Strasbourg, France

We woke up this morning early, planning a drive out to Neuschwanstein Castle, but the below freezing weather and long drive deterred us.  Instead, we headed to Strasbourg France.  Strasbourg is a city on the Germany - France border; throughout it's history this city has changed hands back and forth several times.  We took the long route to get there, driving through the Black Forest, seeing picturesque German towns, with the goal of visiting another castle en route - the Hohenbaden Castle.  Unfortunately, the mile walk in the freezing weather was a deterrent so we never walked around the grounds.  This castle was built in the 1100's and has been ruins since the 1400's.  We were able to look at it from a distance and enjoy the view.

Arriving in Strasbourg we parked and then walked around.  Seeing that the river boat tours were still running, we bought tickets for the next trip and went and got lunch in the hour beforehand, the restaurant is shown here.  The men had pizza and the women pasta at a little Italian restaurant.  We really got a good overview of the city on the river tour, a 70 minute route around the city including views of the European Union headquarters, the churches, traditional German wood and stucco buildings and French buildings with ornate balconies.  There was a large variety of bridges and even a couple lochs we went through, enjoying the heated enclosed boat ride.

After the boat tour, we walked around doing some shopping and ending up at the Strasbourg Cathedral - also known as Cathedral of Notre Dame.  This beautiful cathedral was first built in 1015, was burnt down during the 1100's and rebuilt.  The gorgeous stained glass windows are known are some of the oldest known stained glass, dating from the 12th and 13th century.  When it was built, it was the tallest cathedral in the world, maintaining that status for four centuries; now it's the fourth tallest.  One of the most interesting things inside is a elaborate mechanical clock that maps the stars.

Then we walked around more shopping and ended with some coffee and cheesecake before heading home.

Waiting for the boat.

In an alley.  The building on the right leans in.  The building on the left is tiered with each floor extending further out than the one below it.

This was taken in the large open area outside the Cathedral.  Fascinating is the architecture on the brown restaurant second from the right in the frame.  The place we ate desert is the building back behind (the third building from the right).

Here are pictures of the Cathedral:

Brad, me & Andrew.  This shows the scale of the Cathedral, most of which isn't captured in the frame of this picture.

Against the Cathedral wall outside.

Stained Glass windows

This memorial is engraved on the wall inside the Cathedral.

The front doors to the Strasbourg Cathedral.

The mechanical astronomy clock in the Cathedral.

Hohenzollern

This afternoon, after Brad and Mark rented a van for us for the rest of the week -- a 9 passenger Opal van that takes the same parking space size as a car -- pictured here.  Able to get us all into a vehicle finally, since there was no way the six of us were going to fit into my five person Passat, we headed out to Hohenzollern castle to see our second castle of the week.  Brad and I've been there before so with the tour book telling us the hours were 10:00 - 4:30, we thought we had it covered.

Arriving a Hohenzollern, we drove up to the visitor parking lot - not a car to be seen, the tourist shop isn't open, snow covers the parking lot.  I was thinking that our plan had completely backfired.  But, since we were there, we thought we'd at least give it a try and hike up to the base of the castle and take some pictures.  The stairs were closed, and covered with snow, so we walked along the winding road.  A car drives down, and I get that nervous feeling in my stomach that they are going to stop and tell us we're trespassing since the Castle (or Burg in German) is closed.  Car drives by us.  Since I know people work at the castle, I figure that's who's coming by.    Keep hiking, breaking a sweat since it's a 100 m height increase in a mile of walking.  Next car approaches - nervous again I wait - nothing.  When the third car passes - A TAXI - I'm thinking - this could be fine.  We get to the base of the castle, the drawbridge is open but the place we've always paid to enter is closed and locked.  Since the gate is open, we keep going.  Next car...nothing...

Finally we're in the castle courtyard, freezing our butts off in spite of the hike up to the top.  Nothing is open - until we go into the area where the tourist store is - and it's OPEN!  Yay!  Maybe we're not trespassing after all!!!  We head into a new area, where a woman comes out.  When asked, she tells us it is still open, and yes, there's a tour in 20 minutes if we'd like.  Since us and 4 students were the only tourists, and we were all english speakers, we got an English tour.  It was great, since we've been here three times and never understood the guide.  I learned new things - the dress in the treasure room is covered in 20 lbs of silver thread, and was worn by the queen when talking terms with Napoleon.  The current king still owns the castle, though he's 33 years old.  Earthquakes affect the castle, the last one causing $18,000,000 in damages, and other interesting facts.  Altogether, our bravery in hiking up disregarding the below freezing weather and long hike, was time well spent.  Here's some pictures of our day for you to enjoy.

Dogs & Good Deals

It was a crazy day.  Brad is going to the states next week to spend spring break with the kids.  I was able to use my Delta frequent flyer miles to get his ticket, with the least miles flight available on KLM Airlines.  Since Mom had generously offered to take the dogs early, and KLM has a much higher pet weight limit (dog & kennel up to 165 lbs, whereas the US Airlines all limit out at 100 lbs), and with Bow weighing 75 lbs and Cruiser weighing 97 lbs, we saw opportunity knocking.  The dogs & Brad are going back to the states, including Brad's return ticket for @ $600, unlike when they came out here and it cost us $3500 to ship them as cargo.

So today was the first step in Bow and Cruiser's return trip to the states -- getting cleared by the vets.  The onbase vet checked them out, gave them a clear bill of health, updated shots, and signed the Health Clearance waiver.  Since we have to get them to Amsterdam for Brad's flight, I also had to take the dogs out in town to a German Vet and get Pet Passports for them.  Three hours, two vets, two shots and two blood draws later, the dogs have all their required paperwork and are ready to go!  Mission step 1 accomplished!

Heidelberg in March

We headed off to Heidelberg today.  First we took the train, purchasing state discount tickets that allow you to travel all over your state (in this case Baden Wurtenberg) for relatively cheaply as long as you stay off the fast (ICE) trains.  The train we took was a double decker, with us on the top level.  Jess and I spent most of the 1hr 45 minute ride to Heidelberg taking pictures of all the clock towers we saw - see my last blog for the results, while Andrew read a book and Brad and Mark checked things out.

After we got to Heidelberg, we hopped a bus then took the tram up to the entrance to Heidelberg castle.  The next picture shows us at the entrance to the main garden above the battlements.  The ground was incredibly slippery - it didn't appear like they used any salt or gravel so it was either snow or solid ice and you had to be real careful where you stepped.

Here's Shelly and Jess in the same garden area.

After we went on a tour of the inside of the castle and walked all around, we headed back down by tram and found a place to eat traditional German fare.  Between the six of us we had schnitzel, pizza, sausage, and cheesy noodles with wine, beer, soda, hot tea and juice.  The Bier Brezel restaurant where we ate was on Heidelberg's main pedestrian route right across from the Church of the Holy Spirit.

Here's a picture of the church I took looking down from the Castle:

After lunch we went and walked around the church.  We're never certain what the right etiquette is for this but today I went in and asked the man sitting at the entrance with reading material (who I think was a priest) if it'd be okay to walk around.  He said it was okay so we did, lighting candles in honor of Brad's deceased father and my deceased brother, Justin.  Beautiful stained glass and high arced ceilings were worth going in to see.

We then walked over the the famous bridge across the Neckar, where this photo of me and Brad was taken, with the castle in the background.

Following this we went around and window shopped, going into a couple places.  Here's a good picture of Brad, Mark and Andrew walking up one of the streets - in the background you can see one of the towers at the entrance to the bridge.

This picture I took to just because I thought both the courtyard and the door looked really neat.

Then this picture was taken as we continued our walk, finally hopping a bus back to the train station and a train back home.  Challenges today included the freezing cold - I think the high was below 30 degrees - and a car that holds five people max, requiring two trips to and from the train station.  Good thing tomorrow we pick up a rental van that will hold all of us!

Clock Towers

One thing that you see all over Germany, far more common than church spires (though they are often the same thing), is clock towers.  Unlike in the states where most churches have a cross on the top, that is far less common here.  We rode the train from Stuttgart to Heidelberg, then walked around Heidelberg and these are some of the clock towers we saw.