Speeding to Cologne

Off to Cologne at around 200 mph!

Yep, we finally made it to Cologne..and I might add it was not cheap. It cost $61 Euro one-way - $122 Euro round trip. I was thinking it would cost around $150 US dollars. Nope, I wrong. I was $220 round trip US dollars. We looked at each other to decide if we really wanted to spend this much money and we both said 'yes, let's do it!' So off we went.

It was worth it! The ride alone, at 200 mph, was great. On our 1 1/2 hour trip there, we were traveling backwards - remember the Southwest Airlines seats that sat backwards to the rest of the plane..same type feeling. This took a little while to get used to...kind of made your head and stomach feel a bit odd but after some time, we were fine. The German countryside was absolutely beautiful. Little villages along the way, a couple pumpkin patches, of course, the big churches and finally, the Grand Finale...The Cologne Cathedral. As were coming into Cologne, I'm looking around taking pictures and all of a sudden...I couldn't believe this structure we were coming up on. I think my jaw must have touched the floor. We have found the Cologne Cathedral. IT WAS INCREDIBLE!!!

We walked out of the train station to come face to face with the cathedral and had to just stand there a second and take it in. It was magnificent! It was so tall! It was so ornate! It was so old! It was majestic!! I had no idea this was the cathedral that everyone kept talking about. What a great surprise. Anyhow, we had to take several pictures and then check out the inside - and the inside was just as grand as the outside. And so much history. I had to buy the big coffee-table book because I couldn't take a picture that would do it justice.


To see more and read a little history, click on this link http://www.sacred-destinations.com/germany/cologne-cathedral.htm


Cologne Cathedral is the greatest Gothic cathedral in Germany and has been Cologne's most famous landmark for centuries. Once the tallest building in the world, Cologne Cathedral still boasts the world's largest church façade. The cathedral's main treasure is a golden reliquary containing the remains of the Three Magi of Christmas story fame. These relics and other treasures have made Cologne Cathedral a major pilgrimage destination for centuries. Cologne Cathedral stands on the site of a 4th century Roman temple, followed by a square church known as the "oldest cathedral" commissioned by Maternus, the first Christian bishop of Cologne. A second church built on the site, the "Old Cathedral," was completed in 818.

I thought this was TOTALLY cool! Below is a Knight..and is he SMALL! Only about 4 1/2 feet tall.

Had to include a picture of Valerie and I in front of the Cologne train station.

This little lady that did not speak a lick of English. She was working at the souvienger shop Valerie purchased her beer mugs from --- she was so darn cute!

And of course, Dirk is popular there because that's where he's from!!!

Lost in Frankfurt

Ok...I know I'm going to get this sleeping thing down before I leave! I went to bed at 11:30 pm and was wide-awake at 3:30 am - not to fall back to sleep until 5 am or so. Actually, I made use of the time and posted yesterdays blog.

Finally got up at 9:00 am with big plans however, we didn't get started until 12:00 noon due to getting up later and moving hotels. Oh yea, we switched hotels and moved into the Westin downtown this morning. Gosh, this is much more like what we're used to. A larger room with HEAVENLY beds!!! I'm truly appreciative that I got to experience the others but I'm ready for something a little more normal now.

Our plans included taking the ICE train over to Cologne (1 1/2 hour train ride that that travels around 200 mph). Because we got such a late start and Valerie had a business call starting at 6:00 pm, we felt like we didn't had enough time so we went 'splorin' on our own, just walking around the city of Frankfurt. We did ok at first...we found this great open-air market - kind of like a Farmers Market - full of people. I'm assuming this was their lunchtime and that's why there were so many people in the middle of the week. Anyhow, you could buy all kinds of things there; raw meat you would take home and cook, lunch, a glass or wine or even Champaign, fresh flowers, or a pretzel from the bratwurst man (see his contraption that holds his food AND his umbrella).

Loved the flowers!

Open-Air market

After wandering around for a while we decided to head over and see the Opera House. We found this with no problem however; it certainly wasn't what we expected. By the way...check out the wedding dresses in this storefront window we passed. Looks like I'll be buying my wedding dress in the States!

Opera House

Ok...got that part down! Now, we're on to see the old Frankfurt buildings...we have a map, we should be fine... right? Wrong! However, as we casually wander down the street, we come across the cutest little cactus I had to share it with you. So we finally come to the conclusion that we missed the street we were supposed to turn on because we're just chatting away. No problem, we'll turn at the street our hotel is on and take a new way. This wasn't a bad idea because see the building and church we came across. Here's where it gets tricky. We get down into this really yuppie cool part of town and totally started window-shopping - no more chatting this because this is getting serious now - only kidding! Anyhow, the streets start twisting and turning and we can't find our place on the map...AND it starts to rain. No problem...remember, Valerie has the umbrellas...we're in good shape. We don't really worry about it because we're pretty confident we'll find our way back to the hotel and it's actually really nice window shopping in the rain. Lot's of great things to see. Don't want to miss anything. In fact, here is pretty hip little bakery we come across.

Next is the funny part! As we're walking down the street, next to pretty major road...Valerie gets SPLASHED by a car...and I don't mean a little splash...it was a nice sized splash. In fact, I get some of the splash too but not like she does. Oh my gosh...I was practically rolling on the ground laughing. Trust me..she didn't think it was nearly as funny as I did BUT she did admit that if I got the splash...she would have thought it was just as humorous! Oh well, life goes on..with wet or dry jeans!

It's a good thing Valerie had written down the address of the hotel because if they couldn't speak it or even know of the Westin..at least they knew where the street was. So, we found some Police officers on traffic duty and they knew where the street was and as it turned out...we were about one block away.

What a great afternoon of fun and excitment it was!!!

Tomorrow, we plan to get up early and go to Cologne. We have no plans there..we're just going to walk out to the train station and see where our feet take us. What a great way to go 'splorin'!

Until tomorrow.

My day on the Rhine River

Well, I finally slept last night...for the most part. I was wide-awake at 5;00 am and so was Valerie so we got up and started moving around. She started on email because she had a meeting all day today and I read a magazine, switched between CNN and the BBC (that's the only English channel we get in this hotel) and then decided to book a 1/2 day riverboat tour of the Rhine River. I was a little apprehensive because it was only 61 degrees and rainy outside. Oh well, I'm in Germany and I need to see what I can see while I'm here...so off I went.

They picked me up at 10:30 am from my hotel and then me and about 15 other tourists from around the world, boarded the tour bus for a 45-minute drive to our first stop. Of course, I made a friend even before getting on the bus..his name was Glad, short for Gladimear. He is originally from Russia but now lives in Canada with his wife of 35 years. He was over here for work, w/o his wife, so we ended up hanging out together for most of the tour. However, he was a little too chatty for me. He grew up in Europe and wasn't trying to hang on every word the tour guide was saying - like I was because this was old news to him - but it was nice to have a friend to talk with anyway.

The first thing we saw was the Niederwald monument near Rurdesheim.

We didn't stay long as we only had a scheduled stop of 15 minutes and then we were on to our next sight. No running behind....must keep on schedule! If you know me at all...you know this was quit a challenge for me! Actually, this is where Glad came in handy. He is an engineer and did things exactly like the book.

Now the real fun begins...we took a ski lift down to the village of RheinuferstraBe. The ride down was incredible - check this out...see us coming down to the river.

Now we're coming into the little village --- which by the way was so 'stinkin' cute as my friend Monica would say! Here we are...my first castle of this trip.

We'll we've came back down to earth and I think we've gone through a time warp. This city looks like it's about 500 years and oh my gosh...is this place cute!!! This is exactly what you think of in the German storybooks.

In this picture below you can see the painting on the wall - yea, those aren't all windows on the bottom half closest to you. Here's another one that's just TOTALLY cute!

Again, I can't post all the very cool buildings I took pictures of. Just know there were many of them.

Next we head to lunch in this cute little town. Here is picture of some of the tour group. Glad is the guy sitting closest to you. By the way...can you see the little Chinese girls on the right, in the back...the one with the glasses? Anyhow, I got to tell you, I just feel in love with her. We left here to catch the riverboat but had to wait for it to get there - in the rain. Well, thank goodness that Valerie remembered the umbrellas because I was one of the few to have one. Anyhow, this is where we all 'bonded'. I quickly met another guy (without umbrella) Rod, from Las Vegas, and the two Chinese girls because we all huddled up, with our arms wrapped around each other, under my little umbrella. Anyhow, she would talk to me, in very broken English and with the accent... and I tried with all my might to understand her but found it very difficult. She was just seemed so sweet. She turned out to by kind of special in my heart for some reason. Anyhow, I did learn that in China the man wears his wedding ring on the right hand and the woman wears it on the left hand. I asked because here in Germany, I've noticed so many people with their wedding rings on their right hand. I got to find out the German tradition.

