On The Road with Jim and Pat

Hello from Dillon, CO

Drafted Wednesday evening – July 6, 2016   (First post of this travelogue)

Posted Friday July 8, 2016

We are in Dillon – actually the Heaton Bay Campground with the bus.  This tends to be a yearly event with at least one of the daughters and their families.  In recent years the grandkid’s schedules have prevented all but one of the families from attending (wow, the grandkids are growing up and have very busy schedules).  We are here with the Bergman family (or maybe I should say that in past tense since they left today).

We arrived here on Monday June 20^th and will be heading home tomorrow.  It has been a great 17 day stay, but we are ready to go home to the “real” world.

If you are keeping track, we arrived home from Europe on June 14^th and had to really hustle to get over jet lag, and catch up on some chores that needed attending to.  For me, that was mostly getting the bus ready to go.  It has not made a trip since our stay here last June.  It is sad that we did not get to use it for a whole year.  Fortunately, I did not run into any major snags with the bus. I would have liked to have cleaned it up a bit more but that does not affect our ability to have fun in it.

Monday the 20^th was a very hectic day for me.  I drove the bus to the campground (about 70 miles) and got it set up.  THEN, I had to drive back to Denver to teach a 3 day class.  Pat had a great time with the Bergmans while I was gone.  I drove back to the campground Thursday evening.

I mentioned that it is hard to get all of the family together, with all of their activities.  However, we were able to spend some time with Thomas (came up and stayed overnight) and Nathan, along with his girlfriend Samantha who came up for the day (see pictures)

For the most part, this has been a relaxing stay.  We did take in a couple of great movies, and had a day on a pontoon boat.  The rest of time was mostly goofing off and eating. 

The pontoon boat was fun.  Pat had a migraine, so she stayed in the bus.  Some friends of Kelly and Damon joined us on the boat and we had a great time.  Even got to see a Bald Eagle flying close overhead and a goose family that swam right up to the boat (looked like they were trying to show off the very young goslings).

The weather has been a mixed bag.  The first few days it was hot and dry and then we experienced several days of pretty intense rain.  We finished up with great weather.

We had the same camp spot we were in last year and it is great for watching the wonderful fireworks show out the front window and listen to the simulcast music from the local radio station.

I had hoped to write a summary of our Europe trip, but I flat burned out.  Suffice it to say that it was a great trip and we returned safely – albeit tired. 

That is all of this trip.

Hello from Paris France

Draft started Monday Evening –  June 13, 2016   (nineteenth post of this travelogue)

Draft continued on flight from Paris to Minneapolis.

Post uploaded 6/15 from Evergreen.

Our Airbnb apartment in Paris was great.  Even greater was the fact that we were the first guests of a wonderful family of six.  The owners, Patricia and Herve, were so hospitable.  Indeed, when they found out that it was Pat’s birthday, they brought cake to celebrate (photo).  The even sang happy birthday to Pat in English.

The apartment is located in a mixed neighborhood of single family homes and businesses (map)

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We chose the location since it was away from the hectic pace of central Paris and the fact it was fairly close to the airport.  Our journey from the train station (Gare Est) was a bit eventful.  The estimated taxi fair was over $70 and we did not want to mess with taking the metro to the Nord train station and then a train to the airport and then a taxi to the apartment.  So I decided to try Uber.  I had gone to their site and had gotten an estimate that was from $25 to $50 depending on traffic.  I went to the Uber app on my phone and tried to put in the destination (it knows your location), but it would not take it.  In the process apparently I booked two different Uber cars.  Then somehow I canceled the one that showed up.  That was not a huge deal as he still agreed to take us there for about $45 but I had to pay cash rather than the normal process of Uber billing the credit card on file.  Ok, all is well right – wrong!   My phone started to ring – several times and I finally answered (after about the 10^th call – phone calls are expensive if you answer them).  It was the other driver I booked and he was upset and did not speak English.  I gave the phone to our driver and he took care of the situation.  However, I had to pay a $6 cancellation fee.  But we got to the apartment safe and sound.

The apartment was so nice (see pictures).

We had been to Paris a couple of times and did not want to do any sightseeing.  So, we just hunkered down.  We had hoped to go to a nice diner to celebrate Pat’s birthday, but it was Sunday and all of the good restaurants were closed.  Instead we had some leftover bread and cheese and just relaxed.  Monday Patricia came over (they live next door) with a map and showed where there was a good restaurant not far away that served lunch (it and all the other restaurants are closed on Monday for dinner).  We had a great lunch (photo) with enough leftovers for a great dinner.

As I write this part, we are on our flight to the US.  We had paid a bit extra for extra legroom.  As it turns out we are in the bulkhead seats (three seats wide but just the two of us).  I can barely reach the wall in front of us.  We could not have asked for a better situation for our 8 + hour flight (well maybe first class {grin}).   The plane is a Boeing 777 and I think I heard that it was just put into service.

I will use the rest of this post to catch up on a bunch of miscellaneous stuff from a list I have been making.

