Königsee and the Jennerbahn

Monday 14 August 2000. After our morning in Berchtesgaden, we got back to the coach and motored on for another while before coming to Königsee.

We passed several of these wonderful chalet style buidings both large and small, but always exquisitely decked out in blooms of colour. We learned that the "see" part of Königsee's name meant "lake".

In the case of Königsee it was a crystal clear turquoise lake with tiny fish darting from underneath at any bread thrown to the ducks. Towering over the lake were several mountains.

We had a couple of hours free time and we had at first thought to go for a cruise on the lake.

However the long line of people who had all had similar thoughts put us off a wee bit and we stood for a while drinking in the sights and sounds. Before we found our drink though, Fran saw a notice for a cable car and we set off to find out if the queue was any less than for the boats. It was! In fact there was no queue whatsoever! The man in the kiosk told us that the car took 30 minutes to go up plus another 30 to come down again - plenty of time for us to take the trip and to spend a bit of time at the top.

So we walked through the turnstiles and got straight into a small two-person cable car which after a short pause launched us off up the mountain on the Jennerbahn. Again by way of explanation, Jenner was the name of the mountain and bahn means train or in this case a linked series of little cabins, suspended from the cable above.

The cable car was glazed with plastic and the door was locked. It very soon got boiling hot in there! The cable car opened in 1953 and due to the length of the cable (4.2km or 2.6 miles) it has to pass through a middle station where the gradient changes.

We approached, passed through, and left the middle station without any bother and the cable began to rise more steeply. The upper section of the cable was not only steeper but longer than that from the lake to the middle station.

And here we are, arriving at the top station. The Jenner mountain stands 1874m tall (6148ft) and the cable car travels 4.2 kilometers to get to the top.

The view from the top. We looked for the lake far below but were not able to spot it. Possibly because the cable car route takes a bt of a dog-leg bend at the middle station and also because the lower portion of the mountain is heavily forested.

We checked the time and decided there was plenty of time to sit and have a drink at the top of the mountain before climbing back into another oven for the journey back down!

The journey back down was as scenic if not more so than the jouney up. We had the added excitement of watching out for the lake to come into view. As we left the Jennerbahn we took a last look at the lake then back to the coach. A family of four are missing.

After half an hour they tumbled into the coach, breathless. They had been told that the boat trip would get them back in time but in fact they had had to get off at the first stop and then had to apologise and beg to queue-jump a line of 100 people to get back. "Was it worth it though?" one of the others asked. "No - we spent all the time worrying that the coach would have gone!"

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Berchtesgaden

Monday 14 August 2000. We are startled awake on the first morning of our stay in Austria. Is it an avalanche? Is it the jangle of cowbells from the cattle on the hills? Is it the yodelling of a herdsman high on the hills above Schüttdorf?

No... it's the church bells of this church directly opposite our window! It started at 6:00am with four bongs for the hour then six bongs for the time then every 15 minutes, a bong for each quarter hour, i.e. one bong at quarter past the hour, two bongs at half past and three bongs at quarter to the hour. Hence the four bongs at six o'clock denoting the hour had been reached then another six bongs for six o'clock. At 7:00am the bell ringer took out all of his frustrations on yet another bell... After four for the hour and seven for the time, he rang out three sets of twenty bongs presumably to call people for morning prayer. There was a bit of moaning at breakfast from some sleepy tourists, though I always take the view that if you travel in foreign climes you don't start off by complaining about their traditions.

This was our hotel: the Pinzgauhof in Shüttdorff. I learned another important fact to bear in mind when using a back-to-front toilet (see first article in this series). Gentlemen with dangly bits should stand before flushing as the jet of water slides everything behind you forwards. A collision can be traumatic...

Ok, first excursion time. It took a while to find the coach - Driver John told us to look for and go down an alley. He must have had a different definition of an alley to me! They must be a lot bigger in Kent and Essex to Lancashire... The coach had brought holidaymakers on two trips. The other was a walking holiday so the coach had a few spare seats! We allowed ourselves to spread out a bit.

First stop was Berchtesgaden for which we crossed back into Germany - Bavaria. We hadn't brought any German money out with us (this was before the Euro came in), not realising that we were going to be leaving Austria but in the event it didn't matter as we shall see.

