Family Fun Across the Alps
 |
| "O.K. kids... smile for the camera!" |
By Rick Steves
People living in the Alps dream of a vacation where the sky is big and the sunset slow. But for two weeks my family and I enjoyed a small sky and abrupt sunsets... in the Alps.
In August 2001, Anne and I laced the most kid-friendly activities together from Vienna to Zurich — hoping our kids, Andy (then 13) and Jackie (then 10), would find it was a decent way to spend 18 precious summer vacation days. Here are some highlights:
While we flew into Vienna, we spent our first night in Melk (a small town an hour away on the Danube). Sleepy and elegant under a towering abbey that seems to police the Danube, Melk offers a relaxing place to get over jetlag.
Melk's abbey is one of Europe's great sights. Freshly painted and gilded throughout, it's a Baroque dream, a lily alone. Its grand restoration project — financed in part by the sale of its Gutenberg Bible to Harvard — was completed by 1996 to celebrate the 1,000th anniversary of the first reference to a country named Österreich (Austria). I love the place. Our kids hated it.
Their choice: a bike ride down the Danube Valley. Biking is huge along this stretch of the river (rent one from your hotel or ask at the TI). The three-hour pedal from Melk to the town of Krems is steeped in tradition, blanketed with vineyards, and ornamented with cute villages. A paved and clearly marked bike route winds scenically and smoothly, mostly near the north side of the river. It's broken occasionally by cobbled lanes jiggling bikers through villages expert at tempting you to stop for a bite, a drink, or a little shopping.
 |
| Alpine mountain biking: little pain, lots of gain. |
Pedaling downstream we enjoyed a gradual slope. Jackie ran out of steam after about 20 miles. Rather than push all the way to Krems, we simply loaded our bikes onto the one-car milk run train. It rattles up the valley about hourly and got us home in time to split up for dinner.
Yes, Mom and Dad, ready for a meal without food fights, gave each of the kids the equivalent of about $10 for pizza and a coke — a do-it-or-go-hungry opportunity to read the menu in German, communicate with a foreign waiter, and figure out the local money. Anne and I ate romantically, watching the slow-mo spectacle of Melk's abbey melt from sunlit to floodlit.
Our next stop was Salzburg — where Sound of Music tours are a thriving industry. These tours — which come with a quick city tour and a blitz through the scenic Salzkammergut Lake District — are packed with SOM lore. While many Austrians don't even know who Julie Andrews is, Americans and Japanese jostle for seats on the daily bus tours.
Big parental mistake: we didn't show our kids the movie before leaving. So our kids had no idea why we were nostalgic about lonely goat herds and some problem nun named Maria.
To give our kids a peek at a few of our favorite things, we went to the Sound of Music dinner concert. It was good family fun with an energetic musical cast of four, a schmaltzy piano accompaniment, and an authentic dinner, right down to the "crisp apple strudel."
Singing "How do you solve a problem like Jackie?", we continued west, zeroing in on the most popular tourist destination in Bavaria, Mad King Ludwig's Castles. (These are two castles — Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein — standing side-by-side near the Austrian border, two hours south of Munich). With fairy tale turrets in a fairy tale alpine setting built by a fairy tale king, our kids loved it.
The story of Ludwig II (a.k.a. "Mad King Ludwig") was a fine opportunity to introduce our kids to the concept of Romanticism in European history. The king ruled Bavaria for 23 years until his mysterious death in 1886 at the age of 41.
Andy and Jackie found Ludwig — with all of his eccentricities — fascinating. Ludwig was a Romantic's Romantic, living in a romantic age. His best friends were artists, poets, and composers like Richard Wagner. He was even rumored to have had an affair with his romantic counterpart, Hapsburg Empress Sissi. His palaces are wallpapered with misty medieval themes, especially those from Wagnerian operas. Eventually he was declared mentally unfit to rule Bavaria. Two days later, Ludwig was found dead in a shallow lake. To this day people debate: murder or suicide?
Hiking up to Neuschwanstein, we imagined King Ludwig as a boy, climbing the hills above Hohenschwangau, his dad's place, dreaming up the ultimate fairy tale castle. He had the power to make his dream concrete and stucco. Neuschwanstein was designed by a painter first... then an architect. While it looks medieval, it's only about as old as the Eiffel Tower. Like something you'd see at a home show for 19th-century royalty, it's a textbook example of the Romanticism so popular throughout Europe back then.
