Germany Day 60 - Saturday, March 7 - 17 days to go

Had a nice breakfast in the 4 star restaurant. German breakfast are usually a buffet with cold-cuts, cheese, and sausage (basically hot dogs). This was a bit fancier with actual scrambled eggs. Yum!

Next I finished my tour of the castle using up a bunch more electronic film. Plan is to try to create panoramas when I get back home.

Next up: drive to Baden-Baden for a spa/super sauna. Originally I was going to find a hotel while at Berg Hornberg, but there was no Internet access so I was winging it this time.

First technique to find a hotel I tried was to find a hot-spot and use my laptop. But it turned out to be too big and heavy to drag in, but I did find a hot-spot at on of the Autobahn's service centers. While that did work, I didn't manage to pick out a hotel before I got to Baden-Baden.

Got to Baden-Baden broke (Berg Hornberg was expensive) so first stop was the Geld Automat (ATM). Stock up on cash, next I had to find the spa - the one I wanted was the more traditional Friedrichsbad. This is a 17 step 3 hour process, nude of course, with only the last few steps being mixed.

Got there just before lunch and checked to see if you need reservations (you don't). Then I had to find someplace for lunch. A very quaint looking place was serving "original Lowenbrau" beer. Well, it turned out to be The Lowenbrau - and was very nice. Ran out of film here again, darn. (The meal was the last picture on the memory stick.)

Here they keep up Bayern (Bavaria) traditions - the waiters were in lederhosen and the waitresses in traditional Bayern dresses. Very nice.

The Lowenbrau

My Meal

The Germans have definitely cut way back on smoking. You basically can't smoke much of anywheres indoors. At the Lowenbrau I plopped down at the first place I could find which was nice and bright and an enclosed outdoor area. It also turned out to be the smoking section. This did not bother me because none of the Germans were smoking! (There were only about three other groups at the time.)

Refreshed with lunch, off to the spa. Locker rooms in Germany are very nice. You put your entrance card in the locker to remove your locker key (you need the entrance card to get out). The key has a bracelet you tie around your wrist - very effective considering you have no pockets to put anything!

Friedrichsbad

The attendants make sure you have your towel/sheet and start you off with the first stage - a five minute shower with a shower head as big as a basketball. All clean, next two stages are quite time lying down in hot and really hot sauna rooms. A half-hour or so later you are off to the next stage...

Which is a bath/massage. You lie down on your sheet and this dude scrubs you with a brush and then lathers you up and massages with the soap. Very nice once you get past the dude in the white outfit doing all this. Before and after you shower - right in front of the attendants. Leave your modesty at the door. (It's weird showering with clothed fellas right there, but OK, it's their job.)

Next a couple of steam rooms (hot and really hot) and then, well, I forgot all the stages. Finally, you wind up in a luke warm pool where the girls catch up, then a warmer pool about 2 feet deep you soak in, then a really cool pool I spent about 5 minutes in. That final pool is in a huge circular room with an ornate ceiling and round skylight.

Then back to same sex for the exit spa steps - I don't exactly remember, but there was one really COLD pool at the end I only got my feet into. Then there is the cream step where you put lotion on yourself, then off to the sleep room. They lay out a sheet, you lay down, and then they wrap you up snugly. After all that, you can't help but to doze off. The final stage was a reading room which I skipped being as I can't read (German).

Exiting Friedrichsbad, the large modern pool building next door had some excitement - the fire trucks came screaming up. After a couple of minutes of organization, they took in a basket (well, I don't really know what to call it) of hose - so it appears there was a real fire. I didn't see anyone running out and they were still letting folks in, so I'm thinking maybe a grease fire in the kitchen. So after deciding there was not much to watch here, I left.

At the end of all of this it's about 4pm so I decide that since my friend Chris couldn't meet me here to go to the Porsche museum (he's a Porsche lover), I'd just have to go for him. So I hot footed it over to Stuttgart (about an hours drive) and started looking for a hotel.

I didn't have much luck with finding a hot-spot, so I switched tactics. The technique to find a hotel was to use the nav system in the car to find the museum, then ask it for nearby hotels. Could have worked better (first one was out of business), but eventually I was at a Holiday Inn.

Germany is a "green" country - at the Holiday Inn the roof over the reception area was covered in grass. I also some of the Mercedes buildings with the same feature. I don't recall ever seeing that in the US. I meant to take a picture, but it was dusk and I remember the next day - five miles down the road. :-(

Being tired by this time, I ate at the hotel and crashed for the night. Only interesting thing here was that the Weißbier at the hotel sorta tasted like banana to me. Kinda interesting.

Germany Day 59 - Friday, March 6 - 18 days to go

German hotels generally offer a Frühstück or breakfast usually a buffet. Some places it's free, but many places its extra. At the Ramada it was over 10 euro extra - way too much considering I don't usually eat breakfast. But if you don't pay, no coffee. Here it was 5 euro for breakfast and since the first thing we do at the office is get coffee, I skipped it. However, today being a travel day, I decided to get breakfast.

So I checked out of the hotel and walked over to the same place I closed out the night before. Of course, the Polish girl was long gone. I ordered the "sport breakfast" which I expected to be a little something. It was a bunch. A bowl of something sorta like granola with little chocolate chips and yogurt instead of milk. Interesting. Then not one, but two whole wheat bagels perfectly heated. Yum! They don't serve the bagels with cream cheese - the served it with honey!! Double yum. And Swiss cheese on the side just to make sure you know you are in Germany. I made the mistake of ordering the large coffee which came in something that could have been a reasonable soup bowl - oh, well, I definitely won't fall asleep on the road!

