The Clans Gather

December 26.

Boxing Day? More like Dozing Day. Alice and I still have colds that come and go in severity, day by day. We decided to do very little, with me doing the littlest. Alice and Barbara went to the antique store but Alice discovered that in the set of 30 angels only 9 were what she wanted, so she passed.

FYI no snow anywhere.

December 27.

Today is the Big Party with 30-odd cousins at an Italian restaurant. Today also an ‘up’ day with the colds, more up with Alice. There was a tea party at Andreas’ that I passed on. But before that, Robert and Barbara gave us two prints.

And they hauled out a gigantic roll of bubble wrap. You can’t even get that at Costco.

Look carefully and you will see five hands were needed to finish the wrapping.

Anyway, some selected photos of the Tea Party.

Benny and Bettina and their two kids, Jonathon in back and Antonia in front.

Oma Maggie, Lena and assorted children.

Karin, Sarah, Oma Beatrice.

Lucas the Elder, Alice, Stephanie.

Obviously the tea party was a great success, and so was the Big Dinner. I think we had around 30 people including 4 children there. It was really great for all these relatives to come to Hamburg from Holland, Berlin, Portugal, Bremen and some even from Hamburg. We spent around 3 hours talking and even some eating.

After dinner 15 die-hards came back to Barbara’s for more talking. It’s important to take names as much as possible so, from the left: Alice, Robert, Ulrich, Andreas, Chuck, Wolfgang, Dorli, Annette, Carola, Peter, Lucas the Younger, Detmar, Lucas the Elder, Stephanie. All first cousins!

Around midnight we called it a day.

December 28/29.

We took a six hour train to Frankfurt and slept in a hotel inside the airport. Next morning a short stop in the Lufthansa lounge (unbelievably crowded) and took the 11 hour flight to LAX. An hour’s wait and then a 1 1/2 hour bus ride to Oceanside where Janet picked us up and took us home. Next time we fly to Munich from San Diego!

January 3, 2026.

Just received a message from Barbara: “You left one week too early.”

Barbara’s back yard. For 3 weeks we did not see a single snowflake! Never put our boots on!

Annabelle and Caroline.

And just to show that California yields to nobody in the Snow Race:

Our best friends were trapped in Truckee when snow closed the interstate highway. Luckily there were Christmas leftovers that lasted until the highway opened.

Happy New Year to All!

My Dinner with Andreas

December 25.

It’s another cold day in Hamburg. At breakfast it was –5 ℃ or 23 ℉. Undeterred, we decided to take a walk on the beach.

Behind us is the River Elbe, very wide and flat today. Sometimes there is a sandy beach but more often just rocks. These houses are highly desirable for the view.

But not all is perfect. The river will flood and the lowest lying houses are at risk.

Look closely at the door – there is a normal door inside, but a watertight door outside, like on a submarine. As long as the river does not go above the first floor he’s OK.

After a few hours back indoors we went to cousin Andreas’ house to tea and dinner.

Cookies! After tea we adjourned to the Christmas tree and opened presents.

 

Just to show that there is more than one way  to have a Christmas dinner, this one centered around venison. Each one of those little medallions are the same size as the one we split among three people at Restaurant Jacob many years ago. Ah, memories. Andreas cooked them perfectly – very tender.

It was a noisy and happy dinner: 8 adults, 4 tiny children and a baby, and a golden retriever under the table.

Three mothers and a baby.

And finally, a view of the ingredients: red cabbage, cranberry sauce, (venison temporarily out of sight), gravy and Alice’s favorite, knödeln (Phillipp ate 2 1/2).

We talked with Andreas and Maggi until 10:00 and then came back to Barbara’s. We slept well.

Christmas Eve

December 24.

Today was mostly relaxing and talking, punctuated by brief periods of activity.

It was slightly below freezing this morning but also sunny. We walked to the business district of Blankenese in a last attempt to find tiny angel musicians. The antique/consignment store had a set of 30 at a decent price but was closed so we have a couple of days to decide about them. Our walk continued through some large parks, Robert’s high school’s swimming pool, a few runners in shorts, and a mystery tree with fruit still on it. Small quince-like fruit that the birds had rejected.

