August 8th, Brussels, bedbugs, and bees

We’d started the day with a 2.5 hour drive to Brussels stopping on a way at a Luxembourg’s rest area served by one of nation’s best who apparently could not get a job on banking. The level of service hit rock bottom. The food was styled to match. 

Kind of silly not to invest a little more to get the visitors to have a better experience - it reflects positively on perception of a tiny country and gets visitors to spend more.

Anyhow, our next stop was in Brussels and we re-did our breakfast with a much better coffee and Belgian waffles. 

A bummer of the day was that Dan got bitten on his arms and legs a few days ago and these bites were itching awfully. We’ve compared the bite marks with the images on the Internet and conjectured that those must have been done by bedbugs. 

Completely grossed out we proceeded to walk through the scenic wonders of Brussels: the main town square, peeing boy, etc. all the while trying to re-trace our footsteps and understand where it happed. On the positive side it is surprising that in our decades of travels it is the first time that it happened.

One an added but relevant note, Polinka got stung by a bee on her stomach during our second breakfast. She treated the area with antihistamine. It swelled up a bit locally, but then receded. Dan reacted to the same thing very differently last year and we were weighing taking him to hospital.  

Back to Brussels, the city was very kind to us in our fragile state - store upon store selling marvelous souvenirs opened up to us, kids stopped and touched everything and got treated with friendly warm smiles and candy giveaways, and the cars always yielded to pedestrians. 

Two particular highlights of the morning were Totem Toys store where both kids and adults including the guy who runs the place were mesmerized by the incredible mechanical machines made from laser cut wood and us stumbling onto the Art District filled with the streets of the stores featuring excellent African and Asian artifacts, and modern art.

By the time we sat down at the wonderful In't Spinnekopke suggested by Christophe we had a plan and even started to execute on it by ordering quantities of industrial pesticide on Amazon to await us at home while we shed all the infested clothing in the driveway and take showers and then proceed to wash and disinfect everything.  

The food and amazing service at the Belgian restaurant were amazing :) Kids and Polinka went for mussels prepared in a variety of ways, while Danik, Romik, and I had meatballs, rabbit, and fish stew respectively, cooked to perfection with those rich sauces favored by Napoleon. And of course beer. This meal was on a tight pedestal together with Tibetan a day earlier.

After lunch we continued our wanderings stopping back at the Peeing boy to continue sampling the local beers, served by a friendly chatty Egyptian waiter (who really loved his job) in Russian, then stopping at a local Cheese/Meat/Wine place called Catherine’s and having the wonderful man who worked there give us a deep tasting tour (another person who clearly loves his job :). 

We ended the day having coffee back at the Art District and enjoyed the city views at the Palace of Justice viewpoint, a new discovery on this trip as well.

Maya got stung by a bee as well, with even less impact. That, and having Polinka and her locate some minor healed spots on arms and legs us led us to conclude that our control group of 3 proved the point and those indeed were bedbugs. We are over it :)

Back to a (different) Lux rest area staffed by the copy of the person we saw in the morning. They do have very cheap gas in Lux to give them their due. 

Back to the bar at the hotel in Lux. Nice!

It was a great day!! Back to Germany tomorrow!

August 7th, Trier and Luxembourg

Came back into the old town for breakfast and did a bit of running around to combine awesome coffee with equally great baked good. Having established that all is well with the universe, we started our exploring.

Def. one of the awesomest towns in Germany, certainly the oldest one. Dom was lovely: the cavernous size and magnitude, the nicest organ we saw so far, and vaulted ceiling with Vilnius (St. Peter and Paul) or Vatican quality of the plaster work. Among all that enjoying a green robed priest had emerged from a side door and stood silently glaring at us whereupon we finally got the hint and fled toward the door. He then proceeded to ring a little bell signaling the organist to start giving us the last push to get out and let the service begin.

We proceeded to visit the Roman and Medieval landmarks, skipping on visiting the house of the father of the Socialist revolution. 

The most impressive was the Roman theater. The above ground portion is all but gone in the millennia of being used as a quarry by the locals but amazing acoustics on the arena still works. Restored area under the arena offered amazing glimpse into what it must have been to be an actor staying backstage of this enormous theater - gladiator or an animal to engage in the life or death combat. Gave kids the feel of what the real thing they saw in Thor, the movie, was really like.

