[Culturechat] The Untour that Wasn't (Gigli's Follies) # 2

[Vance Roy]

Sunday dawned stormy and cold. Snow and sleet with thunder and 
lightening thrown in. After our previous day's adventures, we were 
eager to be out, so we loaded up with coats and umbrellas and hit the 
village. Not much to do but window shop, see the church, and buy 
cookies at the bake shop.

Lunch time approached, so we scouted out a few restaurants. Bavaria, as 
we were to find out, seems to be heavily populated by Greeks. 
Practically every village has at least one Greek restaurant. In 
Schliersee this is one called Bei Jianni. We ducked in this very nice 
place out of the sleet, sneet, and snow. The place is owned by a 
Greek-Australian guy, and the staff is very friendly. With the menus 
came a shot of Ouzo on the house. Just the thing to warm the cockles of 
your heart. As sometimes happens, we lost it over the menu and wound up 
waddling out of there after a dessert shot of a "secret" potion (again 
on the house).

On Monday, we hit the local tourist office first, then went to the 
small grocery store around the corner from us to get items for our 
kitchen at "home". There was a great snow storm.  After that, we 
decided to take a trip to Tergensee, a village of some renown on one of 
the other train lines. One can buy a ticket at the machines anywhere 
for 17 Euro that will let up to five persons (two kids count as one 
adult) travel the whole local rail system plus all the public transport 
in Munich from 0900 until 0100 the day following. Not a Swiss Pass but 
pretty good.

We decided to use our new found train schedule skills and try for a 
trip to Tergensee. Tergensee was the only place that we had heard of 
around the area. It is on another lake and is a popular spot 
apparently. We got there without mishap on the trains, and wandered 
around what looked like a popular spot stuck in between the summer and 
winter seasons. Looking for a monastery, we found what was the spot, 
but also containing a large restaurant on the ground floor. Those of 
you that know the Old Zeughaus in Zurich will know what this looked 
like both in decor and menu. It was about 1400, but the place was busy. 
After a lunch of smoked fish salad, soup, and beer, it was starting to 
get dark. We headed back to the train station to go home. About there, 
we saw a bus standing with Schliersee on the front. We asked the driver 
and hopped on when he answered that he was on his way.

The train pass was not good for the local bus, so we paid a small 
charge to get home early. Actually, the charge was worth it. We had a 
funny driver who was from Serbia and had been in Germany for over 
thirty years. He was a real card and as we traveled to each stop, we 
enjoyed him. All the rest of the passengers that got on at the various 
stops knew him well. We found out that taking the bus was a faster way 
to travel between the local villages than the trains.

Back in Schliersee, we had a chance to do some shopping in the stores 
there. We found a nice little manger scene in a geode case that will 
make a great Christmas decoration at home.

More to come in #3



Vance Roy
Autopsy, burn, and bury. Make sure he is gone.
Winston Churchill on the death of a political opponent.
gigli.saw@dplanet.ch
http://homepage.mac.com/fredch