More Christmas Markets!

Our previous visitors headed home, and we had about a week to prepare for our next set. One of the wife's oldest friends (who also came last year, if you're keeping track at home) came for about a week to visit more Christmas Markets, and brought her friend Sharon. Last year, we ran her ragged trying to visit all of them (in our corner of the country), but we missed some... so she came back for more punishment and brought Sharon to spread the agony around.

They arrived on Saturday, and this time I remembered the sign! If you haven't seen the sign yet, let's just say it's mildly offensive, but I personally think it's quite funny. If you wanna know what it says, you'll have to come visit, and I'll be holding it when I pick you up.

I got them home, and we relaxed around the house for a couple of hours, then headed out. First stop was the grocery store, to pick up some random stuff. We came home and dropped off the groceries, then headed out to one of the local towns to check out their town markets. Bad Homburg was the last market that we took our previous visitors to - this is only our second year visiting this market, but it was our first visit at night. It looks a bit different at night, quite bucolic. One of the things that we really enjoy about this market is that while it seems to be quite popular, but it seems to be mostly locals, rather than tourists. Of all of the markets we've visited over here, this one seems to feel more "authentic."

Our initial plan was to go visit another market that night, but they'd already had a long day, and we had a pretty full day planned for the next day. We just came back to the house and called it a night.

Next morning, we packed up the car and headed to the Mosel Valley. On the way out, we had planned a stop in one of the little towns out there, Traben-Trarbach. We had previously discovered the town on our last trip out there, but this time around the family social coordinator had discovered that the Christmas Markets in this town are in their wine cellars. They're only open over the weekend, so driving out on Sunday afternoon, we'd be able to visit them.

If you're claustrophobic, or don't like crowds of people.... might want to skip it. There are 5 marked cellars around the town, and you buy a bracelet for €5 and you get access to all of them. You follow the map to find the cellars, show your armband, and head in... along with hundreds of other people. The booths are set up throughout the cellars, with about the same things you'd find in other Christmas Markets.

One thing the boss found that she couldn't live without was a... let's call it a "drunk Santa duck wine bottle holder." We compared it to the "dead armadillo beer bottle holder" that everyone's seen around Texas. So, now we've got a drunk Santa duck wine bottle holder.

Of the five markets, I went in three of them. I would have been fine with only two of them, but the third one that we visited broke me. Too many people in too small a space. Christmas Markets are crowded in general, but when the markets are only open 3 days a week and are that "unique," it's a recipe for way too many people. You'd have to ask the boss and Nancy - Sharon and I had given up on the cellars by then.

We wanted to stop for a quick drink before we left town, so we headed across the river (away from the crowds around the markets), and found a quiet coffee shop. We had coffee and tea there, and a couple of cookies, baked by the proprietor's husband. Tasty, and a cute little shop. She'd just opened the month before, and I'm looking forward to going back once she's been there a while. She recommended that we check out the town's actual Christmas Market - not the cellars set up for tourists. We walked a couple of blocks into the town, and found their market, tucked around behind one of the city buildings. Cute little market, quite tiny... as we walked in, there was a booth with llamas and alpacas. The booth was selling goods woven with llama and alpaca fur - I guess the animals were there to show that they had real animals... they weren't letting people pet them, they were just in there for our viewing pleasure (per Nancy). Sharon said that one of the alpacas gave her the hard sell, but she was able to resist. I can tell you with 100% confidence that we were the only Americans there that afternoon.

Nothing else was open (because... Sunday in Germany), so we headed to the castle to check in. Yep, we booked rooms in the castle. Our visitors were quite impressed with our accommodations... and because of our travel agent's status with Marriott, our room got upgraded to a "Junior Suite." It was nice - we had a separate sitting room, with windows looking out over the Mosel River. Quite a nice surprise for us.

I'm pretty sure this is the room that they put us in... shamelessly stolen from the hotel web site:

Stores are all closed in Germany on Sunday, but restaurants are open, so we headed over to the Italian place for a bite to eat.

I must take a quick break at this point to tell another pointless story: when we lived in Italy, we got to know one of Cori's friends parents. They ended up moving to Huntsville Alabama, and the girls got to spend a couple of weekends together once we all got back in the states. We'd seen from their Facebook updates that they'd been in Germany for a few days. Right after we left the town with the markets in the cellars, Megan posted that they were going into those markets. Our family social coordinator reached out, and turns out that they were staying in the next town downriver from our hotel! 

We told them where we were eating, and they drove over to join us. We all had dinner, our guests headed back to the hotel, and the wife, Jerry & Megan and I headed to their town to hang out at a wine bar... which turned out to be closed. We went to their Air B&B and sat around catching up - we hadn't seen them in a few years, so it was fun to sit & talk with them.

The next morning, we headed out, and drove to the Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial - just to take a break from Christmas Markets for a little while. I've written about this cemetery before, you'll have to read that entry if you want more information. It was a cold and blustery day, with a couple of lawn care guys out tending the grounds. Leaves had fallen all around, but the grounds were absolutely pristine. One of the guys was tending to General Patton's grave when we got there, individually vacuuming up leaves. While it may seem a bit silly, I was quite impressed by the amount of work that they'd obviously put into maintaining such a sacred place.

