Road Trip Through A Snowstorm

Trip Through A Snowstorm

Prerona Ray Baruah

On 8th December 2017, my parents and I set off from Heidelberg in Baden-Wurtemburg state of Germany to the Bavarian capital of Germany, Munich.

The beautiful city of München or Munich is where I spent almost 3 years as a Master’s student at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), famously known worldwide for its large handful of Nobel laureates. Since I’m extremely fond and proud of my Alma Mater, I can’t help but drop a few of nuggets of information about it.

The university was founded by King Ludwig II in 1868 and it is currently 16th in the world in the field of Computer Science and even higher in Physics and Chemistry. In fact, Rudolph Diesel, the inventor of the Diesel engine, studied and designed the engine at TUM. How many of us can boast of being able to see a full fledged nuclear reactor every day?

I for one surely can because TUM houses the famous Research Reactor Munich (FRM). I remember being awestruck by the egg-shaped dome of the reactor when I first saw it. We’re also proud of the fact that TUM is the only university in the world to have it’s own beer brewery and funnily enough, its brand of Weinstephan beer is the only one that doesn’t make me cringe.

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Hence, I’ve been labelled a as a ‘true TUM graduate’ by some of my friends! I’ll harp on about my beloved university in another article some day.

So, getting back to our journey to Munich. The purpose of our travel was to attend my convocation ceremony at TUM, marking the official end of my Master’s journey. It was a 5 hour drive with snow covered expanses of farmland on both sides of the famous German autobahn (highway). We landed at the uni campus right in time for some sparkling champagne.

My parents met some of my batch mates, pleasantries were exchanged and then we filed into the auditorium for the ceremony. It was a black and white ceremony without any frills and fancies, interspersed with some long, boring speeches in German. Really sticking to the ‘Germans are no fun’ stereotype there!

Post the ceremony, dinner and photo sessions next to the Christmas tree, we came out to a fresh layer of snow, with the nuclear reactor glistening in the distance.  Thankfully I had foreseen this and had changed into my good ol’ boots from heels before stepping out in the cold.

Early next morning, after unintentionally having a very expensive breakfast, we hopped into our car and  headed off to Austria for a day trip. Munich lies on the German-Austrian border, so crossing into Austria took us around 40 minutes. We drove along the foothills of the Alps and couldn’t take our eyes off the snow covered sparkling trees on the roadside.

Our first stop was the city of Innsbruck, a valley-of-a-city surrounded by the Alps all around and a favourite among winter sport lovers. It was the host of the Winter Olympics in .. and as I’ve been told by fellow Bavarians, a hotspot for skiing in winters. We took a walk around the town center, maneuvering through the Christmas market and taking in the view of the snow clad Alpine peaks in the near distance.

I can’t discuss about Germany and Austria without mentioning the traditional Christmas markets (‘Christkindlmarkt’ in German). Austria was part of German Reich on and off and their national language is German, though the dialect may be a tad bit different. Another name for Austria is Österreich (Eastern Empire in German). Thus, the traditions, attire and cuisine is almost the same for both.

So needless to say, Christmas markets are also similar, albeit some minor differences perhaps. In the weeks preceding Christmas, most cities and towns host a number of Christmas markets, the largest one typically being in the city/town center.

Such a market is a collection of cute little wooden Swiss-cottage shaped shops, some selling handicrafts and Christmas decor, some selling baked goods like the Baumstrezelai (tree cake) and Glühwein, which are Christmas favourites among the locals. Glühwein is a type of red wine, served boiling hot.

It is boiled with certain spices like cinnamon, star anise, cardamom etc. and has a wonderful overall flavour. It’s also a great way of keeping warm while walking around the market in the freezing cold! For the children or ‘kinder’, the alternative to Glühwein is Kinderpunsch, which is the same drink but without the alcohol.

Our next stop in Austria was Salzburg, the name literally translating into ‘salt fortress’. It derives its name from the fact that it’s located close to the Alpine salt mines and the salt barges were transported via the river Salzach, the banks of which Salzburg is located.

Salzburg has two major claims to fame, the first one being the very famous musician and composer, Mozart. Wolfgang Mozart was born and raised in this city and so one sees Mozart themed cafes, chocolates and all kinds of souveniers everywhere. I was quite tired of seeing his face pop up after every couple steps.

The city’s other attraction is the the fact that the beloved Oscar winning movie/musical ‘The Sound of Music’ was filmed here. Since this classic is a timeless favourite among people all over the world, including my father and me, Salzburg gets hoards of tourists all year round who come to see the sites where the film was shot. It’s based on the true story of the Von Trapp family…..

During my 1st visit to Salzburg, back when I was in the 1st semester of my Master’s, I was so excited to visit all the iconic places where the filmed the songs. I couldn’t visit all of them, but managed to see the Pegasus fountain in the beautiful Mirabel Garden. In the movie Julie Andrews and the Von Trapp children sang the famous ‘Do Re Mi’ song and danced around this fountain and then proceeded to cycle along the ..bridge.

My friends and I had then hiked up the steep, winding road to the Hohenzollern Castle on top of the hill overlooking the city. It was Christmas time and there were a lot of baubles and Christmas decor around, making it festive and colourful on an otherwise cloudy and cold day. The view of the Salzburg skyline from  the castle was quite worth the climb.

This time around, my 2nd visit to Salzburg with my parents was a quick one since we reached there in the evening. Once again, the Christmas market greeted us in all it’s festive fervor. There was a mammoth sized Christmas tree right in the middle, all decked up in lights and finery. The place was teeming with locals and tourists clad in heavy woolens, with steaming mugs of Glühwein in their hands.

We followed suit and walked around while consuming pretzels and Glühwein as well. We also came across an ice skating rink, with children zooming around at great speeds with their families and friends. Ice skating rinks are also a common sight in cities and bigger towns in winter. We watched them for a while,wishing we too had possessed the capability of whirling around effortlessly on ice.

Our walk around the Altstadt (Old city) center was a short one because it was getting colder by the minute. Our drive back to Munich was an eventless one, with just a short stop at the border where the German Polizei checked our visas.

They normally don’t do that on the German-Austrian border, but with refugees coming in from Syria lately, border patrol has become a tad bit more frequent.

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