For lunch we had a roasted pumpkin salad and rolls. Then at 4:30 Robert lit the tree.

That was the sign that we could open presents. A ski outfit, vegetarian cookbook, photo calendar, new watchband, detective novels, etc. etc. Alice and I received camel hair socks, guaranteed to keep you warm as the camels involved were from Mongolia. (Alice wore her pair to bed.)

But mostly we watched the tree and had tea and cookies. (Robert, Barbara, Caroline)

Robert, Barbara, Caroline, Annabelle. I hope to get a copy of Annabelle’s picture of all of us, taken by her cell phone that she propped up on a chair and then made mystic hand passes that triggered the camera. I feel like a Luddite with my old camera.

And there it is!

Christmas Eve dinner was more like a Smörgåsbord than the Dickensian style we Americans have adopted. Alice’s grandparents served carp, but her mother would go downstairs to have bratwurst with the chauffeur. 

At one end of the table the girls cranked out slices of toast. We got to choose among 6 varieties of cheese, vegetarian sausage salad (far right)

… herring salad and crab salad (upper left), green salad, smoked salmon, smoked trout, prosciutto and Italian ham.

 Going back a little in time, Alice and Barbara peeling and dicing mangos for dessert. The end result was a mango/coconut trifle.

And so to bed.

Escape to the North

December 23. Munich to Hamburg.

We left our nice warm quiet hotel this morning and took a taxi to the Munich main train station. It was a zoo. Lots of construction under way and hundreds of people, all with luggage. One family of 6 had 8 large suitcases. I had been panicking about getting our  one large and one small on board the train with the usual competition for the limited storage. But, we got lucky. We were the second ones in to our car, easily stored the large and small cases, and our seats were a few feet away from them.

It was a nearly six hour ride to Hamburg. We had bought sandwiches back at the zoo, bought drinks on board, and twice somebody came around with little packets of gummi bears. Neither of us left our seats for the whole trip.

In the Hamburg station we were met by Annabelle, daughter of cousin Barbara, who led us to the car her father Robert had parked (illegally?) at the curb. He was driving a fire-engine-red VW Polo (Personal Ostentatious LimO) which fit the four of us and luggage perfectly. The ride home was ‘diverting’: lots of  roads were in some state of repair and our route had many detours. Apparently Hamburg is being rebuilt.

At home we met Barbara, had tea and Christmas cookies, met Caroline, Annabelle’s sister, feasted on two home-made quiches and then adjourned to decorate the Christmas tree.

Annabelle holds the heavy end of the tree while Robert guides the rest of it indoors.

They had already wrapped a string of LEDs around the tree but before the real decorating starts there must be a champagne toast. On the left you can see Annabelle pre-lighting candles to make it easier to light them on the tree. Interesting. I saw 160 candles! They just keep lighting and replacing for the entire 12 days of Christmas.

Annabelle and Caroline searching for the ‘best’ ornaments.

Finishing touches.

And finally. The lighting of the candles begins tomorrow at 4:00 p.m.

Off the Boat

December 19. Basel to Munich.

For once Viking’s command of scheduling failed, a bit. Our cab scheduled for 9:00 a.m came at 8:30 and we shared it. After we scrambled to get the cab the driver severely overcharged us too. Oh well.

After a two hour wait we caught our train to Karlsruhe for the one transfer of the trip. We had nine minutes to connect and fortunately the train was not late. Nevertheless, it took dragging our luggage down and up two flights of stairs and we limped on to the next train to Munich with two minutes to spare. Three hours later we arrived. A much more reasonable cab took us to the hotel through rush hour Munich traffic. This is a very nice hotel, MOMA 1890, right across the street from the Ostbahnhof – had we known this we could have taken a subway point to point. Next time.

December 20. Munich.

