Deutschland

Tag Neun - Freitag, Mai eins und zwanzig Wilkommen zu Deutschland.  Guten Tag oder Guten Abend - depending on what time it is.  Our first day in Germany was at first very hectic but ended splendidly.  After picking up our rental car at the airport we headed south from Bonn toward the Mosel River in SW Germany.  Without a good roadmap we pretty much got lost every day.  But, that was part of the adventure.  We made it to Koblenz relatively smoothly, but after that we were lost for a good hour.  We ended up in Kobern and visited the Niederburg ruins where this picture is taken from (Kobern in the background).  The Mosel Valley was one of my favorite destinations on our vacation.

Day 10
I figured most Germans, like the Dutch and Belgians, would speak English.  I was wrong.  With our rental car we traveled to all the small towns in Germany where nobody...I mean nobody spoke English.  Thank goodness Ali and I knew some German.  Day two in Germany was the beginning of our blitzkrieg castle tour.  We only saw a fraction of the castles along the Mosel River, but you can only walk so much in one day.  Although the Mosel was prettier, the best castle was located along the Rhine.
 

Day 11 After our stay in one of Germany's Jugendherberge (youth hostels), we continued our castling by visiting the Rheinfels Castle along the Rhine - the neatest castle we visited.  The castle contained an underground maze of tunnels.  The tunnels were only about 4 feet high and were pitch black.  Here is a picture of Heather inside the mines.  After spending most of the day at Rheinfels, we visited two more castles before finding a hotel.

Day 12
On Monday we left the Rhine and went to Heidelberg.  We went swimming and visited the Heidelberg Castle (Schloss).  The youth hostel we stayed at was the dirtiest hostel of our trip.  The bathrooms reeked so bad none of us showered that night.  Despite some bad hostels, our overall hosteling experience was well worth it.

Day 13
Today we drove up to the Romantic Road and meandered down to the walled-in city of Rothenburg.  The most visited tourist attraction in Germany, I believed Rothenburg to be overrated.  Although both our travel books (Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door and Let's Go Europe) highly recommended Rothenburg, I found the smaller, less touristy cities more exciting.
 

Day 14 After spending the night in Rothenburg we hopped on the autobahn and headed for the Bavarian Alps.  Here is a picture of myself atop the Falkenstein ruins near Fussen.  Although the actual ruins were boring, the view was amazing.  For lunch I had a true German meal: three white bratwursts with sauerkraut and potatoes.  Nothing like white sausage - Mmmm.  One thing I don't miss is the Germany food.  Italy, as far as I am concerned, has the best food...but I have always had a predilection for pasta.

Day 16
Today was when I got sick.  I think it must have been something I ate because it did not last long at all.  Because I was sick I stayed inside most of the day.  However, by night time I felt revitalized and went out on the town.  We found a really neat internet cafe where internet access was free as long as you ordered a meal.  Since we were tired of all the heavy German food and the internet cafe served Italian, we ate there almost every day.

Day 17
We spent our last day in Germany just relaxing, shopping and walking around.  By late afternoon we boarded our overnight train to the Czech Republic.  Before leaving Europe I had found a webpage about a group of college students who went to Europe that explained their adventures.  They said that the overnight train rides were horrible.  None of them were able to sleep.  I couldn't disagree more.  The rumble of the train put me right to sleep and you save money and time by using the night trains.  Don't worry about how far away cities are.  Just take a night train and wake up in whatever European city you want to!