On Monday morning we started out for Innsbruck, our next destination. We planned our route to take us to the town of Schwangau in the Bavarian Alps. With Marilyn doing the driving, about 1/2 hour after leaving Munich, Jan brought up something about our passports. At that moment, Marilyn realized she may not have taken everything out of the safe at our hotel. She checked and she did have their passports and her international driving permit with her, but Dan thought he may have left one of his good watches in the safe. We pulled over to park along a street in a little town so Dan could go through the luggage to see if he had the watch with him. Uh oh, no watch! We said that we weren't too far down the road and ... read more

Marilyn's sister, Cheryl, researched and found out that their family, the Engelhardts, came from a small town near Crailsheim called Onolzheim. So, on Sunday, we decided to split up; Dan & Marilyn taking the car for the 2-1/2 hour drive to Onolzheim and Jan and I getting a tour of Munich from our new friend, Jens. Marilyn's story follows. Dan and I arrived in Onolzheim after a wondrous drive through the countryside of Germany north from Munchen. Onolzheim is a suburb outside of Crailsheim where my great, great, great Grandfather Joann George Engelhard was born in 1842. Onolzheim is a small berg set on a hillside with only one main Strasse and one restaurant "Kranfischer Rigi". We stopped in for a lunch of bratwurst and sauerkraut. The staff was warm and courteous helping us by looking ... read more

We started out from Stuttgart around 11:00 AM and headed south for our 4+ hour drive to the town of Lausanne which is on the southern side of Lake Geneva. Lausanne is in the French speaking part of Switzerland. About 1/4 of Switzerland is French speaking, 1/2 German, a small percentage Italian and the balance a local language. Lake Geneva is beautiful, with the Alps srrounding much of the lake. Unfortunately, the weather while we were there was overcast and hazy, somewhat muting the spectacular alpine views. The town center is an area with buildings dating to medieval times still in existence. The evening we arrived, we took a walk down to the Ouchy section of the city, which is the lakefront. We stopped at very nice little outdoor cafe, the MGM, and had a nice ... read more

As Riley on The Life of Riley used to say, "What a revoltin' development." Things don't always go as planned. Our plan for today was to drive to Rumbach, Germany, where Jan's family originated and then drive on to Stuttgart. Each leg of this trip was supposed to be about 2 hours driving time. We figured we'd get on the road about 10:00 AM and arrive in Stuttgart in the late afternoon. This was really the only day we had a deadline to meet. I had put Stuttgart on our itinerary months ago in order to meet a young person I met on my Alaska trip, Isabel, who lives near Stuttgart. The plan was to meet her at the hotel at 6:00 and go to dinner with her at 7:00. Dan and I hopped a taxi ... read more

We were picked up this morning at our hotel in Frankfurt by our driver, Peter, in a VW van at 8:00 AM. It was about a 1-1/2 hour drive to Rudesheim, where we would board our cruise boat on the Rhine River. About halfway to Rudesheim, we entered the Rheingau area. Rheingau and the Rhine Valley is the wine growing area of Germany. There were vineyards for miles and miles and all along the Rhine during our cruise. This area is most famous for white wines. We arrived in Rudesheim a little early, so Peter drove us up to The Niederwalkkenkmal Monument overlooking the Rhine and the town. It was a lovely stop with great views. The Niederwalkkenmal Monument (pronunciation test when we get back!) commemorates the German victory over France in the Franco-Prussian War in ... read more