Munich – Day 2

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Sep 292010
 

We slept in this morning, fighting some of the after effects of our single Oktoberfest celebration day yesterday.  We went to the buffet breakfast at about 10:00 AM, and of course, we were not the only ones who had slept in.  Unfortunately, once again it was a cloudy, cold day, with some rain showers.

Unfortunately, both of us now have slight head colds, although Stephanie’s seems to be on the mend.  I had started to get hoarse yesterday, and then had a stuffy nose when I woke up this morning.  We are sure that part of the congestion is due the weather change, it seems like a lot of the people here are coughing.  It does not help that we are constantly around crowds, in relatively close proximity to people on the trains, underground, crowds in the streets, and of course, crowded beer establishments.  Plus, we were very confident that yesterdays Oktoberfest experience had no impact on our health!

Gardens at the Residenz

We did not really have a plan for today, so we just headed back over to the Marionplatz area and walked around.  We headed over to the area of Munich located near the Residenz, which was the former palace of the Wittlesbachs, who were ruling family of Bavaria for about 700 years.

We did not go inside any of the buildings, but there was a nice garden area behind the main building and we walked around that for a while, and then, the sun began to peek through the clouds.

We discussed going over to the Dachau Concentration Camp today since the weather seemed to be getting better, and decided that was a good plan.  We grabbed a quick bite to eat at a sandwich shop, bought our special daily transportation ticket for two persons for a day, and headed over to Dachau.  It was about 30 minutes riding the S-Bahn train, then about a 10 minute bus ride to the entrance of the Dachau memorial.

Area Where the Old Barracks Were Located at Dachau

We arrived at Dachau about 2:30 PM, and started the self guided tour.  We really needed more time and energy to thoroughly read all of the information they had in the exhibits, but we were just not up to that today.

We looked at most of the exhibits, and really enjoyed looking at the restored barracks and some of the other buildings.  It was very moving to read about the horrible conditions there, and how they got progressively worse over time, about the executions, and other terrible things that were done to the people imprisoned there.

Memorial Where the Cremated Ashed Were Burred

We looked at the three religious facilities built on the sight, one for Jews, one for Catholics, and one for Protestants.  Then we went to the areas where they had the crematoriums and gas chambers.

There were several areas there that were set aside as mass memorials to the people who were cremated, and had their ashes buried en mass in large areas around the crematoriums.

We headed back to the bus stop, then back to the Dachau train station where we caught the train back into Munich.  We went ahead and got off at the same stop we had started on Marienplatz, so we could try and visit the church there, St. Peter’s, and to get a bite to eat.

Dachau Crematoriums

The church visiting  times were a little funny, they had mass there at 9:00, 10:00, and 11:00 AM in the morning, so we had been unable to visit there earlier this morning when all of the masses were being held.  We had waited until after the 11:00 AM mass, but then the church was closed until 4:30 PM for cleaning.  When we got back this afternoon, we discovered there was a 6:00 PM Mass just getting ready to start, so we took a quick look, took one photograph, and left before the mass started to go and get a bite to eat and wait for the mass to be over.    We were not really sure when the visiting times were for the church, but there obviously limited time slots.

We started our walk back to the hotel, but first stopped of to look into a large department store which had six floors.  We looked at some of the traditional clothing they had in the men’s department to see what the cost was for some Lederhosen.  They had quite a selection, but they were pretty expensive, about 200 Euro for a pair, plus additional cost for the shirts, socks and shoes.  It certainly could get quite expensive to purchase an entire outfit.  We were not sure if, like most everything else, the prices were increased since it was Oktoberfest.  It would have been fun to try some on, but we were both tired, and feeling a little run down from our colds.  We headed back to the hotel to pack a little and turn in early.  We get to “sleep in” tomorrow since our train does not leave for Wurzburg until 9:55 AM.

Munich to Wurzburg to Rothenburg

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Sep 302010
 

We both slept pretty well last night, hopefully we can shake our head colds soon, they are more aggravating than anything, and the cold, rainy weather certainly does not help.  We slept in until about 7:00 AM, then got up, got dressed and went to the hotel breakfast.  It was nice to relax a little, we had a decent amount of time before we needed to head to the Munich Train station for the train ride to Wurzburg.  This morning, we awoke to partly cloudy skies, but soon it turned cloudy again, which has been the pattern in most of Austria and Germany on the trip so far, it is either cloudy in the morning and sunny in the afternoon, or just cloudy all day.

