We got our painting today. It looks fantastic! Both Angela and I remarked that it looked smaller on the wall than it did in the gallery.
The ship with my car on it left Bremerhaven on the 29th and is headed to Antwerp, Belgium tomorrow.
We only have 2 more episodes of Heroes to watch from iTunes, then the season finale on the big TV in HD. It's really getting good now...
Got a call from Mr. Kilian in Strasbourg that he shipped out our painting on the 21st and we should receive it 8-10 days from then. Hopefully by next Wednesday or Thursday.
I also found out that my car has been trucked to the port and is booked on a ship called the “COURAGE,” scheduled to depart the port of Bremerhaven, Germany on the 28th, arriving in New York on June, 11th.
Have stopped watching Heroes for now to get caught up on E.R., Grays Anatomy, etc.
Not much to say about today, except that we were met by Rolf at the dropoff location this morning. He was there waiting for us at 8:10am (Germany time) in a BMW 730Ld. After removing some Euro-only bits from the car (warning triangle, first aid kit, front plate) and packing them away, we were off to the airport. Rolf was great; much friendlier than a cabbie, and much more helpful. He even walked our luggage to the ticket counter.
The flight home was fine. We were able to get through about 1.5 episodes of Heros before my laptop battery died, but fortunately the movies showing were good (“Music and Lyrics” and “The Holiday”). Charlotte’s international arrivals procedure is so much more pleasant than Hartsfields. We were out of the airport and on the highway in 1 hour. I have to think that had we flown from Hartsfield that it would have taken at least 2 hours to accomplish the same task. We made it home in record time; even stopping at our local Waffle House for dinner. It’s all I can do to stay up to write this, but I want to get back on a normal time schedule as soon as I can.
Aside from the weather, the trip was fabulous. The Ring Taxi was simply amazing. The Driving Tours books were almost indespensible, as was the NAV system. We put a total of 1840 miles on the car and spent close to $500 on gas. The wait for redelivery will be agonizing, but at least we can look forward to getting our painting from Strasbourg in a week or two.
What do you know! Our day was greeted with cloudless blue sky. It figures that it would be our last full day here. We woke up, packed up, ate breakfast, and checked out of the Tanneck. We left the car in the small hotel car park while we finally were able to walk around and snap some good pictures of Baden-Baden. We found the gallery to which Heidi referred us and were able to pick out a very nice watercolor of the Baden-Baden “skyline” as seen from the hill on which sits the “Neues Schloss, “ or “New Castle.” The gallery owner proclaimed that as his favorite place in the whole town. He gave us directions on how to get there, so that we could compare the painting to the actual scene. The painting was right on.
After getting a decent sample of pictures of this nice little spa town, we hopped in the car and headed back down the Schwarzwald Hochstrasse. Let me tell you that the drive was, in fact, spectacular. This time, we basically turned left at Freudenstadt and headed slightly northeast towards Stuttgart to pick up the autobahn back to Munich. I had expressed a moderate desire to see the Porsche museum in Zuffenhausen earlier in the trip, and since time wasn’t really a factor, we decided to see what was there to see.
Walking into the museum entrance, we encountered a guy from Wisconsin who had availed himself of Porsche’s European Delivery plan and had picked up a Boxster and drove around Austria. We chatted for a minute while he waited for his taxi and I learned that he had to pay $1000 for the privilege of picking up his car in Germany, while I saved a considerable amount by doing the same thing.
Anyway, the museum was a bit of a disappointment, although it was free. They had an old Porsche police car that looked suspiciously like a VW beetle or Audi TT, a Porsche CART racecar, a Porsche F1 car from the early ‘80’s, a Carrera GT supercar, and some of the Porsche endurance racers from the Le Mans series. I guess, now that I think about it a little more, that maybe I gave it a bad rap at first.
It took _forever_ to get back on the autobahn from the museum. Instead of using some common sense and just going back the way we came in, we allowed the NAV lady to guide us through the heart of Stuttgart in Friday rush hour traffic. It took us over an hour to get back on the highway. It was at this point that Angela _finally_ expressed an interest in driving. Two weeks of quietly “passengering” and _now_ she wants to drive? I think she just wanted to try to eclipse her previous high speed of 128mph. Unfortunately, construction and congestion all along that section of highway prevented her from even mustering a legitimate attempt.
