Kranzplatzfest

Over the 3 day holiday that is Pentecost, our little park called Kranzplatz is turned into a festival location. As you can see from the pictures, it is well-attended. As with most festivals in Germany, there are big trailers for dispensing local biers and Weiss wine. They literally pop up a bar on wheels. The cool thing is that the drinks are served in real glasses. You simply pay a deposit for your glass and keep refilling at the same booth.


The event seems to have a throwback theme... bands do all english music covers from all eras. There are 2 stages with music appealing to a wide audience. People just plain show up at these festivals - and they show up EVERY night!

There are booths selling all types of beads, jewelry and even LPs!


This cook does not compromise her stylish dress just because she's serving up Wurst!


Germany's festival culture is well-honed from year's of experience. You see the same vendors, wine carts, beer carts coming to all these festivals.

Even the Apfel Wein barrel somehow can hold 2 people inside to dispense Bavarian apple wine.


The food is awesome... some Indian, some traditional german pork sandwiches, flammkuchen, chinese. These women are serving up some pork meat with onions on a bun, and fish sandwiches.


This park is also home to one of the many hot springs in Wiesbaden - you can see the fountain where the steam is coming from.


Sooo, gotta go back Sunday nite with our friends for another round - I haven't tried all the food yet.

Tschus!

I'm Baaaackkk

It's just me, Pete. After joining Mary back in the USA, she is staying to complete her 30+ year at Medary Acres Greenhouse until about mid June. I will head back there to join her shortly. So, now that I'm back in Germany, I better start blogging. Start with a short one...

Just tonight, I was headed into town to watch the Germany/Swiss Hockey WORLD Championships (Germany beat USA a few weeks ago and I have not heard the end of it). As I was trying to find a parking space, I turned a corner and there was a crowd surrounded by a bunch of beer-branded patio umbrellas. Yes, another festival ! This one is called KranzPlatzFest... presumably named after the plat or park it's held at. 2 music stages, beer and wine tents, Wurst mit brot stands. These people know festivals. I think this has something to do with the 3-day holiday in Europe - Monday is Whit Monday or Pentecost. Good enough reason to have a festival starting on Thursday and ending Monday night.

Woohoo... will get pictures over the weekend and share. Oh, and Germany is leading Swiss 1-0 after the 2nd period. Not one fight and awesome skating.
Tschus!

Spring has sprung in Kurpark

OMG!! Kurpark is absolutely beautiful! As I took my daily walk this morning, I thought I should share the park once again with you to show off the new life and colors. Everyone seemed to be out to walk, run, bike, sit on benches or blankets, drink beer and wine at the garden cafe, just enjoying the colors.

The Magnolia trees are my favorite... the colors of white and pink are so creamy and pure. The pinks are truly a sight to be seen.


And "yellows" are everywhere...
.the Daffodils are open and welcoming everyone to the park along with the Forsythia's....

they are also in full bloom... we have some of these in our backyard.



On my way back through the park, I stood under this canopy of flowering almond branches just laden with blooms. >>>>>>



The willows and all the trees are just beginning to show that soft "Spring green" color.





Even the paddle boats and row boats are ready and waiting to be used. Emily and Katie can't wait to come back this summer and use the paddleboat. Of course there is talk of 1 paddle boat + $3 bottle of Rheingau wine = real German park experience.


Speaking of the real German park experience, this is the Kurpark Wine Garten where every Sunday afternoon beginning May 1st, live jazz bands perform. We hear from the locals that everyone from grandma's, grandpa's, newborns and dogs of all types will be out enjoying the music. Nice way to spend a Sunday.



Hope you enjoyed the botanical tour of Kurpark. This will be my last post for awhile as I am heading back home to South Dakota for about 10 weeks to work at Medary Acres Greenhouse once again. Pete will keep you posted with his adventures.

For now, Tschus!!

Easter in Milano - Lake Como

Pete's birthday on Easter Sunday gave us an excuse to travel. In Europe, it's a 4-day holiday weekend over Easter so we took advice of friends who have been to Lake Como and took off. It's only a 1-hour flight from here to Milan! We went with some new American friends we met at the Easter festival a few weeks ago in Wiesbaden. After arriving in Milan, we took a short bus ride to the Milan Centrale station where we caught a train to Varenna, a little town on Lake Como. The picture says it all... wow was about all we said for the entire first day there. It was a beautiful sunny spring day on Friday so we took the ferry to see the other little towns surrounding the lake. Bellagio is one of the most famous towns. George Clooney lives nearby - there are plenty of sightings but none by us.

However, there was plenty of wine sampled and the day itself was so amazing, we had a hard time putting down the camera. Everywhere you turn is another interesting shot. The town of Varenna like most of the towns is built on the side of a mountain, so all roads lead down to the lake. The lake is really long and narrow so the only way to get across is to take a ferry. So that was the drill... take a ferry, stop at a cafe, drink wine, eat something, move on....



