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.

Mainz

Tim, Rebecca and I visited the 2,000 year-old city of Mainz today. It was here, during the 15th century, that Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable type printing press. Time was short so we didn't get to see an original Gutenberg Bible as we would have liked, but rather contented ourselves with visiting the Mainz Cathedral and Altstadt (Old town).
This Renaissance fountain dates from 1526 and I couldn't resist taking a picture of the cat at the bottom.

The cathedral has a construction starting date of 975.


Below are some ghoulish pieces that caught our eye.



This skeleton helped guard one of the crypts that held, according to our guidebook, "bits of the 22 saints of Mainz."

Beautiful murals painted in the 19th century

In the Altstadt
You cannot escape the influence of America, even in the medieval section of a German city! The text in the center of the concert ad reads: Put your head on my shoulder, Diana, My Way, u.v.a.

Uncle Tim's Visit

My brother Tim was in Amsterdam for business this week, so he flew down to Frankfurt to pay us a visit. It was like Christmas morning when he opened a suitcase packed just for us. Inside were Poptarts, Fruit Roll-ups, Jif peanut butter, Goldfish, brown sugar, chocolate chips, pancake mix, American magazines and Reese's Peanut Butter cups, among other things.

We have found some imported generic mac-n-cheese here, but there's nothing like Kraft original.

Fasching Parade

We went to the nearby town of Hofheim this afternoon to see a Fasching Parade. We have heard that Karneval time "except for Munich's Oktoberfest, is the one time of year when many normally staid Germans loosen up and go a little crazy." There were marching bands, floats and lots of eating and drinking. The people on the floats threw bags of popcorn and candy to the crowd and if you were particularly lucky, they may have even poured you a glass of beer or gluhwein. We shouted the traditional Fasching greeting of "Helau!" to everyone.

We met with some Lufthansa friends from Liederbach who got all dressed up. Our kids didn't want to, but said they will next year.

We saw several Pippi Longstockings.

Note the multitasking with the Lederhosen-clad bass drum player also transporting the beer.

Helau!

This was our favorite band. Their music sounded like skeletons dancing on a windy, creepy night.

Kids pulling the beer wagon

Sailor with a belt of mini bottles of alcohol

A local farmer in search of a wife

More Fasching parade scenes