Bikes Everywhere!

The bike culture of Germany, Belgium, and especially the Netherlands is impressive.  In Germany, I started noticing separate lanes for bikes - often with a divider between the road and the bike lane.  Much safer than Pittsburgh, that's for sure.

As we continued northward, I noticed the emphasis on bikes more and more - parking lots of bikes, bikes chained to every available surface, and more.  Brugge had parking for bikes near a music event.  There was no parking for cars anywhere in sight.

But the Netherlands truly had bikes everywhere:

There are sidewalks for walkers separate from bike paths for bikes (and scooters apparently) separate from the road for cars - pretty impressive!

Many bikes have saddlebags since people use them to do their shopping:

And there are some truly huge parking lots for bikes:

This huge 2.5-level structure is a bike parking lot in Amsterdam near the train station.

Here's a close up of one end of the parking lot:

Bikes are also modified to transport multiple children (and apparently cost several thousand dollars):

It was also common for one person to be peddling a bike while another was sitting side-saddle on the back, although I didn't manage to get a photo of that.

I also loved this parking garage for bikes in Haarlem:

So take note, Pittsburgh, you may be bike friendly, but you've got nothing on these countries.  

Flowers, Figures, and Food in Füssen

[Third and final guest blog post from Liz]

And finally, my last blog post on Füssen!  No specific topic this time, just a few of my general observations.

The wildflowers in Füssen were a treat for me, and I took pictures of many, some known and some unknown.  Here's some of the better pictures, for those of you interested in plants.

A wild rose at the base of the Pollat waterfall by Neuschwanstein.

An unknown type of orchid.

Wild strawberries!  Unfortunately, they're too small and full of seeds to be really good for eating. 

Forget-me-nots, identified by Kate.

Something purple?

Füssen also had an interesting variety of sculpture, some old and some modern.  It was always a pleasant surprise to come upon one of these while wandering the town's small streets.  This first is a video of an interesting arrangement they had before the tourist information building.  The sculpture is several pillars of granite, with smaller spinning blocks of granite atop each one.  According to Rick Steves, they're purely powered by the water, and the spinning heads are supposed to represent friendly people talking with each other.

This statute was at Hohenschwangau, and looks like Robin Hood to me.

Reading girls.

This guy is a representative of an old lute making family in Füssen.  

I'm not exactly sure why, but this sad-looking girl represents the friendship between Füssen and another city in Japan.

And finally, a small mention of our favorite place to eat breakfast at in Füssen:  Gefühl Für Brot!  This translates into "The Feel for Bread," I believe, as exemplified by their fun sign.

And that's all from me!  I had a wonderful time traveling with Kate and Paul.  At this point in their trip, they're old pros at this whole Europe travel thing, and kindly tolerated my whole "This is sooo cool!" reaction to every thing.  : )  Thanks for everything, guys, I miss you already!

"Füssen" Means Feet in German

Liz again, back guest blogging!  We had such a wonderful time in Füssen, I couldn't cover it all in just one post.  The adventures continue.

Our one full day in Füssen was dedicated to a nice, long hike through the surrounding woods and mountains.  Füssen lies along a river called the Lech, which has an interesting milky blue color.  I don't know where the color comes from, but if I ever find out, I'll leave a comment to this post with the explanation.

Our first sight of the day was Lechfalls, where a bust of King Maximilian is carved into the rock wall bordering the river.  This is definitely how I want to be memorialized someday, except it would be better if my statute showed me driving a team of four lions (like on the Siegestor in Munich).

From Lechfalls we walked through some beautiful woods and along a few small lakes (Obersee and Mittelsee), before reaching a lovely lake right below the mountains called Alatsee.

After lunch along the Alatsee shore, I contemplated a swim, but the water was so cold that I didn't quite commit.

 We made our way partly around the lake, and then left it behind to climb a steep trail to a place called Salober Alm.  According to a brief Internet search, "alm" means a mountain/Alpine pasture.  I found it interesting to discover that Germany apparently isn't keen on switchbacks...for much of the way, the trail went pretty much straight up.

