European Trip 1998

An attractive storefront window along a major street.

Thursday evening, Frank drove us over to Cathrine's apartment in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, about 1 hour drive from Herssching. We had dinner with Cathrine and Elfride, her mother, at a nice Italian restaurant. Just before entering, we saw two paramedics rush in. I said that this was a bad sign, but we continued in. I was relieved to see that they were just getting some food to go. The restaurant turned out quite nice. We sat on the second floor where the windows were completely opened and we had a beautiful view of Garmisch-Partenkirchen and the mountain of Sugspitz.

A skate on a country bike path was the opener for the next day. Though Cathrine was struggling to shake off the effects of a cold, she was quite fast on her skates. However, when we stopped, her nose blowing sounded so rhythmic, it was almost like she was playing a song. It was a picture perfect summer day. We skated through fields blazing away in color with an assortment of wild flowers. A few days before in Herrsching, I had terrible allergy problems. We went to an "Apotheke" (drug store) and while it was about $1 US per pill, I only had to take one a day and, more importantly, it worked. One type of flower, a pretty red one, turns out to be a poppy, or cousin of the type of plant used to produce heroin. We got high on the scenery and the joy of gliding along on our skates. At the turn-around point was a stream with crystal clear mountain water. We took many sips of this wonderful fluid. I'll never understand why Europeans don't drink more water. We rested for a few minutes and talked. Cathrine and I disagreed about the Sugspitz. She said it was the tallest mountain in Europe. I said it was the tallest for Germany only.

Skating on a beautiful bike path near Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

After returning from our skate, we went on a hike up a mountainside. We lunched on apple strudel as the clouds returned. As we closed the gate to the restaurant behind us, some horses charged up from behind and encircled us. Cathrine and Lyn started shrieking. Cathrine picked up Bennie, her dog. Bennie had no problem biting people, but was as meek as a mouse as he apparently felt very overmatched against these huge animals. The horses seemed most interested in Bennie, but Bennie had no affection for them as he entered kind of a comatose state. I suggested we make our escape by Lyn and I walking on each side of Cathrine down a steep slippery slope with the horses jostling around us for position. I wasn't worried about the horses attacking us, but if Lyn or Cathrine slipped and fell, the horses could bury one or two of us beneath them. It must have actually been quite an entertaining scene for the local people sitting at the restaurant - some strange tourists worried about a few horses!

When horses attack! Actually, they just ran up to investigate us. However, if one of them had slipped on the steep, wet slope, someone could have gotten crushed. They were trotting around us, while Bennie (the little dog) was barking and struggling to break away and find cover. It was funny and scary at the same time. The picture didn't really capture the moment and it really was a lot steeper than it looks.

After we got to the gate and closed it behind us, we reached back and petted the very nice horses. However, Bennie, though recovering, was still not in a sociable mood. Also, by this time, the thunderstorm had caught up with us. The thunder wasn't occurring very close, so we decided to wait a few minutes under cover of some trees. We hiked for awhile longer when we had to take refuge under the eaves of a small barn. In the woods I heard a strange sound, that I had only heard indoors before. It was a cuckoo of a bird. I guess that's where they got the "cuckoo" clock from. We didn't have a long wait and we soon made our final descent back to the car, arriving just before a steady rain commenced. Lyn's moccasins were especially soggy after passing through some of the marsh-like land.

That evening we stopped at a gas station on the way to Munich. Cathrine and I added air to the tires using an object about the size of a car battery with a two foot long hose attached to it. In America we always have to wrestle with a long hose permanently attached to the compressor. On the road again for a few minutes, Cathrine suddenly slammed on the brakes. Up ahead was a very strange sight. A car was stopped facing us in our lane, it's back end hanging in the air a foot high, still attached to the trailer it had been towing. The trailer was flipped over on its side, but there was no visible damage.

A nicely painted store in Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Cathrine, Elfride, Lyn, and I met Benedict, Cathrine's boyfriend, at a Greek restaurant. The food was delicious, just like a few days before when Frank had taken us to another Greek restaurant. The problem was that this time appetizers were ordered before we even started into the generously portioned main dishes. This was one of those times when you wish you had been warned beforehand and asked whether you wanted so much food. Afterwards we had a driving tour (where we noticed a couple of large rats scurrying along the streets) and a nice walk.

Our last day in Garmisch was spent skating around the town, taking pictures, and visiting with Andy and Janine. Janine told us about her vegetarian diet and Andy told us about his incredible new computer set-up. Sunday morning we got on the train for what we thought was a trip to Paris. For the second time, we failed to get there. We knew we had to change trains in Munich, but we didn't realize that we were supposed to change at a station just before the main station. The train to Paris was supposed to be at Track#9 and our train from Garmisch stopped at Track#24 so we ran in vain at the main station trying to find the train that wasn't there. Having missed our train it was time to change plans once again. We decided to head south into Italy.

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