From here you could take an optional extra trip to see Hitler's wartime bunker which is nearby - just about where the von Trapps would have been arrested had they really attempted to walk over the mountains as depicted in The Sound of Music. We opted to look around the town. Wartime coal storage bins hold no interest for me...

Picturesque views were on all sides! Each house or hotel had its own colour scheme for the flowers and we seldom saw two the same next to each other. We saw many roadside shrines and some buildings also had saintly figures cast in relief on walls or corners or over porches.

Fran and I on the hill overlooking the lower part of the town and with a splendid backdrop of mountains. It was now getting towards lunch!

We went into a cafe and, apologising for my terrible German, I asked if Austrian schillings were acceptable. I was pleased when without even a flinch the proprietess answered back in German that they were. She turned out to speak excellent English, as did her staff. So, as she had answered me in German, I presumed I must have got it right!

We had a light snack then went berserk and undid all the good dietary self-denial with a slice of apfel strudel with ice cream. Iss gute... iss fielen gute!

Then feeling suitably guilty we had an urge to walk it off! We had another quick turn around the town and then decided that we had enough time to venture a bit further.

As the coach had come into the town earlier, the road went alongside one of the wonderfully clear pastel blue-green rivers. The river had passed under a covered bridge - just about unknown in England - and I fancied a photo of it. The hill was steeper and longer than I had thought! However, we made it down to the bottom and just look at the colour of that wonderfully pure meltwater from high in the Alps. Then back up to the coach in time where we fondly imagined - wrongly - that we had made up for the apple strudel...

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Zell-am-See, Austria 2000

Saturday 12 August 2000. Another morning outside Blackpool Tower at 4:30am in order to catch the coach down to Dover for the ferry to Calais!

We set off in a taxi from Blackpool, catching our feeder coach at Preston. We reached the Interchange at Dover without incident and found some time to eat there whilst the other coaches arrived. Leger don't have coaches of their own but instead use coach firms from around the UK.

These pick up at various places on the way down, zig-zagging across the M6 from town to town. One particular coach seemed to have zig-zagged on the actual motorway, the passengers from that feeder had nothing polite to say about the driver or his firm... However, he had nipped off smartly in a car at Dover so wasn't about to put anyone else at risk. He probably stood a good chance of being lynched by the sounds of things!

Onto the boat! The coaches are left on the lower decks whilst we go up to see how easy it is to stand still! (It was!)

In fact it was a lovely day, the sun was shining, the White Cliffs of Dover were receding in the distance so the risk of bluebird droppings was fading and all was well with the world.

Once at Calais we turn left for Belgium and motor through Flanders in order to stop overnight at a hotel in Antwerp.

Tomorrow will be a long day. The drivers of our main coach, Keith and John, warn us that we have to cover over 700 miles to Austria!

Sunday 13 August 2000. Our coach was from the Essex firm of Harris's and was in their dark green livery rather than the Leger white with blue and green highlights. John and Keith struggled to fit all the luggage into the lockers. "I like a jigsaw!" was John's comment. "Ah good," I said, "shall we bring the rest out now?"

We passed from Belgium into Holland and then to Germany. Markers pointed out the distance travelled every half kilometre - every 1/10 in Holland and Belgium - and I had to reflect that this was far better than the English system of none at all!

Late in the afternoon Keith called over the intercom: "You've come to see mountains - have a look through the front window so I can turn round and go home again!" We'll see them later in another article. For now we are at the hotel - the Pinzgauhof in Schuttdorf. "They've not made up the beds!" says Fran.

Never mind that! The loo is back to front! Now apparently this is a feature of toilets in Germany and Austria and sometimes in the Netherlands too. Here's why, because I know you are fascinated... The shelf allows an examination of poo - you may wonder why doctors say "have you seen any blood in your poo? when you know and they know that you would have to go excavating through layers of toilet paper and then dipping to find a bit of poo to examine. This handy shelf accomodates a close examination without all that!

You're dying to try it now aren't you? And...! No splashbacks! There's a whole science behind this but I'll spare your sensibilities for now and just point out that you can get a nasty surprise if you don't check and flush before... well let's just say that a splashback might be preferable...