We got on our way to visit the third country on our journey - Luxembourg - making a few short trips on our way.

Some town highlights: beautiful severe architecture with gray rooftops, endless city levels, and crazy-long church steeples, drinkable water fountains on the streets, the usual mix of high-end retail, many street beggars that look high, and all of our favorite bakery haunts combined in one spot: Fischer, Paul, Brioche Doree. 

The next highlight were the casemates - the cool maze of ancient  and evolving caves, tunnels, winding stairs, and passage ways built and dug up in the mountain that were enjoyed by kids and adults alike. We pretended to be lost, to be chased by demons and ghosts and had a wonderful time. The few others who braved to get into the caves with us got some free entertainment, whether they understand Russian and English or not!

After we came out the kids promptly climbed a large tree  and proceeded to enjoy themselves further.

We ended the day at a Tibetan restaurant.  It could not be better - a huge giant highlight that adults had to extend a bit further by doing additional round of drinks at the hotel. 

We decided that the city had ran out of highlights and we are taking us out to the new destination tomorrow - Brussels.

August 6th, Road to Heidelberg and Trier

We got up at 6:30 am to run around town without any tourists. It was wonderful. We climbed the city wall and continued our walk enjoying the views of red roofs, turreted town wall towers and occasional local walking their dog. The wall had credit tiles embedded in it thanking individuals (many with Japanese names) and organizations for helping to repair various lengths of it and keep it up. We did not have the chance to test it out but I think the wall completely encircles the town.

Later in morning we had breakfast with Romiks in the magnificent dining room. Turns out hotel’s back wall is also a part of the town wall and at that spot the wall somewhat dips into town so the view offers both sides of town.

After breakfast we continued our exploring together and got some souvenirs for home. There is a Japanese artist in town who does lovely prints and acrylics. Really liked one them and thought of getting it but then ran into a high quality copy next door so that kind of killed the “uniqueness” of it.

The 2-hour long Western-bound trip to Heidelberg was along the final portion of Romantic road. But we decided not to make any more stops along the way because we will had to make the final 2 hour trip further West for Trier.

Heidelberg was hectic. We first arrived to the portion of town up on the hill where the lovely castle ruins were located but we could not find parking. So we went downtown where the city is actually located but the center is under construction so we could not park there either. The boys dropped us off and went on to park on the other side of the river - by the looks of it 5-7 km away. 

The town has neverending pedestrian path lined with retail stores, on one side of it there are alley ways with art galleries or other interesting stops, and sometimes ending with cute little chapels with the hill raising majestically behind them. On the other side, there are more cute alley ways but they are fronted with a river. 

We, the ladies, started our tour by stopping at a lovely ceramic store where we liked everything, and got almost everything. Then we stopped at a jewelry store, liked almost everything, you get the idea... The boys called to say that they are parked too far and we wont be able to meet up. We decided to have a quick round of margaritas and churros (as of lunch) and then go up the hill to look at the ruins. When we came out we ran into boys :) So we went up the hill together. 

The ruins are extensive and well worth the sweaty climb. Then Romik and Dan ran back down and through town to feed the meter and we continued our stroll through the pedestrian lane. Finally we’ve made our way back to them and got on the way to Trier.

We were staying at a nice hotel in Trier with an interesting “perk.” While there is the elevator that takes you to the 2nd floor, family rooms are located on the 4th floor under the roof in a newly built out section of the hotel. Glad we don’t need the stroller any more :) 

We also repacked our luggage more efficiently and, each night need to bring in only a small bag with toiletries and clothing for tomorrow. 

We got a brand new apartment with two rooms. Opened windows on both sides -and voila - no a/c needed :)

We went out to start our exploration of town. The awe-inspiring almost two millennia old Roman structure at the entrance of town was an amazing sight. 

We  decided that we need a fittingly magnificent dinner venue and checked out a place that advertised a historic cellar restaurant. Uggh! They did start out with the authentic cellar but then filled it with the furniture borrowed from McDonalds with a similar smell and ambience. Next we tried our luck at a town hall cellar. The sign at the door “Karl Marx (the father of socialism) ate there” should have been the giveaway - the furniture was nicer but it was clearly designed for the masses. Few visitors having their dinner laid out stolovka-style on their plates should have been another hint but we were hopeful. Anyway, Romik found a brasserie staffed by severe German-teacher waitress and we had our dinner and behaved ourselves very well never once putting our elbows on the table or blowing our nose on the napkin. Thus having the waitress satisfied, we’ve called it a day.

August 5th, the Romantic Road (more of it)

We said good bye to Munich and headed out to Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Wurzburg stopping in scenic villages along the way. Trusty Best Trips from Lonely Planet guided our way. This was a great guide for Ireland last year and it has not let us down yet.

The first stop was Donauwörth with an interesting Liebfraukirche with the movie theater seating across the floor that drops 4 feet from the back of the church forward. We’ve stopped to pick up freshly baked bread and sweet buns while there.

Next was Harburg. We climbed the hill for the beautiful red turreted castle, took a bunch of pictures of the countryside and kept going.

Norlingen’s claim to fame was having been built in a middle of a crater created by a meteorite some 15MM years ago. That resulted in the town having nearly perfectly circular town wall. Polinchik found a hummingbird hawk moth - a moth that closely resembles the bird. We spend some time to find a perfect shot.

Onto Dinkelsbuhl - picture perfect little town down to the most remote street in its outskirts - we know because Romik decided to drive right in the middle of old town on our monster truck. We wandered the streets marveling the absolute perfection of everything around. Stopped to have lunch in the of town.

Next we decided to skip a few towns on the route and get into Wuzburg, which should have been the highlight of the day. 

After all the eye-candy earlier, dusty hot town with crowds of tourists was generally a downer. Residenz, Versailles wanna be was just that. On the other hand Dom St. Killian was very impressive. Giant cavernous cathedral was an institution: it beautifully combined modern religious art with magnificent bronze grave stones, gorgeous organs (I counted 3), and multiple nooks and chapels where one could probably conduct the church business in parallel across multiple channels: somber meetings of church elders in the cellars with the giant sarcophagi, remembrance meetings in the chapel for deceased clergy, baptisms in the bright side chapels and so on.

We decided the issue with big towns that they are too big, noisy, and whatever damage they’ve suffered in the war they simply had no resources to rebuild with the same consistency so you get the cardboard box placeholders and concrete monstrosities sucking the life right out of the precious few historic beauties in between.

Completely frustrated we sat down in one of the alleyways for some iced macchiatos and ice-cream for kids served with kindness by one of locals seemingly in touch with our predicament :) Thus reassured we set out for the final stop of the day - Rothenburg.

It was completely and utterly awesome!! It was like Dinkelbuhl on steroids - street upon street of awesomeness surrounded by complete medieval wall. We checked into the Golden Antelope (we joked earlier on the trip Глупое Животное - слишком много не бывает so it fit perfectly) and continued to wander through town surprisingly sharing the streets with crowds of Asians. Many streets had store signs in Japanese and Chinese that added charm to town. 

We had a moment of panic at 9pm when we realized that most of the restaurants in town are either closed already, or full, or about to close in 30. Fortunately Polinchik found us Chinese restaurant - the first restaurant on our trip that has the A/C which was very welcome. 

We had a wonderful evening. Dan hid our cell phones so we could not compulsively check on Trump news every spare moment. We communicated with Chinese and German-only speaking restaraunteers using the body language and it was very funny. Love this town.

  

August 4th, Munich

Today was less wonderful than yesterday but still very nice. I was working in the morning and at some point Dan and kids got tired of waiting for me and went out exploring. They ran around the center of town, explored some pleasant neighborhoods around Hans-Sachs Strasse and met up with Romiks who had been around since the earlier part of the day. 

We had lunch at the Victualenmarkt and considered our options. They’ve covered the center of town as well and also posh but boring Maximilian Strasse - the Fifth avenue. So in terms of the recommended highlights we were down to the museums and the English garden park. 

We felt we paid our dues in Dresden and so decided on the park. We were also hoping to get some cool air - it must have been 100 and super humid. 

We got some fruit at the gorgeous market - every counter, whether overflowing with chanterelles or displaying wooden boxes filled with the giant figs, fresh dates, wild blueberries and strawberries were picture perfect. 

