Dresden - a different kind of trip:

Lemme give you a heads up... I'm guessing that parts of this entry might be a little difficult to read, because I'm finding parts of it a little hard to write. Other destinations that we've visited, regardless of their history, I've found enrichment and... entertainment there. I remain a little conflicted about this past weekend - maybe I'll work some of it out as I write this, but for now, you might want to buckle up.

We had a long weekend, so the boss threw out an idea for a short-ish trip: Dresden. We've heard good things about it, and it's not too far away, so we traded in some points and booked a room at the Hilton, then took off on Friday. The boss worked a half day, and we drove about 5 hours across the country. We stopped for fast food on the road, and arrived between 8 and 9. We checked into the hotel... gotta stop and talk about the hotel.

The Hilton in Dresden is in an absolutely perfect location, steps off of the main square, across the street from the main(ish) church. We normally don't stay in the center of town, but the family accountant had some points with Hilton that we'll be losing at the end of the year, so it was quite economical. Normally we stay out toward the airport and metro in, so that was a little different (and nice).

This hotel must have been one of the flagship locations for Hilton at one time... maybe back in the 90's? They may have done some work on the elevators since that time, but I think that's about the only difference. The halls and rooms were decorated in "Miami Vice Chic." Quite nice, but quite dated as well. The shower had one of the 'pivoting half walls' that I love so much - 0/10. Would not recommend the shower there - whomever came up with that idea for showers needs a stern talking to, at the very least (as you can see from the pic below). But... great location, good hotel overall, just needs lots of new carpeting, paint, and shower enclosures. 

After we dropped our stuff off, we wandered around the Neumarkt (the New Market). I must explain a bit.

One of the well known churches in Dresden is Frauenkirche, dating back to the 11th century. The location, though, was outside the original city walls. Inside the city walls, Kreuzkirche was located on the market square (dating back to the 12th century). In 1530, the walls of the city were expanded, the original market square (where Kreuzkirche is located) was renamed Altmarkt (German for Old Market), and the square around Frauenkirche was named Neumarkt (New Market). 

Anyway, we wandered around Neumarkt, seeing the church all lit up at night, and encountering a statue of Martin Luther, commemorating his visit to Dresden in 1516. The base of the statue had been turned into a shrine, commemorating the 79th anniversary of the firebombing of the city during the second world war, which had occurred a couple of days prior to our visit. Additionally, it looked like the shrine had been coopted, as people had left signs related to Alexei Navalny, the Russian dissident who died under suspicious circumstances earlier that day.  All in all, quite picturesque square.

The memorial deserves a couple of pics on its own. The first night, the family photographer took this pic. If you look carefully at the base of the statue, there's a wreath of yellow roses. On the right side of that, there's a sign saying "Navalny ist nicht tot" ("Navalny is not dead") - you can't see the sign from this pic, but just to give you an idea of the scale of the memorial:

The memorial changed as the weekend went on - she captured this pic later during our visit - you can see two signs in English: "Criticizing Putin should not be a death sentence" and "Putin is a murderer":

While I'm sure we can all agree that killing people who disagree with us shouldn't be really high on our list of things to do, this particular incident seems to have struck more of a chord with folks over here than back in the states, from what I've seen in my somewhat limited exposure to American news.

We ate breakfast in the lounge the next morning, and headed out for our walking tour (as has become our wont). One of the cool things about most of the walking tours is that they usually stay in generally the same part of town, with the path crossing over itself different times in different directions, as the guide shows you around. He showed us the outside of the Catholic church (a different church than the two I already mentioned), gave us an overview of the history of the city, showed us the Fürstenzug (the Procession of Princes)... let's talk about that for a moment.

On the side of the courtyard of Dresden Castle, you'll find the largest porcelain artwork in the world. It's a mural 102 meters (334 Freedom Units) long and 10.5 meters (34 Freedom Units) tall, made up of around 23,000 painted porcelain tiles. The mural shows the 35 leaders of Saxony from 1127 to 1904, along with 59 scientists, artisans, craftsmen, children and farmers. Very impressive, and gave the guide an opportunity to walk us through the lineage of the important kings.

Here are some pics that the wife took:

I was able to find a much better pic online, but you'll have to check it out in another tab. You might have to enlarge that pic to be able to see it.

