Wutha Farnroda

July 3: Don’t remember what we did???? I do know that we slept in because we were tired after our long day the day before.

July 4: Hung out at the house. Thought about our friends on the strand at the beach having a good time playing volleyball ☺

July 5: Today was rainy again! We went on a hike because we were starting to get cabin fever! We packed the backpack with some poncho’s and some extra jackets just in case the weather changed (because the weather changes so fast here). Our plan was to hike to this tower that the neighbor, Gerd, showed Eric on a recent bike ride. There are a lot of back roads (dirt roads etc.) going from town to town. On a nice day you can see the tower in the distance, but not today (only until we got closer to the hill it is located on top). Along the way we were passed by a tractor (actually 2) full of cow poo! Yuck! It wasn’t so bad until we came up to the cow poo dump! There was a giant mountain of cow poo in the middle of this field. Let’s just say we walked very quickly past this area. Once we got closer there were signs indicating which way we were to go (important later in my story). So we hiked about 4 miles to the Alexander’s Tower. It was really cloudy but E and I started to climb up to the top (not too high), but we could not make it all the way to the top. The wind was blowing very hard and we got scared so we stopped before we got to the top, took a couple pictures and quickly went back down.
On the way back it started to rain, so we busted out the ponchos! It was really pretty fun hiking in the rain; it reminded me of being a kid. On the way down we took a wrong path (figured that out later:-) Just when we started to get a little worried about our location we ran into a paved road with a sign saying Mosbach. This was the town just across the meadow from Wuth (our town). So we started down the road (understanding we were on the far end of the town where the road started! Anyway it took us about 45 minutes longer to get back to the house. We did the whole hike in about 3 ½ to 4 hours! We were completely exhausted. We grabbed pizza at our favorite place in Seebach in the evening and called it a night. Although this time we got shots on the house from the owner of the pizza place! Very cool.

July 6: Today Eric and I mowed the grass! Eric actually had to mow the lawn after I did it because the lawn mower was not working really well (and the grass was like a jungle). Then E built a wall behind the garden house in the back yard. It looks very nice! Randy went to the store to stock up on drinks for the party tomorrow night. Al I did was pack Eric and I for our upcoming trip to Spain and France since we will be busy up until we leave. All in all it was a very productive day at the house in Germany.

July 7: Today is the day of the BBQ here at the house in Germany! Randy has invited about 24 people! So we did all the yard work yesterday, so today we have time to figure out were we are going to put everyone! Eric and Randy picked up a bunch of food that Silka made (friend of Randy’s). Randy also told us that his friend Sven (who would be at the party) invited us to fly with him in his plane to Berlin in the morning!
Eric was the master griller. The menu consisted of pork, pork and more pork! We had, of course, Thuringen Bratwurst, and marinated steaks. Gerd, the neighbor helped with some of the grilling since there was so much food. Everyone brought a food dish, so there were plenty of great tasting treats. A couple of guests brought musical instruments too. We had a great time listening to Reggie play the drums and Jorge play the guitar. The party went on into the wee hours of the morning. E and I didn’t go to sleep until 2 AM. This was pretty late considering we had to get up at 8 AM to get to the airport for our little flight to Berlin and back!

More Germany

June 29: Today we had to go shopping because we invited the neighbors over for dinner (Gerd and Sabina). They are always so nice to us. But before we went to the Grocery Store, Denese noticed that one of the cows in the back meadow was in labor. We tryed to wait, but we had to get the food, so we left for the store. When we returned an 1 1/2 hours later there was a brand new baby cow! Holly Cow there is a new baby cow:-) Anyway, I will put a picture up of our new cow (not that they are our cows)!
Denese made brownies with ice cream (yummy) because Gerd is a great fan. We showed them pictures of our trip to Italy, and they showed us pictures of there vacation to Croatia. They even visited Dubrovnik for a day since they knew we were going there. It looked so nice there, and we are so excited to go there in September. Then they got some liquor from their house and we did shots. It was some very harsh stuff; I think it was very similar to Grappa (wine liquor). Anyways, I was just trying to get it down with out it coming back up! I think Denese felt the same way as I did (yuck). The evening was very enjoyable. Eric and I love to talk to Gerd and Sabina, they are very nice. On our previous trip here two years ago we couldn’t communicate very well. Now Gerd and Sabina speak a little English and E and I speak a little Deutch, and we can talk all night! It is a great feeling.

June 30: Eric and I took Denese to Weimar and Buchenwald today. Weimar was very nice, but Eric and I were not the best tour guides because we didn’t know much about the city. We walked to Goethe’s garden house in the park, and walked around the center of town. We got some Eis (Ice Cream).
Then we went to Buchenwald Concentration Camp. This camp was not open 2 years ago when Eric and I were here, but it was open today. They showed an informational movie (documentary) with commentary of a few survivors. All the buildings had been closed the time before and were now open to view. We viewed the crematorium and the room below where they would hang prisoners. When this camp was liberated the US solders walked many citizens from Weimar (because they were so close to all this inhuman treatment) through the camp. The solders wanted these people to know what took place here… there were still piles of dead bodies outside the crematorium waiting to be burned. This camp was not used primarily as an extermination camp, but rather a work camp. They still had many deaths due to the harsh conditions and treatment. The area is considered a cemetery for the family’s that lost loved ones, and there are many memorials through out the camp.

July 1: Eric and Gerd went on an early mountain bike ride to Inselsberg and back. It took them 2 ½ hours to cover 20 miles! I am pretty sure I would not be able to hang with them!
Sabina and Gerd had us over for lunch today. Lunch here means, champagne, soup, meat, potatoes, and pasta salad (and fruit). WOW… it was good though. Then Eric drove us all into town (Eisenach) to see some of the sites like the Bach House. We also drove through the ritzy area of the city were many mansions have been renovated by wealthy West Germans. Tonight we grilled bratwurst for Denese’s last night in Germany.

July 2: Today is my Birthday! We woke up at 5 AM to drive Denese to the Frankfurt airport. We were stuck in traffic for like 3 hours… but got Denese checked in just an hour before her plane took off! Whew! We were going to drop off the car first but didn’t have the time so we just took Denese straight to the airport. Eric and I dropped off the car and walked around the city for a few hours. We had lunch at a restaurant called Tequila (hoping for some good Mexican). It was not too bad, but not true Mexican. The waitress was so nice; we all did a shot of tequila after lunch (on the house) for my B’day. Then we ran back to the train station to catch our train back to Eisenach. When we got back to the house Sabina brought me flowers! They are very serious about Birthdays and will wish you a very happy, and lovely day with many more to come. Dense bought me a Christmas Ornament (hand painted) from Austria, and a small box of Cheerios! E bought me lunch and dinner (at our local pizza place). Randy gave me a card in German ☺ Then Silke painted a picture for Eric and I as a gift for our birthdays. Sabina Probst gave me some incense. Everyone was s nice, and it made my Birthday very special even though I was far from my family and friends.

Back to Germany (& Austria)

June 22: We woke up bright and early to get a jump start on our6 to 7 hour drive to Austria. Hauling our bags up the hill (might I say cliff) was more than enough exercise for one day! But we made it to the car, got loaded and started our drive to Ruette! Eric did a good job of getting us to Ruette very safely! We found a little hotel to stay in for the night from our favorite travel book! We had a drink at the bar in the hotel before we went to dinner (I sure felt my one glass of wine*(&^#&^%!*&^%). We found the best restaurant and had the best dinner! Eric had fried potatoes with steak and a fried egg on top! Denese had the best spatzle (homemade noodle) with pork in a mushroom cream sauce, and I had curry chicken with rice and pineapple. We were filled to the brim so we decided to take a walking tour of the town. Many of the buildings were ornately painted! There was a cool church and cemetery that we found. Many of the graves had candles and flowers planted. We walked back to the hotel after the sun set, had some more drinks at the bar and went to bed!

June 23: Today we were doing the Romantic Road and Bavaria and TIrol. We drove to Fussen and saw the Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau Castles from a far. We didn’t want to spend all day there and Denese and Eric had already been there. Then we stopped by the Wies Kirche (Church in Wies), where it is said a statue of Jesus once wept in 1738. Therefore the church was build after this miracle.
Then we hopped on the Autobahn and headed for Rothenburg ob der Tauber for the evening. We stayed in a house that was 600 years old. It was raining so we decided to take the covered walk around the wall that surrounds the whole city. This city is the finest medieval walled town around and it does Christmas right! There are many Christmas Stores year round selling ornaments, candle pyramids, and nutcrackers. Unfortunately there is one lady that has practically bought out the whole town and charges about 10-30 Euros for an ornament. We bought Schneeballen (these are fried dough balls covered with the topping of your choice! They are native to Rothenburg so we tried one with powders sugar and one with chocolate nugget and nuts. We found a Kartoffeln Stube (Potato Stub) for dinner. I had potato soup and a salad, Eric had potato lasagna and soup, and Denese had fried potato balls in tomato sauce. We were stuffed with potatoes after dinner and walked around the wall to get back to our hotel room to play some cards.

