Germany 2000 Journal

 
GERMANYJUNE 2000
 
We're back from Germany and Tony and I really enjoyed our trip. Thanks to everyone who provided us with their travel suggestions! We were pleased with all the hotels we stayed in and the places we visited.  We had warm weather with mostly sunny days.  There were some rainy days or light afternoon showers and we did have a huge thunderstorm on the Rhine where the storm must have been right above us!   In Hohenfurch one early evening there was hail. The exchange rate we received was about 2.02DM to the dollar.
 
6/3/00 (Saturday):  Our trip started at Dulles International airport where we took the 4pm flight on Lufthansa to Frankfurt, Germany.  There were no delays, the flight was smooth and comfortable (enjoyed the Air Bus 340), the food was decent and the flight attendants were friendly. I read mixed reviews of Lufthansa at Fodors.com.  My comments about Lufthansa are positive.  I would definitely fly with them again.
 
6/4/00 (Rhine area):  Flying over Germany, our plane flew right over the Moselle and Rhine river.  I could make out Koblenz at the confluence of both rivers.  Our flight got in one hour early, about 5:15am.  We were tired, but excited to be in Germany.  Getting our luggage and going through customs took no time at all.   We headed to the Avis rental office where we booked a car through Auto Europe.  We requested a mid-size car ($228.00) and our only choice was a station wagon.  I didn't want to have our luggage exposed while we were sightseeing in Heidelberg and driving down the Romantic Road, so we opted for the next car up, a Mercedes E200 (an additional $13.08 per day plus $35.00 for a second driver).  Getting out of the airport was fairly easy and I had my map with us and gave Tony directions while he drove.  We missed the connecting road to get to Assmannshausen on the Rhine near Weisbaden, and it took an extra 30 minutes or so to get back on track. It took a couple of days to get used to the German road signs and my road map.  After that, we had no problem.  Driving around Germany was a breeze.  The drive to Assmannshausen was very nice as we drove along the RhineRiver.  We noticed that the water moves upstream (north) and was moving quite fast.  We could see the boats coming from the north struggle to move south.
 
Since it was still very early to get into our room, we had breakfast at the hotel.  We enjoyed a nice spread of food (see hotel and food description under Hotel Café Post on my hotel page, as well for all other breakfasts we had at the other hotels).  By 9am, there was still no room available for us, so we drove to Rudesheim, about 3 miles away.  We parked, walked around a bit, and headed to the cable car area to take a ride up to the Neiderwald war monument.  The cable cars rise about 25 feet above the Rudesheim vineyards.  The morning weather was perfect for this ride up to the top.  The ride was quiet and peaceful.  At the top, we walked to the war monument.  It is very impressive. The view from above is lovely.  We could see the RhineRiver, Rudesheim, and Bingen across the river.  All the hills in the area are covered with vineyards.
 
Tiredness was starting to sink in with us, so we headed back down and drove back to Assmannshausen.  We parked our car behind the hotel (room for only 3 small cars).  Our room was ready and Frau Hotger escorted us to our room.  We unpacked and took a short nap.  We got up around 2pm and headed out to town (it's a very small town) to enjoy the afternoon and the Assmannshausen Red Wine Festival.  It had been going on for 3 days and we were lucky to join in on the last day.  The festival was held in a small area near the train tracks.  There were about 6 tents where the locals were selling wine, beer, and food. Tables were set up to enjoy the drinks, food, and music.  It was a warm afternoon, so I was glad for the umbrellas.  The red wine is wonderful! Not too dry, yet smooth.  I notice throughout my "wine tasting" that the Germans don't use a lot of oak in their wine making and are not heavy in sulfites.  I enjoyed all the variety of wines I tried, especially their dry Reisling.  We each had a glass of red wine, 2 varieties from the Karl Schon Weingut of Assmannshausen.
 
