Last Day in Freiburg

For our last full day we decided to visit the open-air market around the cathedral once again and actually go into the Munster, as it is called. We also loaded up on neuer seusser (new wine - like apple cider) and brats in anticipation of walking for the rest of the day. Since we were using public transport we caught a tram and a connecting bus to the area where a ski lift operates to go to the Schuinsland. Unfortunately it was closed this week, so back on the bus and the tram for a walk up from Freiburg to a little church about 5 km. from the city center. Of course we got a little lost, but with the help of some very helpful ladies doing nordic walking we finally reached St Ottilien in time for a late lunch before heading back down the mountain. We are packing tonight and heading to Frankfort tomorrow before flying to Seattle on Friday.

Sound of Music Revisited

Today we did something totally not on our list.  We had a driving tour into the Black Forest planned with various stops.  But at the first stop to see a church which is now the arch diosese for Freiburg, we saw people walking up the mountain.  We asked at the Tourist Information Office and found that there was a wonderful walk up over the moutain to the next village, about 8 km.  So we ate our sandwiches and drank a beer and took off.  3 hours later we arrived in St. Margen and, after some liquid refreshment, took the bus back to our car and came home.  Could we be becoming impetuous?  Probably not, but it was a great day nonetheless.

Back to France

The weekend seemed like a good time to go back to France since there is no truck traffic on Sunday, we left about noon on Saturday to re-take some pictures in the St. Germain area for Steve to send to his siblings.  Then on to Gerardmer, a mountain town sporting a ski hill and a large lake (that reminded us of Lake CDA).  We checked into a charming little hotel right in the center of town and enjoyed the best meal of our trip in the hotel dining room.  Sunday morning we drove to the bottom of the ski hill and did a 10 km. circuit of the mountain including a 360 degree view of the Vosges from the ridge.  Before coming home we visited the site of the French/German trench warfare in the this area from 1915-18 when 10,000 French soldiers lost their lives. The actual trenches have been preserved and stand as a memorial to the absurdity of war.

$witzerland

We took the train to Basel on Friday to see a great exhibit at the Fondation Beyeler. It was an amazing collection from the art community in Vienna at the turn of the century.  In the afternoon we toured Old Town and enjoyed some unexpected sunshine and warmer temperatures.  We had stops for beer and coffee before taking the train back to Freiburg. Our impression of Switzerland, at least Basel, is that you need a lot of dollars to live here!  The prices were noticeably more than in Germany (the exhibit was $25 each).  We specifically made a stop at Starbucks to see just how much they could charge for coffee!  An interesting aside: we watched a film crew preparing to televise on the Rhine while we were walking around.  When we came home we watched a live production of Aida on TV from that venue!

On the Wine Trail

We've spent two days tasting mostly the white wines that this region is famous for. Tuesday we went to the cooperative in Breisach which is a HUGE operation that collects 10% of the wines from each of the wineries in the Baden area to bottle and ship. 90% of their wines are consumed in Germany. Wednesday we were on to France. After visiting the unbelievably darling medieval town of Riquewihr, we toured a wonderful castle built in the 11th C, but restored by Wilhelm II in the early 1900's. We then  followed the wine trail South..  Unfortunately the castle tour went past 2:00 which seems to be the bewitching hour for serving lunch in France. So we tasted on empty stomachs! We finally reached the larger city of Colmar and settled for pizza since dinner doesn't really start until 7:30 pm! But we were able to do a little walking tour of Colmar and crossed that off our list of must-see places.

Black Forest

We've taken two excursions to the Black Forest the last two days.  Sunday was somewhat rainy so we just drove in the valley close to Frieberg and wandered around two medieval towns to the south.  It was a good day to finally try Black Forest Cherry Torte with our afternoon coffee.  Monday dawned clear and cold so we drove into the mountains to do some walking in a little town called Hinterzarten which has a very famous ski jump which hosts international competitions.  Then on to the highest mountain in the Black Forest where we took a gondola and then hiked to the very top.  We found a little hut to have a beer, but then had to scurry to catch the gondola back down the mountain.  We made it with just 3 minutes to spare!

A Foray Into France

Saturday we set out for France, specifically St. Germaine where Steve's maternal grandmother's family is from.  The town was surprisingly larger and more prosperous than we anticipated.  We were able to find most of the family names on various gravestones so we know that the records were correct.  We enjoyed an elegant French lunch in the little town at the one restaurant.  Unfortunately the pictures of all this got erased!  But on the way home we came through a beautiful mountainous area called the Vioges and stopped for coffee in Munster, where they make the cheese!  We saw six nesting storks which are very revered around here.  They are supposed to bring you good luck (as well as babies).  We also saw where Irish monks brought Christianity to France in the 6th Century!!  Thank goodness for the GPS on Steve's computer which got us there and back without incident in our hosts' Peugot.  They really do drive very fast on the main roads!

Market Day

The promise of rain gave us a well-needed rest day so we decided to go down to the open-air market in the city center so we could get food to actually cook a meal.  I found a recipe for schweinefilet (pork loin roast) and needed to find mushrooms and dill among other things. We found fresh produce at the market as well as a lunch of German sausage.  Then a trip to the butcher for the meat and the bakery for bread. 3 hours later we finally got home.  So much for a rest day! Watched a great movie, "The Good German", with George Clooney made in 2007. Interesting film noir in black and white using original footage of post-war Berlin. Worth renting.

Biking and Wine - A Great Combination

With the temperature in the low 70's and the promise of one more day of sunshine, we took off this morning to visit some wine areas close to Freiburg.  The bike trails are amazing; we visited multiple towns, for the most part, totally separated from cars.  Our hosts have monster bikes that everyone seems to use - they weigh a bunch but have baskets for carrying things (like wine).  We found a rose and a white wine that we loved and bought a bottle of each.  There were very few hills so it was a relaxing day in the sunshine.  On the way home we stopped for zweifelkuchen (onion cake) and new wine which is wine that has just been fermenting for about a week.  The rains comes tomorrow.

First Day in Freiburg

With beautiful weather expected for two days before the rain sets in, we decided to take advantage of the sunshine and hike up the hill above Freiberg for a grand 360 degree view from an observation tower.  We also visited the open air market that is held in the square surrounding the cathedral every day except Sunday and found some King Bolete mushrooms. The city has been here for about 1000 years and still has many buildings from its early history.  We rented an audio tour with 2 sets of headphones and were linked most of the afternoon, which presented some funny situations when one or the other of us would wander off in our usual way! We stopped at the neighborhood supermarket on the way home and dined on sparkling wine and fried mushrooms before retiring early. Biking to wine country on Thursday!

Museum Day

For some reason we kept putting off going to the museums we had agreed we wanted to see in Berlin.  So on Monday we hoped to go to three; we ended up going to two, and decided that one would have been the right number for us!  We spent a long time at the Jewish Museum which traced the history of Jews in Europe.  We really wanted to see the Pergamon which has some amazing architectural ruins from Greco/Roman times; thankfully they had a 1/2 hour tour with earphones which fit the bill perfectly.  A lot of beer and some great sauerbraten somehow made everything better. We took the train to Freiburg on Tuesday (6 1/2 hours) and I don't want to see a museum for at least a week!!

Back to My Roots

We spent Sunday touring the area near Prenzlau where the Burow family lived and worked.  This was about an hour's drive north of Berlin; the area looked surprisingly like the countryside in southern Wisconsin where relatives settled after immigrating in the mid-1800's. The town where most were baptized and married was Jagow where we stopped to walk around the church and look at many buildings from that time. Lunch was overlooking the lake at Prenzlau and then on to tour the Chorin Abbey that was first erected in the 1200's.  We ended up for coffee and apple strudel at Elisabeth's "garden", a small cottage on a lake about 45 minutes from Berlin.  She acquired this in the 70's when properties like this were appropriated by the GDR from many West Germans and lent for use to the people in Communist Germany. After reunification in 1970 she was finally able to buy it. Elisabeth and her friend Connie gave over a whole day to showing us some of the country outside of the city and we look forward to returning the favor when Elisabeth visits Coeur d'Alene.

Lost and Found

Having had a learning experience that we would rather not have had, we now can justify the name "Travel Survival" for this blog!!  While having coffee yesterday at a neighborhood coffee shop, Steve's wallet disappeared.  After some frantic searching, we decided it was time to quit hoping that it would turn up and began the arduous task of canceling our cash and credit cards.  Luckily we had taken digital photos of all our documents (including drivers' licenses) and emailed those to ourselves.  We also had made a physical copy of everything and have that copy in our bags.  So it was relatively easy to do what was necessary.  Thank goodness that Bev's cash card is different from Steve's (even though both are from Chas. Schwab) which meant we can still get money from the ATM's.  So we still have our passports and one cash card; a credit card is being FedExed to our next home in Freiburg.  Lesson learned:  plan on this happening and take the necessary precautions before you leave home.  2nd lesson learned: simplify what you carry so you can keep track of it!!!  With phone calls and internet work plus reporting this to the police, we lost about 3 hours of our day, but we still  took the elevator to the top of the radio tower, visited the Kaiser Wilhelm Church (many of Bev's relatives were named for this Kaiser), which was left in its post-war state, and had a great German meal last night. We also saw the start of the anti-nuclear protest rally at the Reichstag.  The picture is of Steve's pork knuckle.  Postscript:  While wandering around behind our building we actually FOUND someone else's wallet who lives in our apartment complex!!  We were able to return it to the owner.  Amazing coincidence!

It lead us to contemplate the meaning of such a coincidence. Was God asking me to change identities? Was I undergoing some sort of a moral test? After much self-examination and talking it over with Bev, I discerned a clear direction: be more careful with valuables. Have copies real or digital of everything, have international  phone numbers for all cash and credit cards, and have alternative cards in a separate place that you can use if one set is lost. In any case-ever onward.

Boats and Culture

After lunch with our hostess at a typical "worker's lunchroom" in the city hall for a mere 3 euros, we boarded one of the many excursion boats on the Spree River.  Great way to see an array of architecture, both new and old. There are more bridges in Berlin than in Venice!  Because so much of Berlin was bombed at the end of WWII, there are many structures displaying innovative design.  In the evening we took the U-Bahn (subway) to the Deutsche Oper for an evening of music with the permanent orchestra of this opera company (there are 3 in Berlin). On the program was Schubert's Symphonie h-moll, D759 and Gustav Mahler's Song of the Earth.  We were impressed by the attentiveness of the audience as well as the sheer perfection of the performance.  We continue to struggle with staying awake; we tend to nod off in the afternoon and evening whenever we sit down!

Walking tour of Berlin

We started off our first full day in Berlin by exploring the DDG Museum, which was a hands-on look at life in the  East Berlin sector under the communist government.  We then did a walking tour which included LOTS of informative facts from our guide as well as historic sites (the picture is Steve at one of the few remaining parts of the Berlin Wall).  The tour lasted 5 hours and he covered most of German history for the last 700 years.  It was interesting to find out that the first unification of Germany took place in 1871 soon after the Burow ancestors left for America.  So Germany is a very young country compared to much of Europe.  The re-unification took place in 1990 so this year is the 20th anniversary.  The people's rally that called for changes took place right beneath the radio tower that is across from where we are staying.  Of course we are not restricting our continued exploration of German food, wine, and beer!

Arrived in Berlin

We flew into Tegel from London arriving about 4:00 pm local time.  Our host, Elizabeth, met us at the airport and we took the bus to her flat in what was East Berlin before the wall came down.  She has had this aparment for 35 years and had some very interesting observations about the positives and negatives of the changes that have taken place since 1989.  We are right across from this very famous landmark TV tower (this was taken from our window).  Up at 4 am but decided to have breakfast (bread, cheese, sausage and coffee) and plan our day.

Musings from the plane

Some flight attendants need to retire.
Steve is NEVER allowed to take sleeping pills on a flight again.
A 7-hour flight is not long enough to sleep when you subtract take-off and landing, meals, and movies.
Invictus is the most inspiring film I've seen in 5 years.
Boredom justifies eating everything they serve you!
Is everyone else a zombie on arrival after flying to Europe from Seattle?

Getting Ready

Leaving for Germany on Tuesday out of Seattle.  Lists, lists, lists! On top of packing, getting the house ready for exchange adds to the chaos! We will be staying in Berlin and Freiburg and the couple from Freiburg will be in our house simultaneously. I can hardly operate my coffee pot - wonder how they'll figure it out. Planning on colder weather and rain as we pack both for city sight-seeing and hiking in the Black Forest. Plus we have to bottle the white wine before we go.  Could be a challenge to get everything done in time!