Berlin: Too Little Time!
We slept well, except for that wide-awake part around 1:30 a.m., but we got back to sleep and then nearly died trying to get up at 7:00 a.m. for a 7:30 breakfast and our morning tour of Berlin. We were so tempted to just skip it, but we didn’t. I know you will ask, looking at these photos, weren’t you cold?
We weren’t! We have lovely heavy coats we bought in Germany years ago, and layers of clothing underneath that keep us warm and toasty, even when lost in a snowy park.
Lovely breakfast buffet, lots of healthy options, only a little skimpy on the coffee. It is cold and snowing, but we are dressed for it, and not having any problems.
We have been assigned to the purple bus, which will depart at 0800 and we have been told we must be ready to board at 8. The grey bus will board at 8:30. Gathering in the hotel reception was a lot of fun; the Grand Hyatt has decorators who will transform the hotel into a Christmas wonderland. We got to watch the beginning of the huge poinsettia tree.
Our purple bus left at 8:30, with our guide, Peter, who turned out to be superb. He was knowledgeable and objective, and when he was giving an opinion, he was quick to identify it as opinion, personal experience, or anecdotal information. We started with a drive to the Reichstag and Brandenburg gate, where we had time for a walk and photos.
(Some of these photos are less than clear – I had a real problem focusing the camera when it was snowing. The camera didn’t know where to focus. Many of my best photos were taken with the humble iPhone rather than the usually reliable camera.)
(Above is the Reichstag, which we visited later in the day to climb to the top and peer down into the legislative chambers where elected officials are conducting state business. Below is Brandenburg Gate)
We toured the Kufurstendam, and Checkpoint Charlie, and had a thorough drive through the neighborhoods of the former West Berlin, before returning to our starting point and heading into the former Eastern Zone. Peter outlined the post WWII history of Berlin, the building of the wall, and the fall of the Wall. He has personally met and guided several US Presidents and rock musicians (he was most delighted with the musicians). It was an amazing four hours that passed quickly.
We ended with an hour at Beberplatz, where there is a Christmas Market moved from the famous Gendermanplatz because there is some kind of restoration going on there. Beberplatz is also the site of the Nazi book-burning, and a memorial of that horror, library shelves empty of books. Horrors!
We always needed to have a 50-cent coin or a 1 Euro coin to use for the bathrooms, something we never think of in the USA. The pay WCs were always immaculate, and heated!
Back at the hotel, we grabbed a quick Syrian meal at the food court at the nearby mall, which was a hangout for young people, and great for people watching.
We tried without success to withdraw money from three ATMs and were horrified to be told there was a “system problem.”
Back in our room, we were preparing for our visit to the Reichstag, The German equivalent of our US Congress, when we got a message from our bank asking us to contact their fraud department. After a lengthy confirmation process, we were cleared for ATM withdrawals after 24 hours, and just had time to hop in a taxi to get to the Reichstag in time for our appointment.
Visiting the Reichstag was a thrill. We weren’t sure we would get in. We had a letter saying we would be vetted, but we didn’t have a confirmation letter. They scowled at us disapprovingly and then – a miracle! They found our names on the list of people who were permitted! Wooo HOOO! We were escorted to the building, and to the top level of the Reichstag proper, then climbed around and around to the very top.
We could see outside some of the windows in the climb but due to all the snow, many of the windows were totally blocked. We could look down and watch their congressional delegates doing business in the chamber. It was more than a metaphor for transparent government; it was a statement of the belief that government in a Democracy is meant to be transparent.
We watched as several groups of Germans visiting from various small towns and cities met with their congressman/woman for photos; it was joyful!
By the time we left, it was dark, but we knew it was only a twenty-minute walk back, and although it was very very cold, it was not snowing heavily and we thought on a major street, what could go wrong?
We got on the wrong major street. Fortunately, about twenty minutes into the walk AdventureMan realized we were not going in the right direction, and we made a correction. Then, using our tired-end-of-the-day judgment, we decided to cut through a park, where we saw rabbits, and statues of moose and buffalo, and realized once again, we had no idea where we were going. Fortunately, Berlin is full of athletes, and we hailed a biker who was very kind and got us to a street where we could quickly get back to our hotel. Whew!