We have a very quiet room so arose late. Job #1 was to find a laundromat and 15 minutes later we were there. It did an excellent job. Back at the hotel we relaxed and got ready to watch the College Football playoffs (on the computer because surprise, not available on the TV), having seen a replay of the Tide vs. Sooner game which was great fun because Oklahoma lost.

Miami vs. Texas A&M – what a snoozer. We left our room at half time and got a doner kabab, a Turkish sandwich that is the ancestor of the Greek gyro. Excellent. There are kebab places all over Munich it seems.

A&M lost, once again making us happy, but Miami is going nowhere in the next round. The last two games were predictable runaways by Oregon and Ole Miss and I fell asleep. The Oregon game started at 10:00 p.m. local.

December 21. Munich.

Having visited many Christmas Markets we decided to pass on another one and take a municipal Ring bus (goes all around the city and comes back to where we got on) to the Alte Pinakothek (famous art museum). If the trees had a few leaves it would have helped, but that’s just a Southern Californian talking. We saw urban architecture, nothing we felt like disembarking for even if it was attractive, and arrived at the museum 35 minutes later.

The Alte has 14th-18th century art and the Neue Pinakothek has newer art but is closed for renovation until 2029 (!). Luckily for us they have moved over 100 Neue paintings to the Alte for a special exhibition, so we got our 19th and 20th century jollies.

John Constable: View of Dedham Vale from East Bergholt.

This was Alice’s favorite. I need more color.

Edouard Manet: Claude Monet painting from his studio boat.

My favorite. (1) Manet painting Monet. (2) How great is it to work in such comfort? I’ll bet his “assistant” has prepared a Jambon Beurre for him.

Vincent van Gogh: View of Arles.

We both liked this one – very attractive and brought back memories of when we visited Arles ourselves.

Picasso: a Jester.

We had a break at the museum cafe. Two apfelschorle (half apple juice, half fizzy water), one cheesecake and one plum cake. It was all paid for by the museum. It was Sunday and admission was €1 instead of €15 so the difference easily covered the snacks.

Back at the hotel we rested up for dinner. There was a brewery restaurant around the corner.

The decor tells you that lobster thermidor is not on the menu.

This guy was 100% focused, on what I don’t know.

Our main courses came with salads. A lot in this one:  cabbage, carrots, lettuce, beets and potato salad.

Alice had calves’ liver with fried oni0ns, apples and mashed potato. Liver only ok but overall good. Her drink was a hefeweizen – wheat beer.

I had roast venison with spätzle, mushrooms, cranberry and a knödel the size of a cricket ball. My drink was a mango schorle.

The venison was really tender, which surprised me, but it was also without any identifying taste. It could have been anything. The knödel I think was made by scrunching up a bunch of stale bread into a ball and boiling it. However, overall I enjoyed the meal. Great gravy.

December 22. Munich.

We think we are rested enough and the colds have 90% disappeared. Both of us decided to have our hair done – Alice a wash and dry and myself a cut from a guy who spoke fluent east European. He cut off a lot of hair.

We wandered down several streets to the local Christmas Market.

Except for this corner it was so crowded that walking side by side was impossible. Alice collected another glühwein mug and we escaped.

Looks better from a distance.

We had dinner at an Italian restaurant this time. We were the first in but by the time we finished it was pretty full.

First up was a strange bruschetta. We’re used to one you can pick up and eat, but this was a monster. I ended up cutting it up into a sort of bread salad. Tasted good though.

 

I had an old favorite, spaghetti carbonara, and Alice had a pizza on which each extra ingredient was given its own quarter: olives, artichokes, mushrooms and ham. Never seen that before.

Now we are packing for the train ride tomorrow to Hamburg. Arrivederci!

A Sunny Day

December 18. Basel.

Very sunny. No clouds. But still cold. Those who want a summer tour of Basel can go here: poshaw.wordpress.com/2022/09/06/

We bussed into town at 9:00 and were told the Christmas Markets open at 11:00. This happens often. I don’t mind but those who came particularly for the CMs might be bothered. Alice and I broke away from the group and headed for the Art Museum and had a nice warm hour there.

Rather than photos of the Gucci and Versace stores I like signs. A very well-off family lived here.

The same here. Much more modern house.

We did not get into the Basel Münster (Cathedral) but did tread its exterior corridors.

The Bernoulli family was Swiss. There were 8 mathematically gifted academics, notably Daniel who gave us the theory of fluid dynamics (why your airplane can fly) and Jacob whose plaque this is. He discovered the fundamental mathematical constant e. However, his most important contribution was in the field of probability, where he derived the first version of the law of large numbers. This explains Las Vegas.

Front of the Basel Münster with large Christmas tree. Bits of it date back to the 11th century. The guide kept talking about the terrible earthquake that pretty much destroyed it and pointed out where the new and old stones were. I was surprised to find out the earthquake happened in 1356.

The city mascot is a basilisk (qv Harry Potter) which has the head of a chicken and the body of a dragon. So it’s only half mythical. This fountain has four small ones spitting water. Also it’s a picture of both of us, nearly as mythical an event as a basilisk.

This where we parted from the group. The Kunstmuseum Basel has a good group of paintings and only costs €25. Only. In comparison to Swiss penalties for driving 5 kph over the limit I guess that’s not too much.

 

Miniatures of Mr. & Mrs. Martin Luther. It looks a bit like they are behind old wavy glass, but no, this is a clear view.

This is a painting of an architect (1480) by the Bayerischer Meister. In other words, nobody know who he was. In fact one entire room was devoted to various masters of various places, names unknown.

This is a detail from The Miraculous Feeding of St. Anthony and Saint Paul the Hermit, by the Master of 1445. They don’t even know where the painter came from. The miracle was that God was sending a crow with half a loaf of bread daily to St. Paul, but when St. Anthony stopped by the raven brought a whole loaf. Pretty tame as miracles go, but whatever.

Back in the day everything in a painting had a symbolic meaning. While the boys are eating bread, this stork is having a frog (meat). There has to be a message there.

Finally, a detail from a painting about children having tea. It’s here because the china pattern is blue onion, Alice’s favorite.

Back on the ship we had very good tomato soup and a muffuletta sandwich and ice cream.

Last night on the ship, final dinner, and no Baked Alaska!

 

I gambled and tried the Caesar salad again. The first time it was really weak tasting so I asked for extra dressing on the side. I got a little cup of mayonnaise with a little vinegar in it. Holy cow. I have not done many food ratings but this deserves a 1 out of 10 (it did have an anchovy).

Alice had white bean soup and it was good.

 

On the left a ‘rosti’, which is simply a potato pancake Swiss style. Onions and chives and so on. For what it is, very good. For dessert a plum tart and NY cheesecake. We split them before taking a photo. Both good.

Tomorrow morning we pack up and take the train to Munich. I’ll do a top ten (and a bottom 10) later.

Weather Improving

December 17. Black Forest.

And by weather, we mean personal weather. Sneezes subsiding, coughing infrequently. So we went on the half-day trip titled “German Tradition and the Black Forest.”

It’s a long way from Breisach to the depths of the BF. On the way our guide gave us information about old farming towns and old farm houses (cattle on the ground floor, living on the first floor, hay storage in the top floor). Photographically difficult from a bus.

The only two things Americans know about the BF are cuckoo clocks and BF chocolate cake. Here at our only stop was a real house that… well, you can see. At 11:00 the gong struck and the figures on the balcony danced around and a cuckoo came singing out of the top door. We had hit the ultimate tourist stop.

In reality this was the site of a hotel (not this house) that had been servicing travelers on a main merchant route through the mountains.

St. Oswald’s Chapel, 1148.

Why a 7th century Anglo-Saxon king (Oswald of Northumbria, later a saint)? Well, the Venerable Bede thought well of him. Read about him – very interesting guy. But still, why so interesting 500 years after his death and not local by any means. Apparently he had a cult following in mediaeval times. Our guide said he was the patron saint of pack horses and the Crusades.   ???

St. Fred comes to mind.

Actually he was patron saint of many: soldiers (due to his warrior status and martyrdom), Kings, Converts, Agriculture, Harvest, Weather protection. May he rest in peace.

Not many photo ops in a dry winter scene, but this is OK. The viaduct is the route of the steepest railway in Germany and the best we can do measured against Harry Potter.

You know we had to have a talk on cuckoo clocks. They had all sizes and prices from ~€300 to 11,000 (yes, €11,000). Not tourist trinkets at all. But I know one couple that got into 4 figures for their purchase.

Then we had a demo on assembling a BF chocolate cake. When it came time to put rosettes on each marked slice the ‘chef’ asked the audience if it was easy to do (about 20 hands up) or difficult (one hand. Me.). She pointed at me and with a threatening East European accent said, “You! Up here!”

So that’s who you see decorating the cake with her. I didn’t do too badly after the first two rosettes and was rewarded with a tiny bottle of Kirchwasser.

Then is was on to the bratwurst and glühwein. The weather was warming up in the high 40s and with the log fire and the bubbling stream it was quite pleasant.

The bus trip back took about an hour and when we got to the boat the sun was out, mostly.

  

For dinner we were promised a Chateaubriand that would “melt in your mouth and explode in your tummy”. I took a chance that this was only half true and ordered it. It was indeed more tender than the fake rib-eye. The combination of brown sauce and béarnaise sauce was the mystery of the day. They don’t go well together.

Alice had a shrimp dish and said the shrimp actually had a lot of taste Winner. Dessert was mango sorbet – they do good ice cream.

It’s still cold.

December 14. Heidelberg.

This was an all-day trip and by the end we Southern California types were exhausted. The weather continues to be between 32 and 41 with heavy overcast in the morning and if you’re lucky some sun in the afternoon. But it’s still cold and damp. On the other hand there is a lot to see…..

First thing you see is the ruined castle.

Protestants and Catholics fought over the town for centuries. In the 1800s the main church had a stone dividing wall to prevent fistfights in the audience.

The Catholics were really into sculpture. What’s cute about this Virgin and Child statue is that the Baby Jesus has a spear in His chubby little hand, with the point sunk into a snake. The understood message was, not just snakes but heretics too.

Dipping into mythology, here is a statue of Hercules. What is it doing next to a church? We know what the pigeon is doing.

Now you may think this is the Lion of Nemea, victim of Hercules’ first labor. Our guide told us that gentle ladies in the rooms with this view objected to Hercules’ bare bottom greeting them every morning, so a lion was added. It’s a good story.

Postcard snap of the Old Bridge Gate and the Church of the Holy Spirit in back.

The Haus zum Ritter St. Georg is the oldest preserved residential house (1592) in Heidelberg’s Old Town.

For lunch we invaded a restaurant run by a local brewery. As we entered we were handed a stein of the brew – very efficient. We were seated with some students, of which there are many thousands in the city. The one at our table had a Taiwanese mother and a German father and he was headed to Hamburg for the family Christmas. Snap!

We started with a green salad which was really really good – everyone remarked about the dressing. The main course was chicken in a cream sauce. Alice said it was good but I got a rubber chicken. Dessert was ice cream with plums – also good.

After lunch we took the funicular up to the palace. It’s 99.999% abandoned – there is one resident. He found an obscure law that said anyone who has a business in the palace can live in the palace. As a result there is a single resident who runs a bakery.

Statues of the nobility abound and I can’t remember a single one.

At some point the French mined the palace and blew the wall off this tower.

It wasn’t just the French doing evil. Struggles between  claimants to various thrones alternately put up statues and tore them down. What’s missing from this installation is somebody’s royal coat of arms.

Sometimes it still looks lived in.

Overlook of Heidelberg.

The Christmas market was relatively relaxed. Lots of live Christmas trees.

Dinner was strange. I saw nothing really attractive so I ordered the “rib-eye steak” that was always on the menu. It was not rib-eye – no gristle in rib-eye. This was surrounded by gristle and no marbling at all. I have since talked with others and universally they say it wasn’t so good. Disappointing. Alice had cod which she liked.

