Wednesday April 30, 2008
So on Wednesday we got to do a "round two" with the Schloss in Karlsruhe. It wasn't open when we did our first tour on Monday and we wanted to up the tower to take in the view.
This model from inside the museum shows what Karlsruhe looked like in its early days. The buildings have changed but the streets near the Schloss still have this configuration and the area behind the Schloss is still a very large wooded area.
The view from the top.
"My" duck pond in the background.
So many stairs. Why, so many stairs?
Sir. M'Lady.
Recreation of a Badish "General Store".
Coffee and cake afterwards - a MUST!
The tulips are in bloom in front of the conference centre!
After our day of sight-seeing we jumped in the car to pick Toby up from work. It did not bode well when I took us the wrong way out of town, we got stuck in a traffic jam and ended up getting to Toby one hour late. Oops!
Then as we headed out onto the Autobahn towards Nürnberg it started to pour. And the traffic inched along. "We may as well settle in guys, it's gonna be a long night." Here's a video I was inspired to make on the trip.
After five or six hours (twice as long as it should have been) we navigated our way into Nürnberg. It wasn't easy. Towns with intact medieval walls are cool when you're on foot, but try getting to the other side of one in your car! But we made it without any driver-passenger yelling and only a year or so shaved off Toby's life span.
We grabbed dinner to-go at a greek pita restaurant and headed out in the rain for some sight seeing.
Blurry night pictures of the square where the famous Christmas market is held.
It was a "little" wet.
A bling bike with a gold chain!! Wouldn't I be the coolest kid in Calgary cruising around on this baby?!
Flocke is the new Knut. (The new, cool, media frenzy baby polar bear in Germany).
Thursday May 1, 2008
Weikerts "little alley". Hey they almost got the spelling right too!
St. Sebaldus Church
Enjoying the sunshine.
The castle in the distance.
Frauenkirche on the Hauptmarkt (or main square) where the famous Christmas market is held.
Schöner Brunnen (Beautiful Fountain)
Albrech Dürer's House.
One of the castle towers.
Oh... those clouds look a little scary.
We were in town to catch the Venetian festival. This bridge, which was inspired by the Rialto bridge in Venice, had booths with products of a general Italian-ish variety like olives and salami and cheese and masks.
After a quick but delicious lunch in a bakery we hit the road and drove to Vienna. The traffic was much lighter but it still took about five hours to get there. We stayed in a fairly god-awful little place just outside Vienna, because unbeknownst to me, May 1st is the most popular weekend in Vienna and every, no wait let me repeat that a little louder, EVERY hotel room was booked up. Except for the ones that cost over 200 euros per night.
Sue and Chris were lovely enough not to say anything about the smoky, toilet freshener smelling hotel with the crazy old lady with a lazy eye for a proprietor. We spent our evening figuring out which commuter train to take into downtown, and then doing the "Rick Steves tram orientation tour" which was OK but everything went by pretty fast and it was dark.
Sue and Chris were kind enough to humour me and we ate a late dinner at a place called "Rosenburger" where I had eaten the last time I was in Vienna with my parents 13 years ago. It's a buffeteria type place with cafeteria ambience and little cardboard crowns. Or, at least, they SHOULD have had little cardboard crowns. I didn't see them. Where's my cardboard crown?
Meanwhile, non of us managed to remember to take a SINGLE PICTURE. Sorry, no pictures of Rosenburger for you to enjoy.
I don't know what anyone else was thinking, but I knew our second day in Vienna couldn't go anywhere but up.
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