In and Around Bad Windsheim and Amberg

Note: Read this post before you read Southern Bavaria: Mountain Castles.


Before we left our old "neighborhood" to head to the mountains, we had to check a few more things off the list and show the girls where they were born, where they lived, etc.--just a few sights from their (early) childhood! First of all, the birthplaces of two very important young women:
Klinik Bad Windsheim (then called Klinik Augustinum), birthplace of L'Artiste. Not a very beautiful building, but the scene of a very important & world-changing event! Klinikum St. Marien Amberg, birthplace of the lovely Orangina! This is actually in Amberg, which we visited on our way to Garmisch. I just liked putting it here so both the important birthplaces are in the same spot! Orangina lived in Germany long enough that she has a few vague memories of Germany. L'Artiste was only a year old when she moved back to the States, so alas, no memories for her...until now! St Kilian's and the Rathaus, Bad Windsheim. Interesting perspective, eh? St. Kilian's was built in the 15th century and was restructured in the 1700s as a Protestant Reformation church. I noticed that the cemetary and the grounds of the church looked like they needed some attention--not a typical site in Bavaria. I wonder what the deal is? Landwehr-Brau: our local brewery's mobile bier wagon. Brilliant, and quite civilized idea, isn't it? If Chuck had only been with us, he'd have loved a taste for old times' sake! I'm not sure, but I think this used to be Chuck's favorite guitar shop. Notice the bull over the door. That indicates that it used to be a butcher's shop. Yvonne said that a couple of months ago, a big truck came squeezing down the lane and broke off the bull's horn. After all these many, many years some truck driver broke off the horn? What a pity! Moira finally finally got her spaghetti eis! That was the one thing that she wanted to have more than anything! I think she enjoyed it too! Next, we were off to the village of Ickelheim, where we lived most of the time we were in Germany, and of course, when L'Artiste was born. I included the first few pictures because that scene just has such a special place in my heart. I drove past those trees and pastures so many times on the way to school or out on adventures, and when I returned this summer, I had such a feeling of homecoming. It was great to be there again...and with the girl, it was really wonderful. Our house in Ickelheim. We lived on the first floor. They've expanded the soccer field out back, and now there's a club house of some sort too. I'll bet it's interesting on soccer nights!

Next, we headed for southern Bavaria--into the Alps! More on that later!
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All Our Old Haunts

Our first full day back in Germany! We got up early and went in to Wurzburg to the market, since that was one of the major things on the girls' list to do! When Orangina was a baby, she lived here, and came to the market every Saturday, so it was fun for her to see it as an (almost) grownup! :) It was such a good feeling to be back in the area--the smells and sounds of a Saturday market are really unique to those of us from the American suburbs. Lovely.

When we lived in country, we were lucky to live in this most beautiful of areas. We got used to the magnificent scenery and to some of the world's most picturesque streets. Rothenburg is just a few miles down the road, and that was our next stop. The girls have grown up with lithographs and photos on their walls at home depicting so many scenes and buildings from this fanciful little village. The picture below is a doorway in the courtyard behind the Rathaus in Rothenburg--a lithograph of this door has been hanging in my bedroom all of the Artist's life. When she saw it IRL, she gasped.
Even though Rothenburg is really "tourist central", we knew it through all the seasons, as a neighboring village, and we truly loved it there. Back in the day, it was jam-packed every summer weekend with American and Japanese tourists--so many you couldn't get down the street sometimes! This year, that was not the case.

Good news for us--bad news for the poor shopkeepers that are having another slower-than-normal high season. I spoke with one friendly and helpful man whose family owns a little shop near the marktplazt--Friese Kunstgewerbe (the Friese Shop). He told me that his family's business has really felt the pinch since so many of the American posts in the area have closed, and the sagging dollar is keeping U.S. tourists at home. Very friendly man and his prices aren't too terrible either. They're just around the corner of the Rathaus steps to the right as you're facing the building. Anyway, I could really tell a difference because we weren't crowded at all.

We ate lunch on the terrace at one of my favorite gasthauses--the one overlooking Jakob's Kirche. I I remember taking Chuck's parents there one afternoon long, long ago. Hotel Reichs Kuchenmeister. Later, we walked down to the cloister so the Artist could take some pics and see the beautiful valley spread out below. She came away saying "we have to come back at Christmas!" Such a great little village. I'm all for the Christmas visit, BTW! All it takes is $...

More in Paris....and On to Germany!

Still looking thru the photos taken by L'Artiste . I'm usually terrible about doing something with the pictures from a trip so this time I'm really going to try to do a better job!

I thought this Paris scene was interesting. You can't see how ridiculous Paris traffic is in this one though. C'est horrifique! I remembered it being ridiculous, but I think it's even worse now. On the way into town, our van driver was squeezing down a street (at a speed slightly less than that of light) and when we came to a right-hand turn, there were dozens of pedestrians on the sidewalk about to cross the street. One of them actually ran into the van and almost got flattened! Then the driver decided to pull a U-turn on a 2-lane street, and someone on a moped was in the process of passing us on the right, between traffic lanes. We hit him slightly too--with a flurry of French curses! That was all in the space of about 4 minutes in downtown traffic!

In my last post, I forgot to mention our evening trip down the Seine. It really was lovely. By the end of that long day, we were mighty tired, and we hadn't eaten much because we were trying to save a little money--every time we turned around it cost another 50 euros! So we were kind of bummed that the boat was too full for us to have a seat up top--but we just stood and it was certainly worth it. I would say that evening is the only time(at least in the summer) to take that trip! There was a nice cool breeze, and all the buildings are dramatically lit so you can see all the sights you'd ever want to see, but at night they're all bathed in a warm light. And of course, the Eiffel Tour is just glorious with all its lights twinkling in the sunset. It really was lovely.

As I mentioned earlier, the next morning we left for Germany on the ICE train, which is a fantastic thing! It took about 4 hours to get to Frankfurt, change trains, and then about an hour to get to Wurzburg, and BOY did it beat driving! I like European trains anyway because they're clean, on time and you get to relax and enjoy the scenery. The new trains even have wireless hotspots, so there were many businesspeople working as they traveled from one country to the next. Very cool.

We got to Wurzburg, and Yvonne was there waiting for us--oh how nice it was to see her! It's been 6-7 years since I've seen her, and that's tooooo long! I must say that as I stepped out of the Bahnhof, even after all of these years, I felt a little bit like I was going home. I just felt different than I had in Ireland or France. And the feeling grew through the days, as we visited so many of our old haunts. Even as I write this, it brings tears to my eyes a bit, because we had so many wonderful times there, and Germany holds such a special place in our hearts. The one missing element was having Chuck there with me. By this time in the trip, I really missed him anyway, and coming "home" intensified that. I wish he'd been there with us.

For dinner that night, Chip met us in Wurzburg at a gasthaus overlooking the beautiful countryside--I can't remember what the name was--and Taylor got her first real German meal. Schweinelendchen! She loved it. We sat for a long time on the porch overlooking the valley as the sun set, and...it was good. On to Rothenburg tomorrow!