June 24: Denese and I did a little shopping this morning before we left. We bought a few ornaments from a store that was not run by Kathe Wohlfahrt. She is the one that seems to have bought out all of Rothenburg. Anyway we left Rothenburg and headed for Wutha (our home) in the afternoon. With Eric behind the wheel we were home in a flash!

June 25: Today we spent resting. In the evening the neighbors invited us over for a little beer drinking and visiting on their back porch. The neighbors wanted to meet Denese before she had to leave. We all had a lot of fun talking, but of course Randy was our translator for much of the evening. Then Heini went into the house and got some liquor for us all to drink. I can’t remember the name of it, but we had never had it before (or heard of it). It was a gift from Heini’s daughter from Africa (she bought it on her vacation). It was some powerful stuff! Heini continued to poor shots for everyone, and it is hard to say “no” when there is that language barrier. We proceeded to get a little drunk with the neighbors Heini, Monika, Claus, Angelica! We learned that the German’s really start having fun and loosening up after about 2 beers or glasses of champagne and 2 shots of African liquor. Lets just say that we all slept very well once we walked back to our house!

June 26: Today Eric and I slept in till late (it couldn’t have been all the alcohol that we drank last night). Anyway Randy and Denese went to a home store (like the Home Depot) with a friend of Randy’s, Jorge, so that Randy could pick out some roof shingles. He needs to put a new roof on the house soon. Randy called Eric and told us to meet him in Seebach for pizza!
After pizza Jorge took us to the city where Eric and I had to go to get our temporary residence! We needed a residence pass for our passports so that we could stay here for 6 months. US residence can only stay here for 3 months per 6-month period. Thanks to Randy’s connections, Gerd (the neighbor) was able to help us get this pass. These people are so great here! There is no way that they would normally give this pass to a bunch of Americans. It is who you know here in Deutchland, and we are lucky to know Randy and his connections! After we got our pass we had to go to Wutha to register there as residence too. It was very relieving to have our temp residence here in Germany.

June 27: Today Randy, Dense, Eric and I went to Dresden for a little trip! Dresden is a very cool city with a lot of history (like many cities in Europe). We went to the Frauen Church first. This church was just rebuilt (in 2005) after gathering donations for many years. The church was destroyed when Allied troops bombed the city in 1945. All the stones laid there as a monument of memory against war until it was rebuilt. The church was rebuilt with many of the remaining stones. The architects used a database to find the correct location for each usable stone found in the rubble.
We also saw the Zwinger, which now is home to many museums. Randy bought us all beer after we had Bratwurst. We saw the porcelain mural depicting the chronological royal history of Dresden. It was a very windy day, but we made the best of it. There were pictures by some of the post card stands that showed mounds of dead bodies after the bombing occurred. These pictures describe things that words just can’t.
We found a little pension along the Elbe River, close to Festung Koenigstein (a castle we were visiting tomorrow). We had dinner at a nearby bar then went to bed.

June 28: Today we hiked up to the castle named Festung Koenigstein. We took an audio tour and walked the castle grounds for about 3-4 hours. It was built into and on top of the stones at the very top of the mountain. Some of the buildings were used to hold prisoners of war during WWII. It is so high up that there are many lighting strikes. There were 3 visitors (tourist) killed by lighting not so long ago. Luckily for us there were no storms, but many clouds kept my attention ☺

After visiting the castle we went to a place called Bastei Bridge. Many years ago there was a settlement located here at the top of these rock-covered mountains. These rocks were very steep but the civilization of this village built a bridge here high among these mountains. It was very scary to walk around up here (see the pictures). Dense is so scared of heights, but we got here out on the bridge for a little while. Then Eric and I paid a couple of Euros to tour the other areas of the village. These areas were connected with only steal walkways. It was exhilarating, once we were done ☺ When we were done we drove back to the house in Wutha.