So now, we're on the boat and probably float by 15 castles or so. They tell you the history of each one over the load speaker, but there are many people on the boat, sitting around tables just watching and talking so you really can't hear what they're saying. You take lots of pictures and buy the book giving the history..which I did! Here's another castle....

And yet another castle in the background. By the way...I was standing in the rain, on the boat, taking this picture.

So, here's another one of my favorite moments...these two German ladies! I ended up sitting at their table, on the boat, along with the tour guide (who speaks both German and English) and he helped me have a little conversation with them and as it turned out...they were on a tour just like me. I thought these ladies were so darn cute!!! Not only were there many castles, there were many churches too!

Here's another church...

And yet another church...actually I think there were two churches in this picture. One of the right and one on the left.

And to round out the day...what else would be more appropriate but a wine tasting? We headed back to the same restaurant that we had lunch in via the bus now, and drank some of the local wine. Some of it was sweet wine, which I normally don't like but I did like this. However, not enough to buy it. I did buy a nice bottle of the white..very dry, and I'm going to break this open when I get home! Anyway...here's me in my 'Queen' chair! Gotta love it...I did!

Anyhow, that's it for now. Off to bed!

Off to Heidelberg...

Still working on that time zone thing! Valerie and I went to bed at 8:30 pm last night and slept until 3:30 am - at which time we both woke up and were not able to sleep any more. We decided to get up and start moving around; we chose to take the Heidelberg Tour, called - scheduled it and was ready to go by 8:15 am. This was going to be a great day!

The tour took us up near the Neckar river to one of the most beautiful cities in Germany - Heidelberg. Heidelberg is known for it's world famous castle ruins, Gothic and Renaissance buildings and hosts the oldest university in Germany. In fact, there have been 5 Noble Prize winners from this university. While there, we toured the castle ruins and saw the largest wine barrel in the world. Our German, English speaking, tour guide, Robert Redford - as he called himself (but far from it!) actually had a sense of humor, not something I"ve seen in the Germans so far. He gave us Heidelberg history 101, and then some, from 9:30 - 3:00 pm today.

This is what you see when you first get there...beautiful! The castle ruins is a story of the evolution of a castle changing to a palace over 600 years. You'll also see that red limestone was the preferred building material for construction and it graduated from bricks to larger stones as time went on

Starting from the bottom of the castle foundation, there's actually three layers built during three different time periods. The reason for this is because there were three different rulers with different tastes in style; Renaissance, Baroque, and Romantic.

During the construction of this castle, they built a mote. Unfortunately, there was no water. And anyone knows...you build a mote because you have water. Duh???

As we move inside, you can see the Italian influence. This was one of my personal favorite places in the castle.

Here's Valerie as we go deeper into the castle - She's happy because the next thing we find is the...

....largest wine barrel in the world. It even had it's own protector! I guess it didn't matter that he was only around 4' tall - see him below. It was said that he believed he would die if he drank a glass of water...and guess what? ...that's what died from.

You can see Valerie wouldn't make a very good castle worker!

Catholic church

Protestant church

View of the Old Bridge on the Neckar river

In the streets of the old town 'Heidelberg'

Another view of the old town 'Heidelberg'

Valerie and Lisa getting ready to head back to Frankfurt.

Oh my gosh...by the time we got back to our hotel...were we ready for a nap, in fact, I even fell asleep on the bus (remember, I had been up since 3:30 am). We laid down and slept for almost an hour and then Valerie had to go to dinner with work colleagues to prepare for tomorrows meeting. I'm on my own to work on my blog and do a little Oracle work. I'll order room service and enjoy a quiet evening in our hotel called 'Innside'. Check this place out http://www.innside.de/_new/innside_premium_hotels/frankfurt_niederrad/fotogalerie.en.php4?music=-1&kalender=1

Ok...going to run. Talk with you tomorrow.