deanna Meyer

Ever since we started talking about going to Europe, we had always wanted to go to Bruges.  If you’ve ever seen the independent movie “In Bruges” you would understand what we mean.  “It’s like a fairy tale land…” as said in the movie.  And it really does not dissapoint.  We walked down to the train station, boarded the train and headed off.  Bruges is only about 15 minutes by train from where we are, so it was a no brainer.  The first thing we had to do was find a bar so Keith could get some beer.  As we walked into town, we were inundated with so many gorgeous old buildings, churches, etc. that we didn’t know which way to look first.  We did our best to take it all in.  Down one street and through another brought us here:

The Market Square.  The entire thing is lined with buildings just like this.  And it’s been pretty much this way since the 12th or 13th Century!  It was pretty crowded today…I can’t even imagine what it’s like here in the summer!  There are horse drawn carriages taking tourists around the town on a tour and buses taking others.  We found a bar/eatery to get a snack.  Keith looked at the menu and they had local beer on tap…he was happy.  Today was going to be my day of indulging what you should indulge in while in Belgium.  First up…this:

Oh yes people…that is a true Belgian Waffle!  It’s covered in Strawberries and has a side of chocolate sauce.  Now what’s interesting here is the fact that the waffle itself wasn’t really sweet at all.  What makes it sweet is what you put on it.  It was good though…I enjoyed it.  Keith also had a waffle…and 2 beers.  We had some energy now and were ready to take on more of the town.

It was a gorgeous day…cool, but clear and sunny.  Definitely can’t complain about that!   Shortly after this, we went into one of the old buildings that were holding a photography exhibit.  I know I should have been looking at the photographs, but all I could concentrate on was the architecture:

Beautiful!  But I could say that about a lot of things here. Just look at this window for example:

Or these doors:

Honestly!!  It’s just amazing to me to see that kind of craftsmanship.  I appreciate that kind of stuff.

Next up, we went into the Basilica of the Holy Blood.  Notice the ornate details of the building.  On the lower left is the entrance to the original 12th Century chapel.  Simple in style inside but very well done.  The upper part was destroyed by the French in the 1790’s, then rebuilt in the 19th Century.  Just take a look at these:

This is the inside of the upper chapel.  This picture doesn’t even do this place justice.  The ceiling is all wood and then hand painted.  The walls are hand painted and stenciled and the wood is all carved and ornate.  We sat in here for a while just to take it all in.

This is the room off of the main chapel (pictured prior to this).  Under the cross is the priest who is in charge of the Blood of Jesus.  Keith and I each went up there to pay respect and say a little prayer.  Both of us also got to touch the glass vial.  It was very moving.

Here I am next to one of the many statues.  🙂  From here we decided to go on a canal ride:

We went all over Bruges and got to see a good part of town.  Here is an example of what you’d find along the canal:

It’s interesting to see how the old mixes with the new.  While on the canal ride, we saw one of the original brewery buildings.  Keith said we had to find it.

So we did.  And he had a couple of beers here too.

They only had 2 beers on tap…a light and a dark…of course, he had to try both.  🙂

Here’s a beautiful view of the canal and part of the town.  As you may or may not know, Belgium is known for several things…beer (of course), handmade lace (which is gorgeous by the way…but did I get a picture of any?  No, not yet)…and my favorite thing:

CHOCOLATE!!!!!!  I can’t even begin to tell you how many of these little chocolatier shops we came across.  Each one is different and everything is definitely handmade.  No fake stuff here!

So you know what that makes me:

Hahahahaa!  I crack myself up!  Anyway…as our day wound down, and our feet started hurting, we headed back towards the train station.  On our walk, we came across this lovely gate:

No idea what it says, of course (it’s in Flemish!) but it is very interesting.  Now, for my most favorite picture of the day:

The Roman Church along the canal.  Just breathtaking…isn’t it?

Not sure what we’re going to do tomorrow.  Maybe go to Brussels.  All I know is, it will involve my flat shoes.  🙂  Let me know how you’re enjoying the blog…I love reading your comments.  Hugs to all of you!!!

Today was a day to relax.  We slept in, took a nap and walked all around Knokke-Heist.  We found a farmer’s market and picked up a ton of fresh fruits, vegetables, cheese, bread and meats.  We also found an oil & vinegar store and picked up some wonderful lemon infused olive oil.  It’s amazing!  You know what they say…”when in Rome…”  So, while we’re here…we might as well live like a European…here was our lunch:

As promised from yesterday’s post…here is our “apartment” for the week.  Not as nice as the place in Germany…but simple enough for us to sleep in.  First, the living room:

Next, the tiny kitchen.  It does not have an oven…but enough of everything else for us to make food at home.:

Next, here is our bedroom.  There is a second bedroom here, but we aren’t using it.:

The bathroom in our room:

It’s a good sized bathroom….but no shower.  That’s in another room:

What is interesting about Europe is that the toilet isn’t typically in with the shower.  Crazy.  Anyway, the sun was out and we didn’t want to waste it, so we went out exploring.  We walked along the beach.  It was very brisk, but beautiful:

And Keith found something:

Mmmm…Belgian Fries.  🙂  We found a lovely place to eat right along the beach.  Keith wanted a beer and I wanted something warm:

He’s never heard of this beer in the states…but said it was very yummy.

The hot chocolate was heavenly.  I think there was a touch of almond in it…which took it to the next level.  they serve it with a little cookie!

Keith’s second beer was on tap and this time he had a Grimbergen Dubbel….with a side of the famous Belgian Fries.  Notice the side of mayo you get with it.  These fries were very good…not greaasy at all and hardly salted.  They give you salt at the table so you can salt to your taste.

Famous here (because of the proximity to France) are either waffles or crepes…so I had to have crepes…with chocolate, of course.  Oh my…they were heavenly!

On our way home, we came across this lovely piece of art outside of an art gallery.  It’s all mosaic tile!  NUTS!

Tomorrow, I think we’ll head to Bruges.  Until then…

We left our little haven in Germany and headed off to our next destination…Belgium!  It was quite cold when we walked outside.  This is what we saw on the car window…pure ice!:

We left close to on time and had grand plans to see things in Aachen before we headed to the train station, but we hit a snag and couldn’t find our way around all of the one way streets.  Our GPS wanted to take us down the wrong way half the time, so we just gave up and found our way to drop off the car.   The car we had the whole time was a pretty darn good car.  Got great gas mileage, had a lot of really cool features and quite the get up and go!  It was a 6 speed too!

It was called a Renault Scenic.  I can’t believe we only had to fill it up once.  Nice!  Anyway…we dropped off the car and made it to the train station.

Pretty on the outside…C-R-A-Z-Y on the inside.  It’s like Grand Central Station in there!  🙂

Here’s Keith getting our tickets from Aachen, Germany to Brussels, Belgium.  It was a very nice train…comfortable and easy to be on.  Didn’t take us long to get to Brussels.   I am sure we were going over 100 mph.  We were passing tons of cars on the freeway very quickly…and Lord knows they drive really fast here.

This is one of the stations before Brussels.  I really wanted to show what the homes looked like here.  What’s also interesting is the amount of homes that have solar panels on top of them.  I think the US needs to step up their efforts for saving energy.  Europe is killing us on this subject!  We switch trains in Brussels and get on the next train to Knokke-Heist…our destination.

This is the end of the line here….our stop.

As soon as we get off the train, the first thing you see is their version of a park and ride!  We walked about half a mile to our timeshare and it’s in a neighborhood with a bunch of other apartments.  I’ll have pictures of it soon.  All I can tell you is, this place is not even half as good as our place in Germany!  We are about 3-4 blocks from the sea though:

By this time, I am very hungry and cranky.  I need food.  We cannot understand the language here like we could in Germany so trying to find a place to eat was quite an adventure.  Not to mention the fact that we are located in a touristy area (which I HATE, by the way) and everything is overpriced.  Ugh.  After wandering around for about an hour (mostly because either places don’t take credit cards or they close at SIX PM!) we found something that looked okay.  Keith looked at the beer menu and was happy.

Keith’s first beer in Belgium…a Grimbergen Blond.  He said it was good.   As for me, I had this:

Not sure what it was, but it was orangey and lemony…and since I had something like it the day before…I knew I was good.  Instead of getting bread after you order, this is what arrives at your table:

CHEESE!!  It was very good cheese…and helped ease my crankiness.  😛  I can tell you that Keith and I looked over the menu for like 15 minutes and had no idea what the heck any of it was.  We saw something that looked familiar, so we ordered it….Lasagne:

It was very, very cheesy.  So, we are both in a cheese coma tonight.  Hopefully tomorrow will bring better things.  We have nothing in our apartment because all of the markets close at like 7pm…hopefully we can figure out a good breakfast.  We’ll see.  Until then!!

Today was our final, full day in Germany.  We started out with an amazing breakfast.

