Hi everybody, as you can read from my twitter updates (which you can see on the left hand side of the site), I’ve been busy doing tours, visiting Washington DC and New York City, but I really should get back to the blog.
I went to the Oktoberfest today and so it’s not going to happen now, but soon (Thursday?) I’ll have all kinds of new pictures to show you.
Tags: Oktoberfest, wiesn, beer, pictures, WashingtonDC, NYC
Since a lot of my readers only have a vague idea of what I do for a living, I thought I’d walk you through a typical day for me. More than half of my tours are down to Schloss Neuschwanstein. If you don’t know the name, you might know it as “the sleeping beauty castle” or “the fairytale castle” or maybe “The chitty chitty bang bang castle”.
Either way, it is a 19th century palace located 2 hours south-west of Munich. Here’s a picture from the front:
So what I typically do is gather my group at the train station, usually a group can be anywhere from 5 to 35 people. I lead them to a train, where we sit for one hour and then switch to a second train. During the train ride I have a chance to talk with everyone in the group, get to know their expectations, special needs, alcohol level, and anything else that might be useful to know during the day. At the same time I can answer any questions they might have and so it’s usually a fast two hours down to Fuessen, where we get off the 2nd train. From Fuessen we take a 10 minute bus to the small village of Hohenschwangau. ( I have a special trick to avoid the massive hordes at the bus, but I’m not giving away secrets.)
Alright, so I get everyone on the bus, nearly always everyone seated, which is impressive, and we arrive in Hohenschwangau. I explain a few things about the town’s name and its history long before Neuschwanstein was built, and then we take a short break for food, beer, and rest rooms.
During the time that the group eats, I run up to the ticket office and get tickets. Quite often the ticket office has a line out the door and down the street. Certainly during the peak season if you don’t have your tickets by noon, you’re probably not getting into the castle at all. Unless, of course, you’re me. I walk into a side door that is only for tour guides. I walk up, they say “hi, how are you today? I believe you have xx people today?”…and I say yes or no …they print the tickets and I sign for them and I’m back outside in under 2 minutes.
That’s the way it’s done.
After getting the tickets, I head back over to where I told the group we would meet…and I typically have less than 10 minutes for lunch for myself.
I may or may not continue this later…in part 2 of A typical day down at Neuschwanstein Palace, which will include Mary’s bridge, the gorge, the tour inside, and of course going home to Munich.
In fact, at the moment I’m thinking I probably won’t continue this as from that point on it really is hard to say how the tour progresses. There are so many variables involved that I just can’t say what is typical. I try to fit in as much as possible and make everyone happy. Time is always a problem…some days more than others. The bridge is closed all winter. The gorge is closed randomly throughout the year depending on weather conditions. Trains break down. Buses break down. 18 year old girls collapse because they think they can walk up hills they would NEVER attempt at home. Someone starts throwing up half way up the hill and continues off and on all the way back to Munich (this has happened several times). You really have to expect a few curve balls on every tour.
…and some days, all of the above happens at once. Welcome to the life of a tour guide.
Tags: Neuschwanstein, palace, castle, Hohenschwangau, Beer, Gorge, Mary’sbridge, waterfall, Fuessen, train, Munich
I tried not to like Venice, I really did. However, although it is flawed like everywhere in Italy that I’ve seen, it is still one of a kind and absolutely beautiful.
Prices…yes they are high, but nothing dramatic. One thing that did annoy me was that many of the churches charge an admission fee. At the same time, those churches give you a laminated information card to read while you’re looking around the church so you at least get a slightly better experience for your money. I still feel it’s wrong for a church to charge an admission fee. A big sign saying donations strongly encouraged would be cool, though.
Petra and I got to see everything we wanted to, at least for this trip. We didn’t see EVERYTHING, but we certainly saw everything major.
My highlights, I think in this order, were:
The Doge’s palace
St. Mark’s basilica
San Zanipolo (The Basilica di San Giovanni e Paolo)
Our hotel was interesting…we never did figure out what she was saying.
Anyways, I don’t know why, but I haven’t been in the mood to write lately, I’ll blame the heat. Here’s a few pics:
Tags: Venice, SaintMark’sbasilica, Canal, SanZanipolo, Doge, Church, birthday, gondola, bananas
So, now that we’re back from Venice I’m damn tired and don’t want to write. Huh.
Okay, so I’ll try to come up with something a little better tomorrow night after my tour, but for now, if you’d just like to look at pics, I already uploaded most of them to both Photobucket and Facebook.
