Holland, Germany and Austria in one trip, ten years ago

BarryPiatoff
Jul 20, 2017 · 7 min read
Carla and me at Ratskeller, the famous Munich Restaurant on December 27, 2007

Before I starting blogging earlier this decade, and before I put every thought in my head on Facebook at the end of last decade, I used to send emails to a few select friends about my vacations. I saved a few of them and recently checked that there wasn’t any damaging information in them that would ruin relationships if ever read by someone else. Fortunately not! For the Christmas holidays in 2007 we visited my wife’s family and friends in Holland. We took a sidetrip to Munich, Germany and from there, spent an afternoon in Salzburg, Austria. it was a great year of travel for us having been to Honolulu and San Francisco in early summer. I had only been on Facebook a couple of months so there was not the desire to show my Facebook Friends every moment of the trip. This was the email from January 4, 2008. For better or worse, my writing style is the same.

When we arrived in Amsterdam, I said to Carla, “I’m getting too old to travel” and she replied, “What are you talking about, everyone else on the plane was your age.”

I spend a billion hours a year on the Internet. One night in October, I saw Lufthansa’s Amsterdam to Munich tickets, which were usually about $275-$300, were going for only $122. I know someone at Lufthansa who assured me that even though it was a 50 seat plane, that it was safe. And she was right. It was nice to take a simple 90 minute flight on December 27th. When we got to Munich’s airport, we took a 40 minute train trip to the main train station (Hauptbahnof), which is in a good area and is a quality train station. Our hotel, the Meridien, was an excellent hotel, at a very reasonable rate. We unpacked by 5PM and we went out on the town. As soon as we walked on the wide avenues, I knew we were in a great European city. We got to the center, the Marienplatz, a 1 ½ mile pedestrian promenade with restaurants and stores and very wide streets. It’s magnificent and though there are lots of people, it’s not crowded like in New York. We had dinner at Ratskeller, the famous traditional German restaurant. Thanks to my friend’s suggestion, I had Hefewizen beer that was the first beer I ever really enjoyed. And the German pretzel are the best! Much better than New York pretzels because they taste great and don’t fill you up. We also had “guglhopf” which is similar to marble cake. I’m now the expert on fine dining of Germany!

The next morning we got up about 8:10AM and I thought we were off to a late start. But we went to the train station, to a good breakfast place called Café Rischart, for our coffee and pastry and by 10AM we could take the Gray Line tour. We try to take these so we can see sites we might not see on our own or to know where everything is. We get to see government building (everyone has a “Palace of Justice”), museums, historical places, we saw the Olympic Park, the beautiful Schloss Nymphenburg Palace, and sites described, in their words as their New York’s Central Park or New York’s Fifth Avenue.” After that we spent the rest of the day in Central Munich and Marienplatz. We saw the famous German Beer Hall, Hofbrauhaus, and I got a mug to drink my Hefewizen beer. Cigarette smoking is very legal at Hofbrauhaus and lots of people were smoking cigarettes.

The Mozart violin from Salzburg

I had heard about a way to get to Salzburg, Austria from Munich. It took a lot of research but I found out about the Bayern Ticket. For about 29 Euros you could take a train from Munich to Salzburg. The only conditions were you had to take the 2 hour local train and instead of a more express 90 minute train and you had to travel after 9AM. So we went to Salzburg on December 29th. The train ride was very comfortable, and though we were in Salzburg for only about 3 hours, we can now saw we saw part of Austria! The city is small so we saw what we wanted. It’s very beautiful, similar to a Colorado-type ski town. Salzburg is famous for being the birthplace of Mozart and we got a little violin in a violin case that said “Mozart” and Austria.” Back to Germany and we had dinner at Marienplatz on Saturday night and went back to Amsterdam on Sunday. Everyone in Munich & Salzburg was very friendly and spoke very good English.

As you know airplane travel is not fun. There’s so much to plan, (it’s a major project) and you have to be at the airport 2–3 hours in advance. You can’t use the excuse that the train was late or your car got stuck in traffic so you must be there. I remember in the 1980s and 1990s getting to the airport early and the airline offering me an earlier flight. But no more. Now you just sit and wait.

The last day of our trip in Holland we spent in Amsterdam. I’ve seen the city a lot now and they’re really not doing anything new or promoting it to attract tourists. Since I don’t smoke dope or use prostitutes, I’m not into two of the city’s top attractions.

The Hofbräuhaus souvenir beet glass and the Hefeweizen beer we had at Ratskeller and the Hefeweizen beer they have at Hofbräuhaus

As always I bought my notepad with me everywhere so I could tell you interesting stories.

I noticed that EVERYONE is Germany followed the traffic lights and NOBODY walked on the red light. I wonder what the penalties must be if you do!

Carla’s uncle wanted to know if Duffy the Dog was still alive!! I told him she was when we left her with the vet on December 22nd but I kept wondering if Carla’s uncle knew something we did not know!!!! But I picked up Duffy today and she’s fine. or she was the last time I looked in the living room.

Carla’s father had a “Jessica Simpson Chicken of the Sea” moment. We bought him Chock Full O’ Nuts coffee as a present and he didn’t seem to know if it was coffee or if it was nuts!

The whole trip we were really blessed by good weather. At times it was cold but generally the highs were in the 30F and 40F and very little rain. I got rid of my respiratory infection though Carla & I got colds at the end of the trip. But the weather and our health never stopped us from doing anything.

Boxing Day gift-The Dutch Girl Group Band The Dolly Dots had a 2007 reunion and this is the CD/DVD of the concert.

There was a child on the Munich to Salzburg train that needs to learn a little bit more about animals. The German trains allow dogs and when a golden retriever came on the train the boy said, “look-a wolf!!” When a big black dog came on the train he should, “look-a big black bear!”

You can’t bring liquids through security in the U.S.A. or Europe either. You can only buy it once you pass customs. The sizes are more than you might want (about 20 ounces) and the prices are high; $2.70 for a 20 ounces bottle of water or soda.

The person in front of me in the airplane always leans back, way back! But what can I do? If they could not do that, they wouldn’t make the seats that way.

On Boxing Day, some of the grandchildren wanted to leave early to visit their friends but were talked out of it. It reminded me what my parents said about family gatherings when I was their age, “you’re going to go and have a good time, whether you like it or not!”

On the flight from Amsterdam to New York, we noticed Caroline Kennedy and someone else mentioned that they saw her. We didn’t say anything to her, but I thought it must be interesting because when we waited for our baggage the announcement said, “Welcome to John F. Kennedy Airport.”

We usually go to Hard Rock Cafes. It was very nice that on Saturday, December 29th at 8:07 CET, they showed a 1980 live video of The Beach Boys singing “Help Me Rhonda.” That and drinking three White Russians might have been the best moment of the trip. Well…at least I’m not into smoking dope or prostitution.

The flight to Holland was scheduled to leave at 10PM but did not leave until 1AM. The plane was delayed coming from Amsterdam, then there was a further delay when they could not find the medication to tranquilize the horses that were going to travel, in cargo, with us. You can’t make stuff like this up. But the other 3 plane flights went fine.

So that’s this year’s trip.

As of today, it’s good to be home.

Happy New Year!

Barry Piatoff, January 4, 2008 at 4:30PM

Whole lotta smokin’ goin’ on. At the famous Munich Restaurant Hofbräuhaus
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Proud husband of Carla (from The Netherlands) and owner of The Pepper Dog. My social media’s mostly about NY Yankees, Eurovision, politics, travel, music.

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