Stepping out of the Groove: 5 countries in 48 hours

We left Prague in a driving rainstorm and it persisted through that day and into the next. In fact, the innkeeper in Bad Abbach, Germany informed us that record rains had caused the Danube to reach 8m above normal. An all time high. Just perusing CNN.com today, I noticed that there are flood alerts throughout Hungary along the Danube. Suffice it to say, NE Europe has been and continues to be very, very wet.

But fear not for us, as we adjusted and escaped the liquid sunshine and have been basking in proper sunshine while scrambling around the Swiss Alps. It has been awesome! More on that in a moment.

Prior to crossing from Czech Republic into Germany, we made a stop in Plzen. Any of you beer aficionados out there know the significance of Plzen? Anyone? Buehler?

Plzen is the home of Pilsner Urquell. One of the Czech’s finest beer offerings to the world at large and an personal all-time favorite of mine. I had to go. A bit of a pilgrimage, if you will. What better thing to do on a rainy day than tour a brewery? Finishing it off with the requisite sampling room at the end. It was a great tour and there was a certain completeness to our Czech itinerary with that final stop. Beer is after all, the national symbol of the Czech republic.

From Plzen, we crossed into Germany and eventually pulled over in Bad Abbach. Our objective was to get heading towards southern Bavaria. The following day we made Füssen which is the home of Bavarian King Ludwig II’s castle, Neuschwanstein. This is the same castle that Disney used to model their animated castle. I had seen it on my own European tour in 1989, but it was great to visit it again despite the foul weather.

We still hadn’t figured out our lodging when we wrapped up the castle visit at 18:30. We decided to cross over into Austria (5km away) and see if maybe the lodging was less expensive. Little did we know that we crossed over into some Austrian ski area and the prices for guesthouses were appalling. After about 6 different stops, we finally found something for 50 Euros per room and it was not much to speak of (translation: shared bath). The next day dawned clear and we had a better understanding of why the lodging was so pricey. The scenery was fantastic. Mountains on 360 degrees.

We drove over a high mountain pass and enjoyed really stunning views of the Austrian Alps. Later that day we went through Lichtenstein, which was a nice tick on the countries-visited tick list. And later still that same day we finally stopped in Switzerland in the small alpine village of Andeer. That made 4 countries in 24 hours and 5 in 48 hours. Whew!

The weather was fair and we found a nice campground in Andeer. What a relief to be able to camp. Without camping, Switzerland would have broken the bank. Oddly enough, we did not originally have plans to visit Switzerland for fear of the high prices. However, because the weather was nice we figured we should take advantage of the window of opportunity and do some hiking in the Alps. And that has been our program for the past 4 days. Being able to camp has made it tenable. We have enjoyed splitterlicious weather and the hiking has been absolutely superb.

We spent 2 nights in Andeer and are now on our second night in Reckingen in the Goms Valley. We got to Reckingen while trying to make our way towards Zermatt. We still have yet to make Zermatt, but could not pass up on the Goms Valley as we were driving our way through here yesterday afternoon. It was one of those deals where you are driving along with a different destination in mind and yet everything in your bones is screaming, “what do you think you are doing numbskull? This place is off the charts spectacular! Pull over and pitch the tents!” So we did. And it was a good decision.

The forecast is for more bluebird skies and we are going to continue to ride this weather out in the Alps until it is time to report to our apartment reservation in Paris on 12 June.

Berg Heil!