France, Germany and Switzerland Travels – 2012

Web Site Issues Statement – Apparently, my understanding of what is required to transfer our web site to another web host was not correct at all.  We knew the current web host account would expire on October 3, 2012, so we had transferred it to another provider about a month before we left.  There were some issues, but we thought all was well.  The only problem was that the “transfer” did not move any files, that is a separate process.  We had to extend the current web provider contract by three months while we figure out how to move everything.  It was a little scary because we initially thought everything had been deleted, but we had 48 hours to extend (pay some $$$), so everything should be back to normal.  We apologize if there were any periods of time that the page was unavailable.

Now, back to the travels……..

Tyn Church in Old Town Square

Our second morning in Prague started out with overcast skies once again.  The forecast had been for partly cloudy skies, but that was not the case.  After eating breakfast at the hotel restaurant, which was very good, we gathered our gear and headed out to the Old Town area.  It was about a 20 minute walk before we started to see all of the tour groups, so we knew we were headed in the right direction.  Basically, we walked to the Charles Bridge and took a right turn on one of the streets just passed the bridge, and headed to the town square.

In the middle of the Old Town Square, there is a large open area, hence the term “square”.  The tour groups were all gathered up there heading in different directions.  In the area of the Square is the Tyn Church, which is partially obscured by a building in front of it that is connected to the church, and is called the Tyn School.

Old Town Hall Building

On the other side of the Square is the Old Town Hall, which has an astronomical clock on the tower called the Orolj.  Of course, the tour groups were all at the Town Hall to see the clock operate on the hour (it was 9:00 AM), but we headed in the opposite direction, waiting to see the clock after the crowds had dispersed.  When we did go back later, there did not appear to be a lot of moving aspects of the clock, probably similar to the astronomical clock we had visited in Strasbourg, France, so we never actually saw it “work” on the hour.

Orolj Astronomical Clock

We just wandered around other parts of Old Town, stopping a few times to visit some of the stores.  There were a couple of Bohemian Crystal Shops in the area, and some of the cut crystal was beautiful.  These stores sort of reminded us of being in Murano, Italy with all of their glass.  The other item that a lot of stores carried was Russian Amber, there were jewelry stores all around that were selling all kinds of amber jewelry,  and what appeared to be black diamond jewelry.

We headed back over to the Charles Bridge, and were pleasantly surprised to find it was not nearly as crowded as it had been yesterday.  We walked across, heading back over to what is called “Lesser Town”, which is at the foot of the castle area, between the castle and the Vltava River.

Outside of the Church of our Lady Victorious

We had explored part of this area yesterday looking for the Child of Prague Church, also called the Church of our Lady Victorious.  When we arrived at the Church yesterday, it was late in the day, and there was a Mass getting ready to commence, so we could not look at the inside of the church, nor in the gift store.  This church is famous for having the Infant Jesus of Prague Statue, which is a wax coated wooden statue, that originally came from Spain.  I have added a link to the official website of the Church of our Lady Victorious to read about this holy statue.

Shrine of The Infant Jesus of Prague

By the time we had looked in the gift shop at the church, and in the surrounding shops, the sun was coming out, finally…….  The buildings in the city were much more beautiful with the sunshine highlighting the colors, and with blue sky in the background.

We had hoped the sun would come out in the afternoon, which was why we planned on visiting the Cathedral and the palace grounds again later in the day.  Our sunshine prediction was coming true, so our plan had been correct.  We also planned to purchase the entry ticket for those buildings, so we could also enjoy them from the interior.  Of course, the Palace is at the top of the hill overlooking the City of Prague, so we had hoped for some nice sunny photos of the city from those heights.

As was the case for a lot of the attractions we have seen on this trip, they are all Castles or Palaces, and therefore, had to be built on top of a steep hill.  We climbed and climbed and finally got to the top.  There certainly was no lack of exercise on this trip.   I would venture to say we walked from 6-8 miles per day, if not more, a lot of it up and down hilly paths.

St. Vitus Cathedral

Once we made it to the top, we purchased our tickets for what is described as the “short” tour, which consists of the tour of the St. Vitus Cathedral,  including areas in the main part of the Cathedral that are not accessible for free, the Old Royal Palace, the St. George’s Basilica, and the Golden Lane with Daliborka Tower.

Interior – St. Vitus Cathedral

The best two parts were of course the St. Vitus Cathedral and the Old Royal Palace.  The Basilica was really old, and had not stood the test of time that well.  The Golden Lane was interesting, it was a re-created street with all of the various shops and dwellings.  They were really small, and the people must have been pretty short since the beds and ceilings were really low.

The St. Vitus Cathedral was very interesting, it contained the vaults for the remains of many of the Royalty of Prague, including some from 900 AD.  Based on the  dates on the crypts, many died young, several less than 25 years old.  There was also the St. Wenceslas´ Chapel where all of the coronations take place since it was the private chapel of the kings.  This chapel contains the remains of St. Wenceslas´, the main Czech patron saint.

Stained Glass – St. Vitus Cathedral

There were many very pretty stained glass windows in the Cathedral, as well as beautiful side chapels.  Here is a link to the main website for the Prague Castle Web Site.

St. Wenceslas´ Chapel Inside The Cathedral

There is just too much to show and explain in the blog itself.  If you go to the website, and select the Castle Map tab. it shows the layout of the Palace area, just cursor over either the the Roman Numeral items, or regular numbered items, and a separate box will show up with a link for additional information.  Everything we saw was interesting because we were not really exposed to Czech History as children, most likely due to the fact it was part of the Communist regime when we were growing up.

The Old Royal Palace was also interesting, more for the sheer interior size of the building.  The main area was at least 250 feet long, or more, and about 75 feet across.  It was a large clear interior space, with a wooden floor.

Old Royal Palace – Main Room

The area was large enough to hold jousting events inside of the building.  There were also some side areas, one specifically for keeping the royal records, where scribes had their own balcony area so they would remain separate from the royalty.  It also contained a lot of Coats of Arms for both the royal families and other nobles from the towns in the area.

Chuck & Stephanie – Prague Castle Overlook

After finishing the tours of the four items included on our ticket, we headed over to get some good photos of the city skyline with the sun out.  The afternoon was just a great day, the temperatures had to be in the 70’s, and the sun was still shining.

We headed back down the hill and walked along the river between the Charles Bridge, and the bridge that went over the river near our hotel.  This time, we walked on the opposite bank from the Old Town side, and took a few good pictures of the river.

Entrance/Exit of Locks – Vltava River

This is also the side that contains the locks for the river boat traffic.  They apparently are on a schedule, since several boats are tied up inside the lock, and when it is full with several of the long scenic river tour boats, they close the one end, drain the water (in this case since the traffic was going down river, and then open the other end.  It appeared that some of the boats may be in the lock for 30 minutes or longer.  The traffic all goes in one direction since there is only the one set of locks, and then later in the day, it changes to go in the opposite direction.

Our Hotel on Left, Restaurant on Right

We finally made it back to the Boat Hotel Matylda, and went to our room, opened the glass door, and had some wine while we enjoyed the sunny river view.

Enjoying Our View and Some Wine In The Room

The plan was to eat at the restaurant that is in the boat next door, but is also part of the Hotel.  This is the same restaurant where we had our breakfast. We waited for our reservation time of 7:45 PM, actually going over a little early, we were hungry after the long day exploring Prague.

They initially sat us at a small table, looking over to the concrete roadway running along the river.  There seemed to be some confusion, and they came and then took us to a much better table, sized for 4, which had a fantastic view of the river, and of the lighted Palace and Cathedral on the hilltop.  There was a jazz band, and the hotel staff had suggested making the reservation because of the crowds that come to hear the band.  We were glad we had followed their advice, the restaurant did not take long to get crowded.  They had an extensive wine list, and since the genre for the food at the restaurant was Italian, we ordered a bottle of Italian red wine, which, according to our waiter, was the favorite of the wait staff.

Nighttime View – Castle and Cathedral

We both had a different pasta dish, some grilled vegetables and a basket of bread.  The bill totaled 1,400 CZH, and was 1,610 with tip.  It is hard to see big numbers like that, and even harder to figure the tip.  However, in reality, the actual cost in dollars was about $85.00.   So, for the food, wine, desert, and atmosphere, we felt it was actually a really good deal, just a shocker when presented in the local currency.  This was our nice dinner that we had planned to do in Paris, but had skipped since we just did not find anywhere we wanted to eat, and because we were always on the go.

We headed back to the other boat where our room was located, which was also a nice part of the experience, there was no more walking, no trams, etc, just a 30 second walk on the dock to our room.  We got the camera gear and headed back out to the nearby bridge to get some pictures of the Castle lit up at night, and of our hotel.

Our Hotel at Night

Tomorrow, we are getting up early once again, this time to have breakfast at the hotel at around 7:00 AM, then packing up to head to the train station for our bus ride to Nuremberg, Germany, which is our next stop.

Once again, cloudy skies prevailed in Germany when we woke up this morning.  It was a good night’s sleep for us both, the hotel was generally quiet, although we did hear some people at about 11:00 PM, opening and shutting doors somewhere, most likely on our floor.

The alarm was set for 6:30 AM once again, we are trying to get an early start to spend more time in Rothenburg, our next destination.  We were out of the hotel by about 8:15 AM and headed over to the underground metro station to ride part of the way to the Europcar Car Rental Agency, and walk the rest.  We changed metro trains under the main train station, and then headed three more stops to our departure point.  We still had about half a mile to walk, and found the area to be a little on the industrial side.  However, that seems to be typical for the car rental locations that are away from the train stations and airports.  We elect the more remote locations because there it quite a rental cost premium when you pick up a car at those more convenient locations, such as the train station.  However, sometime it may be worth the extra cost if the rental car facility is too far away, but a tough call in advance when you don’t really know.

The toughest part of exiting a subway station is to make sure you are going in the correct direction, since the underground exits can twist and turn before you actually get above ground.  We oriented ourselves to the roads from our map, and headed off in what we hoped was the correct direction.  Unfortunately, our city map was not detailed enough to see all of the cross streets names, only major ones, so we did not have a way to quickly confirm our direction.  I guess we could have used the GPS, but that was purely an afterthought.  Last trip, we had a compass, but had not really used it, so it stayed home.  After walking about 10 minutes, we got verification we were headed in the correct direction by noting the change in the name of the main street we were walking along, which we had anticipated seeing.  The Europcar rental car agency was not too much farther, easily identified by their green signs and flags.

We went into the office and filled out the paperwork for our rental car, a small VW Polo.  We knew we wanted a small car to navigate the narrow streets of Rothenburg, and the small parking spaces we remembered from our last visit there in 2010.  With the GPS running (now we thought about it!!) and our hotel address in Rothenburg selected, the next activity was to locate somewhere to pick up some breakfast.  As noted earlier, this was sort of an industrial area, and as we proceeded on the GPS route, there was not a lot of food stores along the way.  We finally saw a sign for an ALDI grocery store, and we hoped that they may have a fresh bread/pastry area with coffee.  Unfortunately, as seen at other ALDI’s we visited on our trip, they really do not have that type of “fresh” food available, as is usually the case at most of the other grocery store chains in Germany.  It is really common for the grocery stores to have fresh baked goods, sandwiches, and coffee, just like in the US, just not an ALDI.

We did fine some packaged pastries, and then headed over to a nearby Burger King for some coffee for me, and a diet Coke for Stephanie.  The fast food stores in Germany, like Burger King,  do not have the same breakfast menus as in the US, so no sausage and egg biscuits were to be had.  We sat in the parking lot and ate our breakfast items, not wanting to get on the Autobahn and try to eat  while dodging slow trucks and really fast cars, while driving 140 kph.

Once we finished breakfast, we headed out and got on the Autobahn.  This particular Autobahn was really crowded with trucks, more so than any we had ever seen before on our drives in Germany.  We wondered if the trucks were off the road for the holiday yesterday, and  that was causing truck traffic today even heavier today.  Generally they go slower, they are restricted to a maximum speed of 90 kph, and most times large trucks are generally never allowed in the left lane except in certain marked areas.  Even with these restriction, they can cause issues if there are a lot of trucks filing the right lane, and everyone is trying to pass in the high speed left lane.

We exited that Autobahn, and got onto another one, with far less truck traffic.  However, on this particular Autobahn, the cars were going  much faster than on the other one.  We were driving about 145-150 kph, and cars were flying by us.  I did get lights flashed at me one time while in the left lane, the first flash on this trip, but I was not really blocking them as I tried to also pass a slower truck.  Unfortunately, the VW Polo we had does not have much power, so accelerating to pass a truck after getting stuck behind it was not easy.