After breakfast, we finished packing up our suitcases, and checked out.  We decided to just walk to the train station instead of taking the Underground like we did when we arrived.  After looking at a map and now knowing exactly where the hotel was in relation tot he train station, it did not make sense to take the underground.  It was only about a twice as far walk to go to the station directly than to walk to the underground stop that was in the opposite direction from the station, and take the one stop ride.  Plus, we had more than enough time for the walk.  It took us about 15 minutes to walk to the station, and we went inside to find our platform.

Train to Wurzburg from Munich

We actually boarded the train early since it was alreadfy at the station, originating here for the route to Frankfurt.  We are getting off at the second stop on the route, Wurzburg, where we will rent our car for the next 7 days of travel.  We do not think we will spend any time in Wurzburg, but that depends on the weather.  There is not a lot to see there other than the Cathedral, and it is closed for renovations until 2012.  There is also a Residenze (palace) with some gardens.  As we headed north to Wurzburg on the train, the weather became extremely foggy, hopefully it will clear soon.

We arrived in Wurzburg on time and exited the train station.  The rental car site was not at the train station, and our original plan was to take a taxi to the rental location.  We started to look around the outside of the station at the bus route maps, and found one going to the street where the rental car agency was located, so we bought two tickets and boarded our bus.  We did not have a copy of the bus route, nor did they have one in the bus like most cities do, so we got out the GPS to track our progress toward the rental car agency location, which I had loaded up into the GPS before we left.  Well, we started off going just like the GPS directions indicated, but soon the bus went in another direction.  Not sure that we were actually going to get there, we hopped off the bus at the next stop which seemed to be close to the rental car location.  Unfortunately, we had gotten off the bus in a neighborhood that did not have through streets, even though the GPS said it did.  After a little walking on dead end streets, we went back to the bus stop and looked at the bus route posted on the sign.  It did not make any sense either, even though the street we needed to be on had three stops named for it on the route.  The problem was that the route map split into two routes that did not connect at the end.  Puzzled, we decided the best thing to do was to catch the next bus that was identical to the the one we just got off.  The next bus came by and after a little interpretation on the street name, the bus driver indicated the bus did go that way. It was really funny that it was the same bus driver we had originally, but on his next run.  He did not make us pay another fare, most likely amused at our situation. The bus actually went out a gate at the end of the neighborhood that the bus activated with a remote to open.  We would have never gotten out walking, evidently the neighborhood was located entirely within a security barrier or fence.  Eventually, after a very circuitous route, we did end up on the correct street, and we got off the bus.  We just got off one stop early, at the second stop with the street name we wanted, and had to walk a couple of blocks downhill, eventually arriving closer to the third stop on that street, which was almost at the same address on the street as the rental car agency.  I guess maybe we should have taken the taxi, or not used the GPS, but we learned we just should have trusted in the bus route, and gotten off at the third stop on our street.

Finally arriving  at the Europcar Rental agency, we got our car, loaded our baggage, started up the GPS and headed to Rothenburg where we will spend two nights.

Our Rothenburg Hotel, the Hotel Goldener Greifen

We found Rothenburg without any problem, but some of the streets in the old town appeared to be one way, or at least only wide enough for a car going one direction.  Some were pedestrian only at certain time periods during the day.  We finally made it to the hotel, and they directed us to their parking lot, and we checked in.  It is a very pretty hotel, not fancy, but with a lot of local and historical flare.  We did a little laundry since it is a little colder here, and the radiator heating is on in the rooms.  The heaters make very good clothes dryers, so we actually did a couple of heavier shirts and pants knowing we have two days for them to dry.

We then headed out to see the town.  Again, it turned cloudy and cooler this afternoon.  We were joking that “Germany” must mean “cold and rainy” in English.  We went to the St. Jakobs Church, which is undergoing a lot of restoration work outside, was was beautiful on the inside.  They had a wooden gilded altar from the 1500’s and another intricate wood carving done in the 1600’s that took about 8 years to complete.  We walked around the town wall and then headed for an early dinner.

With all of the train riding, rental car incident and driving to Rothenburg, we had forgotten all about lunch, so we were hungry.  We went to a nice and quaint restaurant called Burgerskeller, and had some good food and beer.  After that, we walked around a few shops waiting until 8:00 PM to do the Night Watchman’s tour, which is an English speaking tour of the city given by a man dressed up as one of the original town night watchmen.  He was very entertaining, and we learned a lot about the history of the town.  Of course, it started to rain right before the tour, so we all walked around in our rain gear listening to the night watchman.  Is is no wonder everyone around here, including us, has colds.

The Night Watchman’s Tour

We headed back to the hotel to work on the blog since we discovered when we checked in that that they do have Wi-Fi here at the hotel.  They must have recently added it as an amenity because it was not listed in the original booking information,  The only problem is that we have to do it outside our room, the wireless signal is not strong enough in the room.

NOTE:  We are posting some pictures to a Photo Album, look to the right hand side of the main page of this trip’s blog, and you should see a Photo Album listed under the pages.  It may take a couple of days to load the photos, and they are not heavily edited, so there may be some redundancy, but we wanted to get more pictures loaded

Rothenburg

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Oct 012010
 

Rainy Rothenburg

After a good nights sleep, we woke up about 7:30 AM, eager to explore the city of Rothenburg.  We were not surprised to see it was raining AGAIN.

We just can’t seem to get rid of the bad weather on this trip after having had such good luck on our previous travels.  I guess it eventually had to catch up to us.

Our plan had been to spend the morning in Rothenburg, and then take the car to some other nearby towns.  It was so rainy that we changed the plan initially so that we could stay at the hotel and load up some pictures into the photo album page for the blog, and to update some of the posts to add some photos, so we worked on that for a while this morning before heading out into the rain showers to explore the city.

Trail to the Topper House

Medieval Mayor Topper’s House

Once we headed out, we went down a long and steep trail to the Tauber River Valley to see the Toppler Castle, which is a very small castle that was once occupied by the medieval Mayor Toppler. The castle is somewhat of a landmark here.  It was a slippery hike down a wet path covered with leaves that had fallen from the trees.

It was even worse coming back up.  We both were so hot form the climb that we had to go back to the hotel and put on some drier clothes, afraid the wet clothes in the cool weather would NOT help our colds.

After changing, we went back out to look around the town, walking around the perimeter of the walled city and visiting some of the interesting towers and gates into the city.  We also did a little shopping to look for an authentic Bavarian Hat for me and to look at some of the local wines and other souvenirs.

Rainy and Overcast Rothenburg

Sometimes, it would look like the weather was clearing, only to start to drizzle again.  It was the worst weather day we had had for the trip, but we looked at the bright side (we had to look really hard), we were tired and needed to rest a little anyway, and with the rainy weather, it was a good reason to finally take a little break.  As I stated before, it also gave us a chance to catch up on the blog, which has become more time consuming that I thought, probably because we are spending longer days out and about than we did on any of  our cruise trips, leaving less opportunity for the blogging, especially the pictures, which are always tougher to get in.  Plus, not all of our accommodations have had internet access.

We ended up not driving around at all today, just staying put, getting some desserts to try, and drinking some wine while updating the blog, planning out next drive, and getting some of the cities loaded up into the GPS.  Tomorrow night, we will have to find a place to sleep since

Scenic Rothenburg

we had left this one night open to “wing it”, we were not sure where we wanted to go before heading to Fussen.  Since we were able to visit Dachau while we were in Munich, we do not have to head over in that general direction tomorrow, so we will just have to find a place in one of the cities on the way to our next reservation in Fussen.

Rothenburg to Triberg – Unfortunately A Change in Plans

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Oct 022010
 

Today we had a change of plans, we will be heading home to Florida early, leaving on Monday, October 4, instead of continuing on until October 10.  My Dad’s health has significantly declined over the past week, and he probably does not have much longer here with us.  We knew it was something that might happen before we left, but things seemed to be fairly stable with his health when we left.

