For the last several years the Wurstfest in Bad Durkheim was cancelled due to COVID 19. This year the fest will return and it is our intent to be there and enjoy it once again. Although it is called a “Wurstfest”, it is actually the Octoberfest of the German Wine industry where all the Vintners from the central region of Germany set up tents, bring in a big carnival, and host two weeks of food, wine, and fun. To explain the Wurstmart handle I am inserting an excerpt from their website.
- Why is the festival called “Wurstmarkt”?An invoice for delivered leather from the year 1417 is (until today) the first documented mention of the Michaelismarkt in Dürkheim – the actual origin of the Dürkheimer Wurstmarkt. The Michaelismarkt, since the beginning of the 19th century probably because of the immense sausage consumption in the vernacular more and more called Wurstmarkt, was originally a medieval consumer fair to supply the pilgrims on the patron saint’s day of St. Michael around the chapel of the same name. As the space there soon became insufficient, the market activities shifted more and more to the Brühlwiesen. With over 600,000 visitors and around 300 wines, the Michaelmas Market has today become the largest wine festival in the world.
If you wish to know more about the fest. Here is the website: https://www.bad-duerkheim.de/kultur-tourismus/veranstaltungen-feste/duerkheimer-wurstmarkt/faq-wurstmarkt-english/#accordion-1-16
Then, as long as we are in Europe, we will spend some time there and see some places we have enjoyed in the past and some we have not seen but always wanted to. Come on along, we have a seat for you in our car and a setting at our table.
16 Sept 2022 – After a successful escape from Tampa and the Florida heat, ten plus hours in airport terminals and on airplanes, and a ten kilometer hike from one end of Terminal One in Frankfurt to the other where the car rental agencies are, we made it to Germany. All went smoothly actually and it appears most of the COVID distractions to travel are a part of history. We climbed into our trusty rental and were off from Frankfurt to Deidesheim. Deidesheim is a sleepy little town along the Deutches Wine Strasse (German Wine Road or route) that caters to the city folk from the surrounding larger cities in the area as they seek relaxation and scenery during their weekends. They drive their Mercedes’, BMW’s, and Audi’s to smaller towns that have posh hotels, walking paths, bicycle routes, and vineyards to sooth their tortured souls and exercise their tired bodies. They eat, walk, exercise, enjoy good wine, spend some time in a spa, and go back to work the next week. A good way to spend the weekend. We came here because it is just a short walk to the train station from our hotel, and a short train ride to Bad Durkheim and the Wurstmarkt.
Arrival day is a rugged day for us because we left Tampa at seven in the evening and arrived in Frankfurt at nine in this morning. I don’t sleep much on airplanes and Nancy sleeps just a bit more so, as usual, we are tired that first day. In order to get adjusted and sleep our first night here, we stay up all day and go to bed after dinner and some exercise.
We spent the day getting to Deidesheim, checking into our hotel, and touring the local area. A small town nearby, Saint Martin, is one of our favorite little towns because it has out favorite little vintner, Alte Schlosschen. It is a small winery that produces excellent wine. We always stop by to sample a few of their wines (a process called ‘probing'”) and purchase a few bottles to take back home. In addition to the winery, the town of St Martin is the epitome of what you would imagine a small German village to look like. Here are some pictures taken during our time there.
We left St Martin and drove back to Deidesheim. Parked the car and walked downtown to find dinner.
For our post dinner exercise we walked back to the hotel. We stopped by the lobby for a glass of wine and some conversation with the bartender, then we turned in for the evening. Long day but good. Nice to be back in Germany and Europe. Tomorrow we have a leisurely start, breakfast at the hotel, then the train to Bad Durkheim.
17 September – This is Wurstfest day for us. We slept in a bit trying to recover from the long day of travel. Had a very nice breakfast in the hotel. German Hotels often provide breakfast and some of them are very extensive, and free. The hotel we stayed at, The MAXX by Steigenberger is one of the nicer hotels in Deidesheim and they had a very impressive breakfast which we enjoyed immensely. Around one we decided to walk to the train station and catch the train to Bad Durkheim. We stay in Deidesheim and take the train for three very important reasons; First, there are no hotels rooms to be had in Bad Durkheim during the Wurstmart. Secondly, if you drive there you cannot find a place to park within a couple miles, and third, No DUIs driving back to the hotel. German police are everywhere and drinking and driving is not acceptable. So, a ten minute train ride for $2.50 each way for each person solves all three problems; Nice hotel, no parking problems, no DUI’s.
Speaking of three things … That’s what there is to do at the Wurstfest. One, tasting wine; two, eating; and three, the rides. We have kind of evolved out of the rides. The last ride I did at the Wurstfest was about twelve years ago when I rode this slingshot thing straight up into the air and free fell back to the ground. Our nephew Michael and his fiancé (at that time, his wife now) Rachelle, were visiting us and Rachelle wanted to ride the slingshot thing. Mike didn’t want to nor did Nancy so I went. Picture to follow. So, that is what we did at the Wurstmart this year, we tasted some wine, ate some bratwurst, and didn’t do any rides. Here’s some photo’s:
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So that was Bad Durkheim and the Wurstfest. We had a nice day. A bit cool and windy but nice. Tomorrow we head south to Ulm, a city south of Stuttgart where we will be spending the night. Not sure what’s there but we’ll see. Hope you enjoyed the Wurstfest as much as we did!
18 September – Today we drove to Ulm. Left Deidesheim after a nice breakfast and had a leisurely drive to Ulm. Hit a couple traffic jams (called Staus in German) but made it through. The weather is quite cool which is a nice reprieve from the heat of Florida. Ulm has about 128,000 folks that live here, it’s located on the Danube River, has a big university, was first recorded historically in 850 A.D. and hosts a huge cathedral that claims the highest steeple on earth. If you would like to know more about Ulm, Google will put you to sleep! We got here in early afternoon, checked into our hotel, vegged out for a while, then went to an Irish Pub for dinner. After dinner was walked about town looking at the interesting buildings. Because it was bombed in World War II there is a mix of very old, kinda old, and new modern buildings throughout the city. (The Brits bombed it not the Yanks!) Fortunately, during our walk I took a few pictures. Here they are:
Ok, that’s it. Tomorrow we are off to Innsbruck, Austria. I’ll check in when we get there.
19 September – Made it to Innsbruck. Forgot how impressive the Alps are. We had a pleasant breakfast in Ulm and departed south to Innsbruck Along the way we side tracked a bit and stopped in Fussen to take a peak at the Neu Schwanstein Castle and the castle the Kings parents lived in across the way. The Neu Schwanstein Castle was built by King Ludwig II and the Disney Castle in Orlando is modeled to resemble it. Fairly new, it was built in the late 1800’s. It is an interesting castle to tour. We have toured it several times in the past so today we just took a couple pictures of it.
Then we started seeing snow capped mountains. The Alps are just kids compared to our Rockies but the Alps are still growing and the Rockies are wearing away. The Alps are 30 – 55 Million years younger than the Rockies. They are smaller now but will someday be larger than the rockies. I can’t wait to go skiing in the Alps then!
As you enter Austria from Germany you come in through a narrow valley. Sitting high on a mountain top on the right is a castle that controlled that valley for many years. Recently a footbridge was built for tourists to cross the valley to get to the castle.
From there on, we drove through the Alps, through Fern Pass, and into Innsbruck.
So that was our trip to Innsbruck. Tomorrow we are driving farther south into Italy and down to Genoa on the Mediterranean coast where we will spend the night. It will be one of our longer legs driving. Tonight we are walking over into old town Innsbruck for dinner.
Okay … Back from a lovely dinner and a very interesting walk around Old Town Innsbruck. An exciting corner of Innsbruck that has revitalized itself. Many shops, restaurants, and places of interest. We walked through it a couple times just to make sure we didn’t miss anything. Having the Alps rise up above the buildings while they are capped in snow was quite magnificent. Here are some pictures I took.
Hope you enjoyed that as much as we did. See you in Genoa.
20 September – Long day today. We finished our drive through the Austrian Alps, then through the Italian Alps. Once out of the mountains we drove across a large expanse of flat farmland. Interesting but not picturesque. After the flat lands we came to another set of smaller Alps known as the Ligurian Alps which push Genoa right into the Mediterranean Sea. That is how Genoa has become known as the city between the mountains and the sea … those Italians are clever people. Here’s a few pictures from the trip from Innsbruck to Genoa. I didn’t repeat a lot of mountain shots as we had enough of those yesterday.
Then we got to Genoa! Italy is an excessively busy, chaotic place. No one follows the traffic rules, people drive all over the place, scooters, and motorbikes are everywhere and swerve in and out of traffic. We found out hotel, right on the water, checked in and found a safe place to leave the car. We decided to walk about a little to stretch our legs and find something to eat for dinner.
That was it for the evening in Genoa. Our room had air conditioning so we had a pleasant, cool night of sleep.
21 September – The drive from Genoa (After a nice breakfast) was interesting. It was a fairly new highway that was either crossing a bridge or going through a tunnel. There were no non-tunnel or non-bridge segments to the highway for nearly 60 miles. Then we left that highway and descended into Monaco.
We drove through Monaco. many Italian plates, many French plates, and some Monaco plates. Mostly all buildings, big buildings for apartments and condos.
So then on to Marseille. A bigger city by the sea. The French Rivera. First visited by the Greeks in 800 B.C. (They are still making payments on their time shares here!) A very big, and very busy center. We are traveling in the middle of the week, in late September and people are out in droves. Crowds everywhere, traffic is heavy, and there must be a bijillian motor scooters! Have a look.
We had an early dinner and and are turning in early. Two long traffic days and too many scooters.
22 September – Here we are in Dijon, France. Yup, mustard capitol of the gourmet world. You would think it’s French’s but it’s Dijon. Had a good breakfast in Marseille and fought our way out of town. I have come to hate city driving in southern European cities because of the chaos. The scooters, the speeding, the dodging in and out of traffic (I fear I am sounding like an old man but if you are not accustomed to driving here, it is a challenge, regardless of your age). Anyhow, we made it out running over a minimum of scooters and pedestrians and headed north along the western side of the French Alps to Dijon. A fairly boring drive as most of it is farm land. First vegetables and fruits then dairy and cow food type farms. Traffic varied from very heavy to moderate. As we passed by Lyon, it was fairly heavy but then dropped off to just irritable. Couple pictures from along the way.
Eventually we made it to Dijon. We were here once before, many years ago. I think we just passed through and took a picture by the city name. Now, we have penetrated the cities outer protective layer and are checked into our hotel in the city center. A very impressive place. Well refurbished with pedestrian traffic areas, restaurants, shops, and local attractions. We checked into our hotel and went exploring.
So that was Dijon. Tomorrow we leave France and stop at the American Military Cemetery where Gen Patton and thousands of American soldiers from World War II are buried, then on to Trier. See you then.
23 September – Three countries today. France, Luxembourg, and Germany. We left Dijon and drove north to Luxembourg. We passed by Nancy’s place.
Then we went past one of the many diverts we encountered during our trip.
After several hours we arrived at the American Military Cemetery in Luxembourg. We stopped for a while to say “Hello” and “Thanks” to the five thousand one hundred Americans buried there from World War II. Many are from the Army Air Corps because they were shot down flying over this area on trips into Germany. There are also many soldiers from the 3rd Army that served under Patton. This cemetery is always a very sobering place to visit. There are so many graves, lined perfectly in rows, of Americans who will never return to their native lands let alone their home towns, families, girl friends, wives, children, what ever. When we lived here in Europe, Nancy and I used to visit the American Cemeteries in France mostly on Memorial day and Veteran’s Day. We used to talk to the curators who are assigned there to care for the graves and cemeteries. It is amazing how many people from Europe come to pay their respects to the American’s who gave their lives to save them from the tyranny that threatened their lives. Many older people bringing their grandchildren and walking through the graves and explaining what all happened so many years ago. Anyhow, we stopped in Luxembourg to see the American cemetery there. A unique aspect of this cemetery is that General Patton, who was killed in a Jeep accident after the war while he was still in Germany, requested that he be buried with “his troops” and he is buried here.
Unique to this cemetery is the fact that there is a German military cemetery very close by. If you read the photo that explains why you will understand.
So with that we pressed on to Trier. Trier is a special town as it was once a Roman settlement. Still standing in downtown Trier is the “Black Gate” which was the main entrance into the Roman settlement. It is called the Black Gate because of all the algae that has grown on it over the hundreds of years since it was built that gives it a black appearance. We also walked through the pedestrian section of the old city and visited a couple of churches. In case you are wondering. You can’t go anywhere in Europe without visiting old churches. They are the biggest and oldest buildings in each town and are all very impressive. The skill of the masons that built these structures thousands of years ago is amazing.
That ended our day in Trier. We have been here a number of times over the years and always enjoy a walk through history. Tomorrow we follow the Mosel river north to some small town north of Cochem. One of our favorite drives.
4 September – Off to an early start after a pleasant breakfast we left Trier and tried to get a direct route to the Mosel River. To us, the Mosel is the most scenic drive one can take in Germany. The steep hillsides covered with vineyards, the little villages along the way with vintners working thier fields and selling wine. It is almost like visiting an imaginary place something one would expect to see in Epcot (less the woke Baloney). Everything is neatly kept, colorful, and attractive. The boats and barges on the river, the half timber homes and businesses, and the vineyards. Very nice. We went this way last year as well and were frustrated by the COVID requirements to eat or enter a store. Nothing of that remains. Only occasionally do you see a mask and it is logical to assume this is a high risk person trying to shield him/herself. People are out everywhere, like I mentioned before. Cars, bikes, motorcycles, walking, in stores, restaurants, attractions, and bars.
Anyhow, we made it to the Mosel, However, due to road construction we had to take a detour that took us back out to one of the main highways. We finally made it back to the Mosel just before getting to BernKastle-Kuez. This little town is a must see if you travel the Mosel. Everyone else stops there as well! We go there fairly early so many of the stores were just opening. We parked and walked to the town center. Along the way I was treated to a solution of a problem I had long pondered. How do they get their furniture into those upper partments with such little stairways and elevators. Here’s the answer:
Ok, back to the city. All the stores were just opening so we walked around, I took a few pictures, and we had a coffee and a sweetie before we left. German’s love to bicycle and on weekends they go all out … especially since the introduction of electric assisted bikes. Before it was the fitness people and many of the men. Now, everyone bikes. Biking along the Mosel, where there are specific bike paths close to the river are extremely popular. When we lived here Nancy and I would ride them frequently on weekend outings. Here are some pictures of around town and the way along the Mosel. Because it is grape harvesting time, there was a great deal of activity with that activity as well.
We passed through the city of Cochem then we arrived at our hotel. You can see pictures of Cochem and it’s beautiful castle in my posting from last year’s trip. Here’s our hotel and room, it too was built in the 1740’s.
For dinner tonight we are dining at the hotel and tomorrow we climb out of the Mosel Valley enroute to Brussels, Belgium. Another place we have enjoyed a great deal over the years. See you there.
25 September – Here we are in Brussels. When we lived in Germany we came to Brussels fairly often. Sometimes my work brought me here and Nancy would come along and tour or shop while I was working, other times we just came to enjoy the city. Being Hq for NATO and a number of offices of the EU, Brussels has become very international in it’s ethnic makeup. You see people from all tracks of life and nationality. Everyone seems to get along so it is always an interesting mix. We came here this time just to see the city again and more importantly, have some Brussels Mussels. The Mussels are something we have enjoyed nearly every time we came here. Boiled in a white wine and served in a pot with bits of celery, onions, and some kind of green leafy stuff, they are delicious. So, that’s what we did, we arrived here early, parked the car and stored our bags until we could check in later, and headed out into the town on foot. The Grand Place is a large city square bordered by large old buildings. The square is filled around the sides by restaurants, and shops and there is no end to the activities within the square. I tried to capture the building but they are big so I had a difficult time getting them all in. Some pictures are close-ups of some of the architectural features of the buildings. No churches today!
Now, we are off to Amsterdam … See you there!
26 September – Today it rained most of the day. Visibility was quite low at times due to fog or road mist. Therefore the trip from Brussels to Amsterdam was not particularly scenic. Plus it is mostly flat farmland with herds of cows. It did go off as planned and we made fairly descent time. It was Monday morning and everyone was on their way back to work and the trucks were all back on the road. Trucks are interesting in Europe as they are required to travel at only 48 to 54 miles per hour maximum on the interstate highways. Consequently, the right lane is one steady row of trucks tugging along. The left lanes are filled with cars trying to go faster, speeds up to 60 to 72. Fortunately it all works out. Trucks are also not permitted to drive on Sundays so Sundays have less congestion. Some trucks can get special permits to travel on Sundays, but not many. So, on Monday they launch with vigor! We decided to go to a small seaside town named Volendam. It is quite the tourist attraction as they cater to the rest of Europe and the world that wants to see what the Netherlands are really like. They have all sorts of tours and restaurants, and shops. Quite the place. It was just raining lightly when we got there so we decided to brave it and talk a walk around. We last visited Volendam some fifty years ago when we were in Germany for our first time. It has not changed a great deal. Here’s some pictures:
From Volendam we drove into Amsterdam, found our hotel, and a place to park our car. That took most of the afternoon. We did walk back from the park garage, noted some scenery, had dinner, and made it back to the hotel.
So, that was it or today. We are spending two days in Amsterdam so for once we are not driving anywhere tomorrow. By the way, many people confuse the names Holland and The Netherlands. The Netherlands has twelve provinces. The two biggest ones are North Holland and South Holland. Consequently many times people are speaking of Holland meaning the state. Both are in The Netherlands and anywhere in any of the twelve is in The Netherlands.
27 September – No pictures today and only a short story. Yesterday afternoon we booked a Canal Tour for this afternoon. It was raining yesterday but we were hoping for better weather today. When we got up this morning it was raining. Not real hard but hard enough to not enjoy being out in it. We waited until about 10 PM and made the call. We have been here for twelve days, traveled eleven days in a row, stayed in eleven different hotels and it was time to take a day off. Because it was still raining, we cancelled the canal tour and spent the day vegging out in our hotel room. We had enjoyed a nice breakfast so we just spent the entire day in the hotel room watching it rain, reading, I edited some of my posts and worked on the next of my best seller books. Nancy read and did some puzzles she enjoys. Around five thirty, it had stopped raining around three so around five we wandered out and had a pizza for dinner. We are now back in the hotel room getting ready for our trip back to Germany tomorrow. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. See you tomorrow.
28 September – This morning the sunshine greeted us so we knew it was time to hit the road again. We checked out of the hotel and took and Uber to where we had the car parked. In Amsterdam, and many other European cities, the streets are narrow and there is little parking available. Therefore the cities make it either inconvenient or expensive to drive into the city and stay there. They prefer you use mass trans, which they have plenty of, and leave your car somewhere where it is not so crowded. As we are not familiar with places to leave our car and not sure if we will use it during our stay, we drive into the city. Amsterdam makes it both inconvenient AND expensive to drive into the city. Our hotel was pretty much downtown because we wanted to be able to walk to the downtown activities. Therefore, to park the car for two days, the hotel we stayed at recommended booking three days parking at the central train station and walking back or taking a taxi back. It was about a mile and a half away. We did all that but opted to explore the city on the way back to the hotel so we walked, had dinner along the way (see 26 September). Because we had out bags this morning, we took an Uber to get us back to the car park. We bailed out the car and spent about forty five minutes getting out of town because one of the major tunnels was closed. Good thing it was sunny, I could see half of the cars I nearly hit because the sun was in my eyes!! Anyhow, we made it out of town and headed for Germany. I did get another picture of a windmill but its not much better than the last. Here it is:
Most of the trip from Amsterdam to Germany was fairly mundane. A great number of farms, crops, cows, and a few horses. traffic was amazingly heavy so we kept pressing on.
We stayed in a small town along side the Rhine River. The town’s name was Rhens. Its a small village that has been there a long time. Has some pretty neat buildings. There is also a castle just up the road that Nancy and I walked up to and toured a bit. Before we got there we stopped at a small town that claimed to have the highest geyser in the world. Had to see that so we diverted over to see it. Turns out the geyser was a man made well on an island that does shoot water in the air, about 60 feet. To see it you must attend a ninety minute lecture and tour in a museum on Germany hydrography, then take an hour boat ride to see them set off the geyser. We passed on the geyser but there was an interesting old gate neat the river we enjoyed seeing.
That was our day. We had a great German dinner in a local restaurant and turned in.
29 September – This morning was not so sunny. There was a low hanging fog across the tops of the hills on both sides of the river so it was kinda gloomy. We had a nice breakfast. We loaded up the Open and headed up the river to Rudesheim. The Rhine runs north from southern Germany, joins with the Mosel at Koblenz in Germany, and goes all the way up to the Netherlands and empties into the North Sea. So we were going south and up the Rhein. I took a couple pictures along the way. Then we took a ferry from the Bingen side of the Rhein to the Rudesheim side.
We unloaded, drove into town, and parked. The “more later” caption is about a monument that sits way up over the Rhein. We took a cable car, like a ski lift, up to see it today as well as walked about Rudesheim a bit, then drove to our hotel and checked in for the day..
We are settled in for the night. Will eat dinner at the hotel and leave in the morning. Going to Frankfurt tomorrow and spending our last two days in Europe there.
30 September – Went to Frankfurt today. The day was bright and sunny so we looked forward to a fun day in one of our favorite cities. We were not disappointed. The drive was just over an hour so we slept in, made our own coffee in our hotel room (The hotel had a gucchi coffee maker) and left mid morning. Most of the drive was on autoban and with a fairly heavy flow of traffic but everything went well. Stopped at a Bakery in Rudesheim and had a cup of coffee and a sweetie. Germany still has it’s individual bakeries where they sell bakery and sometimes coffe .. nothing else. But, unlike the supermarket bakeries we have at home, the bakery is frsh, made right there, and in abundant supply and flavor. We arrived at our hotel in Frankfurt just before noon and to our surprise our room was ready so we checked in. We had to take everything to our room because we are doing our final repack for the flight home. Instead of messing around in the room we left everything and went about exploring Frankfurt.
Frankfurt is the financial capitol of Germany and the EU. While they don’t cater to tourism as much as the tourist cities like Munich, it still has a great deal to offer and see. Nancy and I lived here in Frankfurt for two years while I ws in the Air Force. We lived right on the airport on a US base that has since closed. We frequented Frankfurt often by car, bike, bus, and train. It is probably our favorite city in Europe … maybe even the world. Anyhow, we dumped our stuff in our room and set off on foot to rediscover and enjoy Frankfurt. We had no agenda so we just kinda wandered around. That is the way my pictures will be. They are mostly of things we saw that we thought were interesting. Hope you enjoy them:
(City Center)
So that’s it for our day in Frankfurt. More tomorrow before we get ready to leave.
1 October – Happy October and welcome back. Today in Frankfurt it is raining and very cool. The only activity we have seen outside so far today was a demonstration … couldn’t tell if it was for or against the effort in the Ukraine but they were playing Jane Fonda music so it was probably a peace parade.
Fortunately we had a great day yesterday and saw and did most of the things we enjoy here. Therefore, no worries about the rain, we’ll just watch it for a while and maybe venture out later. We went down for breakfast earlier and had a good one. I’ve been catching up on this blog and other endeavors.
Tomorrow we fly home. We were pleased that Ian changed course and did not affect us much. A little rain and some wind, no damage. Our prayers for the folks south of us. So much devastation. It will take a long time for them to recover.
With that I’m closing this puppy out. I doubt I will be taking any more pictures and all we have left is dinner tonight. Might be a sandwich in the room if it keeps raining. We have had a good trip this time and have enjoyed seeing and doing all the places we went and things we did. We had a good friend diagnosed with brain cancer two weeks ago. He had no idea he had it and the Doctor gave him two weeks to live. He made it a week and died peacefully in his sleep under hospice care. You never know when something like that is going to change your life forever. That’s why we travel like we do. Who knows what tomorrow will bring. Enough philosophy … good to have you along and see you next time? … Maybe?
