Category Archives: tours

Things on my various tours over the years

Notes from Salzburg

Yesterday I could swear I saw a woman who is the human equivalent to the Chinese crested.

In the last year all the formerly free public toilets of Salzburg have become pay toilets.  I recommend going to the university or the mall if you need to go.

If you’re going to the Sudan, I’d go in the spring or autumn.

McDonalds French fries must have crack in them.

It’s interesting how American “formal wear” places that rent tuxes are unbelievably concerned about proper measurements, yet tux rental places here just glance at you, hand you a tux, and it fits perfect.  Do we have higher standards in the states?  Maybe, but I’m easy to please I guess.

If you’re going to Dubai, go in the winter.

Australians assume that you’ve never heard of their country, let alone their city.  When you insist that you’ve met around 2,000 people from their city, and know all about it anyways, they will still proceed to tell you exactly where it is and then continue about extreme basic geography of Australia.

South Africans honestly believe they’re completely set for the football world cup this June.  I’m not so certain.  The thing that may save them is that the numbers will be considerably less than we got here in Germany in 2006.

Everyone thinks Munich and Salzburg get huge amounts of snow and extreme weather, which is flat out not true.  In the last 6 Christmases, there has never been snow on the ground here.  (though 50 miles out, yes…about 1cm of it)

I wish Nokia would just release their damn N8 already, cause I want it.  Alternatively, I’d quite easily settle for Sony’s Vivaz if they would make an announcement that they’ll move to Symbian^3 when it’s released and also offer a mapping program where you can download the maps so that when you’re “roaming” you don’t have to go online to use your GPS navigation.

There is no smoking at the mall in Salzburg, so all the Austrians sit in the bathroom stalls to smoke, there is nearly never a stall open…but when there is, there will be several cigarette butts floating there.

The entire Salzburg train station is completely gutted at the moment.  According to the Austrian rail company, it’s not alone…10 of the biggest stations in the country are currently ripped apart.  Any bets on when this will end?  I’d put my money on 2011, but then they’ll just start on the next thing to annoy me.  Salzburg’s station was looking rather sad, though, I admit that.

Given a choice between a tip given in liquid or straight-up money, guides prefer money every time.

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[Listening to Nine Inch Nails‘s album With Teeth]

Vienna part 2: more comparisons of the transportation systems

My first post on Vienna focused mainly on my first impression of the city of Vienna based on coming in by rail, from Munich, and comparing the trains.  I feel public transportation is extremely important when visiting most major European capitals, because lets face it:  I walk at least 12km/day and when I’m on vacation it’s got to be double that because my whole body falls apart.  So, to at least minimize this, public transport is a must.

In Munich I’m spoiled.  Our public transport is one of the best in the world.  Of course there are flaws (the ticketing system is difficult for even Germans to figure out), but the network is set up better than any I have seen yet. (…and yes, I have been to Paris, Madrid, Rome, Berlin, New York, etc.)

So anyways, I thought I’d do a quick direct comparison of the local transport of Vienna and Munich.

Munich:

There are 4 main ways to get around town:  S-bahn, U-bahn, Trams, and buses.

The S-bahns are the commuter trains that are almost always above ground, but are underground for 5 stops.  These are by far the most useful and used part of the public transport system for tourists.  They are the fastest way from the main train station (where most hotels are located) to the center of town and back.  The S-bahn is also the cheapest and easiest way to get from the city center to the airport or vice versa.

The U-bahn is the underground system (subway).  These are almost always under ground at all times.  U-bahns are useful for commuters, but not so much for tourists as most of them merely take tourists away from the sights and do not connect them (easily at least) to the places they want to go.  As with anything there are exceptions of course:  the soccer stadium is on the U6 and the Olympic park is on the U3.

The Trams are the street cars.  They are either on the road itself of in the median of the road at all times…always above ground.

Vienna:

There are 4 main ways to get around town:  S-bahn, U-bahn, Trams, and buses.

