Lupburg, Nurenburg, and on to Prague

Phillip and I just finished a delightful weekend with his niece, Becky Hale, and her family in Lupburg, Germany. Saturday morning, while I worked on the previous blog post, Becky and her children, Ryan and Resse, walked Phillip up the hill to the Lupburg castle. A lot of towns in Europe have their own castle! Phillip took pictures of the area from the top of the castle. We notice, as in this picture, that towns here have a definite edge. Houses fill a street, then immediately out from the town center,

farmland begins. Houses don't get farther apart from each other, they just disappear from the landscape immediately outside of town.

Becky and her kids, Ryan and Reese, enjoyed showing their Uncle Phillip the castle, including caves on one side of the castle grounds. The castle, which had been damaged by the Swedes during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) was finally restored about fifteen years ago. It houses the local government offices and hosts festivals regularly.

Ryan, an eigth-grader, had a football game Saturday afternoon. American football,

not soccer. We traveled about an hour for Ryan's game. Ryan is the quarterback of his team, the Knights. He's #9 in the dark blue jersey in the picture. Although his team lost the game, 6-39, Ryan had some great runs and a excellent pass that led his team's scoring run. He got sacked a couple of times because he basically had no offensive line. Also, for these teams, every player plays at least six plays (whether they are any good or not). It was still nice to watch Ryan play and cheer for him.

with Ryan after the game

On Sunday, Becky took us to Nuremburg, about an hour's drive from Lupburg, most of it on the Autobahn. The Autobahn is just a controlled access freeway, like our interstate freeways, where cars go really fast. The rule is to drive in the right lane, pass using the left lane, then get back to the right lane as soon as possible because some BMW is probably almost up your tailpipe. The recommended minimum speed is 120 km/h (72 mph). It actually seemed safer than the curvy 1-1/2 lane mountain roads we'd been on in France last week and enroute to Ryan's game on Saturday.

Our first stop in Nuremburg was at Bratwurst Roslein, the largest bratwurst restaurant in the world, established in 1431. Ryan and Phillip had the wurst plate, with Nuremburg sausage, made on-site. I'd been eating sausage for the past two weeks, so I went for the sauerbraten - authentic sauerbraten, not the faux stuff I make with ground ginger. My plate didn't come with red cabbage, so I ordered a side of it, knowing that it too

would be more authentic than what I make. Phillip and Ryan liked their sausages (Ryan ordered more), but I loved my sauerbraten and the red cabbage, the best I've eaten! Reese had wienerschnitzel and Becky had a pretzel and salad. Becky's pretzel, a soft one, came with a cream cheese-like spread, seeasoned with carraway seeds and other seasonings, that she put on the pieces of pretzel.

After lunch, we walked around the Hauptmarkt, an open-air square filled with vendors. I was totally full after my lunch, but the rest of the party bought ice cream. Ryan has spaghetti ice, ice cream that is forced thru a pasta spaghetti-type machine, so the ice cream comes out into the bowl like strands of spaghetti. It is then topped with strawberry sauce. I had it Friday night in Lupburg after Becky took us out to dinner when we arrived. We also bought four types of dried sausage from one of the vendors to eat for dinner Sunday night.

Becky took us to the Zeppelin Grandstand. Hitler had it built in 1935 and used it as the central venue for his largest party rallies. Hitler liked the city of Nuremburg, calling it the most German of German cities. The Zeppelin had a large Nazi symbol above the center, a symbol that was ceremoniously blown up by the Allied Forces in 1945. Much of the historical footage of rallies was taken at this venue. Notice the size of the people on the platform to gauge the size of this structure.

We next went to the Dokumentationzentrum, the Nazi Documentation Center, which  contained a museum. The museum did not allow pictures inside. It consisted of displays with an audiotour that focused on Hitler's rise to power, the Holocaust, and the Nuremburg Trials, not on the military aspects of WWII. The Center was in a building that Hitler had started but did not finish before the war started. We could take pictures of the original part of the structure, a huge courtyard that Hitler envisioned to be covered when it was finished.

Becky is in Germany because her husband, David, was assigned to Hohenfels Army Base a few months ago. They were able to move during the summer so the kids didn't miss any school and started the new school year at the schools on base. Poor David, however, missed all our excursions as he had to work all weekend, but I did get a picture of him at the computer this morning. Unless his schedule changes, he should be off work next weekend when we return for another visit with Becky and family after Prague.

Czech landscape from the train.
Overcast and cold

We caught trains this morning from Parsberg to Regensberg, then to Schwandorf, and then on to Prague, Czech Republic. I noticed that the train arrived and left from the same platform in Schwandorf, so in Regensberg, I asked a train employee about it. She said that the train would split at Schwandorf with the first four cars going to Prague and the last four cars going to Munich. Since we had gotten onto one of the back cars, we moved our suitcases forward thru the train to one of the front cars.

I haven't made many comments about our hotels. Some have been better than others, and our Frankfurt hotel had a wonderful breakfast buffet. The Basel hotel was pretty awful, clean but small (a cruise cabin is bigger than that room!), with access past the kitchen and up some stairs. Other than "Casa Becky" in Lupburg, this Prague hotel, Hotel 16, is by far our favorite hotel of the trip. The receptionist speaks excellent English, offered us complimentary coffee and a map, circling the places I wanted to see. She explained the tram system and where to get on it tomorrow. I had booked a room directly with them, not thru a booking site, and they gave me the only room with a balcony! I'm not paying extra for it, like I did in Paris and Lausanne. Phillip is excited because scrambled eggs, made to order, will be available at our included breakfast in the morning.

And speaking of food.... No, I didn't write about Swiss food. I don't think we ate "Swiss food." Julie says that Swiss don't have their own food, that it's either French or German. Switzerland was terribly expensive. Their restaurants were closed from 2-6 pm in the afternoon, so frequently we walked after our adventures, just looking for any restaurant that was open. We ate over-priced Italian (spaghetti bolognese and tortellini with ham) in Lausanne, pizza in a neighborhood cafe in Basel, banh mi sandwiches on Lake Geneva, and sausage, bread and cheese in our room.

Czech food, however, is already showing itself to be blog-worthy. We walked about two blocks from our hotel and found a brewery restaurant, Pivovarsky Dum. The advertised plates were 1/3 the price of the plates we saw in our Switzerland cities. So, I had the Bohemian Platter: roasted and smoked pork, sauerkraut, red cabbage and two kinds of dumplings, with a .5 liter (slightly over a pint) dark beer, brewed on-site. Phillip had a similar plate and a soda and our bill was equivalent to $21.

same plate and glass, 20 minutes later

The German red cabbage was more spiced than the Czech version but the Czech sauerkraut and the pork, especially the smoked pork, was fantastic. I'm not a big fan of the bread dumplings, German or Czech, but they are useful to sop up the last bits of the gravy. Finally, I find that I may agree with Robin that Czech beers are the best in the world. I will research that statement during the next few days!