Rhein-Main-Therme

Our day yesterday was on the busy and cold side, so today we wanted to relax. We have driven by this indoor pool center many times over the last 5 months or so, and the kids always ooh and aah over the cool slides. We have promised them that yes, we would go one day. It seems like it takes us having visitors to finally do these types of things.

This center calls itself a wellness paradise and the website assured us that what awaited us was "excitement and thrills...in this subtropical bathing experience of the world" featuring pools, slides and saunas. As we were getting ready to leave the house, I asked David, "Are there going to be naked people there?" He answered, "I don't think so. Maybe in the saunas though."

After checking in, our first stop was the locker rooms and Hello! Naked people! Naked people! Naked men, naked women and naked children! All over the place in the locker room! We all wore our swimsuits under our clothes, so we didn't need to worry about changing in front of everyone and thankfully, people all wore swimsuits out in the pool area. The kids were not fazed by any of this.


The kids loved the big tube slides that curled around the outside of the building. There were hottubs, fountains, waterfalls, jets, wave pools, lap pools, a little kids' area and, my favorite, an outdoor pool you could swim to. There we were, in below freezing weather, swimming outside.

People were indeed all naked in the all co-ed saunas, but we chose to stay pretty much in the water.


You just went with the flow in this "centrifugal force" pool.


A few nights a month, the center has naked night where you can go au naturel in all the pools.


In the end, the locker rooms did have individual dressing rooms, probably for visiting Americans. We made good use of those.

Limburg and back to Braunfels

We decided that with visitors here, this would be an excellent opportunity to go back to Braunfels Castle and take a tour, as it is open on the weekends. We would first go to the city of Limburg (1 hour away) which has a beautiful Altstadt (Old Town) and make our way back to Braunfels.

We were not counting on roads being closed, however. That one-hour trip to Limburg took over two, but it didn't seem to bother the kids too much. Limburg does have a striking Altstadt.

Apparently, the nursery rhyme about the crooked man who lived in a crooked house has some basis in reality.


No translation needed for this store.

This house is said to be the oldest inhabited half-timbered house in Germany and dates from 1296.

St. Georgs Dom painted in its original colors. The cathedral was consecrated in 1235.

Christophe posing below a 13th century fresco of his patron saint.

After a long drive and a long walk through town, all were hungry. The soda Mezzo Mix is like spetzi -- a mixture of cola and orange soda.

At most traditional German restaurants, a water bowl for your dog is provided, as he or she is most welcome to accompany you for your meal. This is by far the cutest water bowl we have seen.

We made our way back to Braunfels castle where a guide was happy to give us a tour in English.

A count (descended from the original family) and his family live in certain sections of the castle. We noted a trampoline in one corner and a satellite dish on one side of the castle.

Christophe was chosen to unlock the huge wooden door.

Emilie thrilled to see real princess dresses. Except for this one little museum section, photography was not allowed inside the castle. When we finished the tour, the gift shop was already closed, so I could not buy postcards. We surely will return with other visitors one day and then I'll be able to post pictures of the incredible suits of armor and furnishings of the interior.

Canons used to defend the castle and town.

Our guide showing us how far said canons could shoot.

Another great day.

Christophe's here!

James has known his good friend Christophe since they were three years old. Seeing that Christophe's mom is a flight attendant, we thought it entirely appropriate to nag them about coming to visit us. For the past month, James has been counting down the days on the calendar till their visit and finally, this was the weekend.

We picked up Christophe and his mom Jennifer early this morning at the airport and had no plans for the rest of the day, letting them recover from the flight. This didn't stop James and Christophe from heading over to Liederbach's skate park to show each other how good their ollies and kick flips are.

A Day Trip

This week is Ski Week, so the kids have no school. Maybe some year, we'll actually go skiiing.

David took the day off today so we could do a day trip. We have felt that, for the kids at least, the last few months have been mundane and that a day trip was in order. We decided to drive through the Taunus mountains and visit a castle and a few little towns. The drive only took us an hour, but we didn't count on uncooperative weather and lots of up and down motion. We finally arrived at our first destination, Braunfels, after a stressful ride where we kept driving up and down, and in and out of thick fog and at the end Micaela was horribly carsick, but managed to keep it together till she exited the van.

Braunfels is a privately-owned castle whose oldest sections date from the mid-thirteenth century. It's last renovation was in the 1880s, when many castles were being built in a romantic style.

Alas, the castle is closed on weekdays during Winter, so we plan to come back another day for a tour.



At the foot of the castle is a delightful village, which was virtually deserted. We walked around a bit and had lunch at a café.

Note the pretzel doorknob on the bakery door.

Micaela was still a bit green at this point. The fog gave the area a mysterious quality.

What crime has James committed recently? Where to begin...

Children's revenge.



We learned at the visitor's bureau, that there was a display of China's TerraCotta Army nearby. Somewhere on TV in the last few years, I had seen a report of how a Chinese emperor from 200 B.C. had buried 9,000 terracotta statues of warriors and horses to help him rule another empire in the afterlife. They were discovered in 1974. Well, we saw a centuries-old castle, but to see these statues from over 2,200 years ago would really be impressive.


To be more authentic, Emilie should be holding a small crossbow. The weapons the warriors wielded deteriorated with time, as did the colorful paint they were covered it.

As we walked by the statues, I thought that they seem amazingly un-eroded (is there such a word?) and thought that some of the statues looked like they were carved with power tools. I didn't like being skeptical, but when David asked at the giftshop about the authenticity of the army, we were informed that these were indeed "replicas." Some originals are on tour in London. Talk about feeling duped! We paid a not-so-small amount of Euros to see replicas. Ugh! To make ourselves feel better, we're working on the assumption that some of the smaller, worn-looking statues on display of horses and carriages were authentic.

We made a quick tour of Weilburg-an-der-Lahn's Altstadt.

One older fellow watching us trek through the Altstadt couldn't resist asking us if we indeed had the entire family with us.


We can never resist a playground.


This strange-looking contraption spun around and also see-sawed up and down.
In spite of the white-knuckled drive through fog, a bout with motion sickness, the castle turning out to be closed and paying a significant amount of money to see 2,200 year-old statues that turned out to be replicas, this ended up being a great day.

Rothenberg ob-der-Tauber

A two-hour drive south brought us to Rothenberg. Along the way, we saw many huge modern windmills (wind turbines).

Rothenberg, Germany's best-preserved walled town, has been around for over 1,000 years and is a tourist's dream. Every time you turn around, there is a picturesque view.


Only when I was doing a bit of research did I find out that the Vulgarian village scenes from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang were filmed here, and this is the town you see from the glass elevator at the end of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. It was also the inspiration for the village in Disney's Pinnochio.



Rebecca admires the schneeballs (sort of like powdered doughnuts with a variety of coatings).

"Bye, bye, boys! Have fun storming the castle!" On second thought, exactly how did one storm a castle or walled town? This was a question Tim and David pondered as we walked along the outside of the wall.

We visited toy stores, Christmas stores and souvenir shops.



A striking merman fountain




Here is a clock with mechanical figures which act out the story of how the town was saved from destruction during the Thirty Years War. The invading General was prepared to destroy the town until he drank a cup of local wine. Impressed, he agreed to spare the town if one of the councilors could drink the entire 3-1/4 liter bumper in one mighty draught. Herr Nunsch succeeded and saved the town. Click on the photo to zoom in on the figures.