The S-bahns are more like regional trains than commuter trains and are about 20 years older than Munich’s.

The U-bahns are above and below ground randomly.  (They’re fairly similar to Munich’s as far as comfort though.)

The Trams in Vienna are the main way tourists get around town and are strongly encouraged by all the guide books as well as the tourist information.  They are sometimes above ground, sometimes below…so good luck with that.  None of them go through the city center.

Below is a picture of Petra standing next to the tram tracks at an underground tram stop.

Vienna's Tram....underground and ghetto  

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I was very irritated by the Vienna public transport system.  It always got us where we wanted to go with a fairly minimal wait…but everything was…well, dilapidated and archaic looking and feeling compared to Munich.  The terminology the city chose to describe the various parts of the system doesn’t tell you if you should look on the street or under it, which annoyed me immediately.  I dunno, I was irritated.

Next up I should probably talk about actual sight seeing, eh?  Well…I guess.  It’ll have to be in another post, though, as there are a lot of really cool things to see in Vienna…and we tried to see most of them.

Vienna part one: first impressions, comparison to Munich

Vienna.  Well, the first questions everyone seems to ask are “Did you like it?” and “how was it?”. 

Both of those are loaded questions, in my opinion.  As with anything there is good and bad.  Did I enjoy my vacation in Vienna?  Yes.

I finally got to see a lot of things I’ve wanted to see since I first heard of them many years ago and also discovered cool things that I wasn’t expecting necessarily.  This is why I travel…and is nearly always the case.  After many years living in Munich, Vienna isn’t a huge departure culturally, but is definitely not the same.  A friend of my wife’s that we met in Vienna kept repeating a slogan from the local tourist board “Vienna is different”, and it was.  Not better, or worse, but different.

On the train home from Vienna I thought about all the things I wanted to say about the trip here on the blog, but unfortunately I don’t have a direct link from my brain to the computer, so these things take time as I’m always distracted at the computer by all the random people that want things from me.

I thought I would start with my first impressions of the city…transportation and the hotel.

We took the new rail Rail Jet which is, and I very jokingly quote: “Austria’s high speed train”.  It tops out at 200km/hr, which is reasonably fast…but you have to consider that 90% of the time it’s going 80-100km/hr.  In comparison, you can look at Germany’s high speed train, the ICE, which regularly travels at speeds up to 320km/hr.  The Rail jet, although a comfortable train with friendly service, is not a high speed train by European standards.  Anyways, it was a nice fairly short ride to Vienna and into the West train station.

Our hotel was the “Allegro”, which has a decent location and worked rather well for our purposes.  It is a 3-star hotel for under 50 bucks a night…can you really go wrong there?  Breakfast was included and quite decent as well….better than average in fact.

We came into town, went to a ticket machine for the S-bahn, U-bahn, and trams of Vienna…and their ticket machine was very easy to figure out.  In comparison to Munich, that was SUPER-easy.  The S-bahns and U-bahns, on the other hand…are a bit, umm…I think I would say “ghetto” in comparison to Munich.  Being extremely used to public transportation, we got to our hotel very quickly and without a hassle at all.  Most of this was expected, though, as Vienna has a reputation as being a very comparable city to Munich.  I guess I expected their transportation system to be updated like Munich’s has been…but apparently they don’t have the money to do it there.

Anyways, I think I’ve written enough for this post, I’ll write more on Vienna later, in parts 2-56.

Have a good one

 

Garden Gnomes

One of the most common question themes I get on tours, probably the most asked, is this:

“What are those little shacks with the little gardens?  Do people live there?”…”Is that where poor Germans live?  …like, their slums?”…

It’s okay, you don’t have to worry.  That’s where the term “garden gnome” comes from!  There are hundreds of thousands of small German people that mostly keep to themselves and live in their own separate communities preferring to live solely amongst their own kind.  Since it is not politically correct to pick on the little people, they are rarely in the news….anyways, click here for further information on the little guys.