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Onboard the Celebration

I've already done an article looking at the Thomson, later Marella Celebration from the sea or the shore. In this article we take a look at her from an onboard viewpoint.

The forward deck to the bow is out of bounds to passengers, containing lots of potentially dangerous heavy machinery. From here cables and the anchors are winched in and out at every port.

In any case standing at the front of a ship whilst out at sea is not for the faint hearted. Cruise ships at sea will be moving at a fair rate of knots - 26 plus. Even with no wind at all that means you will be feeling a 26 knot wind in your face. This is also the reason you cannot fish from the stern of a ship whilst cruising. You would be yanked over the rail at 20 miles per hour and left watching out for hungry sharks! Sunsets at sea can be very rewarding though!

You don't have to necessarily stand in the gale at the front of the ship to enjoy these though!

Once out into the open sea and more so once the warmth of the sun disappears, the Promenade Deck usually gets somewhat quiet.

No one will be out playing shuffle board in the dark.

The rear of the ship is where the pool can be found. There's a jacuzzi pool too towards the side and a stage area where daytime entertainment by the cabaret artists and party band will play. During the day the entertainments team run quizzes and games every afternoon and there will be demonstrations of ice and vegetable/fruit carving, towel folding and cookery, where if you haven't managed to stuff yourself to the gunnels you can volunteer to taste the results (you will get the full meal!)

On the deck above twin wings overlook the pool area whilst allowing the sun to shine its rays down on the swimmers and loungers below. At night the pool is out of bounds, but on warm nights it's still a pleasant place to be either with a glass of wine or for a last coffee before bed.

The stage area with the wonderful cabaret duo 2 Intense. Tomas and Maris.

They were usually to be found throughout the evenings performing in the Horizons bar situated over the ship's bridge. We will catch up with them again whe I get round to the Horizons bar!

On our first trip on the Celebration in 2009 this trio, The Nightbirds, were on the ship.

Ok, let's have a look at a few cabins. You could choose whether to have separate bunks or whether to have them moved together to form a double bed. I think there were a few cabins where this wasn't possible because of the layout of the room, but we always used to request a double bed as Miss Franny doesn't like not being able to blame me for any covers which may have slipped off...

Note the decent sized windows. Portholes are only found on the lower decks and we liked to a bit higher up so it wasn't so far to stagger back to the cabin after a long night in the Horizons Bar...

Looking from the bed. Cabins aren't huge, though there are some suites available, but we don't go on holiday to spends loads of time in the cabin.

One year we went after the ship had undergone a refit and had been furnished with some balcony rooms. To our surprise we were upgraded to one of these rooms. Very nice too!

The balcony wasn't huge but it was big enough to sit and watch the occasional dolphin and on one day to yell with shock as a blue whale appeared from under the ship directly below us. Bear in mind that there are two sides to every ship and only one sun...

In order to fit balconies, the cabin room had to be made slightly smaller. The bed was moved to the side of the room

The ship has a number of internal lounges. This is the Explorers' Lounge.

It had a piano at one end for Entertainment Team use only and was generally quite a quiet are during the day.

At the end of the lounge was an area with computers for those who felt the need to stay in touch. You could buy a weekly pass or anything smaller from half an hour upwards. Given that you would be in the middle of the sea, data speeds were not gob smacking. You could spend 20 minutes waiting for your computer to log you into your email account. It was better to follow the crew off the ship once in a port as they knew where to go for free internet connections!

There was also a small library of books in this room that could be taken out and returned once read or at the end of a cruise. Also there was usually a jigsaw or two in the process of being finished or abandoned because only blue sky was left to be done. Strangely this acts as a magnet to Miss Franny - give her a jigsaw with a close-up picture of a plate of beans and she'll love it and do it over and over...

Destinations Services desk. There's one on every ship and it is here that you can book any excursions from the ship on days in port. It's a great way to get an idea of a place you haven't visited before and you may be tempted to get off independently on a subsequent visit. We've done that many times but always keeping an eye on being able to be back onboard on time. The ship will wait for booked excursions if they get held up. It may not wait for independent travellers who forget what tine it is or get too drunk to walk back. If the tide is a crucial factor, we have watched from the ship's rail as someone is left running and waving along the dockside as we pull away. We always wave back...

