Cornerman

Frankfurt – day one

Today is our first day in Frankfurt, not your typical city for a citytrip. But mostly big city’s are cool one way or the other, Frankfurt being no exception. The opposite to our surprise.

We started our day pretty late, first stop was breakfast or should I say brunch or even lunch in Nordend. A very cool neighborhood, with lot’s of bars and restaurants. After breakfast we just strolled around and took some pictures.

After the Nordend we decided to check out the city center. Which is a lot busier with all the shops and restaurant chains being there. Not as much fun. Frankfurt was bombed heavily in the war and most of the old city is gone. A bit of it is still there, and partly rebuild which is full of cheap bars and restaurants. Everything is aimed at getting drunk very fast for as little money as possible.

After buying some records we decided it was time to go for dinner. We went to Oostend restaurant which is near the new ECB headquarters at the river. A very nice part of town, except for the ECB building and surrounding perimeter. Which is really out of tune with the rest of the neighborhood.

After a nice meal we walked along the river and there was a nice summer theater and music festival going on. So we stayed there for a while and enjoyed the scenery. Lot’s of people just hanging around and enjoying summer.A very nice place in a surprisingly fun city.Wish we had more of this in the Netherlands.

Walking down the river to the next subway station. With a train every 6 minutes , which is great. We went back to our hotel and had a drink at the bar.

Heidelberg

It’s time to leave the black forest and head for Frankfurt, on the road to Frankfurt there is a nice University city, Heidelberg. Which is a nice break from driving. It was pretty busy on the road today.

So after little over 2 hours we reached Heidelberg. It’s a small city and has a nice vibe. Apart from the bus loads of tourists which remain mostly in the Hauptstrabe and the main square , which is good for the the city population and people like us.

I wonder if they see anything at all, just staring at their Ipads , Iphones and whatever device they are attached to. And don’t forget to wear your headphones at all times. Ow and when you take a picture, make sure that you are on 99,9 % of the picture with a landmark in the background, preferably making some sort of peace sign. Well now you have an idea which type of tourist discovered Heidelberg.

We spotted a nice Moroccan restaurant with really good and cheap food. Very busy place. We then just wandered the streets a bit and stopped for a drink here and there.

It was getting late quickly so we decided to grab a burger at die kuh die lacht and head for Frankfurt. The traffic was mostly gone now and after little under an hour we reached our hotel. Now it’s time for a quick shower and a drink. Tomorrow we will explore Frankfurt.

Schwimmbad

Yes back in the schwimmbad again, got there around 11:15 and just relaxed, swimming a bit and enjoying the shade and the sun. Ate a plate of fries and currywurst, and had a relaxing day. The temperature was about 36 around 15:00. Pretty warm indeed.

So not much action, although I did manage to run to the nearby waterfall and back, pretty early in the morning and the sun was already there in full force. So just an easy run and enjoying the scenery.

They hold a yearly trailrun event here as well, maybe something I would like to do next year.

Tomorrow it’s time for a drive to our next stop Frankfurt. Which promises a little less heat.

Panoramic views

Another hike today, near Freiburg there is a hike along some very nice panoramic views and a ruin. We got up early, and started the hike around 10:30. It was already very hot near 29 degrees.

The first part of the hike was from the monastery to the higher parts, not too steep fortunatly. We took a few pictures and continued. The hike was very pleasent but it got very hot.

After lunch at the ruin we decided to shorten our remaining hike. We cut a climb which saved us 1,2 km and got back to the car.

A very nice hike with cool views and no other people around, except for some Mtb’ers and some people with campervans.
Hippies mostly 😉

As it’s the resting day for the people at the guesthouse we bought some bread cheese and meats, the plan was to have dinner at the balcony but some persistent wasps and the blistering heat forced us inside. Sort of camping in the room , which was nice.

Tomorrow promises to be even warmer than today , so most likely we will head to the schwimmbad once more.

Learning Linux

Well , since I have a very very old laptop which used to run windows 7 and got extremely slow, I now installed Ubuntu on it.

Which is easy, simply next next next and yout there.

A bit of a travel companion, doing some browsing , editing pics and creating docs and that was it. Now I have decided to use it as a programming tool as well. Using phyton, which is free and very good, apparently.

The thing is I never had to use all the different Linux commands until now. Learning again , which thanks to the good old internet is fun :).

Hiking im Schwarzwald.

Today we hiked around the town we are staying in, luckily it rained early in the morning so the temperature was nice. We started from our guesthouse and made our way up. We first followed a trail which led us too different water mills, which have been restored in recent years.

The walk was very nice. Great views. After a while we got back to the town from where the second part of the hike started. But first a coffee. From here on it was up a hill and back down again, we only made the error to go down too soon and we ended up back in the town. Not what we had in mind. So we had to do a few extra kilometers to get back. All in all a very nice hike and great wheather.

Now I will get a much deserved beer. And some food.

Freiburg

Today we decided to head for Freiburg, a city nearby. It rained until 12:30 which was good for the temperature. Freiburg is a nice small city. It has a university. After some walking around and shopping had lunch. After lunch we visited the cathedral on the main square, which was very beautifull. All in all a relaxing day. We had hoped for a bigger drop in the temperature, but as the sun started to appear from behind the clouds the temperature quickly rose above 30 degrees.

Hopefully it will rain this night so we can hike in lower temperatures tomorrow. We’ll see.

Swimming pool

Today we spent most of our time in the swimming pool of the village, it was 30 degrees allready when we woke up and now it’s still 37 (17:28).
The swimming pool has free entry for tourists like us. We got a card from our gasthoff which allows us all sorts of free entry, and free public transport.

So we mostly read and took a dive in the pool. Just keeping cool. Not much happend today. therefore a much shorter post.

The internet is out and about somewehere but somehow my computer doesn’t get any signal. So all my posts are late or will be late.

Dachau and the Black Forest

Today we travel from Munich to the Black Forest. A 4,5 hour drive if all goes well. First we visit Dachau, the concentatration camp near Munich. I have never been to a concentration camp this size.

When we arrived it was already 32 degrees celcius, it was actually very busy. Lot’s of school children which is very important.

The camp itself to me is a daunting place, maybe it was the heat or just being there but I got very sad. Simply because nothing really changed from those days. After WWII we had numerous events where lot’s of people were killed simply for being different. Maybe not on the scale with which it happened in WWII, but on a large scale nevertheless.

Even today. Really really depressing. ‘Never again’ a plaque in the camp says. Well we’re not there yet, not by a long shot.

Still I think it’s very important to visit these historic places. To remember how lucky we are to live in the West, a place on earth where freedom is the norm and being able to express different opinions.

After this stop we went off for the Black forest, a pretty long drive with some slow traffic on the 2 lane roads in the last hour and a half. Beautiful scenery made up for it. We arrived at our Ghasthaus Ratsstuble at around 17:30. Which was good. We had a nice meal and some beers before chilling on our terrace.

it’s going to be very hot tomorrow so we won’t be doing any long hikes just yet. Just walking down to the pool I think.

Munich – Day three

Today our third full and final day in Munich, started out with a nice breakfast at the same place as yesterday, Maria. Very good once again and I got lucky 🙂 , I had the last croissant.

A good start of the day. It was around 30 degrees celcius so we planned a relaxed day walking around and visiting some places we forgot the previous two days.

We visited the Asam Kirche , very cool indeed. Did some shopping, no purchases which is good. We then checked out the surf in Munich, which is pretty cool.

Very skillfull surfers indeed. It’s at the beginning of the English garten and due to some sort of barrier in the river there is a constant single wave.

Lot´s of people watching and very polite surfers. Everybody gets a wave. Awesome. Be sure to check it out when in Munich.

After that it was way past lunch time and we ate at the Goldene bar, which was nice and a terrace in the shade.

Finally we went to see the Keith Haring exhibition. At first I didn’t want to go as it was a bit late in the afternoon but my better half convinced me otherwise. Very good indeed, we had seen an exhibition in the Brooklyn Museum so I was afraid I wouldn’t see anything new. I was wrong. Lot’s of work we hadn’t seen before, which came from private european collectors and lot’s of big pieces. Very happy we did go !

We slowly returned to our hotel and decided to dine in the neighbourhood. Nice meal and a very good bottle of wine.

Munich is a very nice and relaxed place to visit. Especially if you stay away from all the tourist stuff (Basically Altstadt) and like exploring different parts of the city. It’s full of nice parks, restaurants, shops. Lot’s of art and musea as well but we simply didn’t have time. It would take a full month to fully see everything.

Munich is well worth your time. You can easily spent a few days.