 

 

[Listening to NOFX from the album Concerns of a GOP Neo-Phyte (]

Damn, it’s been busy

The last few days we’ve had huge numbers on the tours and although there were moments where I wasn’t completely sure everyone would make it and stay happy…surprisingly, everything went quite well and I believe everyone enjoyed themselves…and that’s what really matters.

The numbers have literally been some of the highest of the year and back-to-back, too…kinda crazy.  I’m not sure if it was all the tours, but it was all the tours I do.  I survived and now I can relax for a few days.

Tomorrow we’re going to have my friend from Finland over for NYE…we’ll set off fireworks and maybe try out some of our new wii games that we got for Christmas.

On a side note, I think we have 7 bottles of bubbly….not sure how I feel about that.

Happy New Year everybody!

Merry Christmas

This year Radius Tours only takes a 2 day break from doing tours, but I have until Tuesday, which feels good.  I’m off to my mother-in-law’s place for a couple days where they actually have snow.  That’s right, it’s 40F here and although you can find snow if you search (where people piled it up while shoveling), there is no snow on the grass and certainly none on the sidewalks or streets of Munich..

I love having no snow, I really do.  I’m told back in Minnesota there’s a big snow storm, and it’s really nice that those just don’t happen in Germany.

 

Merry Christmas, drive safely, and stay away from that awful snow!

[Listening to MXPX from the album Christmas Party]

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Almost Christmas, I can’t wait

Christmas in Munich is a busy time.  Christmas in Salzburg is a busy time.  Therefore, I’ve been busy and quite frankly over-run with tourists.  At least on the days that I have tours.  Since it’s the winter, I’m only working half the time…although I think we actually have easily enough tourists to have tours every day.  It’s not my call…so oh well.

On my days that I’ve had free of course I’ve gone downtown past the Christmas markets, but since I’m not interested in buying overpriced Christmas ornaments, I just take pictures and walk on.  Last week I took a few pictures, so I might as well let you take a peek as well:

These first few were taken at Marienplatz, if you’ve ever been to Munich, I’m sure you recognize it…

This next one is of a very cheesy middle ages market that is located right around the corner from Odeonsplatz

Now, I know what many of you are thinking:  where’s the snow?  well, it’s generally too warm for snow in Munich.  We get snow, yes…but it doesn’t tend to stay very long (certainly not in December).  In the last seven years there has never been snow on the ground in Munich on Christmas eve.  The temperature right now is above freezing and it’s 8pm…so…what we have at the moment, which is very little, is melting….I’m pretty certain it will be gone by Christmas.  Tomorrow I have a Neuschwanstein tour and it looks like rain even down there…or an ugly mix….good times.

That being said, I’m spending Christmas about an hour outside of Munich …and there’s usually snow there.

Good luck on your travels, wherever you’re going for Christmas!

[Listening to Die Toten Hosen from the album Ertrinken]

Overflowing trains, but no major problems

The last couple of tours down to Salzburg have been extremely busy, but not nearly as bad as previous years.  As long as I’ve gotten my group onto the train 20 minutes before it leaves, I’m good.  On Thursday’s tour, if we were 10 seconds later, everyone would have been standing the entire two hour ride to Salzburg.

On the down side, it’s not completely comfortable with people’s arm pits in your face as they stand smushed together in the aisles.  Everyone in my groups get seats…and that’s what matters to me.  During the summer, on the train to Neuschwanstein, it’s quite often a major seating problem as well, but I have to say…I’m REALLY good at getting everyone a seat and pissing off the lesser tour companies.

I’m considering carrying a hockey stick wherever I go to use as crowd control.  Maybe put some bright orange hockey take on the blade…  If I could get my mom to mail me my aluminum hockey stick from home, I think I’d bring it on the next tour.

And the best news of the season for me:  I don’t have to go to Salzburg again until after the Christmas markets close!!!  (you don’t know how wonderful that feels…the stress is too much…even if I have been damn lucky)

Instead I’ll be going down to Neuschwanstein every couple days for the rest of the month.  Apparently, we’ll have a couple very large groups too…but it should be no problem that direction, just cold.  Mary’s bridge is closed til spring…and many of the restaurants and souvenir shops don’t bother opening in the winter…followed by Fuessen COMPLETELY shutting down at 4pm…they really try to make it difficult.

Despite all of this, nearly every tour this year has gone very well.  (there are always exceptions…less than 5% and it’s a good year…considering all the train break downs, train delays, bus break downs, bus delays, snow, ice, rain, motorhead fans, drunken bachelor parties, rowdy Italians, football (soccer) hooligans, and others that try and make it difficult)

[Listening to Jetty Boys from the album St. Patrick’s Day]

Just in time for the holidays

Are you planning your trip to Germany?  Planning a trip to Europe?  Just got back from Europe and want to do more research?

Well, just in time for the holidays, I decided to become an Amazon.com associate and open an associate store for this site.  What does that mean?  Well, basically I hand-picked a bunch of stuff from Amazon.com that I think will be useful for my readers.  If you purchase something through “my store”, I get a small percentage and you pay the exact same amount you would if you just went straight to Amazon.  So you can find things easily and you’re helping me too…it’s a win-win.

Anyways, the store is up now with the first bunch of things I could think of, but I will probably add a lot more in the coming weeks.

There’s a link to it on the left hand side, or you can check it out here:  The Professional Tourist’s store.

[Listening to D.O.A. from the album Cocktail Time In Hell]

Christmas Markets are booming

The christmas markets were interesting to me when I first came to Germany. In fact, my first two trips to this country were over the christmas holidays and so I was able to visit several christmas markets. Other than the mulled wine, I’m not a fan at all.

These days it means something completely different to me, of course. As a tour guide, the number of English speaking tourists dramatically goes up and it’s back to peak season numbers for a few weeks. What this means for my Salzburg tours is that I don’t enjoy them (the tourists don’t either, I honestly don’t understand how anyone could). What this means for tourists actually trying to see the sights is that it is nearly impossible (there’s just too many people…WAY too many people). Good times.

I dunno, it’s probably also the fact that it’s steadily getting colder this time of year and so it is usually hovering just a bit above freezing and pouring rain…so that of course means fun for all, right?

Random notes:

The christmas tree in Salzburg is way more impressive than the one in Munich,
The christmas market in Munich is WAY nicer in my opinion because there’s 10x less people.
If you want a more authentic market, I’d suggest Landshut.

[Listening to: The Hockey Song – D.O.A. – Kings Of Punk, Hockey And Beer (2:09)]

And completely unrelated, but true: For a guy known to many as “NOFX Mike”, I’m really hating Fat Wreck lately.

A typical day down at Neuschwanstein Palace (you can call it castle all you want) Part 1

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:

Neuschwanstein 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.

The gorge

Back at the bus stop

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Middle of the summer

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.

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July

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.

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Touring…non-stop

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.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

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Pictures of Me doing a tour

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!

[Listening to: The Mistlethrush [outtake from – The Pogues – Just Look Them Straight in The (2:45)]

Viewing platform and pavillion in front of Neuscwhanstein “castle”

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:

Day of Bavarian Beer

On April 23rd, Saint George’s day, I had a city tour of Munich. St. George’s day also happens to be the day of bavarian beer…and so free beer flows from the beer fountain here in Munich.

That’s right, free beer. I had only a group of seven that day, but six out of seven came with me at the end of the tour to enjoy a free beer with me. We had a great time. In fact, I had several beers and made a couple German friends while I was there. They took my picture & were taking pics of themselves there too.

Anyways, here’s the pictures from April 23rd: