Baden Baden, Germany

On our trip home for the summer, we stopped in world-famous Baden Baden in Germany. The most recommended thing to see or do there is to walk along the Lichtentaler Alle. It is beautiful park along a creek. It actually is heavily used and really a beautiful and relaxing area to walk, jog or bike.

 

All of Germany was in the news at the time because of the spring floods. We kept seeing local people with cameras taking pictures of the creek. This photo shows a tree which is usually well above the water level. As you can see, the creek was very high. In late summer, the creek is less than a foot deep.

 

Crossing the creek from the walking path to the other side are several very decorative bridges. They go to the expensive spa hotels and exclusive neighborhoods. We are sure that many weddings are photographed along the creek and on the bridges.

 

This is the actual spa we went to. There are three large, well known spas in this town dedicated to spas and hot springs. We went to the Caracalla Spa and spent a couple of hours wandering the many pools and waterfalls. We skipped the "clothing optional" solarium!

We went up on top of the Merkur (hill next to town) by riding the Bergbahn (cable railway).

 

This was a group of tourists being lectured while a group of bicyclists went by. Everyone was soooo polite!

 

This is Baden Baden from the top of the Merkur. We were actually a long way up.

 

One of the tourist sites is the house where Johannes Brahms rented two rooms. He was there on and off for many years. He was a working, travelling virtuoso and composer and so he didn't actually stay in one place for very long. He always came back to Baden Baden, however. He claimed he did his best work here.

The other reason he kept coming back to Baden Baden was Clara Schumann. He was obviously in love with the widow, but they never married. This is a birthday present he gave her. It is the original first couple of lines to what is now known as "Brahm's Lullaby".

 

We didn't just stay in Baden Baden! Off to Triberg. Triberg is a small town about one hour by train south into the Black Forest. You can't visit the Black Forest without seeing cuckoo clocks! Uli's workshop is famous for his hand crafted clocks. He always makes the top-ten list of things to see in this part of the Black Forest.

 

Here is his major competitor: The House of 1000 Clocks. They are equally famous, but NOT for hand-crafted workmanship.

 

This display is a German joke. The name of the town is "Triberg" and if you say it correctly and leave off the last letter, it mean "three bears". You see little groups of bears in threes all over town.

This is the Black Forest museum. It perfectly fit our "small museum" category. They always have fun, different and unusual items. You would not believe the number of clocks, hurdy-gurdys and semi-precious stones and rocks on display.

 

Triberg's "big" attraction is the "highest waterfall in Germany". If you are thinking Angel Falls or Niagra, you will be very disappointed. They didn't claim the waterfall was in a single drop!

 

The waterfalls aren't huge, but they are truly beautiful.

 

This is what the historic Black Forest looked like. Imagine it on a foggy or cloudy day as you march with the Roman Legions which were slaughtered here about 2000 years ago.

 

We took the church walk to the Pilgrimage Church.

 

This church was actually very large and kind of jumps out at you from behind a tree.

 

The inside is quite beautiful.

 

The German lunch is always delicious! We like to go to Germany on our way home for the "three B's". Most people think of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. We think of Bier, Brot und Bratwurst!

March trip to Milan and Lakes District in Italy

When you visit Europe, you have to be ready to see BIG cathedrals and castles and villas and public squares. This is the Dom in Milan. This is not our photo. When we were here, it was a very gray day and half of the cathedral was covered with scaffolding for cleaning and repairs. So, we used a postcard instead!

 

This is the local castle / fort. It is in the middle of town. It was probably never a very good fort since it is made of brick and brick doesn't stand up very well to artillery. It has some museums we didn't see and the grounds in the back have an unexpectedly nice aquarium.

 

 These moray eels are the size of a weightlifters forearm and would scare us to death if we saw them while we were in the water! The aquarium is cute and free. Actually a very nice place to go on a rainy day.

 

If you visit Milan, you have to see some of da Vinci's stuff. This comes from a set of replicas of models made by da Vinci that are on display in the museum. This is a picture of a model of something he dreamed up to demonstrate that a wing could actually support weight. I guess watching a bird fly by was just too low-tech for his genius!

 

This is the view looking down on Lake Como from the top of the funicular railway. As you can tell by looking across the lake/valley into Switzerland, we were above the snow line. It was March and still pretty wintery looking. Notice the trees are bare.

 

Down on the lake, you can ride around on the ferry boats and see the villas. All the villas were empty as far as we could see. They were all built for rich Italians to escape the heat of summer. No one lives here in the winter!

 

The Italian towns seem to crawl up the side of the hills from the edge of the lakes. The houses are also quite crowded together. We were glad we missed the summer season. Everyone we talked to complained about the incredible mobs of tourists. They said it was so bad you could barely walk around.

 

Even the churches are along the edge of the water.

 

This was the neatest looking boat, but we didn't have the time to go flying over the water. We were actually putting around on a tourist boat when this thing went by. The locals all take the hydro if they can because it is so much faster.