The park was generally a disappointment. There must have been thousands of city residents there. Cyclers were raising clouds of dust on the dirt paths. The paths themselves curiously ran through the exposed areas, despite plentitude of mature trees around. 

It is likely to be larger than the Central park but amenities are few. We’ve only passed one bathroom. Playgrounds were small and we  only saw two. A large pond was dirty and filled with duck feathers. 

The main attraction were modified canals used by people for surfing, slow and fast rivering. The other curiosity was that most of the people in the park, and there must have been thousands were between 17 and 23, in great shape, and Caucasian. It was like the glory of nation. 

We marveled that coming upon meadow upon meadow filled with slim, tall, muscular bodies engaged in various sports. We don’t know why German youths prefer the park over other Germans but it certainly provided more context to the incredible diversity in a middle of town. 

We took another beer break and utterly exhausted and jellied out dragged ourselves back into town stopping at any place on the way that had the a/c. 

Finally the heat started to decrease and we’ve ended the day at a marvelous Lotus Thai back in our favorite part of town on Hans-Sachs.

August 3rd, the Romantic Road

Awesome wonderful day today, as we drove along the Romantic Road in Bavaria, seeing the picturesque alpine villages with white washed or pastel houses covered in artistic drawings, fairytale castles, and fantastic mountains. Basically every cliche term you would want to use and every one would apply perfectly. 

It looks like every owner of every village here is waiting for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be featured on the postcard. And so they fix their window curtains just so, touch up the paint outside so it looks like it was freshly painted, and make sure that only identical firewood logs are allowed to grace perfectly ordered “piles” outside. 

After the nondescript breakfast at a crowded eating space we rushed out of the noisy dusty Munich at 7am and 15 minutes later arrived to our destination. 

Just kidding! Dan typed in the name of the street but not the name of town. So we ended up pretty much where we started. 

New start and in about 2 hours we arrived to Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau castles (I think I can win a Spelling Bee with that).

Built for the similar reason as Sintra, these were designed to be “Romantic” and picture-worthythe outside. We had a tour of the second one. I marveled at the tasteless decor and yak-inspiring wall murals that looked like the illustrations of the children’s book and covered all three stories. True, Max II and his eccentric son Ludvig II were not the richest of kings but take some inspiration from the other royals they did not. Kids liked clear simple explanations though. But adults could not take a second portion of Romantic kitch and did a marathon run to the other castle on another hill, took pictures, and skipped out on our tour there.

During our morning ride we realized that the awesome mountain that Verochka was raving about was only a short ride away at Garmisch-Partenkirchen. We drove there and accidentally shot over to Austria on the way as cheerfully alerted by our cell phones. Regardless we drove to the closest cable car station and in minutes we were airborne, stopping the ascent at 2600m. 

The views were awesome. A part of the mountain was clouded over but other surely offered views into Austria, Germany, Italy, and Schwitcherland. We could not tell for sure about the other two. We walked over to the German side of the mountain and took another cable car down to glacier. There kids and adults had fun sliding down to the glacier on the sleds. Did I say awesome? :) 

We were wearing our summer clothes, and Polinka and Isabella sandals but we were comfortable after the scorching heat of the last few days. It was impressive to see the real climbers who scaled the mountain on their feet and were wearing specialized gear. We got a few beers to further add to the experience.

The next step was Mittenwald 20km away. Loved it, loved it, loved it. Impossible cuteness. What I said before about the picture perfect - applied to every house in town. Our dinner at the local biergarten was also nothing to complain about. Relaxed crowd that included some scenic looking Bavarian grandpas clad in lederhosen and Tyrollean hats added to the feel of the place. Kids got an added bonus because the place had the trampoline. 

Dan is trying to convince me to get a Bavarian woman outfit. These don’t require too much convincing but I’ll be down if Dan is for the matching man outfit :) 

We’ve made a few more stops at a scenic spots on the way to Bad Tolz, our final stop on a way to Munich. Bad, as the name should have suggested - OK to skip. Kidding about Bad - it means Bath. The place started to flourish when they discovered iodide springs there. But when we got into the town it looked provincial and well on its way toward decline. So we kept going as the dusk set on.

