More in Abu Dhabi

On Friday we wandered around local streets and found a small Thai cafe nearby for lunch.
It seated about 15 inside and food was good. Ken enjoyed his Me Goreng and I enjoyed a mild Tom Yum soup with prawns. I was still getting over my cold and Ken was sniffling! Anyway, we went off for the desert safari about 4pm expecting to meet the driver to take us dune bashing, but.... he was over 30mins late! 👎🏻 However we did have fun on the dunes, going up steep slopes and sliding sideways on a few dunes, lots of fun! I didn’t even scream 😱 at all.

After the dune “bashing”, the driver took us to the village dinner presentation area. Here we could have Henna tattoos on our hands, take photos of a hooded falcon, and buy souvenirs before the first part of the entertainment. This was a make dancer with circles hanging from his waist,
When he twirled around the “circles” spun around his waist. The circles separated  and with lights out, the circles had green bulbs on them, and there were lights on his chest too. Looked great. Then we had some lovely arabic food - chicken and lamb  kebabs, salads, hommus and also delicious
fruity rice with omali as dessert. Then it was time for the belly dancer ! She apparently she came from Brazil. After her dancing, she invited everyone to join her on the performance platform and we joined her too to try out some belly dancing moves! Hilarious 😂

The next day Ken spent time resting trying to recover from his nasty 🤢 cold. Mine was nearly over, so I went off to see some of the city on the Hop on Hop off bus. It was good to see many of the amazing buildings nd hear history of the area. I did think of going into the Grand Mosque, a very imposing huilding, but decided not to wait in a long queue for entrance! Instead I continued to the Louvre where I had a great wander through some amazing 😉 exhibitions. This is an “offshoot” of the Louvre in Paris . Then it was time to return to the hotel and pack for our flight home.
We had a reasonable flight back  but then had to catch a train replacement bus to Gosford. That meant we didn’t get home until after 11pm, but it was so good to collapse into our own bed again.

What a great trip we have had - skiing, holidaying, seeing friends and spending time in Abu Dhabi!

Abu Dhabi

On Wednesday we rested as I recovered more from my cold. We decided to have dinner in the roof top Malaga lounge, not realising it was the Shisha smoking area. People smoke scented tobacco through Shisha, water/hookah pipe sets, so we heard the sound of water bubbling behind us as we looked out over the city. I read that 60mins. of shisha was equivalent to 100 cigarettes as the person takes in all the smoke!😖 There were lots of people there too of all ages and types.
Thursday I enjoyed some swimming in the lovely 😊  warmish rooftop pool. Only 4 other women came up and went swimming while I was there. Later on we were picked up about 7pm and taken over to go on the dhow dinner cruise which left from the marina area. Our driver had problems finding the entrance at first because of lots of construction in the marina area. There’s construction happening all over the city
In the prow of the dhow we could see the very solid timber used when it was built.

We were amused to find that as soon as the shore power was disconnected, the ewiter came around to see if we’d like some wine.  We ended up drinking an Argentinian chardonnay , $80 for the bottle. It was good!

When the dhow left the mooring it reversed out of the marina area past some very expensive power boats. Then it had to turn right around and go through the turbulent wake. At this time the waiters all stood with arms outstretched in front of the stacks of plates and soup tureen to ensure nothing fell off the prepared food serving areas.

Along the shores we could see wonderfully lit buildings and even saw out into the offshore waters. Along the mangrove shores there are many expensive houses now.
It was an excellent dinner cruise.

to Abu Dhabi

We enjoyed attending Lutheran service in the small round chuch with Christoph and Christine Jaeger, just down  the hill from their home. It was cold outside walking there but the chuch was warm. There were about 30 people in the congregation and we all enjoyed the young organists playing. He played afterwards for a time , wonderful music. After wandering back up the hill, we had a relaxing breakfast and I did some sorting of clothes and packing. Anna came over at lunchtime and after that I had a sleep as I felt a cold coming on. In the evening, Sebastian joined us all as we went to a lovely local restaurant. We’d been there before and food is always good. It was a sad moment saying goodbye to Anna but we’d enjoyed lots of time with her as she’d taken time off.

