Calder Family Adventure
(Email - ros_shalde@yahoo.com)
The
best flight deal I could find was with a Canadian charter company, AirTransat.
Cheap, cramped, but fine, particularly as the sympathy factor that played on the cabin
crew scored me three open seats across for my "poor leg" (broke my leg seven
weeks prior to departure!). Certainly the family, and probably most of the other
passengers, could have gladly strangled me. (I've kept my walking cast for use on future
long haul flights.) I like Lufthansa too but they couldn't match the air fare nor could
their air/car package come close. The rental car was with AutoEurope (Avis) through a
broker in Toronto. Their very good price got even better at the point of booking with a
"book before date" discount and a further 10% off for something or other (?).
Rolf Meyr at Rosedale Travel in Toronto was a tremendous help with planning. A charming
Bavarian, I highly recommend him for any and all German, Austrian or Swiss travel. Car pick-up in Frankfurt was uneventful (that's
as pleasant as these things get) and the Ford Focus hatchback was a perfect fit for the
four of us and our gear. Ben had warned of the jet lag/knockout effect that may … er,
dampen the enthusiasm for any
Our
first night's stop was Sommerhausen (S of Wurzburg, the Ochsenfurt
While
there, we took our meals up the road in Eibelstadt, (Gasthof on the
I
could stay a week or more right there in Sommerhausen, just taking day trips, for example:
Wurzburg - We were the first, and only ones at the front door of
the Bishop's Residence this rainy morning and were able to wander room after room
Miltenberg - Didn't find this too wonderful actually. Seemed a bit
down at the heals, too many tourists crowding the river parks, restaurants, et al. The
Tauberbischofshiem - A bit overrated by the tourist guides I think
but nevertheless it should not be missed, if only for an afternoon stop.
So
leaving this tranquil wine region and on to the quintessential "Romantic"
village, Rothenburg. This is truly a well-oiled tourist machine but
We
stayed at Frau Hartmann's place in Creglingen (Klingener Str. 47,
97993 Creglingen - www.stammler-hartmann.hohenlohe.net). One of her rooms
accommodates four, and though a bit tight, it suited us very well for two nights.
Rothenburg town parking (outside the walls) isn't unreasonably priced
By
all means have a look at Feuchtwangen but keep going to Dinkelsbühl for your morning
coffee and pastry (or morning beer…God this country is
Say what you will about the Disney-ism of Neuschwanstein, but the interior, the exterior and particularly the location, man that Ludwig sure knew what a castle should be. Now, if your idea of the perfect castle is something like say, Bodium in Kent, then you're going to find this one a bit too "finished" for your tastes. But regardless it is a must see.
If
you manage it nowhere else, you must get yourself out of bed early to be the first in line
here. If you wait and arrive even as late as 10am you're looking at a 90 minute lineup. We
walked up to Mary's bridge for the view before lunch at the restaurant just at the foot of
the castle. Though people said it would be overpriced etc., we were more
I
agree with Ben, the Tegelberg is also a must see and like his group we all had a way too
much fun on the sommerrodelbahn. Once the farmer had driven the cows across the road and
back to home ("downtown" Schwangau), we headed back to our digs in Peiting, and
here's a bit of that story.
In
the castle area, after much searching (about 3:30pmby this time) we found two adequate
B&B doubles in Schwangau (available accommodation right in Füssen proved to be out of
the question) however these two places were a good bit down the street from one another
and we decided against it. We searched higher up the road and finally decided on a place
in Peiting for two nights. A long way but as it turned out, this suited us very well and
we were very glad to be staying away from the crowds down by the castles. There seemed to
be more than a few reasonable possibilities for overnights up that way, towards Schongau,
although you probably wouldn't need, or want to go that far if your interests lie in the
castle region. Steingaden would probably do.
Given
the crowds, traffic and the weather, we passed on the Zugspitze to the south. We dropped
into the Wieskirche late the next day and were very impressed with the setting and of
course this magnificent building. The painted architectural "perspectives" on
the exterior were also an interesting touch. As pilgrim/miracle sites go, this one seemed
to successfully avoid that carnival atmosphere that can be so obnoxious (I remember Fatima
to be particularly disgraceful for this). Upon arrival, Nancy approached the man to pay
for the parking. However when he saw my cast and crutch, he smiled softly and waved her
along with best wishes. I guess we have to consider free parking to be a minor miracle.
