Salzburg, Austria

From München, we ventured a short distance east to the Austrian border, and the beautiful baroque architectural city of Salzburg (in Bavarian Såizburg, "Salt Fortress")—home to Mozart, The Sound of Music, and incredible views of the surrounding Alps.

We stayed in a fairly ritzy hotel restyled a hostel by means of adding bunkbeds, next to Kapuzinerberg a small hill with a great forested walk above the city. Atop were a small collection of cottages, with a really old wooden cart and pulley system which appeared to be used nowadays for lugging groceries up the hillside. There was also a friendly old lady there where we heard our first Bavarian greetings. After a small hike we ended up at a Mozart memorial and statue, rather unassuming just off the path, and we continued onto the old town.

Within the old town was a really old water spout which was constantly flowing. It was bizarre. My Google-fu has failed me, but I imagined this was fresh water flowing down from the mountains. We filled up our bottles with the ice cold water, and that's still stood out as the highlight, while strolling through nooks and crannys in the absolute quiet of the night along damp and eerie cobblestone paths.

The prominent feature of the Festung Hohensalzburg (literally "High Salzburg Fortress") looms over the old town below, a historic castle which adds to the well preserved enchantment. We pushed through the first few days of seemingly-continual rain until a slightly better forecast which allowed us to explore the castle grounds and enjoy the very windswept views through the fortress' cannon arrow holes, and outer battlements. We ending up sheltering within it's courtyard to escape the howling Alpine wind, with a good number of Bavarian brews and a warchest of vagabond styled sandwiches, before further exploring the Golden Hall and chambers, full of artifacts going back to the fortress' origin in 1077 and pieces of the settlements and surrounding areas lengthy history. The German "Shame Masks" were both fascinating and creepy, which were used in the 17th and 18th centuries, forced upon people that had broken trivial social rules. The snow capped Alps on the horizon made for a great backdrop as we spent a couple hours around view points looking out to the distance as well as down to the old town below.

From the Castle we walked to Austria's largest beer inn, within the monastery of Mülln, Augustinerbräu. We crammed into the beer hall along with 500 locals, sitting with a group of older Bavarian speaking gentlemen with our giant steins, being taught the in's and out's. These were filled with beer made from a closely guarded recipe and old brewing techniques going back to the monastery's original monks and brew masters in 1621. There are shelves of the stone-made pitchers from which you select, and beer is then poured straight from the large wooden barrels. From a selection of one item, grunting "eine maß bier bitte" doesn't require much effort, no matter how many steins have been emptied.

Had another run-in with police, although this time far less terrifying. Someone in our room unfortunately had some expensive things stolen, so we had our details taken down at 2am while four or so armed police mulled about the room. Despite seeming to be the key suspects, the manager didn't kick up much of a fuss the next morning, so we managed to avoid a good bit of hassle. What we didn't realise is this sort of attention was the start of a pattern that seemed to follow us for the next handful of countries, so we've now got a collection of interesting stories specifically with European police. All part of the experience I suppose.

Still sharing a camera with Sergey, he managed to snap quite a few of the photos on this trip.

Bavaria, Germany

Germany was lovely, but arriving was a nightmare. The bus from Amsterdam ended up taking 15 hours as we were stopped and boarded by what looked like combat-geared German military...twice—firstly at the border itself in the dead of night, and then a few hours later, despite being well into the German countryside. Amongst a few others I had my bags trawled through extensively, everything including deodorant opened and inspected, with sniffer dogs rummaging through everyone's belongings while we were questioned. It was the worst wake-up ever, courtesy of the angry armed German woman barking orders in completely comical caricatured fashion, who I am convinced is the German doppelgänger of Saga Noren from the Danish series The Bridge. Anyway... finally after a good couple hours our passports were returned and we were let back on the bus. There were a couple of Serbian travellers who were escorted away—no idea what happened to them, or what shallow roadside grave they ended up in...

Arriving in Munich we went straight for an ein mas of dark ale, and a kings feast of a boars leg at the overly touristy Hofbräuhaus (founded in 1589), spending the afternoon at different beer gardens in the beautiful spring weather, ducking in and out of general stores enjoying the insanely cheap off-sale beer prices as well as a complete lack of public drinking restrictions. We crashed at the hostel bar and drank very enthusiastically after the Russian gave a very honest and negative review of their house ale, which somehow left us drinking for free for the rest of the night, guinea pigs for the attractive bartenders creating all sorts of strange concoctions. Still not sure how that happened, but my recollection is rather fuzzy.

We next set off for a scenic train ride through the countryside toward Füssen in the southwest of Bavaria, arriving at Neuschwanstein Castle, the inspiration for Disney's recognisable Sleeping Beauty Castle. After a short climb to the castle itself, there was a great walk around to a canyon bridge overlooking the fortress with the best view. Füssen stood out on it's own and was just as scenic, with the mineral rich Lech River coloured an intense milky-turquoise from the limestone running off the nearby Alps making for a nice sunset setting.

The stay was short and sweet, but I'll be forever nervous should I cross German borders again to explore the many other great spots.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Leaving Estonia my next destination was Amsterdam via Warsaw, if only briefly. Considering then-neighbourly Latvia and Lithunia are still on my list, this has begun the strange series of bookings which make up the hilariously logistically-inefficient journey I've found myself on, greatly adding to the adventure. I arrived in the evening and spent the next day wandering about different spots with absolutely no game plan, seemingly skipping much of the tourist swarm while making sure to enjoy a few parks and the spring weather. Met up with Sergey again for a customary beer-picnic, and to return his camera gear after taking good care of it for over a month.

The canals were what I had expected, and were a great setting for a walk-about, but I could never have prepared myself for the amount of bicycles and the infrastructure to support them. It was also nearly tempting to buy a clearly stolen bike from a number of friendly-appearing homeless salesmen for only a handful of euro's, but in the end I kept to the $0 travel budget while within the city.

The free ferries were great, we boarded and disappeared slightly out of the central bustle, to what had to be an outpost colonised entirely by hipsters, sat within piles of neatly dilapidated student accommodation. An interesting spot by the outer-canals, next to a large crane remodeled to serve as a hotel, with two or so rooms priced in excess of 500 Euro a night. I'm told there is a private spa pool placed on the very top, reached privately by the external elevator which would surely ensure the start of an interesting evening to any of its decadent inhabitants.

Sitting essentially on the side of the road the next day with no route planned or accommodation booked, Belgium was shelved, and a 12 hour overnight bus was set for Munich, Germany, which quickly became the source of the most intensely stressful stretches of travel I've had so far. Hopefully the upcoming blog update for that portion appears as condensed as I'm hoping.

Tallinn, Estonia

I've just escaped the rabbit-hole that is Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. 3 awesome weeks spent, much longer than I had allocated or anticipated. I've now learnt this is commonly referred to as the Tallinn Trap. The people were what really pulled me in, mostly the eclectic group of staff from the 5 sister-hostels within the old-town—the dozen or so neat people whom I spent the majority of my time with, watching many short-trip travellers come and go. There were only a couple nights where I didn't venture out, and I've now elevated my beer-pong talents to an art form. Alcohol in Estonia is essentially free, but things were kept in check and never got messy, despite the particularly gregarious beer-funnel that often did the rounds, and the hour of free drinking each night. I managed to collect 9 pub-crawl arm-bands, and had a fun but unique time each outing. Tallinn is authentic. There's never a touristy feel, and the cobblestone streets are always quiet, or filled with bleak-expressioned locals. Estonians take a while to get used to — (greatly generalising) they are a no-nonsense bunch, and are quite to the point, not wasting time with false-pleasantries. I got to know a few locals and they're certainly among the best of people, but there are a couple interesting things you eventually pick up. Asking "how are you?" quickly diverts from small-talk to a potentially interesting conversation, and they're often very blunt, which I thought was fantastic. They'll keep you at an arms length, but once you've broken bread you really appreciate how genuine the people are.

One of the things I'll miss the most is the food. There's a medieval style restaurant III Draakon (3 dragons) set within an authentic-era building/dungeon — very low ceilings (frighteningly so), outlined only with candlelight. The menu is simple; elk stew, sausages, meat/vegetable pastries and the choice of honey-mead or mulled wine. The staff add to the atmosphere and are very brash — completely in character, despite the many misunderstandings I sat and watched. People requesting utensils would always be told "If you want a spoon, bring your own". I spent a short while enquiring about the food, just to explore the extent of their creative rudeness. Fishing for pickles with a large wooden spoon was also quite neat — you could fill your bowl with as many as you can carry, and cleaning up your own plates was definitely something new.

The photos of the city basically speak for themselves — although limited, Tallinn has been my favourite old-town experience so far. Despite the challenges of the sandwich meat not really being meat, and the bread definitely not being bread, I could see myself living here. The buildings create so many photo opportunities, and getting lost on the cobblestone paths makes for a magical day trip. I loved the pink parliamentary buildings most, and felt I was visiting the real-life Grand Budapest Hotel.

The last week or so I spent volunteering my top-notch house keeping skills in exchange for a free bed, despite it being the cheapest accommodation I've had for 5 months. In other words, I was playing a fun new game called Is this a folded sheet, or duvet cover?. I actually had a neat time, and promised to head back to volunteer again, which fits in with my plans to visit the other Baltic countries I missed while I was just a short distance away. Part of the deal meant sleeping in the literal dungeon. Pitch black, quite the mess, with a door that locks only from the outside, myself not having a key. I often ended up trapped either in the dungeon, or outside sleeping in the common room after enjoying a late night sunrise on many different occasions. The combination of the Elk Stew, some great boutique coffee houses, and insanely cheap, insanely massive Estonian-style pancakes from another of my favourite spots, meant I could quickly recover, enjoy the beautiful weather and be ready for the gauntlet again.