Germany Day 9 - Taking the Fun out of Funicular

We spent much of today in the touristy town of Heidelberg. Of course we started the day by asking 'what is your only comfort in life and death?' since that's one of the few things I memorized back in middle school.  The castle in Heidelberg is well worth going to but it was crowded. We got there pretty early and got the last parking spot in the garage closest to the funicular and were greeted with long lines out the door of the station. Things on the first funicular moved pretty quick so we got to the castle in good spirits.

At first I didn't realize that every wall I was looking at was part of the ridiculously huge castle. It was started in 1214 but the various owners just kept adding on more and more despite multiple lightning strikes, fires, and the French. At this point it's technically a ruin but it's still spectacular.

We walked around the gardens and terrace which had spectacular views again. Eventually we found our way to the real star of the show, the dude below and his (probable) orgy chamber. We found a nice bench by him and enjoyed being away from the abundant crowds until it started raining.

We wandered our way toward the funicular to go to the top of the mountain. Do not go on the funicular to the top of the mountain! After a short ride in a modern train car we got off to requeue for an older car for our last leg of the trip. What they don't tell you is that this car has only 1/3 the capacity of the first one and is much slower. We waited in line for about an hour at which point everyone was getting really pushy. A group of guys decided that they could just slowly creep around the side just as the car got to us and cut in line. Luckily, I'm pretty big and didn't understand whatever language the guys cursed at me so it all worked out with me as a roadblock. The Germans are generally a pretty reserved bunch but I assume they were all applauding me in their heads. 

The view at the top was nice, but not worth the two hours it took to ride up.  

Eventually we made our way back down and over to Dilsberg Fortress. The town of Dilsberg is really quaint and pretty much foot-traffic only. The fortress was a nice, quiet respite from the crowds we had battled all day so we just relaxed and smelled the roses. 

We had read online previously that Mark Twain had visited Dilsberg Fortress and wrote the following: "There were some who believed it had never been a well at all, and was never deeper than it is now — eighty feet; that at that depth a subterranean passage branched from it and descended gradually to a remote place in the valley, where it opened into somebody's cellar or other hidden recess, and that the secret of this locality is now lost."

Cris and I were intrigued. Could there really be a hidden entrance deep within the forest that was a secret underground passage to the castle's well? Could two American's on holiday really find such a lost treasure that eluded Mark Twain? With hopeful hearts and adventurers souls we started our search at the most logical location.... 

After a brief conversation with the guy that worked at the front gate we had a map and key in hand. A short walk down into the woods led us to a well-lit cave that wound underground to the bottom of the well. I love caves so this was a perfect way to end the day. 

Read more about Dilsberg in Twain's words here: 

Germany Day 8: Aachoo! It's Aachen time!

Sadly, it was time to leave our people and family in The Netherlands for some more Germany adventures. Time for hills and castles instead of flat land and windmills!

We started out our Germany time again by stopping in Aachen. For those who aren't medieval history nerds like me, Aachen was an important center of the Middle Ages. That was where Charlemagne decided to hang out and such.

Today's Aachen is a fascinating place. It's a college town, so there's lots of college town influence, and there is a mix of modern all the way through OLD medieval architecture blended together. We strolled around for a bit and took in the beauty of the twisted old streets and buildings.

We also stopped at an Apotheke (kinda like a pharmacy) for me (Cris). I was still sick and it was headed into my lungs/chest, which was unpleasant. I also lost my voice, something that hasn't happened since high school! The Apotheke was SO much cooler than any local American doctor visit or pharmacy visit I have ever had. We went in, the the lady at the counter asked me what was wrong, and asked me all sorts of specific questions about my symptoms. After actually listening to me and being interested in my health, she wandered around and came back with a handful of different medicines. She instructed me about what to take at what time and gave me a jar of super strength cough drops for free. It was so amazing. I have never had a conversation with a primary doctor or a pharmacist at home for longer than 5 minutes, but this lady actually cared! What a cool healthcare system.

After that, we stopped for the typical 10am coffee break (at a bakery with tasty treats, of course), and then it was time to check out Aachen's Imperial Cathedral. Charlemagne had the Imperial Cathedral constructed around 800 A.D. He was really the one responsible for bringing culture and civilization back to a very Dark Ages time in history.

We've been to a few cathedrals now, but apparently, each one is very different. This cathedral was friggin amazing! Wow. You walk in, and it's clear that Charlemagne was imitating a Roman look (he was trying to hint that his empire was as awesome as the Roman empire).

The walls and ceilings are covered with tiny colored rocks, some that sparkle, so that the whole room seems like it is covered head to toe with jewels. It was incredibly beautiful. I just kept wondering how people back then made these buildings. It must have taken so long just to find/make all those tiny rocks, and then you had to cover every possible section with beautiful art made with those tiny rocks! Crazy cool and very jaw-droppingly beautiful. Whenever my medieval professors talked about this cathedral, they always said 'just go visit to see what we mean!' and they were right. Everyone reading this: go see the Imperial Cathedral in Aachen. It's incredible.

