Travelog for: Brinda

Hi Mummy,
my holidays in Portugal are over now. I'll climb into my envelope and travel back to Petra in Bruchsal.



I've spent a wonderful time here in the South of Europe.

Love
Brinda

It's my host's birthday. We helped to prepare things for the guests, which came to have breakfast with us, but we toyvoyagers were allowed to eat first before the guests arrived.






For lunch we had some Italian kind of soup and this interesting bread rolls.

Finally it's Thursday morning and we drove to our hotel in the Bavarian Forest. On our way there we stopped at the Railway museum in Nuremberg – Nürnberg in German. It was raining heavily, when we arrived there. Many other people had the same idea and so we had to stay in a queue outside in the rain for several minutes until it was our turn to pay the tickets. We only looked at the big trains, though, because our hosts already have seen the other rooms of exhibitions and said, that it is just too crowded today. We are sorry for the bad photos, but the light made taking photos really difficult.


King Ludwig's royal train.






The Saxonia was the first operational locomotive built in Germany in 1838.




Then we went to the old signal tower. We looked at some more locomotives, while it was raining even more heavily than before.

The Walhalla is a hall of fame  that honors laudable and distinguished Germans, famous personalities in German history — politicians, sovereigns, scientists and artists of the German tongue. The hall is housed in a neo-classical building above the Danube River, east of Regensburg, in Bavaria, Germany.

The Walhalla was conceived in 1807 by Crown Prince Ludwig, who built it upon ascending the throne of Bavaria as King Ludwig I. Construction took place between 1830 and 1842, under the supervision of architect Leo von Klenze.

The Walhalla displays some 65 plaques and 130 busts of persons, covering 2,000 years of history — the earliest person honored is Arminius, victor at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (9 CE). (wikipedia)








We took a photo of the Walhalla from the far too, wanted to get the whole building on it. We tried to get a closer view, but haven't been really successful.

Finally we arrived at our hotel and had a rest there. See the view out of our window.

The weather is rather bad - a lot of rain is falling down on us. So at first we had to decide, what to do with this day. Then our hosts remembered, that they wanted to visit a Bärwurzerei and that they could do so on a day like this. We drove to Bad Kötzting. Bärwurz - baldmoney- is an ornamental plant and they use it to make Schnaps - hard liquor-  out of it. Our hosts told us, that they don't like to drink it, but they wanted to buy some other Schnaps and liquor.

At first we read about the Bärwurz.




and took a look at some other plants, which they use for Schnaps and Likör.




The parish church Maria Himmelfahrt is the centre of the defence buildings with exterior circular wall, moat and interior ring. The church was mentioned in a pope certificate in 1179, extented in 1737/38. Inside it is baroque with a high altar from 1771 and pulpit from 1730.








Bad Kötzting is a nice city with many beautiful houses.

Back in the hotel again we took a look at the things we bought. If you see this here, you could think, that our hosts are a lot into alcohol, but they told us, that it is a famous region for theses Schnaps and liquor and also for beer, which we bought on our way back to the hotel.

My hosts found an interesting place to visit for today: Die gläserne Scheune - the glass barn. It is a barn, which Rudolf Schmidt and his family bought to make it a really special place. The inside walls of the barn are glass and he and other family members painted on the glass. You can see different stories on the glass:
about the "Mühlhiasl"
about Saint Francis and more.
It is a really fascinating place and we can all recommend to go there, when you visit the Bavarian Forest and are close to Viechtach.




This trunk on the ball shows the lies that weigh on the world, they make the world fall apart.






You can see those wayside crosses very often, when you drive through the Bavarian Forest.




This one is only painted with pencil.




Here he tells the story of Mühlhiasl.




another painting about Mühlhiasl.

We saw the Maypole of Viechtach, which is on a place next to the church of Viechtach. We were standing in front of the church to take this photo.






The church St. Augustinus in Viechtach




At last we visited the Kristallmuseum - crystal museum in Viechtach.

Then we drove to Arnbruck to visit the Weinfurtner Glasdorf. Arnbruck is a city next to the Glasstraße - glass street - where still glassblowing is very important.
Weinfurtner has a really nice garden with glass decorations.

At last we drove to Maibrunn, because we read, that you can have a good view over the landscape from the WaldWipfelWeg - treetop way. I felt a bit scared, because the way swings and made me feel dizzy. I felt so dizzy, that we forgot to take a photo of the landscape.








Under the way there are stations to learn more about nature - here coats of different animals. I was so shocked, when I saw a coat of a bunny there too.

Do you remember the Gläserne Scheune? Today we drove to see the Gläserne Wald - glass wood. It was also created by Rudi Schmid.

Our real destination was to go on top of the Großer Arber - great Arber. Großer Arber (German for Great Arber, Czech: Velký Javor) is the highest peak of the Bavarian-Bohemian-mountain ridge, with an elevation of 1,456 metres (4,777 ft). Although geographically belonging to the Bohemian Forest, it is often referred to as "King of the Bavarian Forest". Just enjoy the views















View to one of the Felsriegel - rock outcrops.




We also tried to climb a bit. So you see, who fell down a bit? I had a little accident, but she wasn't hurt, thank God.




I climbed up again and sat down next to my friends.




Then we all climbed down again and went on the way, which you see here, to go to the next rock outcrop.




Here we had been able to see the Kleine Arbersee - little Arber lake.




In the early afternoon we drove down again, because we wanted to walk around the Große Arbersee - big Arber lake.

After a few minutes drive by car we arrived at the Großer Arbersee - big Arbersee. Großer Arbersee is a lake at an elevation of 935 m, its surface area is 7.7 ha. It's about 10 000 years old. At its west side the water surface is covered by about 2 hectare swinging grass. Over thousands of years these swinging grass islands reached a thickness of between 1 and 3 meters. So much about information, now I just want to show you some photos. I really enjoyed to walk around the lake.






Here you see the swinging grass islands.






View to the Großer Arber and to the edge between swinging grass and water surface.

Back at the hotel we all were really tired, but also much too excited. We saw a thunderstorm coming and we all had been really afraid of it, but our hosts wanted to sit on the balcony and told us to relax a bit on the balustrade. The thunderstorm wasn't that bad, but of course we had to go inside, when it began to rain.