One of the other things that he showed us was a mural on the city cultural center, commissioned by the government of the city of Dresden in the 1960's. The mural tells the story of the communist party, from Marx and Engles in 1848, through the Russian October Revolution in 1917, the formation of the German Communist Party during the days of the Weimar Republic, the victory of the Soviet Red Army in 1945, and the establishment of socialism in the GDR. After the Iron Curtain fell, there was a debate in the city about what to do with the mural, since it was such blatant communist propaganda; in the end, they left the mural, but planted trees in front of it. Evidently, the foliage on the trees blocks the mural for much of the year... not while we were there though, as you can see in the picture below:

He showed us the Semperoper, the opera hall originally dating to 1841, then finished up the tour at an overlook of the Zwinger, intended to be the entrance hall to a palatial palace. The palace was never finished, and I don't think the entrance hall was ever completed either - but the area we were overlooking was under construction (or reconstruction - not sure which). Here's a pic of the opera, followed by a pic of the construction area we ended up at:

We wandered around the stores, then stopped in an Irish pub for a real (small) meal. We both had Irish ciders & small bowls of Irish stew. Quite good - hit the spot.

While we were on the tour, we passed by Altmarkt, where it turned out that they were having something called "Wintermarkt" which looked quite a bit like a Christmas Market (and y'all know I'm a sucker for those!). After we left the Irish pub, we walked over and walked through the market - it was mostly food and drinks, and we'd just eaten, so we didn't get anything.

Funny story about the Wintermarkt that our guide passed along - I haven't been able to verify any of the story, so take it with a grain of salt: the mascot for the market is a huge purple teddy bear, probably 20 feet high (while he was sitting anyway). A few weeks back, someone shook the bear so violently that his head fell off. The owner/organizer of the market offered a €10,000 Euro reward, but it turned out that he had video footage. He didn't have a permit for the cameras, so he ended up being fined €2,000 Euro. Again, I can't remember the exact story, and haven't been able to find anything about it online, but the way the story was told, the boss and I agreed that it was one of the most "German" things we'd ever heard.

We walked back over to the hotel, I hung around the room and relaxed, while the boss found an art museum to explore. Evidently, she encountered a famous painting by Raphael there... I'm pretty sure everyone has seen Raphael's Angels, whether you know them by that name or not. The museum that she went to had that specific painting in it:

See those two little angels at the bottom? Here's a closer pic of them:

There's a chocolate store in the lobby of the hotel, so while she was gone, I went down and stimulated the local economy a bit. Once she got back, we headed out to a nearby restaurant, called Edelweiss, to have fondue (as the wife had seen menu posters for it as we'd walked past). Quite good, but way too much food. Afterward, we returned to the hotel, and went down to the pool and hot tub for a little while.

Sunday morning, we had breakfast in the lounge again - the crowd down at the restaurant was pretty thick, and we didn't feel like dealing with it. We had tickets to another museum at 10:15, so we left the hotel around 10:00 and walked over.

In 1547, the prince-elector of Saxony commissioned a new wing for the castle, and until 1723, the different rulers of Saxony used it to store important papers and jewelry. Between 1723 and 1729, Augustus the Strong turned the wing into a public museum, allowing unprecedented public access to his jewels and treasury.

The "Old Green Vault" displays about a quarter of the jewels in the same baroque setting that the wing has had since the 1700's. The "New Green Vault" lies in the rooms above the old vault, and the pieces are more individually displayed, rather than whole rooms of similar pieces. For instance, in the old section, there are entire rooms dedicated to amber, ivory, and gold, where all of the pieces displayed are shown in rooms dedicated to those types of pieces.

Security in the old vault is very tight, no coats or bags of any kind, and you have to go through a type of 'sally port,' where only one door is opened at a time. The doors to the rest of the museum rest in the open position, with closed doors facing the old vault. Once you're in the little chamber, the outer doors close, and about 10-15 seconds later the inner doors open. Each of the 8 rooms had a security guard in it as well. 

We wandered through both the old and new vault, then the rest of the wings of the museum. The boss thinks we might have missed a wing, as she saw pictures of a gallery of some of the women's gowns, but I didn't miss it. I saw plenty, without seeing the gowns.

After our tour, we found a little shop to have a snack in; we both had cappuccinos, she had a cookie, I had a piece of cherry crumb cake. Attached to the store was another chocolate store, so of course we had to go in. I bought a little sample of one of the bonbons.

We rested back in the room for a little while, then went to the transportation museum. It's in a building that used to be the carriage house for one of the kings. Now it's got all kinds of vehicles in it, from bicycles to trains, cars, motorcycles, and planes. Pretty well done museum.

We left the museum and headed over to a tapas restaurant that we'd passed earlier in the weekend. Pretty good food, affordable as well. 

We wandered around for a while, and on our way back to the room, encountered a sculpture museum that happened to be open, and free on Sundays. Honestly, I enjoyed it a lot more than I was expecting. One of the exhibits that they had dealt with "Revolutionary Art," basically artists from socialist and communist artists who were connected to Dresden. Dresden has evidently always been associated with art, having one of the most well known art schools in Europe; back in the days of the GDR, artists from socialist and communist countries could come and study here. Quite telling, seeing some of the art that these folks cam up with. Incidentally, the art school has a dome on it that the locals refer to as "the lemon juicer." I'm sure you can tell why by looking at these pics (night & day):

Afterward, we wandered back to the hotel.

On our way out of town the next morning, we stopped at a milk store... evidently, in 1997, this store was selected as the "Most Beautiful Milk Store in the World" by the fine folks at the Guinness Book of World Records. I honestly don't know how much competition there was in that category, but it was a little milk and cheese store completely covered in hand-painted porcelain tiles. There were signs posted inside and out warning that photos weren't allowed, so you'll have to be satisfied with one I was able to find online:

Now comes the hard part. Almost everything I've told you about... the Frauenkirche, the Kreuzkirche, Altmarkt, Neumarkt, most of the palace... despite the history of the city, the vast majority of it dates to the 1990's or later, with some of the buildings even being constructed during the 2010's. 

Dresden, like Cologne and a couple of other cities, was absolutely decimated by bombings during WWII. 

What makes Dresden different than other places that we've visited though, is that after the war the city was in the hands of the communists. As recently as the 1990's, Neumarkt, next to one of the most recognizable churches in Europe, was a field, with sheep grazing in it to keep the grass cut. The only thing that I've specifically told you about which survived the bombings relatively unscathed was the Procession of Princes, because the porcelain survived the high temperatures of the fire bombs. Frauenkirche? Completely rebuilt, reopening in 2005. The Old Green Vault? Three of the eight rooms were completely destroyed in the bombing, and at the end of the war the treasures were confiscated by the Red Army and moved to the USSR. The treasures were thankfully returned in 1958, but the Old Green Vault didn't reopen until 2006.

With the other war damaged cities that we've visited, the people and government of the city were able to rebuild however they wanted - so while the majority of Cologne was flattened during the war, it was rebuilt immediately after, using the same designs, layout, and materials as before. Munich was extensively damaged, but the Nazis knew that it would be bombed, so they made extensive documentation of the buildings, which was used to rebuild the city immediately afterward.

Dresden didn't have that option. Within 4 years of being flattened, Dresden found itself in Communist East Germany, and they built exactly what the party told them to build. The Communist party had no interest in Altmarkt, Neumarkt, Frauenkirche - so instead, Dresden was filled with communist era egalitarian architecture. When you think of the massive plain apartment buildings from behind the Iron Curtain - that's what Dresden looked like, for decades after the war.

The people and government of Frankfurt made the decision to modernize the city after the war, so everywhere you look in Frankfurt, you see skyscrapers - that's become a big part of the city's current identity. There's one small section of town that was rebuilt to look like a village from the later middle ages, and it honestly feels like "Euro Disney."

Dresden honestly feels like an older city, but when I found out more about the (recent) history, everything around me suddenly felt fake, like the aforementioned "Euro Disney." 

While around half of Germany was under the thumb of the communists and the Soviet Union, this was our first visit to a previously communist city that was flattened during the war. While all of these cities had to rebuild, Dresden's much more recent rebuild seems both more honest and more deceptive at the same time. The communist government wouldn't let the city do whatever they wanted, so they had to wait until the fall of the USSR and the reunification of Germany to rebuild their city the way that they wanted to; This was the first opportunity that they'd had to rebuild in their own chosen fashion, so they honored their own history. The fall of the Iron Curtain opened up eastern Germany to venture capitalists who were willing to invest in the future of the city. While I understand their motivation, looking around the city and knowing that the "old" buildings you see around you are 30 years old just feels a little off. I still don't know how I feel about the city as a whole, but regardless of the age of the buildings, the city itself is quite beautiful and captivating, and it was a nice destination for a weekend trip.

So, there was our trip to Dresden, the good, the bad, the ugly. Lemme know what your thoughts are about their architecture and history, if you feel like it.

A long entry for a very full visit with our (second set of) kids!

So, as some of you may know, the wife was back in the states for a quick work trip last week, she flew back in last Sunday (arriving Monday morning). Some friends of ours from our time in Tennessee arrived on Wednesday to spend a week with us; we euphemistically call them "the kids," as there's a bit of an age difference between us. They're in their early thirties, (she has asked me to refer to her as 'in her late 20's', despite TODAY being her birthday!) and do what they can to keep us feeling young... as opposed to our true kids, who go out of their way to make us feel old!

I met them at the airport and we immediately headed out to the Army base to fill the tank in the Shores-mobile. I need to break off and give you some background...

Gas over here is expensive... around $7.00 a gallon if we buy it on the local economy. Because of the wife's position, we have access to military bases here, and we receive a "ration" of gas every month, 400 liters. We are allowed to purchase 400 liters at a lower price each month, and carry a prepaid balance on our Esso card to use when getting gas on the economy. When we get gas on base, the amount of fuel is decremented off of our ration, but we can pay for it separately. The ration does not roll over; whatever portion of our ration remains at the end of the month goes away, and we start each month with 400 liters. The kids arrived on January 31st, so I needed to top the tank off before our travels, on the January ration. Ergo, the base trip.

And now, back to our normally "scheduled" blog post. They arrived a little before noon, and the trip from the airport to the base is around a half hour, so we got there right around lunch time. We ate at one of the restaurants at the food court on base. That's right - they flew halfway around the world to visit us in Germany, and our first real stop was Taco Bell. Go ahead and laugh, just come back when you're done.

After lunch, we stopped at the base commissary for some road trip snacks, filled up the tank and drove home. They rested for a little while, then we went back into town to pick the boss up from work. We headed downtown and dragged them around the shopping area, and down to the tourist district. There's a bit of a story around the tourist district, but if I haven't shared it yet, I'm not going to now; I've got to save *some* info for when y'all come to visit!

We ate dinner in a food court. This should come as no surprise to my regular readers - y'all know how much I love malls and food courts. It was a local restaurant, not fast food - does that make any difference in this case?

Next morning, we left a little early for Garmisch, a little tourist town south of Munich - you might have read about it in our previous visits. We stopped on the way into town to visit the monastery in the nearby town of Ettal, and to visit our favorite woodcarving shop.

We checked into the hotel, then went out exploring. We wandered around the town, buying some local chocolate, then drove over to the other side of town to a local Bavarian restaurant. 

One of the things that they do there is traditional Bavarian "slap dancing." Here's a movie of some guys performing the dance. Please note, these were not the performers at the restaurant. The guys who performed that night at the restaurant were 10 or 11 years old, and what they lacked in skill, they more than made up for with enthusiasm. There's a portion of the dance (not in the video above, unfortunately), where the participants yodel. Well, they're supposed to yodel. What these young gentlemen did sounded more like a chicken with a fork stuck in its throat. While being run over by a bicycle. That was being ridden by a goblin who was maniacally cackling. We verified with the waiter that they were "yodeling."

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and went down to the hot tub for a postprandial beverage. Of all of the brands of beer available, the kids chose to drink Miller Lite. While sitting in a hot tub in Germany, in the middle of the majestic Alps. In the shadow of the tallest mountain in Germany. Miller Lite. Let's just let that sink in, shall we? I need to take a moment.

Saturday morning, we woke up bright and early to get some breakfast in town. We found our way to a place called Wafflehaus - not the same chain as you see across the American south. Breakfast was very good - will visit again.

We drove out of Garmisch into Austria, then back into Germany on our way to.... Neuschwanstein. We first visited in 2010, and not much has changed in the intervening 14 years. We had to wait a few minutes for the carriage, so we had to sprint up the final couple hundred yards, arriving 5 minutes before our tour time, but quite out of breath. Way too many stairs in that castle. We were in King Ludwig's bedchamber, and Sam wasn't feeling well, enough that he rushed out of the room without telling us what was going on. After our guide finished telling us about that room and moved on, Erica spoke to the guide in the room behind us, and the guide said (quite matter of factly) "Yes, we saw him. He wanted to leave you!" We figured we'd meet up with him later on. (Spoiler alert: we met up with him later on).

Neuschwanstein was one of King Ludwig's vanity projects which was ultimately unfinished. Ludwig did as much as he could to bankrupt the country, leaving half finished castles all over Bavaria. If you'd like to read a bit more about Neuschwanstein, you could (a) do your own research, or (b) ask your intrepid blog author for a link to his previous missive - oh look, here's a link!

We met back up with Sam at the end of the tour, in time to head into the gift shop. He was fine, just needed some air. Stuffy building, too many stairs. He unfortunately missed Ludwig's cave, but he already knew that Ludwig was crazy.

There's a specific balcony that we made the kids (Palmer & Cori) take a picture with us on when we visited the castle the first time:

The  boss thought it'd be fun to take another picture there, 14 years later:

And here are the other kids in the same place:

There's a bridge overlooking the castle that we hadn't gone to last time, the wife and kids hiked over there this time, while I headed down to make sure the car was still there. It was. The bridge is really pretty, I'm just getting lazier in my old age.

The wife & kids stopped in the little touristy shops on their way back to the car, and the kids bought an authentic Bavarian beer stein as a memento of their travels, but it was half price, so I don't know if it really counts as a normal tourist activity - normally, the tourist shops mark up the prices!

Our first visit to Neuschwanstein (as you read above), we found a pretty waterfall right as we got to the main road. I stopped for a picture opportunity there as well.

We headed back to Garmisch and ate a late lunch at a restaurant, then wandered around the town stimulating the local economy. We found a little prosecco hut and stopped for some drinks, then headed back to the hotel for some down time. We met in the restaurant at the hotel for drinks, appetizers and desserts later in the evening, then the kids and I headed down to the hot tub again... this time, the kids drank German beer instead of Miller Lite. They grow up so fast, I'm so proud of them!

The next morning, we loaded up the car, checked out of the hotel, and headed up to Munich. We had signed up for a free walking tour; we booked the same tour (with what we assumed was the same guide) as our last tour, but our guide turned out to be a different guy. It was actually interesting to take the "same" tour given by different people, as different guides give you different perspectives and share different things. After our tour, we dragged the kids to the pub under the beer museum for lunch, then we went over to the Hofbräuhaus for a quick beer (just because it's one of the big tourist things in Munich, and one of the oldest bier halls in the world). Erica has groused about the heat indoors everywhere we've gone, and she asked me to share that the Hofbräuhaus was indeed very hot.

Erica tried on a dirndl, one of the traditional Bavarian dresses, but decided not to get it. We weren't allowed to take pictures of her in it, so I can't share one. She said that it was cute. We got back in the car and headed to... Salzburg.

Because of our later departure from Munich, we rolled into Salzburg in time to check in and relax for a few minutes, then we headed out to dinner at our favorite restaurant in Salzburg, the Augustiner Biergarten. I've written previously about this place, but here's a quick reminder:

For beer, you get a mug off of the shelves lining the halls and rinse it out with water, then you pay for the beer you'd like, and take the mug to the gentlemen next to the huge keg and he fills your mug. Repeat as desired. For food, there are several different food booths set up in the halls, with different kinds of food at every booth. There's a booth where you can get grilled meat, a booth where you can get all kinds of sides, one with olives and other snacky kinds of things - pretty much anybody can find something to eat there. Once you get your beer and food, you enter an area with long tables and find a place for your group, sometimes sharing tables with other patrons. Very traditional feeling biergarten setting, mostly locals there, rather than tourists.

Afterwards, we drove down to the pedestrian bridge, and the wife and kids walked out over the middle of the river to take some pics, since the weather was cooperating.

Next morning, we left the hotel and headed out to the salt mines. Really. Salzburg is named after the salt mines, with evidence of salt based activity for 4,500+ years. The salt mines are a big tourist draw for the town and area. 

I'd bought tickets online ahead of time, so we gathered with the rest of the group a few minutes before our tour began. Our guide introduced himself (Felix, in case you were wondering), and we followed him into the dressing area, where we were handed pants and an overcoat, to protect our clothing from the dirt and crud in the mine (don't worry, you'll see pics later). We all pulled on our protective clothing and headed down to the train. The train was pretty cool, and other caves around the world need to come visit, so they can learn how it should be done... the train ran on the normal sized mine car tracks, with an electric engine pushing or pulling 4 or 5 long planks; basically a long flat piece of metal with wheels on each end, with a wooden plank mounted on top of the metal platform. You climb onto the metal platform and straddle the plank, facing the direction of travel. The guide sits on the front of the train, with the engine in the back of the whole train, pushing the whole train into the mine. The train stops at a predetermined spot and you hop off, then follow the guide further into the mine on foot. Here's a photo of the kids with (what I guess is) the mascot for the mine... there was no information at all about the duck, it was never mentioned by the guide, we were just walking through the mine and encountered the duck. We saw a label afterward in the gift shop telling us that the duck's name is Sally:

There are several different stops that you make, where you're shown different steps in the production of salt, including some well produced videos projected onto the cave walls. You continue into the mine until you reach the end of the tour area, at which point there's a slide taking you a layer deeper in the mountain. The slide's pretty cool - it's basically a U shaped bar where you sit on top of the legs of the U and scooch forward until you start sliding, at which point you lean back so you don't faceplant. The first slide isn't too long, about 100 feet long, maybe 50 feet of an elevation change. There's a camera which takes your picture as you get to the bottom of the slide, the wife and I got up to around 20 mph at the bottom.

On this level of the mine, they walk you through what they did in the past, showing us how salt was mined in previous eras. Portions of the mine actually cross from Austria into Germany (and back); the oldest trade treaty in Europe actually covers the mine, and allowed miners to cross back and forth between the two countries during the course of their work days. They had arches set up in the tunnel with "Leaving Austria," and "Entering Germany" signs. At the end of this section, there was another slide, a little longer this time (but no speed camera at the bottom). More exhibits, more videos. Very well done. 

The VERY best part though... at the end of the lowest level, there's an escalator that takes you back up to get back to the train. The guide rides in the back, and the engine drags you back out of the mine. Why can't caves in the states do this? Why doesn't Carlsbad Cavern have an escalator?!? We couldn't have walked more than a mile or so - the worst part of going to caverns (for me, at least) is having to climb all the stairs coming back out. Caves need more escalators.

After we finished up at the salt mine, we went to Stiegl Brauwelt for lunch - you've probably read about it in previous blog posts; if not, I can't be held responsible - you've gotta put in SOME work here! It's our other favorite restaurant in Salzburg. When you come, we'll take you there too.

After we finished lunch, we headed over to the Red Bull hanger for a quick tour. The kids walked around, but didn't seem to get much out of it. We'd been told by a previous visitor (Nancy, last December) that the bathroom in the museum was the best one in Europe, so we had to check it out. I have to say.... meh. It would have gotten a higher rating from me if there had been dividers between the urinals. They did have rolled white washcloths for you to dry your hands off on (with a hamper right next to each sink) - very nice, overall, but the lack of dividers take it down quite a few notches. There's supposedly a massive fresh floral arrangement in the women's bathroom, but the guys definitely didn't get one, so I can't let that affect my rating.

Sam had a FaceTime call scheduled, but the ladies wanted to wander around, so we dropped them off next to the Mirabelle Gardens and headed back to the hotel (and stable wifi) for his call. After he was done, we drove back downtown and met the girls at a cafe in Mozartplatz for a quick drink. It was getting toward Sunday evening, so we stopped at the Manner store (you'll remember them from Vienna and previous visits to Salzburg), and then headed back to the hotel. We ended up ordering dinner to be delivered to the hotel, and sat in the lobby eating and chatting.

The next morning, we packed up the car, checked out of the hotel, and headed back into town for a tour of the fortress. This was our second time to visit the fortress - the first time was when we took Nancy to town. To recap, old fortress, dating back to (I think) 1077 AD. Lots of architectural expansion over the years - basically impressive old fortress overlooking the town. Great view of the Alps that day. Afterward, we stopped at a place in town for lunch, an Italian place. I saw as we came in that they had a salad bar, not a popular thing in Europe. Was enjoyable, and just the right amount of food for me.

While in Salzburg, encountered a bus named after Sam, had to capture the moment:

We headed back to Frankfurt and got back in time for Erica to talk Sam into watching the first half of The Sound of Music, since he'd never seen it. The wife had already gone to bed, and I have a strict rule against watching any musical where you can't do the Time Warp and throw rice at the screen. Poor guy stuck it out until intermission (since that was still a thing when The Hills were Alive with the Sound of Cheesy 60's Musicals).

And now, I have a bit of bad news to relate. Not so much for you, but for the kids.

Please bear in mind that we're constantly learning new things about living over here and imparting that wisdom to you, dear reader. I'll share with you the lesson of the day for February 6th, 2024, that Erica unfortunately had to learn on her birthday: the town of Rüdesheim is effectively closed for the months of January and February.

We had planned a full day wandering around the picturesque tourist town. What we got was a ghost town - I believe I actually saw a tumbleweed blow down the main street, which was extra concerning since tumbleweeds aren't typically found within around 5000 miles of German wine country.

We found two places that were open, one of which was a restaurant where we stopped to have drinks. I saw on the sign that they offered something called "Rüdesheimer Kaffee," which I hadn't heard of before - so I ordered one.

There's a famous type of brandy here called Asbach Uralt, which was actually founded in Rüdesheim. The coffee that they make with it is evidently quite famous as well; they put 3 sugar cubes into a special type of coffee mug and pour a shot of warmed brandy over them, then light it on fire and stir the cubes around for about a minute. Then they pour coffee into the cup, stopping a little less than an inch below the rim. They deposit a big scoop of whipped cream that's flavored with vanilla sugar, then dust the top of the drink with shaved dark chocolate.

All of this preparation is done (at least on this slow day, at this pretty deserted restaurant) tableside, with the appropriate amount of pomp and ritual. Almost a performance art, like Benihana, but with less (or fewer, depending on your grammatical tendencies) onion volcanoes and flying shrimp. Quite impressive, and tasty. Now I want to buy some of the cups before we move back to the states. I'll have to work on my presentation skills though.

When the waiter found out that it was Erica's birthday, he brought out four small glasses of Ice Wine for us; it's a very sweet white wine that can only be made after the first frost of the year, where the grapes have to be harvested within a few hours of sunrise on the first morning after the first frost. The freezing expands the water in the grapes and destroys the cell walls, which makes them rot quickly. Quite good, and I'll be on the lookout for bottles of it.

Here's a pic that the wife took in Rüdesheim that wasn't staged at all - honest! Pay no attention to the fact that the bottle of liquor is still full and sealed:

One of our original plans was to ride the gondola from the town up to the statue of Germania, which commemorates the unification of Germany in 1871. Since the gondola was closed down, we figured out how to drive up there instead, and showed the kids the view of the Rhine river - luckily they hadn't closed the parking lot down for the winter too.

We were still looking for something to do for Erica's birthday, so we drove to a winery in the area (Schloss Johannisberg). While the wine store was open, nothing else at the winery was. Another bust.

The original plan was to go to dinner at the Ratskeller in Wiesbaden, so we headed out of the mountains in time to get to town at around 4:30. I dropped the wife and kids off in town and headed for the nearby base to top up the gas tank for our next day's adventures.

I got back to town and met up with them at a bar/restaurant in the town square where we hung out and drank until it was time for dinner. We walked over to the Ratskeller, where the boss had her favorite schnitzel (a breaded pork tenderloin, crusted with crushed pretzels and smothered in a sweet mustard sauce). Sam had a steak, and Erica had a big plate of spätzel - a German type of noodle. Spätzel is made from a batter that's pushed through a colander into boiling water. The wife likes to call it the German equivalent to macaroni and cheese (since it's usually got bunches of cheese melted into it). Quite popular over here.

Interestingly enough (to us, at least... your mileage may vary); it took the boss a few visits to (a) remember the name of her favorite dish (Oberbayrische Schnitzel), and (b) consistently get the pronunciation correct (not gonna try to type out the phonics for that one). This visit, guess what. They changed the name to "Landtag Schnitzel." "Landtag" evidently means "State Parliament." Not sure what connection that's got with a Bavarian recipe for schnitzel... Wiesbaden is the capital of the state of Hesse. The recipe is from the state of Bavaria. That'd be like a restaurant in Virginia having a "Texas Chicken Fried Steak" on the menu, and changing the name to "State Government Chicken Fried Steak." You'd have questions, right? The waiter had no idea either.

Afterwards we headed back to the house, since we had a long day planned for the next day. They evidently finished up The Sound of Music that night (and poor Sam hasn't been the same since). I watched TV in the back while the ladies tortured Sam.

We ate a quick breakfast before leaving at around 9 to visit Cologne (Köln for y'all Deutsche-peeps reading). Took a little longer to get there than we were thinking, so we didn't roll in until a few minutes before noon. We parked and walked to the Sion Restaurant and Brewery, supposedly the oldest in Cologne. We ate lunch and introduced the kids to Kölsch beer (I've written about it here before).

After lunch, we walked over to the Cathedral for a tour. This guide demonstrated another example of the value of taking tours given by different guides. While there were certain things that were pointed out on our first tour, this guide was an art specialist of some kind, with a focus on 16th century art. He didn't spend as much time telling us about the physical structure - he covered the major parts: flying buttresses, thin walls, lots of stained glass - and then he talked in depth about some of the figures and meaning behind the windows and different parts of the building itself. He spoke for about 15 minutes on one specific set of windows, going over specific examples of figures on the windows and using those figures and concepts he discussed to demonstrate larger artistic examples of symmetry within the displays, and the messages behind some of the artistic choices made. He was incredibly passionate about the cathedral, and it was pretty cool hearing a fairly in depth talk about things we'd overlooked on our first visit by someone whose passion was almost infectious. Please note, I carefully used the word "almost." I appreciated his passion and enjoyed listening to him, but I absolutely will not be studying art history, and will not be giving you folks any in-depth writeups about the deeper meaning behind different pieces of art, so you don't have to worry about that. Here's a picture of the reliquary of the three kings (you can read more about it in my previous entry about Cologne, but you'll have to find it yourself):

After our tour, we left the cathedral and headed over to the cologne store - remember the oldest recipe in the world for cologne from our last visit? No? Well, go back and read it. I'll wait.

