A couple of Burgs!

Thursday, May 26, 2011

This morning we ate breakfast at the winery where we were staying, cheese, bread, eggs and coffee. Following.breakfast we went down to the wine celler to taste the wine they were bottling and see the bottling process. The wine was excellent and it was fun to chat with the guys bottling the wine and see the process in action. After packing up the car we walked into town to do a little wine tasting and walk up to the castle. The walk was intense, it was so steep and it didn't help that it began to rain on us! The view from the top was totally worth it though, great pictures will be coming soon!

On our way up to the castle, or burg in German, we stopped in at a wine celler where we tasted a few white wines. They were all pretty amazing. After our hike we stopped for lunch, cordon bleau with pommes and a glass of riesling. Then we went back to the wine celler where I bought a nice riesling and we tasted some rosé wines. I'm not a huge fan of the rosé. We headed back to the cat stopping to buy a bottle of wine from the vineyard where we stayed.

Once in the car it was time to navigate our way to Burg Eltz. This was tricky as there were many misleading signs and no proper street name signs. We won though, finding the parking lot with no u-turns needed! From the lot it was a 10 minute walk down to the castle. This is the castle that I posted about back before we left for the trip and while it looks like the picture half of it is covered in scaffolding as they do some repairs to the roof. It's still an impressive sight though. The inside was also quite impressive. The Eltz family has owned the castle for about 600 years and they still stay in it and have their pictures on the walls. The castle was never destroyed in battle so it truly is old and not a recostruction of something old. I really enjoyed the tour of the castle and just wish we could have taken pictures inside. I'll have to see if I can link to any on their website.

After viewing the castle we went down into the treasury to look at the suits of armor and jewels. Very fun. Then we walked down to the little stream running below the castle. So picturesque!

We opted to pay the 1.50 euro for a van to take us up to the parking lot. Then began our most difficult drive, the burg to Köln! Using our our atlas and our bad google directions we made our way onto the highway and got into the city where we sat for awhile in some nasty rush hour traffic. We managed to make only one wrong turn beforw finding our hotel and parking on the street. We checked in and took our bags upstaira and then walked over to the train station to figure out where exactly we needed to drop the car off. It wasn't too confusing so we went and put gas in the car (I will now stop complaining about US gas prices) and then managed to get the car parked and the keys returned.

We set out from the train station to find some dinner. Now, when you exit the train station a very impressive sight awaits you, the Dom! This Catholic Cathedral is a gothic monstrosity! The thing is huge and thankfully they took all of the art and windows out in preparation for wwii so everything is original and wasn't destroyed in the war.  We only saw it from the outside tpday bit plan to go in tomorrow.

We walked along and found a place to eat. We ordered sausage and potatoes. We looked around and noticed that the beer came in tiny delicate glasses, .2 liters of beer. In Munich the beer came in full liter jugs and asking for less than a half liter was laughed at! I guess we aren't in Bavaria anymore!

On the way back to the hotel we had to stop for ice cream, lime and strawberry! It's interesting because in the States I don't care for fruity ice cream but here it is just so much better. They use actual fruit and not just fruit flavoring. Delicious!

Suzie :-)

Rhotenberg to the Mosel River Vallley

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

This morning we got up and enjoyed a nice breakfast of a hard boiled egg, bread, cheese and coffee. We went back to the room to get ready and pack when someone knocked on the door and said that check out was in 15 minutes. What kind of place has check out at 9:45 am? So, we rushed around thankful that at least we didn't have to catch a train. We took our stuff to the car and finished getting ready there.

After all of that we went back into the city and up onto the wall and walked a ways around the city on top of the wall. We did a little more last minute gift buying and then made our way out of the city.

Our next stop: Cochem, a town along the Mosel River known for its white wine. The drive to Cochem was our longest drive yet but it wasn't too bad, mostly autobahn until the last 30 km. Along the way we stopped for linch and caffeine. The rest stops are interesting, you don't have to get off the autobahn, it's set up like a rest stop but with a restaurant, gas station and sometimes even a hotel. While on the autpbahn Jamie got our little VW Golf up to 199 but even with the pedal to the floor that's as fast as the car would go. Most of the time we cruised along at about 150 kmh which is plenty fast.

We arrived in Cochem at 3pm and parked at the winery where we would be staying. We tried to check in but no luck, the place seemed to be desserted. We decided to walk around town and come back a little later to check in. The town is situated on the hills rising up from the banks of the Mosel River. This means that all of the houses and even vineyards are built into the mountainside. It makes for a beautiful sight. Perched up on the highest hill is the Cochem castle which is now a museum. It was really warm out so we got an ice cream cone and wandered down towards the river front. There were a lot of people biking along the river. By the way they were dressed and the load on their bikes I would guess that they were riding all along the valley making a vacation out it. As we walked we made note of the places we would want to come back to the next day.

We made our way back to the hotel where we found the proprietor and found out why no one was around. It is time to bottle the wine and since it's such a small vineyard they do it the old fashioned way, one bottle at a time with a little 3 man crew, filling, corking and storing. We were shown to our room and decided to drive down to Beilstein for dinner.

The original plan had been to stay in Beilstein but they were booked by the time we contacted them. The town of Beilstein makes Cochem look like a booming metropolis, it is so small! We began with a walk up to the castle ruins. Unfortunately this cost money and was only open until 6pm, we were too late. We settled on a little path that gave us a great view of the river valley and the town across the river. I love this place! Unfortunately my immune system does not.  All of the Zyrtec in the world could not stop my sneezing, it was a bit ridiculous and my eyes felt like there was sand in them and I wanted to claw my eyea out!

Anyway, aside from the allergies I loved it! We went to eat along the river front, I got a beef stew with spãtzle noodles and had a wonderful dry riesling with it. For dessert I had apple pie while Jamie had rhubarb and I had some dessert envy, hers was so good!

We left Beilstein and headed back to Cochem where we parked at the winery and walked into town for another glass of wine. We found a place that was open and enjoyed another wonderful white wine.

It was a good day, full of beauty and good wine!

Suzie :-)

Traveling the Romantic Road

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

This morning we woke up and packed our bags and headed out early. We took the subway to go and pick up our rental car from Avis so that we could begin our driving portion of the trip. Before I left the states I printed directions from Google and since they didn't offer the gps we didn't ask. Big mistake! We ended up making at least 6 u-turns before getting on the autobahn and then for some reason the directions had us driving in the direction of Prague which made no sense and we should have followed our instincts.  As we got closer to the Czech border we decided to stop at a gas station were for 8 euro we bought a road atlas.  Once we got turned around it didn't take too long to get there. On the autobahn I got our little vw golf up to 180 but it was too windy to go faster. Driving fast is very fun!

We pulled into the parking lot outside the city walls of Rothenberg ob der Tauber and left our stuff in the car while we walked around a bit. Oh my, this city is the cutest little town I've ever been to in real life! It looks like it is straight out of a fairytale and I am in love with it. There are a lot of tourists here but I don't even care.

We walk around a bit and stop in at a celler restaurant recommended by Rick Steves where we order the German version of Martinellis only it tastes sooo much better. I ordered the pork schnitzel with fries and it's real meat and it is pan fried and incredibly delicious!

After lunch we wander around a bit taking pictures and then head over to the medeival torture museum. Awesome museum all about the history of crime and punishment. I can't  wait to post some pictures of the crazy torture devices!

On our way out of the museum we stopped at the museum cafe to try Schneeballn. Schneeballn are local pastry that is basically strips of pie crust balled up and baked and then sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, powdered sugar or dipped in something like a candy coating. They are okay but I'm not sure what all of the fuss is about, they aren't that amazing.  Along with our schneeballn I had and eiskaffe which is a cold latte with a scoop of ice cream and whipped cream on top. It was amazing!

From there we headed to a souvenier shop where we got a free map of the town and some great gifts to take home. We finally checked into our 500 year old guesthouse and went to get our packs from the car and put them in the room. We relaxed for a little bit and then headed out to get some ice cream before our evening entertainment. I got a scoop of rhubarb and blueberry, the rhubarb was nice and sour while the blueberry was nice and sweet. We ate our ice cream in the market square while we waited for the night watchman's tour!

There were a lot of people waiting for the tour including a large group of middle school children. We weren't sure about the quality of the tour given the size of the crowd. However, the night watchman did not disappoint. He was entertaining while also giving a lot of information about the history of the town. I learned that the city was it's own little country for about 400 years and had it's own city government. I also learned that the night watchmen was mainly responsible for keeping the city safe at night and make sure that a fire didn't start at night.

After the tour we went to have dinner and do a little wine tasting. We had beef roast over spätzle noodles along with 5 tiny glasses of wine that came with a card telling what each one was. I discovered that I don't like sweet wines, I like dry white wines. Who knew?

Suzie :-)