We drove into the city and parked in the same lot that we'd used when we visited last year, and explored the Christmas Markets in Luxembourg City. Here's where I might have bitten off more than I could chew. My mug collection expanded quite a bit... each of the last two years, I collected 20 mugs each year. This particular day, between Luxembourg City and our next stop... I picked up 8 mugs. Gah! What am I going to do with all of these mugs?!?!?

The markets of the city were quite picturesque, and we explored the city, sharing the "Most Beautiful Balcony in Europe" with our visitors. We hit up a couple of the markets, bought entirely too many glühwein mugs, and hit the road for Trier. 

We parked at the same lot we used last time we were visited Trier, and walked over to the pedestrian area. It was late in the afternoon, so we stepped into the cathedral, that way our visitors would get to see the inside of one of the oldest churches in Europe. Afterward, we explored two of the markets, and had dinner at a European burger chain next to the Black Gate.

Our trip back to the hotel was uneventful.... is how I wish this next part started. Sadly, that is not the case.

The Autobahn in Germany is amazing - on most of the highways, there are rest areas every 40 - 50 kilometers (25 - 30 "Freedom Units"). Unfortunately, on the particular highway that runs north from Trier, it's not a true "Autobahn," more of a local highway. Lieser (where the castle is located) is well off of that highway on a series of back roads climbing and diving into the Mosel Valley.

I've mentioned this before, but because of the wife's job, we are able to purchase a specific amount of gas each month without having to pay the exorbitant taxes on it... but only at a specific chain, and only in Germany. 

We had avoided getting gas in Luxembourg, since we wanted to save money on gas (and buy gas at that specific chain when we returned to Germany).

We had avoided getting gas in Trier as there weren't any stations of that brand in the city; also, there was an Esso station in a town nearby to the castle that closed at 9. We arrived at 8:30 to find the station abandoned. Our gas tank was getting quite low, and (due to the remote location of these towns) we were well off of the main road. We looked up the nearest gas station (of any brand) that was still open and headed in that direction. It happened to be a 24 hour station, so we knew it wouldn't be closed.

What we didn't take into account was that it was an automated station for trucks to fill up with. Diesel trucks. Our car doesn't take diesel. Three of the four of us started cursing at this point, while Nancy blissfully slept through the crisis. We were down to our last 20 (or so) miles remaining in the tank, about 15 miles away from Trier.

The last specific numbers I remember, I was heading toward a station back in the city that would be open for a couple more hours, 10 miles away, with around 12 miles showing as our range, based on the available fuel.

The boss was frantically scrolling around on the map looking for a closer station, and finally found one a little bit closer, so she handed her phone up to me to navigate with. As an aside, she uses German settings on her phone... with all of the maps and directions showing kilometers. Our car can't be switched over to kilometers. Cue me, converting numbers in my head, constantly comparing the remaining distance to the station to the remaining gas in the tank. Oh... one other thing: the magnet on the back of her phone won't stick to the hands free holder in the car, so I had to illegally hold the phone in one hand, switching my attention between the road, the tachometer, and the phone as I did my calculations. I kept the engine below 1500 RPM's for the rest of the trip, and actually made up some distance, with the remaining distance to the station going down faster than the remaining gas in the tank - I remain quite proud of that.

She eventually got the destination set on my phone, and we swapped phones back, so that I could navigate with mine, and just glance at it occasionally.

We made it to the station with less than 5 miles remaining in the tank, and immediately filled it up halfway - easily enough for our travels the next day. As we pulled into the station, Nancy woke up and sleepily asked how much further to the hotel.

We left the next morning and headed for Cologne. As soon as we got into the suburbs of Cologne, we stopped at that brand of station and filled the tank up the rest of the way, praising the gas gods whom we had cursed so soundly the evening before. Also, in the spirit of "strange vending machines in Germany," there was a fresh egg vending machine on the side of the building.

We parked at a garage near one of the Christmas Markets, and at dinner at one of the local restaurants we've enjoyed on previous trips, then headed for the cathedral. We didn't take the organized tour, the wife and I just passed along things that we'd learned in our previous visits.

Since I've written about the cathedral previously, I won't bother including a bunch of repetitious information... we did see something new though:

Last week... or maybe 2 weeks ago (it's all running together at this point), we were at the cathedral with Matt & Barb, and saw The Adoration of the Magi by Stefan Lochner in one of the smaller chapels built around the main church. It's what's called a triptych, three panels opened up like a science fair display. During Advent, the sides are closed up to display art on the back - then it's opened back up on Christmas to show the three kings visiting the birth scene. Luckily for y'all, the family art historian remembered all that - if y'all had left it up to me, you'd never hear about it again! That's yet another reason I simply can't be left in charge.

After wandering through the cathedral, we headed over to the chocolate museum. At the Chocolate Museum, while our visitors were in the museum, we waited in a short line at the fondue restaurant in the lobby. According to their web site, they close at 6, and it was a little before 4:30 when we got in line. After being studiously ignored, both of the parties in front of us eventually gave up and left. We ended up giving up as well, despite there still being over an hour before they closed. That's gonna go into their Yelp review.

We stopped at a couple of markets in town afterward (including the World Famous Gnome Market), and in an attempt to eat a little healthier, we had Belgian Waffles from a market stall for dinner. Mine only had powdered sugar on it, while our guests worked on their fruit consumption with one having cherries, and the other having applesauce. We then headed back down the (real) Autobahn, and arrived home around 9:00.

The next morning, we got a bit of a slow start, since we were all recovering from the last couple of days. We headed out to the local markets in the late morning - in hopes of being well clear by the time the markets started getting busy. We parked in the same mall parking lot we always use, and walked toward the classic market. Our first stop was Kleinmarkthalle, the permanent farmer's market in Frankfurt. If you haven't heard of it... you must not have been paying attention to this blog, because I've mentioned it before! If you watch any kind of vlog (Rick Steves, etc.) on Frankfurt, every one of them mentions Kleinmarkthalle as one of the places to visit. It's basically an indoor market where the locals shop for fruits, veggies, meats and fish. Since it was early afternoon, it wasn't too nuts in there, but it's a good taste of what it's normally like in Frankfurt (instead of just seeing the rush of Christmas Markets).

Afterward, we headed out to the markets, wandering through all of the different markets as we went. Couple of glasses of glühwein here and there, and it was an okay day at the markets. We all had different things to eat - as one does at these markets!

We've gone downtown enough times that I typically don't need a GPS to get to or from there... until there's construction, and my normal route is closed. We ended up taking a different way home, and got caught in rush hour traffic on the "ring road" around the city. Took close to an hour to get home, instead of 20 minutes my normal way.

We stopped at the grocery store on the way into town and got stuff for dinner; as a little treat for our guests (and ourselves too!), we got some raclette cheese and different items to cover with the cheese. Raclette is something that you might have seen in a fancy steak house (or a Christmas Market)... typically it's a huge wheel of cheese standing on it's side, with a broiler that they move over the cheese, melting parts of the cheese and drizzling it over veggie, meat, bread... we purchased a little home raclette burner and you can get little slabs of cheese to melt in these little pans.

So we got a bunch of veggies and cheese, then came home to have raclette for dinner.

Sharon and I went over to the pool in Bad Homburg (my normal pool that I go to); I think she enjoyed it.... she told me that she did, and she hasn't given me any reason to distrust her!

While we were swimming, the family interior decorator talked Nancy into helping, and they hung the remaining ornaments on the little Christmas tree that we have here.

When we got home, Nancy and the family sous chef were preparing chocolate fondue for dessert. I had a little bit, then headed out - Jerry and Megan were leaving town and flying back to the states the next day, and they had some excess supplies that they'd accumulated, so we inherited some lovely parting gifts from their European travels.

The next morning, we loaded up the family truckster and headed out for a(nother) full day of Christmas Markets. First stop was one of our favorite touristy towns, Rüdesheim. As a little aside, we found out a couple of months ago that we've been pronouncing the town name incorrectly this whole time... we've been pronouncing it "rude-a-shime." Turns out, it's actually pronounced "rue-dis-hime." We're used to saying the wrong way, and we're too stuck in our ways to change it at this point.

Good old Rüdesheim. It's one of our top destinations to take visitors to, for good reason. It's only let us down once, when pretty much the whole town was closed down last February. Other than that, even without the Christmas Markets, it's just a neat little town. We walked through the market that lines the main road in, then followed the alley to the top of the town, rode the gondola up, saw the Germania monument on top of the hill... the whole experience. No matter how many times we visit, it remains one of our favorite places here.

Afterward, we stopped by the military base in Wiesbaden for some gas, then on to the Christmas Markets in the city of Wiesbaden.

Germany is comprised of sixteen states - actually thirteen states and three cities that are called "city-states." The German state that we live in is called Hessen, and it's the fifth most populated state, and the seventh largest by area. Since Frankfurt is the largest city in Hessen (and the second largest in Germany), you'd expect it to be the capital of Hessen, right? Nope. Wiesbaden is the capital of Hessen. Don't know why I felt the need to throw that in, but since I've told you about Wiesbaden before, I felt like I needed to throw some new information in there to keep it interesting for ya!

We wandered around the markets of Wiesbaden for a while - basically until we got cold and hungry - then headed to the Ratskeller underneath the city hall building for the boss's favorite meal. She went out her way to learn how to order it in German, and then the restaurant changed the name of it! She insists on ordering it using the old name, and the waitstaff always knows what she's asking for. Since you're going to ask if I don't tell you... the name of the dish used to be "Oberbayrische Schnitzel." For some reason, they changed the name of it to "Landtag Schnitzel." It's a fried pork cutlet, with a coating of crushed pretzels and sweet mustard on it. She hasn't been able to find it anywhere else, so any time we're in Wiesbaden, she has to get it.

It had been a long day, so we headed home at that point, and we sat around watching game shows for a little while, shouting answers at the screen, until one by one we all trickled off to bed.

The next day... say it with me... "more Christmas Markets!"

We left around 10:30 and headed to Speyer. The family travel agent and I discovered this little town last year while looking for markets that were open until New Years (since most of the markets close right before Christmas). I remember a lot more different kinds of mugs last year, but Nancy and I each got a mug there. One nice thing about the markets in Speyer are that they're all in a line, from one end of town to the other. Most markets in other towns spread off in different directions, and it's hard to keep track of where you've been.

Since we're on a bit of a high note right now, let's talk for a moment about the Holocaust.

That was a fun segue.

During World War II, the Nazis sent millions to extermination camps. Starting in 1992, a German artist started a decentralized memorial, to commemorate the last place that those people chose to live. For instance, Anne Frank's family is connected with Amsterdam, because of the "Anne Frank House," but the Frank family moved to Amsterdam because they thought that the Netherlands would remain neutral in WWII, like they did in WWI. The last house that they chose to live in was in Frankfurt, so that house has commemorative stones placed in front of it.

The stones are ~4 inch concrete cubes, with a brass label attached to the top. The label contains information about them (in their native tongue): Their name, date of birth, where they went to, and what happened to them. Our little town has a handful of these that we walk by when we walk downtown. 

Why do I bring this up now? Turns out, the town of Speyer has a higher concentration of these than we've ever seen before. All the way down the main street, the sidewalks in front of the buildings seem to have stones installed at every second or third door. A lot of them note that the inhabitants flew to the USA, which left us a bit relieved to be honest, and we hadn't seen before. 

After Speyer, we loaded up and headed to Heidelberg - we've been there twice before, with one of those visits during Christmas, but we've never been into the castle... so now I've had to research the castle for you people - I hope you're proud of yourselves.

We parked at the base of the castle, right on the edge of the downtown area, and it turned out that the funicular to the castle terminated on the ground floor of the garage - how fortuitous! As we were purchasing our ticket for the train, the boss asked the ticket lady about tours of the castle itself. Evidently, that lady was having a bad day, as she (a) didn't seem to have any information about guided tours of the castle, and (b) whatever information she *did* have, she was bound and determined not to share it. We took the train up, on the off chance that a tour would be available. After a little bit of exploration (and a more helpful worker at the castle gift shop), we were able to purchase 3 tickets. Wait a minute (I can hear you thinking)... 3 tickets? Weren't there 4 of you? Yes, there were... and you get a shiny gold star for paying attention! Dear reader, I was 'all castled out.' I'm positive that they were given tons and tons of information on their tour, but unfortunately, you're stuck with me (and Wikipedia).

Turns out that there are (were) two castles in Heidelberg: the upper castle (built sometime before 1214), and the lower castle, built between 1294 and 1303.

In 1537, a lightning bolt destroyed the upper castle. From what I can tell, all of the references after that are specifically to the lower castle (the one we saw). The lower castle has scaffolding all around it, it's evidently being repaired. Again. It's a partial ruin right now, and from what I can tell from Wikipedia, that's been the status of it for most of it's existence. Seriously.

• The city and castle were conquered in 1622 during the Thirty Years War.
• In 1688 and 1689, it was seriously damaged by French troops.
• In 1693, it was seriously damaged during the Palatinate succession war.
• They started reconstruction in 1742.
• In 1764, it was destroyed by a lightning bolt.

I didn't take the tour, but the part I could see from the outside was pretty broken up, and obviously damaged, with holes in the walls, and parts of the roof missing. It's evidently been in some sort of disrepair for the last 260 years.

There was evidently an Apothecary Museum up there as well, that their tour ticket got them into. I wish I'd have known that, because I.... naw, I'm lying. I'm okay with missing the Apothecary Museum as well. The family photographer took some pics to show me what I missed.

I wandered around the markets while the ladies were touring the castle, and met up with them when they came down. We had market food for dinner, and wandered around, stimulating the local economy for a while.

Sharon and I threw in the towel and headed back to the car after that; Nancy and the boss shopped a little while more and joined us a bit later. A quick hour and fifteen minute drive (thank you, Autobahn!), and we arrived home. Our visitors flew home the next day (after a twice delayed flight).

Watch this space, as we've got another trip coming up shortly!

Our first Christmas Markets this year!

So, we've been hosting visitors for a few days - it's Christmas Market season, after all!

A quick warning about the pics in this post... I'm having some difficulty splitting the pics into their correct locations, so some of the pics might not match where they're at in the blog. Sorry. If you don't approve, please shoot an email to my managing editor.

Matt & Barb are the founders of the Knoxville Packer Backers, the club we've been watching Packers games with for the last few years (until we moved to Germany). We've talked up German Christmas markets to them, and they decided to come over and experience the splendor for themselves.

The flight from the states is an overnight flight; planes leave the states in the late afternoon or early evening, and arrive here the next morning. Their flight landed at around 8:30 Tuesday morning - the boss worked that day, so I picked them up at the airport and brought them home.

We didn't have anything planned for the first day - they took a short nap, then we took a walk around our local town. 

We went down and picked up the wife in the afternoon and headed downtown to hit up the markets in Frankfurt. They'd both been to Frankfurt before, but it was a few years back, and they hadn't been during Christmastime, so the markets were something new for them.

Frankfurt has about 6 markets spread across downtown, so we wandered around exploring (and drinking glühwein) for a couple of hours, then headed back home to let them get some sleep.

The next morning, we got a bit of a late start (on purpose, to try to get them over the jet lag hump!) and headed out wandering for the day. First stop was our favorite little tourist town, Rüdesheim.

We've been to the markets in Rüdesheim in each of the last two years, and they didn't disappoint this time either. We parked in our normal lot, and were a bit apprehensive, since the lot was almost empty. 

Lucky for us (and our visitors!), the town and markets were open, and, owing to the early time and visiting on a weekday, they weren't crowded at all. We had a quick lunch and hopped on the tram to the top of the mountain. Matt & Barb enjoyed the view of the Rhine River from the top of the mountain, I think.

We finished our "loop" of the town and got back into the car. We drove back into Wiesbaden (our next planned stop), but decided to go the base to fill up the tank and let our visitors take a look at the items available on the base. We didn't eat at Taco Bell on the base, despite my shameless begging.

We left the base and drove into the city, as the markets there are pretty impressive... and as we all know, the wife's favorite restaurant is underneath the City Hall building. But first, more Christmas Markets!

There are a couple of different market areas in Wiesbaden, we wandered around one of them for a little while, then headed down to the restaurant for dinner. After dinner, more markets, then home.

Day three was more of the same... just kidding. We actually went somewhere we've never been before. We left the house and drove up to Aachen, which supposedly has some of the best Christmas Markets in Europe, and is located very close to where Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium intersect.

It took us a while to find parking, but we finally found a place to stash the car and walked the 2 or 3 blocks to the main area of town, in a big circle around their cathedral and town hall.

When researching, I found a few interesting things about this part of our trip.

Aachen was what Charlemagne considered his home city, and he shared the monarchy with his brother. The brother died in 771, making Charlemagne the sole king of the Franks. There was a lot of political infighting at that point in time; luckily Charlemagne was able to court favor with the pope.

After celebrating Easter in Rome with the pope in 774, Charlemagne traveled back up to Aachen. Upon his return, he turned around and marched his armies south, to depose the king of the Lombards in northern Italy.

He began construction on the cathedral around 796. In the year 800, he was crowned the first Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

Matt, Barb, and HRH (remember who that is?) stepped into the cathedral to look around and take some pictures. After they checked out the cathedral and we circled back through most of the markets, we got back into the car and headed to Cologne.

We got to Cologne and parked in the hotel's underground lot and got settled into our rooms... then went out to explore the markets. Cologne's Christmas Markets are world famous, and there are 12 of them spread around the city. Our explorations only led us to 5 or 6 of them, as the others are out toward the suburbs.

The markets have different themes; one is traditional, one surrounds a purpose-built ice rink, one showcases chocolate (more about that one later), one of them highlights gnomes... 

A quick aside: I didn't know about Matt's thing for gnomes. Now I do, and thanks to the power of the internet, so do all of y'all! We had to spend some good quality time in the gnome market, so Matt could take lots of pics and stimulate the local economy with some gnome souvenirs.

The next day started out with.... more markets! We found the remaining markets around downtown Cologne, and walked over to the Chocolate Museum, which has its own Christmas Market. We did the tour of the museum, and had some gluhwein at the market afterwards.

We walked back over to the cathedral (stopping for lunch along the way), and took a tour of the cathedral. This was my third tour of the cathedral (all with different guides), and each guide covers different information during the tour. Our first tour, the guide talked mostly about the architecture of the cathedral; the second tour guide was a specialist in art history, so we learned quite a bit about the art around the cathedral and the histories told in the stained glass windows. This time, the guide talked quite a bit about the symbolism within the mosaics, showing us details that we hadn't noticed before. It seems like the guides are given a list of a few items that they have to go into detail on (the Gerhard Richter window, the reliquary of the three kings), and are given quite a bit of latitude on what and how they cover other information.

We also briefly stopped by the Cologne cologne store - the world's oldest eau de cologne and perfume factory. We loaded up and headed home after all that touristing.

Matt specifically asked about "antique stores," so the next morning we headed out to check out some.... 'flea market' type places. We found a couple around Frankfurt and he managed to introduce my darling wife to another place to pick up some of her "treasures." Thanks, Matt.

Seriously, not actually too bad. Big parking lots where people spread out tables and tarps, laying their wares out for perusal. The wife found a stein at the first market - we paid €8 for it, exactly what the gentleman was asking. A few minutes later, she found a picture she couldn't live without (in the same area). He wanted €20 and accepted €15 when offered. I personally think that giving him €8 for a dusty old stein softened him up, but at €23 to make my wife happy, I think it's a good deal.

We were hungry afterwards, so we found a nearby restaurant for lunch... and immediately gave up that plan, as traffic approaching the market area was a nightmare. We picked another restaurant (that was further away from downtown) from online reviews, specifically to get away from all of the traffic.

Wonder of wonders, the restaurant we ended up at turned out to be perfect! We managed to find a parking spot immediately in front of the door, which is unheard of around here. The sign over the door was a bastardized picture of Bucky the Badger - quite a coincidence, taking into account that our visitors had lived in Wisconsin - and remember, these folks are the founders of the Knoxville Packer Backers. There were American license plates all over the walls of the place, and while being an authentic local place, the waitress spoke English fluently - she even confirmed that she was a native Frankfurter. We asked about the name of the place, and she told us that her dad's nickname when he was growing up was "Dachs" (which translates to "Badger"), and that when the place opened up more and more people had referenced items with Bucky on it, so he (the dad) just leaned into it. Quite an endearing place, and we'll probably take more of our visitors there in the future.

