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Dinkelsbühl, Germany

We picked a location from the guide book today that would require some travel off the normal train routes and tourist busses. A place guarenteed to be less crowded with the usual camera snapping bunch. Fantastic stuff. We took the train as far as we could then piled into a local bus with a dozen or so school kids on their way home for the day. The drive was as confusing as it was beautiful, narrow, winding roads through farm fields and forests and small towns punctuated with huge wind turbines slowly spinning away in the sun. It was a perfect day to travel. We finnally arrived at our destination and walked the half kilometer or so into the town. Dinkelsbühl is an old walled town, fourteen towers stand around it, each one a bit different from the last. The LP guide says you can walk the walls to see the town but we failed to find any access to the top of the walls that was not either locked or obviously not intended for casual access. The town is part of the Romantic Road and is probably the jewel in the crown of these places. All of the houses within the walls are beautiful, tall, colourful houses. The shops and restaurants are the same and but for a handful of other tourists and backpackers, and a couple of cyclists, we had the place to ourselves. We stopped at a local place and had more delicious food and a couple tall cold glasses of tasty beverage — cola light and not! After the siteseeing we piled back on the bus, back into the closest rail stop and back onto a train to go to Poelling to see Uwe and Simone who offered us lodgings for a couple of days. Things of note: Germany has the solar power/wind power thing figured out. Many of the houses we see on our travels have solar arrays covering the roofs. Lots of commercial buildings have the same. Everywhere we go we see giant wind turbines, ones and twos, off in the distance slowing spinning away. All of the windows, or most, have roll away blinds that provide both protection and privacy. They’re easy to use and help keep sun out in the day and the light out when you want to sleep in complete darkness. Very smart construction. I have to mention again about the value of the eurorail pass. We’ve been able to use it on the highspeed trains (ICE), the regional trains, the U and S Bahn trains, the trams, and busses. With only a couple of exceptions we have paid no extras for any of our transportation on any of the legs of our trip.

