With Uwe and Astrid in Hannover

During our vacation, a surprising number of places did not have Internet access, and also we visited with our relatives late many evenings.  Now that we're home, we'll finish the story.

29 Sept: Wednesday is Market Day in Bad Pyrmont, and Reinhard sells his eggs and a neighbor's honey.  Mostly he sells 6 or 10 eggs, but he'll sell you one or two if you'd like.

We drove to Hannover to see more cousins, Uwe and Astrid Rabi.

Their daughter Anke and her son Max came to see us.  Max likes dinosaurs and we brought him the book "Danny and the Dinosaur" so he (and his father Frank) can learn English.

Here is a typical cone zone in Germany--we encountered many on the Autobahn and in the cities.

30 September: We visited Hamburg with Uwe & Astrid; it's both a very busy trading port, and a city of parks and beauty.  We took a bus tour of the city and here are typical scenes. 

Shipowners' widows couldn't inherit their husbands' business, so the Hanseatic League built these widows' quarters where they could survive on a small pension.

This wharf now contains many souvenir shops, & restaurants, where we had late lunch.  Uwe's MS has put him in a wheel chair (Rollstuhl); Walt got in a lot of pushing during this week.

Marie was struck by the outside spiral staircases on this hotel.

1 October:  Bremerhaven with Uwe & Astrid.  We particularly wanted to see Bremerhaven (port city for Bremen) because 7 million emigrants, including a few of ours, embarked here for the New World.  The Deutsches Auswanderer Haus (German Emigrant House) is a must-see.  The plaza outside has some stones with emigrant names engraved:

Inside the "Haus" there are re-creations of the emigrant experience: the sounds, the crowding, everything but the smell.  Here we are at dockside, ready to board the steamship, seen looming in the background.  Astrid & Uwe are waiting, Marie is leaning over the mannikins to look at the water.

Typical suitcases & trunks of the emigrants, loaded on board.

On this ship, between-decks was divided into 5-person bunks; if your family was smaller than 5, you'd bunk with strangers.  You could hear the constant rumbling of the engines, various clanks & thumps, someone snoring, someone coughing (hope he's not too close!).

3 October:  Frank & Anke took Max to a wonderful park and playground at Steinhuder Meer,  the largest lake in Lower Saxony.  They invited Heike (Max' favorite aunt) and us to go along.

Max likes firemen, policemen, and all their equipment.  Does this look like a firepole to you?

Heike now has her own apartment, a few minutes from Frank & Anke (and Max!)

German motorcycle riders are serious about their safety.

 Frank rented this boat with an electrically-powered jet.  Max was thrilled to steer, but even more interested in mugging for the camera.

4 October:  On our last day, Marie & I went to Schloss Marienburg, a 19th-century fairytale castle built on the ruins of an earlier fortification atop a hill.

5 October:  Heading for home at last.  An hour's delay in Copenhagen while they disembarked one passenger and his luggage, then fixed a frayed wire in the luggage compartment.  Even though SAS fed us well over the Atlantic, blocked Eustachian tubes made descending painful.  Immigration & Customs  in DC were slow but easy;  our agricultural imports (honey from Glesse) were not a problem.  We were exceeding glad to see Jeff at the Colorado Springs Airport, and he & Karen brought us home.

28 Sep - Kloster Corvey

Here we are in the equipment barn with Karl-Heinz and the John Deere tractor.  Reinhard is taking the picture.  We are both feeling some better and our colds are a day older so we hope to be over them soon and certainly before we get on the plane for a  8 hr 40 min trip from Copenhagen to Washington DC.  Our ears have been popping.  It has been raining and cold since we got to northern Germany and tomorrow is supposed to be sunny but cool, and then the rain returns.  We have decided we will never again come to Germany in the fall.  Reinhard thinks we should come the end of May or June.  That is the best weather and the farm work is lighter then.

Today it almost stopped raining and we went to a nearby castle.  It was originally a monastery but was converted to a state administrative center.  The church remained on the west end.  There is a large library on the 3rd floor taking up 6 rooms.  Hoffman (writer--Tales of Hoffman) lived here and was buried here.

This is the front entrance.

Here is the castle with the church on the west end.  The church on the end is still used as a place of worship today; it contains a lot of Baroque.  The old part of the castle was built in 815.

Tomorrow we visit Reinhard at the Farmer's Market at Bad Pyrmont.  He will be selling eggs and honey, among other things.  We have been given 4 jars of honey--one white, one cornflowers, summer blossoms, and one spring flowers.  Then we go on to Hannover to visit Uwe and family--more cousins.

Reinhard had a John Deere hat for Walt when we arrived.  Then he decided Walt needed more JD hats.  So Reinhard called the local dealer and got them to open the store for us on Sunday morning and Walt picked out 2 more hats and they were given to us.  Reinhard bought the big JD 6600 from them and buys parts from them.

We forgot to tell you that we went to a McDonald's near Heidelberg.  Walt wanted to buy a beer at McDonald's.  It was not a McDonald's "special" beer.  It was a good Netherlands beer, which was served in a regular McDonald's paper cup.

We also forgot to tell you that at the Passion Play in Oberammergau there were 2 Paramedics.  One was near us and we watched him.  He was watching the audience but never had to use his knowledge.  Walt was particularly concerned about the men playing Christ and the 2 thieves, who were hanging on the crosses.  We couldn't figure out how they were attached to the crosses.  One was doing a very good job of agonic breathing--gasping for air.  Then they played dead and it took some time before they were brought down.  Everyone seemed to be o.k. in the end but we were worried, because the original crucifixion killed by asphyxiation.

25-28 Sept; Glesse, DE

We arrived in Glesse Saturday afternoon and were greeted by this display.

Here is Reinhard cooking dinner for us:

Karl-Heinz is sitting at the table with us waiting for Reinhard to finish dinner:

Susanne (Reinhard's girlfriend) speaks very good English and helped translate Walt's convoluted sentences.  She took us shopping in Bad Pyrmont and to the castle there.

Sunday we went to Goslar with relatives which we didn't even know we had:  Burkhard and Jutta.  [They were in Canada (Calgary to Vancouver) in June/July].  We saw the castle in Goslar, Kaiserpfalz, an imperial administrative center.  It was built in the 11th century, neglected, then restored in the 19th century.  The murals in the main hall (throne room) reflect the surge of German nationalism in the 19th century.  They show the history of Germany from Charlemagne to Kaiser Wilhelm II, a mix of facts and fairytales.  No photos inside, so we bought a book.

Monday it was raining.  Marie has a very bad cold and family is giving her lots of medicines.  Her temperature is only between 36 and 36.5 degrees grad.  Normal is 39.  We had to go tothe  Apotheke (pharmacy).  Marie slept much of Monday.  We went to Ottenstein--only 5 km and to the Kuche--the old house where the richest man in town lived--he was so rich because he always complained about his electric bill and never turned the lights on his auto when driving since he thought he had to pay electric bill for that light.  It was originally a small house with 2 rooms downstairs for people and across the hall the cow and horse barn.  Upstairs was the hay storage and 2 bedrooms--grandma, grandpa, mama, papa, and 5 children lived here.

Feeding for the animals.  Marie is washing clothes in old kitchen:

Today it is still raining.  Marie still has cold and is a little better.  Reinhard has decided we will come back in 2013 when Stacie has graduated from vet school and we will have a large party for her in Germany, so be prepared Stacie.

24 Sept - Heidelberg

Today we drove to Heidelberg in the rain.  Lots of construction on the autobahn.  We took a shortcut to lunch and ended up in a forest with single track roads with ditches on both sides and scrapping the bottom of the car.  But tom-tom led us out again, however the restaurant it found turned out to be an elementary school so we started "find restaurant" all over again and this time found an unusual place.  Walt had a turkish hamburger with yogurt.
Then we went to Castle Heidelburg.  This tower was the powder magazine until it exploded.

Each mason was paid by the stone, so every stone had the mason's mark on it.

One form of one-up-manship was to build a larger & larger wine barrel.  If we understood our guuide correctly, 10% of the wine was taken for tax and stored in the barrel.  A larger barrel meant that this prince (a Palitinate Wittelsbach) was richer than his neighbors.  Jacob is 6 feet tall; there is a larger barrel nearby, which holds 60,000 gallons, but too many Japanese tourists in the way for a good photo.  Most of the castle is in ruins because 1) nobody cared for too long, and 2) restoration efforts are limited to essential maintwnance to preserve history (30 Years War, Napoleonic War, etc).  A lot of rain outside, so we bought a few postcards instead of our own photos.  When we get home & scan them, we'll post them.

