does Not usually happen, thank you.
We took the lift to the top level of the building, and had some photos in front of a sign. It was like a viewing platform, but there were clouds over the mountain so we couldn't see much. I managed to drop my camera there so unfortunately I am relying on other people to send me their pics of the rest.
We wandered through caves carved of ice, with huge, fabulous ice sculptures (amusingly, there was one of some penguins and a guy was showing his family around and said "And look, here are some dolphins"! Hehe. He was from India, and I'm pretty sure they don't get penguins there, so fair enough I guess... still funny though ^^ ). We went outside, emerging into a sleet storm and I took two quick pics of one of the girls on her camera before rushing back in to the relative warmth of the building. We also went souvenir shopping - I bought, and then posted (they have post boxes everywhere now it seems!) a postcard which I sent to my Youthline peeps.
The next day we went to St Goar, stopping at the University town of Heidelburg for lunch. I was luckily able to find a couple of disposable cameras there, so I could click away at everything again. The drive was beautiful, along the river Rhine where there are castles all the way, which I am told used to serve as toll stations for the river. In St Goar we went and saw some traditional beer steins (yes, more enforced souvenir shopping - don't worry guys, I didn't get you one... evil dust collectors!) and then went to a wine tasting.
This tasting was much better than the one in Beaujolais - if you remember that one was "here, have a glass of wine. Now drink it. Okay, you've tasted wine". At this one we got little glasses of a few different varieties, and although there was no light to speak of to really look at the colour, it was a nice atmosphere and one of the five wines was actually quite good.
The next day we drove on to our final stop - Amsterdam! We went to Edam first, a suburb north of the city. It was a beautiful little place, all tulips and canals. We did a bike ride on these fabulous "granny bikes" - back-pedal brakes and everything - which I managed not to fall off. We took photos of a dyke and a windmill, and got heckled for doing so by one of the local kids. I told him that when he came to NZ and took a photo of the Sky Tower I hoped I'd be there to laugh at him, but he was walking away as I said it. Still, it made me feel better.
After the bikes we went to a "cheese and clogs" demonstration. The cheese was fabulous, so I bought a piece (cheese with ham - oh yeah. Not sure that it's better then the walnut cheese from Mercer though) and saw a guy make a clog from scratch which was pretty neat. Ten we piled, once again, back on to the coach and headed for Amsterdam.
Our hotel/hostel thing was cute, and not to far from the centre of the city where we headed after dinner. We all went for a walk through the red light district, and some of the people went to a sex show, but I was really not interested so I went out to a coffee house with some of the others and tried some of the local specialities. We then met up with the people who went to the show and went clubbing, which was fun. Home late, and slept late the next day.
The next day I ran a few errands, including buying something clean to wear out to the Final Dinner of the tour that night. We had, perhaps a little oddly, Chinese for dinner after going for a cruise along the river. It was raining heavily so we all got quite damp that night. After dinner I went out with some friends from the group and we sat in a bar reminiscing over the tour.
The next day we packed up in the rain and drove on for Calais. We left a few people behind in Amsterdam, one behind at the border (her visa had expired a year ago!) and then the rest of us parted in London. There were a few tears, but most people stayed that night at the hotel we arrived at so they went off to check in and I had to leave so I didn't get to say goodbye. I stayed my first night with Lisa, a Kiwi nurse whom I met on tour, and am now bludging off Tony, Kali's brother. I have seen a bit of London, but that will have to wait for next update!
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