Friday, July 28, 2006
JULY8th THROUGH JULY15th, GERMANY
Actually on July 7th which was a Friday, we departed England. We spent the day doing chores and packing. Mary went to the post office to mail some things which we had bought for the kids and found out it would cost more to mail them that we paid for them... We didn’t! We had bought a voltage convert and it died. We returned it and got another one; it died after one day. The people at our hotel kept it and will mail it back and try to get us a refund.
We have a reservation on the Chunnel Train. It is the Eurostar train which runs from to London to Paris under the English Channel. I’m not sure how far the tunnel runs under-water, but it is an experience to go through it. We got into Paris about 12:30AM and thought that we could sit and take a nap before we left at 6:30 the next morning. The station closed at 1:30AM and did not re-open until 4:00 AM. Security made us leave and we had three hours on the street. We went across the street to a little café which was open and we spent the time at a table on the side walk. We saw some interesting folks. There were several travelers like us who were waiting there.
When the station opened and I got to talk to information person I found out that we had to change to another station in Paris for the train going to Munich, Germany. It was a comedy of errors, but after the dust settled we had missed our connection and had to wait four hours for the next train. We were late for our check-in because of that. We took a cab from the train station to our hotel and got there about 9:30 tired and hungry.
We saw some beautiful country. The area between Paris and Strasbourg, France is big farms with lots of wheat fields and some corn. It was a little like Eastern Kansas. We entered Germany at Strasbourg and went through Baden Baden, Heidelberg, Manheim and Stuttgart to get to Munich.
We then changed to a local train and went about an hour north to our destination in Garmisch. There was a biker’s convention going on. Mary said that it was maybe the European version of Sturgis.
One of the bikers told us about a place within walking distance where we could still get some supper. We walked down there and it was the most wonderful place that we ate in Germany. It was named Grill Rustico. The name was very appropriate. It was old Europe with the low ceilings and big beams. It had a big outside eating area which was right on the bank of a tumbling stream. We had the same lady serving us each time we ate there. I think we ate four meals there, including our Wedding Anniversary celebration.
The lady was very patient with us. She spoke good English and didn’t mind recommending the German dishes to us. She even grinned and went along with taking pictures of us. She had a butterfly tattooed on the back of her shoulder. I think that she even let Mary have a picture of her tattoo.
We could walk about a hundred yards from our hotel and catch a bus which took us to the train station in about fifteen minutes.
This gave us a chance to go where we wanted to go very easily. We rested on Sunday and did the local community on Monday. In the afternoon we rode the train down to Munich and found a store where we were told that we could buy another converter for our electrical appliances. We found it and it works well and does not burn out.
We walked a large section of Old Town Munich which is closed to traffic; it is a large walking shopping and restaurant area. We must have walked several miles. It was a very pleasant afternoon.
Tuesday we went back to Munich and took a city tour on an open topped bus. Munich is an Old city with a lot of history preserved, but a lot of it has also been modernized. There is some outstanding old Architecture mixed in with the new. Probably the most important historical building we saw was the site of the signing of the compact in which England, France and the US agreed not to interfere if Hitler attacked Poland.
We were very tired from our busy couple of weeks, so we decided to take Wednesday and Thursday off and rest. About all we did was going out to an internet café and do some computer stuff. We had a great pool and Sauna there and we enjoyed those. On Friday we departed for Sweden. We learned from our first trip so we had reservations for each leg of the journey with sleeping accommodations for Friday night. We also had a rental car reserved because we knew that we were going to a remote area in Sweden.
Actually on July 7th which was a Friday, we departed England. We spent the day doing chores and packing. Mary went to the post office to mail some things which we had bought for the kids and found out it would cost more to mail them that we paid for them... We didn’t! We had bought a voltage convert and it died. We returned it and got another one; it died after one day. The people at our hotel kept it and will mail it back and try to get us a refund.
We have a reservation on the Chunnel Train. It is the Eurostar train which runs from to London to Paris under the English Channel. I’m not sure how far the tunnel runs under-water, but it is an experience to go through it. We got into Paris about 12:30AM and thought that we could sit and take a nap before we left at 6:30 the next morning. The station closed at 1:30AM and did not re-open until 4:00 AM. Security made us leave and we had three hours on the street. We went across the street to a little café which was open and we spent the time at a table on the side walk. We saw some interesting folks. There were several travelers like us who were waiting there.
When the station opened and I got to talk to information person I found out that we had to change to another station in Paris for the train going to Munich, Germany. It was a comedy of errors, but after the dust settled we had missed our connection and had to wait four hours for the next train. We were late for our check-in because of that. We took a cab from the train station to our hotel and got there about 9:30 tired and hungry.
We saw some beautiful country. The area between Paris and Strasbourg, France is big farms with lots of wheat fields and some corn. It was a little like Eastern Kansas. We entered Germany at Strasbourg and went through Baden Baden, Heidelberg, Manheim and Stuttgart to get to Munich.
We then changed to a local train and went about an hour north to our destination in Garmisch. There was a biker’s convention going on. Mary said that it was maybe the European version of Sturgis.
One of the bikers told us about a place within walking distance where we could still get some supper. We walked down there and it was the most wonderful place that we ate in Germany. It was named Grill Rustico. The name was very appropriate. It was old Europe with the low ceilings and big beams. It had a big outside eating area which was right on the bank of a tumbling stream. We had the same lady serving us each time we ate there. I think we ate four meals there, including our Wedding Anniversary celebration.
The lady was very patient with us. She spoke good English and didn’t mind recommending the German dishes to us. She even grinned and went along with taking pictures of us. She had a butterfly tattooed on the back of her shoulder. I think that she even let Mary have a picture of her tattoo.
We could walk about a hundred yards from our hotel and catch a bus which took us to the train station in about fifteen minutes.
This gave us a chance to go where we wanted to go very easily. We rested on Sunday and did the local community on Monday. In the afternoon we rode the train down to Munich and found a store where we were told that we could buy another converter for our electrical appliances. We found it and it works well and does not burn out.
We walked a large section of Old Town Munich which is closed to traffic; it is a large walking shopping and restaurant area. We must have walked several miles. It was a very pleasant afternoon.
Tuesday we went back to Munich and took a city tour on an open topped bus. Munich is an Old city with a lot of history preserved, but a lot of it has also been modernized. There is some outstanding old Architecture mixed in with the new. Probably the most important historical building we saw was the site of the signing of the compact in which England, France and the US agreed not to interfere if Hitler attacked Poland.
We were very tired from our busy couple of weeks, so we decided to take Wednesday and Thursday off and rest. About all we did was going out to an internet café and do some computer stuff. We had a great pool and Sauna there and we enjoyed those. On Friday we departed for Sweden. We learned from our first trip so we had reservations for each leg of the journey with sleeping accommodations for Friday night. We also had a rental car reserved because we knew that we were going to a remote area in Sweden.