Small streets and big vehicles.  Everywhere we went the streets were very narrow, but that did not stop big vehicles like buses from using them.  I tried to picture driving the Eagle down the streets and panicked {grin}.  Most of the vehicles we rode in were as wide as the Eagle, but shorter.

Pickpockets.  We had been warned many times before and during the trip that pickpockets were prevalent in many cities in Europe.  Indeed, one SU demonstrator lost her wallet to a pickpocket and it was reported that another demonstrator got hit as well.  We did not see any signs, nor did we loose anything.

Crops in Germany.  We were amazed at the amount of farmland we saw during our driving tours.  Even more amazing was the fact that we some a fair amount of corn, in spite of the fact that we were so far north.  The corn did not look like Iowa corn, but it was not too bad.  The following is a quote from a source I found:

Although 34% of the total area of Germany is devoted to crop production, production falls far short of satisfying industrial and consumer demand. Agriculture accounted for only 1% of GDP in2002. The total amount of arable land in 1999 came to 11,797,000 hectares (29,150,000 acres). In 1999, the average size of the 30,308 farms in the former GDR Länder was about 185 ha (450 acres), while in the old FRG the average size of its 401,000 farms was about 27 ha (67 acres).

The chief crops in order of yield in 1999 were sugar beets, 27,587,000 tons; wheat, 19,684,000 tons; barley, 13,322,000 tons; and potatoes, 11,420,000 tons

Delta Airlines.  I don’t fly Delta very much in my business travel, but I wish I did.  Our flights have been wonderful.  On the two long flights we were served a great meal on each flight.  The attendants were friendly and with the slight extra cost for the long flights we had great legroom. 

Security at Charles De Gaulle.  Wow, I wish the US had their act together like this airport.  Without question, the security was thorough, but there were no long lines.  The airport has several terminals and each terminal has their own security with all lines open.  I don’t think it took us 5 minutes to clear security.  They did check our passports several times along the way from the check in to the gate, but it was quick and friendly.

The bread.  I have talked about the bread in several posts.  You simply don’t see American type bread in any of the stores we went into.  Every town has lots of bakeries and all of them have a great selection of freshly baked bread.  The cost of the bread seemed to be less than ours. 

Beer.  I have always commented that the Beer in Europe is great.  I don’t recall having one I did not like.  I always ask for the local beer.  In most cases I got that.  I was surprised at our meal in Paris, I asked for French beer and they only had Belgium beer???  No matter, I think the Belgium and German beer is the best of the best.

Internet.  In the past, it has been anywhere from a minor to major problem to find a connection.  Every Airbnb  had a Wifi with pretty good speed.  The only real challenge was the Hotel in Kassel and the ship.  For some reason the ship internet was worse than what we had experienced in the past.  It was good to have good internet (when availale), as it allowed me to research information about each location that we were in.  With our slower pace, the research actually enhanced the experience.

Computers.  We brought both of our computers and I carried them in the backpack.  It was not all that bad, as both are fairly compact.  I had a bit of fear about mine.  A few months before the trip, I bought a new Dell 2in1 (laptop/tablet) with the top processor.  I felt reasonably comfortable, as we bought Best Buy’s service contract.  Well, the computer crashed and Best Buy’s idea of good service was to send it off for a week or two.  Yeah right.  I opened up the computer so that I could remove the hard drive and download the data.  When I put the hard drive back in to take the computer to Best Buy {teeth grinding} I thought what the heck I will try it again.  All was well.  Of course, I expected the crash to occur again – in the middle of this trip – but it has done well.  I really love the size and power of the computer, and hope it is done with this crashing action.

I will make one last post for this trip in a day or two.

That is all for now.

Special Edition:  Retracing the Battle of the Bulge Part 2

Monday evening –  June 13, 2016   (eighteenth post of this travelogue)

Before we start this post, I wanted to post a quote from Wiki:

World War II (WWII or WW2), also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. In a state of "total war", the major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust (in which approximately 11 million people were killed) and the strategic bombing of industrial and population centres (in which approximately one million were killed, and which included the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki), it resulted in an estimated 50 million to 85 million fatalities. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history.

Those numbers are beyond comprehension.  While I generally trust Wiki, I did a verification search and found this site (link).  That site breaks down the deaths in some great detail.  Their total is 48 million and that does not appear to include the Holocaust victims.  The Holocaust numbers would add well in excess of 10 million more deaths (link).  The first site lists 400,000 US troops killed.  Another source lists various 83^rd division facts and says that nearly 3000 soldiers of that division were killed.

Friday (6/10) we drove the east loop to trace the last part of the Battle of the Bulge route.  For clarification, I am again including the maps involved.

Note:  you can click on any of the pictures in any of our posts to get a large view.

The approximate route we will trace

Battle of the Bulge east loop

We started the tour in Goslar (note Einbeck to the west where we left off yesterday).  Our tour continued to Zerbst which was the location of the end of the Battle of the Bulge.

In both tours we noted that this part of the Bulge route did not involve mountains.  Rather it was mostly farm land and dense forests (pictures).