An
early morning visit to the Ettal monastery was an unexpected special time. The pouring
rain had subsided somewhat as we walked up the drive from the
That
spell was not long in being broken when we inflicted upon ourselves the traffic/road
construction/pouring rain nightmare that was Garmisch- Partenkirchen. That effort
culminated in a U-turn before actually seeing these town(s). I thought they couldn't
possibly be pretty enough to warrant continuing on in that moving parking lot. So on to
Mittenwald for what I had hoped would be a nice surprise for Lianne. She is a violin
student and I
Well
traffic in town wasn't much better than the approaches to GP and certainly the rain hadn't
let up. We finally got parked and schlepped over to the museum - not easy to find
actually, just along a cross street behind the church - only to find we had arrived 25
minutes before the two hour lunch closing. Well OK, we thought, we'd come this far, let's
at least do a quickie tour. But no, our man at the entrance would have none of it.
According to him one couldn't possibly see anything in such short a time and he refused
our admission (concerned to be promptly off to his lunch I assume). Our pleas (not made any more effective by my
probably unintelligible German) were met with a very unpleasant
It's
certainly no secret that Berchtesgadener Landes is magnificently beautiful - every turn in
the road (and there's more than a few of those) brings with it
Be
on the first boat of the day when the lake is glorious and St. Bartholoma still mostly
deserted. While we managed to get Nancy up
the Tegelberg, only
A
little shopping time in Berchtesgaden is not a hardship, evidenced by the fact that I was
having to make daily cash withdrawals at the bank. Same teller actually, and when I left
the second time she smiled and said "see you tomorrow". More on
"money" below. As Ben mentioned, the "other" site in Berchtesgaden is
the salt mine but it sounds as if he enjoyed this more than I did. I could have passed on
it all together but of course tastes are different. Our experience certainly wasn't
improved by arriving late in the day and having to hang around with literally hundreds of
people waiting for our tour number to come up. We finally ended up having to join a large
group of
Our
initial plans now had us working our way up "the middle" to Regensburg (I really
wanted to see the Cathedral) and on to Nurnberg. But the unanimous
We
settled in Bad Windsheim (B 470 from Nurnburg / B13 Wurzburg - Ansbach). A nice little
town and a charming hotel, the Hotel Gasthof Zum Storchen (Familie
Gotz, Weinmarkt6, 91438 Bad Windsheim, e-mail: hotel.storchen@t-online.de), which
apparently has been in the same family for literally centuries. Charming "current generation" owners
too. Willi had in years past lived and worked in Western Canada and we seemed to hit it
off the moment he learned we were from Toronto. Everyone at the Stork couldn't have
We
spent one day in Nürnberg which was enough for us. Of
course, most of the highlights can be seen on foot from the city centre together with
lunch in the square and afternoon coffee, etc. at the trendy café down the street away
from the square (sorry I don't know the street name… it runs perpendicular from, and
below, the church; across from the town building. This is a
Off
again towards Berlin, we stopped in Bamberg for sites and lunch. The city was beautiful
and so many cultural goings-on but we found it all a bit too much, too much traffic,
awkward to navigate in-city, limited parking, and the crowds!!. We moved on rather quickly
after lunch.
We
now had a decision to make: should we take the time for Weimar and more particularly
Buchenwald? Jenny had visited the WWII concentration camp near Gdansk, Poland the year
before on her student exchange. She and I had had a quiet discussion about her visit there
some time before which included her volunteering that at one point she suddenly realized
that she had been walking along openly crying. She said if we wanted to see Buchenwald,
fine, but she'd wait in the car. I'm not sure why I thought I wanted to go, nor did Nancy
or Lianne and in the end, without getting into it any further here, we bypassed it.
Instead we finished off our country sight seeing with a morning stop in Naumburg (west off
the A 9, north of the A 4 junction). I had heard that the Cathedral was worth a visit and
man was that certainly true, well worth the short detour. These are very old stones;
stroll slowly through building and let the antiquity permeate your pores. Afterwards come
back to the modern world with coffee and "sweets" at the café at the bottom of
Well, after two weeks on the road we were clearly done and more than ready for phase II, our visit with Jenny's other "parents" in Berlin.
