Week 54: Adventure Park!

As you can probably guess, when we get any chance of a break in the weather, we like to spend as much time outside as possible. We had the opportunity a couple of weekends to go with the Luxembourg Ex-Pat group to an adventure park (okay...that is crazy...I can't believe there is actually a Wikipedia page for adventure parks). An adventure park is also known as a rope course and is where that special group of kids went in high school to learn "leadership" skills (or, I can only assume...I was never part of that group...they always talked about some awesome thing called a ropes course, so I figure this was it). The idea is you have a bunch of platforms up in trees with "elements" between them that you need to navigate. These will be things such as rope bridges, or other methods previously only seen in movies for crossing deep ravines.

Jason crossing a lava pit

The park we visited (Parc Le'h Adventures) is located in Dudelange, Luxembourg. This was not our first time at such a park. We had also visited one on the MA, NY boarder (Catamount) a couple times in the last few years--it is equally as awesome, so if you ever have the chance, I *highly* recommend it.

Zipline!

One of the best parts about the adventure parks we have been to, are the zip lines. (Quite frankly, I work my way through the other elements just to get to the zip lines.) You can see me on one in the photo below. In the US, they give you gloves with your other gear when you check in, so you can slow yourself down a bit on the zip lines without chewing up your hands. In Luxembourg, they didn't give us gloves, but instead had well padded trees, so injury was (generally) avoided.

The end of a zip line

There are a number of different courses at these parks and each varies in difficulty, starting with the kiddie courses for the young ones and those not so comfortable with heights, going to those primarily intended for Navy Seals or teenage boys. Since Jason and I had some experience with them, we started with the second hardest, which was pretty good for us. We then did the course two levels below the first and then the one one level below the first, making it through 3 courses in total. Most of our companions weren't quite a quick/comfortable and made it each only through 2. We did, though, have one member of our group who tried the hardest course, which included a "Tarzan" swing, which required swinging from about 35 feet in the air on a rope to catch a 4 foot wide cargo net that was hanging opposite at a similar height (don't worry, there is *plenty* of safety gear). Unfortunately, he missed grabbing the cargo net, so the staff had to pull him down with a ladder, but he had a great time trying, which is really all that matters.

Oh, and did I mention we had a perfect day out in the woods?

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 52: Ex-Pat Meetups!

Wow! Week 52! We've been here in Germany for a year now and are still quite enjoying ourselves. There are still more castles to see...

We've been participating on-and-off with an ex-pat group in Luxembourg for events such as Burgbrennen and a hot air balloon festival. A few weekends ago we participated in two events. The first was a hike through some of the hills and villages of Luxembourg. The hike ended up being about 22.5 km and resulted in some fantastic blisters on the backs of my heals due to my boots, which, evidently, weren't quite as worn in as I had thought. (I had to wear shoes quite sparingly for the two weeks following the hike--things are almost back to normal now...)

Despite the pain that tends to cause to such large blisters, we both had quite a good time, as can be seen in the picture below. The group we were hiking with included a couple Germans, a South African, a Canadian, a Bulgarian, a Luxembourger, maybe people from a couple other places, plus us Americans. (Luxembourg is great like that--there are people from absolutely everywhere.) And the weather was perfect. Oh, and the place where we ended our hike was having an opening celebration, which included free aps and drinks.

Enjoying the Hike

The hike was on Saturday. I spent much of Sunday keeping the backs of my feet away from just about everything. I do have to say, though, that Spyroflex coverings work really well, though it seems they are no longer manufactured (based on my Google search) and makes me wonder just how long I have had them in my med kit. By the evening, Jason was able to convince me to try my sneakers, which wasn't much more comfortable than the boots, but we made it to Luxembourg City, to join another group of ex-pats for a pub quiz.

Our group had a Moroccan, an Italian and Jason and I. We did alright in the first round, coming in 3rd, but blew everyone away in the second round, and ended up winning 18 EUR apiece! Nice! One of my personal contributions was knowing who William Cody was better known as. I don't think a single other person in that bar knew that answer--I've been to a ranch of his in North Platte, Nebraska many years ago.

This was only the second pub-quiz I have ever been privy to. The first was a little less than a year ago in Norway. The entire pub quiz was in Norwegian, though, so my coworker and I didn't participate. This didn't stop him from getting two questions right, despite not knowing a word of Norwegian. He was lucky, though--he's Canadian and the answer to both questions was Canada.

All-in-all, a very good weekend, meeting some people from all over the world. With the bonus of coming out 18 EUR richer and with (hopefully) a pair of boots that are a bit more worn in and ready for the next hike.

Week 51: Munich, Again!

I was back in Munich for work a few weeks ago and Jason took the opportunity to fly down and meet up with me. We again rented a place through AirBnB, but this time it was not above a yoga studio. Jason arrived on Friday evening, in the rain. Luckily it let up a bit and we walked out that evening to an Italian-style place with pretty good pizza and had a nice, long European style dinner--in at 8:30pm, out at 11:30pm.

The next day was perfect. One of the best days we had seen so far this spring. We took advantage of it and walked through Munich's Englisher Garten and did some chatting, wandering and people watching. In the middle of one area of the Garten is the Chinesischer Turm (Chinese Tower), which is the in picture below. (Check out the blue sky and puffy clouds! Such a perfect day!) Like much of Munich, the tower was originally built a few hundred years ago, but burned down during bombing during the Second World War. It was, though, rebuilt to the original plans in the early 1950s.

Chinesischer Turm

At the Chinesischer Turm, as should be expected at any tourist sight in Germany, there was a Beergarten, as well as a selection of places to get coffee, pretzels and other delicious food. We had a snack before continuing our walk into another area of the Garten. As one would probably guess, there were bikes everywhere, as you see in any European city. Jason saw a quick reminder that yes, we were indeed in Europe, from looking at the bicycle below. See if you can find it yourself. Hint: there is something in place of a water bottle.

Despite appearances, biking while drunk is a crime...

One thing we like to do when we go to bigger cities, that I may have mentioned in an earlier post, is to eat non-German cuisine. The non-German food in our area is limited and leaves a lot to be desired, so when we travel, we eat "ethnically" as much as we can. For our second dinner in Munich, we found a TexMex place, but when we arrived, then had a 10 Euro cover, as they were showing a Real Madrid or some other important soccer game. Oddly enough, there was a second TexMex eatery right across the street, so we went there instead. The food wasn't bad--much better than the TexMex we get in the Eifel. And, we still got to watch a soccer game--it turns out that Germans dump beer on each other instead of Gatorade after a winning game. And they drink and dump it out of enormous glasses.

On our last trip to Munich, we spent some time at the Deutsches Museum. That admission included a ticket for a later trip to one of the other museums administered by the same group. So, on this trip we used that ticket to go to the Verkehrs Museum (Transportation Museum), which focused primarily on cars and other ground-level items that move us around--trains, trucks, bikes, etc. It was mostly a look-and-see museum, and didn't have too many interactive exhibits, but they did have a large number of cars of all sorts of different shapes.

Verkahrs Museum

Jason even found a stainless steel Porsche. Nice.

The Heaviest Porsche

Outside the museum, there were a few other exhibits, including a few additional locomotives and buses. I also made a new friend! A 15 foot tall snail! At least he was smiling. I, for one. welcome our new gastropod overlords.

My New Friend!

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!