Conversation with Mozart - Austria & Germany, Nov. 2005

I had an opportunity to attend a work conference in Vienna so how could I turn it down?  Rita agreed to accompany me and I took an additional week of leave to make it a two week vacation.  We left Athens on Austrian Air on Sunday, October 30 and checked into the SAS Radisson Hotel where the conference was held.  The first week in Vienna was sort of boring for me having to sit in and listen to work related topics that will not affect me for very long.  It is difficult to get worked up about the State Department’s five-year IT strategic plan. 



There were old friends to see and some brought their wives whom Rita knew from Canberra.  We enjoyed going out to eat with them and did some fine dining on our own as well.  We did make it to the Hawelka Café but found out it did not really have much of a dinner menu so we ended up at the King of Hungary restaurant which turned out nice.  In the autumn, most western European restaurants serve game of some sort from October through Christmas and Austria is no exception (Greece is though).  So I ended up with a wild boar fillet with dumplings, lentils and red berries similar to cranberries.  Rita enjoyed her goulash which was thick and spicy.  She was surprised when her salad was served to find a jalapeño pepper in her raw vegetables – that’s not like Austria.



Over the rest of the week Rita spent her days hand-quilting or walking around with one of the wives.  She hit a few konditories and in the evenings we usually had schnitzel at our favorites like Figlmuller or Central Café.  One day we finished early so Rita and I walked to the Naschmarkt, an open air market with meats, fish, vegetables, flowers, etc.  After working up a hunger we went to Haas and Haas, a nice restaurant behind St. Stephan’s cathedral. 



This was our fourth trip to Vienna – once in the Hilton hotel, twice in the Radisson and, our first time in 1977, in a campground somewhere in the city.  We’re not tired of Vienna but we’ve seen it pretty well and we don’t get as excited about the city as we once did.  It is a beautiful city on a par with Paris or London.  Our weather in Vienna was overcast with some drizzle most days but it improved greatly as the conference ended.  Mozart informed us that Vienna had a very wet summer but a dry, mild autumn.  However, I’m getting ahead of myself.



Friday, November 4, our conference ended at noon and most everyone scattered.  Rita and I left our big suitcase at the Radisson and caught a cab to the south train station (Sudbahnhof).  We purchased round-trip tickets to Bratislava, Slovakia, a new country for us.  The train passed through pastoral farm country and we arrived in Bratislava in about an hour.  I have read that Vienna and Bratislava are the nearest two national capitals in the world.  Back in the days of the Austrian Empire, Bratislava was run by Germans who called it Pressburg. 



We stayed at the nice Carlton Hotel which is owned by Radisson and central to the small Old Town.  We checked in and immediately started walking the Old Town, stopping at St. Martin’s cathedral where Hungarian Kings and 8 queens (including Maria Theresa) were crowned.  The Old Town is nice and compact and can be seen in about half a day.  We had dinner at Slovenska, a “traditional Slovak restaurant”.  Rita had pork tenderloin encrusted in pepper with a saffron sauce.  I had the “farmer’s platter” which was a large wooden platter filled with sausage, pork ribs, beef tenderloin, chicken and different potato dumplings along with sauerkraut, gherkins and peppers.  It was too much but delicious.  We also found an inexpensive Slovak dry red wine that we liked – Frankovka Modra.  I did have room for a few bites of Rita’s fine apple strudel. 



Saturday morning we found Bratislava a ghost town.  We hiked up to Bratislava Castle, which has a commanding view of the city and Danube River.  We found a nice konditori, Maximillian, where we had thick, rich cocoa.  We toured Primatial Palace with a pretty chapel and Hall of Mirrors.  We had lunch at another Slovak restaurant, Staroslovenska Krcma, which was located in an old cellar.  I had the Slovak national dish of bryndzove halusky – potato dumplings (gnocchi) with melted sheep cheese and bacon sprinkled on top.  Yummy!  We also had Zlaty Bazant Slovak beer.  Then we checked out of our hotel and caught the train back to Vienna.



Sunday started off with a light drizzle in the morning which was the least of our problems.  We rented a car and were given an Alpha Romero 147, a mid-size four-door sedan with a control panel similar to a 747.  It had built in cell phone, and a GPS navigational system that we never figured out.  It had a CD already inserted and a woman (Helga?) kept giving us directions in German which, as best as we could understand, was telling us to get off at every exit and turn around.  It must have been programmed for somebody else, some other trip, and she didn’t like my driving.  We didn’t need that when Rita was trying to navigate us through Vienna onto the A-1 autobahn.  Finally Rita discovered the CD and took it out, silencing Helga for the remainder of our trip.  There were many other features on the car which we never figured out as all the manuals were in German – not our strongest language.



We headed west out of Vienna and stopped at the town of St. Polten where my great-great-grandfather, Ernst August Franke, mentioned he lived and worked for a few months in 1825-26 when he was a youngster rambling around Europe.  It was Sunday morning and the town was dead – about as dead as Bratislava Saturday morning.  We did find the nice Konditori Pusch open and had coffee and pastry along with a few other souls.  We walked around the pedestrian area with pretty, old buildings, churches, and Rathaus that would have been standing when Ernst Franke lived here. 



We returned to the autobahn and headed past Linz and Wels to Passau, Germany where we stopped for lunch.  We had lunch at Die Heilig-Geist Stiftschente, a guest house dating to 1358 with lots of character and adequate food.  Passau is a pleasant town situated at the juncture of three rivers – the Danube, the Inn and the Ilz.  Passau deserves a return visit with more time to spend strolling along the river walk.

We took a short ride in the country to “leaf peek” at the changing colors in the Bavarian Forest or Bayerischer Wald along the Czech border.  We took a back road, highway 85, to Schonberg and then highway 533 back to the A-3 autobahn.  We arrived in Regensburg as the sun was setting and checked into the Maximillian Hotel.  Soon we were walking the town where my ancestor, Ernst Franke, said he visited.  He mentions that he traveled from Regensburg to Vienna along the Danube River so he must have passed through Passau as well. 



Regensburg is much larger than I expected, especially the old town with narrow alleyways and charming medieval buildings.  There are many old churches in this town with St. Peter’s cathedral being the largest.  We stopped at the Baroque Alte Kapelle, as well, and walked across the old Steinerne (stone) Bridge, built between 1135 and 1146.  For dinner we ate beside the Danube at historic Wurstkuche, the oldest cooked sausage kitchen in Germany.  We had sausages, sauerkraut and beer of course.



Monday morning we walked the old town once more but with enough light to take photos.  We finished by 11:00 am and hit the road again.  We stopped in the pretty town of Landshut and walked through the town center with colorful medieval buildings.  Then we pressed on along highway B15 to Wasserburg and highway 304 to the pretty Chemisee lake with the Alps visible in the distance.  Chemisee is very scenic but built up as it is a major tourist area.  We tried to catch the boat to Herreninsel (men’s island) with its castle resembling Versailles but it was closed for the afternoon. 



So we continued the short distance to the village of Aschau and our destination for this evening, the Residenz Heinz Winkler.  Since today was my birthday we splurged and stayed at a nice hotel with a Michelin three-star restaurant where Heinz Winkler is the chef and owner.  The hotel was first class and a pastry was waiting for us in the room on check in.  We dressed up for the only time on this trip for a super dinner in the comfortable dining room.  Let me bore you with the menu.  We started with a flute of champagne and, as nice restaurants do, were offered a couple of free mini starters called amuse bouche, in French.  First was a cup of cream of arugula soup then a plate of three small samples, smoked salmon on cucumber salad, tomato and olive mousse, and a fried croquette of vegetables.  Next Rita ordered a starter of carpaccio of lobster with lemon grass vinaigrette while I had three kinds of goose liver – fried, mousse and pate.  For main courses Rita had saddle of veal with spinach while I had saddle of lamb in Mediterranean herbs with mixed vegetables.  For dessert Rita had lime parfait with mango and raspberries while I had a cheese soufflé with strawberries.  A bottle of Italian Russo de Montecino wine and coffee afterwards rounded out the meal.  Coffee came with chocolate truffles.  It was my nice birthday dinner but I felt over the top.



The next day was back to reality day.  We woke to howling winds which died down by the time we checked out of the hotel and were on the road.  We stopped for coffee and pastries on the road called the Germany Alps highway or Deutch Alpenstrasse.  The weather was excellent and the views of mountains superb.  We arrived in Berchtesgaden about noon and drove into the city center to look for hotels at the information center.  They were closed for lunch so we consulted our guide book and went looking for a place to stay out of town and up in the hills.  We found the Alpenhotel Denninglehen in the small village of Oberau.  It was remote, secluded and had great views of the valley below and mountains in the distance.  In fact, we could see Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest (Kehlsteinhaus) on a ridge from our balcony.  There were very few people staying at the hotel which is situated on the Rossfeld Panorama Strasse, a famous mountain road with views of the Salzach Valley.  We remained here for five days and four nights, sometimes the only guests in the hotel.  This just wasn’t the high season for this area which is mainly busy in summer and winter ski season.  We had exceptionally fine November weather.



We spent that afternoon with a drive over the Rossfeld Panorama Strasse but couldn’t visit the Eagle’s Nest since it closes in October.  You can’t drive your vehicle there but only visit via bus.  So we drove to Lake Konigssee and took a boat ride on this majestic Alpine lake to St. Bartholoma church and returned on the last boat just as darkness set in.  We made it back to our hotel room and balcony to watch a pretty sunset behind the mountains.  We ate at our hotel restaurant which was pleasant with good food.  On most nights we were the only patrons in the restaurant.



We both woke up in the middle of the night, too warm as the heat was beyond our control.  Rita opened up a window and called me to come look at the billions of stars in the clear mountain sky.  The weather was so mild that we slept with windows open most nights except toward the end of the week when it turned a little colder (near freezing).  We did, however, have a mild frost most mornings.



Wednesday we spent the entire day in the city of Salzburg, one of the most beautiful cities in Europe.  We haven’t returned since our first visit in 1977 when we camped around Europe for three months.  It’s still beautiful.  We visited the Dom or cathedral, St. Peter’s church, the Franciscan’s church and Petersfriedhof or St. Peter’s unique church cemetery.  Here is where we found a historical movie about Mozart being filmed by a German TV crew and they were spraying artificial snow in the graveyard.  And this is where we met Mozart.  Actually he was the actor playing Mozart and we watched a scene that was filmed several times.  On one occasion he walked over in our direction and I asked him if he was Mozart.  He said “yes, indeed” and spoke good English.  So we struck up a short conversation with him and told him we thought he resembled Mozart.  He told us a little about the film and was very pleasant to talk to. 



We did our hike up to the Hohensalzburg castle fortress that stands out looking over the city.  The funicular was closed so walking was the only way up.  We recalled doing this same walk with two little crabby girls back in 1977 and realize now it must have been fairly difficult for their little legs.  We were tired when we reached the top but enjoyed a tour of the castle starting with the tallest tower with great views in all directions.  We saw the torture chamber (misnamed), old state rooms and the Rainer museum.  Finally we hiked back down into the city and had lunch at what some think is the oldest inn in Europe.  We dined at the Stiftskeller St. Peter which has been an inn since at least 803 when first mentioned – over 1200 years old.  I had schnitzel and Rita had roast pork with bread knudle and sauerkraut but the main course was dessert.  We ordered a Salzburger Nockerl, a large soufflé with raspberry sauce that is the dessert of this region.  It was delicious but was way too much for two persons. 



We toured the palace known as the Residence with beautifully furnished rooms.  After that we stopped at Café Tomaselli, opened in 1705, and had a coffee.  We saw the pretty horse trough called Pferdeschwemme and walked down the pretty Getreidegasse past Mozart’s birth place.  Next we walked down Judengasse, or the Jewish quarter, and finally back to the car and back to our hotel.  All we had room for at dinnertime was a bowl of soup.



Thursday we drove south past industrial areas along the Salzach River until the scenery became pretty once we crossed the Lueg Pass.  We saw the impressive Hohenwerfen castle but it wasn’t open to visitors.  We stopped at St. Johan in Pongau where we first skied as a family in 1980 or 1981 when we visited from Saudi Arabia.  We reminisced about skiing there and the Prem Hotel we stayed at and had our first Salzburger Nockerl.  The Prem Hotel burned down in 1983 and a plaque is on the new building that stands there now.  But the town has built up so much we hardly recognized it.  It was a small, Austrian farm village just 25 years ago and I had to park my car in a barn at that time. 



We pressed on through beautiful countryside over Pass Thurn, where I’ve skied a few times, and into Kitzbuhel where we’ve skied before too.  Kitzbuhel was quiet and pretty much closed down until the snow starts falling.  I wanted to eat at the Landstuhl but it was closed for the month.  We had an adequate meal at the Goldener Gans restaurant and drove back to our hotel via St. Johann in Tirol (where I’ve skied as well) and Berchtesgaden. 



Friday we drove east to the Alpine lake area of Austria.  We took the autobahn around Salzburg and east, exiting at the pretty town of Mondsee on the lake Mondsee.  We drove along the lake on highway 151 to the town of Au, then north alongside the Attersee lake through Seewalchen.  In Weyregg we stopped for coffee and pastry and bought some Mondsee cheese which tasted good but sure smelled up the car.  In the town of Steinbach we headed inland through pretty forests to Altmunster and Gmunden where we stopped for a walk.  All these lakes were very pretty and scenic but at times it was difficult to see much because of fog.  Gmunden had some fog too but we walked the pretty old town which must be very pleasant on a warm summer day.  We drove back to Altmunster and took highway 145 to Bad Ischl, a spa town with many bath houses.  This area was known for its salt mines and salt trade in the Middle Ages.  We had a good meal at restaurant Sissy then pressed on to the town of St. Wolfgang on Lake St. Wolfgang.  In 1977 we vividly remember waking up in a nearly deserted campground with the most beautiful views of the lake and surrounding mountains.  That view is still there but St. Wolfgang and the pretty nearby town of Strobt have built up for the summer tourist trade and seem to have lost their charm.



We continued back to our hotel where we thought we were the only guests for the night (we were the night before).  It is a common German/Austrian custom for adults to go swimming or to the sauna sans clothes and since I didn’t bring a swimsuit I asked if that was okay.  The lady at the desk said “sure, why not, I think you will be alone”.  Well Rita and I went down to the basement swimming pool.  She watched while I went skinny dipping, thinking of joining me, and sure enough a German couple walked in and they had swimsuits on.  Rita gave a laugh and deserted me right away – she wouldn’t even acknowledge knowing me.  I swam a short time and as they started to get into the pool I quietly walked out and wrapped myself in a towel to return to our room.  I was a bit embarrassed but not as much as Rita was to be around me.



Saturday we said our goodbyes to the hotel staff and checked out.  We headed east on the A-1 autobahn and stopped in Melk to see the beautiful Baroque church at the Melk Abbey.  We also discovered they had a nice restaurant so we had lunch there before pressing on.  We took the scenic drive on highway 3 along the Danube River, dotted with castles and vineyards but unfortunately the weather was foggy and overcast.  It would have been nicer in bright sunshine.  In the town of Krems we re-crossed the Danube and headed back to the A-1 which we took into Vienna and the airport hotel.  We turned in the rental car, spent the night at the airport hotel and flew back to Athens Sunday morning.



It was another nice visit to an area we like and where my ancestor visited nearly 200 years ago.  Oh, and Mozart says hello to all.

Altenburg & Leipzig, Germany - 2002

Rita and I had traveled to this area before.  In 1977 when we were camping around Europe for three months, we drove from Nurnberg to West Berlin, passing within a short distance of Altenburg and Leipzig.  But at that time we didn’t have the information about where the Franke family originated.  The East Germans didn’t give us freedom of movement and we had only four hours to make the crossing from the border to West Berlin.  In August 1983 we had learned much more about my family background and we visited Altenburg for the first time.  We met the genealogist Gerhard Porzig who was our guide around the city.  Then again we visited in summer of 1999 when Rita met me in Amsterdam (I was on a business trip) and we rented a car.  Altenburg was improving from the Soviet era when a large Russian air force base was located on its outskirts.



This time even more improvements can be seen in this part of what was East Germany.  Mainly the old buildings are being restored to life and the stores have all the food and products of the West which they did not have before.  With this progress come the many Burger Kings and McDonalds along with tattoos, body piercing, and loud rap music blaring from car radios.  But it is progress nevertheless.



On Thursday morning, August 15, Rita and I woke early to get in line for tickets at Brussels’ Hotel de Ville in order to see the flower carpet put down in the Grand Place every two years.  It was beautiful this year and as we left the crowds were starting to descend on the Grand Place.



We were away by 10:00 am and headed east past Aachen and Koln, Germany.  We thought we were making good time when we ran into major construction on Autobahn

A-45 near Siegen.  It took an hour to move about ten miles.  From there we drove past Giessen, Alsfeld, Bad Hersfeld and Eisenach only stopping for gasoline and the occasional bathroom break.  The drive was a tension creator as traffic was heavy and there was construction every few miles, which slowed traffic down considerably.  The scenery was great but the drive was not.  We zoomed on past Erfurt, Weimar and Jena then turned north on A-9 to Leipzig.  We arrived later than expected at about 8:00 pm and found our way into the city center just fine.  We checked into our nice Marriott Hotel then quickly walked into the old Markt or Market square.  From our guidebook we chose the historical 16^th century wine cellar called Auerbachs Keller. 



It was a good choice and I kept wondering if my great-great-grandfather had stopped in for a beer or glass of wine in the past.  We started with glasses of local Ur-Krostitzer beer (since 1534) – I ordered dark while Rita had pilsner.  We chose “Saxon specialties” for our meals.  I had a peppered pork cutlet baked in a dish of sauerkraut and mashed potatoes covered with cheese.  Rita had beef roulade with red cabbage and potato dumplings (kartofel knudel).  Rita had a local red wine and I had a local white wine from Freyburg, a short distance east of Leipzig.  For dessert we shared a local dish of grilled quark cheese served with a vanilla custard sauce and cinnamon ice cream.  The meal was delicious and we had to walk around the busy town center for a while afterwards.



Since Leipzig is a university town, it has plenty of restaurants and nightlife.  We found most of our hotel and restaurant staff spoke good English, which wasn’t true in Altenburg.  But I would recommend you wait another two to three years before visiting Leipzig, even though it is a beautiful city.  It will get better.  Much of the downtown area is under construction with new buildings for museums and markets.  The streets are blockaded and torn up in many areas.  But the old buildings are getting nicely restored and it is a beautiful city to visit even now.



We had intended to drive to Dresden the next day but watching the TV news it sounded as if the flooding there would not get better but only worse.  So we called the hotel in Dresden to cancel and then booked ourselves for another night in Leipzig. 



Friday morning we ate breakfast in our hotel and then drove to Altenburg.  Taking what documentation I had on my ancestors, we walked streets where ancestors lived hundreds of years ago.  We parked on Wall Strasse where there are a few remains of the old city walls.  We walked up Kesselgasse where my ancestor, Johann Christian Rothe, master butcher of the Ducal Court, resided.  We walked down Hillgasse (next street over) where my ancestors Michael Mahn, rope maker, and Valtin (butcher) and Anna Maria Rothe lived. 



We walked to the market square and then to St. Bartholomew church where most of my early ancestors were baptized, married and buried.  This is the oldest church in Altenburg.  St. Bartholomew was built in 1459 and a Roman crypt was discovered under the late Romanesque building.  Martin Luther visited Altenburg several times and performed at least one marriage in St. Bartholomew. 



We went to the church offices and rang the bell.  A lady came out to greet us but didn’t speak English.  Or so she said.  It turned out her English was better than she admitted and between our German and my genealogy family tree, she understood what we wanted – copies of the old church records.  The cost per page was about $3 and I had all the page numbers and book numbers so I knew what I wanted.  The only problem was that their copy machine was broken.  But we did look at one of the books and saw the baptism of my great-great-grandfather Ernst August Franke in 1806.  It was quite a thrill and she let me photograph the page.  We left our address and money with her and she agreed to make some further copies of other records when their machine is repaired. 



Next we went into St. Bartholomew and toured the crypt and interior.  The caretaker let me take a few photos.  I hiked up the stairs to the bell tower for a great view of Altenburg.  Rita declined to make the hike on 300-year-old stairs.  Next we walked to the Ratskeller in the Rathouse (court house) and had lunch.  We had eaten there twice before and find it the best place in town.  I had a Thuringer bratwurst with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes.  Rita had a salad and dish of baked spatzle noodles with cheese and mushrooms.  We had a local Altenburger beer with our good meal.



We left Altenburg and drove on a little further south to Ronneburg where the Frankes originated before Altenburg.  The oldest records I have of the Frankes is a Martin Franke born in Ronneburg in 1666.  So we found St. Marien church and knocked on the door of the church office.  A young man in his late 30s or early 40s came down and greeted us.  We were quite surprised when we asked if he spoke English that he said yes he did.  He was Pastor Tiedemann who had lived a year in Milwaukee.  He was very friendly and gave us a tour of St. Marien.  But he did not have the old records as they were kept elsewhere and the office was not open.  But we exchanged addresses and he promised to get copies of the records I need and mail them to us. 



We walked around Ronneburg but couldn’t find much of historical or cultural note.  Ronneburg was a mining town that suffered neglect under the Russians.  The Russians mined the local uranium in a way that may have caused problems with future drinking water.  When we visited Ronneburg in 1983 it was a town of about 14,000 people and today, with the mining stopped, it has dropped to about 5,800.  Pastor Tiedemann told us stories of dropping church attendance, joblessness, and bickering between church members who used to belong to the Communist Party and those who didn’t.  Ronneburg is in sad shape today.



We drove back to Leipzig via Altenburg and Kotteritz where we met Gerhard Porzig in 1983 but we couldn’t find his house.  He was old then and we suspect he has died.  We sent him Christmas cards several years in a row and they were unanswered.  He was always good about writing to us.



We walked more around Leipzig and had a great meal outdoors at the Coffe Baum (coffee tree) restaurant, a historical guesthouse dating back to 1645.  It was a warm night and there were hundreds of people dining outdoors at sidewalk cafes.  It was fun and exciting.  As much as I hate to admit it, we both ordered the seniors meal of a small portion of pork tenderloin with lots of vegetables.  It was good and not as huge as previous meals.  Again we had local beer with the meal.  We shared a nice apple strudel for dessert.



Sunday we woke early and walked into the city center of Leipzig once more.  We found a good bagel place and had a light breakfast there.  This was unheard of just 20 years ago.  We walked to the beautiful St. Nikolai church with columns that looked like palm trees.  Next we went to St. Thomas church where Johann S. Bach is buried.  We walked around town taking more photos of the pretty Alte Borse (old stock exchange) and Altes Rathaus (old court house).  We walked to the Neues Rathaus (yep, newer one but built around 1900).  Then back to the hotel to check out and get on the road. 



We decided to take back roads instead of fighting the traffic on the autobahns.  We drove to the pretty town of Naumburg and parked.  We visited the cathedral called Dom St. Peter and St. Paul, a very old (13^th century), historical cathedral.  We also walked to the Markt or Market center with a town hall built in 1517 and a cluster of 16^th and 17^th century houses.



Then we drove west on highway 87 in pretty wine making country.  We went over an old bridge in Bad Kosen and saw signs indicating Napoleonic battles of 1806 and 1813.  It got me thinking about Ernst August Franke’s diary in which he says he was orphaned in 1813.  I wonder if his father was killed in the famous battle of Leipzig in 1813?  I will have to research this further.  We drove through Eckartsberga, Sommerda, Straussfurt, Bad Tennstedt, and Bad Langensalza to Muhlhausen where we parked again and walked this pretty walled city.  This old town has its walls still intact and many old half-timbered houses.  We had delicious ice cream dishes at a sidewalk café in the market square.  We visited the Marienkirche (church) and the Blasiuskirche where J. S. Bach played the organ in 1707-08.  Then back into the car and on the road again.  We crossed the border from Thuringen into Hesse where the old East/West Germany border used to be located.  We drove through beautiful towns full of half-timbered houses in Wanfried and Frieda.  At Eschwege we drove along the Weser River to Witzenhausen then into the hills through Hundelshausen, Trubenhaussen, Spangenberg and Homberg.  A beautiful area we must revisit. 



We stopped in Marburg and visited the old pilgrim church of St. Elizabeth where she is buried.  This church dates back to 1235 and Marburg was one of the great pilgrimage centers of the West where pilgrims came to view the relics of St. Elizabeth of Hungary.  We hiked up to the old town and had a good dinner at Zur Sonne (the Sun), a 17^th century guesthouse.  We had pork schnitzel with mushrooms and melted cheese on egg spatzles.  It was very good and I had a local Frankish white wine while Rita had a Baden white wine.  No dessert tonight, just coffee.



As many times before, over dinner we looked at the map and decided we could make it home by driving late into the night.  Rather than spend another night out we did that.  We drove through pretty countryside on back roads through Biedenkopf to Dillenburg as the sun was setting.  At Dillenburg we got back on autobahn A-45 and retraced our steps back home.  The traffic was much lighter at night and no major construction to slow us down.  We arrived home about midnight and collapsed into bed.

Exploring South Australia - 1996

Our travel plans for 1996 were accelerated by cut rate fares offered by Ansett Airlines early in the year.  Since our anniversary falls in February, we thought that a good excuse, not that we really need one, to visit Adelaide and South Australia.  Plans were somewhat rushed and throughout the government budget mess, we never knew if we were going to get our paychecks and if the government inspectors were going to come to the Embassy in Canberra or not.  Finally we planned, backed our plans with travel insurance and took the trip anyway.



On Saturday, February 17, we woke very early to get to the airport for our 6:30 a.m. flight.  Ansett upgraded our flights to business class making breakfast a little nicer and the newspaper free.  Our flight stopped in Melbourne then continued on to Adelaide where we took a taxi to the Hilton Hotel, arriving about 10:00 a.m.  It didn’t take long to get moving and we started a walking tour of Adelaide right away.  We visited the Central Markets that are located at Victoria Square adjacent to our hotel.  Adelaide is blessed with a mixture of ethnic cultures and good climate so that there was a variety of produce, meats and cheeses to satisfy the Oriental and European peoples.  We walked down Gouger Street with its large quantity of restaurants, mostly seafood cafes.  Then we walked north along the main King William Street to Rundle Street Mall.  Nearly every large Australian city has a street downtown that is shut off to automobile traffic and turned into a shopping mall.  Rundle Street Mall is the one in Adelaide.  From there we walked along North Terrace by the University of Adelaide to the Botanic Gardens and stopped at a small restaurant in the gardens for lunch.  We shared a ploughman’s platter and watched the exotic birds on the lake next to the restaurant.  The weather warmed up quite a lot and we walked to the herb garden to sit under a shade tree and doze awhile. 



After our rest, we walked along the footpath beside the Torrens River and south on Kintore Avenue where we stopped to visit the Migration and Settlement Museum.  We walked back to our hotel and decided a dip in the swimming pool sounded refreshing.  It was mid afternoon and the temperature was in the 90s by now.  We swam a little but mostly sat by the pool reading our books and sipping on a pleasing gin and tonic.  Finally we showered and went out to eat dinner.  We ate at the Red Ochre restaurant which specializes in game dishes using Australian produce.  Rita had barrimundi fish while I had grilled emu which tasted very nice.  The emu was more like a red meat than fowl so we had a Coonawarra cabernet sauvignon with the meal.  Since it was time for the Chinese New Year, Gouger Street was blocked off for Chinese celebrations.  We saw a Chinese dragon dance with fireworks in the street along with food stalls and entertainers.  We felt we needed to walk some more so we visited Hindley Street, Adelaide’s red light district.  It seemed fairly tame but had its share of street walkers, peep shows and adult bookstores along with bikers and tourists like us taking in the sights.  We went back to the Hilton and went to bed fairly late.



Sunday was another early rise to check out of the hotel (leaving some of our larger luggage) and get to the airport for our flight to Kangaroo Island.  Despite our concerns about flying on an airline named after a flightless bird, we flew Emu Airlines to the small airfield at Kingscote.  The flight was on a Cessna 410, very informal, and the pilot let me sit in the co-pilot’s seat!  We were only four passengers on the aircraft.  We flew at 2000 feet under perfect, clear skies for the 30 minute flight to Kangaroo Island.  We picked up our Hertz rental car and were told that we should occupy ourselves until 1:00 p.m. to check into our bed and breakfast room.  So we drove into the sleepy village of Kingscote which says they are the oldest town in South Australia.  We drove to Beatrice Point and saw the old, original pier, a monument to the pioneers who settled Kingscote and the old mulberry tree that was planted by the pioneers and is still growing.  We drove to Emu Bay on the north coast stopping to have a close-up look at a salt lake on the way.  Next we took the North Coast Road (much of it gravel) to Stokes Bay.  We saw a large goanna lizard in the road too.  At Stokes Bay we walked to the beach through a small tunnel formed by falling rocks.  Then we drove south to Playford Highway and headed back towards the small airfield.  We think we saw three, rare, glossy black cockatoos flying but we couldn’t verify that.  We took backroads to a bee aviary where we saw the Italian honey bees at work and purchased some honey.  The bees were brought from Liguria in 1881 and, because of their isolation, have not mixed with other breeds of honey bees.



Finally we drove to the town of American River where our bed and breakfast was located.  American River was settled by American whalers in the early 1800s.  We were greeted by our hostess, Margaret King, who made us feel quite at home.  Our room was nice, bright and airy with a nice breeze.  We had a great view overlooking the American River and Eastern Cove.  We decided a short nap sounded good and, after we woke up, it felt good.  We drove into the little town of American River for the 4:30 pelican feeding.  The local bait shop feeds the pelicans (and of course the seagulls show up too) every day and they begin arriving about 15 minutes early.  It was a good close-up view of pelicans and we also were allowed to feed the seagulls in mid air.



In the late afternoon we drove to Penneshaw.  We viewed the Frenchman’s Rock where one of the French crews that explored the island carved their names on a rock.  We had reservations at the Old Post Office restaurant where the hostess chatted to us quite a lot and the cook, her husband, came out to serenade the diners with his guitar.  This was my introduction to a local South Australian fish called the King George whiting.  I liked it immediately since it was a firm, white flesh without a strong fishy taste but still a definite taste.  Rita had shrimp and we had a Wolf Blass dry white wine to accompany the meal.  It was a great meal, nicely prepared.  After eating we walked to the location of a penguin tour.  We walked along with a ranger guide shinning a flashlight into their burrows.  There weren’t very many since they had just finished molting and were out at sea for several days.  But we did see some at a very close range.



Driving back to our room, we saw kangaroos, an echineda and a possum.  We stopped in the darkness, shut off the car lights and watched the cloudless sky for a long while.  The Milky Way was quite visible since there were no ground lights at all.



Finally on Monday morning we could sleep in late.  The bed was big and fluffy, the air was cool and we didn’t want to get out.  But we arranged for breakfast at 8:30 and Margaret prepared a large plate of fresh fruit, cereal and juice.  Then she asked if we wanted eggs and bacon or King George whiting for breakfast.  We chose the whiting of course.



Our package included a picnic lunch which Margaret arranged for us.  We had to drive back to the airfield where we met Tony who gave us a very nice picnic basket and cooler that had enough of a picnic lunch for two days.  Margaret also gave us a bottle of Australian champagne so that went with our picnic.  Tony told us to just leave everything in the trunk of the rental car at the airport and they would sort it all out later.  It seems there is a small population on Kangaroo Island and everyone knows everyone else.  All the local drivers wave at oncoming cars like the locals do in many rural places.



Anyway, we headed south on gravel roads (most of the roads are gravel and windshield insurance is advised) to Murray Lagoon where we saw some water birds, especially a large flock of Cape Barren geese.  Then we drove to Seal Bay for one of the highlights of the trip.  We took a ranger-led tour to the beach where hundreds of sea lions were basking in the sun and swimming in the ocean.  We saw baby sea lions nursing with their mothers and surfing on the waves.  We could only approach as close as the ranger would which was about 25 feet away at the closest.  We sat on the beach and watched the activity and when the tour was over, our ranger said if we wanted to we could sit back by the dunes by ourselves and watch longer.  We would have but we had more of the island to tour.  It was a great tour.



We pressed on to Vivonne Bay with great views of the ocean and small harbor.  At Vivonne we had our picnic lunch of champagne, cold roasted chicken breast, salad, rolls with butter, cheese and crackers and lamingtons (an Australian cake) for dessert.  It was a very nice, civilized picnic. 



We continued to Flinders Chase National Park and drove south to Cape du Couedic with the strange Remarkable Rocks formation.  We also drove by the lighthouse and walked down to see Admirals Arch.  It was very windy so the sea was choppy but fur seals still were swimming and sunning on the beach.  We drove back to Rocky River park headquarters where we saw kangaroos, emus and koalas.  We walked three kilometers to a water hole to look for platypus but no luck.  On our drive back to American River we saw an eagle alongside the highway.  We had dinner at Matthew Flinders Terrace.  Again we had shrimp and whiting for dinner with a Queen Adelaide riesling.



The next morning we could sleep in late again and again we had whiting for breakfast.  We met Margaret’s husband, Ian, who is the harbor master for Kangaroo Island.  We checked out with a full day to complete touring as our flight left late in the afternoon.  We drove to nearby Mt. Thisby which was formerly called Prospect Hill by the British explorer Matthew Flinders.  We climbed the 512 steps to the top for a good view of both sides of the island, the view Flinders was greeted with in 1802.  We drove to Pennington Bay for a pretty view of the ocean and rocky beach.  We drove back past the airport to the town of Parndana where we purchased and sent postcards from the general store.  We drove back to Stokes Bay and had another lovely picnic lunch with views of Stokes Bay and a nice sea breeze.  We drove to an area where the black glossy cockatoo nests and waited for a while but the time of day was not good and we didn’t see any.  We drove to Cygnet River and visited the Island Pure Dairy.  We saw baby lambs, sheep getting milked and sampled their feta, fried halloumi and other sheep’s cheeses.  It all tasted very good.  We made one last drive through Kingscote and Brownlow before returning to the airport and turning in the car.  We caught the Emu Airlines afternoon flight back to Adelaide and once more I got to sit in the co-pilot’s seat.  We checked back into the Hilton Hotel at Victoria Square.  For dinner we walked down Couger Street and selected Paul’s restaurant for a seafood dinner of shrimp cocktail and, yes, King George whiting.  Love that fish!  It was over 100 degrees in Adelaide and we were thirsty so we drank the local East End beer with our meal. 



Wednesday was our 32nd wedding anniversary.  We had breakfast in our hotel then made one last walk to see the Parliament building, train station and stop at the Tourist Center for more brochures.  We went back to the hotel and checked out while Budget delivered our rental car to the hotel.  We headed south stopping in the town of Reynella to sample wines at Chateau Reynella, the oldest winery in Australia.  We purchased a 1993 basket press cabernet sauvignon and their 1987 vintage port.  Next we drove to McLaren Vale and Willunga.  We stopped at Wirra Wirra winery and purchased a chardonnay and sweet semillion.  We had an excellent lunch at the Salopian Inn.  We started with dukkah, olive oil and bread to dip.  We both had good salads.  Mine was lettuce, avocado, spicy almonds, roasted peppers and croutons.  We had good glasses of Rockford white wine.  After lunch we stopped at Coriole winery but to purchase their extra virgin olive oil.  This area reminded us of southern France or Italy.  We drove by Seaview winery, Normand winery and through the pretty town of Clarendon.  We took windy back roads through Coromandel Valley, Blackwood to Craftes where we checked into Mt. Lofty House hotel.  It is a very nice hotel that burned down in the famous Ash Wednesday fires of 1973.  Strangely enough, today is Ash Wednesday!  We drove to the German town of Hahndorf, parked and walked around town.  It was settled in the 1830s about the same time as the German communities in Texas where my ancestors settled.  There were lots of stone buildings and German influence.  We returned to our hotel and cleaned up for dinner at the Hardys restaurant in the hotel.  For starters Rita had vegetable soup while I had a goats cheese soufflé.  For our main course we both had excellent beef fillets with a bottle of 1992 Henschke Mt. Edelstone shiraz, a great wine.  For dessert we had a rich chocolate soufflé and coffee.  It was a nice anniversary dinner.



We started Thursday morning with a soak in the spa in our room then a nice breakfast in the hotel.  We drove to Bridgewater and stopped at the Old Mill but the Petaluma winery was not open yet.  We drove on to Verdun, Balhannah, Oakbank, Woodside, Lobethal, Cudlee Creek, Chain of Ponds to Gumeracha where we stopped at the toy factory with the largest rocking horse in the world.  We drove on through pretty countryside to Birdwood, Mt. Pleasant and Springton where we stopped to view the tree the Herbig family lived in for five years.  We drove through Eden Valley to Keyneton on the edge of the Barossa Valley and home of Henschke winery.  We stopped to sample and bought an expensive 1991 Hill of Grace shiraz and a 1993 Lenswood Abbott’s Prayer merlot/cabernet sauvignon.  We stopped in Angaston for a light lunch then to the Wolf Blass winery for more tasting.  Then we drove to Seppeltville with the road lined with palm trees.  The Seppelt winery was very pretty and after sampling there we purchased a port and a 1988 Dorrien cabernet sauvignon.  We visited the little winery of St. Hallett but they did not have the wines I was looking for so we went to the Rockford winery and purchased their 1993 basket press shiraz.  Finally we stopped at the large Penfolds winery and tasted several fine wines.  We bought their 1991 Magill Estate shiraz and a 1991 Leo Buring Leonay riesling.  We drove through Nubiootpa and Tanunda to Lyndock where we stayed at the Woodlands of Lyndock bed and breakfast.  The temperature was over 100 and we were hot and tired after so much wine tasting.  We drove back into Tanunda for a light dinner at the 1918 restaurant.  We sat on the verandah and cooled off then walked around town after dinner and watched some distant heat lightning.



Friday was another hot day.  After a very large cooked breakfast at our B & B, we drove back into Tanunda and mailed a few postcards.  We took a scenic drive that took us through the Grange vineyards. We stopped for a look at Richmond Grove and Peter Lehmann wineries but no tasting so early in the morning.  We followed the drive through Seppeltville again and into Nubiootpa.  We stopped at the Kellermeister winery and sampled some wines but didn’t care much for them.  Our B & B provided us with another picnic basket so we stopped at the picturesque Chateau Yaldara winery and had our picnic lunch.  We sampled their wines but didn’t like them.  We left the Barossa Valley and headed through Gawler, Templers, Tarlee, Auburn and Leasingham in the Clare Valley where we turned off to the pretty town of Mintaro.  This town is a historic trust with pretty slate buildings everywhere.  We stayed at Martindale Hall just 3 kilometers out of Mintaro.  Martindale Hall was the girls school in the movie “Picnic at Hanging Rock”.  It is a mansion built in 1878 and is open to the public from 10 to 4.  We couldn’t check in when we arrived as it was still open for touring so we drove to the pretty copper mining town of Burra.  Many of the buildings here are on the historic register too, although the mines gave out long ago.  This is a very pretty town and is the location for the movie “Breaker Morant”, another Australian movie.  Next we drove to the town of Clare in the Clare Valley wine region and sampled some good wines at Tim Adams winery.  We saw the Sevenhill Cellars and church in Clare but it had just closed for wine tasting.  We drove back to Martindale Hall and checked in.  We were one of two couples staying for the night.  They put us into the huge master bedroom.  We talked a lot with our nice hosts, Les and Carole Rooney, who run the place.  We dressed up for a nice formal dinner with Les in a tuxedo and Carole in a maids costume.  Our five course dinner was too much.  We had soup, then I had shrimp in coconut, followed by pork fillet with vegetables, a chocolate strawberry dessert and a cheese platter.  With the meal we had a good Grossett Polish Hill riesling.  After such a large dinner we couldn’t go to sleep for a long while.  Les let us shoot billiards on the antique billiard table in the men’s lounge and just asked if we would turn off the lights and lock up the doors when we sent to bed.  They stayed in a house out back.  Since the mansion was pretty much as it was built, it did not have air conditioning.  As hot as it was, we went outside to watch stars for a while and cool off but our room was still fairly warm.  We didn’t sleep well that last night but it was quite an experience.



Saturday morning we were given another big cooked breakfast.  We were getting sick of so much food.  We walked around looking in all the rooms once more but had to check out by 10 when they opened to the public.  We drove back through Clare to Gawler and Elizabeth to Adelaide.  We had time to kill so we drove to the seaside palindrome town of Glenelg.  For about an hour we walked around the town and ate an ice cream cone.  Then we drove back into Adelaide and to the Central Markets to get some Kangaroo Island halloumi cheese but the shops were closing up already.  We killed some time driving around town but finally went to the airport and checked in the rental car.  Our flight back to Canberra via Melbourne was uneventful and we arrived home about 9:00 p.m., unpacked, showered and went to bed.  Once more we enjoyed our Australian trip.  We found Adelaide a very nice, livable city and wish we could have had more time to stay for the Adelaide festival which takes place the month of March.  Maybe another trip?

Northern Germany - July 2003

Trip to Northern Germany

July 2003

Since Rita had surgery planned in August and I would be tied to the office because of staffing gaps in my section over the summer, we decided rather last minute to get away while the opportunity allowed.  I looked at my various maps and decided on northern Germany because our Michelin Green Guide has several two and three star sights in that area that we haven’t visited and because my great-great-grandfather, Ernst August Franke, had left Travemunde for Russia in about 1830.  I write this over a month later so my recall of events may be affected by poor memory.  I keep a diary so that will be my source of this write up.



On Friday, July 18, I took off work a couple of hours early and we headed out before the road traffic became too crowded.  We headed north to Antwerp and then east to Eindhoven into Germany.  Rita, as my naviguesser, maneuvered us around the industrial areas of Duisberg and Moers.  There isn’t much scenery to speak of in this area.  We finally left autobahns and were on a back road when we were overcome by hunger.  We stopped at the Hotel Humbert in the small village of Dorstin in Westphalia.  The hotel has been around since 1823 and had a nice outdoor garden where we sat and started with a local Veltin beer.  I wasn’t very impressed with the beer but dinner was better.  We ordered a Westphalia schnitzel, a tender pork cutlet covered in scrambled eggs with a side dish of home fried potatoes with ham chunks.  It looked more like breakfast but tasted good but not low fat by any means.  We did have a side salad, too.



We then continued on to Munster and checked into our Movenpick Hotel situated near a city park on a nice lake.  We walked to the lake and had a very pleasant evening watching the people and their dogs around the lake.  It was very warm and the hotel, as most European hotels, was not air conditioned so we did not sleep all that well.



Saturday was clear, sunny, and increasingly warm.  We checked out of our hotel and drove into central Munster, parked the car and walked to the city center and the Dom or cathedral.  There was a huge Saturday market in the Dom Platz surrounding the cathedral with some great produce, meats and cheeses.  We walked into the cathedral but there was a service going on so we did not wander around inside.  We walked to what is called the Prinzipalmarkt, which is a semicircle street around the Dom with nice shops, the beautiful Rathaus, historical Renaissance houses and the Lambert church with iron steeple.  It was in the Lambertkirche that the bodies of the three Anabaptist leaders (chiefs of a sect advocating baptism for adults only) were exhibited after the movement was crushed in 1536.  Then we walked back to the car and headed on the main autobahn towards Breman, Hamburg, and our destination, Lubeck. 



We arrived in Lubeck in the afternoon and checked into another Movenpick hotel.  We were soon on foot and our first stop was the Holstentor, a 15^th century gate into the old town.  The 14^th century saw Lubeck at its summit as head of the Hanseatic League, the Dutch and northern German cities that monopolized trade with Scandinavia and Russia.  It was a wealthy town and many of the old buildings still stand today after several wars.  We walked to the Rathaus and the main cathedral, Marienkirche.  Inside there is a section where the huge bells remain as they fell from the bell tower in an Allied air raid in 1942.  We walked to Jakobkirche and looked in – we couldn’t go in as there was an organ concert in progress and we were too late to buy tickets.  Across the street we saw the Haus der Schiffergesellschaft or House of the Seamen’s Guild.  It is a pretty, old building which is a nice restaurant now.  We went inside and looked at the old ceilings with models of old ships hanging from the rafters.  We walked around the corner and saw the 13^th century Heilingen Geist (Holy Ghost) Hospital and sat at an outdoor café to drink a local Jerves beer in the shade.  We could hear the organ concert from Jakobkirche.  We walked back to our hotel, changed clothes and drove to Travemunde, just a short distance away.



Travemunde is a port city at the western end of the Baltic Sea and has a lot of ferryboat traffic, especially from Finland.  Today, Travemunde is a seaside resort town and, because it was hot, it was filled with German tourists seeking sun and sand.  It was considerably cooler with a nice sea breeze.  We parked at the biggest hotel in town, the Maritim Hotel, where I had called earlier for reservations at their restaurant.  We sat on a terrace with a great view of the Baltic Sea full of small sailboats and the occasional Finnish ferryboat.  We had a very nice dinner of fresh flounder (called plaice in England and scholle in German – who says travel isn’t educational?) and finished with ice cream sundaes.  We waited until sun set, which is very late this far north, and then walked down to the boardwalk, or promenade as they call it, but it was too crowded with the younger set covered in tattoos and body piercing.  It wasn’t our style.  We drove back to our hotel with a slightly cooler room than the night before in Munster.



Sunday morning Rita said she had dreamed (perhaps?) that a bird or bat had tried to enter our window in the night and she got up to close it.  Nevertheless we slept better anyway and after a big breakfast brunch we checked out and were away mid morning.  We changed plans and decided to skip Hamburg this time around and instead visit some smaller towns recommended by our guidebook.  Hamburg will have to wait for another time.



We drove south on pretty back roads to Ratzeburg, which sits on an island in the middle of a lake.   We drove into the city and back alleys of this pretty town with a 12^th century cathedral overlooking the lake.  Next we drove through the pretty town of Lauenburg on the Elbe River to Luneburg, our first stop.  Luneburg was built on a salt deposit and was a very prosperous town from the 10^th century onwards.  In the Middle Ages it was the principal supplier of salt to many places, notably Scandinavia.  The salt road went from Luneburg through Lauenburg, Ratzeburg, and on to Lubeck.  The traditional architecture of Luneburg is “distinguished by stepped and scrolled gables, cornices with rounded or tiercepoint blind arcades, and the ‘Tausteine’ – a local twisted brick feature producing an effect like a cable switch.”  I couldn’t describe it better.  Look at our photos on our website to get a better idea.



It was hot but we walked through a good part of Luneburg and saw the pretty Rathaus, Old Town with a pharmacy that dates from 1598, St. Johanniskirche with a steeple deliberately inclined to counter the strong winds from the west, and the old port quarter with a 14^th century crane on the river bank.  Along the riverfront were several outdoor cafes and we stopped for a drink where I had a dark Duckstein beer, which tasted good in the heat.  We were happy to get back into the air-conditioned car and head south through what is called the Luneburger Heide or Heath.  This is sparsely populated area with forests and heaths that are designated nature reserves by the government.  We drove through Amelinghausen to Celle where we parked the car again and went on foot.



Celle is a pretty town with colorful crow-stepped house fronts dating back to the 1500s.  Most of the houses had the names of the husband and wife painted on the front and the year they married or at least built their house.  It was sort of a genealogical record.  Our timing was good as there was a major, regional festival starting today in town.  It was a shooting festival (schutzenfest) with gun clubs from all the neighboring villages converging for a parade to kick off the festival.  Men and women were in traditional German costumes and while they didn’t carry any weapons, they were bedecked with dozens of medals hanging from their coats.  Some of the shooters looked as if they could have participated in World War II.  After the parade we walked around town some and bought an ice cream cone to battle the heat.  Then we returned to the car and the road.



We didn’t have any hotel reservations so we planned to just drive through Hanover to Hameln but while stuck in a traffic jam outside of Hanover we looked at our books and found a Marriott Courtyard hotel in Hanover with air conditioning.  I called them on my cell phone and confirmed the air conditioning before making reservations for the night.  We navigated to their hotel on a large city lake in a park.  We checked in then walked to a nearby beer garden on the lake and had large steins of beer in the shade of the trees.  Clouds gathered and we expected rain, maybe a storm, but nothing materialized.  It stayed hot and we had a so-so meal in the hotel restaurant.  The air conditioning felt good and we slept very well.



Monday was the Belgian National Day so our Embassy was closed in Brussels and we enjoyed a three-day weekend.  We had another good, large breakfast buffet and then headed to Hameln, the town of the famous pied piper story.  The town has capitalized on this and there is a walk though the town with rats painted on the cobblestone streets.  Rats dominate the shop windows of toy stores, souvenir shops and all kinds of stores.  There are some pretty houses and squares in town but a short walk and Rita’s back was giving her pain so we were ready to leave.



We headed south on scenic back roads through the upper Weser River valley, which is heavily wooded and somehow skipped by major industrialization.  We drove through Corvey and Hoxter to Furstenberg where we stopped to view the porcelain factory.  Unfortunately it was closed on Mondays.  We did see some shops open across the street but Rita didn’t find anything she had to have.  We stopped for lunch in the pretty town of Bad Karlshafen, which had mostly white buildings with a pretty swan-filled pond in the middle of town.  We had bratwurst, frites and beer for lunch.  Rita had a good Berliner Weiss.  We continued on to the town of Hannoversch Munden and the city of Kassel.  We didn’t stop in Kassel as we were running behind time.  I wanted to at least see the town, as this is where the brothers Grimm, Jakob and Wilhelm, lived from 1805 to 1830, the same time my great-great-grandfather mentions he traveled through town.  You’ll remember the brothers Grimm from the Grimm’s Fairy Tales book.



We re-entered the autobahns once more and headed west through Dortmund, Koln, Achen, Liege and finally made it to Brussels late in the day.  We were hot, sweaty and tired but thoroughly enjoyed our visit to northern Germany.

Middle East Trip in 1974

We had been living in Teheran, Iran, since January of 1974 and I made some extra money working as a basketball announcer for the Asian Games held in Teheran in early September.  Ramadan, our first experience with this month of daytime fasting, started September 17.  On a rather spur-of-the-moment idea, we decided that a trip to see some of the highlights of the Middle East would be fun.  We hastily made airline reservations and left Rachel and Gretchen with next door neighbors Kathy and Farhad (Fred) Razi.  Fred was an American and England trained architect, Kathy was a nurse, and they had twin boys who were born the same day as Gretchen. 

We left about September 28 or 29 and flew Alia Airlines from Teheran to Amman, Jordan.  I say about because I don’t have much memorabilia from the trip.  I didn’t start keeping a daily diary until 1977 so this trip is based on our memories which are fading over time.  Also, this was before the Internet and emails.  We made reservations through American Express for a hotel at our first stop.  In Amman we took the recommendation of the Philadelphia Hotel in the downtown area.  It was adjacent to the old Roman Amphitheater which we explored later. 

The main reason to go to Jordan was to see the rose red city of Petra.  We had read up on it way before Indiana Jones and “The Last Crusade”.  Rita is certain we just checked into the hotel, inquired about a trip to Petra, left our suitcases with the hotel and caught a long-distance taxi right away.  It could be true – we were that flighty.  We crowded into the nice Mercedes Benz taxi with a driver and three other Arabs all in Arab dress and silent the whole trip.  Since it was Ramadan we refrained from eating or drinking on the three-hour trip.  Arab music was playing on the radio and when the woman singer started what sounded like continuous guttural yodeling, Rita broke into the giggles.  We finally reached our destination and the driver, who spoke for the first time (and in perfect English), told us what time we can catch a taxi back to Amman the next day.

In 1974 there were no hotels at the entrance to Petra as I understand there are now.  There was no tourist office.  We were dropped off at the Siq or entrance with no idea where to go next.  It didn’t take long and a grizzled old man came running up asking if we wanted to go into Petra.  We were told there was a camp in the middle of Petra where we could spend the night.  Then he and a friend brought out two horses for us to ride as they held the reins.  The old man kept patting Rita on her butt saying “Sit up Madam.  Sit up.”  He also tried to play history guide even though he could speak almost no English.  He pointed to a groove in the rocks as we rode through the narrow entrance and told us it was a “dukweack”.  So for the rest of our lives whenever we come across a Roman aqueduct we look at each other and in unison say “dukweack”! 

Like everyone else, as soon as we arrived at the Treasury we stopped, stared in awe, and took photos of the amazing rock carving.   A little further we dismounted at Nazzal’s Camp, built in 1943 with eleven rooms.  Luckily they had a room as there were very few guests mid-week during Ramadan.  At dinner that night there was only a party of three French tourists besides us.  I’m fairly certain the cost was under $10 and almost worth every dollar.  We had two single beds that bowed almost down to the floor.  Oh well, it was only for one night.

We arrived at Nazzal’s Camp midafternoon with plenty of daylight remaining.  Armed with a map we explored on foot.  We saw our first Roman ruins and graffiti carved into rocks.  We went in and out of ancient Nabatean ruins – rooms carved out of the pink rock like the Treasury but smaller.  The sky was clear and with no breezes in the enclosed valley, it was quite hot and dusty.  Our meal at the camp was unmemorable and our room was not air conditioned.  A noisy generator provided light but it went out about 9 pm.  We were exhausted after a long day and quickly fell asleep in those terrible beds.

We felt refreshed in the morning and had a nice breakfast of toast and fresh eggs.  I say fresh because there were chickens and goats around the camp.  We had until the afternoon when the taxi returned and our “guides” with the horses returned for us.  We did an exhausting climb over rocks on a trail to a site called the “High Place”.  In the last half mile or so we noticed a Bedouin with a cooler following us.  As we reached the top he came out of nowhere on a different approach and surprised us.  He just wanted to sell us a “Bebsi” so we had a Pepsi Cola from his cooler.  We noticed what looked like a small pool with channels running into it.  He noticed our confusion and directed Rita to lie down on the rocks by one of the channels.  Then he took his can opener and made a motion of slicing it along Rita’s neck showing us it was a place for sacrifice and a pool to collect the blood.  But I think they used goats or sheep and not human sacrifice.  It was a bit eerie at first but he turned out friendly.

