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Wednesday
14th. July 2010 .... (Temperature: 17˚C - 36˚C)
We boarded our bus at 9:00am and headed south to
the University town of Heidelberg.
Although the autobahn was quite crowded we made good time; the journey
taking about 90 minutes. The bus took us up to the ruins of the castle
that has been partially rebuilt since its demolition in the 17th and
18th centuries. We wandered around the ruins for about 90 minutes and it
was the first time I really needed to use my wide angle lens. We saw the
220KL wine vat and took photos from the terraces.
We then descended into the township,
had some lunch overlooking the River Neckar, did some shopping and
exploring.
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While waiting outside a
jewellery shop for Briar, I was approached by a fellow carrying a tripod
but no camera. He asked me about my Canon EOS 7D and then asked if he
could see some of my photos. The photos that came up were a couple of
bad photos (now deleted) taken of the castle looking into the sun and
through some haze. He told me I had used "completely the wrong settings"
and suggested that I should have used a setting of f/22 at a slow speed
rather than f/6.3 at a fast speed. So I went back and took some photos
using his suggested settings. My settings gave me "tack sharp" results
while those using his suggested settings were very soft. So today's
lesson is that one my experiment and continue to experiment ...
and don't believe a man with a tripod and no camera in sight!!
The day was hot with the temperature in the mid 30s. The Europeans
regard our recent weather as a heat wave. It is quite uncomfortable with
the high humidity and the fact that many buildings don't have effective
air conditioning
Thursday
15th. July 2010 .... (Temperature: 19˚C
- 26˚C)
This morning we left Frankfurt and made the 4 hour bus journey to
Munich. We had to stop twice along the way as German law dictated that
the driver had to take one break of 45 minutes or two breaks, one of 15
minutes and the other 30 minutes within the 4 hour journey. We passed
through one or two showers of rain and some scenic countryside.
However the A3 autobahn was busy and
the traffic was slowed to a crawl in some spots by the roadworks. We
arrived in Munich (Műnchen to the purists and is pronounced "Moon-shen")
and after a short scenic bus tour we had a photo stop at the
Nymphenberg Palace. The
palace was commissioned by the prince-electoral couple Ferdinand Maria
and Henriette Adelaide of Savoy in 1664 to the designs of the Italian
architect Agostino Barelli in 1664 after the birth of their son. The
central pavilion was completed in 1675.
For a long time, the palace was the favourite summer residence of the
rulers of Bavaria. King Max 1 Joseph died there in 1825, and his
great-grandson King Ludwig II was born there in 1845.
We were then dropped off in the
heart of Munich. We passed the Hofbrauhaus on the way to The Marienplatz.
where at 5:00pm we heard the Glochenspeil do its 10 minute performance.
We then checked into the Hotel
Wallis in Schwanthalerstrasse at about 5:30pm. The hotel is close to a
huge shopping plaza where we bought some superglue to fix my camera and
some rolls, cheese and quiche for a light dinner.
Friday
16th. July 2010 .... (Temperature: 17˚C
- 31˚C)
Today was a relaxing day, which was probably a good thing as the
conditions in the Hotel were not conducive to sleeping last night. The
Hotel Wallis may be conveniently located close to the malls and
the Marienplatz, but it isn't air conditioned. Although the temperature
did drop a little during the night from the day time temperature in the mid 30s
it was still hot and humid in the rooms, even with the doors and windows
open. The beds also seemed shorter than standard giving one the
sensation of being wedged between the bed head and the foot of the bed.
The general opinion at breakfast was that an upgrade in hotel should be
considered by the tour operators in future.
There seem to be a couple of telecom companies that have a monopoly on
the hotel internet connection business. I have had to join up with
tmobile at a cost of €8.00 per hour (approx $12). A firm called Ganag
offers more or less the same rates. If I want to upload files such as
web pages or use WiFi then I must pay for it. Below in the foyer, there
is a land line which offers free downloads only. This is fine for
checking and sending emails, but not for up loading web pages. We had
exactly the same situation in Frankfurt and I am guessing that this
might be standard practice throughout Germany
It was another hot day and we boarded the bus and headed out on our
guided tour of the Dachau Concentration camp. This camp was built by
Adolph Hitler to house his political opponents and ordinary criminals as
he clawed his way into power. It was originally designed to accommodate
a few thousand people, but by the end of WWII when it was run by the SS
it had about 60,000 inmates. Hitler it seems, was an unlikely candidate
to succeed. His WWI service record said that he was not very good at
handling people. Most people didn't take his political aspirations
seriously and is book (written in prison) Mein Kamf was disregarded. In
the 1930's the Catholic and Lutheran churches were in dis-unity, like
the political system in Germany. Hitler was able to get support from a
number of minor parties to form a government. Had the churches been
unified, it is believed they could have prevented the Nazi Party from
coming to power, and it seems hypocritical that the churches now have
large memorials in the grounds of Dachau Concentration Camp
commemorating those who died there. We entered the camp through the
Arbeit Macht Frei ("Freedom Through Work") gate like thousands had
before us.
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