You want more Christmas Markets? We'll give you more Christmas Markets!

So we had our first "real" visitor this past week; long term readers (from our tour in Italy) will remember the wife's friend Nancy, who came to visit us in Rome. She made the trek to come see us in Frankfurt as well. She flew in last Thursday.

The wife had to work Thursday and Friday, so I went to the airport to pick Nancy up by myself. I'd given her the layout of the airport and what steps she'd have to go through... and then she landed at the other terminal, so all of my instructions were completely worthless. I was able to figure out where she would be coming out of the secure area and met her as she came out of customs.

We came home and lounged around the house for a few hours (until the wife got off), then we went down and met the boss at her office to head down to the local Christmas markets. Frankfurt's got several Christmas markets; we explored most of them. Glühwein, dinner, munchies... there's a specific booth that we found last year that makes a pasta that the wife likes. They take the pasta and load it up with whatever you want, then mix it all up in a giant wheel of (I think) pecorino, so every time we make it down to the Frankfurt market, she likes to get some.

Friday morning, Nancy and I hung out around the house, made a quick trip to Selgros (our local version of Costco) and Globus (kinda like our version of Walmart). The wife got off and we spent the evening hanging around the house, having a meal of cheese and crackers.

Saturday we left for Munich. My folks had flown into Zurich (or another city in Switzerland - not sure which one) and were taking a train to Munich for a river cruise, so we planned on meeting them there. They're taking the cruise with some long term friends of the family, Mike & Susan Shaw (think 40ish years). We checked into our hotel and took the metro down to meet up with them. They had some issues with the train, and ended up getting into Munich a couple of hours late. We met up with the Shaws at the train station and met my folks' train. We all schlepped their luggage over to their hotel a couple of blocks away - say what you'd like about my mother, but for a 22 day European safari, that woman doesn't pack light.

Mike's been to Munich a few times over the years, so he knows the city pretty well. He knew the best restaurants, so we ate and explored the markets.

Here's my mom & Susan Shaw, posing in a sleigh:

Sunday morning, I headed over and met my folks and the Shaws for breakfast. We wandered around the markets for a little while, but the markets weren't immediately open, so it was a little nice not having to deal with the crowds (even though we couldn't buy anything yet). Nancy and the wife took the metro a little later and met up with us shortly after the markets opened. We hung out and wandered around all day long, and split off from the rest of the group early afternoon to head back to our hotel.

We took a break and warmed up, then found directions to another Christmas market closer to us; most of the markets are in the downtown area but the boss found one that's in a place called the "English Garden." There's a 1400 acre park in Munich, and they set up a Christmas market there. A few of the nice things about it: it's more traditional, it's not nearly as crowded as the ones downtown, and there weren't nearly as many tourists. Matter of fact, let's forget I talked about it at all. You'll see a couple of other Christmas market pics later, but here's one of the crowd from this market for comparison:

Here's a pic of the horse-drawn wagon that was circling the market (a little blurry - sorry!):

The English Garden is also famous as one of the most well known river surfing places in the world, including during the winter months. Unfortunately, it was too dark by the time we found our way to the park, so we didn't bother going to the two spots where they surf. I'm pretty sure that they were out surfing during the day, but wasn't willing to wander around in the pitch black looking for these two specific spots on the river without knowing exactly where I was going.

My folks are coming to visit us after their river cruise, and we'd offered to bring any stuff they were through with to our place, so I went to their hotel straight from the park to pick up an extra suitcase that they wouldn't need until they got to us. The girls took a bus back to our hotel instead, and I took the metro from downtown afterward.

Next morning we got up and did breakfast then hit the road to Salzburg, which has become one of our favorite cities. On the way into town we were planning on stopping for lunch at the Stiegl Brewery, but it was still a little early. We passed the Red Bull Hangar 7 museum on our way into town, so we decided to burn some time there first. You might have read about it in the entry covering Palmer's visit:

Nancy asked that I pass this along (but I have no personal information about it - you'll have to ask her): The bathrooms at Hanger 7 are the best bathrooms in Europe. There. I passed it along. Don't know what it means, but she specifically asked that I post about them.