We walked around the town and window-shopped.  We also took a walk along the RhineRiver enjoying the views.  In the late afternoon, we had drinks at the hotel next door to ours.  People were sitting drinking beer and enjoying ice cream.  That seem to be the norm throughout Germany: dessert around 4pm along with their favorite beer!   We had plans to meet Miriam and her husband Oliver (from Frankfurt) for dinner at our hotel at 6pm, for the first of three fodorites get together I planned. All of us had a wonderful time talking about many subjects, enjoying our drinks, and having a great dinner.  They had made reservations to stay the night at Café Post because of the long drive home and work the next day.  That was sweet of them!  That evening, there were fireworks to end the festivities of the festival; and to end our first day in Germany.  We headed back to our room, I believe around 11pm, and went to bed.
 
6/5/00 (Trier):  We woke up to an overcast morning.  I had plans to drive along the Rhine as a day trip, but decided to switch days, so we headed to Trier.  After breakfast, which was very good and filling, we headed to Rudesheim to take the ferry over to Bingen.  It costs 6DM for a one-way trip.  Ferries cross over all day long about every 20-30 minutes.  It took about an hour, but we got to the MoselleRiver and stopped in Bernkastel-Kues.  The sun had come out, so we enjoyed our walk around this lovely town.  Many of the buildings in the old town area were constructed in the old timber style.  We continued our drive along the MoselleRiver and enjoyed the views.  We arrived in Trier and toured the Roman ruins, such as the amphitheater, the main gate (Porta Negra), and the Roman baths.  In the town center, there was a small market with fruits, vegetables, and herbs.  There were also a couple of cheese stands with a nice selection to choose from.  We had a lot of rain in the afternoon as we headed back to Assmannshausen.  I was glad the rain held up most of the day.  We took the ferry over to Rudesheim from Bingen.  The rain had stopped at that time, thank goodness.  I don't think I would have liked a choppy ride.  Being a Monday, the restaurant we chose was quite empty.  The owner stated that the town is usually busy on the weekends.
 
6/6/00 (Rhine River Drive):  On Tuesday, we drove along the RhineRiver.  We crossed over to Koblenz and back down again to Bingen.  The day started out cloudy, so I was disappointed.  We stopped in a few towns:  Koblenz, St. Goar, Bacharach. Koblenz is large with a nice town center and pedestrian area.  St. Goar is lovely, but our favorite was Bacharach.  Lovely town with old buildings.  We enjoyed pizza for lunch and shopped a little.  Herr Hotger recommended this town.  Good choice.  It would be one town I would like to spend a night in.  The drive along the Rhine was very nice.  There were so many acres and acres of vineyards.  We just could not imagine how it all could be harvested!  The countryside is beautiful.  We saw many castles, but did not stop in any of them. 
 
We returned to Rudesheim via ferry, freshened up, and headed out again to Johannisburg where the famous Riesling wine is produced.  We parked butwe were too late for their last tour.  We walked around the area and enjoyed the views from above. The place has a restaurant, but we noticed it to be a little pricey.  We drove north for a short while to see the area, then headed to Rudesheim.  The place was pretty crowded with tourists enjoying the famous Drosselgasse Street.  We had drinks at a place away from Drosselgasse.  The food looked pretty good, but we picked another place for dinner.  It was called Wienerwald. The food was pretty good and inexpensive.  We later found out that this was a chain restaurant.  There is one in Heidelberg.
 
6/7/00 (Heidelberg, Rothenburg):  Today we headed to Rothenburg via Heidelberg.  It took about an hour to get to Heidelberg and another half hour to find a parking place.  We ended up on the other side of the river in a parking garage. We had a great time in Heidelberg visiting the old town section and the castle on the hill.  Although there is not much left to the castle, we enjoyed walking through it and the park with its great town views.  Heidelberg is a beautiful city.  I would love to spend the night there someday.  The town platz had several fruit and vegetable market stands, as well as a couple of cheese stands.  I visited the cathedral, which was beautiful. After lunch of Turkish kabobs and a gyro at Pasha Grillhaus (just off the platz), we headed to the philosopher's walk to take the well-known photo of Heidelberg.  I was pleased with my photograph but should have walked a little further for a shot directly across the river. 
 