Approaching Halberstadt

We drove into several towns along the route.  Most were not all that remarkable until we reached Halberstadt (link).  We ended up spending some time touring the area.  The major structure is the beautiful Halberstadt Cathedral.  The other impressive structure is St Martin’s Church – both built in the 12^th and 13^th centuries.  We were running out of time, so we only got to tour St. Martins.  By most measures this structure is not all that impressive on either the outside or the inside until you look at the alter and pipe organ (photos).

Halberstadt was heavily damaged during the war,  We can find no mention of the churches being destroyed — and later rebuilt, but we suspect they were heavily damaged.  The following Wiki quote gives some detail:

In the last days of World War II, in April 1945, US forces approached Halberstadt as they attacked remaining Nazi troops in the short-lived Harz pocket. They dropped leaflets instructing Halberstadt's Nazi ruler to fly a white flag on the town hall as a token of surrender. He refused, no white flag was raised and on 8 April 1945, 218 Flying Fortresses (B-17) of the 8th Air Force, accompanied by 239 escort fighters, dropped 595 tons of bombs on the centre of Halberstadt. This killed about 2,500 people and converted most of the old town into some 1.5 million cubic metres of rubble, which American troops briefly occupied three days later.

After leaving Halberstadt, we continued on to Zerbst.  The photo below shows the Elbe river close to Zerbst.  While not remarkable, the river seems to stand out in Lloyd’s memory – probably because he remembers that they had made a remarkable push to that location and perhaps there was a sense that the war in that area was won.

This will end the documentation of our travels that would trace the Battle of the Bulge.  While we don’t pretend to say that we followed the exact route, we did follow the general route and got a bit of an impression of the geography and did a lot of thinking about war related items.  Primary among those items was trying to imagine a 21 year old man from rural Iowa facing such terrible weather conditions and the terror of war.  Those men (and women) really suffered.

As we returned to Kassel, we took some pictures to document the scenery.  One of the things that stood out in our travels was the number of wind turbines.  They were everywhere.  We did a bit of counting of groups and then extrapolated that to the number of groups we saw and would guess that we probably saw over 1,000 turbines in the two days of our travels.  I have included a couple of photos to give you an idea.  Both were taken at a rest stop and you could see turbines in every direction.

I also wanted to show the neat architecture of some of the buildings in Germany.  They are often very ornate.

We also saw a lot of poppies in the fields.  Our guess is that they are considered weeds, but they sure are pretty.

That is all for this post

Special Edition:  Retracing the Battle of the Bulge Part 1

Draft started Sunday Morning –  June 12, 2016   (seventeenth post of this travelogue)

Posted Monday afternoon June 13, 2016

This and the next one or two posts will be rather special to Pat and I.  We are retracing the last part of the Battle of the Bulge route that Pat’s dad was involved in.  Her dad (Lloyd is still alive and doing well at 92 years of age) was in the 83^rd Infantry Division link (see insigna below), 

Several of the following paragraphs are quotes from various sources.  If it is a quote, I will indent the text:

The 83rd Division insignia consists of a monogrammatic design in gold spelling out the word "O-H-I-O" on a black triangular background. The insignia was selected during World War I because the division contained mostly Ohio draftees. Even though the division changed from an Ohio outfit to one representing the 48 States, the insignia still remains.

The 83rd Infantry Division received its nickname, the "Thunderbolt" division, after a division-wide contest for a new nickname held in early 1945. A new nickname was desired to represent the nationwide origins of the division's personnel during World War II.

Lloyd’s induction was 18 July 1944.  His date of separation was 11 March 1946.  In that relatively short time, he experienced a terrible war and battle conditions beyond imagination.

The following document shows the route of the 83 infantry division.  Below that is a detailed portion of the same map that shows the route we explored.

The approximate route we will trace

The maps for the part we will trace have some notes about dates at certain locations:

On 1 March 1945, committed to drive to Rhine.  83d Division first to reach the Rhine River – at 09:30 2 March 1945.  City of Neuss fell on that date.

Crossed Weser River 7 April 1945

Crossed Leine River 8 April 1945

Established bridghead across the Elbe River 13 April 1945

Editor note:  The final battles of the European Theatre of World War II as well as the German surrender to the Soviet Union and the Western Allies took place in late April and early May 1945.

As background, the 83^rd landed on Omaha Beach on 23 June 1944.  Lloyd would join them later in the battle.  He went to Europe by ship sailing on 1 January 1945 and arriving 6 January 1945.  He would  join the Division in what is called the Ardennes – probably somewhere around Liege Belgium.  The conditions were terrible.  The following quote from a pamphlet titled; “The Story of the 330th Infantry Across Europe” tells a bit about the conditions they faced.

The newspapers called it the "Ardennes", the "Breakthrough", or the "Bulge". But we in the line didn't describe it with such polite terms. We called it all the foul,vile things that it really was. It wasn't fighting only an enemy flushed with sudden victory; it was fighting the weather as well. It was Valley Forge, edition of 1945. Clothing froze on bodies, weapons failed to function. Feet turned black and purplish from trench foot. Any wound was serious. If you fell, you froze. The only covering for the dead was a blanket of snow. But we kept going forward, as usual.

Our plan was to  stay in Kassel Germany and take two circular routes as shown below.  The top of the routes were the actual route taken by the 83^rd.  For the first loop, we had planned to make it to  Beckham, and then follow the route heading east.  We actually started a bit east of Beckum.

Battle of the Bulge west loop

Battle of the Bulge east loop

For some reason we did not take many pictures the first day.  I think we were trying to get used to the driving, trying to imagine what it was like to fight in both wooded areas and open fields.  Our weather conditions were great, but they had to fight in terrible winter weather conditions (recall that this route is quite far north — same latitude as Calgary Canada).  The day light hours would have been very short.

The one stop that we did make (and took pictures) was the small town of Marienmunster (see map).  We ate at a great restaurant and then drove around looking at a beautiful abbey The Abbey seems to have many names, but is most often referred to as Marienmünster Abbey, a former Benedictine monastery.  The history of the Abbey seems a bit foggy, but the best we could find is that it was built in 1128, destroyed in the 1600s during some wars and then rebuilt again in the late 1600s.  Apparently it was not damaged during WWII.  It is no longer an active abbey/monastery.  It is currently used for various local activities including concerts.  The Abbey and restaurant are out in the country with only very small towns in the surrounding area.  If you expand the map, you will see that the area is mostly agricultural.

Marienmünster Abbey

Abbey buildings Marienmunster

As seems to be a trend for this trip, we like to show the restaurants we eat in and photos of the food.  This was such a great stop that we could not resist adding a few more pictures:

We split this amazing dessert

After our wonderful lunch stop, we continued on our western Bulge route ending in Einbeck before we headed south back to our apartment.

That is all for this post.

Hello from Kassel Germany Part 2

Saturday Evening –  June 11, 2016   (sixteenth post of this travelogue)

Wow, so much to say, so little time.  As a bit of a teaser, the past two days we have driven the eastern route that Pat’s dad traveled in 1945 during the Battle of the Bulge.

But for now, let’s catch up on a few things.  We made it to Kassel as planned.  As mentioned in our last post, we chose not to stay in Berlin, so this gave us an extra day in Kassel.  Unfortunately, our Airbnb was not available, so for the first night we stayed in the InterCity Hotel next to the train station.  It was an OK room and not too expensive, but we have sure been spoiled with the Airbnb apartments (at less cost).   That will be the only night we spend in a hotel on this trip {yea!}

We had reserved a rental car from Enterprise in Kassel.  First thing Thursday morning, I took a tram to Enterprise and picked up the car.  I then picked up Pat and we started our driving tour (subject of the next two posts).  After the end of the first day of touring, we drove at our Airbnb apartment (link)

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As has been the case with all of our Airbnbs so far, this one is great (see photos).  This one is located almost on the edge of town in a very nice neighborhood. 

View out our balcony door

At the end of the second day of touring, we dropped the car off (just barely made it there before they closed).  I had scouted out the fact that we could pick up the 8 tram at their front door and take it to within a few feet of our front door.  That ride across Kassel gave us a bit of a tour of the city.  As I read this to Pat, she started laughing about me being concerned about going the right direction and theynwe rode right past our stop {grin} (so much for the scouting)

The car we rented was a very nice Ford S-MAX (link).  It is only available in Europe.  It is sort of a minivan (photo).  It had a turbo diesel engine and automatic transmission.  It was very well equipped, pretty darn peppy, and handled very well.

You have heard stories about driving on the Autobahn.  They are true!  Most of the roads in Germany are very well maintained and are fully capable of high speeds.  A very significant part of the Autobahn system (over 8,000 miles in the system) has no speed limit.  In certain areas where conditions demand, the speed limit is 130 km/h (81 mph) in open areas and less in congested areas.  Where there was no speed limit I drove between 140 and 150 km/hr (87 – 93 mph).  Many folks passed me at significantly higher speeds.  I finally got up the nerve and went 190 km/h (118 mph) and felt pretty comfortable.  The un-nerving thing is that the truck speed limit is something like 60 mph, plus a few cars drive at about that speed – you really have to be careful how fast you are closing on a slow vehicle.  Drivers are very courteous and stay out of the high speed lane. 

The only other time I drove in Europe was a few miles in Irina’s dad’s car.  It had a bit of a steering problem and I never got it up to speed.  Total distance driven was maybe 20 miles.  On our previous trips to Europe we have relied on trains and taxis.  That always worked well.  I really did not want to drive here.  Perhaps it was the strange language on the control signs, or maybe I want to watch the scenery rather than concentrate on the road.  With our plans to tour the route of the Battle of the Bulge, we had no choice.  It turned out not to be any problem at all except it took a lot of getting used to the car engine shutting off at each stop.  As soon as you lifted your foot off the brake, the engine would start. In total I drove 960 km (598 miles).

We used 70.5 liters or 18.6 gallons of diesel which would be a minimum of 32 mpg if the tank was really full when we got it.  I suspect we got closer to 40 mpg.  Whatever the real mileage, it was great considering the high driving speeds.  Fuel in Europe varies for about 1.15 to 1.30 Euro per liter.  With the exchange rate and the conversion from liters to gallons that amounts to just less than $5 per gallon.

