Trip to Germany and Poland

Mike and Judy Henderson
May 9 - 30, 2015

 

5/20/2015  [Nuremberg] We're all ready for our walking tour of Nuremberg.  Waiting in the hotel lobby are (from left) Elsa, Dick, Emil, Kathy, Chris, Mary (facing away), and Pete.

We met the guide at the Nuremberg Hauptbahnhof.

We began at the Saint Lorenz church, a Catholic church.

We walked to the river and saw the Heilige-Geist Spital Hospital (Hospital of the Holy Spirit) that spanned the Pegnitz River and dated back to 1332.  It's now a restaurant.  It began to drizzle.

Our next stop was the Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady), which is a Lutheran church.  Now it was starting to rain pretty hard.              

The figures at the top of the church, below the clock, perform at noon.  The horn players play their trumpets, the drummers drum, the figure with the small bell rings the bell, and then seven figures, representing the seven "electors" come out and parade in front of the king.

 We walked on to St. Sebaldus, but by now it was really raining and I wasn't paying close attention.  Not everyone had brought an umbrella or suitable rain gear.

Our next stop was the Nuremberg Castle.  By now, most of us were pretty miserable - wet and cold, and it was a fairly steep climb up the hill.  However, I did get this panoramic view of Nuremberg from the castle.

Finally the tour was over and we went to the Bratwursthausle, a German restaurant close to St. Sebaldus for Nuremberg sausages and potato salad or sauerkraut.  Here's Dianne, Philip, Dick and Elsa at the restaurant, looking a lot better than they did in the rain!

Judy and I returned to the hotel to dry out, but went out exploring later in the day.  We ran into Dianne, Philip, and their friend, Frau Wagner, at St. Lorenz church.  We visited the inside of the church with them.

Then we went to Frauenkirche and visited the inside.

After this, we went to dinner at a small German restaurant by the name of Trodelstuben on the island in the Pegnitz River.

Tomorrow we head to Rothenberg ob der Tauber by train.  The train employees are threatening to strike so our future train travel is in peril.

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5/21/2015 Trains are running, and we traveled from Nuremberg to Rothenberg ob der Tauber.  The train took us from the Nuremberg  Hauptbahnhof to Ansbach, and then we boarded a small private bus to Rothenberg.  We all seem happy to be on the train.

Transferring in Ansbach for the 25 km trip from Ansbach to Rothenberg.

The group on the bus.

Our fearless leader Dianne, and her husband Philip.

After a pleasant ride, we arrived at the hotel in Rothenberg.

The hotel was the Hotel Akzent but was on Schranne Street so it was also called "Gasthaus zur Schranne".

Judy and I joined Dianne and Philip for lunch at a nice German restaurant.  When the waiter heard us speaking English he asked where we were from.  We said "Los Angeles".  He replied, "I'm from Seattle."  He had married a German woman, but they divorced and he stayed.

 Judy and I walked around Rothenberg. 

A tower on the wall.

A view from the city walls toward a small settlement just outside the walls.

The next day was "The Meistertrunk", a big festival in Rothenberg, and the town was filled with participants dressed for a rehearsal that evening.  More on the festival tomorrow.

 

We had dinner with Dianne and Philip at the Gasthof Marktplaz German restaurant and then called it a night.

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5/22/2015 Our goal this morning was to get to the Laundromat for laundry duty.  It was just outside the city walls and opened at 8am.  But we had been warned that it only had three washers and two dryers so we wanted to be the first people there.

The Laundromat was down a driveway and in a building that appeared to have been a garage.

We arrived before 8am, and in typical German fashion, it did not open until exactly 8am.  Here's Judy waiting.

Having returned to our room with clean clothes, we walked down the shopping streets. Judy was in Rothenburg 30 years ago and had her picture taken with this nutcracker.

One shop was devoted to Christmas gifts and had quite a display.  If you click on the picture, you can see a video of the toys in action - warning:  big file!

At another store Judy found this giant, sad-looking Teddy bear. He must have been guarding the front door for many years.

We had lunch with Dianne and Philip in a Biergarten.

We ran into Emil and Kathy in the square in front of the Rathaus.

Today was festival day and the actors were walking through the square.

A group of actors came marching into the square and started a show right in front of us. 

After the warm-up act, the "guards" marched out and pushed the crowd back to make room for the real show to start.  In groups the actors marched in and lined up on the steps of the Rathaus (City Hall).

The Burgers of the town.

A women's chorus.

The show lasted an hour, and when it was finished the actors marched off.

We had our last dinner in Rothenburg in a Chinese restaurant with Elsa, Dick, Martha and Bill.

Then off to bed after a very full day.

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5/23/2015  Today we head to Cologne.  First we take a bus to the Nuremberg Hbf and then we catch an ICE train to Cologne.

Our last breakfast in Rothenburg.

The bus.

And the group on board. 

Heavy traffic caused us to nearly miss our train, but it all worked out. 

When we arrived in Cologne, we took a cab to the hotel where we met Dr. Richard Hennessy, a friend of Dianne's, who took us for a tour of part of Cologne.

About half way through the tour, we stopped at a local Italian restaurant and had dinner.

After dinner, we went to the plaza in front of the Cologne cathedral.  We couldn't get in as they were just closing.  We walked around town a bit more and then returned to the hotel.  It was a tiring day.

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5/24/2015 We had breakfast in the hotel this morning but found out only after that the charge was 24 Euros per person - totally excessive.  Tomorrow, we'll have breakfast some other place.

Dr. Hennessey returned and we continued our tour of Cologne.

We went to the Praetorium Museum and the Romisch-Germanisches Museum.  The Praetorium is an underground museum that shows the remains of a Roman building.  Here's the model of the Roman building.

And here are the remains of the building.

There are steps leading down to what used to be a Roman sewer.  A bit claustrophobic.

The Romisch-Germanisches Museum has quite a collection of early artifacts, Roman and other countries that traded with Rome and the German tribes.  It's a pretty impressive collection.

Here's a mosaic floor from a Roman building.

The museum was almost next door to the Cologne Cathedral so we went in to see the interior.  As a side note, the cathedral is hemmed in by other buildings so it's very difficult to get a good picture of the outside.  Check out the link for more information on the church.

The interior is impressive.  The cathedral ceiling is quite high.

After the museum visits, Judy and I went off alone and had a light lunch at the same restaurant we ate at last night.  Then we went to the Chocolate Museum.  We bought some chocolate but unfortunately they did not give any free samples.

The church had a Vespers service at 6pm with a choir so most of the group went to the service.  Here we are after the service in front of the church.

One unusual (to us) tradition in Germany is that friends of the bride go out and sell things to raise money for the bride.  Here's one of the young women who were selling pretzels and small bottles of liquor.  Note her costume - not all "bride groups" wore as elaborate a costume.

Then we went to a very nice German restaurant that had tables on the second floor, overlooking the Rhine.

Tomorrow Judy and I head to Warsaw.

Our journey continues here.