Germany

I was hoping to do separate entries for Western Germany and Berlin, but let's just wrap it up at once and get up to date. Weather has been pretty uniformly terrible, btw.


Rothenburg

From Munich, I went northwest to Rothenburg ob der Tauber, the best preserved medieval town in Germany. Basically, I just wandered about the town, taking pictures:

Yar! We're so medieval, we drink out of feet!

Let me take care of that "head wound" for you...

Rothenburg pictures

From there I headed even further northwest to:


The Rhine Valley

I arrived in Bacharach, spent the night, wandered around the town and castle, took a boat downriver to St Goar, wandered around that castle, then took a train to Berlin.

Of course, it's all very pretty (see the pictures for more):

but the most memorable moment was probably wandering the old mine tunnels in Rheinfels castle above St. Goar. Not recommended for the claustrophobic - they set you up with a candle and a book of matches, and you can freely wander the large and largely-unmarked maze of 3 foot high passages under the castle.

Yes, the flash is on.

Also, the Rhine Valley apparently switches from warm, bright, and sunny to freezing cold torrential rainfall (and back)every hour or so. I woke up to sun and left to sun, but there were 8 distinct episodes of rain periodically disrupting that.

Rhine Valley pictures


Berlin

Berlin is enormous and most of it still feels like a time warp from the 80s - not just all the old communist buildings but clothing too(maybe Berliners are ahead of the curve on retro New Wave).

I spent most of my time in East Berlin (West Berlin is boring). Got a nice early start with my 4:30am arrival. Lots of museums and monuments to see in a giant city in 2 days. Made it through pretty well, I think; now to Copenhagen!


Berlin pictures