On the Way to Kempten, we stopped off in the town of Füssen and visited the castle Neuschwanstein. This castle is famous for (among other things) being the model for the Disney magic kingdom castle. The castle was built in the mid-1800′s by the Bavarian King Ludwig.

Once reaching Kempten, we dropped off the car and boarded the overnight train to Flensburg where we would be spending Christmas with Barb’s uncle and his family. We had booked an overnight sleeping compartment for the 11 hour train ride and this was a single “room” with a set of bunk beds. The word “room” doesn’t really apply here as if you were to visualize a closet in your house, add a set of bunk beds, you would get then general idea of how small this was.

Dec 22:
We arrived in Flensburg and were met at the train station by Barb’s uncle Claus. Flensburg is about 10km from the Denmark border and has about 80,000 people. We were introduced to Barb’s aunt Renate (pronounced Renatta) and the their son Steffen. When I was introduced to Renate, I asked if she spoke English and she basically said “no”. Over the next four days, I was to find out that she in fact spoke English more than adequately. This was something that I had observed several times on our trip as people who were unsure of their English skills would state that they spoke no English upon first asking.

As Barb didn’t get much sleep on the train to Flensburg, she crashed on the bed in our room and I was offered the opportunity to go with Claus and Steffen to go pick up the goose for our Christmas dinner. We all piled into their car and headed out to “the country” where we would be getting a fresh goose from a local farm. In Germany, goose is the main dish served at Christmas time as turkey is rarely eaten on this occasion.

Dec 23:
Today we took a drive across the Danish border to have lunch at a restaurant in Denmark. I was surprised to see that it was no longer required to stop at the border as we do when entering the US as the Denmark border was now unpatrolled. We entered into Denmark and the first thing that we noticed was the row of Sex Shops that lined the streets right after entering Denmark. No explanation was given for this but I surmised that the Danish sex shop business thrived given the quantity of them.

Our lunch in Denmark was an assortment of buns, rye breads, cold cuts and coffee. This type of meal was something that we were to experience many times during our stay in Flensburg as well as other places in Germany. We came to learn that during the holidays Germans often would eat a simple breakfast, a hot lunch later (at around 1 or 2:00) and then a snack of cakes or sweets at around 4 or 5:00. Dinner (which would typically be a simple meal of cold cuts, cheeses and bread or buns) would then occur at around 8:00 in the evening. The idea of the big dinner in the evening at around 6PM was not done here.

Dec 24:
Today we decorated the Christmas tree in the morning. The decorations on the tree were mostly hand made wooden ornaments and real candles. Overall, the decorations were put on the tree in a relatively sparse fashion compared to how things are typically done in Canada (well at least at our place). Very few houses have any sort of decorations on the outside – perhaps some white bulbs showing through the front window. The multi-colour extravaganzas with thousands of light were nowhere to be seen here. I got the distinct impression that overall Germans were quite happy with simple, tasteful decorations in a time honoured tradition.

One of the things that I was somewhat disappointed about with the German Christmas experience was the fact that at no time were any German Christmas songs heard on the radio of in stores. Without exception, only English songs that we typically hear in Canada were heard on our trip. Apparently most songs heard on most stations that play current music will be playing songs with English lyrics.

In the afternoon on the 24th, we went with the family to their local church and experienced their German Christmas service. Overall, I didn’t understand any of the words but the general flow of the church service seemed to be similar to that in Canada. Even the hymns were the same as I was used to but in German.

After we got home, we exchanged gifts and everyone opened up theirs. I was curious to know about how they explain Santa Claus as the whole story about him coming down the chimney at night wouldn’t work as they open up their gifts in the afternoon. Apparently their version is that Saint Nick sneaks in the front door when no one is looking and drops the gifts under the tree.

Dec 25:
Today we had our big Christmas dinner consisting of goose, red cabbage and potato dumplings. While this meal is usually server on the 24th, it was done on the 25th because of all of the extra work that was being done because we were there this year. After dinner, we all just sat around just talking which is pretty much how things go for us on that day were we at home.

