On Good Friday, Laura and I woke up early to head to the airport in Düsseldorf to welcome her parents, Barney and Donna, for their week long visit to Europe. I’d been sick for the week leading up to their arrival (*very* bad stomach bug) and was a little unsure about whether I’d be able to do much traveling with them once they arrived. I hadn’t eaten solid food for 4 days at this point, so I was incredibly relieved to find that I could join everyone else in enjoying a great dinner out on Friday evening. Saturday morning we woke up and headed out to Cologne/Köln, to check out the cathedral, have a nice lunch, do a little shopping, and enjoy a walk along the river Rhein before catching the train back to Düsseldorf.
Sunday morning, I got up super early, as I’d volunteered to be a part
of the choir for the special Easter Sunday service at our church – so I
took the bus at 7:15 that morning to get there in time to practice
before the 9:30 service. Laura and her parents came later for 11am
service and I can say that both services we lovely and it was good for
us to be together as a family on Easter. After church, we rode the
tram back over to our neighborhood in Oberkassel and had lunch at the
old train station (Alter Bahnhof) before heading back to the apartment
to get our bags together. An hour or two later, we were in a cab and
on our way to the train station for our trip to Salzburg, Austria.
A long, but uneventful 9 hour train ride to Salzburg followed – save
for a VERY entertaining lady at the back of train car on the last 2
hour leg of the journey from Munich to just outside of Salzburg.
Presumably, she’d been celebrating a bit too much on her Easter Sunday
and was full of spirits of the not-so-holy sort. Getting serinated
with a poor English version “I just called to saaaaay I loooove you”
definitely helped pass the time. We finally arrived at our hotel in
Salzburg and checked in just before midnight that night.
A beautiful, sunny and warm Monday morning gave us our first
impressions of Salzburg after a typical (though not very well stocked)
European continental breakfast at the hotel. Our hotel was just across
the river from the Old Town and the whole city of Salzburg is easily
walkable and not so large that you could get lost. We spent several
hours that morning walking among the shops, market plazas, and alleys
of the Old Town before grabbing a quick lunch of Döner Kebab (which
everyone *should* experience in Europe) and walking to meet up with our
bus tour.
Our bus tour on Monday followed the sites and storyline of “The Sound
of Music.” No really… before you laugh, it really wasn’t that corny
and was a great way to see most of the sites around town and to get up
into the mountains for some Alpine views. The tour guide was
entertaining and knowledgable of the area without being over-the-top
and we had plenty of time for non-movie related siteseeing, shopping,
and snacking at the stops along the way. Of course, I played the role
of photographer for the group – as usual – taking over 730 photos
during the course of the week. After our tour concluded, we spent some
time walking around the ??? gardens and then headed back towards our
hotel for dinner at a neighboring Italian restaurant. We all turned in
fairly early after dinner to get some much needed rest.
Tuesday morning was much the same as Monday, though with a good bit
more darting in and out of shops. The Monday following Easter is a
holiday in most of Europe, so many more shops were open on Tuesday,
providing quite a bit of distraction along the way to the Hohensalzburg
fortress – so distracting that we got completely lost along the way.
Fortunately, we eventually found the station to the inclined railway
that shuttles visitors from the base of the hill to the fortress
overlooking the town. The fortress was well preserved and had great
views of the town and the mountains in the distance, but really wasn’t
all that interesting aside from the views and a creepy marianette
puppet exhibit. After riding back down to the city below, we grabbed
another quick lunch and made our way back to the tour company for our
‘Bavarian Mountains’ guided tour.
This time around, we rode in a much smaller van (rather than a 60+
person tour bus) with our guide Trudy, and two other couples. We
headed along the mountain road leading out of the city and we soon
winding up steep roads into the Bavarian Alps. Not far outside of
Salzburg we crossed the boarder into the German state of Bavaria and
made several stops to check out views of the mountains, Hitler’s
Eagle’s Nest lair (built high atop a neighboring mountain, but closed
to visitors when we were there), the lakeside town of Konigssee, and
Birchesgarten. Only one little hiccup to our journey came when we were
stopped on a single lane road high on a hillside while a farmer was
unloading manure from his tractor- blocking the whole road. All in
all, a great tour with yet another well informed and friendly tour
guide. I can highly recommend both tours we had from Panorama Tours if
you ever find yourself in Salzburg. That night we took the
recommendation of our tour guide and tried a more traditional Austrian
restaurant just past our hotel on one of the main streets in the town.
Absolutely wonderful food, though I think Donna was a bit scared by the
dull black link of Blötwurst (black sausage made from rendered blood)
on her plate – rightfully so.
Wednesday morning, we woke up, had a more relaxed breakfast and packed
our bags for the train ride back to Düsseldorf. 10 hours or so later,
we were back in Düsseldorf – another uneventful ride through the German
countryside. We picked up our rental car – a swanky Mercedes C-Class -
at the main train station in Düsseldorf and drove back to the
apartment.
Thursday got up and headed out into Holland on the highway towards
Amsterdam, veering south just before coming into the City to head to
Keukenhof – a park (themepark?) dedicated to Holland’s springtime
explosion of tulips. We most of the morning and early afternoon
wandering around the massive displays of every kind of tulips (and
other colorful flowers) imaginable. Not the most action packed or
exciting way to spend a day, but it truly was breath-taking and a
photographers’ paradise. I spent most of my time clicking away behind
my camera while Laura, Donna and Barney wandered through the displays -
stopping for a bit around noon for lunch. I should pause for a moment
to say that the Dutch should stick to the gardening, and should never,
ever under any circumstances be trusted in a kitchen. They may
actually be the only people to consume *more* fried foods than the
British. It’s truly a horrible place to try and eat a good quick meal.
That night, we drove into Amsterdam to scope out the town a bit and
grab dinner before heading to our hotel. We settled on an Argentinian
steakhouse on a quieter side street and had a pretty good meal. A bit
of window shopping (including a stop in the British & American food
store for some ranch dressing) and we were on our way to the hotel,
just as it starting to rain. Friday morning was damp, but not raining,
and much cooler. We made our way back into town (side note: Holland
is NOT a car-friendly country), finally found our desired parking lot,
and joined the block-long line of tourists waiting to get into the Anne
Frank House. The House/Museum was very interesting and well organized
- aside from apparently making a game out of closing one men’s restroom
and then the other for cleaning at rather inconvenient times. I think
Donna planned to use Anne Frank’s story as part of a childrens’ church
lesson soon, so it was particularly interesting to her. After that we
did a bit more shopping and wandering, eventually ending up of all
places at a KFC for lunch. I’ll take full blame for that, having grown
annoyed at paying far too much money for too little food – I just
wanted to get full for under $10, regardless of nutritional value.
After that, we headed back to the rental car and started a long
frustrating drive full of holiday traffic and construction back to
Düsseldorf. We stopped along the way back to pick up Molly from her
doggie-daycare.
Saturday morning we woke up early to drive Laura’s parents to the
airport for their trip home. All in all, it was a wonderful, but
somewhat exhausting week. We were very glad that Laura’s parents were
able to come visit us and see a little of what we’ve been up to for the
past year. I hope they enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed having them.
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