Semi trucks in Europe are quite different from those in the USA.  In the US almost all trucks have long hoods and at least two rear axles.  All of the trucks (never saw an exception) are cab-over configuration.  Some are pretty plane Jane and some are pretty fancy (photo).  Many have a built narrow sleeper.  Most of the trailers are three axles with single tires on each side – a bit like our super singles but not as wide (see photo).

I am finishing this up at about 9:30 at night and it is not dark yet.  We are at 51 degrees latitude and that is about the same latitude as Calgary Canada.  It takes some getting used to.

Stay tuned for the details of our very special tour of the Battle of The Bulge in the next two posts.

That is all for now.

Hello from Kassel Germany

Drafted started Wednesday afternoon – June 8, 2016   (fifteenth post of this travelogue)

Uploaded:  Saturday afternoon – June 11, 2016

Well, actually I am cheating a bit.  We are on the train from Berlin to Kassel (about 2 ½ hours).  This is the second leg of our trip today.  The first leg was this morning from Prague to Berlin (about 4 ½ hours).  We specifically scheduled a long layover in Berlin to make sure we would get on this train.  We are a bit gun shy about the trains after our experience in France.  Besides that, the typical schedule calls for transfers of less than 15 minutes.  With our gimpy knees, that would be cutting it too close.  In addition, some of these stations are complicated with gates everywhere in the station.  Indeed, in Berlin, there are three levels of train tracks and the station is more like a three story mall rather than a train station (see photo). 

Inside of Berlin Train Station

In Spain, France, and Czech Republic, the train systems seem less organized when compared to Germany.  In Germany, every train has a specific track permanently assigned and the trains all have printed schedules for that train and are placed on about half the seats.  It is much more comfortable to know in advance where your train will be.  The trains also seem to be more prompt in Germany

On this train, we have a compartment (see photo can you tell that Pat is getting tired? {grin}).  I guess I prefer the non-compartment seating, but Pat likes the compartments.  Unfortunately, you don’t get to choose.

Train Compartment

While we had time, I got our seat reservations for our trip from Kassel to Paris.  That will be on the June 12 – Pat’s birthday.  I again scheduled a longer train connection in Mannheim.

We had considered staying a night or two in Berlin, but we were there for an ISO meeting several years ago.  That stay and the meeting are a bit of a blur, as I had contracted shingles and was pretty sick.  I felt bad before we left Denver and even had the Gates clinic do an EKG because of the chest pain.  We ended up driving to Houston (business after the ISO trip) and then flew out.  On the plane I was in pretty bad pain, but they had upgraded us to business class, so at least I could stretch out.  The shingles did not reveal themselves until we had reached Germany.  But I degree, and the real story is that we are getting a bit worn down on touring big cities so we decided to spend an extra day in Kassel.

The weather continues to be pretty decent.  We have seen a couple of short showers and the temperatures are moderate (mid-high 70s).  The same can’t be said for other parts of Europe.  For Example, Paris has had some major flooding.

I have been so impressed with Google Maps (both on the phone and on the computer). On the phone it saved my butt a couple of times when I got lost in the maze of streets in Nimes.  I have been using the amazing detail of these maps to check out tram stops in Prague and Kassel.  We will be renting a car in Kassel and the Enterprise lot is on a tram from where we are staying overnight.  When we return the car, I can take the tram back to the apartment (looks like I will be within a block).

We have paid quite a bit in taxi fares and have had to put in an extra effort to schedule the taxis via the internet.  Our host in Prague pointed out that we should use the Uber app on our phone.  We did that for the trip from the apartment to the train station in Prague and it worked great.

That is all for this post.

Hello from Prague, Czech Republic Part 2

Drafted started Tuesday evening – June 7, 2016   (fourteenth post of this travelogue)

Draft continued on the train to Berlin – June 8 2016

Uploaded: Thursday evening   June 9, 2016 (We did not have internet last night – long story)

This blog will detail the rest of our tour of Prague and discuss some miscellaneous items.

Our next stop on the ride was the Old Town Square.  This was a wonderful stop with lots to see.  Probably the highlight was the medieval astronomical clock located in the old town hall – first installed in 1410 link. It is the third oldest astronomical clock in the world and the oldest one still in operation.  We sat in a sidewalk café and had amazing ice cream sundaes (photo) while we waited for the 3:00 PM chimes.  We were a bit let down, as we did not experience what we believe is the typical on-the-hour event.  In the square, there was a great Dixieland band playing and that gave a somewhat unique twist to the visit (listening to American based music in this very old European setting).

Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square

Ice Cream in Old Town Square

Old Town Square

Dixieland Band in Old Town Square

Our last stop was a one hour riverboat cruise on the Vltava River.  The main event on that cruise was to travel under the Charles Bridge which was constructed starting in 1357.  The bridge has 30 statues which were erected around 1700 – most now replaced by replicas.

As noted before, our location in Prague was not in the middle of the historic district.  That said, it was easy to get to the historic center by the tram which was a couple of blocks from the room.  We had been spoiled by our past locations where we had access to great bakeries.  We did however have a great restaurant about a block away.  They served an amazing hamburger (photo).  The first time we went there, we both had the burger, but the second time we split the hamburger and had great deserts (photo).