In the afternoon, we headed to Rothenburg, a 2-hour drive. It was easy to get to our hotel: enter from the south gate and the hotel (Hotel Gerberhaus) is about 500 on the right.  We parked on the backside.  Rothenburg was one of my favorite places in Germany and I was glad we spent two nights in town. Our room was charming and comfortable. 
 
We walked around town and found a place for dinner.  We had the place to ourselves and a few other guests until a bus tour of Japanese came in.  Yes, we were in touristy Rothenburg, one of the most visited towns in Germany! 
 
After dinner, we headed to the center in front of the town hall and main platz to take the 8pm Night Watchman's tour.  The walking tour lasted one hour and was very interesting.  We walked to various parts of the town while the night watchman told us wonderful stories.  After the tour, we headed to a place called Eisenhut to meet Bari and her sister and mother for drinks.  This was the second fodorites get together in Germany. We all had a very nice time having a round of drinks and talking about our trips.  We headed back to our hotel for the rest of the evening.
 
6/8/00 (Rothenburg):  We had a nice day in Rothenburg.  We did some shopping, visited the medieval crime museum, and walked along most of the town wall.  For some great views of Rothenburg and the countryside, head to the top of the one tower that’s available for climbing.  The day was beautiful and sunny! 
 
We had a good lunch at Ratsstube right on the platz.  I enjoyed their white asparagus soup andsalad.  The restaurant has a garden terrace, but it was filled when we arrived. 
 
In the early evening we headed outside the wall and joined a wine tasting seminar at a local winery, which started at 7pm.  I had read about it on the internet.  However, I did not realize that the seminar was only in German. We got by, as Tony was able to understand some of it and translate for me.  We sampled eight local wines, all excellent.  We brought home six bottles!  By the time we were done sampling, we were very hungry.  We headed back inside the town walls and found a great restaurant (one of our best meals in Germany) called Reich-Küchenmeister. We dined alfresco with many other diners. After a long day, plus Tony carrying the heavy box of wine, we headed back to our hotel to pack up for the next day. 
 
6/9/00 (Romantic Road, Hohenfurch):  After breakfast and checking out, we packed up our car. The car was partially covered with pigeon poop!  The birds rested in nooks on the wall and well, our car was in their way (and the other cars too!).  We headed out of south gate and to the nearest gas station to wash our car.  After all, we were driving a Mercedes! 
 
Along the Romantic Road we stopped at Dinkelsbuhl and Nordlingen.  Both towns were lovely. Dinkelsbuhl, like Rothenburg, is also a walled city.  There weren't many tourists in these two towns like Rothenburg, but Rothenburg has more atmosphere. 
 
There were lots of photo ops on the Romantic Road, so we stopped a few times to include the town of Donauworth.  There was no time to stop in Augsburg if we wanted to get to our hotel in a timely manner.  There was a traffic accident just south of Landsberg and only 15 minutes away from Hohenfurch.  The police closed part of the road, so we had to drive west on a smaller road, taking us an extra 45 minutes to get back on the main road.
 
We arrived in Hohenfurch and to our hotel, Landgasthof u Café Schonach-Hof, around 5pm.  Wes Fowler, a fellow fodorite, recommended this hotel. We were given room St. Ursula, which faced the back of the hotel.  It was a wonderful large room on the top floor with a balcony.
 
After settling in, we headed downstairs to the beer garden to relax, have a couple of drinks, while I wrote in my journal and wrote postcards.  There were several others in the garden drinking and having dinner.  We were the only Americans there throughout our stay.  We had dinner plans with Claudette and Joe, our third fodorite get together.  They were staying in Garmish and met us about 7pm.  We had a great time and the food was wonderful! 
 
