Thanks to Vladimir's suggestions, we went southward along the Rhine River from Frankfurt. We went through little town after little town, squeezing our mini-sized car through micro-sized streets, and turning back at town centers where the roads were too narrow for more than pedestrians. Where cars are allowed, they park on the sidewalks.
Many of the little towns have thriving centers surrounded by “suburbs” that are clearly very easy to reach via bicycle or walking, based on the numbers of bicyclists, walkers, rollerbladers, etc., that we saw.
At Mannheim, a big city, the center of town is full of amazing monuments. The big central park is beautiful, and we counted at least four weddings taking place, with brides getting their pictures taken, bridal parties standing around chatting in their finery. We took many pictures there, because it was very grand and impressive.
At Heidelburg, I was impressed once again at how many people in Germany use transportation other than cars. I found myself navigating a multiuse lane that had (in the same lane) an electric train, a bus, some bicyclists, cars, and many pedestrians.
After Heidelburg, it was time to get on the autobahn to make time. By Munich, I was concerned about our hotel reservation because I hadn't held the room with a credit card – just reserved it – and we were going to be "late" by American check-in standards. We stopped at one of the many service areas to find a bathroom and a pay phone. The restroom cost .50 euros to enter through a turnstile and go around the male cleaner/attendant. (That was one of many times we just ignored the strange-to-Americans fact that nobody appears to care what gender person is in the bathroom.)
My German phrase book came in handy when I asked where the pay phones were. I tried to call our hotel in Austria to confirm the reservation, but the number I had printed out from the european-hotel booking system was wrong, and I ended up talking with some lady who didn't speak English, but very patiently spelled out in German the name of her hotel, which was not the place I wanted. I'm getting good at saying "Excuse me," "I'm sorry," and "Thank you" in foreign languages. We forged on.
There were so many interesting things to see on the Autobahn. All of the churches we passed east of Heidelburg had onion domes at the tops of their steeples. On the road, there were zillions of little cars towing big camp trailers – the biggest tow-car was the size of a Ford Taurus wagon.
Once we got into the autobahn in Austria, there were many tunnels under the mountains, and some avalanche shelters (not sure I know the right name for that type of structure) crossing the road.
Thank goodness for the excellent signage on the Autobahn - it was almost impossible to get lost. (Note the “almost”!)
At Pension Angerer in Bad Hofgastein, Austria, we pulled up and were greeted cheerfully. It's a delightful place. Our host showed us our room, pointed us to the nearest walkable dinner spot, and left us alone. Dinner was at Da Dino's pizza place but we had pasta. For me, it was flat pasta with spinach in a gorgonzola cream sauce. For Mom, tortellini with a meat filling and a gorzonzola cream sauce. We also had some excellent local beer.
Thank goodness for phrase books! We had a good time at the end of the meal chatting briefly with the staff about the difference in temperature between New Mexico and their locale. I'm glad I finally figured out an easy way to make a rough translation from Fahrenheit to Celcius. Start at freezing. That's zero C and (I'm rounding!) 30 F. Then go up by tens in C and twenties in F. 0, 10, 20, 30 C works out to approximately 30, 50, 70, 90 F. Fooey on that five-ninths divided by something and plus 32. “Approximately” works quite well for temperature, especially when discussing the way things are in New Mexico compared with Bad Hofgastein, Austria.
1 comment:
the beer looks good!
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