Bikes, bikes everywhere

And more flowers

Keukenhof Flowers

Windmill somewhere in the Netherlands?

Amsterdam canal

Amsterdam

So I am not sure where I left off, but we have been busy being tourists. Chelsea (Tony's cousin) and Ronald spent the afternoon and evening with us. We had tea/coffee at an outside cafe and then walked around until dinner. We were out late so another day without posting/pictures. Amsterdam is certainly an experience I will remember for awhile. I know i have mentioned it before, but there our thousands of bikes everywhere. You can get run over by them when you are watching out for cars, forgetting that there is also a bike lane with crazy riders. Finally getting the knack of watching all sides and now it is time to go. We spent the morning walking through the keukenhof gardens. Unfortunately for us, like a lot of places in Europe, they had a long winter. There weren't a lot of flowers in bloom. They had flowers in full bloom in the buildings even if they didn't have many in the gardens. The garden has only been opened for three days, mid April is the best time to go. We are off in a little while for our last excursion. We have yet to see Anne Frank's house so we are doing that this evening. We will walk around some more and have dinner, then head back to the hotel to pack it all up. Thanks for following along on our trip. We will be back in Anchorage late Monday night. Hope you enjoyed our travels.

March 20 Spa to Amsterdam

We left Spa this morning around 8:30. We had to get to Amsterdam to drop off the car by 3. It is only a 3 hour drive, but we had only one hour to spare when we got to the drop off place at the port. We ran into some construction along the way so had to detour. Thank goodness for the navigation system in the car. The when we got to the street the hotel was on, and the system said you are here, we of course had to get to the other side of the road, but had no easy way to do that. Had to turn around then couldn't find parking anywhere near. Did some more driving around. Finally found a place to park several blocks from the hotel. Dropped the bags off, then went in search of the port. So we were very happy to arrive in time, no dings, dents or scratches on the car and gave it to the port people. There is no way we were going to drive in this city anyway. There are so many canals, streets going every which way, thousands of bikes, people cars, scooters, trolleys etc, it is better being on foot. We walked around the city some on the way to the Van Gogh museum tonight. Great museum- Kara you would have liked it. They had his starry night painting that you like. Afterward, it took us quite a long time to find our hotel because everything looks the same, canals, houses, bikes everywhere etc. Finally found it (we even had a map), now we are getting ready to plan tomorrow. Sorry no pics to post as they are still on the camera and the internet in the hotel is slow to load. It'll try tomorrow.

Trier on the Mosel

Inge told us about this town so when we left this morning, we continued down the rest of the Mosel River to make a brief stop in this town. The original town is 2000 years old and there are still Roman ruins to be seen. There was also a huge gorgeous church that was very very old. We being old ourselves, cannot remember how old, but at least back to the 1200s.

Vineyards in Trittenheim

Mosel Wine Region

After leaving Heidelberg we continued our journey along the Mosel River. Our destination was a Guest House of Otto and Inge Bolig. They are friends of Jackie and Gary (our good friends). Otto is a Weingut - meaning he grows grapes and makes his own wine. His winery has been in his family for years and years. His vineyards are in several locations around town and we could see many behind his house. His region is Trittenheimer Apotheke. We walked around the vineyards before we left on our next trip. If you love wine, this would be a great place to visit. We don't drink wine, but found the area fascinating. Otto and Inge were great hosts.

Heidelberg Castle

Sorry we are a day behind. We did not have access to internet yesterday. Wednesday morning we woke up early and walked to the Heidelberg Castle. We did the self guided audio tour. It was very interesting. No one has lived in the castle since 1765. Most of it is in ruins. A part of the castle was restored about 100 years ago, but then the townspeople decided it was more important to keep it as ruins. The largest wine cask is still in the castle. They have a room that is still in good condition that they use for banquets and special events.

Heidelberg- bridge entrance over Neckar River

Stuttgart/Heidelberg

We spent most of the day in Stuttgart at the Mercedes and Porsche museum. The Mercedes museums was amazing. I never knew that the automobile was invented by Mercedes. The three points of the Mercedes star represent sea, land and air. They wanted to make vehicles for each. We were taking our time through the museum until we realized we would never get to the Porsche museum. So we had to pick up the pace. It was very interesting to say the least. The Porsche museum was great too. Ferdinand Porsche actually worked for Daimler-Benz and VW before starting his own company. So his first cars used a lot of VW parts. Imagine- VW parts in a Porsche! Overall, it was a day well spent. We left Stuttgart and headed to Heidelberg. What a lovely town- or should I say city. It is big and sprawling and at the same time old and quaint . We arrived around 4:30 so we had time to walk around parts of the city. For those of you who don't know, Heidelberg is home to the Univ. of Heidelberg. We saw lots of college age kids on our walk. Tomorrow we are exploring the Heidelberg Castle. We can see it from our hotel. It is about a 20 min. walk from here. We are getting our exercise. Actually Tony is getting in more than me because he is awake most mornings and out running while I am still in bed. He is in that pilot mode. He has his hotel routines and it is very hard to break him of his habits. Of course, I don't mind waiting in bed until he returns!

Triberg in the Schwarzwald

We left Lindau and headed into the black forest. Our destinations were two small towns where the first cuckoo clocks were built. We went into the Haus der 1000 Uhren (house of 1000 clocks). I didn't count them, but I am sure there were at least that many. Kept thinking I should buy one, but just didn't think it would fit into my Alaskan house. Triberg is another small town tucked away from other cities - loved it.
Tony had his fun on the autobahn. He got to drive 135 mph. Thank goodness he didn't drive that fast the entire time. I didn't mind 100 mph, but anything over that was scary. Luckily for me Tony was happy creeping along at 100 most of the way.

Lindau on the Bodensee

After a rainy night, we woke up to sunshine and warmer weather so we were able to take in the sights of the town. Just what you'd expect of a small lake resort only with German style buildings. Lindau was very quaint, unfortunately pictures don't do it justice. I think from now on I am going to buy postcards to get some really good pictures to scrap in my album. Tina if you are reading this, I went into a grocery store and couldn't find any licorice. The lady at the register didn't know what I was talking about. She just smiled at me. Anyway, we went back to the hotel and asked the young lady at the front desk to help us out. Between her language book and the computer she figured out that we meant lakritze. So now when we find another grocery store we will know what to ask for. Hopefully, I will be bringing it back for you.

Neuschwanstein Castle

Hohenschwangen Castle

Castles

We left Munich early in the morning, eager to get started on our journey to Schwangau and the castles, with the final destination of Lindau on the Bodensee. We spent several hours at the castles. The castle of Maximillian was very sedate compared to that of his son, "mad" King Ludwig II. The yellow castle is Hohenschwangau and the other castle is Neuschwanstein. According to our tour guide, Neuschwanstein was 17 years in the making. Ludwig only spent 172 total days in the castle before he died at a young age of 40. There are 60 rooms and only 1/3 of the rooms were ever completed. He had a cave built in the castle and it felt like going through an adventure in
Disney World- like at Tom Sawyer Island. There was also a room where the floor was tiled with more than 2 million small mosaic tiles. Pretty elaborate. His castle was a tribute to the comoser Wagner. All the walls of the castle were paited with scenes from Wagner's symphonies and operas. Ludwig had a concert room built so he could look down upon concerts that Wagner would perform there. But that never happend as Ludwig died unexpectedly. Pretty amazing castle. Hard to get good pictures and of course, no pictures were allowed inside. We arrived at Lindau in the evening and it was rainy. We hope to get a few pictures in the morning before we leave town.
Tomorrow we drive through parts of the Schwartzwald and on to Stuttgart.

Phew! We are so very tired. Don´t remember when we have walked so much. We went walking last night in central Munich -Alstadt, the old town. Great place to walk around, shop, eat and see really really old buildings. Started Saturday off the same way as we wanted to see it in daylight. Plus the glockenspiel in the Neues Rathaus moves everyday at 11:00 am and we wanted to see it do it´s thing. So we spent hours walking around again in old town seeing new things. I love the markets with all the fresh food vendors. We bought some yummy raspberries. We saw so many smart cars that we had to take a picture of one of them. You really don´t see cars that are much bigger. I think we might have seen two cars bigger than a small sedan. The rest of the day was spent at Dachau. What can I say about it other than the horridness is so incomprehensible. Tomorrow it is off to Neuschwanstein Castle and Lindau.

Our new M3

We have our new car. I was a nervous wreck as Tony drove it through the streets of ´Munich. Not that Tony was driving crazy, but the streets are narrow and the rules are different. People zip in and out like crazy. I can just see us getting hit and damaging it before we even get it back to the states. Thank goodness we are not driving it around Munich anymore, except of course to leave on Sunday to our next destination.
The delivery process was amazing. Special treatment of course, great tour of the factory (two hours worth), then another hour or so at the BMW museum. Tomorrow is our day touring the city on foot, by bus and the u and s bahns. The weather was very rainy today, but tomorrow it is suppose to be sunny and warmer. Only have one car pic to post today. Pics of the city tomorrow.

Guten Tag from Munich. We arrived several hours ago with only one minor problem. And it was very minor. We didn´t know you had to push the button on the outside of the door on the s-bahn in order for the door to open. We just expected that when the tram stopped, the doors would open. So needless to say we didn´t get on the first one and had to wait for the next one. The public transportation system is amazing. Wish more cities in America would go that route. The other noticeable difference is on escaltors- if you want to stand you stay on the right and if you want to walk up them you move to the left. The escaltors can go both ways and start to move once you stand on them. Tonight we went to the Hofbräuhaus so we could have a beer and a pretzel just to say we did. I was getting dizzy watching all the people circle around looking for seats as the oompah band played in the background. It almost felt like being on a carousel. Then we got lost in the rain trying to find a restaurant and gave up because I was cold and wet. We can´t post any pictures yet as we have to use the hotel´s computer because the internet charge for wireless is $27 euros a day. We are using the free computer. As soon as we get to the next hotel or find a wireless internet cafe, we will start posting a few pictures. Tony´s big day is tomorrow- we pick up the car, tour the factory and drive the car off the lot. It is harder typing on a German keyboard as the y is where the z would be and vice versa. Plus there are keys for ö and ä- gotta have those umlaut. Guten abend- off to bed.

Europe Trip

We are going to try and post daily once we arrive in Germany. Hopefully we can live up to our promise. We leave Anchorage on March 11th and arrive in Munich around noon on the 12th. Look for our first post later that evening.