If you don’t have me on facebook, click here: photobucket
Tags: facebook, photobucket, Venice, pictures, vacation, beer, wingedlion, hardrockcafe, saintmark, icecream, boat
It’s my birthday on Sunday. So as I’ve been telling people for a few weeks now, I’m finally going to see Venice. Most tourists I have are absolutely shocked that I haven’t seen ALL of Europe. Just because you live in Munich, doesn’t make European travel any cheaper. Also, unlike your average tourist, I’m actually interested in history and want to see everything in every guidebook…and more.
This will be sort of a whirl-wind trip for us, but we’ll do our best. I’ve got my Rick Steves and my Fodor’s…and made a spreadsheet with all the sights.
Until next Tuesday, have a good one everybody, I’ll be enjoying Venice.
It still does not feel like summer’s fully hit, but technically I’m over the hump already. The idea of July is miserable for a tour guide. This last month, though, went by relatively painlessly. There’s been all kinds of complications as far as trains/buses/beers, but in the end everyone got to see what they wanted, got home safely, and were happy…and that’s all that matters.
It’s been mainly just back and forth between Neuschwanstein and Salzburg. I’m looking into creating a new tour, starting as early as possible really. Right now I’m thinking of having a short test-run during the Christmas markets. Most people go to Nuremberg and Salzburg for the chirstmas markets, neither of which I would recommend because of how commercial they are and also how HORRIBLE the crowds can be. I’m thinking of offering an alternative.
This weekend is my birthday, so I’ll be heading down south, to Venice, for a few days. I’ve made a list of the things we “need” to see…but today I should probably look into the costs of the things. Every trip we take we end up with a complete cost break-down…and it’s interesting, in my opinion, to have a look at.
Anyways, it’s my day off…I think I’m going to try to relax for at least a couple hours.
Tags: christmasmarkets, Landshut, Augsburg, Salzburg, Neuschwanstein, fuessen, Nuremberg, tours, tourguide, beer
Well, it’s been a busy summer so far, but actually a lot LESS busy than the last few. I’m not saying there aren’t a lot of tourists or tours, just that I haven’t been that busy myself.
This week is a very odd break in the action. There’s no real reason for it other than that’s how the schedule happened and I don’t have any private tours this week. So, I’ve got 6 days in a row off. Kinda odd. Not bad necessarily, but if I have 6 days off I would prefer my wife to have 6 days off too, so that we can do something more interesting than rollerblading in the olympic park.
Technically, it’s 4pm and I just watched an episode of Quantum Leap. Soon I’ll have to take off, because in the afternoons our apartment is about 20 degrees warmer than the outside air temp. Outside today, it’s 84F, so in the apartment, it should be 100F and miserable. I’m hoping our axolotls don’t boil!
I took some pictures from Salzburg tours last week, but still haven’t posted them. Maybe later…
If you’re still reading this, I have a question for you: Based off of Wikipedia, which tour would you rather do: Augsburg or Landshut?
I think I’ve gotten my groove back as far as summer tours go, June was wishy-washy as far as I could tell. I’m always trying to do the best tour, but my approach is constantly evolving, for better or worse.
As far as my last post goes, I’m using Flock still to update this, but the pic didn’t work out so well…and I’m not sure exactly what I’m going to do about it…as I like to add pics. I might have to go back to w.bloggar after all. Well, maybe just type the width and height into the source, I just like to cut-n-paste and not really think about pics…oh well.
For over a year I’ve been using w.bloggar to post because I prefer it to wordpress’s editor. Well, the last post I tried out just doing it through my browser, Flock…and it worked quite well.
However, I didn’t try pictures. So here’s a test.
Tags: test, bull’s balls, Milan, Flock, w.bloggar
Well, I’ve been rather quiet on here (other than twitter) lately mainly because I’ve been busy with tours. Mostly back and forth between Neuschwanstein and Salzburg. The train situation for Neuschwanstein really sucks this year (no end in sight), but I’ve been making it work so far.
Weekends down at Neuschwanstein are absolute hell, so if you’re reading this and you’re a tourist…avoid the weekend down there. The weekdays have been moving along smoothly, but because of the train situation we have about 45min less time there which really limits things. At the same time, who wants a 12+ hour tour?
Anyways, the weather has been all over the place lately, but for some reason I’m okay with that.
More beer people, it helps.
Tags: Beer, Neuschwanstein, Castle, Salzburg, weekdays, weekend, twitter
Every day here in Munich I’m annoyed by the same things. Here are a few of them.
Germans, no matter their age, have a real problem with figuring out an escalator.
First off, when I’m on my way to work in the mornings I usually take the left hand side of the escalator and walk up, which is what everyone on the left hand side does. The problem is that Germans get scared shitless when they get about 10 steps from the top and they just STOP. I’ve seen this phenomenon many times with people of all ages and it makes no sense to me at all. I can continue walking up WHILE PLAYING A VIDEO GAME and have no problems, so umm…why the hell are they so scared?
