Week 63: Koeln to Bonn by Bike

A little while back we visited the city of Bonn, West Germany's capital before the end of the cold war linked the two halves of Germany. Bonn is quite close to the city of Koeln (Cologne) and we thought that since they were so close and have a good train connection, that it would be nice to ride between the two cities.

View Larger Map

We started in Koeln and rode south, on the east side of the Rhein. The weather refused to cooperate the entire day and we ended up with 2 or 3 cloud bursts while we were riding. Not ideal, but better than pouring over the entire trip. The total ride was about 35 km (22 mi) based on the map, though we got a bit turned around just outside of Bonn when we couldn't find a way to cross a tributary of the Rhein, so it was probably closer to 40 km (25 km) total. 

Jason makes (very cute!) friends

Once we arrived in Bonn, we didn't have to wait too long for a train--maybe 5 minutes after we bought our tickets. From there it was about a 25 minute ride to Koeln. We dropped our bikes at the car, then walked around a bit. Koeln is the 4th largest city in Germany, and, let me tell you, on a Saturday afternoon in mid-July its shopping district is *busy*. It was a little overwhelming, since we are used to much smaller cities, but after taking a short look at the city's famous cathedral, we found a seat at a cafe and enjoyed a meal outside.

Inside of Koeln's Cathedral

With more rain in the forecast, we forewent a trip to the World Ballooning Festival, which we had seen last year in Echternach, and decided instead to go for another castle. We headed to Bourscheid castle in Luxembourg. The castle looks quite impressive from a distance, though it in more or less a ruined state (and has no place to get Kaffee and Kuechen!), with some restoration work having been completed since the 1970s.

Jason, an umbrella and a castle

Though there were no snacks, we did get a free English-language audio tour that was hosted by Victor Hugo and a couple travelling companions, who had visited the castle in the late 1800s. They told us about how the castle looked at the time of their visit and what renovations had been completed on the castle since that time in surprisingly good British accents for Frenchmen.

Bourscheid's Main Tower

After touring the castle, we visited the town of Diekirch, Luxembourg, which is home to a military museum that we had heard was very good and intended to visit, but we spent more time at the castle than we had originally planned, and so just wandered through town, had a small, late lunch and a cup of coffee and listened in for a while on a small festival, whose theme was related to WWII. We also saw this odd little gem keeping an eye on the town square. I felt much safer under his watchful eye as I drank my coffee.

This little guy makes sure you pay your tab

Week 61: Where did that Castle come from?

We were looking for a bit of a day trip on a Saturday a few weeks ago and decided it would be interesting to check out Gerolstein, home of Gerolsteiner Bunnen, a very commonly seen brand of bubbly mineral water and related drinks in Germany. The town of Garolstein is located in the Vulkan-Eifel and the bubbliness is due to the same type of activity that we have seen more explosively on a couple of occasions.

As we were walking around, we found a public tap for the water. You can drink from it and the water is bubbly straight from the tap. It is a little disorienting. While we were in the park where the tap is located, at least two sets of  people came by to fill up their own bottles at the tap. It is a pretty neat idea, like the spring off in the woods of Maine where we would fill up for our stay at my aunt's camp, but with far more bubbles.

Jason with the Public Garolstein Tap

While walking around Gerolstein, we saw a sign: zum Burg (to the castle). We both said: "Castle?" and proceeded to follow the sign. What we found at the top of a hill over looking the city was the ruins of Loewenburg (Lion Castle). There wasn't too much left--mostly a few walls. The really neat part was that one of the houses we walked past to get to the castle, had the castle's outer-ring-wall as part of it. The only thing cooler than living in a castle would be to have part of a castle built into your house--you get the castle without the *outrageous* heating bills for the great hall.

Looking down from Loewenburg

Me on a wall at Loewenburg

For the second year in a row, Jason ran in a German/American road race in the town of Herforst. The race had a number of people from the base running, including the new head of the base and the new Chief NCO. In addition, there was a 94 year old man who had participated in the walking portion of the race--they had a separate Nordic Walking grouping--with, I believe, his son, who was in his 70s...man I hope I am that active when I am that age. Anyway, Jason had a good run. As each person crossed the finish line, their name was announced. Jason was identified (in German) as "the Runner with the hat".  

"Der Laufer mit dem Hut"

As with any activity that brings more than a few people together in Germany, there was a beer truck present.  I had some Kaffee und Kuechen (coffee and cake) while Jason was running, and listened to the German conversations going on around me. My German is slowly improving, despite the fact I work all day in English and rarely work with Germans in German and I am able to follow some of the incidental conversations going on around me.

After run drink? Don't mind if I do!

Later in the day, we went for dinner in Berkastel-Kues. There is an Indian restaurant there that was recommended by a few people on base and actually had something I would consider spicy, which, frankly, is amazing here in Germany. I am not a big fan of spicy, but, man, is the food here bland. After eating, we walked across the river to a bar that was showing the final EuroCup game between Italy and Spain. We watched the first half and it was a very exciting game--much more so than the game we watched between Germany and Portugal. Spain ended up winning the game 4 to 0. Jason and I joked that the winner of the match would get the bailout money...

Hooked on "the Karlsberg Beer Feeling"

Week 60: Altstadtfest and...two castles!

On the day of the summer solstice, yes, the longest day of the year, I was in the city of Vaasa, Finland for work. Vaase is located at about the same latitude as Reykjavík, Iceland. I should have known I would be in for a tough few days, when I landed at 11pm and it barely looked like twilight, despite the fact that the city was completely covered in clouds. The next day was surreal. It looked like mid-afternoon far into the night. I couldn't, for the the life of me keep the light out of my hotel room. My. I had never been so jetlegged when traveling only one time zone. And, the crazy thing about this place, was that people didn't have the rolling shutters on their windows like they do in Germany. I don't know how they sleep...maybe they do it all in the winter, when they have 20 hours of darkness.

Around 9pm in Vaasa

After I made it home and had a good night's sleep on Friday, Jason and I met up with the Luxembourg Ex-Pat group in the nearby city of Trier for the Altstadtfest (roughly: Old-Town Fest). It was the standard German festival, with plenty of food, beer, wine and various forms of entertainment. We watched a couple cover bands at one stage, then visited the cathedral with a few of the ex-pats. One of the cover bands called out Jason for rocking out and playing air guitar to "Breakfast at Tiffany's" by Deep Blue Something. Jason *swears* he was doing it ironically and was composing a progressive interpretation of the song in his head. I'll leave it to you to decide if he was telling the truth.

This band liked Jason's air guitar

So, the next day it was raining. And, what better thing to do in the rain in Germany, than to go to Luxembourg and visit castles? So, we did just that. Our first castle was Beaufort Castle in eastern Luxembourg. We had been here before, about a year ago, but they were having a concert at the castle when we arrived, so we weren't able to to tour it. This time, no concert, so we took our umbrella and looked around.

Jason, an umbrella and a castle

There was nothing particularly remarkable about the castle, but it did have some nice tall towers to climb into and a number of passages to explore.

Jason looks at a Beaufort Castle

Our next stop was the castle in Larochette. We had traveled through Larochette a couple months ago when we were hiking with the ex-pat group. We didn't have the time (or, frankly, the energy) to visit the castle as we walked through the town, so we returned on our own. It was very wet out at that point, so we didn't spend too much time exploring the the ruins, but inside one of the restored buildings were a series of exhibits by local artists--I was particularly found of Alice Niederkorn's work. There were a few pieces I might have been interested in taking home, but we can't hang things on our walls...

Ruined Castle at Larochette

Week 59: Turin

A number of years ago, when a good friend was doing some graduate studying Italy, I visited Turin on a cold, rainy night in late December. We walked around, had some dinner and road the glass elevator up to the top of the Mole Antonelliana to view a cold and wet Turin from above.

Flash forward about eight years, and I am back in Turin, this time with Jason, in the hot, humid summer for about two days of seeing the city in both the light and the dark and again visiting the Mole Antonelliana. I was in the area for work and it looked like a great opportunity for Jason to get his first look at Italy. Since he had never been and my impression, other than the food, is not that rosy, it was important for him to draw his own conclusions.

We booked a place on AirBnB. It was one of the nicest apartments that we had stayed in, though it was a bit of a ways outside the city, so we did a large amount of walking. I had given Jason directions to find places for dinner (which, as I will note again as I come to them, he did admirably), as that, we find, when you don't have a sense for the area, is the hardest part.

We ended up walking to dinner our first night, after we got everything set up with our apartment for the weekend. We had some very good pizza, then walked around the very warm and humid city of Turin for the evening, stopping for a while next to the river to enjoy the lights and the sounds of the city.

Turin at Night

After staying remarkably cool in our room, despite no air conditioning. Air conditioning is generally rare in Europe, especially in private homes. You don't see the warts sicking our the windows nearly as often as you do in the States, even where they could really use it (like Italy). Very few of the companies I have been to have air conditioning, unless it is an internal room--even then, it may only be a fan, instead of full-on AC. (I really don't like AC very much, if it wasn't that obvious...though I admit, I felt a little crazy a couple years ago during that heat wave in New England, where I was working from home and had my feet soaking in ice water to stay cool, since we had no AC in the apartment...as with everything else, its use requires balance.)

For our full day in Turin, we started by going to a huge market at Porta Palazzo (translated link--translation done by Google...), which is purported to be the largest in Europe. It was indeed quite big and had very reasonable prices. Jason bought about 1.5 kilos of cherries for 2 Euro (3.3 lbs for about 3 bucks). While it was a good deal, it did mean that we spent the next couple hours walking around Turin, spitting out cherry stones.

A stall at Europe's largest market

We visited the Royal Palace of Turin, which has some really fantastic marble-work in the entry area. Unfortunately, no pictures are allowed, so though I did get one of two shots before the docent told me to stop (the sign was *very* poorly placed--there was no way I could have seen it unless I was throwing something out in the trash can it was hidden behind), they weren't the best, so I haven't included them here. I did include a rather appropriate statue of Pan, that was snapped before the docent's correction of my conduct. 

Shh! I didn't take this picture at the Royal Palace!

Around lunch time, we came across a portion of a Roman road and an old Roman gate. Turin was founded by the Roman's and dedicated to Augustus, and there was a statue in place to commemorate that fact. Jason was very excited to see this pose of Augustus in statue form, as it was included in many of the Latin texts he used in high school. He had recognized it immediately from our table for lunch at a nearby restaurant.

Jason and a famous Roman

After lunch, we took some time to walk around the city, including some time to walk by one of the rivers. There were many locals also doing the same, and others relaxing in the grass. After a bit of walking, we joined those with more sloth-like pursuits and found a shady spot for a nap. After a bit of a rest, we located some coffee and worked our way back into the heart of the city via public transport.

One thing that much of Italy shares with less western countries I have been to (including, actually, some parts of the US), is the desire/need to use capital investments, for *as long as humanly possible* despite the rather obvious safety or other hazards that may result from the use of the investment. Case in point--in the video below, is the door of a street car opening and closing (it is taken sideways...you may need to tilt your head). My, I am glad my toe, finger or arm did not get in its way!

We successfully disembarked from the street car with all limbs and other body parts attached and headed to the Mole Antonelliana for a ride in their great, glass elevator to get a nice view of the city. The building is home to Italy's Cinema Museum, which we only visited slightly, due to the glass elevator ride. Since we had good weather, the view from the top was quite nice and we spent quite a while looking down into the courtyards and terrasses of Turin. 

At the top of the Mole Antonelliana

For dinner on our second and final night, Jason had again found a well recommended pizza joint. This one, we had to wait about an hour for a table, but they were nice enough to put our names in and tell us what time to come back so we went and had a beer and some aps, then came back and had some of the best pizza I have had, especially at about 10pm. It was truly great.

Thumbs up on the pizza!

That pretty much wrapped up our trip. We took our time getting up the next day and just had sandwiches at a nearby mall for lunch, before working our way to the airport and back to Germany. On the way home, there was a fantastic sunset over the windmills in the farm fields. Italy was a nice diversion--especially for the food--but it was great to be back in Germany.

Yeah, I'll say it: Windmills are Majestic

Week 53: Marksburg and Mid-Week Paris

We had a clear weekend to visit Marksburg castle, which we are only previously visited briefly a few weeks ago. This time we were careful to arrive in time for one of the English tours. The castle is particularly noted as being the only castle on the Middle Rhine to never be destroyed and was first built around 1117, making it just under 900 years old. The castle had many owners through its time, including Napoleon. 

The two most facinating things we found out about the castle, was that (1) it had an icebox--it was the first castle we had been to where such an item was part of the tour and (2) the head of the German castle authority gets to live here. For that reason, the tour was limited and did not include the tower, which was unfortunate, as that is generally the *best* part of any castle tour. Following the tour, we enjoyed some coffee and cake, to help blend in with the German crowd.

Marksburg

The following week, some friends of ours from the US were spending a few days in Paris as part of a post-med-school graduation celebration European trip for one of the couple. Jason and I looked up the TGV times and hopped on a 6:40am train from Luxembourg and were at our friends' hotel by 9:30. That is about 2 hours to travel 230 miles, with some metro transit on the other end to complete the trip. Average speed of 115 mph? Yes, please.

This was the graduate's first trip to Paris and since we had been before, we let them lead the way. We attempted to go to the Catacombs, but they were closed due to V-E Day, so we had a nice walk from there to Notre Dame. After a wander through the inside of the church, we went up the towers to visit the gargoyles, as well as get a rather nice view of the city. This was a first for both Jason and I, and, despite the wait, was totally worth it. Plus, you get to see the bell, which is enormous.

The gargoyles overlook Paris

We next took the Metro up to the area of Montmartre and visited the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris. This is another place to get a great view of the city. While we were sitting and enjoying the view and determining our next destination, the graduate's name was called out--and here, in Paris, 5000+ miles away from school, he runs into one of his classmates. Crazy.

Our next stop was for a cafe (shown in the photo below), then a quick run by the Moulin Rouge for a photo from the front. Instead of a fancy dinner, we decided to grab some cheese, bread and wine for a dinner by the Seine. The weather, which was supposed to be rain, held out for the day and we had a fantastic time by the water eating, drinking and chatting. Of course, since the summer is coming, the days are getting longer, and as we said good-bye around 8pm to catch our train back to Luxembourg it wasn't even dusk yet. 

The guy walking out of the cafe...not part of our group

With that, we had our 2 hour train ride and then our drive home--a great day and definitely worth the time off from work.

Week 50: Burg Lahneck and Koblenz Bike Ride

We were on the hunt for more castles and were planning on touring two on the Rhine, but didn't get out of the house early enough in the day, so we toured one castle and had coffee at the other. The first castle we stopped at was Lahneck. The castle had a few notable stories regarding it.

Burg Lahneck

One was regarding its dungeon, which was on ground level at the base of the tower, instead of built like a basement. The really weird thing was that there was no way to access the dungeon from the ground. The victims had to be lowered down by rope. It wasn't clear to me how the torturers made it down there. Perhaps they had a ladder.

Another notable story was from the mid-1800s. There was a British family with a 17-year-old daughter vacationing in the area. The daughter went out with her sketchbook to do some landscape drawings and made her way up to the castle, which at that time was mostly a ruin. In an attempt to climb to the top of the tower, the stairs collapsed and she fell. When she didn't return that evening, search parties were sent out. Unfortunately, her body (or, rather, skeleton) wasn't found until 9 years later, when some work was being done to clean up the castle. Her diary with a few entries was found near her body, showing she was alive after her fall, but was unable to attract any attention to her plight. A very chilling story.

We found the tour, though in German, to be very good. They did give us a translation of tour on paper and the guide was nice enough to translate some of the stories he told that were not on the sheet. They also did a couple of really interesting things that we had not seen at the other castles we have visited. First, the tour guide demonstrated a number of the items he discussed, including an unique fold-out card table and a lock-box (cue 2000 election campaign joke about Social Security here--the Guild Chest on this page shows a good example) with 11 locking points. This is very notable, as generally you only get to see these items from a bit of a distance as displays and don't get to see how they work.

The other tidbit on the tour was regarding the older wooden floors that were still in some areas of the castle. In most castles we have visited, they lay down some modern carpets or otherwise cover the area to protect the floor from the tread of visitors. Here they instead had us all put on slippers over our shoes. They had a big bin sitting outside of one of the rooms and we all then slid around on the floor once we made our way inside. It was an interesting way to do it and gave us an interesting story to tell.

Our next stop was at Marksburg Castle, where we arrived just after the last English tour set out, so we sat instead and had a coffee and enjoyed the sun. 

As a real goal for the day was to get a bike ride in, we took a drive from Marksburg into Koblenz and had a nice ride along the Rhine. The picture below was taken at the spot we turned around, just a little ways outside the city. Pretty cool abandoned factory, huh?

Hulk along the Rhine in Koblenz

On biking back to Koblenz, we stopped for some food at a cafe near the river. Though it was a little chilly, we took the chance to sit outside. I had a really great (though a bit salty...) Spaezle dish shown in the photo below--with a class of halbtrocken (have dry) wine.

Spaezle with Veggies!

Week 49: Burg Pyrmont

Burg Pyrmont

We are back into the full-tilt mode of castle visiting. This week's coverage is of Burg Pyrmont (sorry, no English link). This castle was a little bit of an adventure, as there was no materials available in English. We had our choice of German, Dutch and French. We chose German, and did our best to pick our way through the tour material. Luckily, our German has improved enough to grasp the basic information on the rooms from the handout.

View from the Top of the Tower

Burg Pyrmont is located nearby Burg Eltz. In fact, from the tower at Pyrmont, we were able to see the crane at Burg Eltz and just make out the castle. Unfortunately, I did not get a picture, so you will have to trust me on this. One thing that was particularly interesting about this castle was that you could rent out a room or a portion of the castle as a holiday apartment or for a wedding. And, frankly, the rates for the rooms weren't too bad: about 80 Euros for two people for one night, including breakfast. We've paid more where we were not, in any way, staying in a castle. 

Looking Down the Tower's Staircase

This type of repurposing is very common in Europe, where they have lots of old buildings that they don't want to tear down, but can't really preserve as just tourist attractions. We saw a lot of this in Denmark, in particular, where it seemed that every old building that was not being used for its original purpose was turned into art studio. It is quite an interesting approach, as the architectural elements that have developed in a specific area are maintained, but the buildings stay useful and add to the environment. It is an interesting approach and is reminiscent of how some of the downtown industrial buildings in Providence, RI were reused.

Breakfast Room

It looks like a really nice place to stay. We were able to walk around a bit in the building and found the breakfast room, which was really nice, as you can above. I bet the food is pretty great as well...

Week 48: Our Second Visitor

Well, it has been about 9 months, but we had our second visitor a few weeks ago. While you may recall our last visitor was a friend of mine, this time we were joined by a friend of Jason's. We took him to a number of sights that we have visit before, including the Manderscheid Castles, Burg Eltz (a place where we went with our last visitor) and Luxemburg's Casemates.  

Jason, his Long Time Friend and Manderscheid's Niederburg 

Luxembourg City

We, of course, found some fantastic new things, including the slide in the picture below. You may recall a previous slide we had found in Germany. The one was located in a playground in Luxembourg City. I don't have a video (our guest tried, but the video did not really come out very well since the slide is covered), but can attest to it be quite awesome, though the climb up was a bit awkward as it was meant for much smaller people. And no, we did not push kids out of the way to go down the slide...we calmly waited our turn.

Awesome Slide!

Not shown in the photo above is the rest of the playground, which was just as cool. It looked like a pirate ship! And even included a crow's nest that you could climb into. Additionally there was the swing set, shown in the movie below, where kids got to have the excitement of almost swinging into each other, but due to the mathematics of the paths, never did. And, the best part, which I also don't have documentary evidence of, but I have seen in a number of other European playgrounds was an Archimedes's screw and a set of dams and pumps so you can be the Army Corps of Engineers and manage the water flow through the area. European playgrounds are awesome and teach kids about math, science and engineering! It is like spending the day at the MOS! (On a side note--the Boston Museum of Science's web address is mos.org--Jason just wondered if MIT might have provided some help in getting them such a name.)

With our last visitor, we had visited Burg Eltz, which is the old castle in Europe that is still owned by one of the original families, and large section of it was under renovation. As can be seen in the picture below, they are not yet complete and we still get to see a crane with the castle, though much of the other work has been completed and really looks great compared to the scaffolding we saw on our last visit.

Burg Eltz with a Crane

We sent our visitor off with a dramatic train catch. I rushed in and bought his ticket, while he grabbed his bag. We hurried up to the platform, and just as we stepped off the escalator, the passengers were stepping off the freshly arrived train. I've been riding the train a lot in the past year and that is the most perfect timing I have ever been involved in--talk about luck. Two minutes later and we would have missed it!

Week 44: Time for More Castles!

As the weather improves, we are getting more excited about getting out and about. With all the castles we have seen in the past year, one may think that we are running low on options--you would be wrong! We decided to take a drive out to the Rhine, and check out some of the castles in the vicinity. 

One of the great things about driving on the back roads here in Germany is that we'll be driving along and one of us will go "Woh! Look at that castle!" And on this trip out, we had just such an experience in Kastellaun. Jason, who was driving, was the one who noticed the ruined castle up on the hillside. We stopped, parked and then walked up the hill to the castle. 

As with many of the castles in Germany, this one was a ruin and had only a couple walls and a turret remaining. While we were up on the hill admiring the castle remains, we ran into a wedding that was happening in the restaurant near the castle. We even got to see a Champagne cork fly and shared a smile with the opener of the bottle. Unfortunately, we were not invited to the festivities (nor were we really dressed for them), so we walked back into town and enjoyed some Kaffee und Kuechen (coffee and cake) before heading back out on the road.

Kastellaun Castle Ruin

Wedding Party

Our ultimate destination was St. Goar and Burg Rheinfels, the largest castle overlooking the Rhine. The castle was also a ruin, but still had many of its walls and a substantial number of buildings left. It was very cool, with lots of rooms and areas to walk through and even some tunnels that we got to explore with a candle. It would be a great place to go back to in the summer with a picnic.

Jason and Burg Rheinfels

Instead of heading straight home from Burg Rheinfels, we drove up to Koblenz. I have spent a lot of time at the Koblenz Hauptbahnhof (main train station), as the train line I take to get to other parts of Germany for work generally requires that I change there. But, I have not seen anything else of Koblenz. Jason suggested the stop, thinking there would be a park/monument or something else interesting at the intersection of the Rhein and Mosel rivers in Koblenz. And boy, was he right.

The intersection of these rivers is known as the Deutsches Eck (German corner). Located there is an enormous statue. ENORMOUS. The statue is of German Emperor William I. I highly recommend reading the Wikipedia page I linked to above, as it gives the history of the statue and the monument. The statue that is there now is a replacement of the version that was destroyed during WWII and the Wikipedia page includes some photos of the statue that was there before and what it looked like after being destroyed.

Statue of William I at the Deutsches Eck

To give you some idea of scale, the picture below shows Jason standing next to a carved eagle which takes up only the lower half of the lower wall between the stairs in the picture above. The only other thing I can think of that impressed me so much by its size might be the Lincoln Memorial, but this monument may be a bit more impressive, as there is nothing else even close to its size anywhere nearby.

Jason, providing scale

We walked around the park by the monument a bit before working our way back home along the Mosel. We stopped in Cochem (star of at least one previous blog post) for dinner, enjoyed a good German meal and went on our way.

Week 27: Short Days

As winter is creeping up on us, our days are growing remarkably shorter, with the sun rising around eight in the morning and setting around 4:30 in the afternoon. We've also been having quite a bit of fog, which tends to last until around noon-time then comes back again after the sun sets. This gives us all the more reason to get outside while the sun is up. 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, many of the towns in our area have hiking/walking trials that take you through the countryside around the town. In our area, there are a series of nordic walking trails (yes, you use poles--it is crazy...just look at the link). Our town, like many of the other sites, has three: a 3.6 km, a 8 km and a 15.9 km. We decided to do the longest, which passes near our apartment, works its way down a significant hill, then follows along the Kyll River before coming back through the village of Preist and through fields back into our town.

One road proceeds through a yellow wood...

The weather was perfect for being out hiking: nice, crisp fall weather, with no clouds and bright sun. As the afternoon wore on, we noticed the moon in the sky...

...which stayed put as the sun set.

The last part of the hike was through the woods. With the sun setting, it was getting dark very quickly. Luckily, I had asked Jason to throw his headlamp in the bag we were carrying. He was very excited to use it, and tried many of the settings as we were walking along. For your own reference, a blinking-white headlamp does not give the best view of the upcoming trail.

This portion of the trail was well known to me, as it is where I go mountain biking during the week. Right near the main path into the woods, there is a shrine, as you often seen throughout the countryside here in Europe. This one looks like a tiny church and is very well maintained. It includes a small pew and some kneelers, along with some long burning candles and a number of plaques thanking for the help of Mary and Jesus. I have passed by it many times, but had never stopped for a close look. It was a nice place to rest for a few moments with the quiet autumn darkness closing in around us.

Our total hiking time was about 4.5 hours. We started at about 2pm with the mid-afternoon sun, and by the time we were back home, it was completely dark out.

On Sunday, we went to Vianden Castle in Vianden Luxembourg. You may recall that about a month ago, we were in Vianden for a hike. This time, I was flying out for a work trip for Luxembourg in the evening, so we decided to stop by and visit the castle itself. The castle was completely rebuilt in the 1970s and 80s from a complete ruin. Now it is quite nice, with a number of spaces that look like they are used for events and possibly even royal occasions.

Vianden Castle

In the castle, there was an exhibit about Charlotte, the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg. Unfortunately, we could only understand snatches of it, as most of it was in Luxembourgish, with a smattering of French and German. Anyway, Charlotte was the leader of Luxembourg during WWII and, from what we could gather, she lived in exile during much of that time in England. From looking at the history, that makes sense, as the Germans invaded Luxembourg on their way to France. She later abdicated in favor of her son. The current ruler of Luxembourg is Henri, her grandson. The castle was a good visit and had some great views of the surrounding area.

Week 21: Hiking and Biking

The weather in our corner of Germany has been pretty spectacular for the last few weeks: sunny, but cool (I'd say in the 70s). The trees are starting to change, there is a bit of a nip in the air in the morning in evening and it is getting darker much earlier.

In celebration of the weather, we spent this weekend (Sept. 24th & 25th) mostly outside, first with a great hike in Luxembourg, followed by a bike ride on closed section of roadway. The hike was in the city of Vianden. We started at the Chateau and worked our way up the hill behind it. This page shows the profile of the hike (in German).

Vianden Castle

You'll note around kilometer 4 the very sharp drop. At this point, we were descending along the ridge line. The path had been well used in the past, but definitely was not used quite as regularly recently: there were a number of instances were I looked on either side of the ridge--quite steeply down to both my left and right--more than once each before I found the trail again. The picture below gives you a sense of this downward climb. Yes, we are both on the trail.

Hiking the Ridge

The trail looped back around to the castle, passing through an adventure park. (Kristin, there are at least 3 of these within 90 minutes of our place--they are really big over here!) For those of you unfamiliar with an adventure park, it is also known as a high ropes course. You are strapped into a harness and then work your way around different elements at different heights in the trees. They are tons of fun if heights aren't a problem for you. Jason and I have gone with friends to one in the US, but have not done one here in the EU...yet.

On Sunday, we went out for a bike ride from Dreis to Kluesserath. The area was having a biking festival, with a total of five towns participating. There were lots of people out on the bike paths and the section of the road between Rivenich and Kluesserath was closed to traffic, so you could really get pumping going down the hills into the river valley. This section of the ride was edged by vineyards. The grapes are about ready to be picked, I would hazard to guess, but we haven't seen anyone out among the vines yet.

The ride was mostly flat, except for the trip down into the river valley. The hill was deceptive, though, as on the way down it seemed very steep and I was dreading the mere idea of riding back up. But, either it was a bit of an illusion, or I am stronger than I think, as it turned out to be quite a manageable incline. The ride was a total of 36ish kilometers round trip--about 20 miles. I found that my tailbone was still not completely healed from my fall in the bell-tower, but I made it and the weather made it a perfect day to be out.


View Larger Map

Shortly after the end of the ride, I was off to the train station for work, headed to Afschaffensburg, just outside of Frankfurt. Such a shame to have to leave a day like that as early as I did, but the need to demo called, so off I went.

The Catch Up Post

It has been a number of weeks since I last posted. These has been because (1) Jason and I took a vacation for the first part of September and (2) I have been travelling a ton for work lately. So, this post will serve to catch up on some highlights of the last few weeks.

The last weekend of August included two rather nice trips for us, both involving nearby villages and castles. There are two particularly awesome things about this weekend that I want to share. The first is this slide:

Unfortunately, since it was so wet out that day (I had, only 20 minutes before this video was taken, fallen firmly on my ass while we were climbing down from a bell tower on its slippery wooden stairs. Ow. My tail bone is still recovering.) that I couldn't get much speed up while I was on the slide, but man, I can't wait to go back and try it out when I don't have wet pants slowing me down.

The second fantastic thing was a trip to the town of Manderscheid, which was having a medieval festival at one of the town's *two* castles. Evidently, the castles were owned by competing families, who spent their time eyeing each other across the small river. The lower castle was quite a complex and we spent some time walking through it with hoards of other visitors who were there for the festival.

Me in front of Niederburg

After that weekend I headed out to the Netherlands, the met up with Jason in Boston a few days later. We had a great time back in the States visiting our friends and family, despite the fact that I completely lost my voice due to strep. Hopefully I didn't get anyone sick (if you did, send me a note and I will send you a 'get well' card by way of apology), as I was walking around for a few days most likely contagious, before my dad told me to go to the clinic.

Instead of heading right home to Germany after vacation, Jason headed to Texas (Jason' characterization of his first ever trip to Texas: "It is hot and flat.") for a conference/workshop and I went to Beauvais, France to sit in on a series of training sessions performed in French for my company's software. Beauvais is generally an unremarkable European city. This is my 3rd work visit there. It is a smaller sized city (about the size of Concord, NH population-wise) and has all of your standard cafes and stores that you expect. It also has a cathedral. A very tall cathedral that was never finished and has beautiful and large stained glass windows. If you ever find yourself in Beauvais, it is a must see.

Beauvais Cathedral

Jason's flight back from Texas ended up being delayed 4 hours, so he didn't end up getting back home until late in the afternoon last Saturday, so we had a bit of an abbreviated weekend. We did venture out on Sunday and explored a bit of the Vulkaneifel. Part of the area near where we lived used to be very volcanic--and is still a little volcanic. We took a few walks around some maares (volcanic crater lakes). It was very nice and there were many Germans also out for walks. One of the maares we visited had quite a swimming spot. The maares make great swimming holes, as they drop off very quickly--evidenced by the 7 meter high diving platform on the shore in the below photo. We'll need to come back here next summer.

Swimming Area with High Dive Platform