Lucky for me, we got back to Munich just in time for me to get a license plate frame from the big BMW dealership. Sometime between our last ED and now, the export plates got a little longer and are now the same size as the standard 520mm EU tags. Now, when my car gets back to the states, I can mount my front ED plate in a cool Euro frame. Georgia doesn’t require a front plate, so that makes it easy to show off the second most obvious souvenir from the trip.
We didn’t even bother to find anywhere authentic for dinner; we just walked from the Renaissance to the Marriott and had cheeseburgers in the “Champions” sports bar there. Actually, the burgers and fries are quite good there.
We parked the car on the street. I think I got a spot that should be fairly immune to any sort of “park by feel” damage, and the car is actually visible from our bedroom window, so that’s cool.
We are meeting a guy named Rolf Raffelsieper at the dropoff location tomorrow morning at 8:30. He is semi-retired from BMW and runs a limousine service on the side; shuttling people from the airport to the delivery center and wherever else they need to go. He comes very highly regarded by the Internet Euro Delivery community.
We really like the Hiro/Ando subplot in Heroes; and Nikki/Jessica is smokin’ hot…
This morning we were greeted with the most dismal weather to date. The clouds were very low hanging, and we could tell there was a heavy mist in the air. Undeterred, after breakfast we set out on the D500 towards Freudenstadt and points south into the Black Forest.
I woke up this morning to a sore throat; lovely. At least the weather looks half-decent, with some patchy blue sky. My plan was to try to play a little golf today at this course called “Baden Hills Golf and Curling Club.” Yes, that says “Curling.” Apparently, the course was part of a Royal Canadian Air Force facility that was turned over to the locals some years ago. Anyway, I had contacted them via email a few weeks ago and confirmed that they offered rental clubs and had room for me.
Breakfast at the Tanneck is certainly less satisfying than previous hotels this trip. The fruit choices are poor; the meats and cheeses are limited; and the cereal choices are very bland. The one positive is that the breads were superb.
I left Angela to her own devices and headed out to the golf course. Angela was going to spend her time at the Friedrichsbad Roman-Irish baths followed by some shopping while I played golf. I got to the course by around 10:15 or so and was able to line up my rental clubs and figure out that on weekdays, it’s just first-come, first served on the first tee. I headed over to the range to try to get acclimated to my rentals: Bridgestone Precept EV’s with “R” flex graphite shafts. Given the whippy nature of the shafts, the strong winds, and the 10.5 degree driver, I knew was going to have a very difficult time keeping the ball flight under control.
I managed to beat it around the front nine, but when I made the turn, I could see the weather was making a decided turn for the worse (as was my health), so I packed it in after 10 holes. See, this course was walking only, and I was headed directly into the teeth of the wind and right at a very dark rain cloud and out to the furthest reaches of the course. It turned out to be a very wise move, since right after I got in the car, it started raining pretty good.
I got back to the hotel around 2:30 and just slumped right into bed and waited for Angela to get back from her day. I left a message on her cell phone, hopeful that she would get it and maybe bring me back some lunch, but when she finally returned to the hotel around 5, she had already eaten and I was left to starve until dinner.
Today is our anniversary, and we had planned to spend it at the Casino, having dinner and possibly doing a little gambling. I decided to try to gut it out, even though I was feeling progressively worse, so we got dressed up and drove down the hill to the casino.
Our dinner was excellent. We ate in a newer restaurant right in the casino where we could watch the gamblers work the Roulette. Unfortunately, I really started to feel terrible over the course of dinner; to the point that I started getting really bad fever chills. This severely curtailed our time in the casino; only allowing us to blow 5 Euros on the slot machines prior to going back to our hotel. Obviously, I’m not so sick that I can’t update the journal, or watch an episode of Heroes, but I do feel like complete crap.
Tomorrow we will drive deeper into the Black Forest; following yet another of “Germany’s Best Loved Driving Tours” and searching for some decent weather.
Today was another transit day. Our plan was to drive country roads from our hotel in Auderath down to the Black Forest town of Baden-Baden. The weather wasn’t terrible, but all that means this trip is that it didn’t look like rain was imminent. We said our goodbyes to the other guests at the hotel with whom we had shared some breakfast conversation, filled up with gas at the station next door, and headed out of town.
