Castles-

So the weather looks awful for the next week or more. We saw a nice day on Thursday, so I took off to go see castles. Don't worry, I have a deadline next week and I will be plenty busy this weekend trying to get ready...

We went down to Hohenzollern, which is about an hour away. A lot of kaisers lived here, but I don't really know because the tour was in German. A nice crown and lots of good armor on display, plus some good rooms to see. I found out today that the family still lives occasionally in part of the castle. Externally, the castle was pretty neat as it would be impossible to assault I would imagine. Luckily, the bus was running so it was pretty easy to get to.

Then we tried to get to Hohen Urauch. We started up the trail, but we must have taken a wrong turn. We turned back after about a mile, but never made it up. Plus, Ellie had a little accident because we did not have three dimes to open the toilet in the little bar at the base of the mountain. Silly Germans and their pay toilets.

Then we headed to Burg Hoen Teck. Again, they don't have a road up to the top that you can drive, so we just had to take some photos. That was a neat one because we saw five hot air ballons lifting off over the Schwabish Alps. But again, we missed out on exploring the castle as it was getting late.

And we were planning to hit Neidlingen as well. 1/4 accomplished, 3/4 seen. No too bad, but we could have done better. Not awful for a quick afternoon.

Herrnbräu Hefe Weißbier Dunkel - Andi says "Nice". I like it a good bit as well. Solid for a dark wheat beer. I think this is from near Munich.

Altmühltaler Hell - Forgot to review this one, but I don't think it was memorable.

I also found some pics from older beers I never posted. I will try to list them and something if I remember what they were...

Altmühltaler Hell and Herrnbräu Hefe-Weißbier Dunkel

Munich-

Today we hit the Audi museum. I had head good things about it, but it really was not that great. The building was nice, but nothing seemed to work. Sound, video, computers all were dead. They did have some cool cut out engines that were moving so you could see all the parts. And they had some cool cut open cars to look at. But really, it was not that great. Andi said it was also dirty, but I could not tell.

We did our final trip to Munich. We stopped at the Olympic park where they were having some kids festival. It was typical liability free German: they had kids rolling giant inflatible balls down a hill, crows working on tightropes (just a foot off the ground), and various other things that were not organized or supervised. Crazy. We also saw the Sealand on our Legoland pass. We have really used them a lot this year.

Finally, we had dinner at the Hofbrauhaus. We have been by there a couple of times, but this was the first time we had awful service. The waitress was even bad by German standards. And the kids were really tired from not sleeping much the day previous. Not a great day, but ok.

Hofbräuhaus Origninal - Good as always.

HB Original and some wurst. We had the "wurst" service ever.

Giant Bretzel.

Waist high stainless steel flush "sink" with floor drain. This place is set up for serious drinking.

May Day-

May first is a holiday in Germany (one of about 15 fixed ones). We slept in a bit and left the house at 10:30 headed for a little adventure.

First we hit a Renaissance Fair near Heilbronn at Burg Stettenfels. It was super crowded and somewhat expensive, so we just looked around and left. We had already walked around that caslte once, but it was neat to see the people dressed in period costumes with tents and stuff around a real castle.

Next we hit Nürenberg. As we came into town, some protesters were protesting so the cops detoured us. The leftist/communists/socialists/europeans love to protest on May 1. We toured the castle and saw the deep well demo, then walked downtown a bit. Then we went out the the Zepplen field that was Hitler's rally spot. You know this one from the big Nazi symbol that was taken down in WWII.

Then we headed over toward Munich to the oldest brewery in the work, Weihenstephaner in Freising. They had a nice little beergarden terrace with good food and great beer. We liked the food and I liked the beer.

Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier : tasty, one of the better ones. Andi says "Not too memorable, not a standout, not my kind of beer." I say it was fine.

Weihenstephaner Dunkel : Ok, but nothing super terrific. Andi says " It was wet" whatever that means. "Not dry, thirst quenching, and wet" ???

Weihenstephaner Original Helles: Ok, but the hefeweissbier was better.

Weihenstephaner, the oldest brewery in the world.

Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier and Bretzel

Weihenstephaner Dunkel

The brewery was really not much to look at from the outside.

Weihenstephaner original Helles

The hills are alive-

So we finally went over to Austria (intentionally). If you know to watch for the border and pay $10 for a 10 day pass, it is not so bad. Salzburg is just past Munich, and we managed to get there by 10 AM on Sunday.

We started out in the old part of town, parking in some big bomb shelter / fortress under the mountain. We walked through a few churches and saw some gardens from the Sound of Music. The kids fell asleep so we drove a bit further into Austria to see the the Sound of Music wedding church and some lakes. After dinner on a nice little nearby lake we found our hotel on a hill overlooking Salzburg.

Of course, we could only see the new part of town. The Altstadt was hidden by a big mountain. And we could not go swimming, the pool was the worst looking thing I have ever seen. But in general the view was great.

This morning started off well. Andi freaked out as we were leaving the room, "where is the camera!" and she had it strapped right around her neck. I figured that out when I was 10 playing T-ball and could not find my baseball cap one inning. We finally got out and did the castle, one of the biggest in Europe. Very nice view of downtown. Then we did the theater (three theaters in all) to see the one from Sound of Music. After that, we went to Heilbronn to see the trick fountains (that spray people on surprise). The best part there, Andi was trying to get Drew sprayed, so she encouraged him to go get up in the front row for a organ / moving toy display, then the water came from behind us all! It got here right in her rear, all over.

Some stuff looked familiar from when we were there 20 years ago in high school with the band, but it is amazing how faded that trip is now. Oh well.

After the water fountains, the kids played on the playground. We got in the car and hit the McDonalds. Only later did I realize that I never looked that the gazebo they had on display for the sound of music (I am 16, going on 17). Andi played all the songs from the movie for the kids on the way home and then they slept the rest of the way without a nap at all on Sunday.

Great trip overall. Amazing what you can pack into two days!

Forgot to write up last Sunday. We had a beautiful day in Stuttgart and went to a local castle on top a mountan near Neuffen. I realized that in South Carolina we really don't have enough 800 year old partially ruined castles overlooking cities with a nice beer garden and medieval themed falcon shows. Something to work on, I guess.

Recently, we saw a funny Gutman clip where he mentions a German news story saying it came vrom "DER SPIEGEL" in a funny strong Germanic voice. We have taken to this one, as it seemed funny at the time. Drew will run around saying angrily "DER SPIEGEL". Well, the Salzburg beer is Stiegel...

Der Stiegel - Not that good, but ok after you get half of it down.

We also stopped in an Irish pub and had a pint of Guinness. Andi has me ask about Murphy's in every pub we see. Those Irish are prolific, they have a pub in every city.

Guinness

Stiegel

Seven days, seven countries-

Well, we survived. We drove back from Brugges through Brussels to stop at the Atominium (world's fair 1958 display) and to see the statue of the boy taking a pee. We saw Waterloo, just south of Brussels. Then we drove a little out of our way to hit Luxembourg and France on the way home. Seven days, seven countries. Technically, we left on a Friday and returned on a Friday, so it was eight. But we basically started our trip from Hamburg on Saturday morning... We considered driving over to Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, and Italy today to go for 11 countries in eight days, but even we are not quite that nuts.

Friday and Monday were both holidays. I had some stuff to do, so I was in the office all of Saturday to catch up. Too bad the weekends are the good times to work when nothing is there demanding attentions.

We did stop in Brussels and pick up a case of fine Belgium beers. Andi likes them now, so she will help me do some more reviews (I hope).

St. Bernardus Abt 12: Andi says: "Some aftertaste. Stringent. Not as good as some others we tasted." Fine, but not great.

Amsterdam and Belgium-

So we got to the Netherlands late in the afternoon on Monday. We were in a resort (empty this time of year) north of Amsterdam, near the canal. So what do we have for dinner? Chinese food! Very good.

The next day (Tuesday) we got up and drove down to Keukenhof, the giant Amsterdam flower festival. Seven million bulbs planted, plus bulb farms surrounding the gardens for miles. Andi picked the right time of year to do this, everything was blooming farily well. The Daffodils were getting spent and tulips were about right. Some were dying and some were still getting ready to bloom. We hoped to be there at park opening, but we were delayed by two closed McDonalds. Luckily, the tourists only show up around noon. The morning was pleasant, but the afternoon was awfully crowded.

Wednesday we had planned a rather short drive over to Belgium, but traffic in and around Amsterdam really got us. We had hoped to drop in on Antwerp, but we ran out of time on the road. Instead, we went right to the hotel in Bruges. Andi found a "reasonable" rate at a hotel-castle! Moat and everything! Actually, it is only a little over 100 years old, not a classic medieval castle, but still pretty amazing. Wednesday afternoon we went in and walked around Bruges and had dinner on the Markt square at a nice restaurant.

Thursday was a classic tour day in Bruges:

• Parked
• Google maps passed us doing street view imaging!
• Diamond Museum closed until 10:30
• Bathroom Emergency! No problem!
• Funeral at the church where we need Michalangelo Statue Pics
• Dimond Museum
• Get more Michalangelo Statue Pics
• Canal tour in the rain
• Lunch at sandwich place
• Beer shop 2BE
• Walked up the tower in Markt Square
• Chocolate Museum
• Blood of Christ
• Rides and ducks for the kids
• Beer Museum (Closed, but had a round)
• Dinner at sandwich place
• Walked back to the car

Andi likes these Belgium beers, so she helped me taste test a bunch of them. Comments below. The Halve Maan Brewery is the only brewery operating in the town center and it traces it roots back to 1564. Bruges in general is a neat town, with a lot of medieval stuff since their economy started tanking around 1600 (so it stayed untainted by moderninzation). Some neat stuff to see overall, with lots of canals.

Wednesday:

Zok in Half Yard - Tasty, but expensive.
Westmalle Trappist Dubbel - Not so great, a bit off.


Thursday:
Zot Dark Unfiltered- Good. Andi says: "Full flaver, smooth, no aftertaste. Good."
Zot Blanche Unfiltered - Good and tasty.
Brugs Witbier - Andi says: "Cloudy but yummy." 4.8%
Maes - Ok, not great. Andi says: "A little too sharp." 4.9%
Brugges Tripel - Tasty and strong. Andi says: "Like a champagne. A happy beer." Lots of bubbles. 8.7%
Tourtel Malt Blonde - Andi says: "Strange. No aftertaste. Not sticking to my tounge. Clear tasting. Wierd. I could drink this all day." Funny fruit smell. 0.4% HA!
Leffe Blonde - Andi says: "Interesting." Lots of flavor.

Zot at the Brewery unfiltered, light and dark.

Wall of Beer near 2Be

Beer Cellar in 2BE, four rows of this!

They sell it packaged like champagne or a nice whiskey.

Zot in half-yard

Westmalle Trappist Dubbel, Brugs, Maes, Brugge Tripel, Tourtel Malt, Leffe Blonde

Sweets with the Swedes?

I type this as Andi tries to get the car to go over 100 MPH, 160 KPH on the Autobahn. And Audis still pass us over and opver...

Easter Sunday we woke up in Sweden. The easter bunny found us and delivered baskets with standard chocholates and a few small towys for the kids. At breakfast, we watch 4-5 bunnies playing in the nearby field.

We then "hopped" in the car and drove 3 hours to Bilund, Denmark, home of the original Legoland park. We have been using our annual pass a lot, but mostly for the Legoland near Stuttgart (also for some aquariums and Madame Tussuad's in Berlin). This park opened in 1968 and I have wanted to go visit since I was a kid.

Overall, it was a nice park. It is more established than the Germany park. They have hills, older trees, and waterfalls. They also have a huge miniature land where they recreate buildings from various countries. The one in Germany was expansive, but this seemed even bigger. The rides are mostly the same, but this park had a few new ones. One was a fire truck thing where you have to physically pump the truck to move it and get the water flowing (tiring). They also had an old mine train that definitely was not ADA approved. The rest were standard for legoland, good for smaller kids but lame for roller coaster enthusiasts. We were worried about crowds on Easter, but it was not bad. Maybe they were all in Church?

This park does have a nice looking hotel attached to the park. Literally, one border of the park was the hotel. However, it was like $400 per night to stay, so we stayed just down the street. We could have slept in the car, the kids were so tired after running around all day at Legoland. Andi and I were dissapointed in the Legoland shop. I had hoped they would have "pick-a-brick" with a wide selection of parts (technical, hard-to-find, and duplo) but no such luck. We have a better selection in Germany, and that is not too great. So while nice, I am glad we did not plan a whole European trip just to do Legoland.

BTW, Denmark has a lot of windmills. And a lot of wind.

Of course, the Germans have Good Friday off. A three day weekend being insuficient, they also get Monday off. I guess they call it Good Monday? Maybe they need to recover from their easter hangovers? They could not be burdend to take one of their 30 personal holidays, or maybe one of their liberal sick-days either. Anyway, we are headed down toward Amsterdam to see some flowers.

Just from our cursory visit to Hamburg, Copenhagen, and my previous trip to Stockholm, northern Europe looks "nice". The towns are meticulously clean, the building look old and stately, there is no grafiti and they have limited businesses. You don't see doner kebab shacks or gentlemen's clubs like they have just off the main drag in Stuttgart / Munich. Maybe they push the dirt further out into the suburbs? We spent some time wandering around an exit in Denmark looking for an ATM and even the "normal" areas seemed quite nicely done.

BTW, ATMs are rare in Denmark. They take credit or the silly EC card everywhere. Even pay at the pump! (Not found in Germany now) We did find a ATM at Legoland. They have coins with holes in them, that was pretty neat. The Danish lady at the hotel spoke english perfectly, I assumed she was British but she was actually a local. The scandanavian kids are very very very blond, I saw a couple that could have been albinos. I have never seen white hair like that.

