22-9-10
Slept
well, feeling peckish we walked into a bakery and found pretzels.
OMG. they are my new favourite food. preztel mit butter. too good to
be true, they are even better than i had hoped for. the butter is
very creamy here and more white than yellow, and the pretzels really
are salty so they really do make you thirsty! today was an
exploration day. we walked through the main square - the roads are
cobblestones throughout the city square, normal roads everywhere
else. fruit and veggie stalls dotted all over the square, - bananas
were nice - in between al fresco cafes and expensive boutiques and a
hell of a lot of optical stores and apoteke!!! another thing, there
seems to be a big italian influence here, lots of cafes, restaurants,
gelateria.
we
went inside the great big church – st martins - thats smack bang in
the middle of the town square! its unbelieveable! the ceiling is just
so high and the architechture is something to see! its fascinating to
think they built this thing by hand. now im not into churches (or so
i thought) but this was just the most gorgeous place i had ever been
in. the pipe organ was massive too, would have been nice to have
heard it playing - they were having a concert there later in the week
that we would miss :(
found
a penny market, like a cheaper aldi! the things in there were quite
interesting, love that you can buy beer and wine in the supermakrket
- and so cheap too. grabbed an emmenthal and salut baguette from the
cafe inside the supermarket – which was rather nice actually! -
then continued wandering around the city. we decided to do a
reconnaisance of the city and see how long it would take us to walk
to the train station. turns out, about 20 mins or so, not that far!
we found a pay phone when we got to the station so made a quick call
to mum and dad, just to let them know we were alive and well :) i
think we talked for about 5 or so minutes, it cost over €8!!!! but
was worth it. we found gelato and sat in the park very close to our
hostel, in the sun!
the
chestnut trees (castagna) are dropping their fruit - and trying to
kill you! they are just about everywhere you look, they are quite
lovely and supply a lot of shade as their leaves are so wide. the
leaves are changing and falling and the trees create long tunnels
through the park, its quite a sight to see, especially as the river
runs by. we could have fallen asleep here it was so relaxing, but we
decided to go grab a coffee to perk us up and do some more exploring.
alfresco dining in the afternoon sun is one of lifes little pleasure
i think. the coffee was very weak but the cake, oh the cake!
chocolate torte of some description, had very thin layers of really
soft, fluffy sponge sandwiched between fluffy whipped chocolate
butter cream. did i mention that the butter here seems to be so much
creamier? imagine the creamy buttercream yum! all topped with a
chocolate ganache. oh wow. soaked in the sun some more then it was
time for a beer. yes you heard me right. beer o'clock. now those who
know me know that i am not really a beer drinking kinda gal. on the
contrary. but here in bavaria, they know how to make a beer, and
there is something about sitting in a beergarden in the afternoon sun
with castagna trying to kill you that makes the beer taste all the
more sweeter :D i really love the beer, i was even drinking 1/2 ltr
steins and keeping up with tom. it just goes down so well! we walked
into the drei helmen biergarten and were greeted with "ahh the
australians!!!". we met klaus' father who only spoke a little
english, but seemed very interested to know where we had come from
and where we were going. the family here is just so lovely.
today
we walked the whole city, from gate to gate. the city gates and some
of the walls are still here, its the ginormous castle grounds!!!
after the beer we walked up to the trausnitz castle on the hill at
twilight, which was really amazing and a little surreal. i felt like
i was a weary traveller knocking at the city gates late at night
looking for food and shelter for me and my horse! very surreal. then
the fire brigade turned up, about a dozen firemen got out, they just
stood around for a chat as far as i could tell, nothing exciting.
we
walked back to the main street for some italian food – we had a
margherita pizza, and a caprese salad which were both amazing, and i
had a glass of prosecco, though i thought prosecco was a sweet wine,
it was rather dry. we had a fun time conversing with the waiter,
bouncing from german and english to italian!!!!
there
was a full moon shining right behind the castle, which i tell you, i
could have stared at all night, simply stunning. it all got too much
so we headed off for bed where we both slept like logs.