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Leuven, Belgium

Well a lot has happened since we last blogged. Where to begin?? Our next destination after our Ritter Sport Day was Schwaebisch Gmuend, a beautiful little town east(ish) of Stuttgart. We went there for sightseeing but also to check out two more factories: the Weleda plant (Weleda is a company that makes very high quality, natural skin and body care products) and Schleich, which manufactures figurines like smurfs (for all those 80’s people out there), as well as replicas of animals and people (like knights, dragons, princesses, etc.- stuff you find at Chapters, etc.). Colin was supposed to come with us but decided he’d take a break from train travel and hang out with his oma and opa for the day. The town was beautiful. Lots of great architecture to admire and beautiful nature surrounding the town, as well. We enjoyed a nice walk around the town, some fine cuisine and a good cup of coffee, with a shared goblet of ice cream to round things off. We then bussed up to the Weleda plant just to find that it was closing a few minutes later. Too bad but no matter. Instead, we took the opportunity to burn off some calories and took a nice hike through the beautiful nearby forest back into town and off we went, back to Stuttgart. The night was then spent resting up and getting all of our bags ready for the next leg of our trip, namely a quick jaunt to Belgium. No factories had been viewed but the with the nice weather we had that day, we were not disappointed. On the 11th, up early, we’re given a kind lift to the Stuttgart Bahnhof and off we go to Leuven, Belgium. Colin, Mitch and I are subjugated to a long and pretty complicated day. Most of the high-speed ICE trains have been pulled from their tracks due to technical problems with one of them the previous day, so we need a good dose of patience and running around to get from point A to B. But we finally arrive at our destination, only an hour later than originally planned. Not bad for a crazy day. The three of us head to my friend Anja’s to say a quick “hello” and then off to the Hotel Binnenhof to drop off our things and rest for a sec., then off again to explore the pretty town of Leuven and grab a bite to eat (Italian tonight with a great view down onto one of the main squares in the town). It’s been raining a lot today but luckily, we seem to have been able to escape being in the middle of the intermittent downpours. The 12th: Overcast but we still decide to head into Brussels for the day. Great city but too much rain that day… To make the best of the situation, we check out a couple of things on foot before boarding a bus for a 2 and a half hour city tour with two photo-op stops. None of us are big on the “packaged tour” thing but this does the trick under the circumstances. Our tour guide is great and we get a thorough explanation of the city’s history, main architectural and cultural attractions, as well as gain a good understanding of the politics surrounding this country. Problems between the two main linguistic groups: sound familiar?? There are some pretty comparable issues going on within both Canada and Belgium. At the end of the day, we head home pretty exhausted. Mitch decides to stay at the hotel to snooze while Colin and I head to my friend Anja’s to finally get to meet her significant other, Jan, and their new baby daughter, Anne. A delicious meal is cooked for us – a thoroughly enjoyable evening for sure. The 13th: Thank God the weather has improved!! And we’re off, back to Brussels to check out what we missed the day before. The three of us start out by taking the metro to the military museum and spend a good hour and a half in there. Talk about fantastic! The place is huge and crammed with a phenomenal selection of weapons, uniforms and lots of the bigger things too like tanks from all over the world, ships (most are smaller replicas but there are also a few full-sized ones), as well as a huge hanger filled with fighter planes from everywhere, including Canada. Suddenly, all three of us feel our patriotism come out 🙂 We could have stayed in there much longer, of course, but the rest of Brussels beckons us onwards. So back onto the metro and into the city center to see the famous Manneken Pis (the little guy peeing) and little, he is. It’s a tiny black sculpture of a little boy peeing into a fountain. Like the Mona Lisa, you expect something bigger, with all of the fame surrounding these things and then you get there and laugh and wonder what all the fuss was about. Well, it’s a must-see so a five minute pit-stop to snap a photo is still worth it. Then off to eat some delicious Moules et Frites (mussels and fries) with a pint of Kriek (cherry beer – don’t knock it ’til you try it!) for me and Croque-Monsieurs (grillled cheese with ham sandwiches) for the boys, with a beer for Mitch and a taste from our beverages for the younger man (when in Rome 🙂 ). We then head back to Leuven to join Anja, Jan and Anne for a walking tour of Leuven (thank you J + A!) and then a delicious plate of tapas at a local resto-pub in downtown Leuven into the night. Nice conversations were had and Colin spent some time honing his drawing skills and showing us his art work. A perfect way to round out our trip. The 14th: Time to eat breakfast and check-out. Mitch, Colin and I grab our packs and head back to the train station to begin our journey back to Germany. The trains are all running normally again and so we make good headway. In Cologne, we stop to see whether we can still jump on a boat to tour down the Rhine together but we find out that the tour we want only runs once a day and we’ve missed it. We grab a brochure with the goal to take this trip before we leave the continent. Back on the train and it ends up being a beautiful, scenic ride anyhow. We travel along the Rhine for miles and admire the castles, palaces and beautiful monasteries scattered on both sides of the river. Finally, we arrive back at Stuttgart, jump on the S-Bahn to Plochingen and the train back to Wernau. Once there, we settle down to beverages, coffee and mineral water and wait for the rest of our party to join us. Mitch and I then head back to our living quarters to get organized for our departure the next day. The 15th: Lots of hugs and “good-byes” as Mitch and I leave Colin with his dad for their time together. And now to Mitch’s entry….

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Waldenbuch, Germany

We set out late again today, the weather looked ugly, but we managed to catch the usual train at the Wernau stop and make our way into Stuttgart where we switched to a S-bahn (essentially the same train as before) and worked our way South of the city towards Waldenbuch. We got as close as we could by train then switched to a bus and at the right curve in the road the driver let us off to walk a few blocks to the factory. You could smell the product in the air, hmmmmmm, chocolate! They mentioned that fact in the guidebook and sure enough, its true. Around the corner you could see the Ritter Sport sign high on the factory and a crowd of schoolkids coming back from a trip to the place where so much tasty stuff is made. We walked just past the factory entrance to the building housing the Ritter Sport museum, another related art museum, a cafe, and the Ritter Sport factory outlet store. We missed out on the factory tour, kids only, but the museum was most enjoyable and gave loads of details on how chocolate is prepared and the care the Ritter Sport people take in preparing some of the tastiest chocolate you can buy anywhere. Speaking of buying, we bought 10.90 euros worth of the stuff which equals 2.2kg or about 15 bars. We’re eating tasty chocolate for the next few train rides I think. After the chocolate was purchased we sat at the outdoor cafe and had some of the best, its all good really, food you can find in Germany. I know it sounds like we’re not doing anything but eat but we’re walking, walking, walking as well. Gotta refuel right?