Driving to Sweden was an experience. They have a couple of long water crossings to get there, rivaling the long bridge in the Keys and the Macinac bridge in Michigan. Amazing structures.

Driving around up here, I am glad we canceled our crazy trip to the Arctic circle. Once you get to Denmark, things are pretty sparse. Stockholm was a good ways away from Malmo, and the Arctic circle would have been 6-7 hours north of there. Google says Stuttgart to Malmo is about 10 hours, which we did over two days. Google also says Columbia to Cleveland is abougt 10 hours, a trip we have done on a Friday afternoon...

No beer again. Maybe in the Netherlands tonight.

Danishes with the Danish?

We woke up early and hit the miniature world in Hamburg, the world's larges model train display. They are still building it, so in a few years it should be twice as big. If you ever go, go early before the crowd really shows up. It was 5-10x bigger than the Chattanooga Choo-choo, if you know that model railroad display. Really nice and worth a couple of hours.

We drove on two giant bridges to get through Denmark, then wandered around in Copenhagen a bit. We saw the famous mermaid statue and some marble church and found a mall for dinner. We ended up just over the border in Malmo, Sweden. Northern Germany, Denmark and Sweden all appear very nice and clean, but everything is also very expensive.

Tonight the Easter bunny comes and tomorrow we head to the real Legolan in Bilund, Denmark.

Pripps Bla- Not too bad. Fairly tasty.

Pripps Bla displayed on Easter Sunday!

Hamburgers in Hamburg -

Yesterday was Good Friday, so all of Germany heads for the hills on this national holiday. We had decided to cancel our crazy road trip to the Arctic Circle, so we are headed in that direction but not so far. We started off stopping near Stuttgart in Schorndorf, a small town with lots of Fachwerkhauser and their main fountain is decorated with eggs for Easter.

We drove north to Goslar. The countryside was really nice, with nice rolling hills. It looks like Kentucky, or the foothills of the Appalachians where I grew up. We stopped in Goslar, a former seat of the Holy Roman Empire. We also stopped near Hamburg at an artificial ski slope, 300 meters long. Amazing!

We found a good hamburger place in Hamburg, but we had just been forced to stop to eat dinner. When our crew gets hungry, you have to stop very soon or else...

BTW, I always wondered why they put Z rated tires on the Mercedes back home. Those tires are rated for 140 MPH sustained over an hour. Yesterday, we got the car up to 100 MPH sustained for a while on the empty Autobahn, so it is useful in some places.

Legoland -

We had to fly home Saturday AM to get the cheap German Wings flights. They really have amazing fares in Europe if you have rather flexible travel dates. I think the four of us round trip to Greece was around $500.

After we had returned the rental car, Andi confessed that she had read Athens has the highest rate of auto accidents in the world. I could believe it, they were crazy there. The double parking, the lack of signals at intersections, the poor lane markings, the crazy mopeds and motercycles, the pedestrians, etc. It was nuts. She held off telling me to make sure she did not jinx us and it worked.

Even the subways were crowded, no matter the time of day. Packed to the edges, standing room only. Getting a stroller on was a chore. However, the people were the nicest and most polite I have ever seen on a train. We had ladies jumping up to make room for our kids. Maybe nobody is stupid enough to take kids on the trains? We never saw any others.

Anyway, we returned early enough to rest up a bit Saturday. I sat down to eat frozen pizza and tried one of the last beers in a plastic bottle. Graffenwalder Malz. It was so bad I gave up after only two or three sips. Then I realized it not only tasted bad, it was alcohol free. DNF.

Sunday, we felt good enough to take the family to Legoland on their second day of opening. We could say we strategically waited a day for the grand opening of "Bob der Baumeister" in the 4D theater. You may know Bob from his famous catchphrase: "Yes we can!" Anyway, it started rainy but ended up nice (and crowded). We also picked up some more Duplos for the kids. Luckily, Legos weigh almost nothing so we should be able to ship or carry them home easily. For lunch, we had pizza at the park and I had a Autenreider Hefe Weissen. Andi and I both thought it was terrific, so good we stopped to look (unsuccessfully) at a local gas station to get more. Beer is very regional here, so you get a different selection just an hour away. And you have to love a kids theme park where you can buy beer at the same price as Coke.

Grafenwalder Maltz - Awful, nearly the worst so far, DNF.

Autenrieder Hefe Weissen - Great, nearly the best so far.

Riots-

We woke up early and tried the Greek national museum. They have some amazing stuff. A lot of the gold they found at Mycanae site is there, including the mask of Agammemnon. We were there for a long time before we saw something from the ADs, everything else was either old or really old.