When we first arrived at this hotel, the woman that gave us our room key seemed a little concerned and upset.  I found out later from Tony that she gave him a look of relief when he spoke German to her.  It seems that since she didn't speak English, she thought she was going to have a hard time communicating with us.  She warmed up to us quickly after that and was quite enjoyable.  She even treated us four to pear schnapps for an after dinner drink.
 
6/10/00 (Castles):  This day we enjoyed visiting two castles in Bavaria: Newschwanstein and Hohenschwangau, about 30 minutes from our hotel. The day was mostly sunny, and we enjoyed seeing the German Alps along the way.  We parked our car and headed to the ticket office to buy our tickets.  They were 56DM for both castles for the two of us.  The tickets showed a set time for our visit.  One can visit these castles only with a tour guide.  Ample time is given to visit both places without having to rush from one to the other. 
 
We visited Hohenschwangau first, where Ludwig II lived there from childhood until about 17 years of age.  We decided to take the bus to Newschwanstein and walk down from there.  The bus ride was 7DM.  At the top, we walked to a bridge for a spectacular view of Newschwanstein.  It wasn't the view that one typically sees of this castle in photographs, but the side of it.  It was spectacular anyway.  Each tour lasted about 30 minutes. 
 
When we were done visiting the castle, we headed down by walking.  As we walked along the road, horse-drawn carts were going up and down taking tourists.  The strength of these horses (2 per cart) pulling 6-8 passengers was amazing.  
 
For lunch we drove to Füssen, about a 10-minute drive from the castles. Tony tried his first weiswurste, the white par-boiled sausages. I tasted it and they weren't bad, but I wouldn't order it myself, as they don't look appetizing. 
 
On the way home, we visited Weiskirche, which Wes Fowler recommended. It was beautiful in Rococo style.  What was interesting was when we returned to the hotel and I read about the church in my guide book, we discovered the domed painted ceiling was actually a flat ceiling!  Truly amazing!  We wanted to return to the church the next day to study the ceiling, but we didn't have the time. 
 
Another great dinner at the hotel. Actually, Tony and I switched our orders from the previous night, as they were so good.
 
6/11/00 (Bavaria Drive):  After our usual German breakfast, we headed out for a day trip visiting Oberammergau, Garmish, and Mittenwald. 
 
Oberammergau was quiet as most of the townspeople and tourists were in the theatre rehearsing for the passion play, which is performed once every 10 years.  The town is lovely.  I imagine when the play is stopped for their daily lunch the town is buzzing with activity. 
 
We shopped a little but wanted to do some other shopping in Mittenwald.  We drove around Garmish, but didn't get out of our car.  We enjoyed the drive taking in the scenery.   Mittenwald is a lovely town!  We walked around, but the stores were closed with the exception of the souvenir stores!  It was a Sunday.  We found a nice place for lunch at the Post Hotel, one of the places recommended in my Day Trips Germany book.  Good choice!   We sat in the garden area and had a great view of the cable car, which goes to the top of the mountain.  We watched the cable cars go up and half way up the cable cars look like a dot on the mountain.  Tony tried to get me to go up, but I didn't want to.  I would have gotten great photographs of the area, but it had started to rain. 
 
On the way back to Hohenfurch, we stopped in Schongau, which is very near Hohenfurch.  The town was also closed down and just a few restaurants were open.  We had pizza for dinner at Café Roma, which was pretty good, but I would have preferred more sauce on the pizza.  Back at our hotel in Hohenfurch, we had a round of drinks before turning in.
 
6/12/00 (Munich):  Off to Munich!  I was looking forward to being in a big city.  It took about 45 minutes to get to Munich, and then we got lost in the city!  We had to stop and ask for directions.  We were way off course.  We finally made it to our hotel, Hotel Blauer bock near the Viktualienmarkt (one of the best markets I've seen).  There is an empty parking space for hotel guests to unload their car.  We parked our car in their garage for 10DM. 
 
Our room was not ready, so we left our luggage in the car and headed out to the DeutschesMuseum.  Being a Monday, almost all sights are closed with the exception of this science and technology museum.  Tony was especially excited because there was supposed to be a large aviation museum.  It turned out that a portion of the aviation museum was outside the city limits at an annex.  The museum had a nice display of planes, but Tony was disappointed.
 
After our visit, we headed to the town center.  The Marienplatz was filled with people, beer and food stands, tables, chairs, and a music stage, as the city foundation festival was in full swing.  It had started on the 10th of June and this was the last day of the festival. It was a fun afternoon watching all the activity going on, as it was very lively.  After lunch of beer and brotwurst, we headed to our hotel to unpack and do a little wash.  We had asked for a room on the quite side because the front street was under construction.  We paid an extra 10DM a night for this "upgrade."  Later we walked around town and headed back to the Marienplatz where I enjoyed a glass of red wine while Tony had a beer.  For dinner, we dined at Donsil, just off the Mairenplatz.  The food was pretty good and we sat outside to enjoy the festival that was still going on.  After dinner we took a walk to find the Hofbrahaus.  Along the way, we had stopped to see the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We got to the Hofbrahaus and took a peek inside.  It was packed with tourists and quite noisy, so we left. We really didn't want to have a beer there, but I wanted to see the place.
 
6/13/00 (Bertchesgaden, Munich): We were up early and out by 9am to head to Bertchesgaden (via A8 autobahn).  It was a very hazy day.  There were many trucks and traffic coming into the Munich area.  We drove near the mountains.  The drive from A8 to Bertchesgaden was windy, but very nice (rte B20).  We parked our car in a garage and headed to the train station to catch the bus to the Eagle's Nest (EN).  We had to transfer to another bus at Obersalzburg to get to the very top.  The second bus ride was very windy and steep. Private cars are not allowed up this portion of the road and we could see why.  The road is only 13 feet wide and as I said, very windy. There is only one hairpin curve in the road.  I certainly wouldn't want to make that turn!  Busses coming down the mountain had to pull over to a certain spot to let the busses go up the mountain.  It's very well organized and we were told there has never been an accident.  I'm sure those busses are inspected quite frequently, especially the brakes! It was as thrilling (or scary) a ride like the Amalfi coast, but much higher!
 
Once at our destination, we still had to get to the EN.  We walked inside the mountain in a tunnel to get to a large elevator.  We went up 407 feet in 41 seconds.  The interior was made of brass with mirrors because Hitler was claustrophobic. Apparently he went up to the EN only a handful of times.  Because of the hazy day, we did not have great views of the area.  We could see Salzburg, but it wasn't worth taking photographs. While up there, we ran into a VMI graduate from class of 1960 (Tony graduated from there in 1978). We enjoyed great conversation with Alan and his wife Glenda.  We all took the bus back (one must schedule a return time) to Obersalzburg.  From there, Alan offered us a ride and on the way down, he stopped to show us Hitler's house, Berghof.  Only the foundation remains.  I took a few pieces of the foundation.  It was already raining, so we really couldn't walk around the area. We headed back to Bertchesgaden and had lunch together.  We had a nice time with them before heading back to Munich, while they headed to Salzburg.
 
Back in Munich, we went to the train station to return our car.  It took almost an hour to find the place.  Avis has their car return place in the garage of a hotel.  There were no Avis signs on the street at all!  I had to drop off Tony at the station to ask where to park the car.  What a hassle. Our evening ended with drinks at the beer garden in the Viktualienmarkt, a Greek dinner next to our hotel (Kyri's), and a walk around town.
 