Second, every day I see someone (again, I’ve seen it with everyone from the elderly to kids) standing at the end of the escalator pushing the LIGHT BULB trying to get the escalator to change direction. I literally see this daily. These are not buttons, they’re lights.
Queuing: Germans don’t do lines.
It’s amazing to me the balls on these bastards and the extreme contempt they have for people who do things in an orderly fashion. And this in Germany? It doesn’t make sense, but it’s true.
Barely English-speaking Germans on the trains who insist that they need to help me, while I’ve done it 300x, and THEY’VE SEEN ME BEFORE. Bad memory? Maybe. This happens all the time and it annoys me to no end.
*sigh* I just needed to vent a little. There are several more, but I feel relieved already so I’ll stop now. Have a good one.
Nearly every day at least 1/4 of the people on my tours take pictures with me in them or directly of me giving the tour. That makes several hundred a year, at least. If you have pictures taken while on one of my tours, could you send them to me? I’d appreciate it!
send pictures to nofxmike@gmail.com please!
I figured I’d have a real update today…didn’t happen. I thought I should at least make up a lame excuse or two for why I haven’t been updating much other than the twitter feed on the left hand side. (new pics have been posted on my Facebook as well as photobucket)
I’ve been busy. That busy? No…but busy, none the less… Twitters up-to-date, leave me alone *cough*
My earlier excuse, for May, was that I had visitors…and I did. However, I have pics from their visits that I should upload, and haven’t done that yet. I also have pics from various tours in the last week…*Sigh*…always more to do. EDIT:pics have been uploaded
So to answer any general questions as to how much time you need for a proper tour of Munich: I’d go 4 hours…be prepared for several churches, a fair bit of walking, some 3rd Reich history, so Royal history, and some beer history. This is not including BMW or Olympic park or anything off the beaten path, really.
Is the BMW museum worth it? yes
Is there much to see at the olympic park? Not really, but if you’re going to BMW anyways, it doesn’t take much more to have a walk around and/or a short ride up the tower. I’m even considering doing regular tours out there because there is such a strong interest, I just don’t understand the interest myself. It is a nice park…nice stadium…concert hall…hockey arena…we even have our own “walk of fame…”
Is the Deutsches Museum worth it? I’d say only if you have several days in Munich. It’s a science and technology museum, which is very nice…but not really what you’re in Germany to see, no?
Do you really NEED 9 hours + for Neuschwanstein? yes, at least.
Well, we can fit Schloss Hohenschwangau in there too, right? make that at least 10 hours, then…make it 11 if you want any kind of a break.
American beer is weaker, right? Wrong.
[Listening to: Alcohol – Gogol Bordello – (5:08)]
Tour numbers have been going strong, I haven’t noticed anything with the recession, if that’s what you’re thinking.
Two friends have recently come to visit so I’ve been busy the whole month. Now, I’m pretty exhausted, but we’re entering the busiest time of the year as far as tours.
In the 2nd half of June I’m a bit worried about the train situation for Neuschwanstein, but I’m sure it will go over like it has every time there’s been work on the tracks, DB handle it quite well. I have been noticing a LOT of new bus drivers lately, though…which is disturbing.
Yesterday’s tour I had a few people from Nornthern Ireland, from very near where my friend Brendan is from…in fact one of them works in Brendan’s home town.
Last Saturday I was out at the HBhaus and the guy sitting across from me was from Albert Lea, MN…my home town. So it turns out he knows my dad…small world.
Our washing machine works again.
It’s a girl….5-13-07 at 11:47pm. Nova Richardson
She was 6 pounds 13oz
More news to follow soon.
I’m constantly reading a website called Mashable which is news on social media.
You know, like my current favorite browser, Flock, or my trillian replacement which is 100x better than trillian ever was, called Digsby….or websites like Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace.
Anyways, so the other day they reported on a great site related more directly to what I do. It’s called Joobili. It’s a cool idea where you select some dates and it gives you ideas of where you might want to go…
You can read the article on mashable here.
If you have some spare time for travel planning, I would definitely check it out. Joobili
Lots of odd things to check out on there.
Last week I took a couple pictures of the new setup that’s been under construction for about a year now. Soon we’ll have a little pavillion, it looks like, with some information about the palace with pictures….plus a little viewing platform where I used to bring all my groups to take shots of the front of Neuschwanstein. Unfortunately, now it’ll be obvious to all and so won’t be a unique thing anymore for people that get dragged over there by me. It’s kind of sad, really.
Anyways, here’s a couple pics from last week: