An ongoing adventure of travel and living while using a wheelchair. Tim has been disabled from birth. Darryl is his father and caregiver who travels with him.
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All content, images, and video copyright 2009,2010, 2011, and 2012 - Darryl, Letty, and Tim Musick
Note: This story was originally written in 2002...I've tried to update the information to 2010 where applicable.
This is a very low key trip, yet it is connected very well with some very major tourist destinations. It's served by excellent, accessible public transportation yet you will be hard pressed to find other tourists while you're here. You'll find yourself on possibly the most famous...and fabled...highway on earth but you won't feel you're at a tourist mecca.
Route 66 of course is that fabled route to California from Chicago made famous by the likes of John Steinbeck and Bobby Troup. Although the highway was decommissioned, hundreds of miles of it still exist.
One stretch that almost no one talks about any more is the part that winds its way though San Bernardino County into the San Gabriel Valley in Southern California. The past icons along this stretch are quickly succumbing to encroaching suburbia, but there is still much to see and do here.
There are three areas of lodging that are particularly good here, depending on what's important to you. Staying in the lovely little college town of Claremont gives you superb access to the area's transporation grid...even if it is a bit out of the way. It's also close to our hiking area, noted below.
Staying in Pasadena puts you right in the thick of things and gives you great transit access via the Metro Gold Line. You'd probably want to avoid it around New Year's day unless you're doing the Rose Bowl or the parade.
The third choice is my choice for the best compromise. There is a hotel/restaurant row right on the border of Arcadia and Monrovia that gives you great affordable lodging in a good neighborhood with a very short walk to dozens of good restaurants.
You can fly to Ontario, Burbank, or LAX to get here. Ontario or Burbank would be best.
OK, on to the report...
Day 1
Since this is our hometown, we are going to have to imagine some of the following, but...apart from staying in the hotels...all of this actually happened.
The Springhill Suites is located just east of Santa Anita Racetrack n Arcadia. We sleep in a bit, wanting to shake off travel fatigue. Just up the street from the hotel, we indulge in an early lunch at BJ's Pizza, Grill, & Brewhouse just west of the hotel. There are so many restaurants here that the only problem will be choosing which ones to eat at.
I have a superb french dip sandwich, my wife has a pot roast sandwich, and Tim has a BJ's burger. It goes very well with BJ's own beer and cider. For three people, it's less than $25.
After lunch, the Foothill Transit route 187 bus (the 187 traces mostly along Historical Route 66 from Colorado Bl. in Pasadena to Foothill Bl. in Claremont) picks us up across the street and drops us off a minute later at Santa Anita Racetrack (for those up to it, it's about a quarter mile walk from restaurant row to the track). We enter the back entrance which leads into the infield and spend the afternoon watching the ponies and trying not to lose all of our money. We actually end up about forty dollars ahead. (Santa Anita has live racing in October and from late December through April...it is pretty much open all year for sattelite wagering)
One note here, although we had a lot of fun and met some wonderful people who work at the track, we did go up to the clubhouse restaurant (we had clubhouse passes) for drinks and ran into the rudest people who work there. After receiving very poor service and attitude, we left before ordering anything and returned to the friendlier confines back at ground level.
After the races, we returned to the hotel and had dinner at the Claim Jumper, just half a block east of BJ's. Priced moderately to expensive, you get three meals worth of food for each order. You could very easily split something, or take leftovers if you have a place to store it and heat it up. Even better is their monday through Thursday happy hour where a pizza costs just $3. It's all very tasty...and filling!
Day 2
Wanting to exercise some of those Claim Jumper calories off, we again board Foothill Transit's 187 line heading east right in front of the hotel. In Claremont, it's an easy transfer to Foothill's line 292 at Mountain Avenue and Foothill Bl. The 292 drops us off at Baseline and Mountain and we walk three blocks west to the Thompson Creek Trail.
This trail, owned and maintained by the City of Claremont, is a very wheelchair friendly paved path that traces the edge of civilization. On one side are the tract homes of Claremont...which progress from humble bungalows to stately mansions at the end of the trail...on the other is mostly wild area, scrubby chaparral.
Thompson Creek is really a concrete lined drainage ditch, but other than that, the scenery is wonderful. My wife, ever the bird watcher, pointed out hundreds of Cedar Waxwings, a Flicker, dozens of Robins, warblers, and the occasional hawk or eagle. I caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye and stopped. Up on a ridge about 100 yards away sat a family of four deer keeping a wary eye on our progress. The two mile trail (four miles round-trip) ends up in a brushy field in the shadow of Mount Baldy. Another more primitive trail starts just north of this one. We'll save that for another trip.
Retracing our way back, the 187 westbound takes us to a true Route 66 treasure, Pinnacle Peak in San Dimas. On the menu here are big, juicy, cowboy steaks cooked over hardwood charcoal served with beans and bread. What's not on the menu here are ties. Thousands of forbidden ties hang from the rafters. They are cut off the offending owner's neck and strung up. If you do wear a tie to dinner here, just to add to the collection, be aware that they have a big ceremony where everybody in the place stops what they're doing just to see your tie get sliced. That's the voice of experience talking there...
Day 3
Today we want to expand our horizons a little. After breakfast, we take the 187 west to the the Sierra Madre Villa terminus of the Gold Line. If you stayed in Claremont or Montclair, you would have easier access to Metrolink but be farther away with less amenities...the choice is yours.
First, a word about tickets. Metro offers no transfers, so get a day pass instead of a single ticket. We ride the Gold Line into Los Angeles where we get off at Union Station and take the elevator downstairs to the Metro Red Line. The North Hollywood bound train takes us to the Hollywood and Highland Station. Upstairs is the Hollywood and Highland complex which includes a shopping center with great views of the Hollywood sign, restaurants ranging from hot dogs to very expensive sit down dinners, the Kodak Theater (home of the Academy Awards), and the Chinese Theater...a true Hollywood landmark.
We grab a couple of hot dogs and compare shoe sizes with the stars in the forecourt of the Chinese Theater. The shopping center has great access from the subway and is nice if a little bland. It does make a big improvement to a very nasty neighborhood. That's a big step in the right direction.
Back downstairs, the Red Line continues on. The next stop in Universal City.
At that stop, we cross the street to catch a shuttle up the hill to Universal Studios. The shuttle pulls up and...it's not accessible. No problem, the driver radios up the hill and a lift-equipped van is dispatched to pick us up (you don't want to walk up this steep hill in a wheelchair...even if you're up to the challenge, the curb cuts stop half-way up, forcing you into a very busy street).
Universal Studios is a lot of fun. We take the studio tour, see the Backdraft special effects walk-through, ride Jurassic Park, and see the Waterworld stunt show. In between, we have a few beers at Mulligan's Pub and then out from the pub to see Terminator 3-D across the way. Afterwards, we have a nice dinner at Karl Strauss Brewery and Gardens at the adjacent CityWalk. The Red Line takes us back to Union Station where we catch the Gold Line back to Pasadena and take the 187 back to the hotel.
Stay tuned for part 2, the finale.
-Darryl Copyright 2002 - Darryl Musick All Rights Reserved
I hadn't even posted this and it's already the most popular cocktail hour video in the series, with over a thousand views already. That's because I submitted it to a site that compares this video (shot with a Flip) with the hurricane video of a couple of weeks ago (shot with a Kokak Zi8) for pocket cam enthusiasts and the ball started rolling from there.
Picture courtesy of Wikimedia
Lynt under CC-BY-SA license
The Tequila Sunrise is a very visual drink, the name coming from the effect of the red grenadine sitting on the bottom of the orange drink, giving it the illusion of a sunrise. It's a great change-of-pace beach drink when you get tired of the saltiness of your margarita or the heaviness of your pina colada. Being that it's full of orange juice, it's also a great source of vitamin C while you sitting in the sun (hey, gotta bring the positives!).
Watch the video!
The problem I've had with this drink in the past is that the classic recipe...orange juice, tequila, and grenadine only...has left me with an aftertaste that can best be described as "children's aspirin" taste...the St. Joseph's effect. It tastes good, but that aftertaste is a bit annoying. Even at the great bars that dot the beaches of Mexico, I still had that taste. The recipe below is my adaption of the classic and uses pineapple and lime juice to eliminate that aftertaste.
TEQUILA SUNRISE (1 drink)
2 oz. - tequila 2-3 oz. - orange juice 2-3 oz. - pineapple juice spash of lime juice splash of grenadine
Take a highball glass and fill 2/3 with crushed ice. Pour in the tequila. Fill about halfway to the top with orange juice. Pour in a splash of lime juice or squeeze half a fresh lime into the glass. Complete the fill of the glass with the pineapple juice. Stir the contents. Pour a splash of grenadine along one side...note - do not pour over the top of the drink...the grenadine is denser than the liquid in the glass and will soon sink to the bottom. Do not stir the drink, you want the grenadine on the bottom when you serve so you get the sunrise effect. Once you start drinking it, it will mix in but let your guests to the mixing or you'll just end up with a pink drink.
In honor of Oktoberfest, today we revisit the heart of that celebration, Munich and Bavaria.
Below is our newly re-edited video of this trip, Parts 1 and 2. Part 2 should start immediately after Part 1 ends. Click on the links in this paragraph if you'd like to watch them separately.
Bavaria and Austria...the video!
Previously...we were in France. In this, the second installment of the trip, we fly over the Alps to Munich.
First, let me say that Munich is the most accessible city I've ever found outside of America. It's even more accessible than many American cities, and that includes my hometown of Los Angeles. Railed transit goes everywhere here and it's all accessible to wheelchairs...granted in some of the larger stations it may take a little while to locate an elevator, but they're there. The only non-accessible transit we encountered is that some trams are not accessible but they seem to have a policy that if a non-accessible tram shows up, the next one (usually within 10 minutes) will be accessible. Munich is a wonderfully accessible city. In fact, it would be easily doable in a power chair.
An early morning flight from Nice has us at our hotel in Munich at 9:00 in the morning. There are two trains from the airport into town, the S-Bahn lines S1 and S8. Our hotel is the Vi Vadi which is one block north of the main train station, the Hauptbahnhof. The station is huge (larger than Grand Central) and it takes us a little while to find our way out and to get our bearings for the hotel.
Since it’s early morning, we are thinking we’ll drop off our luggage and sightsee until check in time. We are surprised to find our room is already ready so we go up and unpack. Again, it is pretty much step-free access (a small 2 inch step into the lobby is all there is) and we have a room with one bedroom, kitchen, tiny dining area, fold out couch and a loft with two beds. The bathroom is tiny and none too accessible but we are able to muscle are way around it with the shower chair provided by the hotel.
The room is very nice otherwise with three flat-screen TVs and a full breakfast provided each morning in the restaurant next door. The cost is $1000 for seven nights, or $200 each for the five of us.
Tim has said he wants to see the 1972 Olympic site and, specifically, go to the athletes village to pay his respects to the Israeli athletes who were taken hostage and murdered during those games.
It’s back to the train station, this time to the U-Bahn (U-Bahn is the local subway, the S-Bahn is more of a commuter system for the suburbs) where two trains and 15 minutes take you to the Olympic park station.
Israeli Athletes Quarters from 1972 Olympics
You need to know where you’re going if you want to visit the Israeli athletes accommodations…it is not advertised or encouraged at all. At the station, you walk towards the big, white apartment buildings and find the way for Connellystrasse. There’s a little mini-mall and different colored pipes lead you to different streets in the complex. These apartments were the Olympic village in 1972. The light blue pipe leads down Connellystrasse…watch for the ramps to lead you down to each level. The athletes were in the two apartments on the second floor of 31 Connellystrasse where a small memorial marks the spot and lists the names of the athletes who died.
On the day we were there, two fresh flower bouquets had been placed at the memorial. Later, we found out we’d happened onto the site and on the anniversary of the attack, September 5th.
Afterwards, we made our way back to the U-Bahn station via a little bakery run by a very nice lady at the above mentioned mini mall. We had some delicious donuts and strudel before continuing on.
On the other side of the station is the massive BMW factory. Adjacent to that is BMV Welt, a visitor’s center for all things BMW. Here, you can make arrangements to tour the factory, see the museum, browse all the BMW models on display, see their race cars, visit the gift shop, and…for some reason most fun of all…watch the people who travel here to pick up their new car right off the factory line.
There is a middle level where customers watch as their new car is brought up by elevator from the factory. Then it is driven onto a presentation turntable as the BMW people teach the new owners about their car. When done, they drive off down a massive ramp through the big public space.
After that, an exit out the back of the building leads to a pleasant walk to the Olympic stadium. You cross a bridge over the autobahn…the same bridge that led the athletes into the opening ceremony…and into the Olympic complex itself. It’s 2 Euros to go inside the stadium with its spider-web acrylic panels covering the stands. For an extra charge you can tour that roof…not accessible…and take a zip-line ride across to the other side.
Olympic Stadium
We left the stadium and a short walk later ended up at the Schwimhalle, the indoor pool where Mark Spitz won his then record of 7 gold medals. It is hot inside the pool area…like a sauna…so it felt very good to get out. These days, you can pay a small fee to go swimming and use the diving pool. The day we were there, the big pool was drained but the diving pool was more than big enough for the crowd.
Outside, the former Olympic area is now a rather large park where locals go to relax, have fun, and get some sunshine. There’s a nice lake loaded with swans, ducks, and geese; a large hill to climb; an even bigger tower to ride the elevator up to; and a walk of fame around the lake where celebrities have left their handprints and signatures in the cement, a la Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood.
Still having some time to kill, we walked back to the U-Bahn and caught a train back to the heart of town, Marienplatz. The elevator out of the station deposits you directly on the main plaza, saving you a lot of walking that you do at other stations.
Marienplatz is your typical, medieval style European town square with its many ornate buildings, churches, and street performers except this time, not much of it is ancient. Most of this area was bombed into oblivion during World War II and what you see is a very good recreation of what was here before. We’ll return to the plaza later in the trip, today we want to go to the local market, the Viktualienmarkt, located a couple of blocks away from the plaza behind Sankt Peter Kirche (Saint Peter’s Church).
The Viktualienmarkt
One of the great things to do in any European city is to explore the local market. Here, along with the usual produce stands are wine shops, cheese makers, butter dealers, sausage counters, flower shops, and more. The centerpiece is the biergarten (beer garden) sitting in the middle. Around 100 tables sit here. The few with table cloths are for service by the waitresses. The rest are open to anybody. Browse the market, pick up a picnic, and take a table. A couple of beer stands will be more than willing to quench your thirst.
Our first trip to a real German beer garden is initially intimidating…we are rookies on protocol…but we soon get the gist. A stand at one end sells food. We get some big red sausages, served with your choice of sauerkraut or roasted and pickled potatoes. We get one of each. You can also get the sausage served on a roll or with a pretzel.
The beer stand next door has big mugs of cold brew on the counter. Take as many as you like, pay the guy on the way out, and make your way back to your table. Now eat, drink, and start talking to the friendly locals sitting around you.
It helps to at least have some basic phrases learned in the local language before you go, such as greetings, asking for directions, or ordering food. You’ll find that this breaks the ice and that once you open up, many Muncheners also speak English. They’re very friendly here in the beer garden and we have a great time hanging out with them.
We walk back to our hotel, taking in our first, major glimpses of the city before settling down for the night. It’s only a 10 minute walk back, or two stops on the underground.
The next day is depressing. There’s no way around it, but this is something that I think is necessary to do. Today is the day we go to Dachau.
It’s less than half an hour by S-Bahn to Dachau…which is a lovely little village…and then about a kilometer bus ride to the memorial which was Hitler’s first concentration camp, now a memorial to Nazi Germany’s victims.
Entrance is free but there is a charge for the audio tour. The entire site is wheelchair accessible save for the re-created barracks.
The infamous gate has those German words telling you your work would set you free. The big building by the entrance served as a processing center for newly arrived prisoners. Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and Catholic priests made up most of the population at this camp. It was not an extermination center like Auschwitz, but over 30,000 prisoners died here during its operation.
A graphic and brutal documentary starts off the tour (note – the museum is not recommended for children under 12 years old) and there is an eerie silence, although that is much more appreciated than it would be if smiling, laughing tourists were milling about.
It’s an overwhelming place, also noting that disabled people were also on the list of victims. A lot here is hard to stomach…
The barracks which held up to 5,000 prisoners each while only having 11 toilets installed; the “kill zone”…a strip of green grass before the fence where guards had free reign to shoot on sight; the wall where prisoners were executed by firing squad with a little ditch dug in front to catch the blood; the mass graves.
The worst, however, are the crematoria. First, a small building with two ovens for body disposal. When that proved unable to cope with the demand, a second larger facility was built next door.
The Ovens
A macabre assembly line, this building was made for prisoners to enter at one end, strip in the waiting room, lead into the “shower room”…a gas chamber, had the bodies stored in the next room before being burned in the new room with four ovens. Although it is claimed that the gas chamber was never used, some theorize that it had at least been tested because the Nazi authorities were assured that it worked. Nonetheless, all the other rooms in this facility were used…in fact overburdened…for their intended functions. There are still metal rings in the rafters where prisoners were hung before their bodies were fed to the flames.
Incongruously, the area around the camp is beautiful making the shock even more disturbing. Perhaps in an effort to cleanse the awful spirit of the camp, there are four religious chapels and a convent now on the grounds.
In need of some serious cheering up, we skipped the next train out that carried most of the hundreds of visitors in our group and stayed behind in the village for some coffee and dessert. It was quiet, the sweets delicious, and the friendly people of the café eased our disquiet somewhat over what we had just experienced.
Back in Munich, we have dinner at the Augustiner Kellar biergarden, which is a two-block walk from our hotel. Munich has around 400 beer gardens and halls and it is our intention to make a big as dent possible on this number!
The Augustiner, a few acres behind a stone wall, has both. The garden is like a nice park that happens to serve beer and food. There’s even a playground here.
The Augustiner Beer Garden
Snack stands are sprinkled around the periphery selling deli sandwiches, fish, roasted chicken, and more. The main area has a cafeteria-like setting of five stands where you grab a tray and take ‘em on, one at a time. The first stand has kuchen…German for cake. In this case, it’s much like a puffed pancake. If you’ve had fried dough, Indian fry bread, or elephant ears, this is similar except it seems there’s a yeast component that makes it fluff up. It’s exceedingly delicious and we found ourselves going back to this stand frequently.
Next, you can get those great, big German ham hocks with their delicious crackly skin and juicy meat; a variety of sausages; cheeses; salads; soft drinks; light beer; and then the last stand with the cold, Augustiner brew being poured out of a wooden keg into liter sized glasses. A basket of fresh, large pretzels completes the menu. This, and the Viktualienmarkt, turned out to be our favorite places to eat here.
Our hotel features a big, bountiful and hot breakfast buffet at their Italian restaurant next door. That’s one thing I like about German hotels, breakfast is almost always included in the rate..if you find a hotel that doesn’t, skip it and keep looking.
St. Peter's Cemetary, Salzburg Austria
We're heading down to the wire as we have another bountiful breakfast at the Vi Vadi Italian restaurant, which just happens to be attached to our nice Vi Vadi Hotel in Munich.
Well fed and rested up, we head over to the Hauptbanhof for our next adventure. We’re off for a day trip to Salzburg, Austria…home of Mozart and, perhaps better known as, the setting for the movie The Sound of Music.
The Train to Salzburg
The long train is at a far platform outside. Two cars, one at each end, are designated for wheelchairs. The closer one smells like the bathroom is leaking so we make the long trek to the other end where it is much nicer. It’s a 70 minute, very scenic ride.
We purchase Salzburg Card at the Tourist Information office at the Salzburg Hauptbanhof. This gets us admission to most sites along with rides on the public transportation. It’s a short bus ride from there to the old city. A note: most of the buses are accessible but no driver we saw would move a muscle to help.
Salzburg Cathedral
After the ride, we make our way to the Mozart Plaza near the main cathedral, which has a ramp for accessibility. Inside is a huge sanctuary filled with priceless artwork with four organs surrounding the altar. As Mozart was the organist here for two years, his fingers have graced those keys. A brass baptismal near the entrance is where the baby Wolfgang Amadeus was baptized.
Behind the cathedral is a large fountain that turns out to be a horse wash. Like today’s car washes, except horsemen would use it to wash their steeds. A ramp leads in to make it easy for the horse. Just up the alley is an accessible funicular that takes you to the Hohensalzburg, a great 900 year-old fortress on top of the hill. A large terrace here grants you superb views of the city below. This, and an adjacent restaurant, are all that is accessible here. Many stairs lead into the castle itself.
The Horsewash
Back at the bottom, around the corner and up another alley is St. Peter’s cemetery, an absolutely gorgeous burial ground with a monastery built into the hillside. This is where the Von Trapp family hid from the Nazis in the movie, although it was actually a set built to look like this cemetery. In one of the niches on the hillside is buried Mozart’s sister. Out the other end of the cemetery is the Felsenreitschule Theater, famous in the movie as the place where Captain Von Trapp sang Edelweiss. Tours are available but usually you cannot see the interior. A market dominates the next street before you get to the Getreiedegasse, the main shopping street.
Before you go on, there is an accessible restroom in the marketplace, ask one of the workers in the restaurant next door for the key. The last thing we see here is Mozart’s birthplace, which is not accessible. Back across the river is Mozart’s family house that is accessible but by the time we got here, we only had 15 minutes to see inside before closing. That’s ok because it was very hot in there.
On the way back to the station, we see Mirabelle gardens where the movie Maria Von Trapp taught the children how to sing…think “doe, a deer…a female deer…”
It’s a quick bus ride from here back to the station and then back to Munich.
In the morning, I pick up a station wagon from the Hertz desk at the Haupbanhof. The destination for today is Neuschwanstein, King Ludwig II’s fairy tale castle near the border of Austria. Think of Cinderella’s castle at Disneyland, it was modeled after this castle.
Tours for the disabled are offered at closing time (6pm) every Wednesday. Advance reservations are a must and the disabled guest gets a 1 Euro discount and an attendant goes along for free. Any extra people need to take the regular tour.
Since we have all day to get there, we hit the autobahn trying to make it to Lichtenstein for lunch.
Once outside of the city, the speed limits stop and we try to make a cruising speed of 100 miles per hour. Like back home, however, there is always some knucklehead that wants to jump in front of you in the left lane going fifty.
We do get a bit lost trying to find the right road to Vaduz and end up in a small town in Switzerland instead. We have a picnic lunch there before doubling back to Schwangau, home of Nueschwanstein.
Although I don’t like or understand the restrictions set in place for disabled visitors, one benefit is that disabled visitors are the only people allowed to drive their car up to the castle. We park within 10 feet of the meeting place for the disabled tour. Since three of us cannot go on that tour, the ticket office down below books us on the last mainstream tour of the day. My mom, finding out that there are over 300 stairs on the tour, volunteers to go on the step-free tour with Tim.
We wait in the castle courtyard for our appointed time, while Tim and my mom wait by the car.
Finally, our tour group is called and in we go.
Neuschwanstein
Ludwig worked on this castle for two decades, bankrupting his country’s treasury in doing so. He had finished 6 rooms inside before he was declared insane and deposed. The next day, the former king and his psychiatrist were found floating face down in a lake. A few days after his death, the castle was opened to tourists and has been one of the top attractions in Bavaria ever since.
The half hour tour takes you through those six rooms. Imagine our surprise, after climbing all those stairs, to see Tim and my mom with their group in the first room.
Each room is lavish. The throne room has a golden brass chandelier with inlaid Bavarian glass jewels with an empty spot for the throne that was never delivered. A theater/ballroom leads to a faux cave, complete with stalagmites and stalagtites. In the king’s bedroom, a porcelain swan faucet pours water from a spring 150 feet up the mountainside.
The two tours are identical, with the exception that the normal tour also gets to see the kitchen and is routed through two(!) gift shops on the way out.
We get a bit lost on the way back and end up back in Munich well after dark.
Since we have the car till the end of the trip, the next day is another day trip, this time to the northern Italian town of Bolzano for lunch and to see Otzi.
It’s around a two hour drive on the autobahn...which turns into the autostrada in Italy...over the Brenner pass through the alps. Into the center of Bolzano, we turn into an underground car park and make our way to the central plaza where we dine on pasta, pizza, and shrimp.
A couple of blocks away is the Archaeological Museum and the home of Otzi. Back in 1991, a couple were hiking in the nearby mountains and saw a body at the edge of a melting glacier. The authorities were called, because it looked like an avalanche victim was uncovered by the spring thaw. The body was taken to the local examiner where it was discovered that this was actually a 5,300 year old body.
Today, the museum focuses on different types of mummies, with its main attraction being that 5,300 year old found in the mountains...Otzi.
There are many human and animal remains on display here with various types of mummification methods. It is completely wheelchair accessible and there is even an in-floor lift that raises you and your chair up so you can see into the vault where Otzi’s body is stored. If this all sounds a bit morbid, it’s not. It’s just another very interesting museum that lacks any sense of the macabre at all.
One more drive back to Munich, and one more chance to get lost, which we do when the autobahn ends and I can’t find a sign pointing us back to our neighborhood. A Best Western hotel is nearby and the desk clerk helpfully points me in the right direction.
Our last day is spent wandering again around the center of Munich, taking in the surfers and naked people of the Englisher Garden; spending another lunch hour in the beer garden of the Viktualienmarkt; seeing the devil’s footprint in the Frauenkirche (Munich’s cathedral and tallest building); the puppets of the Glockenspiel, and of course, having one more lingering dinner under the chestnut trees of the Augustinerkellar beer garden before going home.
-Darryl
Copyright 2009 - Darryl Musick All Rights Reserved
The Great American Ballpark on the banks of the Ohio River in Cincinnati is home to the oldest professional baseball team in America, the Reds, dating back to 1869. The team that is, not the stadium. The ballpark opened in 2003 and replaced the cookie-cutter like Riverfront Stadium, a dual-purpose football and baseball facility. Baseball legends such as Pete Rose, Frank Robinson, and Johnny Bench have worn the uniform but did not play in this park. More modern players such as the recently retired Ken Griffey, Jr., Scot Rolen, and Bronson Arroyo have. Here are the stats:
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia
Eric Kilby under CC-BY-SA license
Opened: 2003
Surface: Perennial Ryegrass
Construction cost: $290 million
Capacity: 42,271
Field dimensions: Left field - 328 ft; Left center - 379 ft; center field - 404 ft; right center - 470 ft; right field - 325 ft.
Home team: Cincinnati Reds (National League - MLB) 2003 - present
Events attended: 1 game
Watch the Video!
Good access but it would be nice if there were an accessible entrance from the river side. There are several places you can walk up to the entrance level but they all have stairs. There is on lobby by the left field foul pole with an elevator but it is closed to the public on game days. A large accessible plaza is at home plate where you can pick up tickets from the will call booths. The concourse is open so you can still keep tabs on the game when you go for snacks.
Wheelchair locations are at the top of the field level, at the top of the club level, mid level on the upper deck, one spot in the front row behind the plate, mid level in the outfield bleachers, and a section halfway up the bottom level behind home plate...these are probably the best wheelchair spots in the stadium.
Ticketing is fairly easy, just call the box office at 877-647-REDS. We had no problem getting seats for the wheelchair and two companions. Ticket prices start at $5 and go up well north of $200, not including the suites.
There is not a lot of good public transit to the game. There is a local shuttle, $1.50, that cruises around the stadium area every 20 minutes or so and connects with Covington/Newport across the river in Kentucky. It is easy to walk across the bridge from Kentucky and the downtown location makes it convenient to hotels there.
Many lodging choices are available. The most lively area is across the river in Kentucky where many hotels, restaurants, bars, and attractions are available.
Food choices are minimal here. Hot dogs, burgers, pizza, popcorn, and nachos are the staples. Very few alternative choices are here. The beer selection on tap is vast and inexpensive.
If it had better food and transit options, this stadium would be in our top five. It's still a very nice stadium, several notches above our home stadium in Anaheim.
It's Oktoberfest season...let's celebrate by making our way to Munich. Before we get to that great Bavarian city, though, let's make a stop along the way to cure our jet lag on the French Riviera...
The Sky Mirror, Monte Carlo, Monaco
Watch the video of this trip!
Now that school is over, the traveling can recommence. For a graduation present, we took him to Europe for a two week trip. Coming along on the trip was my mom and my wife’s brother. My mother is in her 70’s and a slow walker so this added another wrinkle to the proceedings.
It’s day one and we’re flying to Nice, France via Frankfurt, Germany. Altogether, it’s 15 plus hours, not including arriving early at the airport to see if we can finagle seats together for our group. We are flying on Lufthansa, who does a great job with assistance onto the aircraft but not so well seating us together. The gate agent says two of us are in one row (emergency row, 2 seats) with the rest “one row behind.” That row actually turned out to be 5 rows back and on the other side of the 747’s cabin. Luckily, the people who showed up were amenable to a trade so we ended up together.
Having been to this part of France before, we know that accessibility is an adventure so we left the power chair at home and used a manual. It can be stressful enough with the manual chair…a power chair would present some huge obstacles to overcome unless you are prepared to spend big to do it, like renting a ramp-equipped van.
We like to use A-T-S shuttle service who uses tour guides in their downtime to provide airport transfers. This means you get a nice, big van to take you to your hotel instead of trying to squeeze into a taxi. It’s just a bit more but your driver is waiting at the gate, is very friendly, and a font of local knowledge. A half-hour after landing and we’re at our apartment in Cannes. Not a hotel this time, it was very hard to find an accessible hotel room for a decent price. The closest was the Citadines…which we used the last time here…who wanted around $450 per night for the five of us.
Using HomeAway.com, which allows you to specify “wheelchair accessible” housing when doing a search of direct-from-owner vacation rentals, we were able to find suitable lodging at an apartment just two blocks north of the heart of town. Still, this was around $300 per night but when divided by 5 people, the cost was pretty manageable. The apartment consisted of 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, living room, dining room, kitchen, and two terraces. The entire building is step-free but there was no roll-in shower. The bathtub was normal size as was the shower and each had the showerhead on a hose. At just under 1000 square feet, we had plenty of room.
Also on site were two swimming pools.
The first day we made the 10 minute walk over to the Marche Forville, which is the big local market here in Cannes. Unbelievable food is what awaits you here. Fresh produce…much unavailable in America…meats, sausages, seafood, cheeses, olives, eggs. It’s all here and we stalk up for three days worth of breakfasts plus some fruits for snacks.
Grasse
Next, it’s time to take the train to nearby Grasse, which purports to be the perfume capitol of the world. The train station in Cannes (it’s called a Gare in French) has three platforms, one of which is accessible. When a train is arriving on one of the unaccessible platforms, the staff at the station only requests that you contact them half an hour ahead of time at the information booth for help. The baggage handlers will take the wheelchair passenger to an off-limits area of the station where a ramp is installed to cross the tracks to the platform. All other passengers walk down stairs to take a tunnel to the platform.
Today, our train departs from the accessible platform and it’s a quick ride to Grasse. In Grasse, the depot is at the bottom of the hill while the town is at the top. Busses are available to take you up, most accessible via the back door. It is a Euro for each passenger, so make sure you have change…there is no place at the depot to get it unless you buy something at the expensive snack shop.
In Grasse, a little exploring leads to a medieval square with many restaurants competing for your Euro. We pick a café which had a special (look for the “plat du jour” boards) of entrecote for 10 Euros. This is a rib-eye steak with a sublime sauce service with frites and warm salad. Eating this outside on a warm day with a delicious glass of French wine was quite a way to while away some time.
After lunch, wandering out the square via a narrow little street, we visit one of the famed parfumeries where big jugs line the shelves and the nice lady inside will create a unique fragrance just for you. At the end of the street, there’s a centuries old water fountain to splash your face with for refreshment and the large Fragonard parfumerie where everybody ends up to shop or see their museum.
We decide to walk the mile-or-so down the hill to the depot which was not one of our brightest decisions. The sidewalks are narrow, bumpy, have a way of just ending mid block, and are “beautified” by someone who thinks planting trees right in the middle of your already narrow path is a neat thing to do.
We do make it down with some major work and get back to Cannes where we enjoy a light dinner and some wine on our terrace.
The next day is for Monaco. Being jet-lagged, we find it almost impossible to get out early. We make the 11:30 train (non-accessible platform today) and get to Monaco just after the changing of the guard at the palace. I’d seen this before, so it was no big deal, but it would have been nice if the others on the trip could have seen it.
Monaco is nothing if not ever changing and the exit from the train station is completely different from the last time we were here. This is due to large apartment buildings being constructed there, changing the streets we had known from before. No worries, we find the elevators taking us down to street level and quickly make our way to the Place de Armes, the plaza at the bottom of the stairway taking up to the royal palace.
I had pushed my son’s wheelchair up this path before, but today I’m not feeling well and we take the bus up instead. Again, most busses are accessible here via the back door and the fare, as it is everywhere we went, was one Euro.
At the top, you’ll swear you’re in Disneyland with the narrow, shop-lined streets and the palace at the end but remind yourself, this is the original that Disney copied. The post office near the palace is a great place to mail postcards home with that exclusive “Monaco” postmark. It’s also a good place to get money at the ATM and to see the picture of Princess Grace walking a young Princess Stephanie to school on the street you are now standing on.
After taking in the spectacular views of the entire country (the size of a small town in the U.S.) from the palace, we eat lunch at one of the many eateries up here in the small palace neighborhood. Then, the same bus takes us all the way across the country (a five minute ride) to the famous Monte Carlo casino.
It’ll cost you 10 Euros to enter, you must check your bags (and leave a tip), must be dressed properly, and not bring a camera…but you too can enter this palace of gambling and pretend you’re on Her Majesty’s Secret Service. If that’s a bit much for you (and it is for me), you can visit another casino next door that is made for the commoners.
There is a beautiful fountain-filled plaza out (see the picture at the top of this post) front with the cars of the pretty people parked out front. On the slow day we were there, we counted four Ferraris, three Mazaratis, several Bentleys, a Rolls Royce, and too many BMWs and Mercedes to count. One of the Bentleys had a parking lot scrape along its side that I dared not imagine how much it would cost to fix.
After three nights in Cannes, we had to say goodbye to our huge apartment and move into two small hotel rooms in Nice. This was due to an early morning flight we would take to Munich and we didn’t want to gamble on getting a taxi so we moved to the Campanile Airport Hotel just across from the departures terminal.
We took the time to visit the museum of archeology where the ruins of an ancient Roman bath have been unearthed.
Roman Ruins in Nice
It takes two accessible busses to go from our hotel to the site. The museum is accessible but the ruins less so. A guide tells me there is two steps to negotiate to get to the main bath house and sends me to a more accessible route that only has two steps. Ah yes, welcome to the French way of doing things.
This is not to say that anyone we met in France was rude or arrogant. Everyone we met was gracious and nice, making this the third time that the French stereotype has been shattered for me. In fact, we spent a good part of that afternoon getting to know our guide (who was also a security guard at the museum). It turns out he was raised in Naples, can understand English very well but cannot speak it without many problems. We took turns learning Spanish and English words from us and French and Italian words from him.
I always say, the best part of any good trip is not what you see but who you meet along the way. The ruins are a nice way to spend the day and, if you have time, the Matese Museum next door is also worth a visit. One last French dinner in Nice overlooking the beach and then it’s off to bed.
Stay tuned for part 2 where we travel to Bavaria and Beyond!
-Darryl Copyright 2009 - Darryl Musick All Rights Reserved
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