Whirlwind Weekend: Landstuhl, Clocks, Triberg (Black Forest), Köln, and Bonn

Sit back, curl up with your favorite blanket and warm drink and enjoy... ;)

I had an AWESOME weekend. It was extended thanks to MLK Day on Monday combined with a training holiday at the hospital so I took advantage of my 4 day weekend to see some local sites as well as the travel around to a few German cities. My adventures started Friday, after a long run around base and up to the local Bismark Tower just outside of base I dragged my roommate with me to do some exploring. To get to the castle we had to walk down the hill, properly dubbed cardiac hill at some point by the military personelle, walk a few blocks through Landstuhl and then walk back up the other side of the hill to get to the mountain. Even though it was a brisk 35 degrees, I was warm and a little sweaty by the time I got to the castle. The weather was so nice for our hike up the mountain; the sun was actually shining. Ironically, while exploring the castle grounds, all of the sudden the weather changed. It was cloudy, started snowing/hailing/raining, and about 5 minutes later the sun was out again. It felt like I was back in Michigan with the rapid changes. haha! 

The castle in Landstuhl is called Burg Nanstein and was built in 1162. Unfortunately, I don't know much more about the castle as there was no tour guide and they were fresh out of English pamphlets. We (my roommate Cheryl and I) just walked around the castle taking in the view. I did read somewhere that the owner of the castle offered his home as a refuge for several reformers who were friends with Martin Luther! How cool is that?! Nothing much more happened on Friday, just busy getting ready for the rest of the weekend. 

 This is a view of the castle from the middle of downtown Landstuhl.

 Looking down at Landstuhl from the castle foregrounds.

The front of the castle, up close and personal.

This is a kinda of artsy (as artsy as I can get at least) looking out on the city from up inside the castle grounds. You can see those rain/snow clouds coming in. 

Saturday started out early in the morning as I had signed up for a USO trip to the Black Forest for a day of cuckoo clock shopping and visiting the town of Triberg in the Black Forest. The USO has several tours every weekend to various German towns, as well as surrounding countries including France, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, etc. I went on this trip with my roommate and a fellow worker at my office. We started at 0700, it was still dark out, and drove about 3.5 hours south east into the Black Forest to the town of Hornberg. This town is home to Adolf Herr - country (and probably world) renowned cuckoo clock maker as well as the largest cuckoo clock with 21 moving figures, and House of Black Forest Clocks cuckoo clock store. This store was located just off the road in a very small little town. Really not a lot going on there. When we got to the store, Mr Herr was right there ready to greet us with tray full of German cherry wine (which was delicious btw) and open doors to his store. The store was pretty cool, with its walls full of all different types of clocks from magnets to tiny miniature clocks, quarts clocks (battery operated) to wind up clocks, clocks with music and clocks with out, clocks that need winding everyday and clocks that need winding every week. Prices ranging from 70-80 Euro to 650 Euro (keep in mind that 1 Euro = about 75 cents, so that's like $100 - $900/1000)!!! cRaZy

Here is the largest cuckoo clock. It really was massive. Next door is the store where I bought my clock and the man out in front right is Adolf Herr. His clocks are known for their great craftsmanship and quality throughout Germany. 

My dad bought my mom a cuckoo clock one year from their anniversary and it's still works to this day. I love having that thing as a kid. I thought what a better way to remember this stay in Germany then with a cuckoo clock? I know it is going to last for several years (much better then a pair of German boots or a shirt or something that will wear out in a couple years you know?!?). I found a pretty sweet clock that I love and can't wait to have it up when I come back home. Nothing says Germany like a cuckoo clock! ;) I realized as I'm writing this that I didn't take a picture of this clock, so I'll will definitely have to post one on here once I get home and have it up in place. 

