July 5 Brussels, Heidelberg, Karlsruhe

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July 5th...Belgium, Netherlands, Germany. We had a very busy day! The weather is once again a perfect 30 C. We left Brussels early this morning and did a quick jaunt across the Dutch countryside into Germany. As we crossed the German Border we were quickly met by German Police. Keep in mind, since the inception of the European Union, you no longer go through customs, imigration etc. as you move from country to country. However, the EU has imposed strict regulations on the transportation industry. Therefore, the trucks, tour buses (anything over three tons) are subject to strict regulations regarding the age and fitness of the vehicle as well as making sure the driver gets the required breaks, rests etc.. The German Police actually boarded the bus and took the "black box" that records all the vehicles data. Interesting to say the least. Our Italian speaking driver named Raphaeli somehow navigated his records past the German border Police. Interesting indeed! we then traveled to the Rhine Region of Germany and took a river cruise. It was very impressive...Castle after Castle - Reisling wine vinyard after Reisling wine vinyard. I asked for a dry white wine while on board the boat and the nice lady German Bartender informed me they had a nice Reisling. I asked "is it dry?" She informed me that the Rhine produced 2 types of Reisling - the dry one she sold and the other one she doesn't. She informed me that they export the other one to Canada! After the cruise we spent sometime touring Heildberg which is a beautiful city on the banks of the Rhine. Very old, very impressive (which sort of summerizes all we have seen thus far!). The one striking thing is the number of windmills. We saw some in France, some in Holland (Gee! Windmills in Holland - who would have thought that?) but Germany must have thousands of them. But what strikes us as different than the ones on Wolfe Island, is that there are clusters of 2 - 6 not 88 in a row! In fact, when placed in small clusters you start to overlook them, much like we'd look at cell phone towers or telephone polls at home in Kingston. Aside from that, we are enjoying our lack of knowledge of German and how they combind consanants to make words! More tomorrow - we've pretty much given up on the map function and the picture posting in this software program as they don't work very well at all! More at our next stop in Switzerland (If we can get internet!) Regards to you all!
Hal and Sherry - From Karlsruhe Germany

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Photos

july 5
Vinyards along the Rhine

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Did you guys buy matching shoes? How cute! haha. Hope your day in Switzerland was great! Venice tomorrow! Yahoo! C.L.