We promised the kids that we would take the double decker tour bus, which we managed to find. Thankfully, they will do all the driving for you in this crazy town. The 90 minute bus ride circuit was nice, until three hours in we had only managed a little over half of the route. The Greeks were out rioting over something downtown, so traffic was even worse than usual. We found out later that they were striking at the airport (mostly the greek lines) and striking in the ports (so our thoughts of getting to an island would be a disaster). I remember thinking it odd that a Greek colleague was so worried about angering the students and inciting them to riot. now I understand. We managed to jump out and grab chips, cookies, and drinks for lunch on the bus since the bus was not going anywhere.

When finally we got off the bus, we saw the old stadium that seats 50,000 from 300 BC. After that, we played on a little playground nearby. Then we walked through a neat area with some giant columns and Hadrian's gate. We tried to get into one of the theaters at the base of the acropolis, but the old bitty would not let us in. They close at 3 and we were 10 minutes early. That is plenty of time for touring with kids! Too bad I do not know any good Greek swear words, although we did voice some displeasure there. The Acropolis and the Agora areas were also closed at 3. We saw the tower of the wind where the whirling dervishes were, the flea market during the day, and finally got back to Victoria square for dinner. The kids were beat after no naps, and we are pretty tired as well.

It was sunny today, cold in the shade with wind yet hot in the sun. Some people had coats with fur lined hoods on. I was in shorts, sweating bullets as I carried Ellie down from the Acropolis and I saw a lady sitting around with a coat and fur earmuffs. I cannot imagine how terrible it would be to come in summer.

Dinner in Victoria square was good again. It was fun to watch the street vendors pack and run when the cops showed up. Now that we are leaving we finally know how to order for the most part.

I read that 70% of the beer in Greece is either Heiniken or Amstel. They have two major nationals, Mythos and Alpha. I have not found Alpha.

Lowenbrau on tap with dinner. Fine after a long hard hot day.

Comedy of errors-

So we set out to see the sights just west of Athens.

We got to Corinth. I assume this is where fine Corinthian leather comes from, but I never saw any. We totally missed some Corinthian canal we were supposed to see and we ended up on a street filled with double parked cars. Not 3000 years old. Thanks GPS!

We finally realized ancient Corinth was down the road. Doh! Along the way, we missed ancient Corinth and ended up at Acro Corinth, an old fort on a hill. This was one of the best things we have seen, it was truly awesome. But we only got halfway up the hill. After we came down, we read you can see the whole isthmus from the very top. Oops.

After a quick lunch near ancient Corinth, we toured the ruins. Nice temple columns, lots of rubble. Since we were lacking sunscreen and the kids were fussy, I had us skip the back 40. Come to find out later, we missed the big theater where they had mock water battles in a flooded stage. oops.

Then we went to Myacea. This place is really old. It makes the Acropolis look brand new. Something like 1500 BC. We hoofed it all the way to the top, but again I cut us a little short. We did not hike down into a cave to see the cistern, which is probably best when dealing with little ones. oops again.

We did see a cool underground dome, the treasury. Apparently this was the biggest dome on earth for a thousand years. Basically a big hole in the ground.

We drove on as the kids slept toward some big old ancient theater. Epidavros or something. Once we got there, it was closed for reconstruction. Peering through the gate, it looked pretty lame anyway. Nobody was there but us and a horse. And some chickens. It did have a nice view of the ocean. Or sea. Whatever.

Tonight we find out we missed the theater. The one we were looking for was much much much bigger. oops. How many ancient theaters can there be in one crappy little greek town? We thought we followed the right signs... oops.

On the way back to town, we saw the canal. The interstate runs right over it, a deep cut in the ground to cross the isthmus. Pretty amazing, but not much else. Apparently not cool enough for some little brown historical signs.

We also managed to get near the acropolis at night. Then Andi says she wanted to go up again, since our ticket is good for seven days. Of course I never expected to hike back up that god forsaken hill again with two little kids, so I left the tickets in the hotel room. oops. Actually, I think they close at 8, so we will call that one a draw. We took a couple of pics from below.

Driving in this city is a mess. Total mess. Parking too. May be worse than Rome and Milan.

Overall, the day was terrific. It just sounds like we missed some stuff, but we saw a ton. And it was truly amazing. Drew was a total champ, and Ellie screamed her head off every time she thought she saw a bug. Camping will be fun with this one.

No beer, just some wine in a box with a screw top. No corkscrew...

All Greek to me -

We took some time to take a quick trip down to Athens, Greece. Flying in Europe is really cheap, especially compared to flying from the US to Europe. So Tuesday morning at 3 am we were getting ready to catch a 6 am flight. I love that my wife must be two hours early for flights...

We told some Germans that we were headed to Greece for three days and they looked at us like we were totally crazy. Why go that short? They like vacation in 2-4 week chunks. Crazy. But ours are not really vacations, they are tours...