Drove from Weiden to Berg Hornberg in Neckarzemmern. My grandmother's name was Hornberg so this is the family castle. Its up an incredibly small (one-lane) road just hanging off a set of cliffs going straight up upon which they grow wine.

When I arrived, I went into the first floor under the hotel which turned out to be a combination wine shop and museum. From what I can tell, the name Hornberg came from before anyone can remember because no one of that name was ever in the castle.

Anyway, after the impromptu wine tasting (it is the family wine after all), I wound up with six bottles. Then I checked in upstairs - very quaint (meaning small). My room was basically just off the lobby about 6 feet from the reception desk.

Room was nice enough with a deck with a beautiful view of the wood behind the castle. No time to linger - time to explore. Back to the wine shop and a ticket and off to the berg. It's heyday was somewhere around 1600, so its a bit worse for the where but it is really big with a high tower. I wound up using up the entire memory card in my camera before going up the tower! That was a first for me.

Dinner time is at the castle restaurant with is a four star affair. When I walked in it was mainly empty. Hotel guests get automatic reservations and actually greeted me by name!! There were only two couples besides myself of hotel guests. The rest were 10-15 person groups from the town celebrating - and all dressed up (unlike the hotel guests).

Of course the menu being all in German with really long descriptions was indecipherable by me. So they bring me an English menu. The stuff was so fancy, I couldn't figure out the English menu either! Anyway, it was great eating in such a swank restaurant and the food was fabulous.

Germany Day 58 - Thrusday, March 5 - 19 days to go

I have enough hours to take Friday off - which I plan to do to visit the "family" castle, the Berg Hornberg.

Some of internet connections used out here are quite slow. I had to transfer 300meg - I managed to get my laundry done while waiting for the transfer to complete. After I got the latest delivery done, I was off for the day and done with my work at Grafenvier.

It was rainy tonight, so I went to the local place where they have American decorations and an American menu. Hot dogs, hamburgers, nachos. Of course, its all done to German tastes so it's really a bit different. One nice feature is that it's fairly empty. Cool place really. Very narrow with three levels up. Bathrooms (WC or toilette) on the top level.

After dinner the bar tender was cleaning up and I was so bored I walked over to the bar and started to chat with her. She was originally from Poland, but grew up in Germany. Now she wants to study business.

We also discussed the different styles between Europe and America. I said the Europeans have a better since of style than the Americans. For example, each type of beer is served in a particular glass. (Germans have many different types of beers and they know what they all mean. And then you have all the different brands with each brand serving something like a 100km radius. So there is lots of different beer to try.) She said the claim is the glass shape makes the beer taste better but she doesn't believe it and it's harder on the bar tender.

Well, anyway, we wound up chatting (I kept drinking) until closing time and she threw me and the one other customer out. (Well, she didn't actually throw me out. She put her purse on the counter and I took the hint.) This is only the third time in my life I staid at a bar to closing!! (Closing in this case was 11pm, so I'm sure serious bar-hops would not count this particular closing...)

Then I stumbled back to the room and being still bored tried to call friends in the States, but had no takers. ;-( So, off to bed...

Germany Day 57 - Wednesday, March 4 - 20 days to go

So the plan is to work through the morning of March 24th. Ann and I will then take an afternoon train from Mannheim direct to Paris. On the 27th, Ann and I will take a direct train from Paris to Frankfurt and fly home on the 28th. I have to fly from Frankfurt because that's where the original ticket was from and it would cost the company too much money ($3,600) to change it at this point.

So, only three "short" weeks to go, then vacation and home!!

Spent a lot of time figuring out the train stuff. RailEurope had an moderately easy to use site, but wound up being about double what I paid when I went directly to the German train website. What amazes me, is that I didn't find a route map on either site and that seems like the most obvious thing you need for planning a train trip. Anyway, after pondering enough I did figure out how to make the trip without changing trains.

Still, driving would have been a cheaper. But it's over a 5 hour drive and a 3 hour train ride. So, in the end, I decided to relax and take the train. Both trains are the high-speed ICE trains, so that will be interesting. I have second class out and first class back - so we will see if there is much of a difference.

Germany Day 56 -Tuesday, March 3

Worked out going home when Ann returns from Paris - I'm really excited!!

Germany Day 55 -Monday, March 2 - 32 days to go

Going to dinner I noticed there a now a birds around. It looks like spring has sprung. Snow is now mostly melted with a few clumps here and there.

Germany Day 54 - Sunday, March 1 - 33 days to go

Well, I made it back from Czech. Took a side trip up to see Marianske Lazne a resort town featured in several movies. Very impressive resort building in a tiny ski town with bad road and electric buses. Only got a little lost there. Then got lost trying to get back to Germany. Gave up and finally learned how to use the nav system in my car. It got me safely home.

Back at the Klassik in Room 24 again. Weather is much nicer and there are now several places with their outdoor seating out (blankets included). Being hungry and not adventuresome, I just trundled to McDonald's on the Fußgänger platz for lunch.

Went back to the Weidner Thermenwelt. It was a lot more fun now that I know the drill. Skipped the high dive this time, did the slide 4 times, then hit the saunas. There must be 8-10 of them - great fun. And some are outside, so you get all hot, then walk outside (nude) to cool off, then hop in another sauna out there. Only one I skipped was the beat each other with branches.