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Stuttgart, Germany

Today started out back down at the Wernau train station. Noam came with us with again and was feeling a little silly and giddy (happy to be out and about with us again, I guess). He found a comment written on a wall, motioned towards it, and mentioned that the “author” must have had him in mind when they had written it. Mitch, Colin, Noam and I headed up to Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen to start our day off with a visit to the Porsche museum. It was great to see but we were a bit disappointed that the new museum was not ready for our viewing pleasure yet. We got a shot of the building under construction. It’s going to be huge compared to the one-room display we got to see. However, it was still an interesting visit. Lots of old and new Porsches, cross-sections of cars, engines, old and new and tons of relevant info. to inform us. A little shop was there, of course, as well. None of us broke down to buy any watches or golf shirts, stickers or handbags though. We then moved on to go check out the Wilhelma which is the Stuttgarter zoo. It’s really beautiful there with lush gardens and lots of animals (of course) to see. The highlight was watching the star of the Wilhelma, Wilbaer the one-year-old ice bear, goof around with his mom. What a kid!! Both spent the whole time horsing around with respective pieces of plastic, throwing it around, trying to grab the pieces away from one another, diving for it, etc. Absolutely adorable! We then headed home, ate a small dinner and then dove into bed. A fun day was had by all.

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Esslingen am Neckar, Germany

Given the amount of walking we´ve been doing and the levels of humidity, then rain, then sun, then clouds, it would come as no surprize to discover that one day you find you´re on your last pair of underpants, last t-shirt, and last pair of socks. Today was that day. Off we went to the waschsalon in Stuttgart to “freshen up” the travel duds. In Germany, nothing is done half way. To wash your clothing you throw the dirty undies in the machine then walk to the back of the place and tap the touch screen, select your machine, your partner will have tossed in soap, and then you start the washing process and off you go to stroll the Koenigstrasse while the clothes go for a soapy swim. After the clothing was done we stopped into a cafe and had ourselves some tasty buttered pretzels and a rhubarb cake and custard raspberry cake, depending on where you were sitting. Laundry done, food consumed, we hopped back on a train (we have come very close to having reached the point of getting our money´s worth for the train ticket) and headed back down the tracks to a small place called Esslingen which is nothing less than beautiful. Rows of lush green vines hang off the hills above the town providing for wine industry and an old factory site has been remade into the usual trendy restaurants, a cinema, and some public spaces. The heart of the town is the town square with the most amazing timber framed houses, a church or two and the old fortress wall that once surrounded and protected the town. We strolled up the pedestrian walkway admiring the town, headed for the main square, and Noam spotted a friend. Could we take a photo of him with his friend? Of course! Elke posed Noam as I snapped the photo and friendly man came out of the shop and asked if we would like to take Noam´s friend with us on our journey. Mmmm, maybe not this time. On hearing that Noam was a Canadian the man went back into his shop and returned with two tiny travelling companions. We continued to the square, took loads of photos, stopped in a local apotheke to pick up some homeopathic remedies and carried on through the streets window shopping and taking photos. As we headed back towards the hauptbahnhof to catch our train back to Wernau Elke spotted a shop she once visited on occassion to purchase natural fibre clothing so we decided to stop. As she browsed I stepped out into the walkway. I took off my two packs and sat down against the wall to relax my camera strained back and do some people watching. I got my fair share of odd looks as well. Finally, Elke returned saying she had found something and we would need to come back with more cash as they didn´t take credit. I reached into my pack for cash for her as a man bent over with his hand out, I thought to ask for some of what I was giving Elke. In fact, the man thought I was a panhandler, I get that a lot you know, and was about to give me a Euro. He said that if I put out a dish I could make 10 euro an hour. Maybe next trip. We headed home then and enjoyed some ordered food, all that walking, we deserved it! PS: Tonight we booked our hostel beds at Saint-Etienne – Les Enchands. We´ll be there on the 23rd of July. For those not in the know that is the finishing point for one of the stages of the Tour de France! We tried to book in Narronne on the French Riviera but everything is booked already.

