Jan 9, 2009 – Frankfurt – Homeward Bound!

This is the last entry in the Helton’s European trip blog.  As you can see from the date this was posted it falls quite a bit after our return on January 9, 2009.  But I’m glad to finally complete these last few entries and bring the trip to an official close.

It was a wonderful adventure for our family and putting this blog together was a great adventure for me and a great opportunity for our family to share some of what we experienced during our trip with our family and friends.

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After saying our goodbyes to the Kerwers, we headed up to the Frankfurt airport, or more specifically, a Holiday Inn near the airport that was the designated Auto-Europe pick up and drop-off point for their vehicles.  A shuttle transported us from here to the terminal and our departure gate.

In this photo Allister and Charlotte stand beside our trusty Jean-Pierre Peugeot who had been our reliable companion for the previous 4 months.

Jean-Pierre had about 11 kilometres when we picked him up and here you can see the final tally from our trip – 17, 424 kilometres!

Allister and Charlotte say goodbye to Jean-Pierre properly.  We hope Auto-Europe and Peugeot found him a good home…

And then we were off to the airport to board the plane for the long trip to Vancouver and then the ferry to Victoria and home.

Jan 8, 2009 – Seeheim-Jugenheim, Germany

Earlier in our trip we visited with a Frankfurt CISV delegation that had attended Charlotte’s CISV camp in Pittsburgh in July 2008.  The family of Lea, one of the members of that delegation, had invited us to stay at their home if it fit with our schedule on our way back to Frankfurt for our return trip home.

With such a kind offer, we made this fit with our plans so the day before we were due to depart Frankfurt we met up with the Kerwer family in the city of Seeheim-Jugenheim, located less than 50 kilometres south of Frankfurt.

The Kerwer home was located on the edge of a large green space that we explored on a brilliantly sunny but cool day

It didn’t take long for the snowball fight to break out.

The Kerwer children’s school was located in part of this common green space area.

It had some pristine snow that was calling out, “snow angel, snow angel…”

I’ve remarked earlier in this blog about how impossible it is for kids of a certain age to pass by a playground without experiencing it.  This day provided another data point in my ongoing research.  We took advantage of the opportunity by having the kids pose for this picture.

A little further on from the school was a pond that was frozen quite solid.  A circular track had been cleared for skaters.

A group photo of the Kerwer family with Charlotte and Allister.

Jan 7, 2009 – Heppenheim, Germany

I had some hotel points remaining so we decided to stay a night in the same city and hotel where we spent our first couple of days when we first arrived in Europe in early September 2008.

Our hotel was in the old section of Heppenheim – they gave us the same room we’d stayed in our previous visit – and, as before, we were impressed by the view from our room of the rooftops of the old city.

Sept 30, 2009 – Munich

As we headed for Strasbourg, France we thought it would be fun to stop in Munich for a night or so.  However, it turned out Munich was in the midst of Oktoberfest (Sept 24 – Oct 5)and there were no hotel rooms to be had.  So we settled for the next best thing.  We headed from Praha to Munich in the morning, spent the afternoon and evening in Munich and then headed to our hotel room in Burgau, Germany, about 100 kilometers west of Munich.

It seemed to us that Munich residents may dress during Oktoberfest like Calgarians dress during the stampede.  These are only two examples of people we saw dressed in traditional German clothing.

Laura-Lyn insisted (ok, ok, I was an easy sell) that we have a beer in one of Munich’s outdoor beer gardens.  I’d like the record to show that the near beer is Laura-Lyn’s (who is taking he picture) and the one further up the table is mine and is only coincidentally in front of he children.

The Munich town hall, like Praha’s town hall has a special clock that crowds gather to watch as it signals an hour or half hour.  I have a series of pictures that show the entire, elaborate, production but I’ll just leave it to your imagination.

We decided that the Hofbrauhaus might be a good place to mark Oktoberfest and have a German dinner.  After some initial misgivings, Allister agreed to join us and enjoyed his visit for reasons I’ll describe below.

Life is good!

As Allister and Charlotte have grown older we’ve gone through various stages in their restaurant-going development.  They range from our first visits where we merely survived (“Allister, put down that salt shaker”, “Charlotte, please come back”) to their growing ability, as they got older, to use the coloring books and puzzles offered by the restaurants to keep them occupied until food arrived.

I suppose the Hofbrauhaus was just a variant on the coloring book and puzzles, but the idea that you could, and were encouraged to do so, carve up the tables was an entirely new experience for Allister and he stepped up to the challenge.

Allister insisted that we collect a picture of the band.

Sept 27, 2009 – Dresden

One of the things I try to do when I reach a new city to mark the start of a new series of pictures and their location is to take a picture of something that has the place name included in it.  Here, for example, is the picture that marked the start of my Dresden photos.

 

On the recommendation of many, we stopped in Dresden on our way from Berlin to Prague (about a 4 hour drive).  I’ll add more detail about this palace, the Zwicker, when I get a chance but it was very large and, as you can see from the weather, it was a great day for touring this impressive monument.  It was also home to a museum featuring the Dresden porcelain dolls that is one of the things its famous.

In her own way, this Dresden street vendor was an artist, carving vegetables into all kinds of different shapes and creating a very appealing booth in the process.

Another thing Dresden is famous is having parts of it be more or less bombed flat during world War II.  This building was either rebuilt or reconstructed after World War II.  The picture doesn’t do justice to its size – it was very large.

Not all Dresden was bombed flat but I imagine much of its was affected by the dust and fallout from bombing.  This building shows the contrast between either new or reconstructed buildings and the colour of stone affected by bomb fallout.

Dresden was definitely a stop on the tour bus itinerary and the old town area where we toured was swarming with tourists of all nations (including Canada, we even saw an Ontario Restaurant), but it had a nice ambience, and on a nice warm day like we had, was a great place to walk around and enjoy the street musicians. 

Its hard to call someone that is playing a grand piano a ’street musician’ but that is technically what this very accomplished musician was.  He played very accomplished versions of both classical music and some jazz standards.

There were other types of street performers that were very used to having their pictures taken but not for free.  In this picture, one of them is pointing at me and about to demand that I add 1 Euro to their collection.

Sept 24-26, 2009 – Berlin – Day 3 (continued)

Berlin was home to some very striking architecture.  Our walking tour guide made the observation (not original, I’m sure, but interesting nonetheless) comment  that the fall of the Wall had brought to life every property developer’s dream – putting on the market a 2.2 km wide stretch of undeveloped property cutting through a major city.  Potsdamer Platz was only one example of the result.

 

Another example of Potsdamer Platz.  The building in the background (behind the two larger foreground buildings) was illuminated at night and visible from all over downtown Berlin.

On the day we were at Potsdamer Platz the France’s Alsace-Lorraine tourism bureau had some information displays designed to provide more information about their region and entice tourists.  One of the displays was a static line rope course that both Allister and Charlotte gravitated to instantly and went around twice.  I think they were the best customers the operators had that day.

Also part of the Alsace-Lorraine display was a medieval sword play exhibition.  Allister, through his interest in things medieval found this fascinating.  I think this is one of his photos.

This line etched in the sidewalks of downtown Berlin shows the path of the Wall and enables the visitor to visualize its path.  It was not straight, as one might think, but meandered around, the result, I’m sure, of many negotiations.

 

Sunset in Berlin on our last day, on to Prague (or Praha to Europeans) via Dresden tomorrow!