Last night we had a little adventure. As we were preparing for bed, I tried to turn off one of the power switches and apparently flipped a breaker. Instead of just the one main light going out, all power went out including the plugs running the TV, everything (at the time, Scott also thought power was cut out to every room on the floor). It was around 11:15 or 11:20 p.m., and of course, the hotel and restaurant staff leave at 11. After trying to switch the light a few times, Scott went downstairs to see if he could find anyone still around, but they were gone. We tried to dial the emergency contact number for the hotel. When someone answered, Scott started telling her how our power was out only to discover that we had apparently dialed someone’s home phone number. Needless to say, the confused lady was unable to help resolve our dilemma. Eventually, after a bit of looking, Scott found the breaker box outside in the hallway. All was well, but it was an eventful 30 minutes.

Heidelberg Castle in the background.
Our hotel is the yellow building, second from the right.

Today was a relatively mundane day – a nice way to wind down before our return to the U.S. We started with breakfast at our hotel, something light for a change: no eggs or sausage. (I’m so over sausage.) We did have a Berliner (a ball-shaped doughnut – think: an extra-large Munchkin from Dunkin Donuts – with sugar coating and raspberry filling) along with our fruit and cheese…and Scott’s daily yogurt, of course.

After checking out of the hotel and putting our bags in the car, we spent the morning walking Heidelberg again. We bought a couple of trinkets, pretzels and gelato, of course. We probably walked for 2 hours before deciding to leave for Frankfurt. As we were leaving the market square, we saw a couple that had just married and were about to head off in their decorated convertible. A wedding on a Tuesday afternoon seems a bit unusual to me, but we’ve seen brides and grooms several times during the week while we’ve been here.

Side note: We looked into some potentially short sidetrips to fill more of a day, but ultimately decided that we’d just go on to our hotel and prepare for our return flight – mainly repacking our bags in a better manner. It will be interesting to see how much weight the bags have gained during our trip. So far, Scott and I seem to have maintained our weight on the trip, balancing out all the rich food and excessive amounts of German sausage with plenty of walking. I probably shouldn’t get my cholesterol checked any time soon though.

So, off we went to Frankfurt after a little misdirection. I apparently selected the wrong airport in the GPS, but fortunately, it wasn’t far off base. All in all, we tallied more than 1,200 miles by car and approximately 125,000 steps on foot while in Germany. Returning the rental car was pretty easy as was our walk through the airport to the hotel. We opted to return the car tonight so we didn’t have to deal with that in the morning before our flight. We had to return our car to Terminal 2, then took the Skyline train from Terminal 2 to Terminal 1 and walked past the long-distance train station to the Hilton we’re staying at. It’s very conveniently located for airport travel, along with a newly opened Hilton Garden and an older Sheraton. The building is called The Squaire, and there are a number of restaurants, shops and at list one business (KPMG) here. The Squaire building looks like a glass boat / space ship. It’s neat to think that if you work at KPMG, you can hop downstairs to take a regional or long-distance train or flight so easily.

Well, that’s enough of my ramblings. We’re off to bed and should land in Atlanta by 3 p.m. Eastern U.S. time on Wednesday. A couple of days of rest, then off to Auburn for the Auburn – Arkansas football game.

Auf wiedersehen!

Rothenburg ob der Tauber & Heidelberg

It's been a great vacation. Since we last wrote, we've visited two more cities -- Rothenburg ob der Tauber (not to be confused with Rothenberg) and Heidelberg.

A walk around the wall

First, we backtracked to Rothenburg ob der Tauber -- known as the best preserved Medieval town in Germany. You can walk around the city wall -- it's sort of an elevated covered sidewalk; the whole loop takes about an hour and a half, but there are a number of places where you can climb up and down, allowing you to walk only small sections if you want.

Our hotel room

Our hotel (herrnschlösschen) here was probably one of the best of our visit. Each place we've stayed has had some superlative about it (from our perspective anyway) -- best location, best breakfast, etc. Our hotel in Rothenburg definitely wins the prize for best service. Beyond service, the room was very spacious and pretty.

One of the many pretty windows
around town

Rothenburg o. d. Tauber almost verges on Disney-like within its walls; it's so surreal, yet charming. It's definitely worth a visit and we heard good things about the Nightwatchman tour, but we were too tired to participate in that one. In fact, we're quickly fading -- a good sign that it's about time to come home.



The town square
and some "typical" German buildings



The view from our room in Heidelberg
Over Marketplatz

This morning, we drove to Heidelberg. It's less than a two-hour drive from Rothenburg. This hotel (Goldener Falke) wins the prize for best location--although it has some tough competition with our hotel in Boppard and Prague. It's located right on the Marketplatz (the old town square). A public parking garage is close by, and it's practically at the foothill of Heidelberg Castle.

Tomorrow, we'll hang out here until afternoon, then head to Frankfurt. We may find a small town to stop in between; we'll see. We leave Germany Wednesday morning (local time), so we're staying at an airport very close to the hotel.

A Relaxing Day in Boppard

Today was a much needed relaxing day. We stayed in Boppard -- no driving and not too much walking. We slept in a bit, ate breakfast downstairs, then took our time getting ready before heading out to enjoy the wine festival.

We did a little souvenir shopping on the town square, ate crepes, enjoyed a couple of glasses of local wine and watched the bands play -- bands of the more traditional nature, more marching band than contemporary music groups. It was very lively and there were a number of large tourist groups in town today -- including one Japanese group and one English-speaking group that included a number of older Americans.

Then, we took a mid-afternoon nap.

Moon rising over the Rhine.

And woke up to stroll along the Rhine and mill about town some more before buying a bottle of wine, two bratwursts in buns and coming back to our room to watch the evening fireworks.

The market square was incredibly crowded tonight and folks began snagging their spot along the Rhine more than an hour before fireworks were scheduled to start, so we considered ourselves very fortunate to have a prime seat on our balcony.



Couldn't ask for a better seat for the fireworks.



We were directly across from the fireworks on the opposite side of the river. We had our wine and food, a warm blankie and all the conveniences you could ask for. It was a pretty impressive fireworks display. I only captured some of the early fireworks on camera and video. Per usual, they grew in scale and complexity as the show progressed, but I wanted to enjoy the show not be behind the camera lens all night. 



So, that was our very relaxing, do-nothing day. Tomorrow, we hit the road again -- backtracking to Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

Boppard

We drove to Boppard yesterday. It was a 6-7 hour drive from Prague. We arrived at the hotel around 6 p.m., ate dinner at a restaurant a short walk away and went to bed. As we were getting ready for bed, we discovered we left a small gift we had bought in Prague; we're not sure where we left/lost it, but our best guess is that we sat it down when we were trying to pay/validate the parking garage ticket and failed to pick it up when we walked out to our car. We were incredibly disappointed, but at least it was a very inexpensive gift. There are much more valuable or sentimental things we could have left behind.



The view from our balcony in Boppard



Boppard is a cute little town in the wine country, in the Middle Rhine region. Our room overlooks the Rhine River.

The weather is supposed to be sunny and in the high 50s or low 60s all weekend. That's about what it was today. It was rather chilly out tonight, but comfortable during the day.

Lotus Evora S in Wiesbaden

We drove to Wiesbaden today. It was a rather uneventful trip other than walking and seeing another city. The most exciting thing was probably having our 2nd and 3rd Lotus sighting. Scott saw one on the road in the Czech Republic; I missed that one. Then, there was an orange Lotus Evora S at the Wiesbaden City Fest where they had a bunch of new cars from various manufacturers. That was the only Lotus. Scott talked with the guy that was there and sat in the car. The other Lotus we saw was an older yellow Elise. We passed it going the opposite direction on the way back from Wiesbaden.

There's a wine festival going on this weekend. It started today, so we had a glass of Reisling from one of the local vineyards this evening. We'll stick around Boppard tomorrow for the wine festival as well, no more driving--until Sunday at least when we head to Rothenburg.

Day 3 - Walking (of course) around Prague

St. Vitus Cathedral at Prague Castle

Each day, I think, "Wow, I'm so exhausted, but in a good way." That couldn't be any more true than today. Not only did we walk a lot as usual, but we went to the Prague Castle, which is up a rather steep hill. We didn't walk through much of the castle / palace interiors opting instead to walk through the Royal Gardens, which were very pretty. It sure seemed like a quick walk back compared to the trip there -- ah, the beauty of going down hill.  We walked home via the famous Charles Bridge and saw three different couples taking wedding photos.



Scott's semi-dark lager



For lunch, we stopped at a local brewery and restaurant called Il Tri Ruzi (I'm guessing "The Three Roses" based upon the logo). Scott enjoyed their semi-dark lager, and while we enjoyed all the food we ordered, I was particularly impressed with a salad that contained beets and a delicious grilled goat cheese. It was so simple, yet so good. 

Other than that, we didn't do much eventful -- just lots of walking and window shopping, which was a perfect day for us. We took a mid-afternoon nap before heading back out for more walking and window shopping, plus a little actual shopping. Now, my legs are so sore that it hurts to get up. That should make walking back to our car with our luggage in the morning fun.

Tomorrow, we head back to Germany for the remainder of our vacation. Our next stop: the small town of Boppard, on the Rhine River. It's a 6-hour drive, so I'm sure we'll break it up a bit along the way at least to eat a bite and stretch our legs. Boppard will be our hub for a few days while we explore other nearby towns as well. More walking and more eating I'm sure.

Day 2, Nuremberg & Prague

My apple breakfast



Wow, I'm so tired! In a good way, but exhausted nonetheless. I can barely put together sentences -- in English much less any other language although I did break out some pretty fabulous Spanish tonight. More on that later. So, here's a fragmented, bulleted version of our day.

We started the day in Nuremberg. Got up early. Walked around a bit before most stores opened (at 9 or 10 a.m.). Grabbed some breakfast -- a sugar-coated apple. Yum! Explored a few parts of town we didn't see yesterday by foot. Bought a few souvenirs -- including some scrumptuous Elisen gingerbread for ourselves, which of course, we had to "test" right away. Headed back to our hotel. Checked out. Drove to the Documentation Centre Nazi Party Rally Grounds, an incredibly moving, somber and educational accounting of Hitler's rise to power and resulting atrocities. The museum is on the site of unfinished site where the Nazi party rallies took place in Germany.

 

The view of Tyn Cathedral from our room

 

Then, we headed to Prague. It was supposed to be a 3-hour drive to our hotel, but we left Nuremberg a bit later than expected and hit rush hour. Then, our hotel is located in a pedestrian only zone. We passed the parking garage where we intended to park and getting back around amidst heavy traffic (cars & people) and one-way streets took forever. We finally got settled in around 8 p.m.

It was difficult to get up and moving again, but we knew we'd be grumpy if we didn't eat soon, so we went out to explore the city. We're right next door to Tyn Cathedral and one of main squares in the old town where there's an astronomical clock (the 3rd oldest in the world, and the oldest still working). We grabbed a bite to eat -- proscuitto di praga (Prague ham) -- from a street vendor along Wenceslas Square.

Tyn Cathedral from the Square

There, a couple from Mexico City with their grown daughter joined us at our high-boy table, so we chatted for a bit. This is where I got to use my Spanish. They had just arrived today as well.



We walked and walked and walked some more to explore the city. It's such a lovely place. I'm looking forward to a full day tomorrow. I'm sure we'll log a significant number of steps on the pedometer; we've got to balance out all the food we're indulging in.

We've arrived - Germany day 1

It's been an exhausting 24 hours. We left Atlanta -- out of the new international terminal, which opened in mid-May -- Sunday afternoon Atlanta time and arrived in Frankfurt, Germany just before 8 a.m. local time. It was about a 9 1/2 hour flight, which went relatively quickly thanks to free inflight movies and a couple of meals. We tried to sleep a bit, but didn't get as much sleep as we would have liked.