Dec 27:
We left Flensburg today and headed south to our next destination in the Black Forest: Baden-Baden. Without a doubt, our Christmas stay with Barb’s family will remain a high point of our trip and remain one of our favourite Christmas experiences.

After another overnight train ride, we arrived in the spa town of Baden-Baden. Now let’s face it, when it comes to names of cities, Baden-Baden has got to be right near the top of them all. The name was so good, they had to use it twice.

Barb had made reservations for us at the 5 star Steigenberger Badischer Hoff hotel. This is the kind of hotel that you would see Robin Leech from Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous at talking up all of the amenities (“look at that furniture in the lobby, they’re worth over a Million Dollars !!!”).

We observer that the average age of the hotel guests is about 95 years old. Most are either holding some kind of walking stick of some chic dog on a leash. To say that Baden-Baden is a town of the fabulously wealthy would be an understatement.

Dec 28:
We spend the day in the hotel spa being pampered by the expert staff with massages and mineral baths. This kind of treatment is something that we could both get used to in a hurry. We spent most of the morning walking around in a white terry towel robe going from the massage areas to the outdoor jacuzzi. The rest of the afternoon is spent walking through the town shopping and looking for a working Internet cafe. After going to one after another and finding them closed for the holiday, we’re about ready to give up. I can’t believe that the fabulously wealthy don’t need to check their email.

Dec 29:
We leave Baden-Baden and head off to our final destination of Frankfurt. We are met at the Frankfurt train station by our friend Anette whom we met two years ago in the Cook Islands. We have kept in touch with Anette and she has graciously offered to put us up for the last 5 days of our trip. We will spend New Years with Anette and Frank before flying out of Frankfurt on Jan 2nd.

The final installment of our Excellent German Adventure will follow in the next few days.

Barb & Baden

Continue on to Barb & Baden’s Excellent German Adventure – Final

The BMW factory tour was everything I thought it was going to be and was well worth the 2.5 hours. We got to see most aspects of the manufacturing of the cars and I was surprised as to just how close to the equipment we were allowed. In most cases, we were only a few steps away from heavy duty metal stamping machines or spot welding equipment sending sparks around our feet.

For the tour, we donned these cool blue BMW lab coats and were given radio receivers to hear the tour guide as we went along. Unfortunately we had to give the lab coats back after the tour. We also saw that the workers on the line were wearing these blue BMW overalls which I was hoping to find out if they could be purchased. I’ll probably have to look into this when I get home.

Later that evening, the 6 of us met for dinner in the centre of Munich. We got to this restaurant and asked for a table for six and the waiter basically said "follow me". We followed him to the back of the restaurant, out the door and onto the street (all looking at each other wondering what was going on). We the proceeded to go down about 5 doors, down an alley then into the back of the completely different restaurant where we were seated. No explanation was ever given and we could only assume that the second restaurant was owned by the same person as the first. Anyway we had a good meal and chatted in the city square until we said our goodbyes.

The next morning we departed Munich and picked up our rental car at the main Munich train station. I had given Barb specific instructions to rent a BMW and we ended up with a 318i. I would have rather have gotten a six cylinder but at the time it was too late to change and still get the good rate that we did by booking over the Internet.

After getting lost several times, we finally made it out of Munich and headed south on the Autobahn to our next destination: Garmisch. Contrary to popular knowledge, the autobahn are not all no speed limit – parts do have specific posted limits. For the first 10 or so Km, it was 120-130 but finally the limits were dropped and cars started blasting by me at about 100km/hr faster than me. I took it up to 160 and was then able to keep up with the delivery vans. With only a 1.8L engine under the hood, the best I was able to do was 195 but I was quite impressed as to how stable the car was even at it’s limit. Most of the cruising was at about 160 and it’s was strange to see everyone doing that speed at it just seemed normal and never unsafe. We ended up reaching Garmisch (about 75km away) in about 25 minutes.

Garmisch is a fabulous resort town and held the 1940 winter Olympics there. The town is situated between several tall peaks and is the quintessential picture postcard town.