Soon it was time to saddle up and head out of the Siq where the taxi showed up on time and took us back to the Philadelphia Hotel in Amman.  Our suitcases were right where we left them and we were given a comfortable room.  All I can say is that we were very trusting or naïve but all turned out well.  We had a multi-course dinner in the hotel dining room and a sort of hash or stew was put down for the first course.  It tasted different but not bad as it had a nice sauce.  I asked the waiter what it was and was informed it was kidneys.  A first for us and again, too trusting.

The next morning we were awakened out of a sound sleep by a loud cannon shot on the hilltop across from the hotel.  We wondered if another Middle East war had broken out but were told it was a warning shot that sunrise was in one hour so eat your breakfast now – we forgot it was Ramadan. 

We took another long-distance taxi to the ancient Greco-Roman city of Jerash just north of Amman.  Again we were about the only tourists at the ruins which were in very good condition.  We paid a modest entry fee and set out on foot over a large, complex archeological site.  The Greeks and Romans called the city Gerasa and we explored the forum, amphitheater, Temple of Artemis, Arch of Hadrian and much more.  Jerash was our first large Greco-Roman city to explore and we had it mostly to ourselves.  We took a taxi back to Amman and walked around the old part of the city for a short while.

The next day we checked out and caught a flight on Egypt Air to Cairo arriving late in the evening with no hotel reservations.  We found out that Cairo was a big party town during Ramadan and there would be very few hotel rooms available.  At the tourist desk a man from Indonesia who we met on the plane suggested we go to the Carlton Hotel where he was staying.  We could even share a taxi.  What could go wrong?

First of all one of our suitcases, a Samsonite, was mostly empty because we had plans to shop in Lebanon.  The taxi driver piled all our suitcases on top but didn’t tie them down.  Then he drives at very high speeds towards the hotel.  Soon the nearly empty suitcase lifts off and crashes onto the highway sliding alongside the taxi with sparks lighting up the dark.  We stop, the taxi driver retrieves the suitcase, and I examine it for damage.  Amazingly it didn’t open up, I could still unlock it with a key and the damage was deep scratches on the side against the road.  The driver tied it down this time and we made our way to the Carlton Hotel.  It would have made a good Samsonite commercial.

Don’t confuse the Carlton Hotel with Ritz-Carlton.  There is no connection whatsoever.  This Carlton Hotel was built in the 1930s by an English company and probably was quite grand in its prime.  It was about midnight, we were exhausted, and they had a room.  We took it and immediately fell into bed.  The next morning we realized what a mistake we had made.  It was quite run down and with one look we both refused to shower in that bathroom.  At breakfast, which wasn’t all that bad, we saw that most of the other customers were young Europeans traveling on a tight budget.  Our room was about the equivalent of $10 and we checked out right after breakfast.

What to do?  We took a taxi to a high-rise Sheraton Hotel that had just opened up a few months prior.  We looked, and probably smelled, rather disgusting.  We asked for a room and were told they were filled up.  So we sat down in nice lobby chairs and made ourselves conspicuous.  Several times when we saw some party checking out I would go up to the counter and ask if they had a room now.  I think hotel security was checking us out but I informed them that I did have an American Express card and could afford a room.  Eventually, to get us out of the lobby, they said, yes, we have a room on the 21^st floor and quoted a fairly expensive rate.  We took it for two nights.

After a good night’s sleep and a couple of long showers we booked an all day tour through a tour company in the Sheraton Hotel.  We started off visiting the Alabaster Mosque also known as the Muhammad Ali Mosque.  Then to the City of the Dead, a huge necropolis that was much quieter than the city.  Next we toured the oldest pyramid in Egypt in the town of Saqqara sometimes spelled Sakkara.  At lunchtime the small van we were traveling in took the half-day tourists back to their hotels.  We had lunch and waited on the front lawn of the beautiful Mena House Hotel until we were shooed away.  The afternoon was spent at the great pyramids of Giza along with the Sphinx.  We rode camels for the first time and behaved like real tourists. 

The next day we said goodbye to our nice Sheraton Hotel room and caught an Egyptian Air flight to Beirut, Lebanon, which in 1974 was called the Paris of the Middle East.  Before our trip we had been recommended to a hotel which we stayed at called either Pension Vienna or Pension Austria.  We remember well that it was on Rue Mexique.  It was small, clean and very affordable.  It was run by an Austrian couple and had good schnitzel at dinner time.

Beirut was a beautiful city on the Mediterranean Sea with Parisian nightclubs, casinos, exclusive hotels along the water and a French flavor.  I think we walked around Beirut that first afternoon and got the lay of the city.  We probably did a little shopping as well.

The next day we rented a VW Beetle through Europecar that totaled up to $300 for the day.  With a very limited tourist map and no GPS, we headed south along the beautiful seawall drive called the Corniche towards Sidon and Tyre.  A short distance from Beirut we encountered a military roadblock and was told we could not continue to Sidon.  This was a year before the Lebanese Civil war that destroyed the country and lasted 15 years.  There were disturbances further south along the Israeli border and we could go no further.

So we turned inland east to the Beqaa Valley and the fabulous ruins of Baalbek.  The Beqaa Valley is the main farming region of Lebanon and had several great vineyards with excellent wines.  The town of Baalbek was originally a Phoenician city and later a large Roman town where a huge temple to Jupiter was erected over two thousand years ago.   But it is estimated that the area was inhabited as early as 9000 BC.  The Roman temple was built on the foundation of an earlier temple with blocks estimated at 3000 tons.  It is amazing and Rita and I spent a couple of hours there.  We weren’t the only tourists and several young men on motorcycles approached us wanting to sell us hashish.  No we didn’t.

We continued north along the Beqaa Valley following signs to the Cedars of Lebanon.  We headed west climbing out of the valley on a switch back road over the mountains to a small grove of very tall cedar trees.  It was called the Cedars of God Forest but the forest was pretty small.  In 1998 this small forest was put on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites.  It seems that much of the area used to be covered with the huge trees but they were cut down by the Phoenicians and others (Alexander the Great) to build temples and mostly ships.  Unfortunately very few remain today.  Close by our road took us to the pretty little village of Bsharri in the mountains at an altitude of about 5,000 to 10,000 feet.  It is the village where Khalil Gibran, poet, painter and sculptor, was born.  The roadsides in this area are filled with statues of Mary and Jesus as this is the Christian sector of the country.  The surrounding villages along the road made one think they were in southern Italy or Spain.  We followed the winding mountain road to the village of Amioun where we could see the Mediterranean in the distance at sunset.   It was time to get back and we took the coastal road through Byblos as nightfall covered Beirut.  It was a long day.

The next day was spent shopping in Beirut’s great department stores.  We filled that empty suitcase with lots of clothes and shoes for the girls.  We also put in some food supplies we couldn’t get in Teheran like dark Karo syrup and peanut butter.  We also went to a nice theater to see the movie “Sugarland Express”, an early Steven Spielberg movie starring Goldie Hawn.  Since the story takes place in Texas we had a vested interest and the little Arab lady sitting next to us hushed at us because we commented on the scenes.  The movie was in English with Arabic and French subtitles which were a little distracting. 

The next day we flew back to Teheran on MEA (Middle East Airlines) but at the Beirut Airport we had one more unexpected shopping surprise.  I came across a nice heavy wool suit at a kiosk that I really liked – gray with thin blue window panes.  It was made in Spain.  The salesman was pushing it hard and we only had a few minutes before boarding but I didn’t know if it would fit.  So he shoved me behind a counter where I took off my jeans in front of everyone and tried the suit on.  It was a perfect fit, affordable, and a quick sale.  I haven’t disrobed in an airport since then.  That suit lasted many years too and was one of my favorites. 

Looking back we consider ourselves fortunate to have seen some of the Middle East that is dangerous to return to today.  Also, in our old age, we look back and wonder what the hell we were doing.  We were naïve, trusting and very, very lucky.