Munich, winter

My previous train-travel post didn't mention a feature of this particular route (Stuttgart to Munich). About a third of the way in, at Geislingen, the track climbs a 200-metre escarpment by running up the side of a box canyon. The ICE's are so powerful, they can just shift down a gear and roll on; but the old diesel-electric IC's don't have enough muscle for that, you really feel the locomotive struggling to make the grade at a pace that a fast cyclist could match (on the flat (if you see what I mean)).

I am writing in the train, on my way to Munich for a conference given by the makers of the database software toolkit that I use. It's a nice combination of education and fun, we are meeting up this time in a Museum of Aviation History on a disused military airfield. I had hoped for a chance to meet Chirpy again (she lives in a town halfway to Munich), but she is booked up. We'll meet in December when she comes to Stuttgart for a day.

We are travelling in bright sunshine, the sky is brilliant blue with just a few decorative clouds. The high plains of southern Bavaria are covered in fresh snow; the trees at the edge of the fields are frosted with lines of snow along their thicker, higher branches. At moments like this, the origin of the Bavarian flag (a diamond-checkered field of light blue and white) is obvious: sky and snow. It (the snow) looks only ankle-deep, but still it's there. Winter is here, hooray.

And me with no camera, damn and blast again.

[continued later] Munich is definitely colder than Stuttgart, it's below zero and breezy, but still very sunny and clear skies.