We rented a car at the Frankfurt airport. We had reserved an automatic, but they only had manual's left when we arrived. I hear that's pretty common here  (to not get an automatic even though you've reserved one). We typically take trains between locations when we travel, but with relatively limited time here, we didn't want to be reliant upon train schedules. Anyway, Scott drives manual, so it wasn't a problem. And they drive on the same side of the road as the U.S. and the steering wheel is on the same side, so it was a pretty easy transition. Our car is a 4-door diesel Ford C-Max, which I don't think they have in the U.S. It's a little bigger than the economy size car we reserved since they gave us a manual.

With the car rented, we headed to Nuremberg. It was rainy the first bit of the trip, but cleared up about have way. It was just over a two-hour drive, but you could probably do it in two hours if you aren't driving at rush hour which we were this a.m. We took an autobahn most of the way, with the exception of a scenic detour through a small town and forest area, which were very pretty. The autobahn is a lot like U.S. interstates. Despite the myth that there are no speed limits on the autobahn, there are speed limits in many places and speed limit "recommendations" in others. Most of the time the posted speed limit was 100 or 120/kmh (60-74 mph), but we certainly saw plenty of speed deamons on the road.

Our private balcony at the hotel

We arrived in Nuremberg around noon; checked in; put our luggage in our room; parked our car; then went for a brief walk. We grabbed a bite to eat -- a Nurenberger Mit Sauerkraut (a few, small Nuremberg style sausages with sauerkraut on a hamburger bun size role) -- from a street stand. Yum! Then, we headed back to the hotel for a nap.  After our nap, we walked around the Old Town again. The autumn market (Herbst Markt) is going on here now - September 13-30 - as is the Nuremberg Old Town Festival (Alstadfest) - September 13-24. The market has some foods and handmade items as well as other miscellaneous goods for sale in a series of stalls. The festival is like a scaled down Octoberfest with lots of tables set up under tents around restaurants serving sausages and various German food...and, of course, beer! We ate more Nuremberg style sausages, sauerkraut, potato salad and cole slaw. Scott got a beer and after we walked around and shopped a little, I got an Amaretto crepe.

Cute restaurants on the way to the Alstadfest

Shops close up around 7 or 8 p.m. here, so we headed back to the hotel a bit early to rest up. It started raining on us just as we were heading back -- reinforcing our decision to call it a night. Scott's pedometer says we took more than 6 miles of walking today -- pretty good for our first day in country, with very little sleep.

Tomorrow, we're going to check out a few more things in Nuremberg, then head to Prague, Czech Republic. That should be about a 3-hour drive. We'll be there for 2-3 days. We'll do our best to provide daily updates.

PS. I've discovered I can't easily upload photos from my camera, but can from my cell phone. So, today's photo selection is rather ppor.

2012 Vacation Planning: Germany & Prague

We've finally booked our 2012 vacation. This year, we're headed to Germany and Prague. Croatia was also high on the list but because we are going in late September / early October, we opted to forgo Croatia this year and wait until a year when we go a bit more in the summer season. Maybe next year.

It's been a bit more challenging and frustrating to book this year's trip for 3 reasons:

1. Because of various other activities, work schedules, vacation days, etc., it took us a while to pick a date and we had to fit it in between a couple of other activities we have planned in the U.S.
2. There were a couple of festivals that we want to attend. If we were to plan our trip without this in mind, we could make a nice logical loop through Germany to Prague and back. Instead, to make these festivals, we are back tracking a bit along the way and not going in the order that makes the most sense geographically.
3. The day before we had locked in the exact dates for each location, I selected one to two top hotels for each spot. The next day when I went to book, every single one was booked for the dates we wanted. To make it worse, at least one of the online booking sites tells you when the last available room was booked. All were booked within the past 24 hours, so it was even more annoying to discover that some locations we had selected were booked just 7-10 hours prior. I think I could live without that feature.

I hate getting my heart set on something or making a plan in my head, then having to redo everything. We've now booked all our hotels and all would be absolutely perfect if I hadn't seen the ones we originally selected. :-) But I'm getting over it. And focusing on the fact that we'll be on vacation for two weeks. I can't wait.

So, that's my vent about vacation planning. More next time about where we plan to go.