Good bye to HAMBURG & Germany…. Hello AMSTERDAM!

For our final dinner in Hamburg, we went to a Pizza place called 'Einsteins'…. This is a very old building that used to produce propellers for boats in the late 1800’s.  Much to our surprise, the waitress’s suggestion of ordering a SALMON & HONEY pizza (I guess, kind of a ‘Winnie the Poo’ Pizza?) turned out to be extraordinary!  Now we have to MAKE it back in the states, b/c, its NOT something one finds on menus in the states.  For our last morning in Hamburg, we ventured out (AT 530 AM!) to their famous FishMarket.  There, they sell (with considerable enthusiasm) not only fish, but plants, vegetables and many other items…. STARTING AT 530 am on a Sunday Morning!  The place was absolutely PACKED full of people at that hour- and there were live bands playing and beer being poured…. And many people dancing, again, at 530 am on a Sunday morning!  >>>Off to the Netherlands...Arriving in Amsterdam, one immediately recognizes their Electric Car charging stations (shown in one pic.)  These peoples are very fond of their bike riding, and you REALLY need to watch out for them b/c they are NOT looking out for you.  We rented a couple of bikes for a morning ride around one of their sizable beautiful city parks (shown is a shot of our bikes next to a stop by the lake.); other photos include: Ilea posing in front of the famous “I Amsterdam” icon at the Museum Plaza;  the MANY MANY bikes parked near our hotel (there were THREE levels of bikes parked there!); another shows one of the many wonderful canals in Amsterdam (looks a bit like Venice); then, there is the shot of the statue of Hermes & Aphrodites (legend has it she wanted him so bad, that when she saw him taking a bath in the lake, she literally jumped him, and hung on to him with all her might hoping that they could become ONE, and…. Well, to his horror, THEY DID become ONE – hence the term HERMAPHRODITE, meaning to have both male & female ‘parts’); lastly, there are a couple of shots of us at the world’s largest concentration of WINDMILLS (Ilea tried on a pair of wooden shoes while we visited.)

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Hamburg and Hamburgers….. in the Red Light District…

Its true- People who LIVE in Hamburg ARE called HAMBURGERS!!!  A forewarning to anyone going to Europe about the color RED…. Watch out for it as if your life depended on it!   In one photo, note the RED colored sidewalk Ilea is walking ALONGSIDE; (NO, she is NOT near the RED LIGHT district, BUT she is near the VERY dangerous RED SIDEWALK for BIKERS.)  Seriously, people bike like they are in the Tour de France at crazy speeds on these RED sidewalks located immediately next to pedestrians, throughout Germany, and you had better well look three times both ways before stepping into that zone- or face painful if not deadly consequences! Yes- we DID have some very close calls.... Also pictured in the city of Hamburg are- the skyline as viewed from a harbor cruise showing the famous Fishmarket Building (which we visited at 6 am) and another shows a view of their Warehouse District… then there is the priceless billboard showing how Europeans think of American eating; Went to their amazing MINATURE WORLD… an EXCEPTIONAL display of ANYTHING you can think of , IN MINATURE, set up mainly in village scenes; look carefully in one shown of the COUPLE IN THE FIELD OF SUNFLOWERS, and try to determine what they seem to be doing there; in Hamburg’s world famous RDL (Red Light District) , I took a night photo of “THE WALL” (No, not Berlin Wall….) Behind which, ONLY MEN older than 18 are permitted…. (so Ilea stayed back, and just ‘insisted’ I be brave and go without her for a look)…. In case you never heard of it, on this Herbert Street- woman dressed in bikinis sit in windows and attempt to, shall we say, draw your attention to themselves in hopes that you might want to ‘buy something….’ This is LEGAL in Germany (and some other countries as well) FYI- did NOT buy anything….; and the last pic shows some of the very odd things you can buy in some of the shops in the red light district- such as a CAGE, and maybe some sort of GAS MASK you might want to attach to your genitalia (WHAT?????!!!!! Also available were…. Well I just can not even describe here…..) 

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Frankfurt… “Don’t go there” they had said….

Most anyone we asked along the way had questioned WHY we would want to stop in Frankfurt, Germany…. We were pleasantly surprised when we disregarded these naysayers …. First thing of interest was a museum for “SHOCK HEADED PETER” (Struwwelpeter in German.)  This is a classic children’s storybook by German author Heinrich Hoffman with tales that warn young kids of the dangers of certain activities.  EXAMPLES: If you fail to groom yourself, your hair will look like you got electrocuted, birds and other critters will nest within it, and fingernails left unclipped will accumulate horrible debris;  another one of the stories warns not to play with matches or you will burn and turn into a pile of ashes that your pet cats will cry over; another is about how if you kept sucking your thumb, then this guy would show up and CUT YOUR THUMBS OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!;  This guy Hoffman also was a Psychologist who was one of the first to recognize MENTAL illnesses could have a PHYSICAL cause …. He hired, and worked with some fellow named Alzheimer (should ring a bell…) we later stumbled upon a restaurant that celebrated this Peter guy, which happened to be right next door to a restaurant we did eat in named SCHNEIDER’s;  also ate at an AFRICAN RESTAURANT which was fantastic!  No utensils, you ate with your hands!  Nice shot of a foot bridge and some of the Frankfurt skyline...... Lastly in Frankfurt, we visited their Palmgartens (Botanical Gardens)…. WOW!!! This is the best Botanical Garden we have ever seen anywhere!! Pictured is Ilea in a humungous greenhouse room that had like a thousand different types of cactus.  Very impressive place.  Ironic, as everyone we spoke with wondered why anyone would want to stop in Frankfurt…….