This part of the hike wasn't very long, and close to the top we found ourselves at a beautiful outlook with views back towards Füssen and Neuschwanstein.

And, best of all...there was beer!  All the way up there, by its lonesome self, stood the Salober Alm Berghutte ("mountain hut").  We had no idea it would be there, and were pleasantly surprised.  Naturally, we rehydrated ourselves, while enjoying the lovely mountain view, complete with even more cowbell.

Salober Alm was actually in Austria, just across the border.  For security, they had a sign:  "Attention, border!"

And there was a teeter totter!  I had to promise to behave myself, but Kate eventually agreed to play on it with me.

Back down at Alatsee, we found a beautiful spot for swimming and wading.

After that we made our way back to Füssen fairly quickly, as we were pursued by a bloodthirsty swarm of mosquitoes.  More beautiful forest.

And that was our hike!  Definitely a highlight of the trip for me, and I would love to go back some day to explore the area trails further.

Suddenly Castle

On the only full day we spent in Bacharach, we visited Burg Eltz (located on the Mosel River), which is Rick Steves' favorite castle in all of Europe.  To get there from Bacharach, we took a boat down the most scenic stretch of the Rhine (again, according to Rick Steves) from Bacharach to St. Goar.  We saw quite a few castles, many of which were once owned by robber barons:

The robber barons would build their castles along the Rhine and put in place some sort of blockade to keep ships from passing through - until the ship paid the toll.  This was clearly a popular activity, since there are quite a few castles!

After the boat, we caught two trains and then had to walk about an hour on a rather muddy forest path to get to Burg Eltz.  We walked and walked and walked and rounded a bend and... suddenly castle!

Kate, Liz, and castle:

One of the castle courtyards where we waited for our tour to begin:

Liz clearly loved the drainspouts, since she took quite a few photos of them:

Photo by Liz

And, of course, as with all the other castles, no pictures were allowed inside.  We did take some photos of items within the treasury, however.  Liz liked this golden statue of Diana on a stag (although she bemoaned the idea of Diana riding sidesaddle):

Photo by Liz

Paul was enraptured by Drunkenness Conveying Gluttony.  And let's be honest, who wouldn't be?

And we were all puzzled by some of the very elaborate drinking vessels:

Photo by Liz

How do you drink out of that?

Afterwards, due to a bit of a mixup, we had some extra time to walk around and snap some shots of the castle from other viewpoints:

Finally, if you've been keeping track, that's one boat, four trains, and two hours of walking to get to and from Burg Eltz.  And it was worth it.  The inside of the castle was quite neat.  We saw bedrooms, a children's room, a kitchen, and much more - all very neatly designed and well-preserved.

Sleeping in a Castle

More blog posts from Liz about Füssen are in the works.  However, since she's currently busy visiting her German relatives (or maybe even on her way back to the States?), we'll move on to Bacharach for now.

Bacharach was our third and final German destination with Liz.  Recommended by Rick Steves, this cute little town has one of the best places to stay - a 12th-century castle that has been turned into a hostel:

Located high on a hill, it was quite a hike to the hostel, especially while toting our moderately heavy bags.  However, it was definitely worth it.  Not only was the castle fun to explore but they offer filling, delicious dinners for the cheap price of 7.50 Euro per person.  You can't beat that!

Clearly, they were pretty stingy with the gravy...

Here's a photo of the courtyard of the hostel with the tower (which, yes, we climbed around in, but sadly you couldn't see much since it's mostly hostel rooms):

And the view from the hostel wasn't too bad:

The Rhine River

There is also a very neat ruined chapel below the castle.  Liz was excited to note that they'd be performing a Shakespeare play there sometime in August.  It would certainly make a good stage!

We took a Rick Steves walking tour of the town and learned about the oldest building (from 1368), the Altes Haus:

And wandered along this lovely little stream-side garden:

We enjoyed ice cream cones (Liz and Paul tried the local specialty - a Riesling ice cream - while I opted for chocolate):

And finally, a parting view of the town of Bacharach: