Summer Visit from the Girls

Emily and Katie came to visit last week. Our first trip was to Bingen, a small town on the banks of the Rhein just up the river from Wiesbaden and surrounded by vineyards. Once the girls got their sea legs, we headed off to Switzerland - about a 6 hour drive south.

Our destination was Zermatt, the last village before Italy and just below the Matterhorn. It's almost 15,000 feet high and is instantly recognizable. The town is only accessible by train, there are no cars allowed.


There was a local saloon having an outdoor festival on the main pedestrian walk. The girls took to that right away. We took off the next day for a hike under the shadow of the matterhorn. We cheated by taking a tram up the mountain and hiking back down.

Through the mountains you come across these goat herder shacks that form little towns. Of course, they are all still there for the benefit of us tourists. And some house kitchens and restaurants. They look archaic with huge pegs for nails but they don't fall down.
Our hotel rooms bordered the main walkway in town. We heard some bells clanging and looked out to see a small herd of mountain goats being led by young boys up to the mountainside.

After Zermatt, we headed north to Lucerne. The way there is scary and beautiful at the same time. Roads get extremely narrow and wind their way around the mountains. The Swiss have become the best tunnel builders in the world but they still like hairpin turns.

Lucerne is just a perfect little city built on the river flowing from Lake Lucerne. It is THE cleanest river we have ever seen. The famous wooden Chapel bridge across the river constructed in the 14th century has historic paintings inside illustrating local history.
There is even a Mt Rushmore-like monument carved on a rock hillside. The story is convoluted but basically the Lion symbolizes the memory of 200 swiss guards who died defending the King from a revolutionary mob in 1792.



Finally back in Wiesbaden, the girls made good on a promise back in March to take out a paddleboat on our Kurpark pond with a bottle of wine.
Tschuss!

Good Times in Baden Baden

Last Saturday morning we woke up to a beautiful day. Unlike the past month, there were no clouds and very little humidity. So we decided to go visit a city at the foot of the Black Forest that we have heard good things about - Baden Baden. On the way there, we stopped for lunch in Heidelberg. It was the first city in Germany we fell in love with when we visited way back in 1981. The castle is still there but there are a whole lot more people.

After bees attacked our croissants and jam, we headed to Baden Baden. It had been settled in Roman times and was well known for it's mineral baths and Roman spas (Baden is "bath" in German). There were still ruins of an original Roman bath that we toured. The technology they used to heat the rooms and bath were amazing for the time.

Since it was Saturday, there were weddings in every church. This one was ready to go and we even caught a glimpse of the bride and her getaway car. Vintage VW of course.










A stream runs through the middle of the town and is bordered by a long park designed by some famous German. We came upon a beautiful open air building built in 1840 (Trinkhalle) with tall Corinthian pillars and large murals on the walls.


When we got inside, we realized they were holding a chess tournament with hundreds of players and a few professionals. Each pro walked around making one move on each board. Hard to imagine this game ever ending... we didn't wait. We hadn't had any wine yet.

So we stopped at the flower-covered Lowenbrau - a traditional Bavarian restaurant. Mary had fried goat cheese salad and Pete had pork loin with gravy and fried potatoes. Both were awesome. We headed back home before dark and realized we could visit a few towns in a day.

Our girls are visiting next week and we are planning to visit Switzerland for a few days - Matterhorn in Zermatt, and the swans in Luzern.
Tschus!

Mark Knopfler in Wurzburg

Our Saturday began with the thought of walking into town for the farmer's market. But that was soon shot down as the clouds opened up. OK, this will pass, so we got in the car and drove about 90 minutes to the beautiful old city of Wurzburg. It helped that one of our favorite musicians was playing there in an outdoor venue that evening: Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits, album with Emmy Lou Harris, etc). We didn't have tickets in advance but thought we could take our chances and worst case, visit the city and its castle. We drove directly to the castle through constant rain but it let up when we got there. And as it turned out, the concert was there on the grounds overlooking the city.
While we were trying to find out where we could buy tickets, a young german girl heard our conversation and asked if we needed 2 tickets. It was serendipity so we bought the tix and went on a tour of the castle and it's museum.


When they opened the gates, we walked down to the venue which was a stage at the bottom of a sloping hill just below the ramparts of the castle. Of course, there were wine and beer stands, big pretzels, brats. We were festivarians yet again! We chose an Indian curried wrap large enough to feed everyone. About 2 hours before the concert was to begin, the looming rain started coming down. It began to look like a german version of Woodstock with rain ponchos and umbrellas everywhere. Pete wedged our umbrella between 2 wine stands so we could stay dry and still hold a glass of wine.
After about an hour, the rain let up and the skies turned blue and pink. (unfortunately, they wouldn't let me in with my camera, so my pics are limited)

At precisely 8pm, Mark Knopfler's band came out and started up. Apparently, concerts need to shut down at 10pm sharp in town. So, it was exactly a 2 hour set. Not just the trains run on time here, even concerts do. By this time, over 8000 people were standing on the hill in preparation. Mary made friends with a young man who was there with his dad. The crowd was a nice mix of people but mostly skewed to our age group. Another guy next to us was a huge, burly German biker there with friends. During Knopfler's signature song, "Brothers in Arms," this big man just started weeping while a girlfriend hugged him. We would have loved to know that story.

After many unprompted sing-alongs, the concert ended (on time) and the crowd walked down the hill to, what else, but a festival going on in the city below. Since I was driving back home that evening, we decided not to visit the festival and headed back to Wiesbaden. The autobahn was now dry and mostly empty, so I got a chance to open up to 200km/h (about 125 mph) for a short distance. Of course, I was passed!

It was a really good day. And we were able to achieve one of our goals - to experience and outdoor concert in Europe by one of our favorite musicians. At a castle no less. Priceless.

24 Hours with Good Friends

Just a few days after our Colorado boys took off for home, we were back at the Real Frankfurt train station to pickup our old friends from Chicago, Dan and Linda McCarthy. They had just finished a tour of Bavaria including seeing the Passion Play in Oberammergau. We were excited they carved out 2 days with us before heading back home. The timing was great - Germany was playing in the 3rd place match for the World Cup.

And, true to form, there was a festival in our Rhein River suburb of Wiesbaden-Schierstein. This festival is on a harbor off the Rhein and featured dragon-boat racing (what we know as crewing) and the usual mix of beer, brats, weiss-wine and a pastry called kuchen.

It was terribly hot all weekend - in the upper 90s with humidity. But, the beer tasted good (we held off til noon). Dan and Pete have known each other since they were 4, so we had a lot of catching up and stories to tell and retell. Mary and Linda have heard them too many times.


We all sampled the 1/2 meter Thuringer Wurst - very similar to bratwurst but spicier. Also had spaetzle mit sauerkraut, and Pete's favorite - CurryWurst.


We then took off for the scenic and authentic German Rhein town of Rudesheim.
The drive follows along the Rhein with vineyards lining the south-facing slopes and soaking up the ample sun. It was really hot!! As you can see, we mainly stayed in the shady spots of Rudesheim. Before we knew it, our friends had to fly back to Munich to catch their Monday flight to Chicago. 24 hours later, we bid them farewell in Frankfurt. On our way back to Wiesbaden, we realized how many new memories can be made in a short 24 hours.
Tschus!

World Cup Fever in Deutschland !!

The World Cup is in motion and there is no better place to be than in Europe for this event. Every bar and cafe has a big screen projector or LCD on a pole in the outdoor area. We had the chance to view the Germany vs Argentina match last night in a tent full of singing, screaming DE fans. Who ever thought soccer could be this exciting... the crowd would boo every time there was a shot of the Argentina coach... why? because when he played for Argentina many years ago, he scored a goal that took Germany out of the cup. Old memories die hard.


Our good friends from Boulder sent Sam and Ben, just fresh out of high school, for their trip of a lifetime to Europe. They made it to Wiesbaden just in time for the match. The night before, we got a call from Sam who said they just arrived in Frankfurt at the train station (hauptbahnhof) and there were no more trains to Wiesbaden. This was about 11:30pm so I said, no problem, I would drive down to pick them up... Frankfurt is only a half hour drive away. I forgot my phone, but no matter, the boys had no cell phone anyway, so all they could do was call our home phone from a pay phone. So... after 3 hours of searching all 4 train stations in Frankfurt, and many calls to Mary at headquarters from both parties trying to triangulate our maps... the boys came to a sudden realization at 4am: we are in Frankfurt a. d. Oder, on the Polish border with Germany. They took the first train from Berlin that said Frankfurt, but not "Au Main." Who knew there are 2 Frankfurt's in Germany!

Saturday, we picked them up at the train station an hour before the big match. They were pumped...in Germany during the world cup to watch their newly-adopted home team (and ours) with other Germans. The place was packed and it was about 95 degrees inside and out. Germany scored early and the place erupted. After each next goal, there was singing, flag waving, hugs and more beer.

After the 4-nill drubbing of Argentina (and repeated booing of their coach), the party spilled into Wilhelmstrasse and the singing continued. Guys with bullhorns would whip the crowd into a frenzy with chants and shout-backs.




The crowd would crouch down low, then spring up and shout! Absolute gibberish to us but we shouted right along with them. After awhile the buses were trapped on the street so that gave a good pulpit for the bullhorn speakers.



We are excited for Wednesday night semifinals ... Germany is pumped! Hans and Franz "want to pump - you - up!!" Down with the WALL.

WilhelmstrasseFest mit Pete

Just on the heels of Kranzplatzfest comes Wiesbaden's historic WilhelmstrasseFest on the Michigan Avenue of town. This is the oldest street festival in Germany. It has all the earmarks of a German Festival: local beer and wine tents, meat-on-a-stick, wurst of all types, pommes frites, and about 5 stages for music.


During the day, it has more of a family and kids theme. Stages are for young performers and dancers. There are artist booths all around the Kur House. As is typical, Germans show up for these things - everybody - all ages. No one brings a cooler. Everyone puts down a 2 euro deposit on a glass from their favorite beverage vendor and you don't see any bottles or plastic cups littering the streets.


A lot of time an effort goes into the Erdbeerbowle drinks. Erdbeer are strawberries and the Erdbeerbowle is a mixture of strawberries in a punch of German white wine, sparkling wine and lemons. These are extremely popular judging from the sheer amount of booths devoted to these drinks. Ok, I didn't see too many guys drinking these so I wussed out, I can't tell you if they're any good.

The music was a great mixture of all eras. I found myself by a stage with 4 fifty-something guys doing 60s music... and surprisingly well. Check out the balding heads in front of me....

Their song choices really reflect a love of early english and american rock and roll. I have heard more Byrd's covers in the last few months than I have heard in my lifetime.

And Dylan is held in high esteem here. You can hear "Knockin on Heaven's Door" from just about every band whether jazz, rock cover band, folkies, or even 80's bands. How about the dress code? I'm still not quite used to it. T-shirts and shorts are not the usual. You'll be glad to know that, unlike this guy, I don't have Capris yet.



Another thing that is constantly surprising... no matter how much beer and wine and Jag shots are ingested, you never see stumbling or beligerent drunks (myself included of course).



This was a particularly busy booth and tent...they were flying the Bavarian flag so they had traditional southern German food and beer. And BIG beers like you see in the Hofbrau House.



And, it didn't hurt that the waiters were dressed appropriately.
So, we'll have to wait now for the the July 4th Rudesheim Festival with lit ups castles and fireworks. It my just be a coincidence but it looks like we'll celebrate America's freedom here too.

Tschuss!