On Easter, we asked our hotelier at Albergo Milano if the local church was Catholic. She said "of course, in Italy we only chose one religion." So we went to the local church where we enjoyed an all Italian mass (except for some Latin that Pete remembered from altar boy days).

We unfortunately needed to check out and head for the train back to Milan. Just outside the train station we had booked sight unseen rooms at the Michelangelo Hotel. Turned out to be a fantastic location, a bargain and with beautiful rooms. We highly recommend it. This helped since it continued to rain on Sunday during our sightseeing.


Everything starts and stops at the Duomo in Milan. Nearby is the earliest known covered mall from the late 1800s. The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele turned out to be a great place to spend some time under the rain-soaked glass roof. More wine and great food.....
Of course, on our departure day, the sun shone again giving us a great view of the Alps as we passed over on the way back to Germany.
Ciao!

No Direction Home

Sunday was a day of learning when to go with plan B. It was Palm Sunday, so we wanted to find the English-speaking catholic church which is about a half hour away. As we got ready, I (pete) picked up my phone only to discover the time had magically sprung ahead overnite. We actually missed the EU version of daylight savings time. No excuses, we talked about this the night before as we played scrabble with our american friends (after dinner at our new favorite(!) Italian restaurant in Wiesbaden). So... plan B. Let's go find the church anyway and go for a drive around the area to see where stuff is.

After finding and visiting the church, we were getting hungry and I remembered seeing this American sports bar in town. Since I have missed the entire final four so far, I thought maybe I could see some reruns. I walked in to see the most wonderful site - 4 TVs with a different game on each one. It turns out, they run the AFN - Armed Forces Network - in this bar and they get the entire CBS feed without commercials. OK, you do have to suffer through a few "be all you can be" infomercials. So, I got to see the Saturday region finals AND have an all-u-can-eat buffet... a true American Sunday afternoon.

None of this was on Plan A. We finally found our way home and did the usual Sunday afternoon reading and radio. And, since it was still so light outside, we went for a walk to see a forested area we had seen on our drive earlier in the day. About the time we got to the trailhead, it began to rain. Plan B. We finally found our direction home for good.

This weekend we are headed to Milan and Lake Como for a short Easter trip.
Tschus! and Ciao!

My Trek to Sacre-Coeur

Pete had business in Paris and Brussels last week so I hopped in the car to ride along with him. On Monday, he was at meetings all day so I looked our hotel window and there in the distance was this lovely site. It is the Basilique du Sacre-Coeur de Montmartre. I stopped at the hotel desk to get the best route for walking. As I left the hotel, I had more confidence than I had 6 weeks ago on my initial trip here.

The area we stayed is Gare De L'Est which is known as the French African area. My main route was down a busy Parisien street filled with bridal and tuxedo shops...one after another. It got a little sketchy in some areas (probably my anxiety coming out). But I didn't turn back and made it to this beautiful Montmartre "Hill of the Martyrs."


It is quite a climb up the hill but well worth it. The sight is spectacular with almost a 360 degree panoramic view of the city below. Of course, the ever-present Eiffel tower is always somewhere in view.


After spending some time in the church (where photos are verboten), I visited the Place du Tertre which was once the main square of the village of Montmartre and is now filled with cafe's and local artists selling their work on the spot.


When I got back to the hotel, Pete had just come back from his meetings. Soooo...it was such a nice evening, we trekked back to the Sacre Coeur with me as guide. I got a lot of nice hill climbing in that day. On our walk back to our hotel, we stopped at a cafe for dinner.
Au Revoir

Easter Festival

This weekend was the annual Easter Festival in Wiesbaden. Like all other festivals in this region, it was well-attended. There were music stages all around the city center, wine bars, beer stands, and wurst....all kinds of bratwurst.

The festival occurs 2 weeks prior to Easter every year. There are booths setup all along the old center from artisans and other vendors. We were walking by this stage, when we heard "Little Wing" coming from this amazing duo. At that point, we just sat down and found a Rheingau wine stube, bought 2 glasses (yes, real wine glasses that you use until you are done and return to the same stand). Now, this is the way to have a festival!

Easter bunnies were in abundance, all passing out chocolate easter eggs to the kids. Of course, Mary wondered why she wasn't offered any. But with a glass of wine in one hand....

We found a new street we hadn't even been through before. It looks like an Italian alley with open air restaurants.

Of course, kids were all over the place, and some were replaced in their buggies with sponge-bob's friend Patrick!

After a bit of rain on Saturday, it is looking beautiful today so we may head downtown for another round of festivarianism.
Tschus!