After spending about 1 hour in Hornberg, we all piled on the bus and went a little further in into the forest to Triberg. While on our way there, our tour guide told us a little bit more about the area. The Black Forest got it's name as the Roman's came through the land. This region was so populated with thick, luscious evergreen trees that it appeared very ominous and black. Thus rightly named the Black Forest. There are characteristic homes of this region that are generally two to three stories and back up directly into the side of the hill. This was done to provide for extra storage space within the mountain for food, grain, hay etc. The 'barn' for the animals was the first floor and somehow helped provide warmth for the house in the winter too. The houses have characteristic steep A shaped roofs so that snow doesn't pile up and up and up. It has been an extremely mild winter here so far (thankfully!) with very little snowfall as of yet. They aren't worrying about snow piling up right now, that's for sure. There was maybe an inch or two in Triberg but that's the only place I've seen since I got here. 

Outside the House of Black Forest clocks. This is a few of the classic Black Forest home. It's kinda hard to see but you can see that the house is build directly into the land...while sort of you can. But you can at least see the lack of snow. Don't let the sun fool you, it was still pretty cold.

While in Triberg, we went to another clock store - House of 1000 Clocks - since myself and my travel partners already had our clocks, we left the store as soon as the tour was done to eat. We were starving and determined to have some German food, including trying the famous Black Forest cake. We found a local restaurant and I found something with the word schnitzel in it to order it. I can't read a single thing on the menus, which makes ordering pretty difficult (esp when your waitress only speaks a little English). 

Schnitzel is very thin cuts of pork, breaded and deep fried. Those of you who know me, know that whole deep fried thing really it's my thing but I had to try it because every one I talked to back in the States kept going on and on about it! When I finally got it, it was good but not something that I HAD to have it again. Maybe it was the restaurant, I'll have to try it again before I make my final decision. However, I felt totally different about Black Forest Cake. Now that was delicious! ;) Black Forest cake is chocolate cake, with cherries, some sort of chocolate/cherry liquor, and whipped cream type frosting. Top it off with chocolate shavings and your in for a real treat. German desserts aren't overpoweringly sweet, so the underlying chocolate/cherry/liquor flavor shines through; now that's worth eating! 

Schnitzel

Yumm...black forest deliciousness. I did get a recipe and can hopefully recreate it back home.

After lunch, we hiked up the big hill in Triberg to see the famous Triberg Waterfall. This waterfall is the largest in one in Germany at 160 meters tall. They have paths that wind all the way up to the top. Unfortunately, because of the cold and recent snow, the path was pretty icy, and most of it was blocked from our access. So, we had to settle on seeing it from the bottom. You could get pretty close to the water, enough to feel the icy mist as the water hit the rocks below. Now, for all my bird loving relative (aka my Glahn aunts :) ) contrary to emails and comments on previous posts, this trip didn't yield much access to hiking within the forest. So, unfortunately I have no pictures of unique German birds or other wildlife. I honestly don't really remember seeing or hearing much wildlife - I may not have really been focusing on that either! ;) Sorry guys! We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the town, going to a museum (of which the most interesting fact I learned was that from 1900 to ~1920 all clocks in the world were produced in the Black Forest). We then all piled on the bus to head back to Landstuhl. On the way back,  there was a stau (aka traffic jam) on the autoban, which shut it down completely. So we got back an hour and a half to two hours later then expect. It was right to bed so that we could get up and go on our next trip.

Sunday morning, after sleeping in a little bit longer then planned, Cheryl and I headed down the hill to the train station, hopped on our train to head up to Köln. Köln is the 4th largest city in Germany and located right on the Rhine river. When I first got here I picked up with tour book specific to Germany and saw this awesome picture of cathedral in Köln. So we decided this would be a great weekend to go find this cathedral and see it with our own eyes. I almost had another disaster with the German train system, but thanks to our first train's driver we successfully made the right switch and got a train that dropped us off in Köln. Luckily for us, the cathedral was right next to the train station. We walked around the parameter taking it all in first, then walked up several hundred stairs to the top of the south tower to see the city for up high, saw the inside of the cathedral. Afterwards we took a nice stroll along the Rhine, checked out the Lindt chocolate museum/shop, and meandered through the city finally stopping at a restaurant I had read about in the tour book. We ate at La Bodega - a tapas bar- and filled up on delicious almond encrusted goat cheese drizzled with honey, a fresh salad of mixed greens, roasted red peppers stuffed with cream cheese, bread with garlic aioli dipping sauce, pork, artichoke hearts. It was delicious! We hopped back on the train for a short ride to Bonn and a warm comfy bed at the Domicile Best Western.