Being lost, at the end of a long day, in a cold snowy park in the middle of a big city was a little scary, but, compared to the thrill of seeing the Reichstag, hiking to the top, seeing the overview of Berlin, and experiencing so much in one day – getting lost was a small thing.
At the end of the day, we had done more than 17,000 steps. My “record” is 20,000 steps, but it was Monument Valley, and my FitBit confused our ride in the bumpy Land Rover down into the valley with real steps and . . . I never bothered to correct it. But THESE 17,000 steps are all mine!
The finished Poinsettia Tree:
This Berlin we visited today is a far cry from the Berlin we once knew, an island surrounded by an arbitrary and authoritarian government with clearly stated intentions of wiping out the taint of democracy at the first opportunity. This is an open, sophisticated city. It is full of restaurants of all nationalities, and people from all nations, who seem to live together in tolerance and peace, and who express a desire to keep it this way. It is almost too much to absorb. Wait – is that a German eagle at the top of the Poinsettia Christmas tree?
We ache. AdventureMan used up all the bath salts, so the desk said they would send more up and we each had a long soak for our aching bodies. We slept well and were fine for the next day.
Christmas Markets on the Elbe: A Magical Journey
“Best Trip EVER!” we have whispered to one another so many times since returning from this trip. When I tell you the details, you might wonder – an airport horror, a fire on board, and not one, but two times boarding flights and having to de-board and later reboard. You will think “how can this be the best trip ever?” but adventures are made of many details, and on this trip, the magic far outshines the disastrous.
Our trip started wonderfully, with our son picking us up and taking us to the airport. This is not a blessing we take for granted, as both he and his wife have busy lives, and we never want to be those parents who feel entitled to inconvenience them. Our flight to Miami was inconsequential.
I have never been through Miami Airport before, but we had taken a look before we left and saw that the tram was out of service due to structural issues in the airport. That’s not good. But carts are coming on a regular basis to transport us the long walk to our international gate, so that sounds good, doesn’t it?
Once you arrive, signs tell you where to wait for the carts. We arrived around six pm so maybe they were all off for dinner. We waited. We waited. And we waited some more.
We have made a conscious decision, at least going to the cruise departure, to carry our baggage with us. After waiting, we decide we have no choice but to walk, so we do. We manage. It wasn’t all that bad. (I will NEVER, if I can help it, fly through Miami again.)
Miami International Airport is crowded. It is also hot, more than 80°F and we are wearing our heavy winter coats. They have adequate signage.
I find it very passenger-unfriendly. It is not beautiful. It is not intuitive. When we get to our gate area, there is a food court with long lines – and few tables. We grab a couple of (actually very good) Cuban sandwiches and go to the seating area to eat. It is awkward, to balance food, water, and baggage. There are passengers surrounding us speaking all kinds of unidentifiable languages. It is an opportunity for a good conversation, but everyone is grumpy and self-absorbed.
Our gate, we discover, is actually downstairs, and (again, counter-intuitive) there are lines to board on both sides of the very large room. You really have to be paying attention to figure this out. There are limited restrooms, and a lot of people, and more coming every minute. This is going to be a very big plane.
OK, so now I will whine. We board. This is a British Airways flight. The crew members are delightful. The business class is AWFUL. It was business class for sardines. It is like an open hostel. The layout is designed to squeeze the maximum number of lie-flat seats in the minimum space. So there are two seats on the outside of each aisle and four seats down the middle. My husband and I traded with a single guy to be together, but to get to restrooms, you have to step over a sleeping person’s legs. These are the skinniest lie-flat seats I have ever been in, and – worst of all – there is NO storage but for the overhead compartment. No place to put your purse! No place for your shoes! No place to hang your coat! No place for a personal item of any kind! And NO PRIVACY!
I know I am in charge of my own attitude, and I am not happy. I decide to skip the meal entirely, not even a glass of wine, and go to sleep. It was the right solution.
Transiting Charles de Gaulle Airport used to be a thorn in our sides, but this time, as we exited our plane, we saw a red-jacketed woman holding a sign with our names on it (!) and her job was to get us through the transit and to the right gate. We had experienced some anxiety about making this transit, and we got a miracle – Brittany knew just where to go and had us to our gate just as our plane started boarding. Thank you, Viking, for anticipating this tight connection and shepherding us through it.
Getting through Charles De Gaulle was a miracle. Now, magic continues to happen as we near Berlin and see the ground covered with snow. The pilot tells us this is not normal for this early in the season, but oh, it IS beautiful!
More magic – because we have our baggage with us, suddenly we sweep right through with our carry-ons and Viking is there to meet us on the other side of the door.
We have received notification that our international plan with Verizon is in place, and we are good to go with calls and messages and data for the trip. It is a little expensive, but every time we travel, we have had an issue of some kind come up, and then, such coverage is priceless. During this trip we had to make calls about a dental emergency and a suspected credit card fraud, so having this plan in place was worth every penny.
It is maybe a half-hour ride to our hotel, the Grand Hyatt, located on the edge of the old East Zone, and central to everything we want to see. We are so excited. We check in, clean up, organize and rest a little, and are ready to hit the streets. Just up the street is a small local Christmas Market, and a brewery with good traditional German food. It is snowing, but not messy snowing, just little flakes that drift and gather and never exceed a couple inches. It is slick. We have to be careful, but it is so much fun.
Making a snowman for our granddaughter:
This is Potsdamer Platz, where locals gather to drink the traditional hot Gluhwein, and eat a hot pretzel, or gingerbread, or a long sausage. Nearby are major transportation hubs for busses and for trams and for trains, and a very large mall, which we did not visit. We found a smaller mall, very near us, where we could use the ATMs, find quick meals, and an outstanding bottle of Saxon white wine, which we took with us on the boat to have in our room 😁.
It’s been a long time – since before COVID – since we have been in Germany, so we decide we would rather eat in a sit-down restaurant nearby, the Paulaner brewery.
My husband has the large beer, I have the dark beer. We no longer drink a lot of beer, but oh my, we enjoy this beer.
I have a Nurnburger sausage and a salad.
My husband has a lot of little sausages, and a lot of potatoes!
This is the small mall near our hotel. The funny thing is, it has a very Arab feel. I would bet it is Arab-owned. There is a food court, and many options are Arab, and other options we have seen in Doha and Kuwait. It makes us feel at home.
Interestingly, we find our hotel is also Arab owned.
The rooftop pool is lovely – and has a killer view out over the city.
The fresh air, the walk, the good German food and beer, and the lovely swim to end the day have given us a great day, and an even better sleep, sleeping all through the night on our first night in Berlin.
“NOOOO! Noooo! Not Guinea!”
I was calm when I started. I believe technologies are a benefit, and we just have to overcome our brief discomfort and steep learning curve and we will master new and useful skills.
Prayer helps.
AdventureMan asked if I had arranged for overseas calling plans while we are on vacation later this month.
“Ummm . . . not yet . . . but I intend to.”
(Rats! Now I have to do it!)
I tried going online, but it’s been years since I chose a password, and I can’t make it work for me, but there is a phone number, so I call it. I know it will be some kind of automated system, but I speak clearly, and I just grit my teeth and know I’ll get through it.
(I don’t.)
The automated system doesn’t seem to understand me. It asks for the countries where I will be traveling, and the dates. I give them. The automated voice gets the dates – even the YEAR! – wrong, and tells me he is setting up an international plan for Guinea.
I hate when this happens, and I especially hate it when AdventureMan is home, because I can hear him laughing from his office as I scream “NOOOOO!NOOOOO! NOT GUINEA! I WANT TO TALK TO A REAL PERSON! REAL PERSON!” The artificial intelligence totally misunderstands, wants me to confirm my upcoming trip to Guinea (NOOOOOOO!!) and finally I find the magic words “LIVE AGENT” and after 53 minutes with a live agent, Ken, (who I believe is in the Philippines and wants me to adopt him) sets AdventureMan and I up with a plan for both our phones.
When all is confirmed, I can see AdventureMan’s plan, but mine never shows up, necessitating a trip to the Verizon office where they are able to confirm that THEY an see plans on both lines, even if I can’t. And this time, for the right countries.
Or so I believe.
Living off My Fat: Adaptation
It probably all started growing up in Alaska, where my mother would measure us in July to order our snowsuits as soon as the new catalogs came out. We lived where ships didn’t come in the winter, so supplies for the winter needed to be ordered – and received – before the ships could no longer navigate the channel.
Then came our life in Germany, where we lived by what my sister called “Commissary rules.” Her one word of advice as a newlywed leaving Germany, while I was staying, was “When you see something in the Commissary or PX you think you MIGHT need, buy it.” Definitely a no-regrets philosophy.
When we were sent to live in Tunisia, in the late 1970’s, we were instructed to take everything we might need for the next two years. Some things – chocolate chips – we learned to live without. We adapted to new foods, new ways of doing things. One of the great treats was the fresh, gorgeous, silky olive oil; I would take my jar to the little olive oil vendor at the nearby souk and he would weigh my jar, fill it, subtract the weight of the jar and charge me for the oil, which made everything taste French.
I did have a two-year supply of shoes for a growing toddler, also clothing for him in graduated sizes, and two years of age-appropriate books I could pull out of the closet. We were able to mail-order through the embassy pouch, and my mother was able to mail me little extras. One year, when I was running the Christmas bazaar, she was able to find red and green Christmas fabrics in July, at a discount, and mail them to us for our crafting. It was such a luxury!
In Qatar, I was always bringing back duffels with quilting rulers and rotary cutters for my quilting friends. In Kuwait, it was books for my book club and American sugar for a friend who liked to bake. Kuwait had sugar, but more coarse, and American sugar melts more quickly for a finer result. Who knew?
There are items from the past I still have in abundance – dental floss, women’s underwear, shoes – and staples I buy but no longer use in the quantities I once did because we no longer live a life where we entertain a lot nor prepare for unexpected people on temporary duty who need a meal and an exchange of currency. I am trying to bring down my supplies of artichoke hearts and pimentos, beans and rice, canned tomatoes, chutney, Tupperware and hand soap.
My Little Free Library, one of the best birthday gifts ever, helps me keep my books from overflowing.
We are happy, these days, to be living with less. We are still caught by surprise by rolls of baking parchment we are still using from Kuwait, dental floss leftover from our years in Tunis and an excess of Christmas decorations we still need to pare down. We try to go easy on ourselves. “Ah,” we sigh, “it’s a process.” God grant that we live long enough to use up all those supplies we bought “just in case.”
People Who Smell Like People
I’ve just finished a run and I’m lying flat on the floor under the ceiling fan to cool down. This little Alaska girl is not wired for running in heat and humidity; I run on a running trampoline between the air conditioning outlet and the ceiling fan.
As I lie on the ground, hot and sweaty, the cats can’t get enough of me. Uhtred in particular, loves body smells. When we go on vacation, AdventureMan leaves dirty underclothes to keep him from getting too lonesome. To Uhtred, my sweat seems to be like some rare purfume; he is rolling and bumping on me, purring, kneading, clearly out of his mind with delight.
I find myself thinking back to the days in the early 1960’s when we moved to Germany. The war had been over for years, but it was still a post-war country, where we couldn’t eat ice-cream because there were brucellosus outbreaks among cow herds. And people smelled differently.
Our first housing was in a hotel on a busy street with a street car, and we learned to take the street car everywhere. For a young teen, it was a world of freedom. But people . . . smelled. We could smell their perspiration. The women didn’t shave and neither men nor women washed or dry cleaned their clothes as often as we did.
As a girl, our culture taught us that we were never to have any smell other than shampoo, soap or a light perfume. As teen-agers, we had an utter horror of perspiration, or any other kind of personal odor.