The drive was absolutely wonderful. Setting the NAV system to guide us avoiding highways turned out to be a fantastic idea. The visions of the countryside and forests would just not have been possible had we simply took the autobahn from one place to another. We stopped for lunch at a supermarket outside of Kaiserslautern and picked up some more waters and some sort of savory pastry that was very tasty. Angela also picked up a bottle of beer+coke. I’m anxious to try it out.
After 5 hours in the car, Angela began to get impatient, so we concluded our trip to Baden-Baden by taking a slight shortcut through France and across the Rhine back into Germany and into Baden-Baden. It was a bit of a challenge finding the hotel, since the route chosen by the NAV lady took us headlong into a barricaded pedestrian area. I was able to detour around the blockade, and we checked into our hotel, the Tanneck. It’s up on a hill above the Kurhaus casino and is in a very quiet area, which will be nice when it comes time to get some sleep. Now, it wouldn’t be our 2007 vacation without some rain, and today didn’t disappoint; a light drizzle falling upon our arrival.
After checking in, we set out to get an orientation of the city. We availed ourselves of a free concert performed by the Baden-Baden philharmonic, then walked into the pedestrian-only downtown area to see what we could see. An ulterior motive was to locate the two main thermal baths in town, the Friedrichsbad and the Caracalla Therme. We decided to go back to the room to get our bathing suits, since we wanted to experience the Caracalla baths after dinner. The baths were fantastic. There are several different pools of varying temperatures, as well as sauna rooms, aromatherapy, tanning, etc. You pay by the hour, with a two hour minimum, so we purchased 2 hours. There were more than a few couples in there who really just should have gotten hotel rooms with Jacuzzi tubs.
I should mention a word about our hotel. It’s perfectly satisfactory with two critical exceptions: the bedding and the towels. The pillows are terrible and flat, and the towels are as abrasive as steel wool; so much so that Angela had to use a dirty nightshirt to dry her face. I just consider it an exfoliation treatment.
Tomorrow, I’m going to try to play golf while Angela does some shopping and hits the spas again. Will the weather cooperate? Who knows.
Back to the gloomy weather today. No big surprise there.
With our Nurburgring experience out of the way yesterday, we got back to our daytripping today. Today’s plan was to drive a portion of the Mosel river valley, which is purported to be a stunning drive with beautiful wineries and small towns.
Our breakfast this morning came with a movie. One of the hotel guests was at the ‘Ring all day yesterday and had rigged a camera to his front bumper. The video he shot was excellent; and it was obvious that he knew his way around the track. All of the folks besides us at breakfast were from England, so it was nice to strike up conversation with them. There were two older couples there who have been coming to this hotel for 20 odd years.
Our hotel is very well located for both excursions to the Ring and to the Mosel valley. Our drive down to Cochem took only 15 minutes or so. The first stop on our agenda today was the castle of Burg Eltz; it’s been in the Eltz family for 800 years. The castle is completely isolated, sitting alone in a valley away from the Mosel, with a small stream flowing past. Apparently, the castle was actually 3 houses for 3 different families that shared the same common areas. This was evidenced by the different types of stone used in each house. Of course, being in Germany, our tour was in German. Had there been enough English speaking folks, we could have gotten them to give a tour in English, but not today. Even in German, the tour was excellent. The one house we walked through was decorated from various periods of the castles inhabitance. In fact, the Eltz family still occupies some parts of the castle to this day.
The hike back to the car park from the castle was brutal. This was the only time to date that I was thankful of the overcast skies and cool temps. Even in 55 degree weather, I was sweating like a pig when we finally got to the car.
Our next stop was Cochem; a charming town on the river. After a quick “bratwurst mit brot” for lunch, we took the Sesselbahn chair lift up to the rim of the valley with a terrific view of Cochem and its castle, the Reichsburg. We elected not to go to the castle, simply because we didn’t really believe that it could possibly be any more impressive than Burg Eltz.
Upriver we went to the idyllic town of Beilstein. According to Rick Steves, it has only 180 residents that run 30 guesthouses and eateries. From what I could tell, that’s really all that Beilstein does.
One thing I should mention is the vineyards. They grow the vines here on the steepest hills! So steep, in fact, that the folks that work the fields have to use cog-rail type appliances to go up and down hill. I wonder about the quantity of wine they can produce in this region, considering the limitations of the geography.
Pretty much every town on the river is just a different version of the same thing. We made a quick stop in Zell, and then again in Bernkastel-Kues; so named because the Bernkastel half of the town is on one side of the river, and the Kues half on the other side. This town was a little bigger than Cochem or Zell, but still very familiar in its character. Instead of waiting to get back to the hotel for dinner, we ate at a nice place with a terrace that faced the river. We got a kick out of the name, the “Bikers’ Station;” obviously a place familiar with the motorcycle crowd.
A note about the weather today... While the weather looked pretty crappy all dat today, it never actually affected our activities. It would be nice, though, to have just one day where we don’t even need to think about the umbrellas and rain gear.
We’re almost half-way through with our episodes of Heroes now, and we are really enjoying it. Not really sure how we missed it when it started.
Tomorrow we leave the Eifel region and head down to the Black Forest town of Baden-Baden for a little soaking in the thermal spas. Hopefully the weather will be good enough to allow me to play a little golf, too.
Would you look at that! Blue sky with high cirrus clouds. Maybe our weather worm is finally turning? I’ve felt this way a couple times on the trip already, though, so I’m not going to get my hopes up just yet.
Today was our big Nurburgring day; really the only reason we’re not still in France somewhere. I had purchased our BMW Ring Taxi ticket last December, and booked our ride back in late Februrary. I got some bad news in April that the export plates that are used for the various European Delivery programs are no longer allowed on the Ring, so that put a huge potential damper on the day; since I was really hoping to be able to take my 3er around a few times. I was hopeful about getting at least one other lap as a passenger in another car, but even that wasn’t a guarantee.
We got up and got ready. You should have seen me trying to take a bath/shower. It would have made a great “funniest home videos” sketch. No shower curtain, and the hose/shower head was positioned very low, by the main faucet. Additionally, there were very few electrical outlets, so I had to jury rig an extension cord so Angela could use her hair dryer in front of a mirror.
The ‘Ring isn’t but 20km or so our hotel, and it was a very easy and fun drive to get there. When we got there, it was pretty much what I had envisioned in my mind’s eye. It wasn’t nearly as crowded as I would have thought, given that it’s a weekend day and the weather is so nice. While Angela sat in the car reading, I made a quick lap of the car park, taking note of the sign by the ticket machine and office explicitly forbidding cars with export plates from driving on the track. Damn! I thought to myself that maybe if it got crowded enough, I could slide through in relative obscurity assuming that the marshal wouldn’t want to break the line just to get me out of it. Unfortunately, the track never really got busy enough to even attempt my plan. The thing of it is, I think I could have gotten out, since I saw several cars driving with plates that I thought were “verboten.”
Anyway, back to the Taxi ride. Since it was just Angela and me, I offered to allow the Ring Taxi operators to try to line up a third passenger. It turns out that a guy from San Francisco was there and wanted a ride in the Taxi. He introduced himself as Jeff, and we settled on a price of 50 euros and a passenger lap around in his 325d rental. I was a little disappointed that our Taxi Driver wasn’t the famous Sabine, or Hans Stuck, but her name was Claudia Hurtgen, and she has quite the pedigree in sports car racing. The lap itself was pretty much over as soon as it started. I was able to instantly recognize most all of the corner complexes from driving the track on my Xbox. The couple of things I noticed were that the track surface itself is very bumpy; there is not nearly as much runoff room on the real thing as on the Xbox; the turn complexes are much more compact than on the Xbox; and no video game will ever give you the same sense of elevation changes as the real thing will. Anyway, Claudia flung the M5 taxi around like she knew what she was doing, and before I really got into it, she was slowing down on the Dottinger Hoehe straight and exiting the track.
My pax lap with Jeff, while not nearly as fast, was just as enjoyable. He was much more conservative and more accommodating of other traffic on the track, but my lap with him was his 8th of the day, so he had a decent grasp of the track surface and where the traffic would get bunched up.
Since it was obvious that I wasn’t going to get to drive the circuit, I decided to find some of the more famous spectating spots and try to get some action shots of the Taxi. I found the spots at Brunnchen and Flanzgarten and was able to get some decent shots of various cars going around; including the Taxi.
After a quick lunch at the trackside café, the Grunne Holle, I set out to find a place to watch the Spanish F1 Grand Prix. I found one in the bar of the Dorint hotel, right on the grounds of the F1 GP track. I was very surprised at the total lack of interest in the race among the folks at the track. I fully expected the various places showing the race to be packed with motorsports enthusiasts taking a break from driving the Ring. Not so; the bar was practically empty. I watched most of the race, and went back to Angela who was waiting in the car. We drove around a little; walked up to the ruins of the Schloss Nurburg, and headed back to the hotel around 5 or so.
Another good dinner in the hotel restaurant (Lamb pot pie for me and cheese spaetzle for Angela), and we are all settled in to watch a couple more episodes of Heroes.
Tomorrow, we are going to drive the Mosel valley from Burg Eltz, past Cochem and Beilstein, and down to Buernkastle-Kues and then back to the hotel. It’s supposed to be a marvelous drive, so we’re looking forward to it. Maybe if we finish up early enough, I might try my plan on the ‘Ring tomorrow evening.
Today was generally a transit day. We left Strasbourg to; you guessed it, cloudy spitting rain. Our route took us north and west across the French/German border at Saarbrucken. Again, setting the NAV system to avoid highways was an excellent choice, as the drive was fabulous. Once past Saarbrucken, and a much needed fill-up and carwash, we made for Trier.
When we arrived there, and emerged from the parking garage, we were very pleasantly surprised. Trier is the oldest city in Germany, with its founding going back to the Roman occupations. In fact, there is still the last of four original Roman gates, the “Porta Nigra,” still standing. Anyway, the inner city is all pedestrian only and was simply alive with activity. It probably helped that it’s Saturday today, but still, it was crazy. We were able to grab a late lunch at a bakery and toured through the cathedral; reputedly the oldest church in Europe. It was spectactular. The stonework was exquisite and presented several photographic opportunities. We were in Trier for a good 3 hours.
The drive to our Eifel region hotel, the Hotel Wilhelmshoehe in Auderath, was awesome. We went up through Bitburg, and then went off the beaten path a little bit past small towns with names like Dudelburg, Wittlich, and Filz. We passed the US Air Base of Spangdahlem, and saw many cars that appeared to have been shipped over with their US Millitary personnel owners, since they all had German plates using the US plate shape.
We arrived at our hotel around 7:30 or so, and Jaqueline, the owner, greeted us by name. The hotel is very B&B in its atmosphere. Our room is huge, but our bathroom has a critical flaw: there is no shower curtain and the shower head is at tub level. Why can’t these Europeans seem to grasp the concept of an actual shower with a full-length shower curtain?
We had a veerrryyy looonnnggg, but very good, dinner in the dining room and are just now really settling down to go to bed. We’ll try to catch another episode of Heroes before we shut it down, though.
Tomorrow is the big Nurburgring day. Our Ring Taxi ride is at 11:15, and I am hoping beyond hope that I can drive my car on the track. If not, I suspect that we won’t hang there out very long, since I don’t want to subject Angela to an entire day of amateur motorsports.
Not surprisingly by now, we awoke to very iffy weather. We had planned to drive down into Alsace, following at least the northern half of the Tour #20 in the aforementioned France’s driving tours book, and we wouldn’t let any crappy weather deter us. Our ultimate goal was to sample some of the charm of the Alsatian “Route des Vins.”
Once out of Strasbourg, we picked up the tour in Rosheim, historical home of the Bugatti automobile maker. Apparently, it is a bit of a pilgrimage site for Bugatti owners, and I was able to see one of the rarest of modern super cars; the Bugatti Veyron. I reckon he was on one of those pilgrimages. Our first main stop of the day was an old convent-turned-hotel called Mont St. Odile. It sits at the top of a hill in the eastern edge of the Vosges mountains, and has spectacular views from all sides. At that height (about 1000 meters above sea level), the wind was howling and the temperatures were a brisk 48 degrees.
After Angela reached her personal “freezing point,” we headed back onto the route towards the castle of Haute Konigsbourg. This place was impressive. The site dates back to the 12th century, although the current fortress is much newer. The self-guided tour led through all the usual rooms in a castle; the armory, the great hall, the king’s chambers, etc.
The drives through the mountains were amazing, and when we finally emerged from the forest and onto the eastern slope of the mountain range, it was a sea of vineyards; like Napa Valley, but much bigger. We stopped at the first vineyard we found that offered “Degustation et Vente,” “Domaine Ferdinand Engel,” and had our first tasting of the day. We tried a Pinot Grigio, a Gewurtztraminer, and a Pinot Noir. Not “feeling” any of them, we headed on down the road to the small Medieval town of Ribeauville.
Ribeauville was exactly what we were hoping to find; small, intimate, charming. Its only negative was that the city center was not pedestrian-only; so we had to constantly dodge cars coming up and down the “Grand Rue.” The town was filled with small bakeries, butcher shops, pastry shops. After about two hours or so of exploring, we headed down the road to the other “postcard” town in the area, Riquewihr.
Riquewihr is larger than Ribeauville, but no less charming. The oldest part of town is walled, and generally pedestrian-only, so that alone tipped the scales in favor of it over Ribeauville. The various area vintners had a much larger presence here than in Ribeauville, too. I am not generally a white wine person, but the Pinot Blanc that we tried was very tasty; dry but fresh. We wound up buying two bottles of white: one Pinot Blanc, and one Gewurtztraminer, from one of the local vineyards.
Since tomorrow is a “getaway day” for us, we headed back to the hotel via the highway. We had a lovely dinner in the hotel restaurant and I’m writing this and dumping our photos from full memory cards.
Tomorrow, we leave France and head into the Eifel region. I think we will go through Trier, the oldest city in Germany and home to the oldest church in Europe, on the way to our next hotel in the small town of Auderath.
After the memorial museum, we went to the “Ossuare de Douaumont,” a giant cemetery dedicated to the 750,000 soldiers that died during the Verdun Campaign. At this particular memorial are 130,000 graves dedicated to the unidentified remains that were gathered from the battlefield. Now this place didn’t have nearly the effect on me that Omaha Beach and the American Memorial Cemetery in Colleville did when we were there in 2000, but it was still very sobering to see the terrain in the area is still to this day this mass of grassy mounds and hollows; almost permanently disfigured from the fighting.
Man, did we sleep in. I didn’t even open my eyes until 9am. It felt fantastic.
Of course, the weather sucked again this morning. It was lightly raining when we woke up, so I checked the weather for the next couple of days and we determined that our best course of action would be to stay local today, go to Lorraine tomorrow, and head south into the heart of Alsace on Friday. Since we did a fair bit of exploring yesterday, we decided to do something outside the heart of the city and tour the Kronenbourg brewery. I’ve only ever seen Kronenbourg signs here in Alsace since we got here the other day, so I thought it would be nice to try a beer I might otherwise not be exposed to. With the help of the hotel concierge, we booked a spot on the 1:00 English tour. We only needed to find a way to kill an hour. Another episode of “Heroes,” or go outside and possibly get wet…
Yesterday, while walking around in Petit France, we happened upon an art gallery that had in the window a painting that we instantly fell in love with. Of course, being the second Tuesday of May, the shop was closed (actually, all the stores were closed for a much nobler reason: V-E Day, or the day when Germany signed the articles of surrender to the Allies in 1945) so we resolved to come back when it was open and see about purchasing it. Well, thanks to the weather, today was that day. The gallery owner was very friendly and spoke some broken English and after not much consideration, we bought the painting and arranged for it to be shipped back home. By now, we had to get back to the hotel to pick up our car for the short jaunt to the Kronenbourg brewery.
Europe being the parking nightmare that it is, we had to do a couple of laps around the block to find a parking space, but we finally did and had a very good time on the brewery tour. Our guide was obviously not a native English speaking person, but he got his points across nonetheless, and was very entertaining in the process. I chuckled to myself every time he asked the rhetorical “What means that?” We were a bit put off by being lumped into a field trip of English teenage girls, but their chaperone admonished them well and they were very well behaved.
Once back to the hotel, the weather appeared as it might be finally improving for good, so we headed out to explore the parts of Petit France that we had missed yesterday (by way of a sandwich shop on Place Kleber for a late lunch). It was very picturesque, with its four canals that split the district into 3 small islands.
We wound up having dinner at a small pizzeria, basically because we were both hungry and caught a whiff from the kitchen and sat down at one of the outdoor tables. Again, I felt proud that we were able to order, eat, pay without a word of English changing hands.
Today was generally a transit day from Lindau to Freiburg to Colmar, and up to Strasbourg. The weather started off promising enough, with a fair amount of blue sky, but it quickly turned sour and rained for a large portion of the trip up to Strasbourg. It’s too bad, really, since the scenery going through the southern end of the black forest looked to be stunning and would have made for some fine landscape photography. Lunch was taken at a small bakery just outside of Freiburg where we had some wonderful sandwiches; mine with prosciutto, cheese, and cucumber, and Angela’s with Mozzarella and tomatoes. One interesting thing we did see on the way up from Colmar to Strasbourg was a miniature version of the Statue of Liberty. I think that the artist that sculpted her was from around here.
After arriving in Strasbourg at the Sofitel Strasbourg around 3:45pm or so, we set out for a bit of an orientation walk around the old town and the area known as “Petit France.” One thing we noticed was that all of the shops and stores were closed. We were very puzzled by this; as today is just a Tuesday, unless it’s some weird French thing that all stores will be closed on the 2nd Tuesday of the month or whatever.
During our walk, we stopped at the Cathedral Notre Dame de Strasbourg. It’s a magnificent Gothic cathedral made from the pink limestone that is common in this area. The hue of the stone really gives the building a unique countenance. Otherwise, it’s your garden variety Gothic church with one notable exception: there is only one spire. After a quick run-through of the church, we went in search of “Petit France,” a small area of Strasbourg in the southwest of the old town. This area is known for its restaurants and quaint charm. It certainly didn’t disappoint in that regard. After a couple hours of strolling through the rabbit-warren of tiny streets and alleys, we decided to try to find a place for dinner. Not feeling super-adventurous, and noticing many greek and Turkish restaurants, we settled on a place that looked to have good “Doner” sandwiches. We had a wonderful meal and didn’t require a single word of English to order, pay, and thank the proprietor.
After dinner, it looked like the weather might finally be breaking in our favor; our stroll back to the hotel was very pleasant. My initial impression of Strasbourg (at least the old town) is German cleanliness and architecture meets French eccentricity.
Aside: As part of our preparation for this trip, I’ve become a little more familiar with iTunes and more of the iTunes store offerings. We had gotten some recommendations for that TV series “Heroes” so I decided to purchase a season pass of it from the iTunes store. When we got back from dinner, we set out to watch a couple episodes of the show to see if we like it. Man, it’s excellent. I think we are hooked, and we’ve only seen the first two.
Hopefully tomorrow will bring some better weather. If so, we will take one of our day trips to either the “Route du Vin” or west to Lorraine.
Today’s the big delivery day. Angela and I both crashed last night by 9pm. We set an early alarm so that we could hopefully beat the Monday rush to the delivery center. It took us a little while to get ready, and we didn’t actually get there until almost 8:30, and we wound up waiting almost another 2 hours until our name was called. This being our 3rd Euro Delivery, the process was relatively straight forward. After going through the paperwork formalities, it was into the garage to see the new machine. I guess it’s trite to say that I was relieved that the car was to spec. Our delivery specialist (I didn’t catch his name, and I don’t believe he ever actually offered his name) was brief, but thorough. Honestly, by that time, I just wanted to get out of there and get on the road. We pre-cleared our car through the drop-off process since we will be dropping off on the weekend, and made our way back to the Marriott to gather our things and get on the road.
The drive was spectacular. The weather held up for most of the drive, but started to rain on and off about 80km from Lindau. I was surprised at how dry the natural channels were that carry the melting snow out of the mountains to the rivers; and at how dry the rivers themselves were. Again, I marveled at all the different shades of green and all of the wild flowers growing in the fields. Our route of travel took us down to almost Oberammergau, past Linderhof, into Austria past Reutte, back into Germany at Sonthofen by way of some amazing switchback roads, and then to Lindau by way of Immenstadt. It was all I could do to not take a picture of every valley we drove through. They are all so picturesque and pastoral.
Lindau is a lovely lakeside town on the “Bodensee” or, in English, Lake Constance. It reminds me a little of Bellagio, but decidedly German and a little bigger. It’s largely on an island in the lake, with a small harbor guarded by the Lion of Bavaria and sporting a large lighthouse. Ferries shuttle people back and forth across the lake from Germany to Switzerland to Austria. We rolled into town about 4:15pm or so and checked into the Bayerischer Hof right on the lake overlooking the harbor. After getting all the luggage into the room and getting situated, we headed out for some exploring. Now, Lindau isn’t a real big town, and you can see pretty much all of it in a half-day. The weather alternated from dry to spitting to drizzling all afternoon, and finally settled into a heavy overcast around 7.
We ate dinner in the hotel restaurant and are in the process of calling it a night. As I write this, I am dumping my day’s photos to the laptop. I think tomorrow night we’ll be completely over the jetlag and will be able to resume our normal sleep patterns. I think the drive over to Strasbourg will be fairly long, but it should definitely be scenic; I’m doing all I can to avoid the highways.
We flew out of Charlotte again this year, so our journey actually began with a road trip. The weather was off and on; possibly an omen of what would greet us when we arrived in Munich. We stopped at a Whole Foods in Greenville, SC for lunch, and after fighting some hideous traffic, managed to get to Charlotte Douglas airport and to our gate by 4pm for a 5:15 departure. The flight was uneventful from an actual “plane takes off, plane flies, plane lands” perspective, but there was a German family in front of us with a small girl who just would not SHUT UP! We got a little relief when she finally fell asleep, but that was short-lived when she woke up and wailed and screamed for the remaining 2 hours of the flight. I don’t really like Lufthansa over British Airways for a couple of reasons. Mainly, LH just hasn’t managed to install the personal video screens in the cattle cabin like BA has. Also, the seating was downright uncomfortable. That said, the food was good, and the cabin service was the equal of BA. It really boiled down to the fact that BA requires a connection between Heathrow and Gatwick in order for us to get to Munich on BA, where the LH flight from Charlotte was direct.
We landed at about 8am, local time, and were out of the airport and waiting to board the Lufthansa airport bus by 8:30am. Thankfully, the bad weather that was forecast for Munich today never really materialized; it was a mostly cloudy morning, temperature about 48-50F. A short bus ride later and we were walking down to the now familiar Munich Marriott in the Schwabing district of Munich. It was very fortuitous for us that they had our room already prepared, and we were checked into our room by 9:30am. I immediately took a shower and we both took a short nap. Angela was still feeling the effects of the half of the AmbienCR she took on the plane; and who was I to argue with getting a little sleep?
We woke at noon; Angela got cleaned up; and we headed downtown. We’ve been to Munich twice, and both times I was unable to get to the Deutches Museum (www.deutches-museum.de). I would not be denied this year, so we walked from the Marienplatz, through the Isartor gate, and onto the small island in the Isar river on which is located the museum. The museum itself is like what the Smithsonian would be if there was one for Science and Technology. There were excellently prepared displays of maritime history, aviation, hydrodynamics, bridge construction technologies, paper making, musical instruments, you name it. Had Angela not been with me, I could have probably spent at least 2 days there reading all of the placards. I especially enjoyed all of the models that were built to illustrate various techniques and technologies. It was also interesting to see the history of so much of technology from a decidedly German perspective, with mostly German examples cited.
After we (read: Angela) had had our fill of the museum, we took a stroll along the Isar river and headed back into town down the Maximilianstrasse, a very swank shopping street with the likes of Hermes, Armani, Ferragamo, etc. lining the boulevard. By this time Angela was getting very hungry and, what do you know, we passed right by the famed Hofbrauhaus, possibly the most famous beer hall and garden in Germany. It is a HUGE tourist destination. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a tourist trap, since the prices are very reasonable and the food is quite tasty. One 1L radler and a helping of schnitzel and potatos and we were ready to head back to the hotel. Being Sunday, nothing is open anyway, except the restaurants.
We downloaded the whole season of Heroes on ITunes based on the recommendation of a friend of mine, and we will watch at least one or two episodes tonight.
Tomorrow, we pick up the car bright and early, and head down to the Bodensee and the lake-side town of Lindau. I sure hope the weather holds tomorrow like it did today.