Onboard once out at sea, the ship's shops (easier to write than to say!) can open for all sorts of goods. Evening sales will be advertised during the week: jewellery, wines, spirits and tobacco, watches, perfume.

I'll always have a look and I have been known to buy the occasional cap or t-shirt, but shopping is not my favourite holiday activity!

Shirt night. Just in case you forgot to take any?

Yep, that's enough shops now, move on...

There is a self-service buffet restaurant and I'm a bit surprised after all the cruises we did that I have no photos of it. Thinking with my belly too much I suppose... This is the entrance to the more formal waiter-service Meridian Restaurant.

Here you could sit at a cosy table for two, join another couple on a table for four, or join a larger group on a few large tables. Etiquette is to normally stick with the same group unless they are really the most awful bores - we've met a few of those, though you probably wouldn't know if they were thinking the same! The waiters tend to look after their regulars too, even if you find yourself on a different table some nights because someone got there before you.

Sometimes the waiters will put on a small entertainment, with a few of them singing and playing guitars. Elvis's The Wonder of You is always a favourite - join in with the "Whoa-oh-oh-oh" and wave a napkin of two around. Extra points for removing someone's wig or toupe with it!

One night there was usually a parade of the baked alaska pudding.. This got curtailed due to health and safety in the last few years. We did hear a rumour of one restaurant on a ship where a tall waiter held his flaming pudding so high the restaurant's sprinkler system added to the jollity of the night...

The Showbar where the West End style shows are performed nightly with singing, dancing, and a pinch of pizazz! "Oy! Who's nicked me pizazz?!?"

A quick glimpse of the onboard casino - strictly only open out of territorial waters, this!

And here's Miss Franny lounging in yet another lounge! This is the Horizons Bar. Situated over the ship's bridge it gave a great view forward when leaving ports. It was usually fairly busy throughout the day and in the afternoons you could always count on hearing some gentle and some not-too-gentle snoring from the very comfortable seats facing the front windows. It wasn't always me...

There was a central circular bar and waiters and waitresses would circulate often around the seating area ready to top up your glass.

The windows stretched the full width of the ship and catered for a couple of tables on either side as well.

At night lighting was subdued and it was a popular place to be. On our first cruise on the ship there was a young girl playing piano.

In 2010 this duo made their first appearance on the ship. Tomas and Maris played as the duo 2 Intense. With a gentle and easy-going manner, they were a great act with a wonderful sound.

The first night we saw them Maris announced a Carpenters song and I thought Ooh, that's brave..." but she absolutely nailed the sound and later said she enjoyed singing like Karen Carpenter because she found it relaxing!

She always made sure that they were colour co-ordinated too!

On our first cruise with them I was due to play a gig with my own band the night after we returned to the UK and I joked to Tomas that I needed to keep the skin on the end of my fingers calloused. He grabbed my hand and felt the tips of my fingers which made it obvious I was a regular player. So that night I was called up to play a number!

Tom had no strap on the guitar and used to sit on a stool with the guitar on his knee. Fine... but I have short legs so had to stretch to rest my feet which made my leg slope which made the guitar slide away...

This was the start of a long and wonderful relationship and I had many nights on subsequent cruises playing with them on both the Celebration and the Dream cruise ship.

I never took these opportunities for granted, it was an honour to share the stage with them and I think they enjoyed playing the role of backing singers at times too!

Here they are joined by King, a young singer and guitarist who was playing in the Hemingways Bar. We went down with Tom and Maris after their last spot sometime around midnight one night to catch his last set.

Suddenly Fran was nudging me. "You're being called!" she said. I was given King's guitar and led to the mic. "By the way, it's tuned two notes down," King said and here I was trying desperately to figure out that I should be forming chords two frets higher than usual! I played a set of three songs and acknowledged the applause and got off whilst the going was good!

And I do have one shot of the buffet restaurant, if not the buffet itself. This was the last night on this particular cruise. This is somewhere around 2:00am and we are with Tomas and Maris and King to share a bit of chat and to say our goodbyes until we could be with them again.

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