August 2nd, Nurenberg and a little of Munich

We woke up at 6am and did a quick run of the city, free of the tourists and residents. It was cool and pleasant and we took lots of pictures. Then we joined the rest of our group for the second breakfast

Romik, and all the kids joined Verochka’s group and Kevin, the tour guide for the tour of Nurenberg trials. Dan and I decided to skip on that part and continue roaming through the old town. We’ve criss-crossed it on many directions stopping by for the occasional drink or shnekem. Gingerbread cookies are a must. They are better than anywhere we’ve tried them before due to the richness of spices that go inside. The best place was Wirklein on the market plaza, we were thorough.

As we sat wrapping up our pre-lunch meal of potato pancakes, horseradish, and smoke salmon with beer the rest of the gang gave us a holler and we met back at the market square to continue our lunch with them. Georgia will comment further on their trip.

After that Kevin showed us around town a bit more. The additional context was welcome. He showed some anti-semitic sculptire on the St. Seobald church - Jews sucking on the pig. Took us to zoo-keeper’s gate and told a story about how one of city’s residents and some of his downtown neighbors discovered how the water pressure works in a context of the private house bathrooms. He also told us that the marketsquare used to be the old Jewish part of town in the middle ages. It was on the swamp and undesirable with the houses built on stilts but after the city wall was built it ended up being in the most desirable part of town. So, the usual story, there was the pogrom - residents were killed, their houses set on fire to burn the evidence of the deeds, the sinagogue razed and the early version of the present day Our Lady of Town church was built. The swamp at the center square was drained but the area stayed open and used as a market place through ages.

Later in the day we’ve transfered to Munich. A different scene altogether. Loud, dusty, bustling. We dropped off our stuff and proceeded to the center of town. The old city hall is magnificent - the one in Brussels has nothing on it. We started to hear a lot more German but also langugages from all around the world. Beauties with expressive eyes and heads covered in Muslim gear added to the color of town.

We stopped at the cavernous HB brewery and finished the day with more beer, sausages, and other meats. And, in the words of famous Georgia, that’s how August 3rd went down in history.

August 1st, Gorlitz and Nurenberg

After a plentiful breakfast at the Holiday Inn Express we headed back Northeast to Gorlitz. It clearly had seen its glory during the centuries past bit now it is a sleepy suburban town with marvelous cellars, cute old town, and occasional highlight in the movies, most notably recently “Inglorious Bastards.” Another claim to fame is the after the WWII Poland took the opportunoty to claim the land   on the other side of the river.

I’d argue that the lovely views across river is still the short end of the stick. Novichenok’s added another country to their itinerary and we headed back to continue exploring the sleepy streets. Finally, having stocked up for the road we took off to Nurenburg.

After a non-eventful 4.5 hour ride - can’t really take top much advantage of the absense of the speed limits on our monster truck - and having made a serious dent on our supplies of Lithianian salami and the rest of the food, we arrived to a virtually identical copy of our hotel a night prior but in Nurenberg.

We ran out and started exploring. What a lovely lovely town. Sprawling on two sides of the river, with bridges of all kinds, surrounded by the scenic medieval town walls, it was a fiest for Romantic senses. We kept getting lost and finding more interesting nooks. We ended the day at a restaurant outside the Imperial castle, together with Polinka’s sister Verochka, accompanied by her family and their friends’ family, bringing the overall size of our group to 8 adults and 8 children, all girls. Very relaxing and nice.

In relaxed spirits we followed the medieval wall back to the hotel and accidentally ran onto the town’s red light district. The girls sat in the windows of the buildings facing the wall. Made for an interesting discussion on the way back. This must have been a fixture of town on and off for several hundreds of years.  

July 31st, Dresden

The ladies all had breakfast at the hotel while Romik and Danik went to get our mini-bus. With the girls getting bigger every year we no longer can fit into a 7 seater and had to get a 9-seater this year. They could not park this monster downstairs so we all walked next block with our stuff.

Dresden is marvelous.  Allies leveled this town and 20km on the perimeter so it is hard to believe that this magnificent age-darkened architecture once lay in ruins. Every last fat-bottomed cherub looked to be centuries old. That said this was a the territory of DDR after the war so plenty of cardboard box  buildings reminiscent of the cookie-cutter architecture of the Soviet block filled every other area of the formerly Saxon candy-land.