After that, it was time for a few more hours on the road to go visit Eltz Castle. Paul and I were looking forward to this castle, because it has been preserved really well. It has blessedly avoided being destroyed in every single war, and it has stayed in the same family for 33 generations now!

The reviews all said that it was best to do a 40 minute hike in the forest to get to the castle, so that's what we did. It was a bit too humid, though, so we were pretty sweaty when we got there. Also, there was the whole 'being sick and feeling like a ton of bricks were on my chest' thing, so it was pretty slow going. Fortunately, Paul and his parents were very patient with my many breaks for coughing spasms.

The walk was nice, and the forest was pretty. Then it was time for the castle, which, of course, was amazingly beautiful. I'm having a difficult time coming up with more descriptive words for this pleasurable vacation, so bear with me. It's magnificent and incredible, and etc. The tour was really cool, and the rooms were well preserved with murals, paintings, furniture, etc. They showed us floors that originated in the castle from the 1400s, a medieval bed from the castle from the 1500s, and so much old stuff that my head was spinning. I could have spent a week staring at each room and architectural thing. Sigh....

After another 40 minute forest hike, it was time to bring Paul's parents to the Frankfurt airport hotel. They are now done with their Europe vacation, and we had a lot of fun with them. It would have been nice to spend a few more days with them, but I also don't mind hogging Paul all to myself. Tomorrow, more German adventures!!

Netherlands Day 7 - My Cabbages!

We spent today with another amazing group of relatives. It turns out all my Netherlands relatives are super friendly and welcoming. Today was even more special because we went around to see how my Opa lived in Broek op Langedijk back when he was a farmer in the Netherlands. We found out that the Dutch were crazy and incredibly hard-working.
First, we walked around to see where various relatives used to live and to see how things have changed. Pretty much all the nice cobblestone roads that we walked on all day used to be water. Back in the 70s they started filling in a lot of the channels to make a more modern community. We walked down a road that was original to the city and you could touch houses on both sides.

After we got a feeling for how life was on land we went over to the Broeker Veiling which is an old auction house where Opa would sell his vegetables. To understand how this worked you need a map of the area (the blue is water, red is buildings, orange is the auction): 

Each of the little islands is a farm that was created by the farmers. The whole area was basically a big tidal marsh at one point but by digging trenches and using that dirt to form mounds they made dry (ish) land. That means that the islands could only be as wide as they could throw the dirt. In the pics below you can see how skinny the islands that they farmed were:

Once all the hard work of making the islands was finished they had it made: they could just sit back and farm. On islands. Tiny islands that needed to make enough food to live off of and to sell. With no machinery. It's nuts. They'd also bring cows to islands to graze and then have to row back over a few times a day to milk them. It's basically Venice if Venice was the most difficult to access bunch of farms ever. 

Anyway, back at the Broeker Veiling auction the boats would pull up with their wares and they'd Dutch auction them off. In Dutch auctions the price starts high and a big clock-looking thing spins the price lower until someone presses the button to buy it. (In the pic below a boat was in the water between the two rows of benches that the people could bid on).   

We then took a cruise on an old boat through all the channels. Some of the islands are still being farmed by volunteers from the town but most are either overgrown with trees with hundreds of cormorants nesting in them or connected into housing development. I'm not usually into historical farming stuff but this whole day was super interesting. 

We ended the day at a fully restored windmill that a family is living in. the family lives in the first two floors on the windmill but put up glass walls so that people can still see the inner workings of the mill. The mill was originally used to pump water out of the fields and over the dike, but that's not needed anymore. Below are the gears that connect the outside spinning blades to the inside Archemedes screw:

This was the last day we spent with Dutch relatives. They were all down-to-earth people with great senses of humor that made this trip absolutely amazing. They also grow giant cabbages!

Netherlands Day 6 - New Beaches, Old Streetses

Today we went out with some more wonderful family members to see what the Schagen area has to offer. We started at a new beach, and when I say 'new beach' I mean that this piece of land didn't exist a couple years ago.  The Dutch are experts at moving dirt from underwater to make land. In the course of one year they dug up enough sand from under the sea to create an entirely new beach equipped with dunes and a dike that is miles long. For you Michigan people, imagine if only the campground part of Holland Beach existed and the rest was water. Then one year the government decided to dig sand out of Lake Michigan to create the entire beach. It's like that. Of course, there's also parking for about a billion bikes and a three lane biking highway.

After the hard work of looking at a beach we had to take a break to sip some tea and coffee. All my family members are amazing hosts/hostesses so this week we've always had a full cup and a fuller belly.  They even served us delicious smoked horse lunchmeat.
Klaas was nice enough to drive us around all afternoon to see the Medenblik and Heerhugowaard areas. We stopped by a different type of windmill and met a goat named Arthur who cheerfully mows the lawn.

Then we went to the cute downtown part of Medenblik since it was clearly coffee time. In town everybody and their brother owns a sailboat and a bicycle. About once a minute the drawbridge would go up for a sailboat and a bunch of bikers would stack up on both sides waiting for the bridge to lower. Just as they cleared out another sailboat would drift up to start the process again.

We found some Genever which was on our list of things to try but nobody here has ever heard of the Dutch delicacy called 'creamed herring'. We ended the night with an amazing home-cooked dutch meal.  Mmm meatballs. 

Dutch word of the day: Doe-doey which just means bye-bye but sounds goofier.

Netherlands Day 5 - Finally, Shoes that Fit and a Town of Cheese

We woke up on Day 5 to a delightful breakfast of amazing coffee, fresh fruit, and rolls with delicious cheese. Yum. Then we left to visit on of Pauls' mom's aunts: Tante Rie. She is over 90 and still really active and cool. She also had an amazing garden for Cris to drool over. There was lunch of bread and amazing cheese, and several servings of delicious coffee (or beer or wine) all day long.
Tante Rie then rested and we went to visit the town of Gouda with Jan as our tour guide.

There was a bit of tacky touristy stuff but the rest of the town was pretty cool. The town center was super old, charming, quaint, and all those other awesome words.

Of course, we bought more cheese. Also, of course, we stopped for some beer. Then we headed back to Tanta Rie to meet another cousin (Betty) and have more coffee and then dinner and more coffee. Dinner had a topping of amazing cheese.
Cris is in heaven, and Paul will have a difficult time getting her to leave.

Paul ended the day by fly fishing. Jan said that he had never caught a fish and that he had tried in the river down the road and nothing would bite. Paul got out his fly gear and caught 4 dace in about 30 minutes to Jan's chagrin.

Netherlands Day 4 - Healthy Herring and Winding Windmills

We left Germany behind for The Netherlands and to see family.
We just happened to be driving near the town of Oss which is Cris' motherland so we stopped by for a kip. It took us a while to find anything in the town that said 'Oss' but eventually we came upon this beautiful murinal.

Just beyond that was a stall in the street containing a dutch couple and a ton of herring. The guy deboned a couple herring for us, added onion, and taught us the proper way to shove raw herring down our gullet. It was delicious and stinky. The lady who sold the fish to us insisted that herring is a super food that we should eat every day. I do feel stronger and smellier so it must be working.

After meeting our hosts (and distant relatives) Jan/Corine, we set off with them to an old ancient type Netherlands town called Heusden.  It was really neat, with old buildings, an old defensive steep wall and canal system all the way around the town, and super old (still functional) windmills.

 An old man unchained the windmill and asked the people around to help so Paul went and helped push the bottom of the windmill to rotate the entire building.

Paul and his parents braved the steep steps to climb to the top of one of the windmills where a guide told them about how they worked.
After that, we headed to a old cheese farm where Cris was in heaven and also drooled all over all of the cheese. It was difficult not to buy it all.

Then we headed to another quaint town (Frieswijk) to visit a coffee/beer shop with Jan/wife. There just so happened to be a live singing event going on while we drank coffee or beer outside. It was about as Dutch as it gets: people dressed as old-fashioned sailors singing on an old boat on the canal, with bikes and flowers everywhere and everyone in the town was swaying and singing along to old Dutch classics about lost loves while sailing and such.

Then it was off to a slightly awkward but also interesting retirement party for one of Paul's mom's relatives. There, we met a bajillion other relatives, and everyone tried to garble a few English words at us occasionally while we tried to fit in. Fortunately, there was beer and coffee available because that's what Dutch seem to love (and I like this custom!).

Germany Day 3 - Driving and Ridiculous Architecture

After crashing at a farm for the night, Paul and I woke up with sore throats and off and on fevers for Day 3. Thanks a lot, some jerk on the airplane. We were determined to still stick to our plans, though, which included the longest drive for the whole trip (I think), which was over five hours on the road. We took a break to see Drachenburg Castle, which was super beautiful, and for some reason, never lived in by nobility. 

The dude who made it just wanted to make a castle near his home town. It was cool to tour the place and it had incredible views. Paul and his parents braved steep rickety stairs to go to the very top North tower for even better views.

Then it was off to Cologne Cathedral. It was really interesting to compare/contrast the almost-gaudy atmosphere of Ottobeuren Abbey to the more simplistic but equally awe-inspiring Cologne Cathedral. Cologne was REALLY old, and it was super tall. The tallness of the interior and the huge columns and amazing architectural feats for the Middle Ages made this building really cool. That's all I can say though because by then I was super tired and feverish and ready to sleep.

The only way to take a picture of the insanely tall front was a panorama that distorts it somewhat.

We drove to our airbnb in Krefeld, which was an anxiety-filled adventure of trying to find parking for a mini-van in tiny, narrow streets, followed by walking a long ways with our suitcases. And then glorious sleep before starting another day of awesomeness (and hopefully better health).