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Stuttgart, Germany

Today started out nice and slowly. Grabbed a small breakfast, added leisurely showers to that and then it was off to Stuttgart for a day of touring around. We actually began our tour at the Wilhelma, the Stuttgarter zoo, but all the parking places were already taken. Since the place seemed so swamped, we decided to take the tram downtown and start out by grabbing some lunch. Kaesespaetzle and Maultaschen (large local ravioli-type fare) were what we had ordered. The place was somewhat touristy but locals ate there too and the food was well priced and tasty. We then headed towards the central railway station where we made a pit stop at the crepes shack for some crepes stuffed with nutella and bananas. We now had enough “energy” stored up to go for a long walk through the huge city garden. It could maybe be somewhat compared to Central Park in NY in terms of size, at least in length, and in the sense that it’s dotted with little islands of things to see and do. Cafes, the Carl-Zeiss planetarium, bars, outdoor chess, ping pong tables, a fantastic, brand-new playground (great for Colin, of course) made of full-length trees and all kinds of crazy structures for kids to climb on, jump off of and hang from. We ended up walking all the way back to the car, back at the Wilhelma zoo, and then headed back to Wernau to get cleaned up for dinner at a local italian restaurant. Good food was to be had by all, including a delicious shot of Ramazzotti to help the food digest just that little bit better.

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Hechingen, Germany

Today we piled into Tobi’s BMW and sped up the road from Wernau to visit one of those most spectacular castles that dot Germany. From the highway you can see the castle, perched high above, and its exactly what one expects a medieval castle to look like. Turrets, high walls, an impressive fortress. A curving road leads up to a parking area where you can take a pathway that follows the contours of the steep hill or if you want to save your energy for the castle you can hop on a shuttle that will drop you off at the gate. The original castle was surrounded during the 30 Years War and after nine months the defenders, having run out of food and water, surrendered. The castle was razed to the ground only to be rebuilt in its current state. Once you enter the main gate you follow the roadway up through several gates and under sections of wall many metres thick until you are high above the entry way and looking down on the many layers of defensive walls. The view from up there is breathtaking as well, you can look out on the surrounding hills and valleys and see for miles in all directions. We chose not to go inside the castle instead exploring the outer structures and going down into the cellars to see some of the troop quarters and store rooms deep in the bottom of the castle. Narrow passages lead from room to room with nicely documented plates describing what each room was for and some of the lore connected to the castle.

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Nuremberg, Germany

This morning the plan was to go back into Nurnberg for one last day to take in the zoo, to see Flocke (Germany’s latest baby polar bear) and the Spielzeugmuseum. As things turned out Colin woke up feeling awful so once we had sorted out his comfort, made certain he had all he needed and was in a comfortable place to sleep, his great Oma watching over him, we decided to fit in some light activity before our evening trip to Wernau to see Colin’s Dad. We were headed into the shopping district in the Altstadt to look for cycling jerseys but unfortunately no one carry’s any of the good team jerseys so that was a miss, a quick stop in an amazing comic book shop, three floors worth, and then we hopped on a tram and headed to the Tiergarten to check out the wild animals. We passed on the Spielzeugmuseum since it would be totally unfair to go see that while Colin was laid out at Oma’s recovering. You will by now have copied Spielzeugmuseum into one of the online translator services to find out what that is, yes? The zoo is much like any other zoo with an assortment of the usual beasts and a similar assortment of enclosures under contstruction. I’m thinking that with all of the money Flocke (German for Snowflake) has attracted they’ve decided to do some reno work. We took a handful of photos and worked our way to the polar bear pen to find one bear pacing like he/she was expecting something soon, taking a moment out to jump in the deep water and swim around a bit. We didn’t stay long. Back on the tram we got to experience the teen rabble listening to music too loud for us old folk as we travelled back to the Hauptbahnhof, the central starting point for most of our activities. Back on our feet we wandered into the shopping district again this time looking for food. There are lots of really great places to eat, lots of not so good places to eat (Pizza Hut, Burger King, and McDonald’s…I’m pointing at you) but we settled on a good one, a place called Barfuesser (which means the person who goes bare foot). We orderd a couple of large beer like beverages and a dc and a plate of Kaesespaetzle and Knoedel with a delicious wild mushroom sauce..no magic ones, just wild. Delicious salads accompanied both. Fantastic! You will not go hungry in Germany! Noam enjoyed a fine golden beverage, we had to carry him home he was so drunk. Once we arrived back in Neumarkt we found Colin had slept off the morning illness and was rested and ready to go see his dad. We packed up the rest of our gear and with Oma, piled into the beige Mercedes taxi and headed to the Hauptbahnhof at speed to catch the train. As luck would have it we made the train but ended up sitting for an hour to make the connection to Stuttgart. First Class baby! It’s the way to go! Not that Second Class is anything to sniff about. We had our own private cabin. Secret Message for Jason: Code Im Deckel! Secret Message for Mike: jiggly, jiggly, jiggly!!