 Monday morning it was raining so Ken had a wet drive across to Munich. We were at the hotel by 1pm so I had a good break before I repacked suitcases so we had things organised for our 5 days in Abu Dhabi.

Abu Dhabi

It was late when we arrived here so we had a late dinner before bed. Today, Wednesday, we’ve relaxed, done some ironing and decided what we’d like to do in the next few days as my cold is going, we hope! 

We’re now planning to spend most of tomorrow at the Louvre(a part of the one in Paris) and then do a dinner cuise on a dhow. Supposedly we are being served authentic Arabian food and not a BBQ or similar. On Friday we hope to do a desrt trip with dinner under the stars and on Saturday, before our 10.30pm departure for the 14hr. trip home, we may do a city tour to see the wonderful mosque, sight the Ferrari theme park and see some other parts of the city.

From our room on 14th floor we look out to sea with an oil rig etc. The hotel opposite has glass panels on the facade which must have led or fluro lights in them as we see a light show of angled stripes, the “Southern Sun” name followed by suns and stars as well, interesting to watch 😊 . There also roads with about 14 lanes, not full of traffic that we can see. Ken says this is how building a new a new cith like this makes traffic planning so much easier.

The Black Forest

Friday morning Anna, their daughter, joined us for late breakfast. Lots of catching up of course! Then Eva arrived. It was lovely to see her and catch up on her news. She’s recently bought a house with husband to be(wedding to be in late April) as well as a new car. She’s excited about all that is happening in her life and was looking forward to having all day Saturday with her friends as a special time before her wedding. Anna has been doing lots for these celebrations 🥳🎉 of course.

After Eva left Anna drove us across to Baden Baden in her 4 wheel drive Audi, very nice car! After a coffee and a lava cake we wandered around and then went to the Modern Art Museum. By the way, the lava cake has rich dark melted chocolate which runs out when the small warm cake is opened. So tasty! There were crocuses, small hyacinths, a few snowdrops and some flowering trees along the park areas.Here is Christine in front of one of the very ancient trees!

We were going to see a painting that has become famous because the artist shredded the bottom part of his painting just after it had been sold for 1milion dollars! Apparently he had built the shredder into the lower part of the frame and used a remote to operate the shredder! How 😜 crazy. Anyway the painting, Love is in the Bin by Banksy, is still on  show with the top part with girl and balloon and shredded part hanging down from frame.

We headed over to the restaurant for dinner which is i;the centre of the Mardi Gras type celebrations  in the city. We ate early and really enjoyed
it all, once more. Great food has been a big part of this trip!

Fortunately we weren’t too late as Anna had to drive through thick fog for about 40mins as we came across a road which went up to 1,000m high. It was okay below 700m fortunately, but not an easy drive for her. There was just a little light rain part of the way too.
Now on Saturday, we’re relaxing  and catching up on things. We all  slept 😴 late and it’s overcast but no longer raining. Tomorrow we’ll go to church and Anna and her boyfriend will come  over to visit.

 

Niederwinkling to the Black Forest

We actually had salmon and pavlova on Monday night as Christine’s son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren joined us for a buffet of cold meats, cheeses and salads with fresh fruit. 😋 on Tuesday night. We enjoyed meeting this family and Ken loved the small girl! 

Wednesday lunch was a picnic on the Levee banks of the Danube, watching a new ferry practise docking and the large barges travelling linga along the river.  The houses near the levee banks do not have bedrooms on the ground floor as the ground floor gets flooded sometimes.

Afterwards we explored a lovely old town nearby, Spaurling, where I saw a tiny angel on the back of the pulpit with finger over its mouth. Cute! 

Dinner on Wednesday night was a special event, at a Michelon one hat restaurent nearly, chef is another member of the Buchner family who own the hotel where we were staying . Everything was so beautifully presented and food was  wonderful. We all enjoyed this special dinner as our last time together. The next day Michael and Ulrike were going home to Beucha, near Leipzig, and we were going to join Christine’s twin brother, Christoph, and his wife , another Christine, in the Black Forest.

It was over 4 hour drive on Thursday with lots of trucks and many types of road works, horrible for Ken driving. 😖   Fortunately weather was fine,(rain didn’t start until Thursday night. )We arrived mid afternoon to a warm welcome with cake and coffee to revive us😋.

More in Niederwinkling.