We got used to it. At some point, we just accepted the difference. It was just a part of riding the streetcar, or shopping, the people smelled like people. We didn’t even think about it.
Years later, we found ourselves living in Tunisia, and once again, people smelled like people. We noticed, but we understood and accepted that it wasn’t right or wrong, it was just a difference.
Now, there are times when I miss Tunisia, I miss Zambia, I miss people who smell like people. It also occurs to me that we Americans may also not alway be so hygienic in the future, where world-class fires destroy huge portions of large states, where water is increasingly scarce, where hurricanes destroy electrical delivery systems and pumping systems. We may not wash our clothes as often, we may wear our clothes longer between washes, we may bathe less frequently – and we may smell like people.
No, No, I Won’t Let Go!
AdventureMan and I make a great team. He is making sure the outside and the garage sparkle, and I am taking care of the inside, except for his office and his personal clothing. He likes to manage those himself, and I can’t blame him.
There are mornings I can barely face another day of packing, and then I remember Fort Leavenworth, when my riding boots arrived, packed without wrapping, in a box with my evening dresses. There was a part of me that felt outraged, dishonored. Who would do such a thing? And another part that empathized with the worker at the end of a long day, packing for a privileged woman who had riding boots, and evening gowns, and saying “what the hell.”
I learned a good lesson. If it matters to you, pack it yourself. If you can’t pack it yourself, have a special crate built for it.
We were so young, but we saved our money and bought a bird cage from Monsieur Samouda, in Sidi bou Said, Tunisia, and had a crate built for it. We’ve had it for forty years now with many moves and no damage.
I have packed a lot of boxes in my life.
I’m finding that there are some things I can part with easily. And then some things I can’t let go.
We met and spent our early married years in Germany. This was our wedding candle, lo, those many years ago. I had to stop burning it on our anniversaries when it started to collapse. It still makes me smile. I can’t let go.
My Mother and Father were in the Wednesday night bowling league in Germany, and they were very good bowlers. They were also on the admin board of the league, and were in charge of the prizes, which they often won. Texting back and forth with my sisters today, I learned that they served on that committee to insure that each of the daughters received an identical crystal cookie tree, which my Mother won each year in the final tournament. Post-war Germany was a wonderland for Americans who lived there. I’m not ready to let this go. One sister let hers go long ago, the other is using hers to hold her jewelry.
I know I should let this pot go – I think it is a fish poacher – and I can’t. We bought it in the Souk al Hammadiyya in Damascus. I can tell I have cooked in it once or twice in the forty years I have owned it, not enough to make it valuable for its utility. The reason I can’t let it go is because of the artistry of the handle. Not even that it looks so beautiful, but the bird handle fits perfectly in your hand. It feels GOOD. I’ve never had any pot or pan that had such a sensuously lovely handle. Someone who made this handle really knew what he was doing, and created it with heart.
When my husband came home today, the first thing that happened when he saw the pot was that he reached for the handle, and then asked “are you thinking of parting with this?” I said “No, I can’t.”
I wish you could put your hand on this bird handle. It’s that special.
We have a family message thread with my son and his wife, who are moving to a larger home as we move to a smaller home. I often take photos and say “would you like this?” maybe with an explanation, and they say yes or no.
This time, AdventureMan texted back immediately: “Not the Kuwait Teapot from the Blue Elephant!” and I immediately packed it to take with us. When we first got to Kuwait, he planned to take me out for Valentine’s dinner, not realizing that it was one of the hugest date nights of the year in Kuwait. On Valentine’s Day, he called everywhere looking for reservations, but there were none to be had.
Being American, we like to eat earlier than Kuwaiti people, so I suggested we dress and go to the Blue Elephant, a favorite restaurant at the Hilton Hotel on the beach, where we were known. When we got there, there were only a few other couples.
“So go in there and beg,” I suggested with a grin, “Tell them we will eat quickly and be out in an hour.” I think he did exactly that. I don’t know what he said, maybe a little money changed hands, but very soon we were ushered to a table, and reminded that we needed to be out by eight, when the table was reserved.