It was a hard call, a lot due to the inability we have to communicate to home.  The SIM card we bought for the phone worked at times, but was not very reliable, and we tried all morning to load up more time onto it, but we were unsuccessful.  The company we bought the card from will be hearing from me when we return.  That, coupled with the time difference made it hard for us to make an informed decision.  Our only consistent method of communication was email, and that is where the time difference really becomes a factor.  We did have the benefit of using Skype here in Rothenburg with the fairly good internet access.

The hotel staff in Rothenburg were very helpful, they allowed us to use their phone to call the airlines, and it was probably long distance.  They also set us up in the breakfast area so we could use their internet connection to try and cancel all of our hotel reservations for the remainder of the trip we will not be able to complete, and to get information on routes and distances through Google Maps.

As I am writing this now at 10:20 AM our time, I still do not know what is going on with Dad.

But, since we can’t get a flight out until Monday, we decided to go ahead and try to drive to the Black Forest anyway, since it was not too far from Rothenburg, about 2 hours drive.

The Skoda Rental Car

We headed out of rainy (yes, it was raining again this morning) Rothenburg about 12:15 PM and used the GPS to guide us to Triberg, one of the more popular destinations in the Black Forest.  It was an interesting drive, they have some VERY narrow roads when you are on the back roads of Germany, and the speed limit on them is 100 kph.  Add in a little rain, and it is a full concentration effort to drive, I did not see much scenery, only asphalt and grass.

We finally got on the Autobahn, and found it was not significantly different from the Autostrada in Italy.  In some areas, the speed limit is 120 kph, and then in others, there is no speed limit.  I think we got up to about 175 kph a few times to pass some of the slower traffic, but in general, most people seem to be driving around 160-165 kph.  It was still fun.  We have a Skoda car, made in the Czech  Republic, but Skoda is owned by VW.  It is a 4 door car with a trunk for luggage security.  It took me a little while to figure out that it had a 6 speed manual transmission, it had seemed to be running hard at the Autobahn speed, I had even commented on it to Stephanie.  The computer on the dash kept blinking a 6 and I finally figured out it was the indicator to tell you to change gears for fuel economy.  I never drove a 6 speed transmission car before, only 5 speed manuals….who knew.

Chuck & Stephanie at Triberg Falls

We arrived in Triberg about 2:45 PM and were going to go to the famous waterfall here first thing since it was SUNNY in Germany, finally. However, we saw the tourist  information building and decided we should go in and see if they knew of any hotel availability since we did not have a reservation of place to stay for the night, and the information office closed at 5:00 PM.  Stephanie went in to find out while I was trying to fine a parking spot.  It is very hilly in Triberg, and parking is at a premium.  We finally met up at the information office, and they gave us a recommendation for a room at a place close by called the Hotel Pfaff.  It was right next to the entrance to the falls.  We went in and checked into the hotel, the room was nice, and not too pricey.

We headed for the middle level entrance to the falls so we would not have to climb up as much.  I have developed a bad shin splint, I am not sure how, maybe it happened on all of the extra walking in Munich the night we got a little lost.  It really started a couple of days ago, and since we are in very hilly towns, has only gotten worse with all of the walking we are doing. It is only painful when I was walking downhill.  Unfortunately, we climbed up a lot to see the falls, and some of the trails were steep, so the only was back is downhill, ouch.   The falls were very pretty, and some of the

Triberg Falls

trees here are turning fall colors.   The sun was out some, although it got cloudy again for some of the hike at the falls.   We also saw some very pretty birds called Nutcrackers.  The males had very pretty blue and white colorings on their wings.

Then we started downhill, and that was very slow and painful. for me  Afterward, we headed over to a Catholic church Stephannie had seen a sign for while we were driving through town.  Unfortunately, they did not have a Saturday evening vigil Mass, but someone there told us about a church in another small town nearby that did.  We drove over to St. Josef, in Gremmelsbach.  It was a very pretty church inside, and for the small size of the town, there were a lot of people there for Mass.  The church was located on one of the really, really skinny roads, in some places, it was not wide enough to pass another car.  I thought they were one way, but they are not, just really narrow.  At one point, we had to back up about 200 yards because of a small bus going the other  direction that needed to get by us, and there was absolutely no where to pull over to let them pass, guard rails on one side and a hill on the other.