We had lunch at Stiegl, then headed downtown to visit the town and the Christmas markets. Afterward, we checked into the hotel to get off of our feet and warm up a bit. We came back down and drove over to the Augustiner Beerhall for dinner, then the boss wanted to take a picture of the town (all lit up) from one of the bridges. 

Next morning, we had breakfast then planned to hit the road. Driving between Salzburg and Frankfurt only takes about 5 hours, so we'd planned to hit the Christmas markets in Nuremburg on our way, but if we hit the road immediately we'd get there before the markets opened, so we decided to find something to do to waste some time first.

On the hill above Salzburg, there's a massive fortress that looks down on the town. We decided to visit it while we were "wasting time." Construction on the fortress started in the year 1077. There's a funicular that takes you from the level of the town up to the fortress (and back), but in researching this post, turns out there's another funicular that accesses the fortress as well, and sources suggest that this second funicular might very well be the oldest railway in the world, as it dates back to around 1495.

The tour suggested that Emperor Franz Joseph (one of the members of the Habsburg dynasty, from our previous entries for Vienna and Prague) might have had something to do with the fortress, but I haven't been able to figure it out with my basic googling; I did find out that he was the one who opened the fortress to visitors back in 1860. Franz Joseph was uncle to Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination kicked off World War I. A couple of other "interesting" things my googling found...

1. The castle has only been attacked one time, in 1525... by the townspeople of Salzburg, who were unhappy with the archbishop. Somehow, the fortress survived.
2. The fortress has its own coat of arms: a lion holding a turnip. I can't tell if the lion has opposable thumbs or not, but it's not like thumbs could make the crest any more odd.

(the funicular, from the bottom looking up)

After we were done we drove to Nuremburg for the Christmas markets there. Nuremburg is known for having one of the most extensive Christmas markets in Germany; we ended up parking in a different place than normal, so we didn't walk in the usual way (through the entire market). We did manage to find it though, and wandered around until one of us got tired of dealing with the crowds. At that point, I went back to the car and volunteered to drive back and pick the girls up when they were done. The boss eventually texted me an address, and I drove into town to get them.

The drive home was only a couple of hours, but seemed to take forever, for some reason.

We got a late start on Wednesday, but eventually headed for Rüdesheim. It's one of our favorite little tourist towns. Nancy wanted to ride the gondola up to see the statue of Germania and the views of the Rhine river, so we headed up there. Spent a little while up there and headed back down. Shopped in the little stores and had a snack in the food stalls.

Next up were the Christmas markets at Wiesbaden. We were going to need to get gas by the end of the day, so I dropped the girls off a few blocks from there and headed over to the military base to fill up the tank, then headed back over and met back up with them. We walked around for a few minutes, then went down into the Ratskeller to have dinner. When you come visit, we'll go there - it's the boss's favorite place to eat.

Afterward, we headed back out for more Christmas markets.

I have a confession, dear readers (all 2 of you!) - I wimped out the next day. The girls headed up to Cologne for (yet more) Christmas markets, and I sat around the house doing laundry instead. Just too much time with too many people around. Cologne is about a two hour drive, so they drove up mid morning (left around 9), and got home around 9 that night. You'll have to ask them about Cologne. Evidently, they went to the Cathedral, the Chocolate Museum, and the cologne store, in addition to 3 different Christmas markets, including a gnome themed one - I think you'll see a pic of that one toward the bottom of the post.

Nancy left the next afternoon. Since parking is so tight at Terminal 1, I dropped the girls off and drove over to a nearby gas station to wait, then went back and picked the wife up.

A few random pics, not sure where some of them are from, but wanted to make sure that y'all saw them all:

That's all for this trip, but I'll post another entry once my folks leave!

Quick weekend in Amsterdam...

We were originally planning on a trip to The Hague this week, so we decided to add on a few days ahead of time and head to Amsterdam for a long weekend. Then the trip to The Hague fell through, but we decided to do the Amsterdam portion anyway.