This is milk.  What’s weird about this is that it’s not in the refrigerated section!  We are pretty positive it’s milk…it tastes like milk…it’s just a little odd:

Now…here is the best invention EVER:

These little goodies make ANY baked good into something spectacular!:

See what I’m saying?  This is a fresh croissant from the bakery truck (yes, there is a bakery truck that comes to the resort every morning!).  I just took it to the next level by adding chocolate to it.  Oh man…it was amazing!  🙂    We did have fresh fruit and eggs this morning too…see, healthy!

After this, we wanted to stick closer to home so we could get back pretty early.  It was very brisk outside, but another perfect Autumn Day:

You can see for miles!!  Just beautiful.  Anyway, we headed to a small town called Bad Munstereifel.  It’s surrounded by a wall and has been around since at least the 12th century:

The entire town is like this and there are about 19,000 people living and working here on any given day.   One thing I’ve noticed here is how many amazing doors you will find in this country:

And this one:

This is the church from the 12th cenury.  Apparently, they were much smaller back then since the door woudn’t even fit my height:

This is more of the old architecture:

Here is the inside of a GORGEOUS church found in the middle of the city:

Of course, Keith found a brewery:

Here, he’s drinking the locally brewed Schwarz Bier (dark beer).  He thought it was pretty darn good.

It’s been really hard for me to figure out what to drink here.  They don’t really have a lot of things we’re used to (iced tea?  HA!) so I found an Orangenlimonade…which I figured was an orange lemonade thing.  Apparently, it’s some kind of carbonated drink.  Who knew!  It was good though.

This is your typical meal in Germany.  It’s got potatoes, sauerkraut and a sausage type thing.

This right here is what they consider a salad.  Hahahahahaaaa!!!

So overall…it was a really nice day.  Here we are at the edge of the walled city and getting ready to head home.  Now, we’re packing up things to ready ourselves for the next part of our trip:  Belgium!    I’m not sure what our internet will be like in Belgium but I’m hoping it will be good.  Sending hugs from Deutschland!!  Guten Nacht!  (Good Night!)

Today, we realized several things…1.) The local baker comes to the resort every single morning with fresh breads (mmmm!) and 2.) our GPS only covers Germany.  So, our plans to go to a WWII museum were thwarted today….seeing as how we’d have to go into the Netherlands to this museum…without any way of knowing how to get around.  It’s very, very crazy getting around here and if we didn’t have our awesome GPS….we would completely be lost.  So, because of the GPS issue, we had a change of plans.  We read about a very cute town near where we’re staying, so we decided that was where we’d go.  It was a gorgeous morning…a perfect day for exploring:

Who needs New England?  We’ve got Germany in the Autumn!  Sometimes I felt like we were in a fairy tale land…it was just so pretty.  We headed to this little town called Monschau.  The first stop was a Glass Maker’s studio where we got to watch the artisans at work.

Within the hour they were displaying their artistic prowess, they cranked out 6 different pieces!  I thought there would be more glass blowing, but really, these guys knew how to blow the glass very minimally, but yet still get the desired shape.  In this picture you can see the artist on the left making a decorative dish while the other artist (on the right) starts on a vase. So, so cool!  We bought a vase from them and I can’t wait to fill it with flowers for years to come. Next up was the Monschau Castle Ruins:

This castle was found high up on the hill and was open to us to just explore.  There were many nooks and crannies to see.

This is the inside of one of the turrets.  So, beautiful.

Look at how small these passageways are!!  Can you imagine having to go through those with 80 lbs of armor on?  NUTS!

I love all of the stonework.  It’s so neat to see…I can only imagine how hard it was to build at the time.

This is the view from the castle walls looking down on the town of Monschau itself.  Isn’t this entire scene just gorgeous?!?!!  Here are a couple of examples of upper middle class housing in Monschau:

Another example of upper middle class housing here:

You find many homes here with these window boxes filled with flowers.  Check out this roof…it’s all actual slate…which is common here:

We walked from the top of the hill down to the town and took a tour of the “Red House” which was home to a textile maker and built back in 1790.  They had a 4 story, freestanding, spiral staircase all made of oak.  Here’s a close-up of the detail on it:

Next, we went to the “photography museum” where they had quite the collection of cameras and this little goodie from 1940:

It’s a camera that was in a Spitfire from WWII.  Totally neat find for Keith.   Walking back up to the car, we saw this on a trash can:

Hahahhahaaa!!  That cracked me up!

So, overall…it was a perfect day.  And as we drive down the highway, the new trees, the windmills and the fluffy clouds were a perfect ending.

For today’s adventure, we decided it would be good to take in a few castle tours.  There are quite a number of them here and in really good shape, surprisingly.  There is a castle association here that has been around since 1900 and it is their job to be sure the preservation of all of these castles are done properly and often.  Apparently, this is the year several castles in the area we went to today were being renovated.  Because of this, we encountered a lot of scaffolding, cranes, etc.  It’s okay by me…as long as they continue to preserve what is here.  Such amazing stuff!  We had time to visit 2 castles today.  The first one is Burg Eltz.  You can find more information here on it (if you so desire).  The first thing we encountered before even getting to the castle was the guard house:

It looks like it’s also being renovated at the moment.  From here, you’re taken down a very steep hill down to the castle.  As you get out of the vehicle, this is what you see:

Notice the cranes and scaffolding.  It’s nuts, but still an amazing structure nonetheless.

Through the “windows” in the wall, you get this view.  Gorgeous in any season!

This is the view up while standing in the Courtyard.  These walls are about 6 feet thick!

Here is a typical door.  They were very short at the time!  After this, we went on a tour of the inside.  I wasn’t allowed to take any pictures inside because the items inside were all original…some from the 900’s!   I can tell you that it was just so neat to see things like that.

This is part of the Armor collection at Burg Eltz.  Notice the joust stick above the armor.

This was part of the Burg Eltz “treasury”.  This lovely item was 1 of a set of 2 there and what’s interesting about this (and all of the other pieces) was that this was pure silver with gold overlay.  Lord knows how much this collection of items are worth today.  Eeep!

One of the many ornate doors at Burg Eltz.

We looked at the time and figured we’d be able to get in one more Castle.  This time we went to Marksburg Castle.  On the way there, we went through several tiny towns that you’d imagine to see in Old Germany.  I almost thought we were driving through a movie set…but no…there are tons of people that live and work there.  Anyway, we made it to Marksburg Castle just in time for the last tour.  By this time, it was pouring down rain on us and my picture taking ability was very limited.  You can find out more about the castle here along with some other pictures since mine doesn’t do it justice.

This is the entry to the main castle through a peephole while we were taking cover from the rain.

And lastly, here’s Keith at the gate to the stable.  The interesting thing about the tours today was seeing the differences between a castle made for a pretty weathly family that just wanted to live there (Burg Eltz) and a castle built for purspose for a more modest family…and to defend their place on the Rhine River.  Very neat.  Not sure what we’ve decided to do tomorrow…but I think there may be some WWII history coming up.  🙂

Today, we decided to go to Cologne to see the Cathedral because it was going to be the best day for photos, weather-wise.  We got out the door relatively early and headed out.  Traffic was pretty light and all I can say is thank goodness we’ve got GPS.  There would be NO WAY we’d be able to get around as easy.

Anyway, we parked the car in the parking structure and when we came up the stairs, we were greeted with this:

I cannot even begin to explain how massive and ovewhelming this structure is.  And the detail…oh…the detail work!   What began as a vision in 1248 was finally completed 632 years later.  Think about that….working on it for six hundred and thirty two years.  Eeep!

This is the South Tower that holds the Belfry…which includes 533 steps up to the top…going around and around in a circle.  It took a while, but I made it.  Up all 533 and back down the same 533.  Besides the fact that I am afraid of heights…climbing 533 steps in a circle almost made me sick….but, I’m proud to say, I made it.

This is the tunnel to the Belfry stairs.  Notice the arch design with multiple arches.  Crazy!

This is me waiting in the Spire Gallery waiting for Keith (who went up a little higher to see the sights).   Notice the graffiti behind me…this is found all over Germany…for some reason.  I’m actually surprised by this.

This is part of the machinery that was used to help build this Cathedral…are you kidding me?!?!?

Some views from the very top of the South Tower:

Now, here are some pictures from the inside of the Cathedral….just as the outside is amazing…the inside is just as breathtaking:

Here is the Organ…the pipes are huge!

Statues are found all over…

You can see the gorgeous stained glass windows behind the statue.  Every single window was different and made up of at least 32 individual panels that each tell a story!  W-O-W!

And now…the floors….and yes, those are all mosaic!

So, overall…it took us a few hours to get through the entire thing.  Maybe it’s just me going slow and really appreciating everything…but it was a really nice day.  We ate a light lunch and headed back to our home base.  Before we got there, we went to the store to pick up some groceries and as a final picture for today…enjoy this…

We’re not sure what it is, but the little bit of German we know, we think it’s something like chocolate covered twinkie like things.  🙂  Until tomorrow…and our next adventure!

After I posted last night, we went to bed…it was 7:30pm here and we couldn’t take it anymore.  Surprisingly, we pretty much slept all the way until 6am…then dozed off here and there until 8am.  Although it was REALLY hard to stay up like that, we felt so much better today and are already acclimated to the time change.