Dinner in Bistro by our apartment

After doing a lot of walking and touring on Sunday and Monday, we took Tuesday as a “down day”.  Pat tried to do some washing, but the dryer was way too hot and she decided to only do one load.  I went by tram to the train station and got our train reservations from Prague to Kassel, Germany (via Berlin). 

Most standard train transfers are only a few minutes.  For our trip to Kassel, I specifically had them schedule a longer layover so that we would have plenty of time to find our train and also have lunch in Berlin.  In the past, you could set your watch by the train’ arrivals and departures.  That seems to have changed since the last time we were here.  They are still reasonably prompt – unless they have a strike/slow down like our trip to Karlsruhe – then all bets are off.  Still, we have experienced trains running as much as 15 minutes late and that never happened before. 

The Czech Republic is a part of the European Union, but continues to use its own currency, as opposed to the Euro.  The same is true of the UK countries.  It brings back memories of having to change currency and figure out approximate prices in each country you visited in Europe.  The Czech exchange rate is roughly 27 Koruna to the dollar.  By comparison, the Euro is equivalent to about 1.13 dollars.   Those are the published exchange rates.  Unfortunately, you don’t get that rate in the exchange booths, and then the tack on an additional fee.  We try to use ATM, so we get pretty close to the published rates, but our bank tacks on a fee.  They get you one way or another.

I am drafting this part of the post on the train from Prague to Berlin – about 4.5 hours travel time.  This afternoon we will travel from Berlin to Kassel, Germany.  That will be on a faster ICE train and will be a bit less than three hours.  We have Eurail passes which gives us first class seating.  In the past there was no extra charge, but now you pretty much have to have reservations and each reservation cost a bit (not huge dollars).  The trains in Europe are on dedicated passenger rails.  They are very clean and the coaches are modern and comfortable. 

Train travel in Europe is much superior to the US.  The train system is expansive and servers a very high percentage of towns/cities.  While I complained a bit about the trains being slightly late in some cases, it is in terms of minutes as opposed to hours which is often the case in the USA.  That said, the connections are very short and any delay can mess you up.  Virtually all the trains are electric and the tracks are very well maintained and smooth.  I had mentioned earlier that the train speeds are often pretty fast.  We have seen speeds as high as 314 KPH (195 MPH).  At any speed, the ride is reasonably smooth.

I mention trams previously.  In the major cities most of the public transportation is via what we used to call street cars.  They run on tracks and are electrically powered by overhead wires.  Each of the major cities has an extensive network of these trams.  They are very clean and inexpensive. 

We are a bit surprised by the number of smokers in Europe.  All of the buildings are smoke free, but the streets have tons of folks smoking (young and old).  Sadly, they are not real good about properly disposing of their butts.  It seems that many of the cities we have been in have what we would consider inconsiderate disposal of trash.  That said, the streets are pretty well maintained by city workers with brooms and shovels.  In some places they power wash the streets at night.

That is all for this post.

Hello from Prague, Czech Republic

Tuesday evening – June 7, 2016   (thirteeth post of this travelogue)

We survived the overnight train to Prague.  Actually it was a nice private sleeping room with a toilet and shower.  Pat slept in the lower bunk and I got to climb the ladder {grin}.  I slept pretty well, but Pat was up and down a few times.

We decided to purchase a two day hop on hop off bus pass.  We had great experiences with them in Madrid and Barcelona, but this company would not be highly rated in our book.   The buses were about the size of an airport transporter which was OK, but the marking for the stops was non-existent so we did quite a bit of walking trying to find a stop.  We finally went into a Hilton and they guided us to the stop outside their building (not marked).  For the first day our plan was to ride the bus to see the best places in this amazing city. 

We got to the apartment about 10:30 AM and our host met us so that he could store our bags (in his car).  He actually took us to where we thought we could catch the hop on bus.  I had looked it up on the internet and we were close, but with no signs, we spent way too much time trying to find the stops.

By the time we got done with the tour, our apartment was ready.  It is a studio unit (first picture) which is fine for our needs.  It is about 3 miles from the historic old town area (see map below or this link).  This a more residential area (five and six story apartment buildings) than our other apartments, but we are a stone’s throw from a great looking cathedral (second picture).  It appears that our building is less than 50 – 60 years old and has been recently remodeled.

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Church by our Aribnb

Prague has been on our bucket list for several years.  It was always described to us as a beautiful city with lots of history and historical buildings.  Here is a link to the wiki site:  link.  I have quoted some of the text from that site below:

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. It is the 14th largest city in the European Union. It is also the historical capital of Bohemia. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava River, the city is home to about 1.26 million people. Prague has the lowest unemployment rate in the European Union.

Prague has been a political, cultural, and economic centre of central Europe with waxing and waning fortunes during its 1,100-year existence. Founded during the Romanesque and flourishing by the Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque eras, Prague was not only the capital of the Czech state, but also the seat of two Holy Roman Emperors and thus also the capital of the Holy Roman Empire.