We arrived in Athens and got the car, all before noon. We brought Mandy, but Andi had not actually checked to see if Greece was in the GPS. "It has all of Europe." Except eastern Europe. We did rent a GPS from the auto place, but it was a disaster (Nonio?) So we used the WiFi at our hotel and paid to download the Greece maps to Mandy, then returned the other GPS POS. TomTom is the way to go. When you get down deep in a city, you can lose the signal. Mandy has some inertial sensor so she can usually navigate tunnels and other areas pretty well (without freaking out too much).

So we hopped in the car and went out to the temple of Poseidon, on a great cliff about an hour outside Athens. I discovered Ellie hates bugs, she screamed her head off like someone was pulling off her fingers over a ladybug. The temple was great, but the weather was a bit gray. We drove back along the coast. A lot of Greece could use a touch of paint and some litter removal. It looked like Jamaica or Puerto Rico. And the parking/driving in town is crazy.

Today we got up and did the Athens ruins. There is a lot of neat stuff near the temple of Hephestus, which then leads up to the Acropolis and Parthenon. Again, the day was gray so pictures will be just ok. They had cranes all over the Parthenon and the museum is closed for rennovation, so we just walked around and saw the old stuff. Pretty amazing. It really is up on a big hill, very impressive considering how old that stuff is. Lunch at a little place right in the shadow of the acropolis. We saw some more stuff nearby but did not have time to go in the park, the kids were wearing out.

Later today after naps we got online and picked football tickets. Very important! We should finally have decent seats. The last few years we have been too close to the game, having to stand on the seat to see the jumbo tron. Now, we should be right on the 50, about 5 rows from the top on the home side. This will put us in the shade for afternoon and night games. We may even be under the pressbox a bit to keep out of the rain! I think we will also have a good view of the fair and city skyline. I am excited!

Tonight we found a nice place for dinner in nearby Victoria Square. It seems like everyone we meet knows passable English for the most part. Victoria square is a little sketchy, but it seems safe enough overall. But the parking is really horrible. Luckily, our hotel has a garage.

Forgot to mention a funny story from Drew: Last week at the Getrank Markt, I had some trouble talking with the clerk. Drew said: "Daddy, your German is nicht so gut." He has learned a lot in just a few months.

Had a beer at lunch by the acropolis in our little eatery.

Mythos - Fine pilsner, nothing fancy or extremely memorable.

Dinos and Drew -

We finally went to the Stuttgart natural history museum. I think it was even better than the Frankfurt musuem for dinos. Frankfurt had a big room with a few of the well known dinos (T-rex, stegosaurus, brontosaurus) but not much else. Stuttgart was basically nothing but dinos. And a wooly mammoth. And more dinos. Lots of water dinos/lizard things. Scary giant aligators. Loch nest moster things. Water plants. Generally pretty neat, and close to home.

Saturday we had our fist night out with the new baby sitter. It was surprising how nice that was just to get out for a few hours without worrying about kids and their behavior.

The kids have been a little sick, so we took a pretty easy weekend. We picked up a couple of beers at Lidle. It is strange drinking out of a screw-top plastic bottle. But at least they were cheap...

Achalm Pilsner - Not great but drinkable.

Cobra - at the Indian restaurant on date night. Great just to be out, not a bad beer.

Grafenwald Hefe Weissbier - Pretty good, considering the cost and source.

Tuborg Pilsner - This time, you get what you pay for.

Achalm Pilsner, Grafenwald Hefe Weissbier, Tuborg Pilsner

Cobra

Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Wilhelma

Saturday we drove 1.5 hours to Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a neat little Midevil walled town. We saw the moat, a few churches, some neat shops, and a lot of towers. You can walk around on a covered walkway inside the wall about 20 feet up. We were here before Christmas for their Weinachtsmarkt, but we did not get to tour much. It really is a neat little town to see.

Sunday we got up early and got to the Wilhelma, Stuttgart's zoo. Beating the crowds, we saw a lot of active animals. Once the kids got a little tired and the crowds got worse, we went to have lunch at the Hauptbahnhof and play some soccer in the nearby park.

Sigel Kloster Hefe Weizen - Very tasty and good.

5.0 Original - At the Hbf I had a 5.0 Original with lunch. Any beer that names itself after the percent of alcohol it contains is not very good. DNF.

Sigel Kloster Hefe Weizen

5.0 Original

Alps -

Saturday, we walked around the village a little bit. They have horse-drawn carriage rides, so we had a chance to see more of the town that we could by walking. Later, we had a great dinner in the little gasthaus I had scouted earlier. One of the common favorites here is Schweinhaxen, baked pig knuckle. Very tasty!

Our hotel was a quaint little guesthaus with maybe 20-30 rooms. It looked just like hundreds (thousands) of other little alpine hotels in Germany: white wals, dark wooden roof, with extra dark wooden accents. This one was recently remodeled and fairly nice (and not expensive). We found out that we were the only guests there on a Saturday! Apparently the ski season was over, even though they had 2 feet of snow on the ground.

We woke up to rain on Sunday. Maybe nobody was around because of the weather forcast? We decided to drive home through some of the German Alps, the Austrian Alps, and the Italian Alps. Going through a pass in the morning, the rain turned to snow. Luckily, it did not stick. After lunch in Lienz, the weather cleared up and we decided to try the Dolomite Road. Mandy (the GPS) said this was a dirt road. She was wrong: it was paved. However, the road was only big enough for one car in many spots. This was a beautiful small road through the alps, we had a great time while the kids slept. However, the weather got bad again towards Italy. After dinner, Andi drove us for a while through a lot of snow north of Innsbruck. It was was pretty messy, but very little was sticking on the roads. A good tour, overall.

I had two beers Saturday night at the pub.

Weininger Zwickl - Unique to the pub, but just a normal pilsner.

Weininger Dunkel Weisse - A lot of taste, more than any of my other wheat beers. However, not my favorite taste so far (but still very good).

Weininger Zwickl

Wininger Dunkel Weisse

Reit Im Winkl -

We liked the area in SE Germany so much that we decided to do a second weekend there before all the snow melted. As we drove up, we noticed there was not much snow, but as we arrived in Reit im Winkl the snow was plowed about 4-6 feet high on the side of the road and maybe 1-2 feet on the houses. We took the kids snow tubing on a nearby slope until the German came and crowded us out. Plus, the sun was getting hot, I think it was approaching 70 here! We forgot the sunscren so we may have a nice raccoon tan. So far, it was a very pleasant quiet weekend.

Last week, we entertained our friend John for the night. We did a restaurant downtown after the modern art gallery. The art was awful, but the food was fine. After dinner, we split a few beers. A couple were old favorite, but a couple were new.

Oettinger Schwartzbier - Very creamy and tasty. Not a Guinness, but may be the closes we get.
Oettinger Alt - Tasted like its namesake, old. Not good. DNF (Did Not Finish)

While the family napped, I wandered around town, scouting places for dinner. I found a nice gasthaus with an open biergarten.

Wieninger Helle Draft - Good, decent taste.

Weininger Helle

Oettinger Schwartzbier and Alt

Zugspitze-

Last Saturday we went over to Garmish, just south of Munich. You can take a train and gondola up to the Zugspitze, the highest point in Germany. They have a glacier where you can ski all year and a igloo where you can stay overnight.

We tried to walk the ten minutes to the igloo, but we were met by a snow storm. Some might even call it a blizzard. After a couple of minutes, we turned back because the wind was pretty bad and Ellie was yelling "Cold! Cold! Cold! Cold!" The people watching us from the cafe window 30 feet away must have been amused at our attempt. So we basically saw nothing that day. The gondola was not bad, even though the wind must have been going 30-40 mph.

The next day we left Munich and went to Altötting where they have a venerated Mary shrine. They also keep the hearts of the kings of Bavaria in jars in the shrine. Spooky, but neat. That afternoon we hit some alps SW of Salzburg. We found a nice sled run near Reit im Winkl and we may go back again this weekend before all the snow leaves.

I told a colleague we went to Zugspitze. He could not believe we drove three hours to get there, since it is so far away! I did not tell him we drove back from Reit im Winkl (a bit further) after dinner. The Germans don't really do road trips, I a suppose. It is a good thing the kids travel well.

Today I was downtown, walking along the main pedestrian zone before businesses opened. I saw a Vodaphone shop window that had been defaced. If you read this, you know we have had some problems with Vodaphone ($5000 bill for "all of Europe" service that is not "all of Europe") so I can understand their anger. It looked like someone had spread poo on the window of the shop. They put poo in the shape of a Nazi emblem, the hackenkreutz. However, this was the most mentally challenge graffiti I have seen. They had the pointy parts going the wrong way. And one of the four points was going the other way from the first three. If you are going to deface something, lock down your design first!

Last week I had two of the the .75 L beers with the champagne style corks. Not as explosive as some champagnes, but still a good pop when you open them.

La Goudale - Fine, tasty, not bad.
Jenlain Blonde - Similar, ok to drink but nothing special.

Jenlain Blonde

La Goudale

Liechtenstein-

We drove over to Liechtenstein, another country down! What a pathetic little country. Bill Gates should buy it and make his own little theme park. They seem to have nothing, but they did have a McDonald's so we could eat. After lunch, we drove to Domat EMS where Andi's company is based. Then we headed off to St. Moritz, but snow in the alps slowed us down and we stopped to sled with the kids. Then we drove down to Zurich for dinner. Traffic going into and out of Zurich was awful.