The Mass was nice, of course it was all in German, but it was apparent that they were doing some special type of blessing for the harvest, there is a lot of farming in this area.  The altar was decorated with different fruits and vegetables from the farmers.

After Mass, we went back to the hotel to get some dinner. In the rush to do everything, and get here today, we had forgotten all about eating lunch.  We had dinner in the hotel’s restaurant, and it was very good German food, with a very nice atmosphere.  The hotel itself is very pretty, lots of wood, and typical German furnishings.

At about 11:00 PM here, we were able to get a hold of my mom and learned that my Dad had passed away at around 4:00PM  Eastern Time.  It was time for him to go, he had just gotten old, as we all hope to do, and his body just shut down.  It was good that we had made our changes in plans this morning so we could get back home.  I knew I would not be there with him at the end, and that was OK. It could have happened the same if I were at home in Florida, still far away,  or abroad, you just don’t know when.

We will spend tomorrow morning here in Triberg looking around a little, maybe go to a couple of close by towns, and then head for Frankfurt in the afternoon.  It has been a good trip, certainly we wish it would have lasted for the full time.  I guess we will just have to plan to return someday and finish what we had set out to do.  We did learn a lot by being on the road, we certainly learned a lot about packing, next time we will go a lot lighter.

We will make one more post for tomorrow, and then try and get the blog wrapped up while we are in transit home.

Triberg to Frankfurt

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Oct 032010
 

Hotel in Triberg

Today, in Triberg, Germany, we woke up to the first sunny morning since we had arrived in Germany.  The skies were clear, and it was cool outside with a little breeze, and there was no rain clouds in sight (finally).  We went to breakfast in the hotel, and then packed up our bags and checked out.  The plan for the day was to walk around Triberg, looking at cuckoo clocks, but of course, being Sunday morning, none of the shops were open yet.

We packed everything up in the car, and headed out to take a picture of what is claimed to the the world’s largest cuckoo clock.  It s part of a store front a few kilometers outside of Triberg.  We found it without too much problem, but as the instruction had indicated, it is easy to pass by the first time, which we did, and we had to turn around to go back to the store and park to take

World’s Largest Cuckoo Clock

some pictures.  It was about 10 minutes to 10:00 AM, so Stephanie grabbed the video camera and waited until the hour changed for the clock to “cuckoo”.  In the meantime, a bus loaded with German tourists also pulled up and surrounded the car, all of them waiting for the top of  hour to arrive for the show.  I was busy in the car trying to map out our route back to Frankfurt, which is about a three hour drive to the north.  The clock did its thing, and after all of the tourists left, so did we.

We stopped at a clock store outside of Triberg, part of the largest clock store chain in the area selling most of the main name brands of cuckoo clocks.  We thought we would at least look at them here in the Black Forest area, since it is the home of the cuckoo clock in Bavaria.  We had seen some we liked in Rothenburg, but thought the prices might be better here, and they were.  We were looking for a particular one we had seen in Rothenburg, but this particular store did

Our Cuckoo Clock Purchase

not have one that was the same as the one we wanted.  The larger store, back in Triberg, had a bigger selection according to the salesperson at this smaller store, so we headed back there to look at that larger store.  After finding a parking space, which turned out to be one of the hardest things to do in Triberg, both this morning, and last night, we headed to the store.

The salesman was very nice and informative, and explained all of the differences in the various clocks.  We did not find the particular one we had seen earlier in the trip, but we did find on that we liked just as well.  There are various clock types to choose from, all in about 4-5 different themes.  There is a wood chopper, a beer drinker, a maiden, some men cutting wood with a saw, and some children playing.  We had wanted one with a Bavarian dressed beer drinker, and he hoists beers when the clock reaches the hour, the higher number the hour, the more beers he hoists.  They all have two songs included.

We wanted on that would run 8 days.  The options are winding every day, or eight days.  The 8 day clock has about 10 lbs of weights, which, of course,  adds to the shipping charges.  If we carried the weights home with us, it saved some in shipping, but we decided to let them ship the weights also, so it would all be packaged together.  Pus, we probably don’t have ten pounds of extra weight room in our suitcases with the airline weight restrictions.  We went ahead and bought the clock, and paid to have it shipped to us in Florida.  It will be a nice memento to the trip.

We then walked back up to the Triberg Falls we had visited yesterday, hoping to get some better pictures since the sun was out.  We only walked up to the lowest level, and the pictures were a little better, but the sun had not yet gotten high enough to fully shine fully on the falls, it was still blocked by the mountains and trees.  However, some sun meant better pictures than the ones we took yesterday with the cloudy conditions.

Town of Triberg from the Falls

Afterward, we headed out of Triberg and drove north toward Freudenstadt, which was the town where something called the “high road” begins.  The high road runs along the mountain ridge between Freudenstadt and Baden-Baden, which is one of the larger towns in the Black Forest area.  It was a scenic drive to Freudenstadt, some of the trees were changing color.  We stopped several times, and took pictures along the way.  We went through a lot of small towns, all of which were very colorful.

We reached Freudenstadt, and then headed for Baden-Baden via the high road.  It was not as scenic as we thought it would be, a lot of the area had been cut for lumber, and the trees had not grown back yet.  There were some high elevation views of the valley below at several vantage points we stopped at.  There was also one resort at the highest elevation point of the trip and there were literally hundreds of cars parked along the road there, it was for people to park at for access to the hiking trails in the area.  Being Sunday, and a beautiful sunny day, we think everyone from the area must be out driving today.  Also, there seemed to be a lot of motorcyclists riding around the curvy roads, going very fast, and always passing, more than I have ever seen on one road.

View Along the High Road

We finally made it into Baden-Baden, and went into the center of the city looking for a bite to eat.  Being a Sunday, there were even lots of people milling around the city center, and we could not find a spot to park.  At one point, I think we went into a pedestrian only area, there were many people walking through, and they would not move for us to get to the next street.   I think we got a lot of dirty looks for being in a non-driving area, but since I was trying to concentrate on not running them over, I am not sure.  Once through all of that congestion, we decided that we would just put our Frankfurt hotel address into the GPS and head out of Baden-Baden, still hoping to see somewhere to eat that was convenient to stop at with a car.  Had we been walking, I am sure we could have found something, however, we quickly discovered that having a car in the middle of a city is not an easy thing.

We headed to the Autobahn for the hour and a half drive to the hotel near the Frankfurt Airport.  We were zipping along averaging about 170 kph when the GPS told us we were getting re-routed due to severe

Resorts on the High Road

traffic congestion.  About 2 kilometers later, we started to see cars stopping, and the traffic was backed up to a standstill.   Before we actually stopped, there was an ambulance and police car coming up from behind us, heading to the accident.  We were able to make it to the next exit, the one the GPS instructed us to exit on, and it rerouted us about 20 km around the accident, and back up on to the Autobahn.  Our older GPS does not have that rerouting capability, and it was a really nice feature.  We ended up stopping at a rest stop, similar to the ones on the Florida Turnpike.  There was a fairly nice restaurant there, and we grabbed a bite to eat.  Since we were stopped, we also decided to use the restrooms, only to find there was a Euro 2.00 per person fee to use them, which was about half  as much as our lunch cost.  Not really needing to complete that mission, not for that price anyway, we headed back to the car and completed the drive to the hotel.

Once we checked in, we unloaded the suitcases, and thought about heading to a grocery store, and then to get a bite to eat before taking the car to the airport and dropping it off.  We plugged in the nearest grocery store location into the GPS, a mere 3.6 km. from the hotel.  Well, having not used the “locate nearest grocery store” feature on the GPS before, after following the directions for the drive, it was obvious the store was 3.6 km. as the crow flies, i.e. in a straight line, not in driving distance.  It was actually about a 10 km driving route to the store, which was OK, we thought it would get us away from the airport where we could fin a less expensive gas station to up fill the rental car, and go to the grocery for some snacks for the flight tomorrow, all in one trip.  About half way there, after finding a gas station and filling up, I realized that we had never seen any grocery stores in Germany open on Sunday, and sure enough,the one we drove to was closed when we got there.  In addition, there were no places to eat in that area, we were definitely in a semi-industrial area of Frankfurt, being that close to the airport.