We decided today was going to be a relaxing day…but wanted to venture out a little.  Most everything is closed here in Sunday’s so we were kind of forced into relaxing.  We started our day with a healthy breakfast of greek yogurt (check this out!  It was really good and tasted more like the Greek Yogurt I remember)

Then, we had some grapes…apparently from Greece:

We worked out in the little gym area they have here, then got ready and headed out.  Apparently it’s Greek Day because we were exploring and found this place to eat:

It’s a little odd hearing a Greek person speaking all German.   He did pretty well speaking some English to us, so we both struggled with each other’s language.  😛  But let me tell you something…the food was amazing!   I had Moussaka and Keith had a Gyro plate which does not come with a pita…there was a mixture of all different kinds of Greek foods…mmmm!

And yes, there was indeed Ouzo.  The nice gentleman who served us (whom I believe was the owner) brought out 2 ouzo shots for us.  It smelled nice and Keith of course drank both of them.  🙂  Along with a big stein of beer. Yamas!

We got to meet his son (21 mos.) and he was as cute as can be.  He had curly, curly hair just like my cousin’s son Costa.  Then he proudly showed us a picture of himself when he was a baby and sure enough his son was the spitting image of him!  We may just have to go back there again before we leave this country.   He suggested a place for us to go because there was a nice market going on and the stores would be open.  So, we took his advice and headed off.  The town is called Kommern and it was established in the 14th century.  There was a lot more information about it but it was in German and we could only make out bits and pieces of it.  😀  Here are some examples of the streets (and doorways) in the town:

Keith is trying to figure out what the wording on this house says…it was very interesting to see:

Here is a close up of the wording on the house:

It’s been a really nice day!

Now, it’s time for Keith to enjoy this awesome beer he found:

So…until tomorrow when we go on our next adventure…..because it’s supposed to be nice, we may end up going to Cologne to explore…and maybe a boat trip on the Rhine…we shall see

Well, we made it!  We are finally here in Europe.  And you know what?  We are EXHAUSTED!  It’s just about 6pm local time and somehow we’ve managed to stay awake.  Let me explain…

Our trip began yesterday fairly routine.  Because we were carrying on everything, we didn’t have to wait in ANY horrendous lines at the Delta counter to drop bags.  We strolled right up, had a nice gentleman verify our passports and BAM!  We were on our way to security!  All of that struggle with what to pack and how to fit it was WELL worth it!  We breeze through security and make it in time enough for Keith to enjoy a Rouge beer prior to boarding.  He figured he’d start the vacation right!  🙂  Now it was time to board.  We get on the biggest plane I’ve ever flown on and settle in nicely.  It’s just over 9 hours to Amsterdam and overall, we have a quiet flight.  I tried to sleep a few times, but really didn’t get much more than 3 hours of sleep.  Keith was lucky if he even slept for 2 hours.   As the time got closer to landing, we were greeted with this:

It was definitely a beautiful welcome.  So we land and start to get off the plane.  I went to grab my suitcase from the overhead bin and it somehow got stuck.  I yanked it to try to free it and it came out…right on my face!  Yes, I know…I’m a nerd…but I’m wearing these wounds proudly!  HA!

Yeah…I have had a headache all day.  Oh well.  We made it to our timeshare and got a really nice “apartment” (pictures of it later).  First order of business was to find somewhere to eat.  We found this beautiful restaurant close by on the canal…look at the beautiful blue skies!:

Well, of course, the first thing Keith gets…and I know you will be shocked by this…is a beer.  🙂  He chose a Kolsch:

We both look like we’ve traveled for 16 hours, right?  Well, I can’t take anymore…time to sleep.  I’ll post more tomorrow.  Guten Nacht!

Well, we’re both running on very little sleep, but in mere hours, we’ll be on the plane headed to our destination. We only have to change planes once on this entire trip (thankfully)!  I think I may just be exhausted enough to sleep for a good 4-5 hours (which it’s rare for me to sleep on planes)!    Yes, the majority of our travel is non-stop…from PDX (Portland, OR) to AMS (Amsterdam).  I think it’s a 10-ish hour flight.  After that, we’ll take a hopper to Cologne to our final destination.  Because of the time difference we’ll arrive the next mornng so I think we’ll have to stay active just to try to acclimate ourselves to it.    All I know is…I can’t believe our planning is finally coming to fruition.

Our Backpacks and suitcases….that’s it for 15 days.  I amazed myself with my mad packing skills…hahahhaaha!