 

For dessert Alice had bienenstich (left), a cream cake with a layer of honey-caramelized almonds on top. Only OK. I ordered Key Lime pie (right) and again, that ain’t Key Lime pie. It’s more a lightly flavored citrus chiffon. Real Key Lime is (1) not chiffon but like the lemon curd(?) in a lemon meringue pie, and (2) the lime flavor is intense. You really pucker up. It tasted fine but was not what was advertised.

And so to bed immediately. A very long day.

December 15: Karlsruhe.

The weather is getting slightly colder and slightly more overcast/foggy. We walked around the palace and admired the redwood trees that seem to like it here. One was at least 60 feet tall. Then we walked towards one of the Christmas Markets, the one with a ferris wheel.

But we were on a mission – find a store that Barbara told us about that sold the tiny angel bands we wanted.

Aren’t they cute? We asked the saleslady about the price and nearly fainted. That organ in the background was over €400. Each angel was €35-40. We used to have about 40 of the little darlings, mostly from my Grandmother who certainly would have said “Ach gewiss!”, her favorite all purpose term of amazement.

The palace was nothing special photographically, but the skating rink was.

Some of the food stalls were quite complex for a one-month season.

 

Back on the boat for lunch. In spite of the calories burning off in the cold weather we are both not very hungry. I suspect I have a cold, so… we split a cheeseburger. Much superior to the steak last night. Dessert was mango sorbet with fruit bits. Also good.

We spent the afternoon sleeping. My sneezing is increasing.

 

For dinner the starter was a Norwegian bay shrimp cocktail – like a tiny shrimp Louie. The main was odd: potato and chanterelle mushroom strudel. Again my tastebuds refused to participate. Alice thought it was pretty good.

December 16. Strasbourg.

My sneezing has reached warp speed, I have had to ask the staff twice for a fresh box of Kleenex. Alice had started coughing. The mist/fog is more intense and it’s colder. We decided to make it a ship day. Also we had taken a tour of the city three years ago in the summer, when it was really pretty. Those interested can go to https://poshaw.wordpress.com/2022/09/12/

People we had lunch with said, yes, it was pretty close to freezing. For dinner we both chose French onion soup (very good) and apple tarte tatin (meh, the limp apple type).

Apparently half the ship or more has come down with colds. Now that the horse is out of the barn they have closed passenger access to the buffet – you ask the servers to get what you want. That should slow things down a bit.

Lohr am Main

December 13.

The town of Lohr has two important characteristics. (1) it is the site of one of the Grimm Brothers’ most famous tales, and (2) Viking make us walk almost a half a mile just to get on the bus. I believe a sharply worded letter is called for.

The part of town closest to the river was occupied by fisherman. Go figure. This is a statue to honor them. At Christmas.

The anchor means a fisherman lived here. The chalked message is about Christmas: “20*C+M+B+25”. I missed the significance of the numbers, but the letters are for the three wise men, Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar.

A nifty half-timbered house with the timbers painted in ox-blood. No, it was sandstone dye, not real ox-blood, but the name remains. I don’t know what the dye is in ox-blood shoes.

A bakery.

A lesson in numerology. Is this date 1896? Not likely. It is actually 1496. The second number is half of an 8, hence equals 4. Apparently the Arabs didn’t give us all the numbers at first.

Our guide said this was an original 18th century organ. Repaired and restored many times, but still original.

A modestly dressed Virgin Mary.

Much fancier.

The hotel Krone (Crown) that checks off all the “quaint” boxes.

Nice carving, but noted here for the sculptor’s signature in the upper right.

The signature told the foreman who did it and who should be paid.

Not sure if the window functions any better but it was done because it is a window on a staircase.

So here we are at The Castle. Building began in 1340 but our interest begins in 1720s when Maria Sophia Margaretha Catharina von Erthal lived there. Her father remarried and somehow Maria got caught up in family difficulties that the Grimm Brothers turned into the tale of Snow White. Interestingly the first mirror making business in what is now Germany was here, and because of local mining ventures there were lots of short people. Clues everywhere.