 I forgot to say that after we’d been to Regensberg, we went to see Walhalla which was initiated by the Bavarian King Ludwig I. This large Doric styled building overlooks the Danube and has busts of many important people such as Kepler, Kant and Martin Luther inside the huge vaulted main room, a

pantheon! There are also lots of gold ornaments and tablets depicting German mythology. The views along the Danube were great.
On Tuesday Michael drove us to Passau. Here we went to see the Baroque cathedral, Dom St Stephen, which actually had a lot of light because of the clear glass at top of many of the beautiful stained glass windows. There are 5 independent organs which can be played together. There are 17,974 pipes and 233 registers! 🤗 . Soon afterwards we went to the station to meet another member of the family, Alexander, who is the youngest of this Jaeger family. He’s a microbiologist and professor of beer making at Linz university!  Christine had organised a tour of the city and castle, supposedly in english, but Alexander and Michael had to do lots of transltion. It was so interesting going around the narrow old city streets and up the steep hill to the castle. From the castle we could see the confluence of the 3 rivers, the Danube, the Inn(actualy a larger river than the Donau)  and the small Ilz. A few years ago there was massive flooding in the city and lots of damage to the old parts.

This photo was taken of  us all from walls of the castle overlooking the Danube river.  From left: Ken and Margot Bilston, Michael and Ulrike Korn, Alexander Jaeger and Christine Winterhalter. 

After a bri ef rest on return to Niederwinkling, Ken and I were on dinner duty. I had made a pavlova before we left, leaving it in the oven to cool. Ken had bought a lovely piece of salmon so that was just right for the salt and pepper salmon. This was served with potatoes(Christine’s addition), green salad and a tomato, green bean and lemon salad! Delicios, nothing left either😊 Then Michael whipped the cream and we put the pavlova together. It all worked so well fortunately! 

More photos from Bavaria

David & Goliath mural o n house in Passau. House thought to originally belong to the Goliard family, hence name.

At Passua Castle overlooking the Danube
Ken & Margot Bilston, Michael  & Ulrike Korn, Alexander Jager, Christine Winterhalter 

Many film crews from this company were filming near the Cathedral in Passau

Passau cathedral. Two towers were rebuilt, one in 1074 and other in 1075!

Some photos from Bavaria

Large glass panel beside path to shop at Glasdorf.

Salt tower on Danube. Salt was considered white gold in
Medieval times.

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Christine Winterhalter, Michael & Ulrike Korn , Margot & Ken Bilston in cathedral square, Regensburg.

Niederwinkling, Regenberg, Arnbruck

We had a very relaxing last few days in Pertisau. My hip was still sore so didn’t  feel like doing a lot of skiing then!   It was much more of a holiday than usual. Friday was packing up ready to viait Ulrike Korn’s sister who lives in Niederwinkling. We have stayed with her twin brother Christoph and his wife, another Christine, many times . They live in the Black Forest and we will go across to see them on Thursday.
Niederwinkling is a small village of about 2,000 people and is north west of Munich fairly cloxe to both the Austrian and Czech Republic borders. Ulrike and Michael Korn had arrived from Leipzig about the same time as we arrived,  so lots of chat and catching up on family news then.!☺️
Sunday Ulrike had planned for us to go to Regensberg and hear the famous Domspatzen boys’ choir sing at the morning mass. Unfortunately the times were wrong, so we missed out on the choir but could see the huge cathedral and enjoyed wandering around this mediaeval town, which is now a UNESCO world heritage site! The cathedral even has statues of the “Devil” (in monk’s hood with droagon tail)and “Devil’s grandmother”(in monk’s hood also with dragon body) at the back of the cathedral, which was probably built in the 9th century. One city building had painting of David and Goliath on a side wall, possibly done about 1570’s,  The city is on the Donau, the Danube river, and we saw the old stone bridge built between 1135 and 1146. It channels the strongly flowing river through the supporting piers and would make going through with a barge pretty hazardous. This bridge is about 350m long and was considered a great wonder in post Roman world. The city was little damaged in WWII fortunately, so lots of the old city has been preserved. The museum is very good and we enjoyed strolling through it. Dinner back at Christine’s was another lovely social  event after an interesting day in Regensberg

