Voyage Junkie

I've been remiss in posting the rest of our Germany trip, and for that I apologize.  Matt and I got thrown into family gatherings and looking for jobs the minute we set foot on American soil.  Although we've only been back for about 2.5 months, it feels like a lot longer!  Partly this is due to just how much we miss traveling around Japan and Germany, and how much we want to go back, coupled with how hard it is to find a job in America these days.  But enough of our whining.  On to a magnificent castle! We were lucky enough to be able to visit Schloss Nymphenburg , pictured above in cloudy glory.  It was the summer home of Bavaria's rulers back in the day, and very Baroque in style.  Construction began in 1664 and wasn't finished for some time.  The view above is the front of the palace, seen over the second of two massive ponds filled with swans.  Where we are standing is close to the center point of the front entrance, which is ent...

We were lucky enough to be able to jump a TGV to Strasbourg a few days after visiting Austria, so we added France to our quickly growing list of countries.  The day was slightly rainy but not uncomfortable as we walked throughout the historic downtown.  The entire old city is designated as a World UNESCO Heritage Site and we felt lucky to see it.  We wandered through streets and streets of picturesque storefronts, marveling at the copious bakeries.  We soon found ourselves at the lovely Palais Rohan behind the most famous cathedral of Strasbourg. The palace is a large structure that can be seen in an aerial photograph here .  I only got the back portion of the building, which is what you see once you go through the entrance gates into the courtyard.  There were four or five museums in the palace which we gained access to by purchasing a day pass (for about 10 euro).  We walked a very interesting archaeological exhibit dealing ...

There's not much to say about Saltzburg except that it's absolutely gorgeous.  We went there and back on a Bayern ticket, which is how we went to most places in Germany (up to 5 people can ride all day, any distance, for about 30 euro).  It was definitely worth the trip.  It's only a few hours train ride from Munich, and it was wonderful to step into Austria for a little bit. We came in at the downtown train station, a short walk from Schloss Mirabelle.  This is a baroque style palace done in French and Italian style.  Its famous gardens were beautiful, filled with color, and often planted in the patterns of family crests.  Scenes from the Sound of Music were filmed here, most famously the Do-Re-Mi song, where they dance around a horse fountain in the garden and use the steps as scales. After a look at the palace, we walked through town to the old part of the city.  Eventually we came to an open square where looking up we saw a very impress...

We visited Germany over Easter, which meant a lot of candy coupled with large family gatherings with tons of champagne and incredible food.  One day we went to a gathering with one of Martina's uncles, where we met a lot of her cousins.  They were lovely people, very festive.  We enjoyed talking with them about the state of the world, what might happen in the next American election, taking a long walk in the snowy weather, and toasting a ridiculous amount of champagne to all the family milestones (a baby on the way and a marriage next year).  Martina's uncle is also an antique camera collector so we got to see his fairly substantial collection.  I even impressed him by being able to open one of the oldest models that he couldn't figure out.  To the right is a picture of Martina and her siblings, Maxi and Suzi, who we got to spend some nice time with. On Easter Sunday proper, we went to Martina's family home for a celebration with her mother and sibli...

One of our lovely hosts, Christian, hails from the town of Burghausen.  We went to stay with his parents for a night and were treated to some spectacular sights as well as amazing traditional food.  The weather was gorgeous so we walked through the town to Burghausen castle.  It is the longest castle in all of Europe, at 1.051m, and it is truly enormous.  There are six "courts," or sections of the castle.  Each court was specific in purpose and historically housed very different types of people and affairs.  The sixth court is the outermost court, and has the clock tower, a guard tower, was a place for executions, and housed manual workers and couriers, among other things.  The fifth court holds the exterior chapel, an observation tower, a park (where we played on see-saws), and was the place for ducal administration with the granary and cashier's office.  The fourth court is the prison.  There is a hexenturm  or witch's tower, that...

In honor of the recent elections in France and Greece, here's a picture I took on our spring travels to Strasbourg.  The posters read things like "youth united to resist," and "a stable job is my right."  The thing is, it worked.  Sarkozy is out and a socialist candidate is in.  Angela Merkel is holding tight to the reigns in Germany, steering Europe in a more responsible direction.  I'm very interested to see how this develops. 

Munich is peppered with churches, as can be expected of a country that is historically very Catholic.  There were two that stuck out to us, on opposite sides of the spectrum.  One was all white, clean lines and open space.  The other was dark, violent, and looked like a potential Tim Burton movie set. As you can see, it is a lot easier to get a clean shot in a bright white church! There's just something fascinating about this  church. I think it's all the skeletons.

We stopped in Munich to visit my good friend Martina who studied abroad in America during high school.  Munich is an unbelievably beautiful and clean city, full of spectacular architecture and interesting places to visit.  The surrounding area is made up of rolling hills dappled with stupendous castles.  Martina and her man Christian were the best hosts ever, taking us all over and dealing with us in their space for almost three weeks! The first main tourist site we visited was Hohenschwangau, home of two castles.  The first we saw was Schloss Neuschwanstein, built by Ludwig II.  It was never really completed, especially inside, as the King went bankrupt during the process.  He was removed from the throne and thrown in prison, where he managed to talk his way out for a solitary walk where he drowned himself.  It's a tale befitting such a sight and such a life.  The castle itself, shown below from an onlooking bridge, is an impressive white ...

One of the most vivid sights we encountered in Nagasaki was the Sofukuji , a Buddhist temple built in the Chinese style.  It was constructed in 1629 by Chinese residents of Nagasaki, and still functions as a place of worship for those of Chinese descent.  It is located adjacent to Chinatown, up a hill quite a ways and set back into the forest.  What separates it from Japanese-style temples is the color: the Chinese-style buildings are very bright, as you can see.  The reds, blues, and greens simply jumped off the structures.  As our posts of Japanese-style temples can show, the color template there is often muted and subdued.  Another difference deals with the statues of the Gods and Goddesses, as are shown in some pictures below. First, here's the second gate, up a steep flight of stairs from the main entrance shown above. Note the bright blue, green, and orange!  This was unlike anything I had seen on a temple before.  Matt and I enjoye...