Expedition Eldredge

On our way to Bavaria, my sister and I decided to stop in Rothenburg ob der Tauber for a night. During the height of European tourist season (June-August), there are a multitude of day-trippers making their way to Rothenburg. If you stay the night, however, you will have most of the town to yourself by early evening. In the summer the sun is up past 9:00PM every evening, so you are still able to tour the city and walk the city walls after all the tourists have cleared out for the day.  From Kaiserslautern, we took the train to Rothenburg with stops in Frankfurt, Würzburg, and Steinach. With my Bahn50 card, the total was 35 Euros and took approximately 4 and a half hours to get there. If we had driven, it would have taken approximately 3 hours, but then we couldn't have hung out in the dining car and had a drink. We stayed in a guest house, just outside the city walls. It was a 3-minute walk to the entrance of the city, and we were only a 12-minute walk to the train station. T...

        The amazing thing about Europe is its maneuverability. From where we live in southwestern Germany, I can be to Luxembourg, Belgium, France, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria or the Czech Republic in five hours by driving.  While Mr. E was in Bavaria working one week, my sister and I caught a train and stayed in Rothenberg ob der Tauber one night (post to come) and then met him at a train station in Bavaria to make the drive down to Austria. Austria is a beautiful place with extremely friendly people. We really enjoyed our time there, and can't wait to make it back for ski season later this year.  The main reason for crossing the border to Austria is to save tons of money in comparison to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Garmisch is well-known as a holiday resort town, and is just 40 minutes across the border in Germany. We stayed at a lovely AirBnB  with two bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom (with washer and dryer) and living...

The weekend immediately after returning home for the weekend, we packed up for a quick getaway to Munich with my sister. From Kaiserslautern, we decided to drive since we were going to stay outside the city in the town called Vierkirchen. It is a four-hour drive, so perfectly doable for a weekend. There is no way to see all of Munich in one trip, and I imagine we will be back many times.  We stayed at an AirBnB apartment in a house in Vierkirchen, that was right next to the S-Bahn. It was very nice and quiet, though it was a little more of a hike to get to Munich than we had imagined. However, we were close to Dachau, which we toured on Sunday before returning home.  On the S-Bahn train from Vierkirchen to Munich Hbf From the train station, we emerged next to Marienplatz, where we started our walking tour. We turned east from the new town hall, walking next to the old town hall until we reached the Viktualienmarkt (food market). Here, we got side-tracked for a cou...

Heidelberg is a must-see in Germany. Its charming side streets, natural beauty, and daunting castle make for a great trip, long or short. In all honesty, Heidelberg can be tackled in one day, so we drove there on the autobahn and saw the sites.  Heidelberg University has a large presence in the city, with almost 40,000 students matriculating here. This population brings a liveliness to the city, which has a vibrant cultural scene, mainly due to them. One of my favorite places to have a cocktail in Heidelberg is Hans in Glück (a chain restaurant) that has a quirky interior and drinks like a hibiscus mojitos (mmmmm).  Driving can be tricky once you reach the center, so we opted to park a little further out at the Edeka grocery store parking garage that is shared with the Holiday Inn Express - Heidelberg City Centre. We were there for most of the day, and I don't think it was more than 5 euro.  Once parking, we headed straight to the Schloss (castle). It is open...