That afternoon, we were trying to find a local market, and ended up in Bad Homburg, one of the closer suburbs to our town. They set up stalls in the pedestrian section of the town, but the big draw for us is the traditional market set up in the town castle. That's still a weird concept to me - that local towns simply have a castle that their town sprung up around. We enjoyed that market last year (our first year finding it), and it didn't disappoint this year either. Quite traditional, and populated almost exclusively with locals. Matt said that this particular market was a good call as a bookend to their whirlwind trip.

They took off the next morning, and we're preparing for our next set of visitors. Watch this space - we've got a couple more entries over the next few weeks!

Our latest field trip...

So, frequent readers of this blog have invariably noticed that updates have been sparse for the last little while, but I've got a good reason, I promise! Cori's 21st birthday was on August 20th, and I flew back to the states to celebrate with her, a few days earlier than my normal September trip. One thing led to another, broken air conditioner, replacing water main to the house, Buick breaking down on the side of I-40... honestly, the list could go on and on, but suffice it to say that my normal 3-4 week annual September trip to the states turned into 2 months.

Once I (finally) got back to Germany, the wife picked me up at the airport on Saturday, then I took her to the airport the next day for a week long conference back in the states.

She got back to town last Sunday, and on Wednesday we... did a thing.

I've told everyone that this blog isn't monetized... I don't get anything for y'all reading it, and that's not changing with this entry (or ever, to be honest). I do have to tell you that this blog entry was "sponsored" by a travel agency, 4 Nomads Travel.

Most of you know this, but for those of you who don't, my folks own the aforementioned travel agency. A while back, they booked (and prepaid) a non-refundable room in Ljubljana Slovenia, and due to scheduling issues, they weren't able to use it. They asked if we'd be able to use it, but unfortunately the dates wouldn't work out for us. They were, however, able to change the dates to where we were able to take advantage of it - we just had to get ourselves there, but it'd be much easier for us to go 450 miles on the ground than it would be for them to go 5,600 miles by air!

So... let's start this post by covering some general information:

What the heck is a Slovenia, anyway? I (for one) don't remember learning about it in school! Slovenia is a country in eastern Europe, situated right behind the "thigh" of Italy's boot. It borders Italy, Austria, Hungary, Croatia, and the Adriatic Sea. It's mostly mountainous, and highly forested - the third most forested country in the European Union.

To gloss over their history in a handful of sentences, they were parts of several different empires through most of their history until 1918, when they became part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. They were annexed by (in turn) Italy, then Nazi Germany, before the country of Yugoslavia was created post WWII. In 1991/1992, Yugoslavia split into 6 different countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. Of course, it's much more complicated than that (including being part of the Habsburg Empire from previous blog entries), but there it is, in a nutshell.

We'd heard a saying that Slovenia is a "Poor man's Switzerland," and that nickname seems quite apropos. The country is absolutely gorgeous, bordering on the Alps to the west, filled with forests and pastoral valleys.

Next up: Ljub...? Huh? Is that a real word?!? Yep. It's the capital of the country. Ljubljana. Pronounced Loo-bli-ahna. The city name was first mentioned in 1144, but archaeological evidence shows human settlement as far back as 2000BC... including the oldest existing example of a wooden wheel on an axle. Ljubljana's symbol is a dragon; there are some competing theories about its origin.

One theory (from Slavic legend) says that the slaying of a dragon releases the waters and ensures the fertility of the earth, and it is thought that the myth is tied to the Ljubljana Marsh.

A second theory comes from Greek legend, Jason and the Argonauts are returning home after having taken the Golden Fleece when they found a large lake surrounded by a marsh between the present-day towns of Vrhnika and Ljubljana. There Jason struck down a monster. Over the years, this monster evolved into the dragon.

The third theory is historically a bit more believable: That the dragon was adopted from Saint George, the patron of the Ljubljana Castle chapel built in the 15th century. In the legend of Saint George, the dragon represents the old ancestral paganism overcome by Christianity.

One way or the other, Ljubljana has really leaned in on the dragon being the symbol (almost mascot) of the city, with dragons being everywhere throughout the city, including on the city coat of arms and flag.

Wednesday, the wife was planning on getting out of work early, but got delayed by a couple of hours, so we got a later start than we were planning. Once she got off work, we drove to Munich and stayed in a cheap hotel, to break up the drive.

Thursday morning, we left the hotel and hit the road. A little past Salzburg, we encountered a picturesque castle looming over the valley. We had plenty of time to get to our destination, so we stopped to take a look. 

Hohenwerfen Castle is considered the "sister" of Hohensalzburg Fortress (in the nearby city of Salzburg), as they were both built during the 11th century by Gebhard, the Archbishop of Salzburg. The castle served as a military base, residence, and hunting retreat for the prince-archbishops of Salzburg, and was later used as a prison. During WWII, it served as a Nazi education camp, then as a training camp for Austrian police until 1989, before being turned into a museum. I encountered a specific note during my reading that had reference to it previously belonging to the House of Habsburg... because it's in Austria, and they seemed to have their fingers in a lot of pies in that part of the continent, so of course it did. While researching the castle, I also learned that Hohenwerfen was a featured location in the 1968 movie Where Eagles Dare, starring Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood.