While the Ludwig castles are great family fun, beware. Many families end up stranded in long lines — waiting hours and ultimately not getting in. The key to a great four-hour visit: arrive by 8:00 and you'll be touring the castles by 9:00. You can see both castles and ride the luge at the nearby Tegelberg gondola station (our favorite in the region) and get out by early afternoon.
 |
| Luges come in two fast flavors: concrete and stainless steel. |
Ride the luge? Yes, a luge ride will be your kid's top trip memory. The buzz among kids touring Bavaria and the Tirol is which luge is best. Our kids researched that subject enthusiastically. Throughout the region you'll find ski lifts doing summer duty by hauling thrill-seekers up so they can scream down stainless steel or concrete courses on four-wheeled sleds. Rides cost around €3-7 (about $4.50-10). Figure 15 minutes to go up and down. We tried five different luge runs in the region. Each was different. All were fun. The most smiles and screams came from the handiest course at the Tegelberg lift, just a mile from the Ludwig crowds at Neuschwanstein.
From the Tirol we traveled through the Swiss Alps to the Berner Oberland, south of Interlaken.
While adventure travel is popular with older kids, we found mountain biking in the Alps adventurous enough. A day of mountain biking was all Andy had on his wish list.
While the high villages of the Berner Oberland are "traffic free," the entire region is laced by tiny service roads — once the private domain of hay wagons. With the gradual fall of traditional farming and rise of tourism, these lanes are now open to mountain bikers (as long as you stay on the clearly marked bike paths).
We did the popular "Murren Loop": from Murren down to Stechelberg, along the valley to Lauterbrunnen, then back up — with the help of the funicular — to Murren. The funicular ride allowed us to enjoy a gradual downhill slope all afternoon. (You can rent bikes — about $30 a day with helmet — in most Alpine resort towns.)
 |
| "Dad, you need to update those glasses." |
Bouncing like a pogo stick on a "full suspension" mountain bike, Andy led the way. We sped through the sweet smelling fields of hay, stopping to see giant ceremonial cow bells hanging under log cabin eaves and to watch farmers harvest hay with a scythe. On the valley floor we rolled through pristine campgrounds, along a milky river, and gave rock-hurling waterfalls a wide berth. After the funicular took us to the physical high point of our adventure, we stepped into a dairy farm known for its powerful cheese.
The scene was a time warp: sun streaking through old timbers, bathing antique vats and presses in a sepia light. A young red-bearded man, sucking a droopy pipe, was coaxing milk along the time-honored route to Alp cheese. After aging for as much as three years, this potent cheese will be carved like wood with a plane and served in mouthwatering curly slivers on special occasions.
Carving us a tasty ribbon, he assured wide-eyed Andy it was edible. Looking at me and clenching his fist, he proclaimed, "Alp cheese... the best in the world."
After all this sightseeing, we asked Andy and Jackie what were their best memories. The answer: not castles, mountain tops, or fancy desserts... but connecting with other kids: the children of other travelers and the people who ran the little places we stayed.
Making friends with local Swiss children, our kids learned that the government controls first names here. Only certain names are allowed. For instance, you can't name your child Moonbeam or Nutella. Even approved names can cause a commotion. We have a friend in Interlaken named Fritz. These days, the Swiss find "Fritz" a comically old-fashioned name. Still, Fritz named his son Fritz. At school, little Fritz's polite friends asked, "Would you like us to call you by a different name?"
Our kids laughed with Swiss friends about their famous tidiness. Swiss restaurants come with tiny tabletop garbage cans for cracker wrappers and breakfast litter. The Swiss children giggled happily, telling stories of how some tourists actually mix their hot chocolate in these little cans.
We learned that even though our kids had bird-sized appetites for museums, living on the road far from their favorite TV shows and neighborhood friends broadened their outlook. Now, back at school, when they spin the globe, it's clear: the size of your backyard is up to you.
For lots more information, check out our best-selling Rick Steves' guidebooks — or join us on one of our free-spirited Europe tours!