Travels in Foreign Lands

This is the view from a Mc Donalds somewhere in Austria on the way to Bolzano
"Would you like some amazing view with your cheeseburger, sir?"

First of all, apologies for the lateness of this post, also check earlier posts for photos.

Having left Garmisch-Partenkirchen our first port of call was a familiar place, Bolzano in the Italian Alps, A city which has been changing hands between Germany and Italy for hundreds of years. Therefore they haven't really decided which culture and language to use. It is nevertheless a pretty, energetic and friendly place.

View along the river in Bolzano:

This section of a tour is always hectic, often travelling and performing on the same day, which means that there are some citys on this tour which there is not much to say about. In Bolzano we did have a little time to convene with some old friends in our rival orchestra; the Gustov Mahler Youth Orchestra who were resident in Bolzano before setting off on their own tour.

Another highlight was being taken, with the flutes and other Irish people for dinner with Sir James. Expensive Italian food, fine wine and lots of anecdotal stories were on the menu.

One concert and ten hour bus journey and we found ourselves in Wiesbaden, Germany. Here we had our first 5 Star hotel of the tour as well as the nicest hall of the tour. I finally managed to get a hair cut, but achieved very little else. For the entire travelling part of the tour, the only effective survival method for all but the craziest (lithuanian) people is the afternoon nap, so I had one of them instead of exploring this pretty, but quite industrial city.