Walt has a bad cold and losing his voice.
Tomorrow we take Cathy and Jake to the Frankfurt airport on our way to Glesse to visit family.  The other four will go on to do laundry, visit Stuttgart, Cologne, and Berlin.  We don't know what we'll be doing or when we'll have internet again.  We'll write when we can.
W+M

23 Sept - Rothenburg

We stayed at the Goldene Rose which has been completely remodeled.  We found a couple of restarants for our meals, because the Goldene Rose no longer serves anything but breakfast.  We visited the Doll Museum this time.  There were floors of dolls and other toys, some of which we remember from our childhoods.  This is a picture of a large doll house.

After lunch we drove to Hockenheim, just outside Heidelberg.  Walt says, one really has to concentrate to drive the autobahn at 100 mph, but most people really cooperate.  You cannot use cruise control on this highway as there is a lot of speed up and slow down.  Nonetheless, Walt felt more at ease than 55 mph on I-25 some days.
We have a gigantic Ford Galaxy.

22 Sept - Linderhof Castle

Linderhof is one of Mad King Ludwig's fairy castles.  It is the only one he completed and he lived here only 8 years.  Over the top rococo decoration with lots of gilt, extensive formal gardens, no photos allowed inside.

Front gardens at Linderhof.  The swans were hiding in the river.

Back garden from the gazebo to the palace.  This is high above the castle looking down.

There is also a man-made grotto with a man-made lake inside and a shell boat, where Ludwig put on performances of Wagner.  Ludwig sat in the boat alone for these performances.  We have pictures but are not sure they will show you anything--it was very dark.

20 & 21 Sept - Oberammergau

Here's a pension where we stayed.  It is off the main road in Oberammergau within walking distance of everything.

Our room has the open door on the balcony on the 2nd floor to the left of the sign. 
While wandering through the town, Walt was envious of all the wood piles.

We visited the museum in the afternoon.  Oberammergau is a famous wood-carving center.  The museum featured lots of artists carvings.  We particularly liked these miniature carvings in nutshells.

The next day (Tuesday) we were scheduled to see the play in the afternoon and evening.  In the morning we visited the town and stopped at the the Holzschnitzerei (wood carver shop).  He carved out of many different woods:  pine, whose aroma lasts for 20 years; maple, hard enough to carve fine detail; larch for many things; and cherry for its beautiful color.

We were not allowed to take pictures of the performance.  About 2000 out of 4000 residents participated in the play.  Military personnel who participated were given a dispensation to grow long hair and beards.  All ages were in the play, from 90-year-olds to 3-month-olds.  The stage was wide enough for a 50 voice chorus to stand in a line across it.  In the crowd scenes there were several hundred people on stage.  This is part of the stage in front of us:

This is looking from our seats to the back of the theater.  Near us was a paramedic.  And another was up farther.  They wore flourescent orange jackets and trousers.  For the night performance there were torches and bonfires on stage.  We had at least 3 firefighters back stage in bunker gear just in case.

The afternoon performance was from 2:30 to 5:15 p.m.  Then we had a dinner break and came back at 8 p.m. until 11 p.m. to conclude the Passionspiel.  It was a very stirring performance.  There were stationary tableaus interspersed as well as narration and choruses.  It was the story from Jesus entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday through the Resurrection.

19 September - Salzburg

We first went to a salt mine.  Many of the places we went did not allow cameras inside.  We all had to wear coveralls in the mine.  We rode the miners' trolley in, then took the slide down a couple of levels (they took a picture of us which we will show you when we get home).  This is Walt in his mining coveralls.

Then we drove 1/2 hour to the Salzburg fortress in altstadt (old city).  We didn't go there because there was only so much time and Marie couldn't walk that far/

We first had lunch at this Moorish restaurant.  This narrow door leads to the restaurant in the cellar.  The owner had visited his brother in Denver and had quite a talk with us and treated us to schnapps (almond) at the end of the meal.

While the others climbed the mountain to the fortress, we visited the house where Mozart was born,

In the old town there were lots of expensive shops on narrow streets.  Most shops hung signs illustrating their wares just as in medeaval times . . .

. . . including this shop  which spent 1/2 million dollars on this sign: