Heidelberg Aug 2013

On our way from Seattle to Karachi (back to work!) we stopped over in Heidelberg, Germany for a couple of days. Jim had visited the place several time 40 years ago when he was in the Army.

This is the world-famous Heidelberg Castle (Heidelberger Schloss) as seen from the Neckar River. As you can see, Germany is working hard on its tourism by cleaning, repairing and upgrading a number of its attractions. 

This is the view looking down to the river and the Old Bridge from the castle. You ride a funicular railway up to the castle (or you can walk).

 

This is the Old Bridge over the Neckar River. The bridge and the river represent two of the four things you are supposed to see here. The other two are the castle and the Old Town.

We didn't take a picture of it, but the most unique tourist attraction listed was an extremely ugly bronze statue of a monkey on one end of this bridge. It was designed so you could stick your head up in it and have your picture taken. We didn't do that, though it was kind of fun watching the tourists lining up to do it. 

 

This is old town Heidelberg. The city was famous for its Universities and the "schlagende Vereine" (fighting fraternities). Part of their appeal was they would fight duels with blunt swords and face masks. If you did it right, you got a scar on your cheek (Heidelberg scar). No fights today; just tourists.

 

Inside the castle was the Pharmacy Museum. We like to visit small, unique museums. This one was a lot of fun with lots of herbs, scales, jars, bottles and stuff. Thank goodness for modern medicine!

 

We also found and visited the German Packaging Museum in the middle of the downtown pedestrian zone. The most interesting thing was the concept that people buy the package; not the product. This might seem odd until you start looking at a bottle of shampoo and realize that the package is what attracted you; not the contents. People who sell perfume have it even tougher. Their product literally disappears into thin air when you use it!

 

Heidelberg is definitely worth a visit if you are touring Germany!

Vancouver June 2013

We visited Vancouver, British Columbia, for three days to visit a former student. He is a Junior at the University of British Columbia.

We always enjoy visiting Canada and plan to keep going back.

Our trip started at the beautifully renovated King Street AMTRAK Station in Seattle. The building was allowed to deteriorate quite a bit during the '60s and '70s. They put in a dropped acoustic ceiling and all of the carved plaster was painted and wall boarded over.

If you live near enough, the station is actually worth a trip to visit. It reminds you of the grand old days of coast to coast luxury trains.

This is the wall clock in the station. If you have been on the Seattle Clock Tour, be sure to go back for this one.

This was a common sight from the train traveling north. There was a good minus tide and it was the end of the school year. Every elementary and pre-school kid was on the beach in spite of the cloudy weather!

The view from our room in the Sylvia Hotel included this Flag Park.

All large cities now seem to have some kind of Farmers' Market. Vancouver is no exception. The market here is on Granville Island and is definitely worth a trip. Lots of shopping, tourists and food.

 

 

A tourist favorite is to go visit Gastown. It was called "gastown" because of Gassy Jack, a local celebrity seaman. You have to remember that "gassy" at the time had nothing to do with a gastrointestinal upset and a lot to do with the fact that he drank a lot.

This is a picture of the genuine, fully functioning, steam-powered clock in Gastown. The clock has been moved and renovated a couple of times and is once again in need of repair. The clock "chimes" with steam whistles and the steam power makes the clock works wear out quite quickly. Imaging living in a steam bath all your life!

If you went to the Vancouver Expo in 1986, you saw Canadian Place. This is now a Convention Center on the waterfront. The thing in the center of the photo is the convention center. The thing on the left that looks like a hotel is one of the two cruise ships in the picture. They are both on the Alaska Cruise route and come up from Seattle and make their first stop in Vancouver. The traffic for incoming passengers was really bad. There was an extra Mountie directing taxi traffic for passengers to get to the boats.

The view from Canadian Place is lovely. You can obviously catch a float plane to just about anywhere from here. Dinner cruise boats are also common.

We always try to visit small, unusual museums. This one qualified; it just wasn't open. They were having a meeting of the board of the local golf club and the museum was closed to outsiders.

We didn't visit the museum, but we got to go play pitch'n'putt in Stanley Park. Lovely course and a lot of fun. Jim got to meet a local skunk. He gave a friendly wave of his tail and left.

This is sunset from Stanley Park near our hotel.

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.