We just returned home from our 17 day trip to Germany. We are exhausted but thrilled that our trip was not only a lot of fun but went off without a hitch! All the planning worked out quite well. Future posts will contain detailed tales but thought I would drop a note with a quick summary of some of the highlights.
We started our trip to Germany in Berlin and spent four nights. Our hotel was strategically located in the Mitte area giving us easy access to both the U-bahn and S-bahn train lines. Berlin is continuing to blossom post unification as evidenced by the numerous construction cranes around the city. Highlights for us included visiting what’s left of the Berlin Wall and the museum where we acquired a much better understanding of what that wall really meant to the people of Germany. On a lighter note, we spent time at the Zoo attached to the Tiergarten. It’s a wonderful zoo complete with pandas. An unexpected treat in Berlin was the swing dancing venue open each night on the Spree River just across from Museum Island and a few blocks from our hotel.
We picked up our car and headed for Trier via Oberstreu (a stop related to Dave’s family history). In Oberstreu we validated that his mom’s family did actually come from there as the church cemetery had graves with family names on them. The bakery tied to one of those families is still in existence so, of course, we stopped for pastry.
Trier was our next stop on our trip to Germany and related to my family history. While we did not find any evidence of them there, we thoroughly enjoyed Trier. The old town is beautiful and the Roman ruins there are impressive.
We stayed two nights just outside Trier. While there, we took a trip up to Burg Eltz, rated by many as one of the best castles in Germany. It lived up to the hype, set in the hills far above the Mosel River. The family Eltz has owned and lived in the Castle for many, many generations and is still in residence today.
From Trier we made our way to Rudesheim on the Rhein which, for me, was one of the best stops on this trip to Germany. Rudesheim likes to have a good time. On Drosselgasse street you have your choice of biergartens with bands and dancing. We went to two different places and thoroughly enjoyed them both. On the advice of the TI, we undertook the Ring Tour — a gondola up the hill, a hike with interesting historic sites and scenic views, a ski lift down to Asmannhausen, and a ferry back to Rudesheim. I highly recommend this if you ever go there.
The capper though was Saturday, when we spent the afternoon at the wine festival in Oberwesel (another town on the Rhein) followed by a dinner cruise and fireworks (Rhein in Flammen). On the cruise we shared our table with two couples who both had ties to Minnesota but were currently living in Germany. Dave was in his element getting to talk Minnesota sports while on our trip to Germany. The whole cruise and fireworks experience was just magical!
From Rudesheim we made our way to the Black Forest for three nights. We spent time at the open air museum containing old buildings from around the area that had been brought to the site and reconstructed. I was able to spend some time sketching one of these buildings. We also hiked to the highest waterfall in all of Germany in Triberg — beautiful! And, of course, no visit to the Black Forest would be complete without cuckoo clocks. We visited the Shop of 1000 Clocks and also saw the two house-size cuckoo clocks.
On our way to Rothenburg ob der Tauber from the Black Forest, we took a couple of hours to enjoy the Caracella Therme spa in Baden-Baden. In this beautiful facility, everyone is clothed (unless you go upstairs to the sauna area). We enjoyed the various pools and steam baths — great way to add some relaxation into your trip.
Rothenburg is one of the few intact medieval towns in Germany. The old city within the walls is simply amazing, filled with colorful, half-timbered houses. The town hall clock on the Marktplatz tells the story of the mayor who saved the town by chugging a large quantity of wine. The night watchman’s tour was really entertaining. We also enjoyed our walk on the wall searching for the best photo-ops.
Our grand finale on this trip to Germany was the opening weekend of Oktoberfest in Munich! What a party! It felt like the world’s biggest love fest. Everywhere we turned, people from all over the globe, decked out in traditional German finery, were singing, dancing and getting to know each other over their beer. We spent quality time with people from Germany, Australia, France, England, and South Africa. The big beer tents each have their own unique theme and are something to behold. Being opening weekend, we were able to experience the traditional costume parade on Sunday. If you’ve never been to Oktoberfest in Munich, I highly recommend that you do.
Scenes from Oktoberfest
To me, people are what makes travel so important and so much fun. Getting to know people from all over the world makes you realize that we really are more alike than we are different. Our trip to Germany was one of our best ever. Auf Wiedersehen!