The
drive up to Berlin was not untypical to other big city highway approaches except for the
level of new road (re)construction. It was of course a foretaste of the city that has
recently been described as one big construction site.
At the time of our visit in August, while a tremendous amount of building had been
completed in the city centre, it was still very much a city under construction. The
urgency is palatable with all parties racing towards finalization of the federal seat and
taking best advantage of the concessions and dispensations still available to the builders
(et al) while the timetable (and politics) still allows. It is difficult to adequately
describe the scale and scope of the massive effort underway here. An observation: from the
vantage point of the S bahn near the Hackescher Markt station, looking into one of the
three major construction sites, without turning my head I counted 31 huge, working
construction cranes.
The friends we stayed with, live in the quiet southeast suburb of Zehlendorf. When we
first got into the city, though extremely excited, we could feel the tension of the
Autobahn, and frankly all the unwitting demands of the last two weeks on the road, fall
away as we drove along Onkel-Toms Str. through the Grunewald. When we found the house, it
was a wonderful first meeting for us and a warm return welcome for Jenny. Esther and
Karl-Heinz (aka Carlos. He picked that up when they were living in Ecuador a few years
ago), with children Julia, Isabella, and Jacob, live in one of a collection of Bauhaus
design, pastel painted, three story townhouses a few streets over from the
Onkel-Toms-Hutte U Bahn station. With few, if any, available garages, “legal”
street parking is a matter of lucky timing, the alternative not unusually being two wheels
up on any bit of sidewalk that you can squeeze onto. After settling in and having a bit of
a visit – a nice sit down and chat with a homemade schnapps or two, a habit the
adults quickly slipped into – we were taken on a whirlwind driving tour of Berlin. We
didn’t remember a fraction of what we saw this first time around but it was certainly
exciting and Esther was so enthusiastic to show us her city. Man, a personal tour guide is
sooooo wonderful! The language issue for us was also smoothed over of course and I’m
quite sure in more than a few cases, Esther’s Berliner accent was all the more
beneficial.
The
typical morning ritual in the house is a 6:30am swim in Krumme Lake, just down the road.
No swimsuits needed here, just you and the bracing water, slow strokes through the rising
mist, out to the buoy and back. A day couldn’t start any better. Karl is a
cancer research scientist for one of the big German pharmaceutical companies. He rides his
bicycle to the U Bahn – bikes are commonly taken on the transit – and again from
his destination station, the final fifteen minutes to his work. Esther is a lawyer with
her practice very conveniently located on the ground floor of the house next door. She
could often arrange her “office” to meet us for a lunch and/or dinner at home or
in the city, and occasionally she joined us for a bit of sightseeing.
With such a comfortable home base and the excellent public transit available, Karl and
Esther off to work and a transit day ticket bought at the U Bahn station down the road, we
would head for the city centre and begin our daily sightseeing plan. Taking in a little
bit each day, here are some of our highlights:
- Berlin Cathedral (the Dom) and a late afternoon organ recital on the great Sauer organ.
Climb to the top of the dome if you’ve got the “puff” for it (my walking
cast didn’t make it any easier) – quite a few stairs – but I thought the
view was worth it. By the time I got to the top I was certainly glad to get outside and
cool off.
- An exhibition of works by Otto Dix followed by shopping (ah…my own Madonnas of the Aisles, Our Ladies of Perpetual Shopping) on the Ku’Damm (Kurfurstendamm) and KaDeWa department store on Tauentzienstrasse at Wittenbergplatz
- The William Memorial Church, or what is left of it, actually a very impressive monument. Particularly interesting was the illustrated comparison with the destruction of Coventry Cathedral. Followed by - did I mention? - more shopping on the Ku’damm.
- Charlottenburg Palace, the park, lake, and galleries; Particularly enjoyed the Galerie der Romantik but all of it was wonderful. What a painstaking restoration this must have been. This could be a full day excursion enjoying the park (the Schlossgarten) for a picnic lunch and don’t miss the nearby KPM porcelain museum as well.
