Pforzheim - Kira and Castles

Kira, Jana, Daniel, and Erin at Hohenzollern Castle

When we arrived at Kira's city of Pforzheim Saturday (6/21), we were greeted by Kira, her mom Andrea, her sister Jana, her friend Lea, her grandmother Rose, and her grandfather Hans. It was a wonderful welcoming committee!

Kira's grandparents' garden--just a few of her grandfather's roses!

[David] We got to spend time with her family, including her uncle Marc, aunt Antje, and cousins Carolin and Jonas, at her grandparents' garden.  We had a great cookout in the most wonderful setting:  Kira's grandfather has hundreds of varieties of roses and other flowers, along with berries and fruit trees.  Heidi loves flowers, so she had fun taking pictures of flowers--putting her well on the way to 10,000 pictures so far on the trip....

We went later to the Wallberg in Pforzheim--a large hill built from the rubble of the town when it was almost completely destroyed by Allied bombers near the end of WWII.  A memorial at the top shows pictures of the city before the war, after the bombing, and after rebuilding.  We learned from the memorial, and from Kira's grandfather, that the local people blame the Nazi fanatics, who insisted that Germany fight to the last man in that terrible war; their fanaticism kept the war from ending earlier and prompted the Allies to destroy an industrial town to hasten the end of the war.  Thus, Pforzheim has very little left of its historical architecture and instead has the look of a town built after the war (which it was, basically).  Pforzheim is well known worldwide for its industrial school for goldsmithing and jewelry making, something they were known for even long before the war.

As a change of pace, we went to the big fair that was in town at the time--known as the "Pforzemer Mess."  We tried some Magenbrot (yummy gingerbread) and the kids rode some of the rides.  I joined them on a big free-fall ride, while Heidi wisely decided not to do anything that might aggravate her back.  Like fairs at home, rides had individual costs, but at least they lasted a long time.  We got to go up to the top and free-fall twice on that ride.  Daniel and Lea loved one of the spinning rides, while Kira and Erin were a little shaken up....

View of the Pforzheim fair from the Wallberg

Daniel & Erin on one of the rides

David and the kids on the free fall!

 We went back to Kira's mom's apartment for dinner--meat with a delicious sauce and homemade spaetzle!  Then it was time to leave with Kira's dad Frank to find where we were all sleeping--and, more importantly, I'm sure, to watch the Germany-Ghana soccer game (which, unfortunately, ended in a 2-2 tie...). 

Frank had rented a van so we could all go the next day with Kira, Jana, and Patricia, his girlfriend.  They were great hosts and took us to see two castles in their state of Baden-Württemberg--Burg Hohenzollern (near Tübingen) and Schloss Lichtenstein (near Honau--not the country Liechtenstein).  Hohenzollern Castle is grand castle, actually the third castle built in that spot in the mid 1800's.  An 11th-century castle was destroyed in the early 15th century, and a new castle built just afterward remained until the 18th century but fell into disrepair.  The present version was built for the Prussian kings and it remains privately owned by two branches of the Hohenzollern family who once ruled there.  Lichtenstein Castle is much smaller, a sort of secure country getaway for the owners.  Although there had been a castle on this site since around 1200, it was twice destroyed in the 14th century and was not rebuilt in its current configuration until the mid 1800's, when the land was passed from King Frederick I of Württemberg to Duke Wilhelm of Urach, whose family still owns the castle.  Both castles, like many other large estates owned by private families, is open to the public so that the structures and their many historical artifacts can be maintained.  One interesting tidbit is that the castle holds an iconic painting from the mid 1400's (as I recall) which was quite unique in that, since the time it was painted, it had never been moved, damaged, or restored.  It's exactly where it's always been.  Our guide said that worldwide you could count paintings like this on two hands....
But enough history (thanks Google!)...we've learned a lot, but it's easy to get overwhelmed....

Hohenzollern Castle from a distance

Hohenzollern Castle

Lichtenstein Castle

We sadly said goodbye on Monday morning, as everyone was rushing to school or work, and took the train to Nürnberg (or Nuremberg, if you like).  But that's a later post!  We enjoyed so much meeting Kira's family and friends, and we hope to see them again.  It's great to see so many historical sights on this trip, but I continue to focus on the people we are meeting and those we are seeing again after many years (or only 3 weeks, like Kira!).  Coming back to Europe after 22 years, I guess, has given me this new perspective.  I am grateful for the opportunity.  More soon!

Munich - Land of Castles and Beer!

Neuschwanstein Castle

After leaving Austria we headed to Munich. In Munich we stayed in a 6-person room at the hostel and got to meet interesting people. The first set of roommates that we had were a mother and son from Russia. They were in Munich attending an intensive German course. They showed us where they lived (Angarsk) by the deepest lake in the world and talked about how it took 3 days on the train from Moscow to their home.  We never really met the second set of roommates because they came in drunk around 3 am our last night and were sound asleep when we checked out the next morning.

Erin and Daniel inside a Munich Church listening to the organist practice

Munich Church

In Munich we went around town and poked our head to as many churches as were open. Two of them had organists who were practicing when we came in, so that was fun to listen to.
Then we went to Marienplatz to watch/listen to the Glockenspiel play at 5 pm.

Town Hall where the Glockenspiel played

Afterwards we headed to the famous Hoftbräuhaus because David wanted to see the beer hall and have a glass of beer there. We ended up having dinner there and listening to the band play German folk music.  One time a guy even cracked a whip in time with the music!  (Reservations are normally required in the second-floor festival hall, but we asked and found out there were a few seats left!)

Hoftbräuhaus

The next day we went through Füssen to Hohenschwangau to see the Hohenschwangau Castle and Neuschwanstein Castle. We walked up to the first castle, but wisely took the bus to the second one (a 40 minute walk uphill is not my idea of fun!  We got to walk over to the Marien Bridge which has great views of Neuschwanstein first and then see the castle itself. It amazes me that the interior is only about 1/3 finished, but the parts that are finished are beautiful!  King Ludwig had good taste!!  We ate "fast food" for dinner -- sausages and fries -- and then came back on the train.  The kids have gotten pretty good at pinochle on this trip because we generally play it any time we are on a train at least an hour and have a table. 

Hohenschwangau Castle

Our last day in Munich we slept in a bit and then headed to the Deutches Museum. It is like the German Smithsonian for science and technology. There are a ton of wings and exhibits and we only got around to a few of them. We saw some of the aeronautical section, a bit about microscopes (and saw a demonstration on a scanning electron microscope), and the spent some time in the section on musical instruments. Finally, we stayed in the special exhibition on the innovations of Leonardo da Vinci until the museum closed. That exhibit was interesting because people had taken da Vinci's designs and created working models of them and then talked about whether it would be something that would work given our current understanding of physics and engineering. 

Harpsichord at the Deutsches Museum

Next we walked toward the English Garden which is a park in Munich that is much larger than Central Park (New York). On our way we stopped in a Lutheran church (our first non-Catholic church!).  It had been bombed (like many others), but they had chosen to put back only what stained glass had been salvaged and then outlined the figures that had been on the destroyed glass. (The front of the church appeared to have the original stained glass.)  We had fun looking through the hymnal and seeing what songs we knew. Then we took a leisurely walk through the park. 

The first thing we saw in the park was a bit disconcerting -- surfers were surfing in the river!  Apparently there is part of the river they divert underground and where it reemerges creates some sort of undertow and wave that resembles a perpetual surf wave. So surfers take turns jumping out there on their board and try to ride the wave without getting sucked downriver (amidst many signs that warn of drowning death possibilities).  

"Surfers Wave" in the English Garden Park (note the tip of the board of the last guy who got sucked under right before this guy jumped out onto the water).

Later we saw the Chinese Tower and beer garden. We decided to eat there and had fun people-watching. We even got Bavarian doughnuts (what we often get at fairs called elephant ears).  It was good!!!

Chinese Tower

Geese we saw in the park

After returning back to the hostel we packed up in preparation to head to Kira's in Pforzheim....

Austria

View of Graz from above

So my friends, I am behind on my blog posts.  Mostly it has been a lack of time because it feels like we have been going from early morning to late at night every day.  Also, we didn't have good internet in Italy which made me late (I had to do the Italy post from Austria).  So, now I'm doing the Austria post from Germany.  Maybe I'll be able be able to catch up as we are watching the Germany vs. Ghana soccer game on TV (well, I'm half-heartedly watching as Kira and Janna are yelling at the TV).

So, Austria... We got to visit with David's friend from the International House (and Amy's former roommate) Evelyn Wiesler.  We had a wonderful visit with her and her family.  We loved her house because David and I got to stay in the guest quarters which were in the old stables behind the house.  We got to have a bit of a break from the children because they stayed across the yard at Evelyn's mother's house.  They also had a cherry tree with ripe cherries, so we got to have fresh cherries with every meal.  I could eat cherries all day!!!!

Graz's distinctive red roofs

They took us on a tour of Graz, including taking us up the hill to the Schlossberg and clock tower to overlook the town.  It was interesting because there was some sort of race going on where the team members had to run up and then down this steep hill and then go through an obstacle course at the bottom which involved climbing over hay bales.  They also showed us some of the old shops in Graz that had been in business for hundreds of years.

We also got to go to a Catholic church and watch the choir (which sang in English!) and see about half of the people in the church service dressed up in their traditional Austrian clothes.  After that we went to a festival in a nearby town where they celebrated the reign of Emperor Franz Joseph in the late 1800s.  Many people were dressed in period costumes and playing period instruments.  We really enjoyed being there because the town was an old spa town and it was so cute!

People in period costume

After we left Graz, we headed to Salzburg.  We first climbed the big hill to see the Festung Hohensalzburg.  It was fun to wander around and see all of the fortifications that had been added over the years.  As they pointed out, no one ever breached the walls -- the only one who won against them was Napoleon and they just gave up without a fight when he arrived.

Salzburg with the fortress on a hill in the background

View of Salzburg from the fortress

 The next day we walked around the old town.  We looked in lots of churches and saw some of the beautiful Baroque style for which Austria is known.  Daniel commented that he liked the churches in Austria much better than those in Italy because they were much lighter inside (both in terms of having more windows and also being painted in much lighter colors).  We were lucky enough to see an "Organ and Meditation" concert being offered in the Salzburg Cathedral.  That church is really neat because it has 4 smaller organs in the front and one great organ in the back.  We got to hear one piece [Frescobaldi] on a small organ and 4 pieces on the large organ.  My favorite was a Mendelssohn piece that sounded beautiful on the large organ.  But, even the Messiaen piece (Celestial Banquet) didn't sound bad on that organ (the single tones work well in that large cathedral with lots of resonance).  My second favorite was by Tournemire.  David was so excited that we got to hear that concert!  I think we really enjoyed Salzburg as a city!  I think on future trips we would want to spend more time there. 

Churches in Salzburg

One of the 4 small organs in the Salzburg Cathedral

Italy Recap

In front of the Pantheon in Rome

Tiny car in Roman

Well, I've finally gotten around to writing about Italy.  It was really hard to do anything in Italy because the internet was slow!

Daniel posing for a photo in restaurant

First, we visited Pisa and enjoyed seeing the Leaning Tower along with the other sights around it.  [It is the bell tower for the cathedral. Together with the cemetery they form a UNESCO world heritage architectural ensemble; they were famous together until the tower started leaning and then it became more widely famous.   By the way, we found Fibonacci (Leonardo of Pisa) buried here! ~David]  Our one memorable experience from there was eating dinner the first night.  After checking in at our hotel, we asked for some recommendations for dinner.  The place we ended up eating had great food and they were so happy when Daniel ordered a second plate of spaghetti carbonara (his new favorite pasta dish).  Erin and David ordered mixed fish platters and Erin was quite surprised when her fish came with its head still attached!  She wasn't quite sure what to do with that, but she figured it out!  She also got some clams and abalone in their shells and both she and David got to play with prying them open and getting the meat out.

