A Rhine River Cruise, Touring in “Venice of the North” and then Goodbye to Europe

5-6-7-8 Oct 2007

After arriving back in Malmshime at John and Sue’s house, we all went out to dinner at a very nice Italian restaurant the next town over. Vicki ordered a grilled fish that they brought out to the table and filleted on the spot (really cool presentation!) and I had a yummy pasta with spicy tomato sauce and shaved beef. The next morning we were off to the local farmer’s market for breakfast and some shopping but then, like all good things, our stay with John and Sue had to come to an end, forcing us to say goodbye – and thanks for mailing stuff back to the house for us! You know, we really do have great friends!

So we were off again, this time bound for Bacharach, a little town just upriver from Mainz, to begin our day of Rhine river cruising. What a relaxing, wonderful way to travel! Here we are on the deck of the ship with the cliffs and one of the many castles we saw in the background behind my left shoulder.

What a gorgeous ride – there must have been another castle every 1-2 miles the whole route from Bacharach to Koblenz where we left the ship. Here are a few shots I took along the way:

It’s amazing that they are able to grow grapes on the steep mountains using terraced plots – and they produce some of the best wine in the world from this area – Rhine River Riesling.

The cruise also passed by the Lorelei Rock, a slate rock cliff that rises up almost vertically to 433 feet above the water-level. Here the river is squeezed into its narrowest and deepest and this point used to be very difficult to navigate. Into the 19th century, reefs and rapids made it extremely dangerous for ships to pass this point. An old German legend said that a siren called "Lorelei" bewitched passing sailors and when they looked up to the rock, their boat crashed and they sank. Well, here’s the cliff of the legend:

Here, at the end of our cruise, are the fortifications around Koblenz, where the Rhine and Mosel rivers join:

We also made a new friend on the cruise, Herr Hartmut Klasing, a retired German Army officer who now lives in Koln (pronounced Cologne). He told us many fascinating stories about the area and gave us some great pointers on places we should add to our growing list of things to see on our next European adventure! Since we were all going to the same place, we walked together to the Koblenz bahnhof to board the train for Koln. Thought this was a cool shot of the station with the castle in the background.

Unfortunately, our train was running over an hour late and we ended up missing our connection to Utrecht, Holland which is about an hour south of Amsterdam and where we had hotel reservations for the evening. Well, the DB customer service people told us to go ahead and get on the train to Duisburg and that another customer service person would help us there. We were skeptical but went ahead and got on the train. Once we got to Duisburg though, the DB guy put us on the last train leaving for the German-Dutch border town of Emmerich and wrote us a voucher for a cab ride to get us the rest of the way! So, Vicki got to see a little of the Autobahn that I had told her so much about over the years from the back of a cab. When we finally got to Utrecht we just checked into our hotel and collapsed – what a long day!

The next morning we got up, had a hearty German style breakfast, checked out and headed for Amsterdam. Well, we can testify that they still have some of the old-fashioned windmills scattered around like this:

The picture also shows another part of Holland that we found interesting – bicycles. There are actually more bicycles in Amsterdam than people and you see people riding them everywhere! Here’s one of their bicycle parking garages next to the central train station.

And there are all different types of bikes – Vicki thought this one was really cool – a basket for the kid with room for the groceries!

They also had bicycle taxis.

And this had to be the busiest, most crowded city we encountered in all of Europe.

We did however want to do a canal tour during our short one day in Amsterdam which is called the “Venice of the North”. It got that nickname because it actually has more canals than Venice. So anyway, here we are on board the tour boat.

The boats still looked the same as I remember them from when I was a kid traveling with Mom & Dad back in 1963.

This is the Nemo Maritime Museum. I thought it was a cool building – it's shaped like a ship.

I won’t bore you with all the bad pictures I took on the tour but here are a few shots to give you the flavor:

The houseboats were pretty cool. The tour-guide said there were 40,000 houseboats in Amsterdam but no more were being allowed to dock along the canals to keep down over-crowding.

And here I am leaving the boat after the tour was over.
After the boat tour, we did a short walking tour of the city. Here’s Vicki in front of the Central Train Station. Seems like there was construction and renovation everywhere we went.

The face of the tower on the left that looks like another clock is actually showing the wind direction! What a cool old building.

As we were walking around, we came across this display, made entirely of flowers in the old central square It was really cool - the picture doesn’t do the display justice.

We walked over LOTS of bridges – there are thousands in the city – here we are on one.

As we were walking around town, we came across this Delftware shop that Vicki had to go look around in.

Being the bull in a china shop kind of guy I am, I waited outside. I think it was a good choice – Vicki says the least expensive item in this shop was 1,000E!

After leaving this shop, we walked over to a really cool old-style tobacco shop called PGC Hajenius. Doorman met me at the entrance and the walls were covered in dark wood paneling and row after row of cigars and specialty tobaccos. An attendant in a suit & gloves took me to a walk-in humidifier as big as our living room where I picked out some “special” cigars from the Caribbean for my friend Dave & me to enjoy once we get home. Tried to take some pictures but they just didn’t come out. You’ll just have to trust me - it’s a really cool shop!

By then, it was getting late and time for us to board the train for Brussels and our flight home. By the time we got to Brussels it was late so we just grabbed some dinner at a late night Greek diner and got a good night’s sleep to prepare for 7.5 hours on a plane. While we didn’t get to do any more sightseeing in Brussels, we did manage to do a little shopping for Belgian chocolate and brought home several samples – YUM!

Well, that brings Vicki & Vic’s European adventure to a close. Glad you could join us on this virtual tour and hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Maybe some of y’all can join us on our next adventure. It was great fun but as with every time I’ve traveled abroad, it’s great to be back home in the good old USA!

A Visit to Stuttgart and the Medieval Walled City of Rothenburg

4-5 October

After our relaxing days in Garmisch, it was time to get back on the road again. That of course, meant another train:

If they had trains like this in the US I know I wouldn’t be driving so much!

In Stuttgart, we went to Panzer Kassern so we could talk to the USO travel office and draw some funds out of the ATM. Hoo-Boy, did that exchange rate get us – 500E cost us $750 - but, that’s the way it goes when traveling in Europe. My old buddy John Bartalotto met us there and took us to his home - what a gorgeous house! Because housing is tight on base in the Stuttgart area, they live downtown in a small village called Malmshiem. Here’s John, Sue, Hannah and little John. Their older daughter Emily also is still living at home too, but was in class when this picture was taken:

Sue and John fixed us a wonderful dinner and we finished out the evening chatting and drinking wine late into the evening. Of course Vicki also took Sue up on her offer to let her use her washer & dryer to do some laundry!

The next morning when we got up, Sue had fixed us a traditional German breakfast of cereal with yogurt, sliced meats and vegetables, cheese, pretzels and brochen (hard crusty rolls) with butter and jam. We really would have to do some walking after such a great breakfast! We left our bags at their house and John dropped us off at the bohnhof on his way to work – it was time to move back in time to the middle ages in Rothenburg ob der Tauber. After an uneventful 3 hr train ride, we arrived at Rothenburg and entered into the walled city thru the Rödertor gate, which is closest to the Bahnhof. The two round buildings on either side of the gate are where customs officials formerly collected a toll fee. In Medieval times, Rothenburg was at the crossroads of the two most important roads in the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation; it was one of the 8 largest German cities and the richest city in the German states. Today Rothenburg is at the intersection of the Romantic Road and the Castle Road which are heavily traveled by tourists.

The photo below shows the inside of the gate

Rothenburg was surrounded by two moats, called Graben in German. One was a dry moat and the other was filled with water. The photo below shows the bridge over one of the moats.

You can climb up into the tower where there is an exhibition of photos about the bombing of Rothenburg by American planes on March 31, 1945, about six weeks before World War II ended on May 8, 1945. Forty percent of the city was destroyed by the bombs, but the damaged part of the old wall has been restored, thanks to donations that poured in from all over the world. New houses built in the old style have replaced the bombed homes in the residential section.

Once we got into the city proper, I immediately got a Schneeballen. Every German city has its food specialty, such as Berlin which is famous for its jelly donuts and Nürnberg which has its Nürnberger Bratwurst. Rothenburg ob der Tauber is famous for Schneeballen (Snow balls) which are strips of noodle pastry, formed into a ball and deep-fried, then dusted with powdered sugar. The photo below shows the original Schneeballen dusted with powdered sugar on the left; in the center with cinnamon sugar (my favorite!) and chocolate covered ones are on the right.

These things are addictive – Vicki didn’t care for them but I loved them! They remind me of Mom’s crust cookies that she used to make for us kids from left over pie crust dough. Now I’ve got to find a recipe so we can make some at home!

One of the first things we saw in the city was the Market Platz Clock which commemorates the mayor saving the town from destruction by the Holy Roman Army. The story goes that the general was going to destroy the town but the mayor made a bet that he could drink an entire flagon of wine without stopping. On the hour, the clock chimes and the animation shows him drinking the wine in the window to the left of the clock and the general in the window on the right.

Then we walked down to the Church of St Jakob's which is dedicated to the Apostle St. James; it was an important church in its early days because it was one of the churches on the pilgrimage route to the grave of St. James in Spain. St. James (Jakob in German) was the patron saint of the pilgrims and merchants. The church was built between 1311 and 1436 and the Bishop of Würzburg consecrated the church in 1485. Originally built as a Catholic Church, St. Jakob's became a Luthern Church in 1544, after the Prostestant Reformation and is the largest church in Rothenburg.