We had a lovely dinner, at the end of which he bought me the little elephant teapot. What I love is that I am not the only one who can’t let go. 🙂
The Baden Baden Christmas Angel: Christmas Markets on the Rhine
AdventureMan is low energy, recovering from a bad cold, and I have a sore throat, so we decide to spend a day relaxing on board the Inspire, and to go into Baden Baden that evening for the opening of the Christmas Market. It is a great decision. We love traveling, and at the same time we are not in control of our schedule. There is little time for rest between tours and activities and briefings about the next days activities, and meals. Lots of meals.
It is a great decision. We feel great by the time evening arrives, and head into town for the opening of the Market. We arrive just before the arrival of the Christmas Angel. We are with a more aggressive shipboard friend who manages to be both aggressive and polite, and she “excuse me’s” our way to a very close vantage point, surrounded by Baden-Badeners who are delighted we have come to participate in this special community event. They explain that the Christmas Angel always used to arrive in a horse-drawn carriage, but now arrives in a beautiful new Mercedes. Somehow, that makes me laugh. Either way, it is an odd way for an angel to arrive!
Well, even though we have this great view, I have to hold my camera way up above my head to get this shot, and the Christmas angel is barely visible. She also has to make a very long obligatory speech thanking every possible Baden-Badener who made the Market possible. And many school children come on stage and sing. It is a lot of fun, and it is also very cold.
This is one of the loveliest Christmas markets I have ever visited. It has wide aisles, and lovely merchandise, and really cool food vendors with delicious cheeses, special wines, meats, and, of course, gluewein.
Our friend was a really good sport. AdventureMan and I are remembering our young years, and the way we loved currywurst, so we talk her into joining us for dinner at the currywurst stand. This is upscale currywurst, but of course, this is Baden Baden. It is served on a china plate, with potatoes. The currywurst we remember was really just a sausage cut into slices and then sprinkled with curry powder before ketchup was squirted on. This currywurst is a more special sausage, and there is a lot of it. It also comes with a lot of tiny little potatoes, and a kind of garlic hollandaise sauce. A little of it went a long way.
Above are wooden carved creches, and all the carved figures you can put inside. These were really beautiful. I wondered where they came from; you sort of picture little wizened wood-carvers in Bavaria, but I suspect they are machine made in China.
It looks like crystal, but it is all plastic! Some of the stars were faceted plastic, and sparkled, so I bought several, even though I have a wonderful collection of glass and crystal ornaments from our earlier years. I also have two destructive cats, and anything special gets hung on high from candelabras and chandeliers, but plastic stars I can stick to the windows and not worry if the cats fiddle with them. Thus, over Christmas, I have already lost two of them to falls and being batted around.
Moravian stars were everywhere, most made with a heavy paper.
A beautiful collection of creches, each in it’s own container, above.
Some were very modern.
One of the speciality food stores.
We made it around the entire market, and now it is time to find the bus to return to the boat. I am glad; it is a very cold windy night, as beautiful as it is, clear and cold, and I have lost my voice. My throat is also very sore.
MS Inspire: Christmas Markets on the Rhine
Once we board the bus in Heidelberg, we are in new territory. The night before, we had packed all our bags and left them in our stateroom, carrying only a day-pack. This bus will take us south, into France, and to a new ship, the MS Inspire, which will carry us the rest of the way down the Rhine to Basel, where the trip will end, after hitting Baden-Baden, Strasbourg and Colmar, cities we have often visited in the past.
Our room is exactly the same, only with brighter colors, the colors of Klimpt, reds and golds. We have a little Christmas tree on our table.
Down the hall, in the casual restaurant, Arthur’s, is a tree totally decorated in owls, making me think of Hogwarts, and the messenger owls.
They have a simple breakfast buffet in the morning, and lots of hot fresh coffee. There is a much more elaborate breakfast buffet in the dining room, but this is close, and handy to our room. From afternoon on, they have a samovar full of gluewein available to all passengers, and boxes of Christmas cookies. So hospitable, LOL.
The ship is elaborately decorated. They must have had so much fun.
No rain, but mystical French fog and mist.