-
You should take a leisurely tour boat ride on the Spree. We picked one up just at the
bridge beside the Dom; pickup/drop off times are clearly posted (find the one that fits
your schedule), just pay the captain when you board. From this vantage point, you get
another perspective of all the construction in progress here and also a brief view of some
of the remaining “Wall”. Souvenir pieces of the former Wall are for sale
everywhere in Berlin, in appropriate plastic display stands no less. In order to
accommodate all this “souvenirs”, I figure the Wall must have extended from the
North Sea to the Med. After your boat ride, depending what time of day it is, walk south
along the Spree’s eastern embankment and you will discover a choice of
restaurants/cafes in delightful little squares, where you can take a little break and have
a sit-down.
- Television tower (fernsehturm or “needle”). Long lines here, only so many
people are allowed up at any given time. A good thing actually, so you can properly and
comfortably enjoy the view from the top. This tower is 230m, quite impressive and as you
would expect, it affords an unbeatable view of Berlin. We weren’t as
“wowed” as the next person, we’re a bit jaded having the CN Tower back at
home. For the “needle” from downtown, we just took the S Bahn to Alexanderplatz
station rather than the bus as was first suggested to us.
- Also nearby the needle, walk back toward the mitte and take in the World Time Clock on the Alexanderplatz and the Red Town Hall. A nice walk is along the Unter den Linden from the Brandenburg Gate back to Lustgarten, across the Schlossbrucke to Marx-Engels-Platz and the Dom.
- The oft depicted “Berlin” sculpture in Tauentzienstrasse is quite something and is all the more impressive when viewed as a frame for the Memorial Spire.
One
disappointing feature of Berlin is the amount of graffiti. Similar to, but I think
exceeding the “self-expression” evident in Paris, London, New York, etc., it is
everywhere! In some cases it amazed us as to how someone actually managed to get up to
where the paint cans were employed.
The only driving I did was a day trip down to Potsdam to take in the Sanssouci palace and
parks. Driving-in, presumably, from the east, park for free in the smaller parking lot
closest to Schopenhauerstrasse (not the first big one). Both of these lots are just dirt
fields; they don’t really look like parking lots at all but don’t be shy. Walk
along the Maulbeerallee Garten from Schopenhauerstrasse to Bildergalerie, to the Schloss
Sanssouci, linger on the terraces and then continue on to the Orangerie, come back through
the Sizlianischer Garten with the marble statuary, the meadows, copses, and various garden
terraces. This is a huge park and if you intend to do all the sites on foot, you better
have your Wheaties in the morning … and take a lunch. We just drove by the Neue
Palais but it should really be seen as well as the Chinesisches Teehaus.
Berlin is not known for its culinary delights. Fortunately there are wonderful choices outside of the usual German cuisine (don’t get Karl started on what constitutes “typical German food”… actually it’s wise not to get Karl started on many subjects). A small brew pub effectively “across the street” from Schloss Charlotteberg, was not bad I thought, though to begin with, Karl was not too keen on going in. He felt it had gotten too touristy for his tastes since being written up in various guide books. So don’t eat German: taste experiences from around the world are easily available, from the commonplace to the exotic. For example, we enjoyed an excellent little Italian restaurant, Angelinos I think it was, just across the parkette from the Mexikoplatz S Bahn station. Also, very late one afternoon, having gone in various directions for the day, both families all met up for a later supper at the very funky Mexican restaurant, Kreuzberg way I think but I can’t remember now for sure: terrific food and lots of fun. One night, with “the young people” variously off to house parties or cafes, the four adults drove into Kreuzberg for a Turkish dinner and a subsequent “café walk” around the district. Frankly the area did not look very safe but Karl insisted that we would be fine with nothing to worry about except that perhaps the car would be there when we get back to where we left it.
I
recall another very pleasant patio restaurant near Krumme Lake which we were told is quite
popular in the evening with a … er, “lively” younger crowd, apparently
anxious to see and be seen. As you can tell, I didn’t take a lot of care in
noting the names or location of these places – I didn’t plan on writing a travel
guide after all – but if any one wants to know for sure, I can e-mail Esther or Julia
for details. We did eat at “home” as well of course and while Esther and
Karl were at work we enjoyed doing little bits of grocery shopping at the store in
Onkel-Toms-Hutte U Bahn station. And by the way, for a fast bite, very tasty Doners are
available only a few store fronts away (again, right in the U Bahn station).
