Germany 2019

After our river cruise in Portugal, we travelled to Munich and Nordlingen in Germany. The weather turned rainy.

 We took the hop-on-hop-off bus. Normally, we would have done a walking tour.

This whole scene is VERY German. Notice that the rental electric scooters are neatly lined up instead of being helter-skelter all over the sidewalk like they are in Seattle. Notice how well behaved the children are in their little rain suits. They are waiting for the green WALK signal. So cute!

This is the Rathaus (City Hall) at Marienplatz in Munich. Why are all these people waiting in the rain?

Twice a day, the glockenspiel plays and the figurines dance around in the tower. All of the walking tours start and end here.

We visited the Deutsches Museum (it was raining!). This is the world's largest science and technology museum. There were a LOT of visitors.

The museum had a lot of "technical" toys for kids. 

Even the coffee shop was "science oriented"! Did you notice the Periodic Table of Coffee?

We stayed in an "Ibis Hotel". This is our favorite chain of hotels in the world. They have the best breakfast you can find. Here is how you get your Nutella to put on your croissant.

This is also very "German". Compared to the American motel waffel machines, this is beautifully engineered.

We went to Nordlingen to visit a Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) member who lives in Germany. She is an associate member of the Tillicum DAR Chapter in Washington that Alonda belongs to. The pig is there because in 1440, a pig saved the town of Nordlingen from being invaded by Catholic soldiers. The pig is revered in this town.

Nordlingen is one of only three cities in Germany with intact city walls. This is one of the five gates.

"Reimlinger Gate. 1362  Oldest original city gate from the late 14th Century. Guarded the important former Roman road to Augsburg and Italy. 1602/1603 improved with a new upper story with breastwork and remodeled Watch ready room and general strengthening."

Here are Ramona and Alonda at the Gate.

Alonda and Jim on top of the city wall.

Here are Alonda and Ramona guarding the city!

One of the two museums we visited was the City Wall Museum. As you can see, it is on the City Wall. Nice view of the town.

They also had marionettes on display in the museum.

The second museum was the RiesKraterMuseum (Gigantic Crater Museum). 

The town of Nordlingen sits in a large crater. It was assumed to be a volcanic crater until 1960, when scientists discovered that the type of rocks found could have only been formed by a meteor impact about 15 million years ago. This museum and the City Wall Museum are both well worth the trip. 

You remember Oscar Mayer weiners, don't you? Here is Oscar Mayer's house in Koesingen!

This is Oscar Mayer Platz (a roundabout by his house). He donated a lot of food back to his hometown after WWI. It was actually costing more to ship food to Germany than the food cost to purchase. He is very lovingly remembered here.

We hope to return to Nordlingen in three years for their "Historic City Wall Festival". Residents will dress as craftsmen, musicians, jugglers and artists of the medieval city

Portugal

In October, we returned to Lisbon, Portugal as a stop-over before going on a cruise up the Douro River. This was our second time in this lovely country. This is the National Archaeological Museum north of Lisbon. We wanted to go in, but the line to get tickets was down the street. Plan ahead!

Instead of a museum, we went over for a beach walk. It is fun taking pictures of tourists taking pictures!

This is the Tower of Belem. Last time we were in Lisbon, we visited the tower and bought a 3-D wooden puzzle of the Tower. We gave it to Jim's aunt (she likes to work puzzles) and she gave it back. Too hard! We put it together and gave it back to her. She displayed it for several months in the lobby of her retirement home and gave it back. It is now on display in our living room.

We found this little tapas and wine cafe near our hotel in Lisbon. The food, atmosphere and service were really quite exceptional.

This is the boat! We boarded the "Douro Elegance" in Porto. Think "port wine". The town of Porto is where the Douro River meets the Atlantic Ocean.

Alonda's two sisters, Roberta and Linny, joined us on this trip. They also went with us several years ago when we were in the Netherlands.

This looks like a historical photo of Porto, but this is what it looked like out of the window from our cabin!

This looks like the interior of a concert hall, but it is the boat entering one of five locks as we went up the river.

Once the boat has been lifted, we just cruise on out of the lock.

Here is the upper deck of our boat. NO ONE EVER put so much as their big toe in the splash pool! It was too cold! However, the average age of the passengers was easily in the 70's.

We were two of the youngest people on board. The scenery was beautiful today because the sun came out.

Here is "Little John." He was the pastry chef and the pasta chef on the boat. He gave a cooking class on making the national pastry: Pastel de Nata.

These little pastries are everywhere. Jim took this picture in a Starbucks!

This is half of a HUGE Parmesan cheese. We think the chef on the boat only uses one of these every year.

This was the "Captain's Dinner." Everyone dresses up a bit and meets and greets the Captain, the ship's officers and the crew.

As you can see, this is a beautiful country. We saw a lot of lovely countryside.

They grow a lot of grapes in this part of the world. They pick the grapes by hand and then trim the grape vines by machine. That is why the rows are so even.

We visited Castelo Rodrigo, a beautiful medieval hilltop village. The town is famous for its 12th Century Lady of Rocamador church. Portugal is famous for its Port wines, almonds, olives and cork. The shops in Castelo Rodrigo sold a lot of all of these products! 

This is the view from the village. You can see why they built a castle here.

Here are some the olives. The green ones and black ones grow on the same bush / tree, but they are picked at different times.

This is our boat at the Cais de Pocinho. This is the highest you can navigate up the Duoro River. This is also the border with Spain. We left the boat here for a day trip into Salamanca, Spain. At this point in our trip, we had changed time zones four times (Seattle-Frankfurt-Portugal-Spain-Portugal).

Approaching Salamanca.

Inside the main square in Salamanca. They were having a huge used book fair at the time. All of the government offices used to be in this building, but they have all been converted to apartments. The University of Salamanca is huge and a lot of students live here.

Our guide told us to find three things during our free time walking around Salamanca: a shell, an ice cream cone and an astronaut. Here we are with the shell (actually, we were with the shell, but not what you think you see!)

This is the "shell" symbol that we were supposed to find. It is used to mark the Pilgrimage of Saint James. We were actually standing almost on top of it and didn't notice it.

This is the more visible version of the markings for the Pilgrims.

These shells are all over the House of Shells. They are famous because, if you are there at the right moment, almost all of them are in alignment with the sun!

We found this ice cream cone. Wrong one!

We should have been looking at the amazing carvings on the buildings.

Here is the ice cream cone (a double scoop!)

Here is the astronaut! What is an astronaut and an ice cream cone doing on a medieval building??!! There was a massive earthquake and one of the artisans simply decided to put these two items into the façade he was working on!

In Salamanca, we saw a Flamenco performance.

We saw some fall colors. The grape vines changed.

There are a lot of historical villas in the vineyards. Some of the families still have their historic wine-making businesses.

This is the Mateus Palace. You may have seen "Mateus" on wine bottles!

This is part of the extensive Mateus Palace gardens.

This is the Sanctuary of Nossa Senhora dos Remedios (Church of our Lady of Health). As you can see, it is on top of a hill and has a lot of tile work.

If you turn your back on the church, you can see down to the town of Lamego and walk down the steps to get there.

When you reach the bottom, you turn back and realize there really were 686 steps coming down!

This is Porto at the end of our trip. It is not as modern as Lisbon.

We had a very nice tour and tasting at the largest port wine production cellar. This was our last wine tasting in Portugal.

We all had a wonderful cruise in Portugal with family!

This is about the best sunset we got on the trip! This is the sun setting over the Atlantic Ocean from Porto.