You're back? Wow - that was quick!

So we took the kids to the cologne store (in Cologne) to share that part of our previous adventure with them, then took off to wander the city some more. Our original plans included a visit to the Chocolate Museum, but it turns out that it was closed. Evidently (and we didn't know this when making our plans), Carnival starts on February 8th this year, and a lot of the city is closed down either heading into Carnival (to get ready to participate), or to finish battening down the hatches to protect their businesses from all the drunk partiers. As is my custom on this blog, I've since done a bit of extra research to share with y'all:

You're used to Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter, right? Well, turns out there are five seasons in Cologne. Those four, and Carnival. Carnival actually begins at 11:11 on 11/11, and is immediately suspended until 11:11 on the Thursday before the beginning of Lent. The earliest record I could find was that in 1341, the celebration had gotten so crazy that the town decided not to fund it any more, at which point the local townspeople decided to pay for it themselves. I'm not sure how long that lasted, but in the 18th century (while the French were in charge) the balls and costume parties were usually devoted to the aristocracy, mimicking the traditions in Vienna. Once the Prussians came to power, they opened the celebrations back up to the people at large.

Basically, it's Germany's version of Mardi Gras. It's a non-stop 6 day party, where bars and restaurants suspend their hours, and continue serving beer (and other drinks, to a lesser extent) for 6 continuous days. Parades, parties, drinking, dancing, lots of good natured carousing. One of the "requirements" is that you wear some sort of costume, the more outlandish, the better. One restaurant we were having some drinks at, a guy riding a dinosaur, an elf, a ship's captain from the early 1900's, and an FBI agent came into the restaurant for a bite to eat. Absolutely nuts, considering that the Carnival didn't start in earnest until the next day, and they were already dressed up and drinking.

Another group of patrons came in wearing some goofy hats, and I quickly decided that I had to have one of them, so I started looking online for the nearest store that would have one, and as luck would have it, there was a store specifically devoted to costumes for Carnival a few blocks away. After we left the restaurant, we wandered down to the shop, which (surprise, surprise!) was completely jam packed. We found all kinds of treasures, including my hat. There were two lines for the checkout stand which stretched through the entire store; I got in one of the lines to pay. I waited for about a half hour in line while the wife and kids found a nearby Irish bar to get some drinks.

Once we reunited, we left the bar and were going to head back over toward the cathedral to find a place to eat... but we encountered a marching band first. We took some pictures and video before they marched off, but then we thought: "why couldn't we just follow them?" So, we just joined in a few paces behind them, and wandered through a little bit of the old town. The wife was particularly enjoying herself, dancing and skipping with first one, then the other kid, just enjoying the atmosphere. I enjoyed the atmosphere as well, but I'm not a "skipping" kind of guy. The band made their way to their destination, a private party in one of the local restaurants. The entire band of 30 or so guys filed slowly into the restaurant, then they closed the door, leaving us bemused and laughing about having followed (and in some cases participated with) a random marching band the night before Carnival.

One of the things Sam wanted to try while he was here was döner - basically a gyro. We found a döner place and went in, but the ladies couldn't find anything they were really in the mood for, so Sam and I ate döner while they had beers and kept us company. We left there and walked around to find a place for them to eat - they chose an Italian place (which turned out to be one of the better decisions). Cute little restaurant with a friendly waiter who was fluent in quite a few languages. We were able to partially communicate with him in English, and our pidgin versions of German, Italian, and Spanish, I'm pretty sure he knew enough to communicate with just about anybody who walked in the door.

We left there and wandered (some of us drunkenly) back to the car to make the 2 hour trek home. Here's my hat, and a cool pic one of us took of the Cathedral:

All in all, they seemed to enjoy their visit, not even complaining (much) about Rüdesheim being closed. We asked for feedback on the itinerary we'd planned, and we all agreed that we'd put together a visit to cities with quite different atmospheres, and while we were mostly going, going, going during their time here, we did manage to fit quite a bit in.

We're already starting the plan for their next visit, but lemme know what places you're interested in seeing, and I'll start working on an itinerary for YOUR visit!