The Shores Family in... Frankfurt: It's June, so.... Metal Festival!

So the daughter has come to Germany each June for a yearly metal festival, adding on some tourist activities each year. Last year, we forced her to go to Normandy with us, this year she she got to pick our destination.

She arrived on Wednesday, the boss and I went to the airport to pick her up, then we dropped the wife off at the office and ran out to the base. We stocked up on stuff (and filled the gas tank), then came home for Cori to rest.

Cori and I hung out the rest of the week, while the boss went in to work each day.

Saturday, we took the metro to the airport and flew to Copenhagen.

We took the same bus we rode in December to downtown, and walked to the Marriott. We dropped off the luggage and rested for a while, then wandered around the area near the hotel, stumbling into an Italian restaurant for dinner. We walked back to the hotel afterwards.

Sunday we took a bus over to the Carlsberg brewery; Cori and the boss took a tour while I supervised all of the jackets and umbrellas. Afterward, we wandered through the stables to admire the draft horses and checked the shop to see if there was anything we couldn't live without.

Afterward, we took a bus over to the same BBQ restaurant we visited in December (Warpigs) - it was as good as we remembered.

The restaurant is within walking distance of the hotel, so we walked back afterward, wandering through the shopping areas on our way.

We booked a free walking tour on Monday morning (with the same company we'd used on our last visit), but we ended up with a different guide this time. It's a popular enough company that they take large numbers of reservations and bring however many guides they'll need, then divide the group up at the beginning. We saw the same basic sights we did on our earlier tour, so I won't bother sharing all of the details. If you want to know it all, come on over and we'll take you there!

After our tour, we ate at the local food park - it's like a big permanent food truck park. We figured that we could all get what we wanted there easiest.

We walked over to the Hippy Commune of Christiania to take Cori through. We wandered through some of the shops, wife and I each had a glass of wine, Cori had a beer.

We rented some bikes to ride back to the hotel, and rested for a while. After getting a quick bite to eat in the hotel lounge (thank you, Marriott status!), we walked over to Tivoli. I know I told you about Tivoli Gardens in December, but it's special enough that I can cover some of it again.

Dating back to August of 1843, it's the third oldest amusement park in the world, the second most popular "seasonal amusement park" in the world, and the fifth most popular amusement park in the world.

It's just a little postage stamp in the middle of town, but it's simply got this magical feel to it.

It's one of the old style parks, where you pay to get in, then pay individually for the different rides. We didn't go on any rides, just soaked in the atmosphere for a while, then headed back to the hotel.

Tuesday, we decided to add a metaphorical stamp to our passports, so we took a train to Sweden. Copenhagen is a major port city, right at the entrance to the Baltic Sea. Five miles (about a half hour train ride) across the Øresund Straight (locally called "the Sound") is the Swedish port city of Malmö.

We hit the ground in Malmö and found a nearby castle/museum.

Malmö Castle was erected between 1526 and 1539.

Starting in 1429, King Eric of Pomerania introduced the "Sound Dues," a toll for any ship passing through the Sound. Both sides of the Sound were fortified in order to enforce the toll. At Helsingør (in Denmark) he built the castle Ørekrog or Krogen, the predecessor of Kronborg (later immortalized as Elsinore in Shakespeare's Hamlet), while at the same time Helsingborg Castle in southern Sweden was reinforced, which together monitored the customs. Copenhagen was also made the capital at this time. Malmö Fortress was established, later being fortified into its current state as a true castle.

It's owned and managed by the city, and houses part of the city museum. There was an extensive gallery about the White Buses: this was a humanitarian mission during the Second World War, to rescue Scandinavians from German concentration camps.

Sweden was neutral during the war, and due to the close relationship between Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, the Swedes were able to rescue a substantial number of Danes and Norwegians from Nazi camps as well. Over 15,000 were rescued from concentration camps (with Himmler's full agreement, because of the Sweden's neutrality, and some liberal legal maneuverings by the Swedes) by the White Buses. Hitler was specifically kept in the dark by both Himmler and the Swedes, as he was opposed to prisoner releases.

Our ticket also got us into the Technology and Maritime Museum. Good museums, nothing else to report.

After we were done at the museums, Cori wanted to visit IKEA, in the IKEAn homeland, so we took a bus across town to the local location. Kinda silly (as it was exactly like every other IKEA we've been to), but now we can say we've done it.

Boss wanted Swedish Meatballs, but didn't want them from IKEA, so we took a bus back downtown, and found a local restaurant. Meatballs were good, the lingonberries were much better than we would have gotten at IKEA.

Quick train trip back to Copenhagen.

Wednesday, we walked over through the shopping area, stimulating the local economy, and finally were able to get a drink at the Tipsy Mermaid, a boat/bar that we'd seen last time we were in town (but was closed then). We each had a beer there, then we walked over to our harbor tour. Long term readers may remember that last trip, the family travel agent had misplaced the Canal Boat Tour tickets, so we missed out. This time, instead of one of the massive boats filled with a hundred plus tourists, we took a smaller tour, with seven passengers on the boat.

They call it "Social Sailing," where the boat captain facilitates and encourages conversation between the passengers. Felt like a much more personalized tour than just barely being able to hear a prerecorded spiel in multiple languages with a hundred of our closest friends. Additionally, there was a selection of drinks. The wife and one other lady on the boat killed off a bottle of wine - this will come into play later.

So we docked and were working on figuring out what was next (as we had no other plans for the afternoon). Since we were on the north end of town, we decided to drag Cori to The Little Mermaid, since that's one of the things that you apparently are legally required to do when you visit Copenhagen. The easiest way to get there was for us to rent bicycles, so we started pedaling in that direction.