We exited off of the Autobahn after about an hour of driving from Nuremberg, and headed onto a secondary road into Rothenburg.  We had a map, and we had a GPS address for the hotel, but we still had trouble navigating the small cobbled streets of Rothenburg, trying to remember how to get to the back of the hotel, not the front where the GPS directed us to go .  The street in front of the hotel is either pedestrian only during the day, or limited to driving to hotels, or at least that is what we were told last time.  Thinking we knew better based on being here once before, we still got a little lost trying to find the back entry, not helped at all by some roads being shut for construction.  We had to exit the walled city and restart the entry, this time really concentrating on the directions.  The signs to designate one way streets are hard to understand and they usually are restricted only for certain hours.  After a few angry looks, and some unhappy pedestrians, we finally made it the second time to the hotel parking area behind the hotel.

Rothenburg Town Square

We found a spot to park in the small hotel lot, and headed inside to check in.  It was only 11:30 AM, and our room was not yet ready.  We headed back to the car to get some of our gear to walk around and take pictures for about an hour while the room cleaning was completed.  It was easy for us to find our way around since we had spent two nights here on our last trip to Germany in 2010.  We headed to the town square, and then headed to the northern entrance, and visited the St. Wolfgang’s Church.  It was right on the fortified wall, so in addition to the church, there was a portion of the upper building that was the access to the battle emplacements, and another part underneath the church had been used as a dungeon.  The dungeon was a little dark and scary, there were just walkways and open areas, but you could not see well from one to the next.  Eventually you came back up another stairway at the other end of the church.

St. Wolfgang’s Church

We took some other photos of the surrounding countryside from the city perimeter wall.  Rothenburg is on a hill, and on three sides, there is a steep cliff that is a natural protecting wall.  Only on one exposed side of the City was there a need to actually build a tall fortified wall for the protection of the city.

The weather seemed to be getting worse, we had occasional rain showers while we were out walking, so we decided to head back to the room to check to see if it was ready.  It had been over an hour since we had initially checked in.  We were glad to find that the room was ready, so we headed out to the car to get the luggage.  The room was in a different part of the hotel from where we stayed last time, and the room seemed to be larger.  The only detriment was that it was on the third floor, so we had to carry all of our baggage up an additional flight of stairs that was steep and curved around a corner.  As we were bringing in our bags, the rain intensity increased to a steady rain, much more than the occasional showers we had been getting.  It continued to rain as we unpacked for the night, so we decided just to stay in until it diminished.

Sunshine in Rothenburg

After about 45 minutes, the sun appeared, so we hurriedly gathered our normal camera gear for our backpacks and headed out, hoping to capture the beauty of the city in the sunshine.  On our last stay in Rothenburg, it had rained both days, and we never saw blue skies.  The sunshine was short lived.  By the time we got outside, the sun was gone and the rain showers were back.  We needed to eat lunch anyway, so we stopped in a small cafe and had a bratwurst and fries.  It was still raining lightly so we decided to visit a few of the stores.  It continued to rain, and now the wind was blowing, making it harder to stay dry, and keep the umbrellas from being inverted by the wind.  We headed back to the room to wait out the weather.  We looked online, and it appeared that the rain would be over soon, based on the weather radar.  We worked on photos and blog postings, catching up from the two previous days.

Rothenburg City from the Palace Gardens

Eventually, the weather did clear at about 4:30 PM, so we once again headed out for some photos of the city in the sunshine.  There were still a few periods of clouds, but overall, it was sunny, and much cooler.  The wind was still blowing, but at least the rain was over.  We walked through the old palace gardens, and got some good photos of the city overlooking the river valley.

Mayor Topper’s House

We had initially intended to eat at the hotel restaurant for dinner, but since we had eaten a late lunch, and we wanted to do the Night Watchman tour at 8:00 PM, we opted to go to the little grocery store in town and pick up some items for a snack in the room.  We would have either had to eat an early dinner, difficult since we were still full from the late lunch, or try and get some dinner after the tour, which ended at 9:00 PM.  Unfortunately, the restaurant also closed at 9:00 PM, so we did not have a lot of choices.

Stephanie With The Night Watchman

We had a nice snack of cheese, croissants (From ALDI in Nuremberg), crackers, and a desert from one of the pastry shops, along with some red wine, also from our earlier jaunt to ALDI.

We headed out to the Night Watchman’s tour at about 7:40 PM, taking some flash pictures of some of the buildings while we waited for the tour to begin.  It was pretty cold outside, and we were glad we had bundled up.  The “watchman” was the same person we saw last time here, he has been doing these presentations for about 10 years.  At least this time it was not raining like it had done in 2010, so the tour was much more enjoyable, as we did not have to fight with everyone’s umbrellas to be able to see and hear his presentation.

The tour presentation was just as good this time, and we enjoyed it much better without the rain  The only issue was that the crowd was a little larger, but it was still manageable.

Afterward, we headed back to the room.  We are going to try and get up early tomorrow so we have some more time in Rothenburg to do some sightseeing before check-out at 12:00 PM.  We will be heading to Frankfurt, our last stop before returning home.  We are staying in a hotel close to the Frankfurt Airport, and will keep the rental car so that it is easier to get to the airport in the morning (no shuttle bus).  We will just turn the rental car in as we go to the airport to fly home.

The alarm sounded at 5:45 AM this morning, telling us it was time to get up and time to go home.  We got ready, and after taking our bags to the rental car in the hotel’s parking garage, we headed to the airport.  We did have a little difficulty getting out of the garage, the spaces were small, and the garage itself was really small.  After maneuvering a couple of times, we were off to the airport.  The GPS guided us right to the rental car return, but the signage would have directed us there just as well once we got to the airport grounds.  The rental car return was in the bottom of a parking garage, but there was an elevator and mostly adequate signage in the terminal to get us to the correct area for departures to the USA.

The Frankfurt Airport is really large, and we walked a good distance before we got to the departure gates for US Air.  Of course, they were at the very end of that terminal, so once again, a little more walking.  We had gotten to the airport early since they recommend at least 2.5 hours of time for checking in, immigration, security, and arrival at your actual gate.  The airport is so large, if there is any issue, the time evaporates quickly, and we did not want to have a stressful departure.

Check in was nice, the line at US Air was short, so we almost walked right up to the counter, and checked our two bags.  We were slightly worried about the weights of the bags, and when we put them on the scale, of course, it read in Kilograms (Kg), not pounds.  We knew the limit was 50 pounds per bag, but were not sure of the exact conversion of that into Kg.  It did not seem to matter, we don’t think the lady checking us in even looked at the scale readings.  The bags appeared to weigh in at  21.5 Kg., for my bag, which we knew was heavier and so we placed it on the scale first, and 20 Kg. for Stephanie’s bag.  We were not quite sure on Stephanie’s bag since the lady had both bags on the scale together, so we just tried to subtract what we thought was my weight from the total for the two bags.  No matter, the baggage tags went on and boarding passes were issued.  So much for our effort for online check-in and printing our boarding passes at the hotel yesterday, they gave us new ones anyway.

After getting the bags checked, we went to a Starbucks for some coffee, a blueberry muffin for me, and a croissant for Stephanie.  We sat in a small waiting area to eat our breakfast, our seats being next to a couple and their daughter.  It looked like the daughter was going off to somewhere away from home, we thought it might be college, but it seemed too late in the year for that, so maybe she was going away for a job.  They had their own picnic basket  including water, juices, what appeared to be an insulated coffee dispenser, and some food.  We knew it was special because the father kept taking pictures.

After finishing our breakfast, we waited a little while longer, and then proceeded to go through the immigration, and get our passports stamped.  We had seen the line growing longer for people checking into US Air for our flight, it was the only US Air flight going out that morning.  We could have waited a little longer in the main terminal area, outside of security, with more access to stores, etc., but we also did not want to get stuck in longer lines as other passengers for our flight started the process of getting out to the gate.