Carrara Marble - on the way to Pisa

Leaning tower of Pisa

After one short day in Pisa, we headed on down to Rome.  Our train was late, so we missed the connecting train out to the station by our hotel.  We weren't sure whether to wait another hour for the next train because it was getting dark and our hotel looked to be in sort of a ghetto area outside of the main part of town.  So, we decided to take a taxi.  I think that may have been one of the highlights of David's and Daniel's trip to Rome.  Our taxi driver drove really fast and most of it in the tram lane weaving around all of the slow-moving trams.  Rome doesn't seem to have much in the way of lanes for traffic, especially when it comes to near the city walls.  People just spread out and go through the ways and then try to narrow down to about 1.5 lanes of traffic again (I was never clear if it was supposed to be one or two lanes through that section).

Roman Traffic - no "lanes" in sight!

One of my favorite statues!

The next day we were going to take the train into town but the hotel clerk thought we were crazy and told us to take the tram instead.  So we hiked much father to the tram stop and got on board.  Then we couldn't figure out how to buy a ticket, so we just sat like we knew what were doing and tried to avoid getting a 50 Euro ticket for riding the tram without a ticket (it was a little scary when a police officer got on board and sat next to Erin).  But, we successfully made it to the termini station and then saw the major sites of Rome (Colosseum, Forum, and Pantheon).  We walked to the Trevi Fountain only to find that it was under construction and not working.  Daniel then began to point out all the many fountains in Rome that were not working and was very surprised when we actually found one.  We were glad, though, that there were numerous places on the street to fill up our water bottles because we drank a ton of water (it was about 90 degrees with 75% humidity).  Daniel was quite happy in Rome to find that the Holiday Inn served scrambled eggs (after many days of having bread and juice for breakfast) and he filled up on as many eggs as he could eat.

In the hotel - taking a photo in the mirror in the elevator!

The next day we headed to the Vatican to see where the Pope lives. We decided that day to take the train since we knew the neighborhood better and weren't so worried about it.  Our train came on time, but then we sat in the middle of the tracks for 30 minutes for no apparent reason.  We still made the connecting train to the Vatican, but just barely!  We were going to get in line to see the Vatican museum, but it looked really long, so we decided to take a tour.  Our tour guide was hilarious!  He was a native Roman who had studied archeology in school, but had been a tour guide for 20 years.  He did a good job tying together why certain pieces in the museum were important and how they predicted the renaissance.  He had a funny accent and a great demeanor.  It was a great experience!!!  After going through the Sistine Chapel we headed into St. Peter's Basilica and went through that.  Later we headed back to the same restaurant as the night before for dinner (next to the Pantheon).  Their lasagna was the best I had ever eaten and wanted more.  So, I ordered two plates of it.  I couldn't eat it all, but David and Erin helped me finish it.  Daniel ordered a whole 12" pizza for himself AND a plate of spaghetti carbonara.  They thought that was funny at the restaurant!

The next day we headed to Florence [Firenze].  We had a 9:50 am reservation for the fast train, so we thought if we left at 9:05 on the direct train into Rome for the 12 minute journey that we would have plenty of time.  Well, that train was very late!  We almost left after waiting 20 minutes past the time it was supposed to come (and all of the sign boards were broken at out ghetto station so there were no updates about when the train was supposed to come).  But, as we were leaving a nice lady came up to us and said the train should be coming in 4 minutes (she had a real-time app on her phone that let her know where the train was).  We got there just in time for our connection and headed to Florence.

Florence Cathedral

Florence was wonderful.  I think it was the favorite Italian city for most, if not all, of us.  Our hotel was terrible (no air conditioning and terrible beds), but once we left the hotel it was nice!  We decided to get the Firenze card to help us make the most of our time (so we didn't have to wait in lines).  We got to see the Duomo (cathedral), Uffizi Gallery, Accademia, Ponte Vecchio, Pitti Palace, and others.  We were going to go to the Galileo Museum, but it was closed because of a power failure.  We did have fun buying leather belts there and Daniel got a new leather wallet.  As usual we got a lot of gelato to help cool us down.  We did get one unexpected thunderstorm, but it passed by right before we had to catch the train to leave Florence.

Florence tables made out of pieces of stone - they are beautiful!

Early clarinets and wind instruments

Finally we got Venice.  After arriving via train, we had to take the water taxi around to where our hotel was.  When we got to the hotel, there was a sign saying that the reception person would be back in 5 minutes.  Turns out it was 5 Italian minutes (around 15 minutes).  But, the receptionist was very nice and gave us lots of suggestions of what we should do.  We went to St. Mark's cathedral to see it and then went out to Murano to see them making glass.  After buying some new necklaces for me and a small ring for Erin, we headed back to the mainland to wander around Venice for the rest of the day.

In St. Mark's Square in Venice

Our train leaving Venice was a night train and it left at 1:30 am.  So, we had to figure out what to do to entertain ourselves until that time.  We sat outside the main train terminal for an hour playing TriBond and then moved inside to eat at McDonald's and stay until they closed at 10:45.  We played Pinochle (we are getting good at that game -- except that I seem to be the jinx and whatever team I am on loses).  Then we moved out to the platform itself and continued playing a long time.  A kid from Mexico finally came up to us to talk to us for a while.  He was headed to teach English and History in Romania and was traveling around for a week until the program started.  He was really nice.  We finally got onto the train (it was 25 minutes late) but had a hard time sleeping.  We only got 5 hours of sleep (not even that much for me because I was having hard time falling asleep with that much commotion).  Then we arrived in Austria 50 minutes late and missed our connection to the local train.  But, we caught another one and were so happy to be out of Italy and back to the land where the trains were nice, clean and run on time.

Roman Forum

Italy is hectic and crazy!

As with my last experience in Italy, it has been hot, humid, and crazy!  The weather has been over 90 and we have drunk tons of water!  The first day or two is hard because you expect the trains to run on time and you expect things to actually work (like air conditioning in your hotel).  Eventually you acclimate and discover that this is Italy!  I don’t have time for a full update because WiFi is spotty (again – Italy!) and we have to check out in 15 minutes.  But, here is a photo!  We are in Venice today and then head to Graz, Austria tonight on the night train.  Maybe I’ll have more time then to catch up!

Avignon

David and Kids at the Papal Palace in Avignon

Today we were in Avignon - home of the Roman Catholic Popes during the Great Schism in the 1300s and 1400s.  That is when Popes were elected both in France and in Rome and no one was sure who the "real" pope was.  We got to tour the Papal Palace (which more like a fortress) and go onto what was left of the Avignon Bridge, also built during that time period.  One interesting fact is that we learned that the Avignon Popes were the ones who encouraged the development of Ars Nova -- polyphony -- in music!  We also wandered around town quite a bit and saw some interesting churches and architecture.  Today we are hopefully headed to Nimes, but it seems that everyone is a bit sluggish today.  Daniel really wants to come back to the hotel (not really a hotel -- it is the YMCA) and play ping pong tonight.  We had to do laundry in the sink the last few nights and that wasn't a lot of fun.  But hopefully everything is washed now and we have clean clothes for another few days!

Papal Palace in Avignon

Rhone River in Avignon

Avignon Bridge (or what is left of it!)

Kids standing on the Avignon Bridge by the Saint Benezet Chapel

St. Peter's Church in Avignon

An Angel on the Ceiling Buttress in St. Peter's