Germany

I attended the 2007 German Perl Workshop to give a couple of talks. After that, I took a week's holiday in Germany. It was my first visit there, but I'd love to go again.

These photos are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.

Munich

Munich was the location of the German Perl Workshop. It's a pretty large and sprawling city, but the public transport is great and it's packed with things to do. Just wondering around the center and seeing some of the architecture is nice, and the modern art museum is pretty good too, if you're into that kind of thing. And yes, the beer is excellent. Be sure to try wheat beer.

Yup, that's a whole litre of tasty beer. Mmmm...	Looking along a tramline riddled street	The court
An interesting arch	By St Michael's church	A weird wood sculpture
Curious green buildings	One of the many magnificent churches in Munich	Another weird sculpture by the church
Yet another old building	Statues - I'm not sure what of	I guess this is another church, probably Orthodox
Looking down a street with the church in the distance	Metal man	In a square near to the town hall
The town hall	The top of the town hall	Yet another nice looking church
Looking accross yet another square

Füssen and Schloss Neuschwanstein

The Neuschwanstein castle was built by King Ludwig of Bavaria, and we intended to be his own fairlytale residence. In the end, it was never finished before his untimely and mysterious death. The builiding of the castle was sympomatic of Ludwig's spending, which sucked up much of Bavaria's wealth and in the end led to it becoming part of Germany.

Construction work against a mountain backdrop	A lake along the way	Just outside the station
The main stree through Füssen	Leaving Füssen	A dammed river near Füssen
A cross hanging from a tree	A farmhouse along the way	Passing through a village
First distant glimpse of Neuschwanstein	Snow can still be seen	Another castle in the distance
Fields and craggy rocks	Nearby farm, distant castle	Neuschwanstein from the bottom of the hill
The other castle	Walking up to Neuschwanstein	A small stream where I stopped for a break on the way up
Many balconies	Looking up at the castle	Impressive
Me by the castle	Another one of me, this time on a wall by the castle	The entrance
A view from the castle	One of the towers	Mountains near to the castle
On the inside	Inside again, on a balcony	From the balcony again
The clouds clear momentarily...	...but once we're inside, they come back.	The Mary bridge
The lake in the distance, through the snowstorm	The snowstorm clouds the view	Another castle in the distance
The castle from the bridge	In portrait	A similar view
The gorge beneath the bridge	Looking down	More of the lake to the left of the castle
Me by the castle	Myself and Nigel	Looking down the other side
Many people on the bridge	The other castle, seen on the way down from Neuschwanstein	A partly dry riverbed
Another street in Füssen	The church	Quaint buildings
Weird photo from the journey back	A similar one	Sunset

Nuremberg

Nuremberg is a city in the north of Bavaria, and was my last stop in this part of Germany before heading north to Berlin. It was a very plesant city, though it looks a lot older than it really is due to post-war reconstruction. It is also home to the DB museum (the German Railway Museum), which I greatly enjoyed in the afternoon. The evening was the highlight though: I was hosted by a lovely German family who invited me into their home to enjoy German culture and food.

A large tower just over the road from the station	Looking into the old town	Along the city wall
Looking over a drawbridge	Walking through the town	The first of many churches I found in the old town
A nice square	Looking along the river	In the market
A strange monument	Another angle on the market	Another church, with a smoking building in front
Looking down the street that leads to the castle	A first glance at the castle	View from the castle court
Another view from the castle court	Inside the castle	A view from the top of the tower
Looking over the city	The castle tower nearby	Many red roofs...
...with spires puncutring the skyline.	Tall, thin buildings	Part of the castle
The castle entrance	Green roofs of nearby churches	Walking back down from the castle
More nice architecture	The railway station

Garmisch-Partenkirchen and the Zugspitze

The Zugspitze is the highest mountain in Germany, so naturally I was keen to go up it. Unfortunately, despite the day starting with only slightly cloudy skies in Munich, over by the mountain conditions were somewhat worse! On the top of the mountain the visibility was close to zero, and it was snowing! About half way down, I discovered a beautiful frozen mountain lake, which more than made up for the lack of views right at the top.

