Blogs from Germany, Europe - page 661

Hello, absolutely worn out after a Big Day Out in Berlin! Started at the Brandenburg Tor, saw the Holocaust Memorial, the site of Hitlers´Bunker, the Berlin Wall, the death zone, Checkpoint Charlie, The Terror Memorial and the Island Museum. It was a walking tour and the tour guide was very entertaining. I had a haircut at the Arkade-Potsdamer Platz after the tour, then went to the Tiergarten which is where Berliners hang out on hot days, literally, so I´ve been told lol! The gardens are huge so we spent about half an hour there, then stopped at a cafe to try a Berliner Weiss Beer, flavoured with syrup and red in colour, something different. Later this evening, probably after we have stuffed ourselves with saurkraut and sausage we will walk back to Checkpoint Charlie, about a ... read more

I spent the majority of the weekend in the downtown area as all of our kids are out and about with their host families. On Saturday, I made my way via S-Bahn to the city center. I spent the day scouting points for our "Amazing Race" and viewing the sights. It was a very warm day, and I spent a lot of time on foot in between stints public transportation, which is EXCELLENT here in Hamburg. I made my way by train, on the tube, by bus and by water taxi, which is all covered on one 5 Euro ticket! Today my host family took me to the German Emigration museum. It was very cool to see "the other side" of American immigrants. People came from all over Europe to Hamburg for various reasons. Here they ... read more

Nuestro recorrido por el fascinante Rin Romántico terminó en la ciudad de Bingen. Esta ciudad debe su nombre a Hildegard von Bingen, considerada la primera bióloga alemana, la primera médica y la primera feminista de la Edad Media europea. La ciudad de Bingen no sólo le debe su nombre. Esta monja emancipada fue también una intelectual que logró conquistar grandes espacios durante su retiro en un convento. En el monte Rubert hizo construir hace 900 años un monasterio benedictino. Allí escribió sus obras más importantes y concibió una nueva imagen de la mujer. Describió a Dios con atributos femeninos, algo revolucionario para la época. Convirtió las debilidades atribuidas a las mujeres en autoridad y luchó por la equiparación de los sexos en cuanto al castigo por los pecados. No tuvo reparos en pelearse con los represen ... read more

We finally made it out of Berlin, and we managed that in a manual car and just a road map. We decided to stop enroute to Dresden along with all the other grey nomads and their campervans. It was quite a success, even if it took a little while. The beauty of the car was that we were able to stop on the way in some great little places, an example of this was Meissen. It was a compact, perfectly preserved old town with a great river which people would swarm in and picnic by in the sun. We had a quick stroll around the town, tasting the yummy ice-cream, seeing the Albrechtsburg Cathedral and 15th century palace. When we finally made in into Dresden which was wonderful. Dresden is a town that was almost completely ... read more

El tramo del río Rin que va desde Koblenz hasta Bingen, es conocido como el Rin Romántico. Fue declarado patrimonio de la humanidad en el 2002 por la UNESCO y debe su nombre a que es un tramo zigzagueante del río, rodeado de pequeñas aldeas, castillos, viñedos y colinas. Nuestra primer visita fue a unos 5 kilómetros de Koblenz, el Castillo Stolzenfels. Es un castillo del siglo 13, que fue reconstruido en 1842 por el príncipe Federico Guillermo IV. Se sube por un camino zigzagueante rodeado de árboles y arroyitos. A mitad de ese camino se encuentra la iglesia con un pequeño cementerio alrededor. Un poco mas arriba está la casa para los criados y al final, luego de unos 15 minutos de caminata, el castillo, desde donde se puede apreciar el río, el pueblito ... read more