I did a little time on the Wikipedia:
South Carolina 31,100
Georgia 58,400
North Carolina 52,700
Total 142,200 sq. miles

Germany 137,800 sq. miles


I also looked at some travel distances using google maps.

From Columbia to (in miles) :
Charlotte	82			1 hr 30 min
Charleston	130			2 hr 20 min
Myrtle Beach	140			2 hr 50 min
Waynesboro	120			2 hr 15 min
Atlanta	230			3 hr 45 min
Gatlinberg	240			4 hr 20 min
Huntsville	450			7 hr 20 min
Orlando	450			7 hr
DC	470			7 hr 30 min
New York	700			11 hr 30 min
Cleveland	600			9 hr 40 min
Gaylord MI	920			15 hr
Boston	910			15 hr 10 min
From Stuttgart to (in miles) :
Frankfurt	130			2 hr
Munich	150			2 hr 10 min
Zurich	130			2 hr 20 min
Berlin	400			6 hr
Prague	320			4 hr 40 min
Paris	380			5 hr 30 min
Amsterdam	390			5 hr 40 min
Rome	720			10 hr 30 min
London	570			9 hr 10 min
Stockholm	1,020			16 hr 20 min

So it really is not that far to drive all around, but these Europeans don't seem to do it much. And with the exchange rate right now, Diesel is only $5 a gallon (lowest we have had in months!).

This week: Amsterdam from France. 11% Alcohol! Powerful, but it tasted awful.

Lost time-

Things this winter have been quiet. After my brother left in early January, we had a trip up near Berlin to Magdeburg. After business was done, we went over to Berlin and saw the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag. Andi did not realize what the Reichstag was until after we had walked to the top of the dome. BTW, if you ever go, take kids. They let us sneak into a separate line to the top of the Reichstag.

That Saturday we woke up and drove toward Prague. We stopped at Tropical Islands, the world's largest building (by volume). It is an old blimp hangar converted into a water park. It looked spendy and we were not prepared so we kept on the road.

That afternoon we walked around Dresden and saw a famous art museum. They had a famous Raphael painting (with the two little angels at the bottom).

Sunday morning we toured Prague. What a city! Neat buildings and a lot of history. It was only six hours to drive home, but weather was bad so it took longer.

All the previous stuff was in a draft post I never published here, but it apparently got lost. Ooops. So I am not sure if I know what great Czech Republic Beers I had or what I thought of them. Maybe I have pics to dig up? We will see.

Anyway, February was pretty sedate. Everyone but me had a terrible stomach flu at separate times over the past few weeks. We had no big travels planned. One Saturday we went to the grand opening of the new Porsche museum in Stuttgart, one Saturday we went to the Altes Schlosß museum in downtown Stuttgart, another Saturday we went to an old Mill.

The old mill was in the family of a colleague. His grandfather lives and works there still. The building is 350 years old and the mill still works. The "new" milling equipment is 100 years old and they have working stones to mill the grain and a water wheel. The kids got to see chickens and pigs as well. More importantly, the grandfather had his own distillery and we picked up four bottles of the local schnapps. We were also the first Ameris the man had seen since the war. We also stopped at a great little guest house for lunch in this part of the Schwabisch Alps nearly to Ulm.

Yesterday we spent Saturday in Strassbourg, mostly shopping. The French have more American stuff than the Germans it seems. And their prices are a little better as well. We went to the Strassbourg cathedral during the day and took some great photos of the stained glass. We also wandered around a bit in Strassbourg pedestrian areas and saw one bum break a bottle over the head of another in the parking garage.

It has also been snowy here. They say that Stuttgart only had snow a couple of times last year. I think we have seen about four good stick-on-the-ground snows so far. The last one was about half a foot, but recently we have only had slush or ice or rain. A little colder and we could have had a real winter wonderland. The kids have had a great time playing in the snow and sledding, but sadly it looks like that is ending soon.

We also found a kid friendly spa. They have multiple indoor pools with water slides and a good kiddie pool. We have been a few times now and it is always fun. They also offer baby sitting and a real sauna, so maybe we can try that one day...

As for beer, I have been put on a diet. On the positive side, I have lost about 20 lbs. But I have drunk far less beer, maybe one a week. Maybe less. But we did recently buy some interesting looking French beers in .75L bottles with a champagne-like cork. Very odd.

Update: found some pics of beers we found in the Czech republic. All were ok, nothing outstanding.
Gambrinus Svetley
Sladkuv Mestan
Staropramen
BTW, Budweiser traces its origins back to the Czech Republic, from what I read. Crazy.