On the train there	The mountain train	In the valley
A curious looking church	The driver's view as we climbed	Trees caked in snow
A view of some distant but clouded hills	Another view down into the mist	On the top - little visibility, but someone was skiing!
The viewing terrace, minus the view	You could still see the famous cross though	The building at the peak
A nice view from the cable car down	A similar view, but more to the left	Looking at where the cable car had come from
On the shores of the frozen lake	Really smooth!	All the places along the lake were closed
Ice by the lake...	...you had to be careful not to slip!	A little inlet, frozen over
People tossed stones onto the ice, but they didn't go through	A hotel near the lake	The clouds broke for a few moments
Lots of people weren't into throwing stones	Another less cloudy shot	Looking further round
One of me by the lake	Lots of slippery ice	A view on the walk around
The path through the lakeside forest - free of snow	A tree's roots are exposed	Snowy rocks by the lakeside
A tiny lake by the main one	Pretty...	...really pretty.
The tiny lake through the trees	On the shores again
Looking at the mountains	Another shot of the small lake on the way back	Snow lines the path
The mountains	On the way down	Back at the bottom
The train waits for its next trip	The main station of the town	My train home arrives
Leaving the mountains behind	A nice church I saw on the way

Berlin

I visited Berlin on a gloomy day, and found many parts of the city could match the gloom of the weather pretty well. I came away with an impression of a city that in places had been wonderfully reconstructed, but in others was still waiting to be "done up". There are some sights worth seeing though - the Holocaust memorial is really curious to walk through, and on a clearer day the views from the TV tower would have been better. They were still pretty good as it was.

The sky darkens near the end of the day	The TV tower points up to the moon	Looking at one of the many museums
The Brandenburg gate	After walking through the gate	At the German "parliament" building
A church tower near to the TV tower	The city viewed from the TV tower	Thousands of buildings
Looking towards the river...	...and further around.	Notice the smoking factory in the distance
Railways in the foreground	The tower from below	An ICE passes through a station
One of the S-Bahn trains

Hannover

This is the most pretty of the places that I visited in the north of Germany. The weather was beautiful, and the views accross the lake to the new town hall are stunning. Apparently you can go up in a lift for views over the city there too, though I didn't get chance to do this. A great excuse to go back again!

The main station	The opera house, I think	One of the many streets in the town center
The market church (because it's in the market square)	A rather reflective glass building	The opera house
A church that got bombed in the war	The church tower	Looking from inside the tower
The new town hall	The lake in front of the new town hall	Lots of ducks
Walking around the lake	The hall accross the lake	The same in portrait
Almost directly accross from the new town hall	Wonderful reflection!	Another smaller pond
Reflections near and far	Looking accross the lake to another large building	Along the river
Another one of the river	The river does a kind of "T" thing...	...it appears to be dammed here.
Looking back	A curious castle by the river	Castle and a distant church
Quaint old buildings	A church in the distance

Cologne

I stopped off at Cologne on my way from Hannover to Arnhem. I had a few hours there, in which I needed to find lunch - a pretty easy task as there's loads of places. I spent way too long in Saturn, which had a huge music selection, but then forced myself to leave and went to enjoy some of the sights of the city. The Rhine is a really big river and took quite some time to cross - the reason that I nearly missed the train I'd planned to catch to Arnhem! It was worth the final dash, though.

A church right next to the train station	Another church further away	The cathedral
It's *really* big	Looking out over the river Rhine	Trains cross the railway bridge
Colourful buildings dwarfed by the chathedral	Along the river side
A view from a bridge	Looking further down the river	The cathedral up close
Looking from one bridge to another	A more distant shot...	...this time with both bridges in.
Over the other side of the bridge...	...a moody sky.	A fork in the river
Houses and boats	A closer shot of the fork	A random statue

Thanks!

A lot of people made the difference between my time in Germany being good and being amazing. I'm sure I'll miss someone off the list, but thanks to: Jeurgen Christoffel for inviting me to the German Perl Workshop and helping me with arrangements in Munich, every person at the conference that I encountered in whatever way, Richard Lippman and his wonderful family for providing me with a great evening's dinner and entertainment and a place to sleep for the night - it was a real privilege to stay with a German family, Detlev Hauschildt for taking the time to show me around many exciting places in Berlin, Sven Neuhaus and Wolfgang for inviting me to speak at the first meeting of Hannover.pm and Sven for inviting me to stay in Hannover for the evening with his family. It was a great time - thanks!