The Frankfurt Airport has dedicated immigration services for just a few gates, so it is not ever that crowded, unlike some other airports where everyone from all flights goes through one large area for immigration.  There was a similar set up for security, although it was dedicated specifically for our gate.  Only passengers going on our flight were going through the security.  They were just using one x-ray machine out of the three available when we got there, but the line was building behind us.  They require that you are at your gate area one hour before the flight, and most people were in the area by that time.  On the last flight we had taken from Frankfurt two years ago, once you were in the special holding area for your gate/flight, it was difficult to go to the bathroom, you had to take your boarding pass, and go past a special guard.  This year, there were bathrooms right at the end of the security lines, near the area where you have to redress yourself (belts, wallets, computers, etc).  We were not sure if you could come back, so Stephanie asked two policemen in the security area, and the response was “last bathroom”.  She took advantage of what we thought may be the last chance to get to one because of the “holding area” constraints we experienced last time.  You could tell that these bathrooms had been added to the outside of the building, they were like metal boxes placed on some steel supports, since we were on the second level.

We then walked down the hallway and entered the holding area for our flight.  Once we were there, we did see signs indicating the “Toilettes” were back down the same hallway we came through from security, and we found out from experience that you could easily go back use them.

The flight started boarding about 45 minutes before departure, and we were in Zone 6, which was the last Zone called.  We anticipated that the overhead bins may be full, and there was one bag in our bin when we arrived, but it still left enough room for Stephanie’s backpack, but I had to put my camera bag across the aisle, one row forward.  The plane was a newer Airbus 330-300, so it had a lot more room than the older Boeing 767 we flew on to Paris, and the plane had the individual TV screens on each seat-back.

The flight left on time and was pretty uneventful, we only encountered a few areas where the seat belt sign went back on due to moderate turbulence.    We were served a hot lunch, consisting of some barbecue chicken, green beans, a roll and a salad.  It was similar to the meal US Air served on the flight over, but slightly different.  Towards the end of the flight, they served a sandwich for a snack, which was not very good.

We caught up on our movie watching, we both watched three movies during the 9 hour 30 min flight to Charlotte.

We arrived in Charlotte a few minutes late, but we were not concerned since we had almost 3 hours of layover until our next flight.  Of course, it is slow to go through Immigration, then wait on your bags to take them through Customs, go through Customs, recheck your bag for the connecting flight, and then find your gate.  Our bags came out fairly late in the baggage claim process, about 20 minutes after baggage first started to appear.  The flight from Frankfurt was full, and there was a lot of luggage being unloaded.  Since we had arrived early at the airport for the flight from Frankfurt, we believe our luggage was some of the last that came off in Charlotte, since it had probably been some of the first to go on in Frankfurt.  Both bags made it without incident, so we collected them and headed to the line for customs.  We handed over our customs form, and then headed to the baggage re-check area.

Once through the Customs and Immigration, we were pleased to see we did not have to go too far to get to our next gate.  Of course, you have to go back through the Airport Security area to get to your gate, so we undressed all of the normal items, and got through security without any problems.

We had about 90 minutes until our flight, so we stopped off at an airport bar for a couple of beers, and to watch some college football games on their TV’s.  We thought we had been ripped off at Oktoberfest on beer prices, but the Charlotte Airport makes the Oktoberfest prices look pretty good, and you get a lot more beer at Oktoberfest.  Our two “large” beers, purported to be 20 oz., were almost $18.00, and of course, $20.00 with tip, about the same price as two 1 liter beers at Oktoberfest!

We headed to our gate for the flight home, and were surprised to see it was full, even though it was a smaller regional jet.    There were quite a few Chicago Bears fans going to Jacksonville for the Jaguars-Bears Game on Sunday.

The last leg of our trip was also uneventful, which is good when it comes to flying, and we actually landed about 15 minutes earlier than the posted arrival time.   We headed to Baggage Claim, hoping that on this trip, all of our bags would make it from Charlotte.  The last time we did the Frankfurt-Charlotte-Jacksonville flight in 2010, we somehow lost a bag between Charlotte and Jacksonville.   We knew they had both made it to to Charlotte that time because we had re-checked them after Customs.  We did not have to wait too long to see both bags on the conveyor for this flight, so we and our two bags had made it all the way home this trip, completing a successful adventure.

Our ride home was there to pick us up (Thanks Brandt), and by 6:00 PM, we were at the house, tired, but glad to be home.

As usual, we will post some after trip thoughts in an Epilogue, and rearrange the posts to be in normal chronological order instead of newest post first.  

Thanks for reading to those who followed along.