Lenox 2000 - The Saga Continues ....
Saturday, 9/16/00
I wake at 7:15...too early for breakfast. Dressed,
I go downstairs and walk to the ATM at the bank across the street. I am still having difficulty with my ATM card,
and will have a long talk with my banker when I return home. If I cannot withdraw money tonight, I will have to
take a cash advance on a credit card. GRRRRRRR. Before I left home, I called my credit card companies and informed
them that I would be in Germany. This way they will not decline my purchases. I also learned that Visa adds a 2%
surcharge on all foreign transactions, and that Mastercard does not. I'll use Mastercard as often as possible.
At 8:00AM I wake Cornelius and we go to breakfast. I pay for both rooms with my Mastercard and borrow cash from
Cornelius. We get in the car and head West for Meisenheim, a walled town with some quaint old half-timbered homes.
We walk around for about 1/2 an hour and continue our journey to Limbach, where there is a slate mine containing
fossils. After a brief tour of the mine and a look at the museum, we head back out and stop in Herrstein, another
medieval village with half-timbered houses.
Lunch there consists of goulaschsuppe for me,
and the "house platter" for Cornelius, which was a combination of things I couldn't describe and certainly
wouldn't eat! It starts to rain and this day begins to look dreary. We had planned on going to Idar-Oberstein,
where there are gem museums, but this is not a must see for me, and I have had enough museums for the day. Of course,
being the gem capitol of Germany, Idar-Oberstein could possibly have been a 2 day stop for my wife, but this is
one time I'm glad she's not on this trip.
Cornelius suggests that we drive down along the Mosel River (in a northerly direction) and then upstream along
the Rhine (southeast), but as it was getting late, we searched for a zimmer in Bernkastel-Kues, a decent sized
village on the Mosel.
The hillsides here are covered with grapevines, and the photo, taken in the rain, does not do justice to the beauty of the region. The first several places we stopped at had no rooms, or at least, if they did, they didn't want to part with 2 rooms for 2 people. Hotel rooms in Germany are priced per person, so why put one person in a double when it's possible to get twice as much revenue from the next guest that shows up? At the 5th place we stop, which was a block off the main street, we find a willing zimmer, and we get two rooms for 55-DM each, about $25.00. The two rooms share a balcony that looks up at the hillside across the road which has acres and acres of vines, a truly beautiful vista. Our host tells us that he also owns a vineyard and gives us a bottle of wine to try. Cornelius knows immediately that it is not for me, as it is very dry, and I prefer a sweeter wine. After a brief nap, we go to dinner in the rain. There are two restaurants to choose from in this neighborhood, which is actually 3/4 of a mile from the center of Bernkastel-Kues, a pizzeria and a traditional German restaurant. Pizza I can have any time, so we go for German. The restaurant is brightly lit, and packed! We locate the only unoccupied table and sit down. Our waitress brings us menus, and Cornelius tells me he does not have high hopes for the food. There are "Oktoberfest" banners
and signs throughout the place, and he doesn't feel that the place is decorated nicely. We look over the menu and Cornelius spies a dish on the list of daily specials, "Maultaschen mit Pfifferlingen und Speckrahmsauce." He tells me that this is a regional dish from the area made of pasta filled with a mixture of meat, like ravioli. Pfifferlingen are wild mushrooms and speckrahmsauce is a cream sauce with bacon. The mushrooms are a dealbreaker for me, so I peruse the menu and find three types of schnitzel. One had mushrooms, one had paprika, and the third had something else that didn't appeal to me, so much to Cornelius' bemusement, I order the maultaschen, same as he.
"My wife would be shocked," I tell him. The waitress brought our plates out, and after one glance, I think I may be in trouble. There were two raviolis on each plate, smothered in what looked like button mushrooms with stems, and covered in a pinkish-yellow sauce. I tell Cornelius that I might give him all of my mushrooms, and he insists that I at least try ONE! I do. And I don't die. Then I cut open the maultaschen and take a bite. It was to die for...absolutely spectacular. I eat everything on my plate and wished I had bread to sop up the little remaining sauce. For desert, apfelstudel mit eis, (apple strudel with vanilla ice cream), also very good. We are both pleased with dinner and will not forget this one for a long time. We return to the zimmer and study maps for a few minutes. The weather forecast calls for rain tomorrow, but clearing on Monday. I'll settle for that, and hope that it does clear.
