Oktoberfest! (Part 4 - Train delays & Heidelburg)

Back in Koblenz, there were warnings on the schedule board of our train's delay, which was an hour! Hm. Ok, mark this down as travel incident #1. We did what you do while you wait on vacation—walked across the street to the bar and had a few drinks. :)

Finally in Heidelberg, around 11pm, we walked up to find that our hotel’s staff shuts down for the night at 11 (!) and you have to go to their sister hotel to check in. It was a good hike back to that one, which we’d passed on the way. Fortunately, the guys walked back and we hung out with the luggage talking to a middle aged English-speaking (of course) business man from the Netherlands. He was there for an IT conference.  Hindsight’s 20/20 and we should have called ahead to make sure late arrivals could be accommodated due to the late train. It could have saved some time, and steps. Oh well, blame it on the train delay.

Our hotel in the morning. It did have a nice breakfast,
redeeming from the previous night's fiasco!

Heidleberg was beautiful. I’ll just post pictures, 
but it’s a must see along the Rhine.

View of the Heidelburg Palace up the hill from the Altbruke, 
or old bridge (shown above with Chelsy in the foreground).

I love old/unique doors. This one, I believe
was near the entrance to the castle.
That little door inside the larger door is
called a wicket.

Look up as you enter the castle to see the Portcullis !  

Once inside the castle, it was an
expansive collection of large
buildings and dungeons.

Did I mention I love doors? 

Our crew in front of a gigantic wine barrel.

Quite the view to the old town below.

Not all parts of the castle were
rehabbed for visitors.

Still within the castle's estate, you could walk through the
large gardens adjacent to the hill the castle stood on.

At the end of the gardens looking back over
the city and main castle.

We took the funicular up the mountain,
 from the Castle for some more fantastic views.

 

These four pictures are inside the former "Student's Prison" which was a part of Heidelburg University. It's where students were 'sentenced' here if caught being rowdy or intoxicated in public. It was interesting to see all the graffiti over every inch of the walls and their 'facilities'. 

 

Tables outside the cafeteria at University of Heidelburg, 
which is the oldest University in Germany, founded in 1386! 

This was a beautiful stop and a great. Perhaps we'll return and hike along the old city wall surrounding the town. 

Oktoberfest! (Part 3 - Bacharach)

The next town along the Rhine that we wanted to see was Bacharach, a very small town. We read that it did not have lockers at the train station (thanks to Rick Steves’ head’s up on that one) so we left our bags in the Koblenz station lockers and scooted south to Bacharach. We barely sat down on the train before we hopped out onto the outdoor platform, and we were there! It's a tiny station with just a small, one room building to buy tickets and avoid the weather when necessary.

We walked up a little hill through small cottage style buildings with souvenir & wine storefronts and restaurants. Halfway up was the entry way to the ruins of a Catholic Church on the hillside overlooking the many vineyards and the Rhine, of course. The scenes were amazing as we watched the sun set over the hills we stood on. 

We ate dinner at a little hotel restaurant that was surprisingly good. Why surprisingly, you ask? Well we were only slightly concerned being the only souls in the place besides the one server and cook in the back.  To their credit it was 'early' for dinner and they were just opening. Also, this was the shoulder season, aka there aren't many tourists this time of year.

Dinner at Hotel am Markt.

Mmm... Schnitzel!

Ready for another tidbit? Well, only for those who didn't already know... In most of Europe, water is not free. I've yet to see a water fountain in Germany. It's served bottled-- meaning that it comes in a glass bottle, usually with a metal screw top. When ordering, make sure to indicate ‘no gas’ or ‘still water’ otherwise you’ll be drinking carbonated water with dinner. (not my preference, and I've only slipped once at the store so far). With that said, beer is sometimes cheaper than water. Yes, you read that right. Just like wine in France & Italy, beer is Germany’s thing. We recently learned that there’s a German law (there are many-- again, another post in and of itself) that says at least one thing on the menu must be cheaper than alcohol… that’s usually milk! 

Following dinner, we caught the train back to Koblenz to pick up our bags and head on to Heidelberg which was our first overnight destination. While waiting for the train back, and while the guys chatted about who-knows-what, my friend and I sat next to a lady also waiting on the bench who lived two stops up. She was native German, but spoke English very well and told us the 'season' was almost over, and the shops in Bacharach close for the winter at the beginning of October. She only had to work another couple of weeks until her ‘Winter Break’. She doesn’t do anything during this time, in terms of work, just helps out her children with her Grandchildren and uses the time to shop herself (she works in one of the shops in Bacharach). She had formerly lived in California and Florida for a short stint each before getting homesick and moving back closer to her children/grandchildren. She was a very sweet lady and I'm glad we chatted a bit.

Oktoberfest! (Part 2 - Ridin down the Rhine)

Our first destination on this whirlwind trip was a hop and skip down the Rhine River. It flows North (tidbit #2, eh?) from Switzerland to the Netherlands. You'll remember we crossed over it to catch the beautiful sunset during our first weekend in Cologne. We took a train for the entire two weeks from Cologne with a ‘rail pass’ where we could ride as much and as far as we could in a day, for ‘x number of days’ within a specified time period. Ours were valid for 2 months from validation (which you'll get fined if you don't do this prior to your first trip). There will be an entire post dedicated to German laws later.  

On our trek down the Rhine, we first stopped off at Koblenz, a small city where the Rhine intersects with Mosel River. It was a quaint, somewhat of a touristy town I’d say, but charming none the less. It was a beautiful day and claims our first stop at a ‘Bier Garten’ albeit small and nothing like those we would visit in Munich, it was still a nice stop and the pretzel made for a delicious snack! 

We didn’t make time to tour the Fortress Ehrenbreitstein which hovered over the river’s intersection on the opposite banks, but it looked like an interesting stop. It was very large so perhaps we’ll return one day to check it out. Koblenz is also near the Marksburg Castle, which Justin was able to see on a weekend excursion with co-workers in August. I’ll include pictures of the many castles we passed on our train ride, just please forgive the quality (or lack there of) as we buzzed past them on the train.

The Fortress on the hill. There's even a gondola

to take you up & across the Rhine.

Not sure what this is... It was
near a water level markings so we assume
it had something to do with the river level.
I just loved it's color! 

This is the Deutsches Eck in Koblenz, or German Corner,
which faces north where the Mosel meets the Rhine River.
The link tells and shows that it was damaged by American 
artillery in 1945, then reconstructed in the 1990s.

Our first Biergarten!

A well-deserved break.

Prost!

As you can see, it's hard to capture the castles in the distance along the banks of the Rhine, especially flying down the tracks on the awesome rail lines.  Hopefully this illustrates how magical it is to look up and see a medieval castle situated on a mountain where they've been for hundreds of years!

Oktoberfest! (Part 1 - Cologne & Trip Map)

As some of you may know, we had already planned a trip to Germany during Oktoberfest prior the opportunity of Justin's job relocating us here. It turned out to be perfect timing and we're thankful for our friends’ patience to book the trip's final reservations until all the details fell into place. 

Map image from Google Maps --
 custom labels added by yours truly.

I'll include a little image of the trek (by train) we took over the two weeks we vacationed around Germany. By the way, in Europe, a vacation is called "holiday." (Little tidbits of information will be thrown in from time to time, so hopefully you find them fun and not annoying!) 

We started out in Cologne, or Köln, in German. This is where our new headquarters will be for the next several months. I'll post more about our apartment, which I saw for the first time on this trip, and our neighborhood, later. The first couple of nights of vacation spent exploring were quite fun, as expected, but not as cold as anticipated, which was good. So all in all, a great start to the trip.  Oh, well, except for the laundry fail on my part—that's another story for another day!

Here are some pictures of us from the first few days in Cologne then we set off on our counter-clockwise loop around Deutschland!

Almost to the top of the Kölner Dom! 
(This place deserves a post of it's own.)

Across the bank of The Rhine with a view of the 
infamous Kölner Dom and Hohenzollern Bridge.

We even caught a blimp in these shots 
with a beautiful September Sunset.

Willkommen zu Unser Blog!

Let me start by saying what a crazy ride it's been so far and that we are loving it! We’ve been living in Cologne (or locally, Köln) for a few months already and have packed as much fun and experiences into our time here as we possibly could. Social engagements, leisure (traveling), and of course one of us working everyday have resulted in the days of the calendar zipping past us. So far we have been documenting our adventure with lots of pictures, but have been slow to post them and write stories along with them.  I will do my best to catch up so you can follow us in (semi) real time.

Once you see the first few posts, you’ll understand the amount of activity we packed into a short time and will forgive the delayed establishment of this blog. There's a lot of fun & travel to talk about, plus more to come, so check back often to read more on "Brats & Bier" .... 

Welcome to our blog!