Tag: Germany

We made it to Berlin. We’re sitting in the Sony Center in Berlin having Schofferhofer Weizen and waiting on a pizza. One can only have so much Local food before you want something familiar to munch on. We found a nice little Italian restaurant with covered outdoor eating just outside the train station about a mile from our hotel.

We spent the last six hours on two trains from Muninch, by way of Nuremburg. Layla watched three movies and Darcy and I caught up on pleasure reading with our Kindles. However, we’ve now taken four or five trains and two have been more than 15 minutes late causing people to miss their connections. Luckily this time we didn’t have connections to make, so a few minutes more wasn’t a big deal. This has me wondering about American perceptions of German things. I always heard that the German’s train system was one of the best in the world and ran like clock-work. I’ll certainly give them credit for a very nice system of trains, great stations and many travel options putting the US to shame. But, they don’t run on time.

It appears that Berlin is open for business, or at least this shopping area. Munich was closed, entirely. We came across two cafes in Munich in the old city that were open. All of the other 300 shops we walked by we’re closed. We did get to see the Glockenspiel play and watch the knights joust to some unknown Bavarian tune after sleeping in a little.

We left Mainz in a rental car and headed to Rothenburg on the Tauber River.  Our car was an Opel Astra turbo diesel wagon.  Not a bad little car, but I had been hoping for a VW or BMW since we are in Germany.  Oh well, I put it through its paces.

Along the way we traveled mostly on the autobahn.  Comfortable cruising speed is 140-160km/hr or high 80s to 100mph.  We had one wide open stretch with no cars and no rain, so I decided to see how fast the car would comfortably go.  I decided to slowly apply the brakes at 200km/hr as the car just didn’t feel stable enough to comfortably travel any faster.

Upon arrival in Rothenburg we parked in a public lot.  Our guide book suggested that this particular lot allowed for free parking on the weekends, but no signs could legibly confirm this for us.  I watched tourists come and buy parking tickets from the kiosk and then I decided to check the cars with local license plates.  In Germany a license plate begins with the province that the car is registered in.  Doing this saved us 5 euros as none of them had parking tickets on their dashes.  Our guide book also advised against walking the city wall if you’re taller than 6 foot.  Again, Rick Steves was right, much to Layla’s disappointment.  We had to walk a few sections for her, but I couldn’t see myself walking the entire perimeter hunched over.

We stopped for Kaffee und Brotchen (coffee and rolls) and Darcy snapped this one picture before the girl behind the counter yelled at her for taking a picture.  This was our first encounter with a less than friendly German.  It was also about our 3,000th encounter with really good looking freshly baked bread.  Our selection back home pales in comparison to Germany.

After walking the city and listening to a concert band from Kansas play in the mainplatz (town square) we headed for the gardens where the old castle used to be.  Evidently it did not survive the invasion.  In the footprint of the old castle was a shrine built to remember Jews killed in the 1920s and 1940s.  I decided against taking pictures of the long list of names out of respect.

After leaving the gardens we made our way back to the car.  Along the way were a few Gausthaus (guest houses or hotels).  We both really liked the charm of the grape vines and other greenery set against the cobbles.

Here you can see one of the many sets of steps up to the wall.

“Come on mommy, hurry up!”

From Rothenburg we headed south to Langenargen.  Britta’s aunt Rosemarie and her husband Manfred hosted us for a night in their home.  We had the most delightful time there.  Both of them treated us far nicer than we could have ever imagined for being unknown guests.  Manfred gave us a tour of their home and brought us Bavarian white beers Weissbier (white/wheat beer).  Layla had her own room complete with Legos to play with.  Rosemarie cooked an excellent meal of pork, potatoes and carrots; the kind of meal you’d have at home, if your home was Bavaria.  It was just excellent.

Hopefully we can repay the favor one day.

We missed our first train out of Cologne because we we just a little too slow getting moving this morning. We missed our second train because it took longer then we had hoped to take the light rail train to the Haufbahnhaus (train station), but we finally got on a train headed in the right direction to St. Goar, a town along the Rhine. We had to cut out our river boat trip due to timing, so we spent a little more time at Reinfels Castle.

Later at dinner we found a nice German/World fusion restaurant.  The food was zer gut.

The plan was to sleep in this morning after a night of dancing at the Abiball with Ellen and her family. I think we made it until 9:30am, which was probably just enough sleep. We needed to pack up to leave and the room we were staying in was a disaster. Something about living out of a suitcase tends to do that if you stay in one place for more than a day. I still hope that we didn’t leave anything behind.

When I came downstairs the second time Ellen was awake and talking with her parents. I later learned that she had come home and went to bed about 5am, about the time of sunrise here. I joked that she had probably gotten enough sleep, but as I write this in the car on the way to a Cologne she is sound asleep in the back seat behind me.

I booked our car from Mainz to Munich for later in the week via the Internet, but instead of confirmation of the reservation I got a confirmation of the request for a reservation (with a note that someone would contact me later). When I hadn’t heard anything in a few hours I called the rental company in Mainz. It must be very funny to hear me try to speak to a German whose English is only nominally better than my German. Eventually she got me to central reservations who confirmed that the reservation was all set. The whole time I was having this conversation Layla was showing off her doorframe climbing skills to Britta and Ralf.

We were going to take the train from Osnabruck to Cologne, but found out that train station in Osnabruck was too small to sell German Rail Passes (something a tourist would use to travel multiple days at a reduced rate), so Britta offered Ralf to drive us to Cologne. We said our goodbyes and we were all a little sad to be leaving. The Strakeljahn’s were such great hosts and good friends to us, but it was time to leave.

Along the way Ralf explained the speed limits and no speed limit signs on the Autobahn. In case you are a typical American and think that the Autobahn is a road in Germany with no speed limit you are only partially correct. The Autobahn is the German freeway system. Das autobahn ist the same as a freeway. He explained that it is important to keep a proper following distance when traveling very fast or else the police will ticket you. There are markings on the road near bridges to show you proper spacing. While a Passat is a nice car, I can say that 180km/hr in a Passat wagon with 5 people and a full load of luggage is not the most settling feeling in the passenger seat.

Another nice thing that the German VW navigation system does that mine does not is provide you with the current speed limit. This would have been an excellent feature in the UK where I don’t think we had a constant speed for more than 10 miles on most days.

A bit later the car made a noise and I noticed a coffee cup symbol in the binnacle in the info display. Ralf told me that the car told him, “you are tired, have a cup of coffee.”. He says he wasn’t tired and doesn’t know why the car thinks he is tired, but whenever it tells Britta she is tired it is right.

That’s all for now. I’m going to try to work on the posts from the last few days that I began but never finished.