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Nuremberg, Germany

O.k., so first of all, Mitch and I are alternating posts and today it’s my turn. It figures that I’d be the one to have to blog about the happenings in the WWII… Why does the past have to haunt us so?? But all jesting aside, this was a pretty incredible day. Powerful, disturbing, eye-opening. For this one, we figured Colin might have more fun hanging out with Gran, hitting the great playgrounds in her area, eating ice cream, things like that. Mitch and I then took the train back to Nuernberg and the tram to the Documentcentre in the southern part of the city. Once there, we picked up a couple of portable info-wands and took a tour of the centre. We strolled through the entire history of the NASDP (Nazi Party) and the Third Reich in a completely thought-provoking twoish hours. Lots of photos and film coverage of the day, as well as charts and graphs to help us understand a number of things, including a legend showing what the badges sewn onto a concentration camp inhabitant’s sleeve meant. Powerful stuff, to say the least. The Doc. Centre is housed in what used to be the Congress Hall in Nazi times, the hall being modelled after the Colloseum in Rome. Through the middle of the original building, a glass “hall” slices its way through the building and takes you out into the middle of the arena. Amazing architecture but not for the faint of heart. The bridge is suspended high above the colloseum grounds with a grate floor so that you can clearly see the ground below as the structure you’re standing on sways a bit in the wind. We then proceeded to check out the rest of the grounds. Huge, huge, huge. The terrain on which all the buildings and man-made (person-made??) lakes, stadiums and marching grounds once stood span many kilometres. Lots of examples of the man’s megalomania abound, including the Zeppelin Feld stadium where you can still stand where Hitler once stood to address throngs of adoring folk. The big stone slabs surrounding the stadium still have the large metal holders which once held the huge Nazi flags. To stand up on that podium, where he once stood, is eerie and strange. Quite the experience. To change the pace and relax a bit after yet another day of lots of walking and a good dose of serious historical experiences, we took the train back to Oma’s town of Neumarkt to sip on a delicious cup of coffee and savour a delicious slice of good european baking each. Yum 🙂 And after that, a short walk back to the appartment to hang out with gran and Colin. Definitely a day to remember.

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Nuremberg, Germany

We started the day with a quick German breakfast, Colin is a wreck until he’s had his first cup of coffee, and then off to Nurnberg to take in the sights. The train system in this country is the best, the high speed train here is fantastic and even the “milk run” was fast. We got off at the Hauptbahnhof and walked across the street and into the Altstadt, the old walled city. The city was pretty much flattened in 1945 but many of the original buildings have been rebuilt and its an amazing city. The walls are massive, thick, and most impressive. Its a lot of what you would expect in the typical German city. To the poor folk in Ottawa, the first thing we noticed when we arrived was the sky was blue, no rain clouds in any direction and almost no humidity. We walked through the old city following the directions of the LP walking tour, sort of, with Elke’s knowledge of the city filling in the blanks, for example, where to find the best bratwurst. We took in a walk up to the Konigsburg which looks out onto a beautiful city. We saw quite a lot in a short bit of time and walked until one of us was pretty tired, and then back to Neumarkt.

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