Travel – Page 20 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

Arrival, Munich

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We have landed safe and sound in Munich. The weather is cold as we expected, but it’s not as uncomfortable as we feared. Warm clothing is serving us well.

We touched down around 7:30am Munich time. We cleared customs and found our way to the hotel pretty quickly, but we were unable to check in as our room was not yet ready. We ended up having to cool our heels until around noon.

I used the time to find a T-Mobile store and buy a data SIM for my unlocked Android phone. Now I have unlimited data on my phone for 10 Euro. Beats roaming charges!

After finally getting our room we unpacked a little and took a 3 hour nap. After that we went for a walk to get our bearings and find some food.

The sun goes down around 5:00 pm here it was dark before we knew it. And the temps are dropping down to about 10°F tonight so we are going to catch up on some rest this evening and strike out for Salzburg tomorrow morning.

Auf Wiedersehen!

We’re off to colder climes for the Christmas season!

Salzburg And Munich

We’ll be leaving in a few weeks for our upcoming Christmas time adventure to Salzburg, Austria and Munich, Germany. In the past we’ve taken our winter trips on Christmas day, but this time we are wanting to have visit coincide with the Advent celebrations which occur in early December. The reason for this is that we want to see Krampus.

From Wikipedia:

Krampus is a mythical creature recognized in Alpine countries. According to legend, Krampus accompanies Saint Nicholas during the Christmas season, warning and punishing bad children, in contrast to St. Nicholas, who gives gifts to good children. When the Krampus finds a particularly naughty child, it stuffs the child in its sack and carries the frightened child away to its lair, presumably to devour for its Christmas dinner.

Apparently there are those whole will dress in some elaborate Krampus costumes and stalk the street of Salzburg during the nights leading up to Advent. It should be an interesting photo opportunity.

As always, I will be updating here with pictures and anecdotes from the trip.

Micromega Ottica

Very cool spectacle shop in Venice, Italy. www.micromegaottica.com

Venice In Black And White

I decided to process some images as black and white with some HDR tone-mapping to bring out detail from the shadow. I am pretty pleased with the results.

Trevi Fountain

I took a lot of photos on the recent Italy trip. As time allows I will be posting select images here to the blog. This is a three shot HDR of The Trevi Fountain in Rome, Italy. The lack of crowds is due to the fact that we got there relatively early in the morning.

Italy 2012 – Wrapping It Up

On our last day in Rome (which would be our last day in Italy) we woke up early and took a cab to St. Peter’s Square to tour the basilica. Regardless of your religious views (or lack of them), this place is something to see in person. Getting there early is the key. No long lines and the crowds were minimal. We had plenty of room to move around and we could take our time. Once again, the fisheye lens was the lens for the shoot. Even with such a wide angle, it’s hard to convey how massive the church interior is.

From St. Peter’s it’s a short walk to Castel Sant’Angelo.

We didn’t go inside. We opted to take advantage of the continued good weather and spent the rest of the day relaxing and just walking around the city.

Italy was fantastic. There were times I didn’t think this trip was going to work and feared it might end in disaster. Instead, it turned in to one of the most fantastic trips we have ever been on. The food, the wine, the architecture and the people all combined for a wonderful experience. We may never go back to Venice, but Rome and Florence are definitely in the running for a re-visit some day.

On top of all that, I think my photography went up another notch. At the time I was shooting I didn’t think it was going that well, but in reviewing what I came away with I have to say it is some of my best work. There will be more to show as time allows.

Thanks to everyone who followed along on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and this blog. It was fun sharing the trip with so many people.

Rome – Day 4 – Vatican Museum

After our audience with The Pope we headed over to the Vatican Museum. This was around 12:30 and the crowds were out in force. We had acquired our ticket vouchers online and, as it turned out, we pretty much walked right in.

You have to be careful when visiting the Vatican Museum. There are tons of people trying to convince you to buy a tour and skip the line. This may be a good idea if you don’t have your voucher already in hand, but is a total scam if you do.

Also, this area is crawling with gypsies. I saw a guy nearly get pickpocketed in this area our last visit in 2005. They’re good at what they do, but this one fumbled the pass when she was handing the wallet off to one of her accomplices.

The Vatican Museum is crowded and hectic. We wanted to see the Sistine Chapel and I specifically wanted to see the spiral staircase.

There’s a lot of really fantastic art to see. And some areas are not too crowded.

But the trek to the chapel is where it starts to get bad. It is literally a cattle call.. A throng of humanity shuffling down a long and ever shrinking corridor until you reach the chapel.

Eventually you do end up in the chapel.

And sadly, there are no photos allowed in the chapel.

At this point we were pretty beat and the crowds were just too much so we made our way to the exit. Even this was a long walk. But we did end up at the magnificent spiral staircase which was something I *really* wanted to see and photograph.

We headed back to the hotel to get some lunch and relax for a bit. The rest of the day would be pretty casual as we’re winding down to come home.