The Professional Tourist

Well, the first Augsburg tour went on April 5th.  My first Augsburg customer being from Estonia.  She had a wonderful day (or so she claimed) and it was a beautiful day as well.  Augsburg is refreshing after many years in Munich.  The main thing that I find different is just the general attitude of the people.  Augsburg isn’t so saturated with tour companies even though it has a more substantial history than Munich…but what really sticks in my mind from the Tuesday’s tour is the smell of the city.  Downtown Munich or Berlin or Vienna is mostly shops, churches, palaces, but not food.  Augsburg’s downtown area has food around every corner…and very international options as well…literally everywhere, it’s quite amazing what that does to my stomach after half a tour!  For food alone…this tour is great.

The season is almost here and I’m as excited about it as any of you tourists out there.

If you want the no-hassle all-in tour from Munich, please visit Radius Tours and book there.  Once you have booked the tour, please stop by the office at least 5 minutes before the tour to trade the print-out for a real ticket and then you’re all set to go.

The tour costs €35…which includes all transportation to Augsburg and back to Munich.  The meeting time is 9:45am and it returns at 6pm.

For more info on meeting up with the tour in Augsburg: www.augsburgtours.de

As of April 1st, I’ll be doing Augsburg tours every Tuesday and Friday.

Why Augsburg?  Well, it’s the most historically significant place within a few hours of Munich, in fact it’s well over a thousand years older than Munich with the sights to prove it!

Founded in 15BC by the order of Augustus Caesar, Augsburg really hit its peak during the 1500′s when it was a free imperial city at the center of the largest trading organization on earth.  The Fugger family was, without question, the wealthiest family in the world and they along with their rivals the Welser family, pretty much ran the city of Augsburg.  At that time of course Augsburg was the big city and Munich was the small unimportant town.  Even Vienna’s importance paled in comparison.  The great thing is Augsburg never had a collapse so that even today you can see how amazing Augsburg was because everything is still there and looking great.

More info will be posted soon along with a website dedicated to the tour itself!

This was the first Christmas spent wi th my parents since 2002, so Christmas was nice…New Year’s Eve we spent at the Fest hall of the Hofbraeu Haus…so…THAT was nice…

Other than that, I’ve been mainly doing Neuschwanstein tours lately.  Looking into other prospects…

I need to completely re-do my private tour page as those msg’ing are asking the impossible.

January is oddly warmer than December.

Petra and I got new phones as well as new Kindles for Christmas, so that’s pretty awesome.

A couple days ago I became the “Mayor” of Neuschwanstein on Foursquare…

Random photos I take with my new phone are uploaded to photobucket automagically (see link on the left)

This is a very random post.  Sorry.  I’ll be less random next time…well, okay, maybe not.

We’re back in Munich from a long weekend in Spain.  I love Spain…ever since I first visited Spain in 1997 I’ve loved the place.  That first trip may not have been perfect, but at least in my mind, over the years, I’ve made it out to be perfect. 

On that trip, most of the time I spent in a small town called Alcocebre, which is on the East coast of Spain.  I stayed with a host family, who are from Madrid (mas o menos) and spend their summers in Alcocebre for the wonderful life on the sea with nice sandy beaches and great seafood.  From there we traveled to Peñíscola, Teruel, Sigüenza, Madrid, Segovia, La Granja palace, El Escorial, and places in between.  It being my first time in Europe, I fell in love with the place.

Thirteen years have gone by since that summer and finally I had the opportunity to visit Spain again, this time with my wife.  As a wedding present, my Uncle Bob and his wife Susan invited us down to spend a long weekend at their house in Javea.  Javea is vaguely similar to Alcocebre in that it is a beach town on the coast of Spain, but this was a very different experience.

This time it was mainly relaxing, sight seeing only as a side.  For me, that’s a huge change from our normal vacation which is pretty non-stop.  It was great, however.  We got to spend a good amount of time with Bob and Susan, had some wonderful food, and met some very nice and interesting people. 

Javea is a much larger town than Alcocebre…or at least than Alcocebre in 1997 anyways.  Javea is much more expat friendly than anything I’m used to and DEFINITELY more expat friendly than Alcocebre was.  Spain is still Spain, though, and the Chopitos (fried baby squid) won me over once more.

Next time I think we’ll head to Málaga…

Hey everybody, I’m currently sobering up from the Oktoberfest last night.  This year I went more than any other year I think…every Sunday and one Saturday.  Usually I’ll go one weekday and one weekend…hmm.

I had plenty of oxen sandwiches & beers…was quite thrilled with the “historic” section of the Oktoberfest…definitely the best beer I’ve had on the Wies’n…wish they’d produce it every year.  Partied in the Hippodrom with my buddy Andi from down at Neuschwanstein as well as the Radius crew over at the HB tent…all in all, I had fun.

Anyways,  tours have been going great lately, and I’ve been kept busy with http://www.nileguide.com/destination/munich and http://www.nileguide.com/destination/blog/munich/

In a few days I’m off to Spain for a long weekend, to soak up some sun (hopefully).  We’ve never flown ryanair, so we’re a little skeptical, but well…gonna give it a try.

Hi everybody.  If you’re wondering what I’m doing lately and there is a gap on here…which I hope isn’t the case as I love my site…but I realize it does happen seasonally…you can check out what I’ve been writing over at Nileguide.  Have a look:  http://www.nileguide.com/destination/blog/munich/

I’ve just started with it…and this is the extreme busy season, so when things start to slow down here, expect me to hit high gear there…and hopefully here as well.  Then again, I don’t get anything from posting here *cough*

I will say the season is pretty much wrapped up…the tourists for the most part are gone until the Oktoberfest…and I’m kinda happy about that actually.  Sometimes you need a break from trying to manage 40+ people all day, every day.

Hi everybody, sorry for the long delay (again), this time it was mainly due to our vacation to the states.  It was nearly 4 years since the last time we were there.  We had a great time, I just wish we had more time…several people I meant to get back to at the wedding I never actually did…and that really sucks.  Just not enough time…still, it was a lot of fun and I had my first “real” summer in years…since Germany never actually achieves summer weather.

Speaking of summer in Germany, the last week of tours have been damn busy, but all good (ok, maybe not so much Saturday as it was pouring rain…and quite awkward with the 2nd guide).  The bus drivers have been extremely nice to us down at Neuschwanstein this year…and well…I’ve been working pretty constant since I got back so I can’t complain too much.

Anyways, I had a real update planned, but thought I’d just post something to fill the gap.