Germany and Prague

After our two nights in Zurich we were quite disappointed with Switzerland. We'd gone from stylish and vivacious Latin cultures to a dowdy, almost rude, German-Swiss culture. It was a bit of a worry as we were about to spend a fair bit of time in Germany.

One of the set dates I had for the trip was to be in Stuttgart on June 22nd to watch Australia play Croatia in a World Cup group match.

Through a friend of ours from Sydney we had got in touch with a German family that lived an hour or so out of Stuttgart in Muensingen. Uli and Elke Schwenk greeted us with open arms and made us feel completely at home for the next three nights. In fact, I felt so at home that I didn't even get the camera out for some happy snaps!

It just so happened that our friend that had introduced us (the suave and sophisticated Keith Gateley) was also in Europe and he arranged to also meet in Muensingen. In the end, we all had a great time, Australia and Croatia drew 2-2 and I had a ball watching it on the big screen in the city. It just so happens that Stuttgart has one of the highest populations of Croatians outside of Croatia! The yellow Aussie shirts were outnumbered severely!


As all my car-loving mates should know, Stuttgart (or Zuffenhausen more precisely) is the home of Porsche. I'm not afraid to admit that I've got a bit of a soft spot for the hotted up VW, so we visited the museum on our way to Munich. Yes, we know it's in the other direction, but since we were so close...

It's not a very big museum, but there's some very cool stuff in there ranging from Formula 1 cars, Le Mans racers and even a split-window VW.

You just have to love the Speedster.

Or even better, a Spyder. We found one that fit Luka like a glove! Couldn't sneak it out without them noticing though.


After a bit more faffing around the Porsche Museum we headed out to Munich. We copped a bit of Stau (pron. Shtow - what the Germans call a traffic jam, but we liked it so much we're going to use it in every country, including Australia) on the way in, but we got there in the early evening and headed in to town for a bite to eat.

Here's Sue and Luka at the city gate.

People had told us Munich was a lovely city and we weren't disappointed. Once again though, we only had one night, so we had to make the most of it.

We wandered around and looked at more old buildings and stuff.

The next morning we thought we'd explore some more and head to the famous Munich markets. What we didn't realise was that Germany was playing Sweden in a World Cup match that evening. It was pretty early and people were getting well and truly 'into it'.

Some kid waved this flag just as I took the pic. Germany won by the way.

...and you wouldn't believe who else I saw in Munich!

After lunch we headed towards the Bavarian Forests and the Czech Republic and Prague, another city that everyone raves about. We thought we'd better check it out for ourselves. No pun intended...

Prague was very hot, very crowded and full of Poms getting drunk and watching the World Cup. Right next to it all was this cool looking statue. No idea what it's about, I just like the guy sneaking up from behind.

Put your beer down for one second...

One of the streets in Prague. It really is a beautiful city, but when you can't see it for all the people, it loses some of its charm. Next time we'll travel when it's a bit cooler and not the high season.