Sunday, 9/17/00
Awake to an overcast sky. The zimmer is easily
forgettable, so I promptly forget about it. We drive from Bernkastel-Kues downstream along the Mosel in a northerly
direction. The valley is rather narrow and the hillsides climb steeply, most of them covered with vines. As we
have a long day ahead, we do not stop at any of the villages. After a while, they begin to look the same. From
Bernkastel-Kues to Cochem, the bicycle path lies mostly between the roadway and the river, and with few exceptions,
it looks like a very gradual downhill ride. achievable with one overnight stay along the route. Perhaps I will
do this on a future trip.
After Cochem, the scenery is not as pretty. We reach Koblenz, the confluence of the Mosel and the Rhine, and turn
to the southeast and drive upstream on the West bank of the Rhine almost to Mainz. Just before Mainz we turn off
onto the autobahn, and by 2PM we are on our way South to the Schwarzwald, aka, the Black Forest. We stop for gas
at about 3:30 and Cornelius has a wurst while I satisfy myself with a pretzel. So that we can avoid the congestion
of Freiburg, we jump off the autobahn near Offenburg and take the scenic drive through Triberg, home of the "Haus
of 1000 Clocks." Triberg is the cuckoo clock capital of the world, and is a good sized village and will perhaps
be worth a stop later. Continuing through the village, and passing through Furtwangen, we come to the intersection
with the Urach turnoff. We spot the Kalte Herbege, the guesthouse/restaurant where we know that Fadoinka (Valerie),
and others, are staying. We stop to see if they have arrived yet, but are told that "all the Americans will
come tomorrow."
I should explain the excitement about this part of the trip. In doing research for this trip and my previous trip
of 1 1/2 years ago, I became a "regular" on the "Germany Bulletin Board" on AOL. I have gotten
to know, in a virtual manner, many other regulars. Their postings have given me many helpful tips on things to
do, and things not to do. Over the many months that we have all gotten to know one another, we have become a rather
close group. Now, this may be difficult for an outsider to comprehend, but one of the regulars, by the screen name
BavariaBen, created a website dedicated to travels in Germany. He invited all of the regulars to submit a trip
report and become a member of Ben's "stammtisch," which is the table of regulars found in every bar in
Germany. He posted the trip report of my family vacation in June '99, replete with photos and music, on his website,
and I was officially inducted into the stammtisch. Now, one day in early 2000, as I was contemplating a return
trip to Germany, sometime in the Spring, by my lonesome, I received an invitation from Ben. He had let all the
stammtisch members know that he would be traveling to Urach, Germany, and having dinner at Zum Sternen on September
19, and anyone who was interested could join him for dinner. So, I thought this might be interesting, and I decided
to postpone my trip from Spring to Autumn.
Well, the remarkable part of this story is that I wasn't the only person to accept Ben's offer. There were others
making the journey as well, as you will learn by reading the narrative that follows.
We depart Kalte Herbege and 5 minutes later, we pull up to the front of Zum Sternen, the soon to be world renouned
landmark in Urach, Germany (population 400.) As Cornelius and I walk in the door, we notice to the right a bunch
of unruly Americans sitting at the table nearest to the bar, and I immediately identify them as stammtisch members.
Toooobah (Jim) is impossible to miss,
with his beard as unique as the Eiffel Tower. Then Oldgybe (Lump) turns around, and I swear that if he were wearing a Santa hat,
I'd sit in his lap.
After some quick introductions, Cornelius and I find chairs and join the group, which now totals 9 people. After 15 minutes, we are invited by the owners, Tina and Rudi Barmann, to move to a larger table which would accommodate our party if more arrived. There is already a large party of 18 or so in this other room,
and periodically the men would break out into song with harmonies reminicent of a barber shop quartet. They are quite good, and we always reward their efforts with a round of applause.