Monday morning was time to head out to see the treetop walk at WaldwipfelWeg and enjoy the     sights across to Salzburg in the distance. Around the 1.3km walkway, 5-25m above ground, there were stuffed birds in glass display cases and when we pressed a button, we could hear the bird call. There were lots of these, representing the local birds. There was also a great walk through the forest with more displays. Near the restaurant was a snow covered large paddock, beside a small t-bar, and in it were alpacas, black faced sheep and other horned sheep-like animals feeding from tall feeder. The wallabies were not in sight, even though listed! There is also an upside down house which you can enter but we didn’t do so.
After a  snack, we headed to the Glasdorf at Arnbruck. This is an amazing  parkland, theme park.
Here there are beautiful glass figures, animals, pictures, and other abstract things. The colours were  wonderful but I resisted buying anything😇 A rest was then in order at our hotel before meeting with the others at Christine’s for a light meal and more chat!

Photos from Seefeld and Pertisau

From our room towards the Achensee, Pertisau. mountains surrounding the whole area.

Even find McCains in Pertisau

 

Phot of Margot, Ken, Christine Winterhalter and Michael

 Korn at top of tree top walk

From top of Kwrlwendel lift towards ski runs and mountains

Ken looking out at the ski trails at Pertisau

Seefeld and Pertisau

We arrived in Munich early morning after 2 flights from Australia. The first flight was awful with seats that hardly reclined so person in front was nearly in our lap when their seat was reclined. Seats were not comfortable either and I ended up having a sore back! The second flight was somewhat better.
After colecting our small car, an Opel Corsa, we packed things into it and headed off to Seefled. We had a room for one night before moving into the apartment for the next week. A few hours sleep was necessary before we started to look out for places etc.
 on Saturday we went across to the golf course and skied the 1.3km track there. I had a silly fall on the downhill slope at the start of the trail and bruised my hip😢 but we enjoyed soup for lunch afterwards and walked back to the hotel , going across the railway line and through the pedestrian area. That was an interesting stroll, seeing all the shops, bars and restaurants. All day Sunday and Monday morning were snowy so we took time to settle into the spacious apartment with wonderful mountain views.

Unfortunately , the cross country trails nearby were closed as preparations for the FIS titles starting on 19th Feb. Ken had carefully selected the hotel because of its proximity to the trails, but was foiled! 👎🏻Anyway, we caught the free bus down to Leutasch area to ski most days. ‘One day we skied from Obern back to the Alpenbad and I only opted out on the last downhill slope which had a sharp bend at the bottom 😮! I didn’t want to fall and hurt my hip again. Other days we skied around different trails, starting from the Alpenbad area, in both directions. One day, when I opted out, Ken went up to Wildmoos and enjoyed one of  the more challenging trails there.  We enjoyed going to various restaurants for dinner, always good food.

We left Seefeld and headed for Pertisau on Saturday 16th. for a week. We were welcomed with great big hugs from Martin Hauser on our arrival at the Gasthof Golfvilla. We caught up with his wife, Birgit later that day. We’ve had a real holiday here, skiing some days and just doing touristy things on others. Weather has been good with sunny warm days this week. One day Ken did the 7km black run to Tristenau and enjoyed stretching out on this more challenging trail. As snow was so good, Ken said it wasn’t really a black run that day. One day we took the cable car 🚡 to the top of the Karwendel ski slopes. We had coffee there looking out at the amazing mountains surrounding us. 😊. Yesterday we went up to the Rodlhutte by a large ute with covered tray and seating, described as a Tractor Tobaggan Express in brochures. The huge tyres had chains on, of course, and we were driven up a steep road to 1130m where the hut is built. Here we enjoyed gluwein and then goulash soup for lunch. Most of the people who go up there, come down the steep road on sleds 🛷. Apparently the sleds go very fast and corners can be challenging, according to a couple of the 50yr old men whom we’ve met here. Today it’s gently raining ☔️ so we’re packing up so we can leave  early for Niederwinkling.  Snow will be wet and slushy.  I can see the snow sagging on the nearby roof tops. Later this afternoon we’re chatting to the Hausers again, hoping they will actually come to Australia this year. Birgit is nervous 😟 about being away for 4 weeks, but not Martin, so we’ll  see what they decide.