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Munich

So the first thing we see as we walk is a poster for Oktoberfest;  then we walk into an inviting, very dark store (later find out it is Aberchrombie & Fitch) where Bill got to admire the painted wall murals….Then there were the numerous “Schmuck Stores…”; beautiful old building in the center plaza; an interesting men’s room that had lit up red hearts above the urinal, with a tweeting bird / mooing cows soundtrack playing in the background…(it really did seem to soothe the prostrate for the processes at hand);  Nasty sculpture of a guy getting a foot to his groin; an elaborate GOLD HORSE DRAWN SLED (naked woman front) used by royalty back in the day; Oktoberfest with shots of inside and outside the Beer Tents (occupancy…. 10,000 people!!!!!! ONE TENT, of 14 total);  a typical server carrying 8 HUGE Beers; a delicacy of BBQ Rainbow Trout Fish on a stick (YUM!!!) ;  one of the popular amusement park rides at the fest featured this large mural of a scruffy looking guy brandishing double guns of middle fingers;  a VERY common site of “Heart Cookies” with German sayings (some people were walking around with cookies nearly 2 feet across in size, hanging from their necks!); a pic of the site of the 1972 Munich Olympics with the futuristic canopies….. Ilea gets greeted by a German garden Elf;  AND LASTLY… along the Romantic Road trip on the drive to Frankfurt, we stopped to see the city of Rothenburg.  This is said to be the Quaintest town in all of Germany.  In the picture, you can see a WALL …… one that actually surrounds the entire town of Rothenburg (for protection in the “old days”.)

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German Castle… Disney inspiration….. Neuschwanstein !

On the way to Munich, stopped to see the famous Neuschwanstein Castle (the inspiration for the familiar Disneyland Castle.)  You are given a choice of HOW to get to the castle: a bus, a horse drawn carriage or by foot….. We, being the athletically inclined, decided to walk that incline.  At the top of the hill (at the very foot of the castle) is a DEFIB MACHINE for those who probably should have chosen the bus or carriage!  We were huffing a little but fine…. Upon arrival.

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Switzerland…. Lake Lucerne

Took a train from Zurich over to check out Lake Lucerne, Switzerland… can see in the distance of one picture, the snow on top of the Swiss Alps; there also is a famous wooden foot bridge covered in flowers pictured; another common site in all of Europe are the Parking Garage’s empty sites signs that indicates how many parking spaces are available in a given parking area.

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Laminated Asparagus? Meeting a “Dirty Girl” in France…. A Dead guy in Dijon…. Coolest cars & A day at a Swiss Cottage by Lake Walensee….

At a very French Restaurant called the Cheval Blanc (White Horse) in a quaint town called Vezelay, they had no English Menu… so it was time to utilize our special electronic translator.  It seems that there was “Laminated Asparagus” as part of an entrée!   Thankfully they really were NOT coated in plastic…. (Actually quite delicious as can be seen in one of the pixs.)   There is one photo of an interesting building that contained a history of the evolution of communication basically- First it was used for POST (regular mail), then TELEGRAPHS and finally it was used for TELEPHONES; We visited a winery that was accessed by driving a car DEEP into a mountain.  The limestone from which had been utilized hundreds of years in the past to form buildings in Paris such as Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Arc de Triumph and Pantheon.  Then it had been used as a place to grow mushrooms prior to being used to produce WINE (8 million bottles at a time!)  Down below there, what could be seen to be growing REALLY well was lots of mold and mildew- as is evident on several of the “Dirty Girl” sculptures faces and bodies.  Also pictured is a quaint old town in France, Vezelay (On the worlds UNESCO list.)  Another awesome old town was Autun also shown.  Ilea can be seen rubbing something on the wall outside yet ANOTHER church called Notre Dame (This one in the town of Dijon France.)  What is noteworthy is that she rubbed it immediately we were approached by a dead guy (rolling down the alley way in a hearse!)  In Mulhouse, France, there was an extraordinary Car Museum with many cars as far as you could see stored INDOORS… (one pictured.)   Lastly are some beautiful photos of a trip we took in Switzerland to an incredible old restored lakehouse.  It belongs to the family of Philine- who, for any who did not know, was an exchange student from Germany who lived with us way back in the 90’s in Cortland, NY.  To get to this place from Zurich, one needs to take a tram, two trains and then a boat (no cars can get to it….)  One of the shots shows Philine and her family waving to relatives on shore as we depart by boat for the lakehouse; another shows Ilea & Bill near their vineyards (we enjoyed several bottles of THEIR OWN WINE!); another shows a view of the pathway we had to walk along for 30 minutes to get to their place; and another shows the bunch of a neighbor’s sheep that are permitted to graze on their property.  

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