Blogs from Germany, Europe - page 7

The rest days provide an opportunity to spend a bit of time in one spot rather than roll into town attend to what needs to be done, eat, sleep, breakfast, ride, rinse-and-repeat. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't enjoy it, but the rest days are GOLD. Frankfurt is a beautiful city. It has blended the old with the new in a more integrated way than we normally see where the old part of town is totally separate to the new part. There are lots and lots of high end shops to cater to any needs although it did take me numerous attempts to find somewhere that sold Garmin Heart Rate Monitors. Mine died after the first week of the ride and I've been trying to replace it ever since. Jeff ... read more

July 27, 2023 – Happy Birthday Kisty!!!!!! You read it correctly, it’s Kirsten’s birthday! Woo Hoo! Caroline went to the bakery across the street from our apartment, both Kirsten and Bea were leaning out the window watching. Why were they watching? I have no idea; except they were both proud aunties watching their niece fly solo. Ok, back to Kirsten’s birthday. When Caroline returned with the goodies, Bea had everything set out and we all sat down for a birthday breakfast. Breakfast was over, birthday wishes said, and the celebration was just beginning. However, it was time to get on the road. Today will be an easy road trip to Munich. We’re all packed and carrying all our suitcases to the car. We wave goodbye to our lovely apartment and off we go. We arrive in ... read more

July 26, 2023 – Top of the World We’re all sitting around the breakfast table enjoying another great German breakfast. It’s raining hard outside, I’m thinking AWESOME! Rest day, kicking back reading my book, updating the BLOG, it’s going to be a perfect rest day. As I’m taking a bite from my breakfast sandwich, Kirsten informs us were going up on the Zugspitze, I choke and spit out part of my sandwich while trying to say “I thought this was going to be a rest day” with a mouth full of food. Everyone looked at me like I was some crazed man, and in sync all say, “but it’s snowing on top of the mountain!!”. After breakfast and putting on multiple layers of clothes, we loaded ourselves into the car and off we went. On the ... read more

July 25, 2023 – Cinderella Castle It’s Tuesday morning and its raining. After breakfast we loaded the car and off, we go. Today we are heading to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. On the way we plan on stopping to see the Cinderella Castel, Neuschwanstein Castle. This is the true castle that Disney’s castle was modeled after. It rained all day off and on, we arrived at the Cinderella Castle and started up the mountain. But we were rained out so we turned around and took pictures for a distance. We arrived in Garmisch and found our house Kirsten rented for us and brought all our stuff in. It’s still raining so we ducked into this Italian restaurant for dinner. Once back at the house we were all tired and wet and it was 10 pm. Yea! This was a ... read more

Rest Day in Cologne. Sleep til you wake - any time is fine. Well, my body clock said 6am was fine. I lay in bed until 7:30am trying to get back to sleep and finally got up, had some breakfast and went to explore. Jeff still had some things to tidy up with his lost wallet. I love Cologne on a Sunday morning, this Sunday morning. There's a light drizzle, it seems to have cleansed the city from the Saturday night festivities the night before. All that noise and music of people enjoying themselves is the exact opposite of the calm, peaceful, empty streets I'm now walking. I walk in a preplanned direction soaking in all of the sights I had wanted to see. In the background the church bells are ringing, but now they are ... read more