First question: How to get there? If we were going to The Hague, we'd drive - just easier that way. Without going to The Hague this week though... we could drive, we could fly (bigger pain in the butt than it's worth), we could take the train, or we could take the bus (which the wife and daughter enjoyed so much last time).

I didn't bother checking flight prices.

A train would be ~€350 (~$380) for both of us, round trip. Let's see what else is out there.

Driving, it'd be about 300 miles, and gas is right around €1.80 per liter - let's convert that, shall we? Euros to dollars, liters to gallons... carry the one, light a candle, say a quick prayer to the gods of floating currency exchange rates... about $7.40/gallon (assuming I did the math correctly), 20(ish) miles per gallon, so... about $110 in gas, and a 5 hour drive.

Bus would be ~€100 (~$108) for both of us, round trip. About a 7 hour bus ride.

So... driving or taking the bus would be about the same cost, with the bus taking about 2 hours longer (not counting getting to the main station from the house)... but with the bonus of both of us just being able to sit back and "enjoy" it. That sounds pretty good to me, time to start working on the wife. 

Wonder of wonders (mostly to get me to shut up, I think), she finally acquiesced. 

We left late Friday morning and walked to the local subway station, and took it down to the main station in Frankfurt.

The ride there was uneventful from my perspective, but the boss didn't have the best trip, mostly due to a miscommunication. Our bus on the way there departed at 1:00pm for an 8:00pm arrival. Our return trip was a little earlier, 10:00am to 5:00pm. Somehow the 5:00pm number got stuck in her head, so on the trip there, she asked how much longer we had, and I gave her the remaining time until 8:00pm. She was mentally prepped to be on the bus until 5:00pm, so when I added on 3 hours out of nowhere, it made the trip seem even longer for her. Also, for one or two legs of the trip, there was a crying baby a few rows back. By the end of the journey, she was questioning all of the life choices she'd made to put her in that situation. I, on the other hand, had my headphones on and watched a few episodes of a show. Didn't even hear the baby. Or the three fellows loudly speaking in another language. I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. The boss, not so much.

Amsterdam has an absolutely superb transit system (which we'll talk about a few times a little later), but we didn't feel like dealing with it (the wife was pretty much over it at this point), so we just took an Uber to the hotel.

When we got to the hotel, the lobby was completely full, fifteen people waiting in line. Rather than waiting in line, we checked in online via the app and sat in front of the fireplace until the online check-in processed. When the line died down, she went up to the desk; turns out with the weather issues going on in other parts of Europe, multiple flights had been cancelled, and the airlines hadn't booked enough rooms for all their stranded passengers... so all of those folks had just hopped on a random hotel shuttle from the airport hoping to get rooms. Spoiler alert: they didn't.

We did. Not sure how it worked out this way, but we ended up with an upgrade to a "Penthouse Room" on the top floor, with a king sized bed and a balcony. Sometimes there's a glitch in the matrix and a blind squirrel really does find a nut.

Sometimes the showers in our hotels haven't been worth talking about; this one definitely merits a quick mention. I've discussed my favorite hotel shower in the past (the luxurious triple headed thunder dome at the Hilton in The Hague), this one was the second best shower I've encountered over here. Well sealed shower enclosure, tons of pressure, lots of hot water... come to think of it, my number one and two showers were both in upgraded rooms. Perhaps that's a pattern that needs more investigation. I'll report back to the class when I have more data. At our upgraded suite for our first visit to Salzburg, the shower didn't make that much of an impression on me, so perhaps it's just luck of the draw. I guess we'll have to stay in some more high end rooms to get a larger sample size. I'll talk with the boss about that.

After breakfast Saturday morning, we headed out. Our hotel was a couple of blocks down from an R-Net station... I need to break off and talk about the transit system in The Netherlands (with that pesky CaPiTaLiZeD THE) for a moment.