The nice lady standing there is Snow White and you can have your picture taken with her.

Resting, a popular pastime on our trip.

These sculptures are  from a more modern folk tale. I can’t begin to re-tell it, but the main character is a sausage (on the right). The opposing character is skeletal and tourists use it as a chair. It has a ‘hat’ that is made of sausage end-snippings. The dog guards the sausage, but looks as if it would like a bite.

Here is the last section of the Viking Death March from the bus parking lot.

Dinner tonight was German Night – as if we hadn’t been eating German all week. Here’s the buffet portion:

 

Sausages, sauerkraut, red cabbage; sauerbraten and in the back, pig’s knuckles.

 

Three kinds of mustard and three kinds of cheese; the salad corner.

The desert buffet was small cakes and later on, ice cream. Overall I reached my limit early. Some people really chowed down.

Tomorrow, all day in Heidlberg.

Less Christmas Marketing

December 12, Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

A full day ahead of us, so let’s start with breakfast. It’s the same every day but there’s plenty of variety. No need to eat the same thing every day. Eggs Benedict, fruity pancakes with real maple syrup, good times. The breads and pastries are particularly good.

 

 

After only three days we find the Christmas Market stalls starting to look all alike. We have not yet found the kind of angel music bands we want. Therefore we are concentrating on the towns we visit and not necessarily the CMs. That may change tomorrow?

This is our guide Anna who is trying to explain why these wine bottles are shaped like goat’s gonads (her words). Apparently it made them easier to carry to work.

Our gang of about 180 and another boat roaming the streets of Rothenburg.

Scene from the city wall. The weather has been mostly cloudy and of course the leaves have all fallen. It does not make for spectacular scenery. We pray for snow.

A central town square. The CM here was quite small, most of it in the lower left.

A butcher shop. Many kinds of sausage.

A bakery. The rounds ones on the right are ‘snowballs’, made from pastry strips woven into a ball, deep fried, and then glazed or covered with powdered sugar. It is said they would keep for months and not decay. We tried one and yes, it could have been fresh or a month old.

On the left are Danish pastries with a fried egg in the middle. That simply mystifies us.

 

We had lunch at a restaurant serving local dishes. This is a cabbage leaf wrapped around a sausage-like filling. Not exciting. The Hungarians do it better. The wine was very light and even though it was in a generous-sized glass it went down easily and gave no headaches later.

Back out on the street again we found the most photographed scene in the city. We even have an Advent calendar with this scene, but with snow. The house is getting the Leaning Tower of Piza treatment. In the background is one of the seven city gates. On the left is the sign for our restaurant.

Alice and a nutcracker outside an enormous Christmas store where again we were unable to find the angel musicians.

A giant revolving tree in the store.

As we bid farewell to Rothenburg ODT a few photos of the signage. Our guides told us the signs were to guide the illiterate to the right shops but many of them require literacy to understand.

 

 

 

A cat house?

 

We returned to Würzburg to the Residence of the Prince-Bishop.

 

“In Würzburg did the Prince-Bishop a stately pleasure dome decree.” Yes, this is the Residence, home to the PB and 300 staff. It was built along the lines of Versailles. The PB was both the secular and religious ruler of the area and as a result was very rich. This is a ceiling mural showing one of the four continents on each side (Australia was unknown then). Structurally it is amazing – an unsupported stone dome that survived a massive bombing of the city at the end of WWII.

Another spectacular room is the White Hall, done in over-the-top Baroque style.

A mural by Tiepolo. I thought the dog was interesting – it seems to be three dimensional but in fact is flat painted like the rest of the mural.

Napoleon’s bed. He came several times between 1806 and 1813 and this Imperial Bedroom was built for him and Marie Louise.

This man, don’t know who he is, appeared to be using a cell phone.

But it isn’t. It’s an hourglass. The question remains, why is he listening to an hourglass?

Back on the boat I was so tired I completely forgot dinner photos, and when the glassblower gave us a demonstration I actually fell asleep. Better luck tomorrow.