It is the fifth most visited European city after London, Paris, Istanbul and Rome.

Monday we took the same hop on green route, but got off at some major stops to soak in the ambiance.  Our first major stop was the Prague Castle link.  Again quoting in part from Wiki:

Prague Castle is a castle complex dating from the 9th century and the official residence of the President of the Czech Republic. The castle was a seat of power for kings of Bohemia, Holy Roman emperors, and presidents of Czechoslovakia. The Bohemian Crown Jewels are kept within a hidden room inside it.

According to the Guinness Book of Records, Prague Castle is the largest ancient castle in the world.

Before we toured the grounds we had lunch at a sidewalk café (see pictures below).  I will comment on prices in a later post, but this one was a good example.  We should have known when the menu did not have prices on it.  The food was OK, but the lunch cost over $40!

Sidewalk cafe close to Prague Castle

We did not tour the Castle, but the buildings were magnificent and the view of the city was outstanding.  Here are a couple of photos.

Prague Castle

View of Prague from Prague Castle

As we walked over to the city overlook, we noticed this sign:

When we looked below here is what we saw {grin}:

It turns out that in most of the cities we have been in, have lots of Starbucks, McDonalds, Burger Kings, and Subways.  We have avoided all of them.  I should probably stop in one of the Starbucks to see if their coffee is different over here.  The coffee in Europe is quite strong and I enjoy the taste.

This post is getting a bit long, so I will stop for now and continue in the next post.

Hello from Karlsruhe, Germany

Draft started:  Saturday morning – June 4, 2016   (twelfth post of this travelogue)

Posted:  Sunday evening – June 5,2016

Well, as you can tell from the last post we made it to Karlsruhe with the help of Irina and Matthias.  We are staying at their apartment link

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For those of you who may be new to our blog, Irina was our exchange student from 1981 to 1982.  We have been fortunate enough to stay in touch with her all these years.  Indeed, we get to see her (and now her family) an average of every two years or so – sometimes in the USA and sometimes in Germany.  We even made a trip to Europe in 2005 to attend her wedding to Matthias.  Irina and Matthias now have a son Viktor who is 7 years old.  In his short life, Viktor has been to the US twice to visit our family.

It is always so much fun to visit with Irina and her family.  We have been recalling all the fun trips we have made to Europe which allowed us to not only visit her immediate family, but her extended family as well.  On one trip we got to meet her wonderful grandparents who were so gracious to us.

As has been the case with the rest of this trip, this visit has been pretty low key.  We decided to spend as much of the short two days here visiting with them.  That said, Irina did take us to a Thai massage salon on Friday.  It was quite relaxing.  We then went to a bookstore downtown (taking the tram) where Pat got some English language novels and we bought Viktor a book on trains.  He is fascinated with trains of all types from steam engines to the high speed TGV trains.

Saturday we visited what we would call the Farmers Market which is always a fun event.  They have three markets per week and Saturday is the biggest.   There is an amazing number of vendors and the quality of the meat, fish, cheese and vegetables is top notch. 

I have mentioned the wonderful breakfasts that I always enjoyed when I traveled to Europe.  While Irina and her family do not usually have sliced meats and cheese for breakfast, they made sure that we had them for our visit.  I have attached a picture of the wonderful breakfast assortment with the second picture showing the traditional boiled egg in a special cup.  Lastly I am attaching a photo of Irina at the local bakery close to their house.  It does not get any better than that.

It is a German tradition to have coffee and “sweets”.  The photo below shows us on their verandah.

And of course, no blog would be complete without the occasional selfie.

Tonight we will board an overnight train to Prague.

That is all for this post.

Hello from Somewhere?

Draft started:  Thursday morning/afternoon – June 2, 2016   (eleventh post of this travelogue)

Posted:  Friday afternoon – June 3,2016

Why that title?  Well it seems that there is a train strike in France and we have no idea where we will end up.  Our train from Nimes to Lyon was delayed 2.5 hours and that, of course, caused us to miss our connection to Karlsruhe.  We are trying to make as much progress towards Karlsruhe as the trains will allow.  It is possible that we will be able to get a train from Lyon to Strasburg.  If we are able to do that, Irina and Matthias will drive down and pick us up there.  I will update our situation towards the end of this post.

BTW, I am drafting this post on two different trains.

As the day progressed, I decided to convert part of this blog into a diary format to capture our “unique” day.

6:30  Catch taxi to train station.

7:00  Arrive at train station and verify that our train is running (because of the strike).  Then go to have coffee at the street café across the street.

8:00  Get ready to go the train platform only to learn that it is 20 minutes late.  That means we will miss the connecting train to Karlsruhe.  Scurry to the ticket office with a ton of other folks only to find there is not much they can do.  They gave me a possible schedule on three additional trains that might work.  No way for they to assign us seats.

8:30  Go to platform only to learn that the train was going to be an hour late.

11:00  Depart Nimes 2.5 hours late.

12:20  Arrive Lyon France and try to set up a reserved seat for a train to Strasbourg, France.  Basically they said to get on the train and do the best you can.  BTW, the strike cancelled the 14:32 train (most things are in military time in Europe) and the only remaining direct train was the 16:08 train.  However, they could not book seat reservations for us.

16:08  Get to platform and find the train is 5 minutes late.  No big deal – except there are a ton of people all trying to get on the same train (one train cancelled caused twice the passengers for this train).  We got on the first class car and all the seats were either full or reserved.  A nice couple crowded together and a smaller lady joined them (3 people in two seats) so that Pat could have a seat.  For the first hour and a half Pat and I “shared” a seat. 

17:40  The train stops at a small town and several people get off.  Now we have our own seats –but not together.

18:11  Another stop and we are forced to change seats again, but at least we have seats.

20:00 Train arrives in Strasbourg about 20 minutes late.  We meet Irina, Matthias and Viktor on the train platform.

21:30 (9:30 PM) arrive at Irina and Matthias’ apartment in Karlsruhe, Germany .  Wow, what a day!

As soon as we knew that our first train was delayed and we would miss our connection, we began emailing Irina to let her know that we had a problem.  After several emails we worked it out to where She and maybe Matthias will drive down to Strasbourg to meet us and drive us back to their place (about an hour each way).

Apparently train strikes are common in parts of Europe.  They last for a few days. The train strike today involved the French railroad. It appears that some trains are cancelled today (buses show on the screen) and others are delayed by quite a bit (like ours).  I guess in the states we would call it a work slow down/stoppage.  I think we heard that the aircraft controllers in Paris will be going on a strike this week.  Hope that gets over, as that is where we fly out of on 6/14.

Now to catch up on few things. 

In the last post we mentioned visiting three fantastic structures in Nimes.  I should have pointed out that each was within a relatively short walking distance from our apartment.  The greatest distance was perhaps 0.4 miles – again emphasizing our location in the middle of the historic area.

As you can tell, I do quite a bit of internet research for these blogs. It is fun for me to learn more about our travels and establish links that we can refer to later on.  The interesting/frustrating situation is that we are using local internet connections (mostly Wifi in the apartments) and that directs the Google searches to sites that are in the language of the country we are in.  For example, most of the links I use are to Wikipedia pages.  They come up in Spanish in Spain, French in France, etc.  There are settings that attempt to funnel you to English sites, but it works poorly.  Many sites have a translate option, but that option has to be exercised on each page of the site – a pain.  For the most part, I  have been able to work around the situation with special search strings, or going deep in the Google list.

When we arrived in Nimes, we were a few hours early from being able to check into the apartment.  The Nimes train station was the old fashion style station with the train on the second floor, and stairs or elevator to the ground level.  When we got to the ground level, we found that we were on a large, tree laden walking mall that led to the Arena.  Just outside the train station there were a couple of sidewalk restaurants.  We chose one and had lunch (see photos).  It was so beautiful and relaxing – until- a huge rain storm came in.  We were under umbrellas (in picture), but it was raining so hard that the water was coming through the umbrella fabric.  We were able to go inside the restaurant and dry out a bit.

It is a relatively short walk from the train station to the apartment (perhaps a mile) but Pat’s knees are very bad and we chose to take a Taxi.  For our return to the train station our Airbnb host was kind enough to arrange a taxi for 6:30 this morning at a location that not too far from the apartment – recall that cars were not permitted in our area.  Our train was scheduled to leave at 8:30 but left late as noted above.

Tuesday I walked to the Train station to get our seat reservations for this trip – little value now {frown}.  It was a nice walk, but I pushed the distance limit for my knee as it was a mess when I got back.  I have been testing not using the brace, wondering if it contributed to my knee issues after perhaps a mile or two of walking.  It turns out that the crappy old knee has developed a distance tolerance and when I exceed that limit, I am in trouble – brace or no brace.  The brace feels so good that I am back to using it – especially when I know I have to do stairs and luggage at the same time {grin}.  The brace is a double hinge unit that gives great side to side stability.

I have attached another bread/cheese/meat meal picture from our apartment, as it has been a frequent occurrence.  I think Pat has had her fill, but I really enjoy the meal and it brings back fond memories of long ago trips to Europe.  The past two nights we did eat dinner at the restaurant just below our apartment.  I think it is kind of a fancy place, but we enjoyed both meals (we think we know what we were eating {big grin}).

Dinner at the resturant below our aoartment

I have discussed the wonderful bakeries that have been close to each of our locations.  This time the bakery was outstanding and had the best chocolate éclairs (photo).

Choclate Eclairs (Note bag with old style over)

Several times I have touched on the fact that this trip is at a much slower pace and quite different from our previous trips.  The slower pace has been dictated by our knees (and a few years under our belt {grin}).  That has turned out to be a good thing.  We have had lots of time to relax and soak in the character of locations where we stayed.  The other major difference has been the Internet.  It has allowed us to research trains, Airbnbs, commercial city tours, as well as information about our locations.  We set up our phones to be able to get unlimited texts (except on the ship) and calling rates that are acceptable for urgent calls.  Obviously, we have email with the Wifi connections.  Overall, we are not nearly as concerned about communicating with our family back in the USA.

That is all for this post.