On May 15th I will fly to Munich for 15 days. I have already been to a lot of places in Bavaria, but I've never been to the Czech Republic and only briefly in the old East Germany. I've been on portions of the Alpenstrasse, but not the part from Berchtesgaden to the Inn. I'll call this my Czech trip, because I will be spending nine day either in the Czech Republic or a short distance from the border.
This is my itinerary:
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Hohenwerfen castle was on a mountainside across the valley from the grass slope where Marie first starting teaching the children to sing (Do-Re-Mi) in Sound of Music.
Hohenaschau castle is in Aschau, on the Alpenstrasse, almost to Frasdorf.
| Schloss Hohenwerfen | Map of the eastern Alpenstrasse | Hohenaschau |
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Along with the Bohemian Forest on the Czech side of the border, the Bayerischer Wald forms the largest continuously forested area in Europe.
The Sächsische Schweiz National Park, just east of Dresden, near the intersection of Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic, is kind of like Bryce and Zion in this country, but with trees. The soft limestone has eroded, littering the park with finger-like rock formations, like the Bastei (bastion, in German), and flat-topped mesas, like the one on which Fortress Königstein is built.
| Bastei | Königstein |
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My report of the trip will start here with Week one.