Hluboká nad Vltavou chateau near České Budějovice from the air

This castle near the home of Budvar beer (Budweiser) is modelled after Windsor castle.

Hluboká chateau from the air

Hluboká chateau from the air with extra castle

Festung Koenigstein on the Elbe from the air

This fortress is 240m above the Elbe and was used for centuries as a prison.  You can see why.

Koenigstein fortress

Schloss Pillnitz bei Dresden

Charming summer residence of the electors and kings and kings of Saxony built in baroque style in the 1720s.  More information.

Schloss Pillnitz viewed from the air

And from the bicycle

Isn't this boat fabulous

Dresden's Katholische Hofkirche, Zwinger and Castle from the air

I have to admit that my inner child just loves baroque architecture.

Dresden's Zwinger (rear), part of the castle (left) and The Catholic Church of the Royal Court of Saxony (Katholische Hofkirche)

The one thing about photography from the air is that you don't get two goes at it, and especially when you're trying not to fly too close over buildings it can be difficult to frame the building that you want.  So this is a better picture of the castle, sorry we don't have anything of the Semperoper or anything better of the Zwinger.

Except for from the ground of course: Julian at the Zwinger

Dresden's Frauenkirche viewed from above and below

Sorry about the recent break, my internet allowance ran out for the month and my phone's data connection was too slow to upload photos...  So here are two photos at once.


Dresden has a long history.  When you look at these beautiful baroque buildings you wouldn't guess that the city was flattened in an ah controversial air attack in 1945.  

Despite the communist party's dislike of kings, capitalists and religion, surprisingly many of Dresden's beautiful buildings were rebuilt under communist rule, according to the desire of the local citizens.  I always thought that the communist party was much more repressive than this, but maybe this was just the case for the difficult city, Berlin, and maybe communist repression was otherwise exaggerated to some extent in the anti communist children's books of my youth.

The Frauenkirche (church of our lady) was not amongst those buildings picked for rebuilding first.  I think this was more to do with money than politics though.  Upon reunification a worldwide private subscription drive raised the millions necessary to leave it looking several hundred years old again.

Dresden's Frauenkirche from the air

And from the ground.  Sometimes I wish I'd had one of those fancy DSLRs with massive lenses on our trip so that I could get as good a quality shot from the air as from the ground.  I just keep telling myself that it probably would have taken me the 2 years to get good photos from it while moving anyway...

The route to Rothenburg-ob-der Tauber: medieval fortified towns and castles

And we're off - the zeppelin over Friedrichshafen, the nearest airfield to Konstanz

After a lovely catch up with Bill and Gisi it was time to continue on.  Hmmm where to?  We were running low on time so Aachen had to be struck off the list, we had a look at going to Rheinfelden but they weren't open on a Tuesday, so we ended up deciding on a South-Western round flight: Rothenburg odT via Mannheim to the Mosel down to Rheinfelden (near Basel) then off to France.

But first a fly by of mad Ludwig's stroke of genius that bankrupted him and lead to his deposition as king of Bavaria - how could a bankrupt be head of state, before now becoming number 1 tourist attraction in Germany....  Considering that there are up to 10 000 visitors per day in June - August I think we were best seeing it from the air.

Yes it's Schloss Neuschwanstein

Depending on who you speak to I've heard mutterings about 'tasteless baroque interior', and I've got to be honest, isn't it a bit odd to be building a castle like this in 1870 when you've already got several perfectly good castles right next door that are authentic????

What's wrong with this castle (in Fuessen)?

We did hope to land in Fuessen, once we saw what a pretty little place it is, located in the foothills,so I called blind on the radio in German to ask if we could land (there were 3 gliders circling, so we figured there'd be someone on frequency).  To which I received a somewhat testy reply that there were 3 airfields on that frequency, which one did I want to land at......  Unfortunately after much discussion it turned out we were too heavy to be allowed to land there so on we went.  Foiled again by the German rules.

So the next question was where to get cheap mogas (98 octane car petrol).  Luckily Plasticpilot had printed us out a map of all the German airfields with mogas marked on it, so with a bit of an effort we managed to localise ourselves on it and start calling the appropriate airfields to see if they were open.

We finally found Aalen, which was really quite busy.  Apart from being obsessed with old open gliders, I'm also obsessed with rocket ship style canards, so I was really pleased to find this one also fuelling.

This is called a Speed Canard, it's a German factory built plane.  About 50 were made: they're fast and fuel efficient.  I want one.

 We then went for an overhead look at Dinkelsbuehl, a neighbouring town of similar beauty before continuing on to land at Rothenburg.

Medieval churches and city walls next to nice half timbered houses.  Unfortunately the weather was a bit bumpy so these two shots are the best I could do

Bodensee (Lake Constance) from the air with uncle Bill

The Colossus of.... Lake Constance???

You may have heard me talk about my Uncle Bill.  He's 78 and met my Aunt Gisi when he was 70, after both of them had lost their partners.  Neither of them was looking for a new partner, he was happy travelling and she was happy at home in Konstanz: now they're living happily ever after travelling the world and splitting their time between Melbourne and Switzerland.  They're also thinking of taking a bicycle tour along the Danube (a support bus takes your luggage for you).  Zwei haben sich gefunden.  I hope that I'm as happy and active as them when I'm their age.

The three of us underway

Uncle Bill has had a hip replacement and is currently staving off a second.  As you know our plane is not massive, but a little thing like that isn't going to stop an adventurer like him.  So we went for a tour of the lake.

The Rhine canal

And going inland, pretty isn't it?

Lindau in Austria is on the Eastern corner of Lake Constance and being a pretty little island with a middle-ages city centre attached by a strip of road to the mainland it is a real tourist attraction.

Overview of the island and its harbours

view from the direction of the mainand

one of the towers, look at all the tourists in mid September!

Gisi's house, very top centre, it is incredibly difficult to identify a house from above, no matter how well you know it.

Konstanz waterfront, with tourist boat.

Church in the centre of Konstanz

On the way back to Bill & Gisi's, we went to Gottlieben, where Gisi lived for many years and just so charming and beautiful that it is absolutely packed with tourists in the season.

beautiful half timbered inn

And a gratuitous shot of the Friedrichshafen blimp flying past as we get ready for takeoff

Helsingor castle from the air

You will hear from us again and again that we flew over some amazing tourist attraction / UNESCO world heritage town, as sometimes time and bicycle distance just doesn't permit us to look from the ground.  At least we don't have to battle with crowds or pay silly entrance fees.  Below is Helsingor one of the stunning sights we sort of saw on the way from Hoegenaes to Copenhagen.

Amazing castle with the marina in the background

and Helsingor from the other side

On the way we had a look at Helsingborg from the air - the city on the Swedish side of the water across from Helsingor.  The story is that in Helsingor the Danes used to say 'do Denmark a favour, take a Swede to the ferry', as it's the closest place to Sweden  in Denmark and all the Swedes used to go over there to get drunk on the comparatively cheap alcohol.

Helsingborg harbour, Sweden

and this is the town hall in Helsingborg, again only seen from the air