All of the transit systems in The Netherlands use a card. You can buy a rechargeable card, or just use a credit card. You scan your card when you enter the system (get on the bus, enter the metro station, etc.) and then scan when you leave the system (exit the bus, etc.) and it decrements the amount on your transit card or charges your credit card. With our frequent trips to The Hague, we got some of the transit cards that we recharge occasionally and just keep them with us - makes getting around over there much easier! Those same cards work on all of the transit systems in all of the cities, so having them this visit to Amsterdam made transit much easier this time around (we hadn't gotten the cards yet last time, so we just used our credit cards).

Now, Amsterdam's transit system in particular. Amsterdam has trains which connect to other cities, subway lines which travel throughout the city, trams and buses which navigate some of the more major streets within the city... and then they've got something cool called "R-Net." They're normal buses, but for some of the route they travel on dedicated streets which run (sometimes) next to main streets. They have long sections of elevated roadway specifically for the R-Net system, dedicated tunnels... but the buses jump over into regular traffic for parts of the routes too. One of the coolest transit systems I've seen. Last time we visited Amsterdam, we caught a specific bus on the R-Net system (#300, if you're wondering) on an elevated platform about a quarter mile from our hotel.

This time around, we were about 5 miles (as the R-Net drives) from where we stayed last time, and it was on the same line (the aforementioned #300). The R-Net stop was about a quarter mile away from our hotel, across the main highway. Fortunately, there was a dedicated underpass for pedestrians and bicycles. Unfortunately, it had been wet, and the temp had been hovering around freezing for a few days. The boss discovered a patch of ice... she discovered it with her butt though, because her eyes evidently didn't catch it as she approached. No damage to anything but her pride, thankfully.

So we got to the bus stop and waited for our friend, the #300. We got on a few minutes later, and misremembered where exactly that bus would be taking us. We ended up riding it to the end, a major subway station a ways out of town. We took a subway train back into town, and promised each other that we'd look up our route next time, rather than just assuming.

We had tickets for something later - we'll get there, hold your horses! - so we had to burn a little bit of time. I got my "spidey-sense" reoriented and we wandered in the right general direction. In our travels throughout the city, we passed a mall that we hadn't had a chance to visit last time we were here, and y'all know my affinity for malls, right? So we went in, expecting... I don't know, possibly some stores? There were "some" stores. I think the absolute minimum number of stores that you could have and still be considered "some," rather than "a couple." I think there were 3 stores. One of them was a cheese store. Oh, cheese stores. Let's talk about those for a second!

We have a cheese store that we visit every time we're in The Hague, it's part of our routine. They have over 30 locations across Europe (including one here in Frankfurt). Amsterdam, though... they've got some cheese stores. I think there are 13 stores from this one company across Amsterdam. We saw 6 of them during the time that we were there. One of them was in that mall.

While wandering, we found a little cafe on a canal and had some gluhwein. We didn't get to keep those mugs though. They were just plain glass mugs. Eh.

Our ticketed time was coming up, so we headed over to... the Anne Frank Museum. 

Everybody has heard the story of Anne Frank, so I won't turn this into a history lesson. I will say though - if you're ever in Amsterdam, do yourself a favor and go through the museum. We paid an additional €7.00 each for an introductory program that I'd highly recommend. One of the docents from the museum takes your group back into one of the classroom areas and gives about a 30 minute talk, giving a good overview of The Netherlands during World War II, why the Jewish people flocked to The Netherlands as war approached, and the plight of the Jewish people in The Netherlands during the war. Then she focused on the Frank family, the people who were in hiding with them, and the people who helped them stay hidden for over 2 years. After covering the story, she took some questions, then led us out to the museum itself.

Buildings in Amsterdam were historically taxed by their width, which explains why most of the buildings you see are so narrow. The spice factory where the Frank family hid was no different. The building is no more than about 20 feet wide, but 4 stories high, and quite deep. The offices and factory were in the portion of the building toward the canal/street, and in the bottom 2 floors of the back half. The hidden apartment was only reachable via an opening behind a bookcase on the second floor (third floor for us Yanks). The apartment is around 450 square feet total. That's the equivalent of about a 21 x 21 room. For 8 people. For 2 years.

The tour through the factory had an audio guide where you'd hold your guide up to a plaque on the wall, and the audio would tell you about that room or picture. At the point where you entered the hidden apartment, the audio guide stopped, which I think was a good idea, honestly. The silence had more impact than an audio guide could have.

All of their possessions were removed from the apartment, and Otto Frank (the only one who lived through the war) didn't want anything else put in there, so all of the rooms are empty. The only things remaining from their time in the apartment are cut out pictures from magazines (that I haven't been able to verify, but we believe are the original items), and a couple of maps that they used to track the movements of allied soldiers in their efforts to defeat the Germans. All of the pictures on the walls of the apartment are covered by plexiglas, and the boss and I agree that to the best of our knowledge, they're the original items... but I've been unable to confirm that (just to be 100% honest with y'all!).

Quite a sobering place. Normally, I don't get too into the normal tourist spots (I tend to go more for quirky places like Pig Museums), but I'd highly recommend the intro and tour if you ever have the opportunity.

Afterward, we wandered around for a while. The wife had heard about an "Amsterdam Light Festival" canal tour, and decided she wanted to do it. We wandered over to the main harbor area, but the area where the boats left from was an absolute madhouse, so we figured we'd buy tickets online for the next evening.

We hadn't purchased any cheese at any of the myriad shops that we'd passed (because we didn't want to carry it through the museum), so we got a bite to eat at a local restaurant then visited a couple of cheese shops to sample (and buy) some of the current flavors.

We walked to the central station and took the subway to a major station closer to our hotel, then boarded our trusty #300 steed. As we got off the bus, we heard some pretty loud explosions nearby... as we started toward the hotel, a group of "kids" (early 20's, by the looks of them) were setting off fireworks on the walking path that led underneath the main roadway. Luckily, they stopped as we approached, but by the time we got halfway under the main road, they'd started up again. Oddly enough, once we got back to the hotel we didn't hear them again, but I don't know if they just got tired of being jackasses, or if the people in the nearby houses called the police.

Sunday after breakfast, we walked to the bus station and bused into town. The wife wanted to check out one of the big museums (the Rijksmuseum) so we got off there. It's in the same area as the van Gogh museum that we went to last time we were there.

One of the buses we rode, we saw the cutest little girl, probably around 4 years old, riding the bus with her dad. She was singing "Wheels on the Bus" in Dutch.

Being a foreigner in all these countries we have visited has helped me develop a healthy respect for foreign languages; while Dutch is linguistically quite similar to German, the tone used by most native speakers of Dutch unfortunately makes their language sound to me like the gibberish used by the Swedish Chef on the Muppets.

Now, picture an adorable 4 year old girl using that language to the tune of "Wheels on the bus." You may or may not find yourself amused, but I had a hard time not giggling good naturedly at her. 

While we've been over here, the wife has developed an affinity for Vincent van Gogh, so we have to check major museums in every city to see if there are any of his works there. In Amsterdam there's a dedicated van Gogh museum that we visited last time we were there. She thought there might be some works of his at the main museum in town, so of course we had to go there as well.

There was a line to go in, and we were able to figure out while waiting that tickets had to be bought online. We stepped out of line and visited their web site, bought tickets, then got back into line. We went in and got our audio guides and headed in the direction of one of the wings.  We started wandering through, then I turned around and my wife had disappeared. A few minutes later, I got a text from her that she'd meet me at the info desk in an hour and a half.

That's right, my loving and devoted wife dragged me into an art museum and ditched me.

She told me later that she had a list of things that she wanted to see, and since we only had a limited amount of time she figured it'd make more sense if she just took off on her own. Sounds really "loving and devoted," right?

I wandered around on my own for a while, encountered Rembrandt's The Night Watch and a bunch of other old paintings.