This morning Barb and I took the rail and tram ride up to the almost 10,000ft peak Zugspitze (the tallest mountain in Germany). Once at the top, we were treated to an absolutely incredible view of the alps spreading from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It is without a doubt one of the most spectacular sites I have seen in my life. I cranked though three rolls of film just in this area.

I have been sick with a cold since Sunday and have only now been shaking it. On today’s trip up the mountain, we both dressed as warmly as possible as we were told to expect -10 to -20 degree temperatures plus a wind factor. For today’s trip, I wore my usual t-shirt, thermal undershirt, sweatshirt and an additional sweater under my jacket and scarf + winter hat. Double wool socks in my boots were also used just to keep things as warm as possible.

More details to follow in part 6.

Barb & Baden

 

Continue on to Barb & Baden’s Excellent German Adventure – Part 6

When we got off the train in Münich, it was a cold -5 degrees. Since then it has been hovering between -2 and -10. It’s actually not as bad as it sounds as we just bundle up with extra warm clothing and head out. As it’s been sunny most of the time here, the cold weather isn’t really a problem and it actually adds to the Christmas feeling.

Being the car enthusiast, I have to comment on the cars that I have seen here since arriving. In Berlin, there were tons of Mercedes and BMW as well as other German, Italian and French cars here. In Münich, BMWs naturally seem to dominate here and you see them on every street corner. One of the things that we have seen here that we do not see at all in Canada are these really small “micro” cars. The most popular seems to be the SMART car (manufactured by DaimlerChrysler) as well as the Mercedes A class and Audi A2 series. Most of the cars seem to be really dirty as I guess they never get washed once the weather turns cold. The other interesting thing that I have noticed is that 90% of the cars don’t seem to have any model badge on them (ex: on the back of a BMW, only the BMW logo will be there). It seems that only cars with very small engines (less than 2 litres) seem to have the model and engine size showing. I’ll have to investigate this further to find out why this is.

Yesterday, Barb and I took a trip outside of Münich to the town of Dachau. It was in Dachau that the Nazis built there first concentration camp in the early 1930′s. The camp is open as a memorial and we toured the museum there as well as other parts of the compound. The main distinction between Dachau and other more well-known concentration camps is that Dachau was not an extermination camp like Auschwitz and Treblinka. This does not mean that people were not killed at Dachau but the original purpose was not to perform mass killings. This minor detail nonetheless, the tour through the camp was significantly through-provoking. Seeing the crematorium and understanding what occurred in that room was very disturbing as to what was done during this regime. This will likely be the last event on our list that is as melancholy as this particular day.

Today, we took a train ride up to Nürnberg where we attended what is probably the largest Christmas Market in all of Germany. Needless to say, we were not disappointed and it took about 4-5 hours to go through the whole thing. We also visited the Nürnberg Toy Museum while we were there. The museum has toys on display from as far back as the early 1800′s but by the time we got there, Barb and I were running out of steam and ready to return back to Münich on the 90 minute train ride.

Tomorrow is the most significant event of our trip (for me anyway) as we will visit the BMW factory and museum here in Münich.

Stay tuned for part 5…

Barb and Baden

Continue on to Barb & Baden’s Excellent German Adventure – Part 5

It is unfortunate that most of the memorable sites in Germany so far have involved in some way Nazi’s, Communists or war.

On the last day of our visit in Berlin, we went to a newly rebuilt area of the city called Potsdamer Platz. This area was basically a huge empty field when the Berlin wall existed and became prime real estate when the wall fell. In the past 10 years, this area has undergone a massive rebuilding effort and it is now one of the very fashionable business districts. One of the highlights of Potsdamer Platz is the Sony Centre and has a stunning glass-covered plaza. Words don’t do this justice to describe this and I will post our pictures on our web site when we get home.

One of the real delights in our excellent German adventure so far has been the fabulous German food. Now I should state right off that if it wasn’t for the 5-10 hours of walking that we have been doing each day we’d really be packing on the pounds. Pretty much everything that we have eaten qualifies as high-fat but of course it all tastes good. Our typical dinner at a restaurant is some kind of meat (goose and pork are very popular) with about 1 cup of gravy poured over it, vegetables cooked in tons of butter and some kind of potatoes (also doused in butter). Another favourite is some variation of “wurst” (bratwurst, weisswurst, etc), served up with potatoes. Barb and I have gotten into the habit of eating lunches at these cafe’s where you can get these fantastic pre-made sandwiches with meats, cheese, tomatoes on this incredible sub-style bun that is fresh made that day. You can pick these up at practically every street corner for about $4 – a real bargain and these places are always packed with locals.

After our stay was finished in Berlin, we said our goodbyes to Barb’s dad at the train station and headed off to the Bavarian city of Münich.

…continued in Part 4

Barb and Baden

Continue on to Barb & Baden’s Excellent German Adventure – Part 4

One of the first annoyances that I have noticed is that just about everyone smokes here, just about everywhere we have gone (restaurants, in the airport, in the shopping malls). Coming from a very smoke free Vancouver, this takes some getting used to.

So far we have seen some of the sights and gone to some Weinachtsmarkts just about every night we’ve been here. Weinachtsmarkts are Christmas Markets which are outside and have these stands selling all kinds of food and Christmas trinkets. One of the popular items on sale here is Glüwein (pronounced glue-vine). This is basically a hot drink made up mostly of red wine and spices and really hits the spot when walking around the markets on a cold night.

Berlin is a fascinating city and truly one of Europe’s great cities. The unfortunate part is that while Berlin has a rich history, much of Berlin is less that 50 years old as about 75% of it was destroyed during world war 2. Berlin is in the middle of a huge redevelopment after the reunification with East Germany about 10 years ago. There are easily 50 cranes visible on the horizon as new buildings are being brought up all the time. In about 10 years, much of Berlin will probably be brand new.

Today we went to visit the remaining part of the Berlin wall and then onto the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. This shows the rise and fall of the Berlin wall and significant detail of the exploits of people who tried (and sometimes failed) to escape out of East Germany. Coming from a country where free travel is a given, it’s hard to really imagine what would happen if one day you were told that you had to live where you were told couldn’t move about freely. This is basically what happened to the Germans who happened to end up on the “wrong side” of the country after the allies and Soviets conquered Germany in WW2.

We’re both really glad that we came to Germany at this time of year as Berlin is really well lit up for Christmas and people are out on the streets at all hours even on weeknights. We’ll both really miss having to leave but in a few days we will pack up and take a 8 hour train down to Münich. We have been told that the Bavaria part of Germany (in the south) is quite different in flavour to the north so we shall have to see if we can notice such difference.

I’ll probably check in in about 5 or 6 days for my next update.

Our best to everyone.

Baden & Barb

Continue on to Barb & Baden’s Excellent German Adventure – Part 3

For the past month or so, everyone has been asking me “are you excited yet”? I can say with all honesty that we are definitely excited now.

Our trip begins in Berlin and we will spend about 5 days there and Barb’s father has already flown out there and will be spending this week with us. While Barb’s dad lives in Toronto, he is from Berlin and knows the city quite well and has offered to act as our guide.

From Berlin we will go down to Munich for 4 days. The highlight of the Munich stay is of course the BMW factory tour that we have arranged.

From Munich, we have rented a car and we will drive to Füssen and use that as a base to explore the southern alps area.

Our trip will then bring us all the way to the north of Germany to a town called Flensburg where we will stay with Barb’s uncle and family for 5 days at Christmas.

From Flensburg we will travel down to the spa town of Baden-Baden for 2 days of luxurious treatment in their finest spas.

Our last stop will be in Frankfurt where we will spend about 4 days and new years. We will be staying with our friend Anette whom we met two years ago in the Cook Islands. She has offered to show us “a real German new years” celebration. I’m not sure what this means but no doubt it involves lots of good German beer.

From Frankfurt we fly home on January 2nd.

So hopefully my next update will be in a few days from Berlin. My only request to everyone is that they do not reply back to these emails as I don’t want to start having two way conversations on email. I will be more than happy to do so after we get back.

Auf Wiedersehen,

Barb and Baden

Continue on to Barb & Baden’s Excellent German Adventure – Part 2