We didn’t do a lot of real “cruising” on this trip – one time it was 45 minutes!
The day we didn’t go to Baden Baden, I tried the hot tub. It was the hottest hot tub I have ever felt, I could hardly get in it was so hot, and couldn’t stay in. But it was beautiful!
We Left Our Hearts in Heidelberg: Christmas Markets on the Rhine
Going back to Heidelberg was one reason we chose this trip. We met in Heidelberg, AdventureMan and I. We married, and lived in Heidelberg our early married years, AdventureMan a dashing young lieutenant in the Army. I had gone to Heidelberg American High School – we knew how lucky we were. We had our proms in the Heidelberg castle. I had my high school graduation in the Heidelberg Castle. We were in and out of the Heidelberg Castle more than ten years of my life. If anyplace is home for me, Heidelberg comes close.
Before we left the ship, I approached the guides and told them we knew the city and wanted to leave the group at the castle – we had our own agenda. Here is what I really like about Tauck – it was no big deal. They just said to be sure to be at the Rathaus by four, and we knew right where that was.
We started out at the Heidelberg Castle:
I love this courtyard in November. There are tourists, but not the hoards of summer time.
We had photos taken here when we were newlyweds, from the little cupola on the right:
We were the Heidelberg Lions in high school 🙂
Down along the main street, the Hauptstrasse, I sat a few minutes in the quiet serenity of the Heiligegeist church, a famous landmark in Heidelberg.
Carousel between Heiligegeist Kirche and the Rathaus.
The Christmas Market is going strong on the Market square. When our son was in second grade, he went to a Christmas Market with his school and bought us these beautiful beeswax candles. In a total misunderstanding, after we received them, we lit them, and our son was devastated that we would burn a Christmas gift that he had given us. It has lived forever in our family lore. We bought him a beautiful beeswax candle.
We had some sentimental inspirations for our day, and we walked down to the Neckar river, to the Marestall, and walked along the river for a while, the way we used to.
This is the Hotel Ritter. When I was in high school, my parents would eat there, with friends, and on special occasions. On very rare occasions, I ate there, like before proms. AdventureMan and I can’t remember eating there when we were early marrieds; we were too busy saving for our month-long trip to Kenya and Tanzania. The Ritter was a very historic, very special place to eat, and with great delight, we decided to eat there today, and have some of their famous winter food.
View from our table to the Heiligegeistkirche, across the street.
Interior front dining room of Zum Ritter:
AdventureMan had duck breast and vegetables:
I had Ganzenkeule, a goose leg, with huge dumplings I didn’t eat. Also, roasted chestnuts which always sound so good in that old song, but taste mushy and pasty to me, just not my favorite thing, and I revel in being a grown-up who doesn’t have to eat everything on my plate.
A view of the castle from the University platz:
Late in the day, I started to have a sore throat, and here was an old pharmacy which had even been there when I was a student here. I went in, and spoke with the pharmacist, who checked that the saline spray I wanted didn’t have anything but water and saline, and then she asked a few more questions and offered me a mild . . . something . . .it wasn’t an antibiotic, and it wasn’t something sold in the United States, but we have often found that cough and cold and respiratory medications have stuff not allowed in the USA that can be very effective. She said it would stop my throat from hurting.
Even though I had a sore throat, I danced for joy. I could still speak German, in a survival situation.
This is the Rathaus, where we all met up at the end of the day.
Return to Rudesheim: Christmas Markets Along the Rhine
After spending the night on board the Grace, we head out the next morning, not by boat, but by bus, for Rudesheim.
Rudesheim, as I was in high school in Germany, and later as a military wife, was a place we avoided for one simple reason. We were residents, and Rudesheim was full of tourists. Occasionally, when we had house guests who wanted to visit a quaint town, we might take them to Rudesheim, or to Bingen, across the river, but rarely – there are so many wonderful, less visited villages with fabulous wines we could visit. When we lived in Wiesbaden, we were up and down the Rhine all the time.
Now, we are relaxed and decide to just sink into the tourist role. We are also not bus tour people, but the buses are due to the historic low water levels on the Rhine. You can’t fault a cruise company for the water levels in the river after an unusually dry summer and fall. While we had some drizzle, even some small sprinkles, we never saw a heavy rain, even during this trip.
Driving along, we were shocked by what we saw:
This is what is left of the mighty Rhine near the Lorelei.
Arriving in Rudesheim, I took a quick shot across the river to Bingen, where we have visited many times, drinking wonderful Rhine wines, back in the day when we drank a lot of German wines :-). Now, I wish I could go visit Bingen for the honor of Hildegard of Bingen, a great musician of the church.
We started out in Rudesheim at the Music Museum, a collection from all over Europe of mechanical music machines gathered carefully together. What a magnificent obsession! The collector would hear a rumor of a machine, and travel to Prague, or to some small village in Germany, or wherever the rumor took him, buying old, broken machines at a good price, freighting them back to his home, restoring and repairing them until they were back in prime condition.
After the music museum, it was time for lunch. We have to give Tauck Tours a lot of credit. Most tourist companies contract for a “good enough” meal, and when we heard “a typical German meal” we had thought we might go off on our own, as we often do, but the idea of lunch at The Rudisheim Schloss (Castle) intrigued us. We were glad we chose to join the group; the meal was done well, starting with a carrot soup and a good traditional German salad, then a schnitzel made with good meat, accompanied by potatoes (I think) and bottles of very nice wine. At each place was also a cup, a gift of the house, in which we could have infinite refills of the Christmas gluewein, spiced wine, all day long.
We aren’t used to eating so heavily, so we skipped dessert (a gorgeous apple strudel with warm vanilla sauce) and headed for the funicular which would take us up to the Denkmal, a memorial built to honor the German dead from (a war?) (wars in general?) They gave us warm blankets to keep us warm in the little bucket we rode up in. It took about ten minutes.
Views from the flying bucket, down into Rudesheim:
View up the hill to the Denkmal – sorry for the flat cloudy sky.
We bought a few small Christmas gifts to bring back, and the shop owner asked us if we had come on a ship, and we explained “yes” – and “no.” They were concerned with the low levels, that it would affect the crowds that normally come to the famous Christmas markets. Fortunately, just as our trip was ending in Basel, the heavens opened, the rains fell, and the waters rose to their normal levels – and more.
In the shop below, the Poste, I found a map of the Rhine River all the way from its beginning in the mountains in Switzerland all the way to its outlet near Amsterdam. I hid it from AdventureMan, knowing it would fit in his stocking. When it came time to wrap, I couldn’t find it and figured I had already wrapped it, but it didn’t show up. It was only months later I thought to check my suitcase, and there it was. It was fun for him to get it, even so late, and he is still having fun with it.
So after wandering around, we decide to go back to the Rudisheimer Schloss and have some kaffee und kuchen, and the waitress tells us “it’s happy hour” for the desserts. She brings us this one lovely Cherry waffle, and oh, it is so yummy, we share it happily. The whipped cream is tinted green, and has pistachios sprinkled on it. We eat it all.
Then, she cheerfully puts another at our place. It would be rude, and wasteful, not to eat it, don’t you think?
We just laughed. We don’t often eat dessert, and we’ve more than walked it off already. It was totally yummy, even the second time around.
This is one of my favorite pictures. The sun is starting to set, it’s getting time to meet up with the bus taking us back to the ship, and the locals are gathering to drink a cup of gluewein and swap news. It feels like a village again.
When you take a tour, there are just things you don’t know until they happen. This time, as we leave, we board a ferry which takes us across to Bingen. Maybe Google Earth has told them that the autobahn on the Bingen side can get us back to Koln faster than the one on the Rudesheim side, down which we came in the morning.
I loved ending my day this way. On a darkened, quiet bus full of happy tourists who had experienced a very good day, this little Seattle girl saw this on the way back to the ship:
I was an early Amazon addict; it was just so handy. I remember the first year I was a member, they sent us all Amazon.com coffee mugs. Just once. It never happened again. I treasured that mug, until it went the way of all mugs . . .
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