We then decided to just go ahead drop the car off at the airport, and eat in the airport, which we did.  Nothing special, just a couple of sandwiches and a big pretzel.  But, the ambiance was just spectacular, lots of travelers with suitcases!  We then took the free hotel shuttle bus back to our hotel.  The total time to complete this last adventure was about two hours, we never would have though that to be the case.  Certainly, we are spoiled with the ability to find some type of fast food places to eat at in the USA, and the convenience of  having grocery stores open on Sunday.  I do not think we ever saw any type of place to eat at today that you could just drive to,  park and go inside for a quick meal, they just done’ exist, and it really makes things harder when you are driving a car in unfamiliar surroundings.  There were always some places to eat if you were on foot, but parking in most cities is by permit, or for a fee, if you can even find any open spaces.

Back at the hotel, we completed our packing, and had a glass of wine before retiring for the night.  We will be going to the airport around 8:00 AM tomorrow morning utilizing the free hotel shuttle, for our return flight home home.

It has been a good trip, certainly full of learning experiences,  like most of these trips are.  We will just have to plan another trip in the future to visit the sights we were unable to see having to go home early.  Hopefully, the flights home will be good, we won’t have any delays, and will get home on time with all of our luggage.  We will have to quickly re-pack for the trip to South Carolina for Dad’s funeral.

We are signing off for now, but will make some adjustments to the posts, add some more pictures, and make some edits.  Like our other trips, we will put the postings in chronological order now that the trip is completed, and no longer need the normal reverse order posting.

Thanks for following.

Informational Footnote – Added in 2012

It was not until we were planning another trip to Germany in 2012 that we realized why it was so crowded on the roads through Baden Baden on the last day of this trip.  We “accidentally” learned during planning for the subsequent trip that October 3 is Germany Unification Day, a major holiday in Germany.  That was the reason that so many people were traveling on the High Road the day we were heading to Frankfurt, it was October 3.  We were unaware that this was the case until we were trying to rent a car on that date for a subsequent trip, and found the rental car agencies were closed during the middle of the week.  This prompting the investigation into why they were closed where we discovered that October 3  was a national holiday date.  Now we know why it was so crowded in all fo the cities and on the roads, it was not just because it was a nice sunny day!!

Home in Florida

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Oct 072010
 

We made it home to Florida on Monday night, the travel was a bit hectic, we were late leaving Frankfurt due to a radio change out in our plane before our departure, and we did not make up any time crossing the Atlantic.  We originally had a hour and 45 minute layover in Philadelphia, but ended up having just about an hour to try and get through immigration, claim our bags, go through customs, re-check the bags, go back through security and walk to another terminal.

The Immigration was quick, then we waited and waited and waited for our bags to come to the turnstile in baggage claim.  I think it was a test of our patience, as our bags were among the last to come out.  Then it was a short wait in customs, and for baggage re-checking, before we were running to the next terminal, only to be stopped by a massive and slow moving line to go back through security.  From the time we got our bags, we only had 15 minutes until our flight was to leave, and when we saw the line for security, the game was over.

It is funny how it seems that when you are in a hurry, no one in front of you can do anything right.  There were some elderly people in our line, and they had no clue how to get through security quickly.

Since there were no departure information boards in that area, we assumed our flight had left.  However, once we were able to see one of the information boards for departures, we saw that our flight had been delayed due to the rainy weather in Philadelphia, and that we had about 20 minutes remaining to get to the gate at the end of the terminal.  We walked as fast as we could to get out there, and they were just starting to board when we arrived.  It was a very hectic experience, but we were glad that we did not have to wait until the next flight out.  Of course, we were drenched in sweat from all of the running and fast walking.  We were at least confident that our bags would make it, they had directed us to a drop off point designated for the Florida flight (and a couple of other places), but at least they were separating the luggage for certain flights when we dropped off the bags.

We boarded the flight for home, and ended up with our own row, with an extra seat.  That flight was uneventful, we landed on-time, adjusted for the late departure, and our bags were some of the first ones out on the baggage claim carousel, always a relief.  We were picked up at the airport (Thanks, Kim) and got home around 7:45 PM.

The trip had been shortened, but we still had a great time.

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