There was a room in the castle that was set up for a temporary art show. While we were there, it had gauze hanging from the ceiling, with drawings of uteruses on the walls. We joined a handful of tourists standing around with puzzled looks on our faces, pretending to contemplate the art.

After touring the castle, we got back on the road, and stopped for lunch on the road. It was a cafeteria style setup... the wife ended up paying €7.50 for a fountain soda - she specifically asked me to share that.

The city center of Ljubljana is pedestrian only, so we had some issues with parking. We followed the directions as near to the hotel as we could, but the closest we could get was a restricted parking lot. We ended up backtracking a bit and parking in (what turned out to be) resident only parking, on the side of a nearby street. We dragged our suitcases into the pedestrian area (only a block or so), and checked into the hotel.

The hotel was a boutique style hotel, right at the end of the pedestrian area. The room that my folks had reserved... let's talk about that for a moment.

With it just being the boss and me, all we really needed was a couple of beds and a bathroom. Lucky for us, that's what we got. Our room was a little weird: It was basically a hallway with a couple of bends in it, with 2 twin sized beds and a bathroom. The clerk offered to let us change rooms, and offered us the connecting room, but... the two rooms were part of a suite. Basically, one doorway off of the main hallway that opened into a little antechamber. From that antechamber, there were 3 doors (not counting the one to the main hallway): 1 to our room, 1 to the other room that he offered us, and 1 to their bathroom. The other room had a double bed, but no bathroom - you'd have to go out through the antechamber to get to your bathroom. Basically, it would have been a perfect setup for a family (or small group), as a single door could control access to two hotel rooms and two bathrooms. We didn't want to leave the room to go to the bathroom, so we chose not to switch.

From what I saw, the other rooms on our floor were all more traditional rooms, with larger beds and bathrooms inside the rooms. The hotel was quite nice overall, in a wonderful location for tourist activities. Parking was a little challenging, as you'll hear shortly.

After we got all checked in, I went back to move the car to a public parking lot, leaving the wife to carry our bags up to the room. Turns out, the clerk carried them up the stairs for her, poor guy! The parking lot was easy to find, but was a couple of blocks up the hill and across the river from the hotel. Found it, parked the car, and walked back.

We went out exploring, and ended up eating dinner at a local pizza restaurant that the clerk had recommended; quite good!

Friday morning, we started exploring the town in earnest. On our side of the river, there were two main pedestrian thoroughfares: the one we were staying at the end of, and the one along the river, running parallel to our "street." The street that we were staying on seemed to be mostly stores, and unfortunately, Friday was evidently a holiday for Slovenia (All Saint's Day), so about half of the stores were closed. We explored and wandered, and ended up toward the end of the main tourist area, at the foot of the city's castle... because there's always a castle in European towns and cities.

This castle is called (ironically enough) Ljubljana Castle - shocking, I know. The castle dates back to the 1100's, but the site of the castle has been continuously settled since around 1200BC. Throughout the years, it functioned as a garrison, was owned by one of the Habsburgs, and later was used as a prison. Part of the city's museum is there, so we toured through that area.

Couple of interesting things: there's a replica of the earliest wooden wheel in the world on display in the museum. The wheel is about 5,200 years old, and provides evidence that the wheel was invented almost simultaneously in Europe and Mesopotamia. Also, there's a cutting of a grape vine growing inside the castle that's part of the oldest grape vine in the world. The main vine is in Maribor (another city in Slovenia), and the cutting was planted at the castle for some unknown reason. Interestingly enough, the wine that the vine produces has been described as "virtually undrinkable."

After touring the castle, we stopped in a nearby square for a bite to eat at a local food truck, where the boss found this:

It was too late in the day to tour any other places on our list, so we spent the rest of the day exploring the town, stimulating the local economy as the urges struck us. Dinner was a light meal of nachos and drinks on the riverfront.

Saturday morning, we wandered around town for a little while, as I wanted to check out the local street markets. The big square at the center of town (at the foot of the castle) was filled with tables all covered with every imaginable type of fruit and vegetable. On one side of the square, there was a vending machine for milk that we missed seeing while wandering around the previous day.

We left the city late morning, and headed back toward home... just about 40 minutes up the road though. The boss had heard of a picturesque lake there, Lake Bled. Part of the Alps stretch into Slovenia, and Lake Bled is nestled up among them. The lake is about 7,000 feet long, and about 4,500 feet wide, with a church built on an island in the middle of the lake. 

Unfortunately, the boss wasn't the only one who'd heard of Lake Bled; I'm pretty sure half of the country went to the lake that day. It took us almost an hour to drive the 2 miles from the highway to the town, and once we got there, parking was an absolute nightmare. We ended up parking quite a ways from the water and walking down there.

By the time we'd explored along part of the waterfront, it was apparent that we wouldn't get a chance to visit the island, as the boarding area for the boats had no discernable organizational system, and the docks were jammed with tourists already. Instead, we wandered around the town and had a bite to eat. We stimulated the local economy there for a while, then headed back to town.