6/14/00 (Dachau, Munich): On this day, we headed to Dachau via the S-Bahn.  There is a S/U-Bahn stop at the Marienplatz.  I really didn't want to go, but I also didn't want to miss the opportunity to visit the place.  It was very interesting, but we both expected to see more (based on the exhibits we have seen at the Holocaust museum in WashingtonDC).  We saw a film, in English, at 11:30, which gave the history of the place.  As we headed back to Munich, Tony got off at one of the stops to head out to the aviation museum annex, while I went back to the Marienplatz area to shop and have lunch.  We met later around 6pm at the Viktualienmarkt and had drinks. All the tables and chairs were filled. It was a very nice afternoon. For dinner, we ate next to our hotel at Manila's, a Filipino restaurant. This is the restaurant that is attached to our hotel where we had our breakfast. For dessert, we had ice cream as we walked around town.
 
6/15/00 (Munich): This was our last full day in Germany, so we spent it visiting sights in the area.  It was a very cloudy day and it rained on and off throughout the day.  We headed to St. Peter's to climb the stairs (over 300) to see Munich from above. It wasn't raining at the time we were at the top.  Next we headed to the Residence and its museum.  We visited the treasury - fabulous crowns, jewels, etc.  We also visited the Residence and saw many rooms where royalty once lived.  One part of the museum had photographs showing how the Residence was bombed and the restoration process.
 
For lunch we had decided to have a picnic by purchasing a variety of food at the Viktualienmarkt.  We bought bread, camembert, salami, chilled shrimp in an olive oil and garlic dressing, marinated eggplant, marinated mushrooms, and delicious octopus!  There were many other delicious foods to choose from.  We bought beer and my white Reisling and ate at the tables at the beer garden.  We had a delicious lunch!  I wish we had more days to do this. An older German couple next to us kept eyeing our meal.  A few minutes later, he went off and returned with a container of marinate mushrooms and bread.  We smiled at each other.  We went back to our room after lunch to drop off the extra cheese and bread (it was cheaper to buy a round of cheese rather than a portion of one).  We packed most of our luggage to get ready to leave.  I was glad to bring my bubble wrap and Tony had purchased packaging tape.  We used some of our socks and underwear to pad the bottles we were bringing home.
 
We headed out again and did some shopping.  We had been pricing out the German Hinckel knives and decided to buy a set.  We bought a butcher block set and a set of eight steak knives.  We felt we got a good price, better than in the US.  We also did some last minute gift shopping (a few Christmas ornaments and linens).  I also purchased (as I usually do on my trips) a gold pendant of a beer stein.  The top opens and the front has the Munich emblem.  We walked around a little more, but our feet were really hurting (too many stairs and lots of walking at the Residence). 
 
We dropped off our purchases at the hotel and headed to Donsil for drinks.  I wanted to try someplace new for dinner, but a lot of the places were crowded.  We decided to dine at Donsil.  That place was also crowded, but the waitress asked if we'd mind sharing a table with three others.  Fine with us.  They were young students getting ready to enter college.  We had a nice time chatting with them.  They spoke very good English.  They were recently new to Munich and were friends from school.  We bought their dinner, which they were quite surprised, but appreciative.  For the five of us, we paid $65. After we left, I wanted to have a last round of drinks at a bar.  We found one, which had a Harley Davidson on display.  It was a fun place with good music and people enjoying themselves.  We ended up having two rounds of drinks and having a huge hangover the next day (we did have a few at dinner). I don't remember the place, but know exactly where it is!  We'll have to go there when we return to Munich someday.
 
6/16/00:  Time to head home!  After breakfast, we checked out of the hotel about 8:3am and headed to the airport with our luggage on the S-Bahn.  The ride took 40 minutes to get to the airport.  It took a while to find the tax refund office - we swear they make it hard for people to find. No signs, no maps showing the refund office. They must hope that people will just give up and not get their tax back.  We got it, finally, in cash. 
 
Our flight left on time and we got home safely. The flight attendants treated us well.  We were given a bottle of champagne by the flight attendants.  Tony had talked with them for about half an hour.  That was a nice treat.  We also were asked if we wanted any of the small liquor bottles so they wouldn't have to inventory them. We said sure and were given about 25 of them! 
 
Germany was wonderful!  The countryside is beautiful and there are many wonderful places to visit. I know we will return to Germany!
 
Monica