Italy Trip and Beyond!

OK, everyone of you that have been patiently awaiting an update to our blog. We are finally bringing this up to date. We added pictures into our last two entries too if you want to see those as well (Check out all of June again).

June 17: Time to move on to the next Italian City on our Itinerary (yea I know I’m a dork), Florence! We decided to get up early (about 8 o’clock ☺) because it takes a little while to get out of the floating city Venice. We took a boat bus to the parking garage outside of the city (Since there are no roads). Once we loaded the car we were off! FYI - Getting out of Venice is a little easier than getting into Venice, and nothing was as bad as getting into Florence!
We had a few directions that we could take, but decided to the follow the one that was titled “Easiest”! HA! Easy is not driving in Italy especially in the City! The directions said that we would have to drive through a pedestrian zone to get to our hotel! We had to register the car with our hotel every time we drove in or out the pedestrian zone. I think driving on walking streets made Eric a little nervous before we even got to Florence. We made it into the center of the city when we got lost… we thought that we were in the right place (pedestrian zone) and the street name matched what the directions showed, but the area didn’t seem drivable? But we all agreed that we would give it a go! Once we got on the sidewalk street thing an Italian guy came up to our window and told us that we shouldn’t be driving on this sidewalk. He said he had never seen anyone drive on this sidewalk/street! He went on and said that there was a large street in front of us with a big curb and that we should back out. At that moment a Taxi drove up behind us and eventually in front of us. He was obviously in the wrong area as well, but the look on the Italian man’s face was classic…. He swore that this was the first car he had seen drive through this area. So we considered ourselves the leader! We followed the Taxi and took the curb and got the hell out of there before the Polizia showed up! Eventually we found the correct street and pedestrian zone to drive through to the hotel. This was very stressful and made Eric and I very happy that we had train passes for the rest of our travels.
Once Denese, Eric and I got to the hotel we were ready to do a walking tour of the city (no car)! We walked down past the Dom to the Accademia. Then we walked back towards the Babtistry & Dom to the Piazza della Republica! Here is where The David once stood, and many other statues. We walked on past the Uffizi Gallery to the Ponte Vecchio. It was a great night for the walk, and we got some good sunset pics!

June 18: The city was closed down on Monday so we tried the driving thing once more and headed south of the City for Siena. Once we got out of the city on the freeway we saw on the map that we were passing the Chianti wine country area. Denese had mentioned that it would be fun to do a little wine tasting and we all agreed to get off and spend the day in the sun with the grapes! We took some local roads and found some vineyards along our way. The first winery was very cool… as was the lady working inside. She spoke pretty good English and explained many of the wines to us before we tasted. It was 4 Euro, but free if you bought a bottle of wine (some bottles were only 4 Euro). We must have tried 6-7 wines and an Ice Wine Liquor. They just keep getting better (go figure ☺) and Denese bought a couple of bottle of wine.
Then we grabbed lunch at a recommended restaurant (from the lady in the first winery). It was very good and cool to be in the middle of Tuscany eating lunch. We stopped by one more winery after lunch. This winery was very small and family owned. Here we got a bottle of wine and Denese bought a bottle of olive oil. After our wine tasting Eric drove us back to the hotel in Florence (we didn’t get lost this time). We grabbed some pizza for dinner, drank some of our wine, and played cards!

June 19: We have a busy day today… we have appointments/reservations for the two popular art galleries, the Uffizi and the Accademia. The Uffizi was first on our list and holds many very famous paintings. It is in chronological order which helped us understand the progress of artists technique. Eric read about the many paintings in our Rick Steve’s tour book. The book was very helpful since none of us were Art History experts! Then we went across the river to tour the Boboli Gardens…. It was a nice place but not worth the money. It was very very hot and we had to walk across the city to the Accademia. We stood in line even though we had reservations…. Eric took a picture of some graffiti on the wall (check out the picture). We got into the museum and saw “The David”, and other unfinished works of Michelangelo. The unfinished statues were very cool, you could see how each figure was magically emerging from the huge rock.
As if walking around all day was not enough we decided to a restaurant about 35 minutes away via walking. It was a very nice evening, but still a bit hot.. The restaurant was called Trattoria Sabatino, and the food was great & cheap! If we would have know about this place earlier (we read about it in our book) we would have eaten here every night!

June 20: HAPPY BIRTHDAY ERIC! Today is Eric’s 30th Birthday! We are going to have a full day of site seeing again! We left Florence at about 11 AM. We are planning on stopping by Pisa on our way to Riomaggiore (Cinque Terre). It took longer than expected to get to Pisa due to traffic, but was more than worth it. We walked to the Leanning Tower Square. There is a large church and babtistry in the same square. We took our pictures like all the other tourist in the area. The tower has been leaning since construction started. Three architects worked on the tower and each tried to change the leaning by tilting the remaining layers. Recently they sucked a lot of earth out from the other side of the Tower and inserted tons of led to try to counter the leaning. It costs 15 Euro to go to the top (we didn’t do it).
We grabbed lunch in Pisa then started driving to The Chinque Terre! We got to Riomaggiore and got to our room! Our room was up about 79 stairs (these stairs were about 1 foot up each) they were very very very steep! Poor Eric had to carry all our bags. Denese, Eric and I went down to the small marina where Eric and I rented a double person kayak. The water was so nice and blue. We checked out a cave near by and did a little swimming off our kayak. On our way back we saw some other people cliff jumping. So, I got the urge and climbed up to jump off! It looked much higher than 30 feet once I got up there! The local boy that rented us the kayak was up there and he showed me what to do. He even counted to 3 for me…. he counted to 3 about 10 times before I actually jumped. I was shaking all over for about 15 minutes! HA! So then we went to the beach to dry off a little before we went back to our room.
Denese and I took Eric out to dinner for his Birthday. We ate by the water at a cool little bar that had amazing food. Denese and Eric had a Pesto Lasagna, later voted the best meal of the whole trip! Good timing. We went to Bar Central to have a few drinks to celebrate E’s big day! Denese had a Margarita, and E and I had beer (would stick to wine next time). We had a great night and climbed up our stairs before we went to bed.

June 21: Eric and I woke up early so that we could start hiking before the hot sun came out. It was raining very lightly when we went to Bar Central for our croissant in the morning. We went to the Train Station and bought our hiking passes with the local train pass (to get back). We set off to hike all five towns of The Cinque Terre! The total distance was about 9 km passing through Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and ending at the resort town of Monterosso Al Mare.
As we started to hike the path was stone covered and very nice. It only took 20 minutes to get to the first town of Manarola. We thought to ourselves that this was going to be a very easy hike. The path to the next town was a little harder with some slight climbs and many man made stairs at the end leading up into Corniglia. The weather continually cleared as we hiked.
Next was the town of Vernazza. This was the longest (distance) hike between towns with many stairs (very rough… not man made). E and I were tired by the time we got to Vernazza… we had taken so many stairs up and down (I could feel it in my legs). E was going strong, but I was a little tired. I think I was still sore from all the walking in Florence. E kept me going with positive motivation!
As we read about the last and most difficult path we were warned that it was dangerous and extreme in some areas. This was the only path between the two cities for years before the roads were made. The sign said that this hike should be done early in the morning or later in the afternoon when the sun was not too hot. With some doubts, we started the hike. Actually we started the climb, hundreds of stairs. When we thought we were going to get a break we climbed more stairs. Then it leveled out for a few minutes and from then on it was up and down on a very narrow path. When people would pass we would have to hug the wall unless we wanted to walk on the outside of the path that dropped down to the ocean (take a look at the pics, there was no rail). On our decent into the city of Monterosso Al Mare I herd something to my left in the vegetation. I saw a snake behind the chain-linked fence right beside me. I noticed it’s green head in the air and I started flying down the stairs towards E. A man coming up the path going the other way didn’t believe me and started making fun of how scared I was. He started poking his head into the fence and calling for the snake. They were funny, but it would not have been funny if the snake would have answered the call! Anyways we finished the hike in 4 ½ hours, but we had more stairs to get into the city and beach area. Then we had the best lunch by the water on this patio outside. Once we walked around the city we caught a train right back to Riomaggiore to meet up with Denese.
Eric passed out, and Denese and I went to the beach to read. Then we ate dinner at the little bar below our room (79 stairs down). We all got Pesto Lasagna to try to relive the previous nights dinner. This lasagna was very good but not the same as the night before when we celebrated E’s Biday! All in all we were very tired and went to bed after a game of Rummy 500!