This picture shows how Klingenstrasse (Klingen street) goes through the part of St. Jakob’s where the Holy Blood Altar is housed that was carved by Tilman Riemenschneider.

And here is the carved wood alter that took him 5 years to complete and is called his masterpiece.

It never ceased to amaze me that these works were done before America was even discovered!

From St. Jakob’s we walked down to another gate into the city (there were 5 in all). This picture gives you a good view of the massive doors in the gate that were closed at dusk. If anybody was out after the doors closed and wanted in, they had to pay a huge fine. That's a heck of a curfew enforcement!

From the park outside this gate we were able to look at the countryside around Rothenburg and we got a pretty good view of the town too.

As we walked around, our guide told us about this house which is the oldest in town. It was originally built around 900 AD and the foundations of the original house are still in use. The original house was replaced around 1500 and that’s what you see here. It’s now a restaurant called the Devil’s Inn and if you look closely at the sign hanging out front you’ll see it’s the devil with horns & a tail.

Then we decided to walk along the top of the city wall. Here's Vicki at one of the sentry posts:

It goes on for about 1.5 miles and has markers along the way naming the people that contributed to the fund to rebuild the city after WW II. Here's a couple of shots of Vicki under the covered walkway.

One of the coolest things we did in Rothenburg was go on a tour with the Night Watchman - here’s Vicki with him:

This guy was very funny and we really enjoyed his tour. He took us down to one of the gates and showed us the “manhole” where people coming in after hours would have to come thru. You can see this is a small door on the massive full door that was open during the day.

It was very small and made the person coming in stoop down as well as step up to go thru making it easy for guards to stop them if they turned out to be hostile.

After the Night Watchman tour, we stayed in a nice little hotel right on the market square and headed back to Stuttgart the next morning after Vicki and I did a little shopping. Rothenburg is full of really neat little shops like this one.

Guess I’ll close this entry as we say Auf Wiedersein to Rothenburg. Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of Vicki & Vic’s European Adventure, coming soon to this Blog!

In the Palace of Mad King Ludwig

OK, I REALLY fell down in my posting! We're back home now, but I'm going to go ahead and document the rest of our trip anyway!

2 Oct 2007
While it rained overnight, by the time we were ready to go, the clouds had cleared and it was another beautiful day in Deutschland! We did the short 15 minute walk to the bus station and boarded RVO bus number 1 for Hohenschwangau. By car it’s about a one hour ride but we decided to just take the two hour bus instead so we could both see the countryside instead of just Vicki as the passenger – cheaper too! And it was a lovely ride – here are some of the views out of the bus.

We arrived at Hohenschwangau and bought our tickets for the castle tours but it didn’t start until 1:45 so we walked around the area and took some pictures. The Hohenschwangau Schloss (palace) was the “getaway” place for the Bavarian royal family when they wanted to get out of town for awhile – nice little country place, huh?

Everywhere in the castle are images of swans – the name of the town means place of the swans -and Vicki thought this fountain with swans spitting water was cool.

I on the other hand liked the symbol of Barvaria – the lion!

Inside, we were not allowed to take any pictures but I got this one when the guide wasn’t looking. Vicki thought the crown molding was cool & I also got part of the swan chandelier – again with the swans, huh? This family really had a thing about swans!

One thing the guide did allow us to photograph was the view out the window, which was stunning:

Looks like something out of a picture book doesn’t it?

After touring Hohenschwangau castle, it was on to the main event, Neuschwanstein. This was the castle that King Ludwig built up on the hill above his parents place. It’s about a mile up a steep hill. On the walk up, we stopped and took this picture:

King Ludwig built Neuschwanstein here not for defensive reasons, but because he liked the view! Disney used this castle as the model for the castle in his Cinderella animated feature and also the castle he built in Disneyland. Again, no pictures inside, but here are some views of the outside and the vistas that I could take:

This is also the castle that got Ludwig his nickname of “Mad King Ludwig”. Neuschwanstein was so elaborate and expensive that the legislature was in the process of deposing him from the throne by having him declared insaine – he basically ran the country into bankruptcy. Within 3 days of being deposed, as the legislature was getting ready to imprison him for the rest of his life, he was found mysteriously dead in a lake in Munich. The family was made responsible for paying back the debt that Ludwig had run up (it took over 30 years) and Neuschwanstein was taken over by the state, which made it a museum open to the public which it has been since.

On the ride back, we saw several para-gliders soaring in the mountains. Here’s one above the castle (over on the left, by the tree):

And here is a group closer to the ground with one about to hit their landing spot:

In addition, we saw several really cool examples of Bavarian buildings decorated with paintings on the side. This is a good one advertising a shoe store:

There are also flowers everywhere!

Guess I’ll close for now. Tomorrow we move out to Stuttgart - Auf Wiedersein!