Remember how the boss had half a bottle of wine on the boat? Evidently, our plan of visiting The Little Mermaid sparked a desire to listen to the Disney soundtrack. Cue my wife, drunkenly riding a rental bike through Copenhagen, playing Under the Sea from her cell phone while singing along.

The only way I could get her to stop was to tell her that she was the reason people hate Americans, and that she was making a scene. She assured us that no one was paying attention, but that was just because they were glaring at her once she'd passed.

We took the bikes back to the hotel that evening, and bused/flew back to Frankfurt the next day (Thursday).

Nothing planned until the festival the next weekend, so a week off in the middle of our travels. Nothing blog-worthy happened.

Let's talk about the music festival. Every year, Cori comes over for a metal festival called "Rock im Park" in Nuremburg. The wife attends with her for moral support, while I act as chauffeur (and I take my responsibilities VERY seriously!).

In March, I lined up an apartment for us on VRBO (another version of Airbnb).

The Thursday we were leaving for Nuremburg, we still hadn't heard anything from our host. I messaged them. Didn't hear back for 5 hours. I chatted VRBO, and got the telephone number for the management company. I called, and the lady who answered told me that I had dialed the wrong number, and that I needed to call another number instead.

I called that number, and it was disconnected. I called and spoke with someone at VRBO, and he was unable to get in touch with the host either, but didn't have any other suggestions.

We decided to stay in Frankfurt that night, and figure out what to do the next day (since they didn't have to be there until the afternoon for the festival).

The next morning, I awoke to an email from (I suppose, the host - but NOT VRBO) with a subject line "Cancellation Confirmation."

I was able to find a last minute hotel room for 3 nights, for a surprisingly reasonable price.

We drove to Nuremburg (about 3 hours), and I dropped off the girls at the festival, then headed over to the hotel. All of the festival pics will be thrown on at the end.

As I approached the hotel, my "friend" from VRBO called, and asked me what ended up happening. I explained about the cancellation notification that I'd received, and he was finally able to get someone from the host company on the line, conferencing us together. I explained what had happened, and she asked me to send an email to a customer service address at her company, so they could escalate it with the "landlord." I sent the email, and asked that the reservation be cancelled.

I checked into the hotel, and just hung out there until the girls were scheduled to be picked up. Because of their previous attendance, we have a designated spot where they wait for me to pick them up... this is helpful to me, because traffic can get quite nuts there, and knowing exactly where they'll be expecting me lets me drive to that general area and "stage," so that I can pull up just as they get to the spot. I have several different spots I've used to wait, depending on which direction I'm coming from - I'm telling you, I take my chauffeur responsibilities VERY seriously! I picked them up, and took them to the hotel.

The next day, I ended up receiving a notice of cancellation from the management company, along with a refund notification... so we'll see how that ends up. The girls weren't wanting to see any bands until about 6:00, so we putzed around the hotel, and had an early lunch at Boogie's BBQ, our local barbecue restaurant for our visits to Nuremburg. After lunch, we still had some time before their first band, so we decided to do something touristy - for all of our trips to Nuremburg, we've never toured the castle there, so... of course, we had to go. And now, as is my wont, I will share the information I've gleaned:

Dating back to about the year 1000, the castle is one of the most formidable medieval fortifications in the world. The castle represents the power and importance of the Holy Roman Empire, and Nuremburg's significance within the empire.

There were several kings of "Germany" (which wasn't a true country yet) who were selected as Holy Roman Emperor. The process of selection and coronation began in Frankfurt, with their election. They were coronated in Aachen (and later Cologne), but there was no official palace for the kings of Germany to rule from - there were several different cities where they would hold court - Nuremburg being one of the most important ones. As a result, the castle at Nuremburg was evidently quite opulent - the tour took us through most of the public rooms, but the majority of the decorations had been removed, with displays for armor and weapons added. Most of the signage in the rooms had English, but most of the artifacts only had German captions.

I dropped off the girls for their bands, then was looking for something to do, so I found a shopping mall (y'all know how I love malls!). I parked and wandered around for a while, then pulled away. While leaving that section of town, I passed by a little park area with a lot of food vendors - so I found another parking garage and went back to check it out... if there's one thing I'm a sucker for, it's local festivals!

Turns out, it was New Orleans Fest 2025, in downtown Fürth. I stuck around, ate a pretzel, and listened to one of the bands for a little while (texting the wife about my crowd and concert), then headed back to the room.

I got staged to pick the girls up, then heard from them about an hour ahead of time that they'd like their limousine to have some vittles waiting for them - so, let's go ahead and add caterer to my list of responsibilities.

I found a McDonalds that was still open and picked them up some food, then picked them up and headed back to the hotel.

Sunday morning, they wanted to get to the festival a bit early, as there were two "special guests" booked that they (Cori) wanted to hear. Turns out, she was a little disappointed with each of them - she would have enjoyed them just fine if they were on the schedule, but to have those bands thrown at her as "special guests" was a bit disappointing.

One of the things I generally do while they're at the festival is go to a specific Therme (swimming pool) there. I decided to check out another pool... and was utterly crushed, as I had had such high hopes for it. Way too many people, not enough changing rooms, I would have been better served to go to my normal Therme. Lesson learned.

They were done at the festival quite early (6:00), so I picked them up and we had tapas for dinner. We've found that tapas gives us a good variety of food for a reasonable price. The restaurant was fine - not great, not horrible.

We headed back to the hotel afterward, and drove back the next morning. Now, festival pics!