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.

Where to this year?

We're getting the itch for our next trip. Time to start researching! We don't have our hearts set on any particular location yet, so we're beginning our online exploration with 3 countries:

• Ireland
• Germany
• Scandanavia (okay, not a country but you know what I mean)

Hopefully that will narrow it down a bit, but who knows, we might come across somewhere else that sparks our interest. We'll probably aim for our typical fall timeframe, but depending upon which destination we choose and its temperature and high/low seasons...and our work schedules...we might vary it up a bit and try June.

Look for updates along the way.