The Köln Dom (Cologne Cathedral)! Impressive isn't it! This picture doesn't even do it justice, trust me....
It stands at 157.31m high (515 ft), the platform that you can climb up to is in the tower on the right in this picture at 97.25m. The cathedral was started in 1248 and finished in 1880! It houses some crazy old relics. Apparently it was first built to hold relics belonging to the Magi. The cathedral was built to be big to handle the huge number of people traveling from all over the world to pay to see them. We all know how much those Catholics like to exploit things back then! ;)  haha They still have a large number housed around the alter to view, but I didn't take any pictures of them....

This was the winding staircase that we had to climb pretty much all the way to the top! There were at LEAST 500 of these bad boys to get up there!! Just imagine hugging that middle pillar while others are coming down on your left. That's right, it was a two lane staircase, and no space to stop and rest besides for a break to get to the bell tower and a small platform before heading up the stairs below.

This set of stairs went up to another spiral stair case before finally getting to the top.

I made it! That is the tip top of the Cathedral.

A view of Cologne and the Rhine from inside the tower.

View from the other side of the Cathedral. Totally worth that climb!

Inside the Cathedral. Way in back is the alter and then surrounding that is a large hallway that wraps around so that you can see the relics that are still store there. They actually still hold Mass here almost every day. 

I tried to get a view of the cool stained glass windows, with the light streaming through creating small prism rainbows all the wall. My camera just couldn't capture the true beauty of it! Some of the stain glass windows date all the way back to the 1200's.

Chocolate bark and truffles in the Lindt Chocolate Museum gift shop

The Cathedral all light up at night. It was an amazing building to see in person.

We woke up in Bonn to a beautiful sunny mildly cool day. A great day to tour around and check out another city. Bonn was the capitol of West German and home of the great Ludwig von Beethoven. It also has a large very old church in the middle of it's town square (this church is 900 years old), as well as the classic outdoor shopping hubs with cobblestone streets surrounding the church and town center. Bonn has a large university with a beautiful campus and is also located right along the Rhine river as well. We woke up and had a great German breakfast (first time for me) and then tooled around the city taking in the sites and sounds. I love walking through the university grounds and love how everyone is either walking around or riding the bikes around everywhere. I also came across another farmer's market. The residential area architecture totally reminded me of DC and Baltimore - very similar to the row houses. I could totally see myself living in this sort of city, if only they spoke English....

After a walking around, it was back to the train station for a great train ride back. I really enjoy traveling on the train, going in and out of cities, traveling along the Rhine, along the German country side, and the sounds of all the German conversations happening around me. It's pretty cool. But I think the reason I really like it is because it reminds be of the chapters in Harry Potter where they are traveling to Hogwarts! ;) Yes, they have those compartment car seating with the sliding doors leading into the seating. How cool is that?!? I didn't sit in one yet, but I'm totally going to and get a picture before I leave Germany....

Guten Morgen Bonn. I love to see the sun peaking over the buildings. This was the view out my balcony window on Monday morning. :)

Nothing like a cold cuts, cheese, and veggies...for BREAKFAST! Not a bad idea from the Germans: a great source of protein to start your day of right. I may have to incorporate this more often into my diet...

Beethoven Statue and one of the homes he lived in before moving permanently to Vienna.

The house where Beethoven was born; now home to the Beethoven Museum.  Pretty interesting place; it has a viola he played and a few of his pianos, lots of original compositions, pictures, letters etc, as well as life and death masks of his face. Of which you can buy models of in the gift shop - if your into that sort of thing. I found it to be really odd; esp for 50 Euro per mask...

900 year old church of Bonn

Part of Bonn University Campus

View along the Rhine 

Botanical Garden Main Building - unfortunately it was closed as it was the middle of January. In German. and it was cold. The grounds from what I could tell looked like they would be amazing in the Spring/Summer...I may have to come back here.

Cute residential street. Seriously how cool would it be to live in one of those houses?!?

I know, I know, that was a loong post. Things will be pretty quiet for a few weeks; busy saving money and working some weekends so that I can go to MADRID the end of February!! How freaking cool is that?!?!