Dinner was at a wine bar that the hotel clerk had recommended; we each had a flight of 4 small glasses of Slovenian wines, and shared a charcuterie board with cheeses, sausage, and different cuts of meat. Evidently, "bear sausage" is a thing in Slovenia... it wasn't readily apparent by looking at the menu what the sausage was made of, and I didn't ask. I can tell you though, that it was a bit gamey for the wife's taste.

The wife went to a bar, as she wanted to try Slovenian beer while we were there. I wasn't interested, so I just went back to the room. Evidently, she made some friends there, she mentioned talking for a while with the bartender, and with one other patron who insisted on talking about American politics with her.

I went back to the restaurant later that night and asked the waiter, just so I could tell y'all if we'd had bear sausage. He said that there it was just normal sausage. He did give me a weird look though, so I'm guessing that the whole "bear sausage" thing is just something that they tell tourists - either that, or it's common knowledge that all of the sausage there contains bear, and he was afraid I'd yak on his shoes.

The next morning, we decided to get a bit of an earlier start for our next field trip. Unfortunately, on the way to the car, we encountered a flea market, and the boss just had to check out all of the old crap. Luckily, we didn't have much cash with us, so she wasn't able to buy anything. Once I dragged her away from the market, we drove about 40 minutes southwest (instead of the previous day's trip to the northwest) to visit a unique castle called Predjama grad.

First mention of the castle comes from writings from 1274, when the gothic style castle was constructed by the Patriarch of Aquileia, in nearby northeastern Italy. The castle was constructed in the mouth of a cave for protection. At some point, it was acquired by the Knights of Adelsberg, the royal family from nearby Postojna. They expanded the castle, and... stick with me, because here's where the story gets interesting.

The castle became known as the seat of the knight Erasmus of Lueg, lord of the castle in the 15th century. He was the son of the imperial governor of Trieste, Nikolaj Lueger. Erasmus came into conflict with the Habsburgs when he killed the commander of the imperial army, Marshall Pappenheim, who had offended the honor of Erasmus's deceased friend. 

Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III was a relative of Pappenheim, and the first Habsburg to serve as Holy Roman Emperor. Erasmus started attacking Habsburg estates and towns in the area, repeatedly being chased back to Predjama Castle. Emperor Frederick III eventually tired of having his family's estates attacked, and sent the governor of Trieste to lay siege to the castle. The siege was largely ineffective, due to the castle's location inside a cave. The governor decided to starve Erasmus out of the castle, but had no success, as Erasmus would sneak out of the castle through the extensive cave system and bring supplies back into the castle. According to an unfounded legend, the castle only fell when Erasmus was betrayed by one of his men, and was shot by a single cannonball while he was in the privy.

Regardless of the veracity of the colorful stories, a very unique castle, in a gorgeous location.

After touring the castle, it was still quite early, so we decided to keep exploring, and ended up in Italy, in the port city of Trieste. We wandered (in the car) toward the waterfront, and got out and started exploring. We took a couple of wrong turns, and then found ourselves in the middle of a street festival, with all kinds of booths selling local foods and wares. We wandered around for a bit, then continued exploring. We walked through a section where people had set up tables to sell antiques, and the family collector ended up finding a little ceramic house that she couldn't live without. I've really gotta stop taking her past markets where they sell old stuff!

We both needed to eat, so we wandered through the streets looking for restaurants. We were exploring during the middle of the afternoon, so all of the restaurants were closed. We ended up back at the first market we'd encountered, and ate at the booths there.

During our wandering, we'd encountered a grocery store, and had wanted to buy some of the stuff that we really enjoyed when we lived in Rome, but we didn't want to carry it around with us, so we went back to the car and looked at the GPS for a grocery store on the way out of town. We plugged it into the GPS and started driving... only to encounter another store that we had to stop at before we left the port area. Turns out, there's an Eataly in Trieste!

Eataly is a specialized grocery store that carries all kinds of Italian products - we've enjoyed going in there wherever we've found one - Chicago, NYC, London. Turns out, it's just not that big a deal when you're actually in Italy. We were able (for the first time ever) to leave the store without buying anything!

We followed our GPS to a Eurospar... the markets we'd shopped at in Rome were from the same chain, but were called Despar. Turns out, Eurospar is the same chain, but lots bigger than a Despar. We bought entirely too much stuff at the grocery store, including specific flavors of drinks that I've been unable to find outside of Italy.

Another hour and a half in the car, and we were back in Ljubljana. I dropped the boss off at the little restricted parking area, then drove up the hill to park the car.

The next morning, we woke up and started driving pretty early; we'd only planned on splitting the drive in half on the way there, and the wife had to work the next day. We ended up getting home around 6:30 or 7:00. The drive was pretty though - we spent a few minutes looking at this alp from several different angles:

Some of our friends from Austin (who came over here to visit), the husband is an engineer. We frequently pass under a specific bridge when we drive south from Frankfurt, and this specific bridge has become known (to us) as "The Speck Bridge." It was exceptionally photogenic that evening...

We're coming up on Christmas Market season, and have a couple of sets of visitors coming to town... so watch this space!