As with food, similarly with drinks; no local delicacies to get too excited about really.
Berliner Weisse mit Schuss … Rot, seemed to be the girls drink of choice when we were
out, Nancy seemed to enjoy the Weisse Bier and while no beer in Berlin is very noteworthy
I usually managed with a Berliner Kindl product.
Too quickly our visit in Berlin was over and we packed up for our return flight home. We
were flying out of Schonefeld airport and with Esther’s suggestion, I resisted my
first inclination to follow the intercity freeways back through the city centre and then
down to Schonefeld. Instead, we followed the Zehlendorf Teltower Damm. Reaching
Teltow, we continued east on Mahlower S. and followed it without any traffic to speak of,
all the way to the Avis drop off. There’s a number of gas stations on this road very
close to the airport where you can easily fill your tank before turning in the rental car.
Notes/Observations:
Accommodations:
- Ben warned me not to travel Germany in August but for a variety of reasons this time was
dictated to us. I was of course competing
Food:
- We were very impressed with the food everywhere we went. In terms of quality, quantity
and value, it was all wonderful. I was ashamed to imagine
Money:
- The US dollar of course has a lot more punch than the CDN dollar so this simple
comparative conclusion may not be as meaningful for you, but:….Consider that whatever
you do with $20 bills at home you will do with $50 bills in Germany. It seemed that, with
a family of four on tour, for any/ everything you do, ….. it's a $50 bill. Lunch?
…. a $50 bill. Guided tour?…. $50 bill. The only time this seemed to change was
at the evening meal … which
Driving:
- I am freely willing to admit that, in general, the roads and signage in Germany are, in
a word, outstanding. That said, I nevertheless had an enormously frustrating time
navigating from point to point: I will try to explain:
-
Though I had a number of maps, of various scale, no one map would give me what I needed
for any one day's trip. Some places/roads were recorded on one, but not on another. - We would often follow signs clearly showing the
way to, say … Point A, Point B and Point C. Very close to our destination, in fact
invariably at the very last strategic moment, the signs stopped recording Points A, B, C
(apparently all of them having dropped off the face of the earth) and now indicated Points
F, M and P (?!) Places completely unheard of up to now, all multi-multi-syllable and none
of them marked on any map in my possession. I
heard a lot of fuss about high spend Autobahn driving and of course each driver knows (or
quickly learns) what they are comfortable with, but I found this to be the most civilized
driving I have ever done. In three weeks I never once experienced anything less than
courteous and competent driving (where the hell were you driving?, you ask) and this
throughout the entire country. I did witness a less than courteous and very certainly less
than competent parking incident in the Avis drop-off area but clearly from her accent the
driver was from New York. I consistently saw 80 km limits respected, 130 km limits
respected, traffic signs of all sorts respected, left hand passing lanes left (or made)
clear as necessary - God everybody follows the rules - none of this are features of
Ontario driving. Why we've even started to give up stopping at red lights and stop signs
here in Toronto! On the major roads in Germany, I could make a steady 160-170 km with
little strain or concern. For short
stretches, 200-210 km was possible when traffic volumes allowed. Sadly, we North
Americans, generally, are probably just not mature enough to cope with the kind of freedom
this represents. I did not drive in Berlin - same as any other big city traffic by the
look of it - as there was no need or sense to do so. We stayed in a southeastern suburb
and found public transit to be wonderful. We used the U bahn or S bahn for all our city
travel.
Sites/Restoration:
- We had to keep reminding ourselves that with very few exceptions (ie. Rothenburg) most
of Germany was flattened by the end
People:
- National reputations are funny things. Everyone's
got a story of some sort, clearly illustrating what in their minds is unmistakable,
irrefutable evidence of something or other. The Germans are not without such reputations.
Our experience with very nearly everyone we came into contact with was an absolute joy. Coming from, as I understand it, one of the
more diverse cities in the world (Toronto), I found the experience of (essentially) one
culture, one history, one set of values, to be truly and thoroughly refreshing. Obviously
I absolutely fell in love with both the place and the people.
