Germany

Exactly two weeks ago, I was home doing my normal Monday routine when Jeremy called me.  He said he had good and bad news.  First the bad -- his company wanted him to travel to Ireland-next week.  The good -- would I like to come with him?  He thought he might also be able to arrange a meeting with a company he deals with in Germany so we could stop there as well.  I couldn't believe it!  Jeremy does not like to do things spur of the moment.  He likes time to think, plan, and prepare.  This trip did not give him much time to do any of those things.  Jeremy served his mission in Germany so I have always wanted to go there and my Dalton side of the family came from Ireland so it would be incredible to see that as well.  We would be leaving the following Sunday.  He had even called his mom to see if she would be available on short notice to come stay with the kids before he even brought it up with me.  Luckily everything worked out (thank goodness I already had a passport!) and we started planning our trip.  I had to cancel piano, arrange rides to and from school, preschool, and football, clean the house and pack.  I have amazing neighbors who happily jumped in to help out!  So, Sunday after church we took the kids to my mother-in-law's house and then headed to the airport for a transatlantic flight.
Our first flight was direct to Paris.  Oh, how I wished we had a longer layover and could have left the airport.  Oh well, another trip, I suppose.  Then we had a short hour and a half flight into Stuttgart, Germany.  All airports look and feel pretty similar but I amazed to see and hear everything in German.  Our rental car was a BMW.  Apparently, in Germany BMWs and Mercedes are common cars.  Boy, am I glad that Jeremy was driving.  The roads are windy and the Germans drive fast!  Our hotel was right in a pedestrian shopping area.  We took many walks through the shopping area.  This was a modern day mall with clothes and shoe shops.  There was even a McDonalds and a Pizza Hut across the street from our hotel.  Jeremy reminded me that most of the big cities in Germany are all newer because there wasn't much left after the bombings of WWII.  What amazed me most as we were walking is how modern it seemed and then we would turn the corner and there would be an old church or city building. 

I was fascinated by how ornate the older buildings were.  I kept taking picture after picture of random buildings just because I loved the way they looked. 

We stopped for dinner at an outdoor cafe.  I had schnitzel.  I was a little worried when all Jeremy would tell me was it was meat, but it was actually quite good.  It was some meat--pork or chicken-- breaded.  It came with french fries so nothing too strange. 

Notice the cigarette sign behind us?  A lot of people in Germany smoke.  Cigarette smoke gives me a headache so I didn't love that.  I did love that they had blankets to wrap up in at the cafe.  It was fun to sit and watch the German people as we ate.  Jeremy pointed out that they all like to wear scarves to help keep them warm and sure enough, as I looked around it seemed strange to see someone who wasn't wearing one.  They had fancy ways to wrap them around.  The men wore them along with the women.  The other thing I loved about walking through the shopping area was the musicians performing along the street.  They all had their music cases out to collect coins that people would toss in.  There were accordians, whistles/flutes, I even saw a group with an electric piano and a violin.  It was great!  I couldn't get the smile off my face.

The next morning Jeremy had a quick meeting with a company he works with in Germany.  After his meeting we drove to Heidelberg.  We drove on the Autoban.  I was expecting it to be a specific road for a long stretch through uninhabited areas.  I was surprised to find that that Autoban is Germany's freeway system and there are just sections of it marked as having no speed limit.  Jeremy did attempt to break his speed record--not too hard when you live in the states and the highest the speed limit goes it to 80mph.  Everything was in kilometers so I'm not quite sure how fast he was going but it was over 100mph.  You'll have to ask Jeremy how much.

Heidelberg is a beautiful, quaint little city that was spared a lot of bombing so it looked very typical of what I was expecting Germany to look like--the steep pitched roofs, the old churches and bell towers, the narrow streets and ornate buildings.  It was amazing!

There was this great bridge spanning a beautiful river running right through the city.

 Look at that beautiful castle sitting up above the city!  Heidelberg Castle is what they called a ruined castle.  They are not renovating it any further, but they spend a lot of money each year to keep it in its current ruined state.  You can see the scaffolding around the left most tower.  We walked through it later in the day.

 I loved the narrow little cobblestoned streets lined with tables and chairs for all the little cafes. 

I also adored all the flowers hanging outside the windows.  They were beautiful.  I wondered out loud about the watering system they must have to keep them all watered and Jeremy said that Germany is wet enough that they probably don't get watered at all except by rain.

This is where we had lunch before going up to tour the castle.

These were just some houses we saw as we climbed the 200+ stairs up to reach the castle.  I love the architecture!

 The view of the city from above was breathtaking!

 Heidelberg Castle

It had a dry moat.  We were told that at one time they had a lion living down there. 

 The walls around this tower were 7 meters thick!

 The castle grounds were beautiful and extensive!

 Entering the castle.

 The inner courtyard.  Everything is so ornate!  It was amazing what they could build hundreds of years ago without all the machinery and technology we have today.

 The apothacary inside the castle.

 

 I loved the view of the city from the castle!

Jeremy laughed at me a lot when he discovered that I had a thing for doors.  I just loved how massive and fancy they were. 

 After looking around outside on our own for a bit, we took a guided tour which took us through a few interior areas.  It was fascinating!  This is a model of what the castle looked like in its prime.  It is always a little sad to me to think that something that took several hundred years to build and was so big and beautiful and full of life has been destroyed and lost the majority of its grandeur. 

This is the current ballroom.  They still rent it out for parties, receptions and other activities.  Here they were getting ready for a concert to be given that evening.  That is our tour guide on the right.  She was very informative but had a very thick German accent so I had to listen very carefully to get most of what she was saying.

 I was amazed by the ornateness (is that a word?) of everything, even the doors.  Everything they did was grand!

 This spiral staircase led us down to the chapel.  It was quite steep and you had to be careful not to get too dizzy. 

 They still allow people to have their weddings in this church.  However, our tour guids told us that that they have to be either early in the morning or later in the afternoon, around the time when the tours are going on.  Can you imagine being married here and then going up and having your reception in the castle ballroom?  She said people come from all over the world to do just that.

Lastly, we saw this giant wine barrel.  It is hard to put into perspective just how massive this thing was.  If you look on top you can see a person standing up there.  There was a dance floor built on top of the wine barrel.  I guess then they could dance and drink all night!  This is where they collected the majority of their taxes which came in the form of wine.  She said it actually got filled several times throughout the year. 

Heidelberg was beautiful and exactly what I was expecting Germany to look like. 

 

The next day we had the morning to wander around the shopping area in Stuttgart again.  We also saw the train station.  The train station reminded me very much of an airport--meaning that there were travelers all wandering around with their carry-on bags, there were restaraunts and little touristy shops all over and it just had that feel of everyone being busy and in a hurry.  Then, in contrast to all that hustle and bustle, we wandered through a large, peaceful park.  It was green, there was a pond with cranes and other birds, and joggers and bikers would pass us as we walked on the cobblestone walkways.  In Germany people live in apartments and don't have much green space around them.  Jeremy said that they will have small gardens on the outskirts of town--kind of like our yards.  They will often have a small outbuilding and grow vegetables and flowers there.  He said they will go out and spend hours in their gardens.  The large parks they have in the cities are to help the lack of green space they have there. 

 

Then in the afternoon we collected our things and headed to the airport for our flight to Ireland.