As an aside, I find it interesting how artists are popularly addressed:

• Vincent van Gogh: van Gogh
• Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (literally "Leonardo, son of ser Piero from Vinci", because there must have been several other guys named Leonardo, son of ser Piero): Leonardo da Vinci (because those other Leonardo, son of ser Piero guys didn't end up amounting to much)
• Claude Monet: Monet
• M.C. Escher: Escher
• Gustav Klimt: Klimt
• Johannes Vermeer: Vermeer
• Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn: Rembrandt

At the appointed time, the wife showed up at the info desk and selected me from the crowd of significant others patiently waiting, like a Lost & Found for the uncultured. I guess I should consider myself lucky that she picked me, rather than one of the others waiting - she could have traded up instead!

We had tickets for a tour of the Heineken building, so we walked over there next. Our tickets were for "The Heineken Experience," which is basically a tour of their old beer making facility - all of the grain silos, still room, etc. There are portions of it which are guided by one of their employees, and portions which are self guided. You listen to info given by one of the guides, then wander off further into the building. After going through a couple more areas, you'll find another employee spouting off random information. Then more self-guided stuff. Well done, informative displays... honestly, we've been through a few brewery tours and this point, and... this was a brewery tour.

One fun thing: the day before our tour, I got an email from them which included the following video (which we really liked!)

After our tour, we had tickets for the "Rooftop Experience," which is an exclusive little bar that they've got on top of the building. As you saw in the video (you DID watch it, right?!?!?) it was in the mid forties while we were there, so we didn't spend a lot of time outside, just walked out to see the view, and then went back in to the bar area. They had 4 different "mocktails" made with Heineken... well, 3 different "mocktails" made with Heineken and 1 made with alcohol free Heineken, so I guess a "mock-mocktail?"

I looked up places to eat nearby (as the boss had been drinking on an empty stomach and was a little giggly for a while), so we went to a nearby restaurant.

You remember that "Light Festival" I told you about earlier? She had talked me into buying tickets online for it, so we walked across town and arrived just in time for our boarding. She hadn't heard anything about the festival except for the name, so she assumed that the "Light" portion of the name referred to Christmas lights (what with Christmas rapidly approaching and all). That wouldn't have been too bad.

Instead, we were crammed into an overloaded tour boat for a 90 minute (!) tour of a modern art installation. At several points throughout the city (I can't be bothered to check how many, but it was probably close to 20), there were AI generated artistic light installations, usually with faceless glowing white figures standing in random positions. The captain has several interesting little Amsterdam facts he shared with us, but mostly it was a computer generated voice telling us about how we (as a society) have let technology take over our lives, while seeing installations on the sides of random canals... like a featureless white face press its way out of a featureless white rectangle that's supposed to signify a cell phone screen.

 I'm not the biggest fan of "this is art because I say it's art," so I didn't enjoy it much. It was too hot (with way too many people crammed into the boat), and way too loud - it seemed like people were shouting to be heard over the running soundtrack, so you couldn't even hear the TikTok voice telling you all the random interpretive BS about the art installations. One of the girls sitting across the table from us was intent on getting video of all of the installations, so she'd frequently open the window, which would then spatter us with snowflakes. Not harmful in any way, but I was already a little annoyed, and she didn't help matters much. 0/10, would not recommend. We took the metro and bus (the trusty #300 again) back to the hotel.

Monday morning, we took an Uber to the bus station (so we didn't have to drag the luggage down the side of the road).

The bus ride was mostly uneventful, but we drove through a bit of a snowstorm, and all the roads were a little slushy. For most of the time from Cologne to Frankfurt (normally 2 hours), we were in thick traffic, and I was extremely glad that we'd left the driving to someone else. It took closer to three and a half hours to get home, and sitting in traffic that long would have driven me crazy if I was the driver. This way, neither of us had to deal with it. We took the subway home from the main train station and walked home in the snow from our local subway station.

You may have noticed a dearth of pics in this post... the boss sent me a handful of pics but... they were just of things around town. Here are a couple of them, just so I can say I included some:

So, that's it for now, but we'll have another entry within the next week or so!