We’ve started at the Old Master’s gallery of the sprawling Zwinger complex. Owing likely to the same art-books we were raised on we could practically recognize most of the paintings - Tizian’s Venus, Michelangelo’s iconic Sistine Madonna and others. And so could likely almost exclusively Russian crowd of other visitors. All in all there was also an Asian group, aforementioned Russians, a handful (literally) of tourists and us. Hard to believe we could see all with so little distractions.

We had lunch at Alex, punctuated by what we later read about was purely German service - “you will die tomorrow” quality of the bedside manner. No offence there. Just cultiral directness. Non-German (visually) staff usually  appears to be much warner. That said, the weather was warm enough to continue our exploration and so we went back to Zwinger, then the opera house, then the churches, and finally to the balcony of Europe - extra-wide boardwalk overlooking another portion of town across the semi-dry river bed. What a wonderful town to have to ourselves.

We stopped by on a way to cool at a street fountain that looked like a portal with a water curtain. Very welcome at a 96 degree heat. Kids were running in an out; they were completely soaked and extatic. Occasional passerbys and cyclers ran through thw portal too. Then it all stopped at 3:30, due to some unknown rule that prevents fun beyond this point. We picked up and continued our walk.

We stopped for an afternoon beer at Edelweiss. Apparently there is a bottled beer shortage in Germany due to the heat and increased consumption. We’ve congratulated ourselves with sticking  with the tap and so not exacervating the problem.

The black denim lederhosen waiter was awesomenly direct too - though in a very funny way - “going swimming here is f&cking dangerous,” and “we are expecting a f*cking huge crowd tonight.” We decided that we need more and came back for dinner. As our waiter would say “f+cking awesome.”

In the evening we did a pleasant walk through the giant mall outside our hotel and retired to our rooms  for the next day of adventures. 

June 30th, Berlin, day 3

We met up with Helmut after breakfast and he drove us to Sachsenhausen concentration camp for a tour. Built predominantly as a model camp for political and war prisoners. Its atrocities were reserved on equal share for the Jews, POWs, or post-war Nazies and Germans. Particularly heart breaking were the ovens and pathology lab where the bodies of the victims of the medical expirementaion were laid upon white tiled tables and then dumped into voluminous cellar for the pick-up.

Helmut presented an interesting and conflicting picture - a son of a German child soldier who served time in Siberia, a brother-in-law of a Ukrainian POW, and a son-in-law of escaped SS soldier condemned to death penalty for mass murders in France. He is a trained geographer but gives these tours and drives the cab to make living.

When he was growing up in post-war Germany, his teachers were the same ones who taught Hitler youth. That was simply the generation of people who lived through the period. Over time, when Germans came to terms with what happened and smartly scoped down what had happened as something that was done by Nazis and Fascists rather than Germans it became easier to describe the past in those terms. In reality, with the entire population subjected to propaganda and fear tactics, few escaped the fate of being both Germans and Nazis.

In the same way as Russians were complicit in the  atrocities under Stalin. In the same way we are all complicit in the atrocities under Trump and Sessions that break up families who had, like all of us had, come to us with their last hope seeking the shelter. In that sense, the 14 year old conscipted to fight in the war and the person who had been offered position in SS forces is in position to either die or comply. The option to do something different gets harder to take.

I wonder what goes through the mind of people like Helmut who make themselves into the Faustian guides watching the sadness, anger, and fear of their charges. As Polinka rightfully commented, unless they directly belong to the group that had this shared experience, they can emphasize with but not truly understand it. In the same way we emphasize with but can never truly understand what it’s like to be black in the US. They, not us (not yet anyway, a Jew in me says) wake up every day with their history, and not knowing whether this is the day they will become the victim of police brutality.

In any case Helmut looked surprised but obliged when we asked to be dropped off sowhere fun with good food after our tour. He left us near the lovely neighborhood in West Berlin, whereby we’ve dedicated ourselves to stopping at and sampling at every one of his suggested options. The final stop was the best currywurst in town not too far from Pension Fischer where we lived. We spent over an hour looking for the place, and saw a few interesting options at the heart of gay neighborhood, but ultimately gave up and had our final beers of the day in a non-exciting steakhouse, which nonetheless had the same fast efficient and courterous service as every other restaurant we’ve eaten yet so far.