Idstein, DE The first time we went to Idstein was a few years ago for their Christmas market. We could see that it was a great town with fabulous half-timbered houses, but it was so crowded for the market that we couldn’t really stroll around and enjoy the sites. We […]
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Harz Mountains of Germany Part II In the last blog post, you saw that we visited a few towns in the Harz Mountains region of Germany and that I wrote quite a bit about our stop in Quedlinburg, whose old town is part of a UNESCO site. The town of […]
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Kassel, DE Kassel, Germany had been on my list of places to visit because there is a UNESCO site there called Berpark Wilhelmshöhe. Once I started researching the area, though, I realized there was a lot more to it than the UNESCO site. We started off our weekend in Kassel […]
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The biggest funfair on the Rhine, called the Rheinkirmes in German, takes places every July in Düsseldorf. We had wanted to go to Düsseldorf anyway, so we used the excuse of the funfair. (As a side note, I had never heard the term “funfair” before moving to Europe. Where I’m […]
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There is a famous epic German poem called The Nibelungenlied (say that three times quickly!) or The Song of the Nibelungs. I’ve actually read most of the poem – as an English translation – but for some reason have yet to finish it. Anyway, one of the main characters in […]
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Madrid, Spain I had 4 days off for the Presidents’ Day weekend in February and thought it might be nice to take that opportunity to visit Madrid. Sean booked an apartment that was pretty central. The downside to renting apartments is that you don’t get breakfast or any other meals […]
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Reims, France We spent the long Labor Day weekend in Reims, France. Reims is one of the centers of the Champagne region. Although the term “champagne” is often used to generically describe sparkling wine, legally only sparkling wine made from grapes from the Champagne region of France can be called […]
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