 

We actually ran into friends from when we worked in Saudi Arabia in Italy. They were doing the same thing we were; getting away for March break! They recommended we go up and see the ski area! The view was quite spectacular.

 

This is the view looking down from the ski resort area at one of the lakes. It is truly a beautiful region.

 

This is almost the entire island! It is in one of the lakes and, as you can see, completely covered with villas. The only way out is by boat and there is no ferry. This means there are no cars on the island.

 

This was either completely bizarre or a stroke of genius. It might take a moment ...  What you are looking at is a floating swimming pool in a lake.

 

The alley ways leading up between some of the buildings were quite picturesque. Jim took several photos of them before Alonda pointed out that they actually sell postcards of these things.

 

Considering how cold it was, we were totally impressed at the 100+ bicyclists we saw training around the lakes. They were really moving!

 

 

We were up on one of the hills and actually got caught in a snow storm. It didn't last, but it was pretty intense for March! This is the little diesel car we rented. The first time the engine quit at a stop light, Jim just about freaked out! The car saves gas by turning itself off if you stop for very long. When you push in the clutch and put it in gear, the engine starts up again. Scary until you get used to it! We also rented a GPS to go with the car. The GPS cost more than the car rental and was worth every penny. You cannot even begin to imagine how lost you can get in Italy!

 

We found a local ceramic museum. There used to be a fairly large ceramic manufacturing plant in the area. The colors were absolutely stunning.

 

 

 

Italy is all about the food and espresso!

 

The gelato was Alonda's choice!

 

A lot of the transport around the lake is by ferry boat. The boats were a lot smaller, but they still looked enough like Seattle to be fun.

 

We are looking forward to being back home for the summer.

Christmas 2012

This Christmas we went to Ireland and Scotland. Some colleagues / friends live in Scotland and everyone has to visit Ireland at least once!

  Dublin was dressed up for the season. The shopping centers and the streets were filled with people buying just about everything.

We found the local cinema and saw The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. We really miss seeing movies.

  We asked the local tourist lady to recommend a close place for a day trip and she sent us to Malahide Castle. It wasn't really a castle, more of a chateau with very extensive grounds. It was one of those huge family estates that get to be waaaay too expensive to maintain. This family sold it off in the 1970's and it has just been renovated. The old stables have been turned into the best gift shop we have ever seen. It has a full-blown restaurant, large deli and very large gift area.

  We took a train over to Cork on the south side of the island. Ireland is surprisingly dull when seen from a train. No large hills or valleys and the horizon is neither very far away nor very close. It is green and pretty. Jim thinks this is one of the reasons for the large body of Irish literature and music: they look more inwards than outwards to the scenery.

  This church is typical of the large buildings. They use the local granite for building material.

We love finding off-beat museums and a butter museum certainly qualifies! We never saw it mentioned on the internet and it was closed when we came by. With advance notice, they might have opened it up just for us?

Cork was a small, clean, interesting-looking city. Too bad we only had a day trip.

If you go to Ireland, you have to go to a pub. We selected these two because they look the way we think a pub is supposed to look. The food was always good in the pubs we entered. Since it was Christmas, none of the local musicians were playing. Ireland completely shuts down for Christmas. Even the trains and busses stop running for a couple of days.

We had some pretty gray days. It never snowed and didn't get horribly cold, either. We had been told that the dead of winter was sort of the "secret season". It isn't much warmer in the summer! 

This churchyard is in Howth (near Dublin). Even though the church is in ruins (notice the missing roof?), the graveyard is still being used. This is about all the sunshine you will find in the winter this far north.

This is looking down into the harbor of Howth. It is a working fishing port and very popular with the tourists. Since this is about as "low" as low-season gets, we had the place pretty much to ourselves.

We found a radio museum on top of Howth. Jim had asked, almost at random, about a tower on top of the town. We went by to see the tower and found the museum. Since no one else was around, we had a personally guided tour.

The tower is a "Martello Tower". The design was copied by the British and used all over the world. It originally had a single cannon on the roof and was designed to keep the French from invading England by way of Ireland. There are a surprising number of these things scattered around the world.

If you mess up, you go to jail (or gaol if you prefer that spelling)! The town of Howth is quite proud of its fully restored jail. They use it for a tourist attraction and Santa was there, too.

This is the front of the Gaol. Many of the prisoners were actually shipped off to Australia after being put in jail for stealing food during the Potato Famine. Maybe not so much a punishment as a chance to get something to eat ...

Our friends in Scotland live in a town called Tane. This is the noonday sun.

This is the only distillery we visited. Ireland and Scotland both claim their distilled spirits are better than anyone elses. We didn't actually test that!

This is the 3 pm sunset in northern Scotland. The sun didn't get much higher during the entire day.
All in all, we had a very relaxing, pleasant vacation for Christmas and New Years.