Salzburg We've only been to Vienna so we enjoyed your thoughts. We were talking to friends this week about a possible trip to Salzburg so this blog is timely. Thanks.
Buildings surviving WWII, the marvel of restoration Thank you for your comments Ake. I expect much that appears ancient that was obliterated by bombing, wars or neglect is in fact painstakingly restored. Some complain they are thus not authentic or fake, to which I have no time for such complaint. History is saturated with destruction, revival and restoration. Such is the highlight of the human spirit. Without it our World would be a sad, sorry state. If restoration is done with human determination and best endeavours, who are we to otherwise criticise and not take the time to admire and appreciate. I thus travel to Angkor Wat, the Terracotta Warriors, Prambanan, the Amber Room in Catherine's Palace and so many other ancient places and marvel at the resolve and skill to restore so these treasures endure. QED.
I agree Thank you for the comment and I agree to it all. I also happily travel to Angkor Wat and Xian. Prambanan is high on the wish list and one day I hope that travels to Russia will be possible again because the Amber Room I really want to see before I kick the bucket. /Ake
Wow! What beautiful street frontage! We visited Frankfurt when I was a child, but I can't remember any of it. Probably time to think of that part of the world as a travel destination again :)
Bavaria You got me with the castles, Ake. Couldn't resist posting some on TB's "Palaces & Castles" in the Photography Forum. Frankfurt & Nuremberg from your pics and text looks grand indeed. But Frankenstein Castle...with a name like that who could possibly resist!!! As Germany had many cities bombed out of it in WWII, it is a miracle that some of the historical buildings in your pics survived.
Buildings surviving WWII We think that some "Historical city centres" aren't completely genuine. At least in one place we know that the historical buildings that stood pre WWII were almost obliterated by bombings. After the war everything were carefully restored/rebuilt again to their full glory using the stone and the rubble that were left after the war. But in another town the buidings that looked old weren't. We felt that something was "off" when we walked in that town. Upon closer inspection even we with our untrained eyes could see that it was fake. The buildings were built post WWII but made to look much older. /Ake
Variety is the spice of life I know exactly what you mean about places that can only offer the same type of experience. It's not necessarily a bad thing, as they may offer excellent versions of that experience; but we like to look for countries that offer a wide variety of offerings. You and Emma seem to have had great experiences on this trip :)
Porticos I love a good portico photograph too! The symmetry and perspective of porticos really appeal to my sense of balance :) Lovely architectural shots in this blog. There's a German stall at a local farmer's market that does flammkueche and it's very good :)
Exploring Germany You've really seen a great deal and we appreciate you allowing us to follow along from afar. The world have so many wonderful places to visit. MJ
Germany - surprisingly good We were actually a bit surprised over how interesting and fun it was to travel in Germany. We travelled plenty and still we covered less than half of the country if we look on a map. Many of the most interesting places in Germany we didn't have time to visit this time around. Hopefully we'll have time to see more in Germany some other time. /Ake
Bacharach was wonderful If you do we can strongly recommend a visit to Bacharach. It almost felt unreal to walk through the streets there. It felt like we were in a theme park, not an actual town. /Ake
The same but different I always enjoy visiting towns near the border as they are so similar to the one just across the border with a different language. The architecture is lovely.
We are Emma Holmbro and Ake Dahllof. We live in Stockholm, Sweden.
We have travelled more or less regularly since the mid 1990-ies and it seems like the more we travel the more difficult it is to decide where to go next. Not because we are running out of places to visit but because we find more places we want to go to faster than we manage to travel to them.
Some of the things from our travel bucket list we have ticked off since we started this blog in 2006 are
Angel Falls in Ven... full info
Dancing Dave
David Hooper
Mirabell Palace
Always good to have more pics for our "Palaces & Castes" thread in the Photography Forum. This Palace Garden pic is a beauty!