Denmark, Germany, and Austria November 2022: Week 1

 

Denmark, Germany, and Austria

November 2022

 

Friday, November 11 and Saturday, November 12:   

Becky and I decided that we would take a trip to Europe in November to take advantage of cheaper travel prices and less tourists.  We flew out of Seattle around noon on a non-stop flight to JFK airport.  Due to a tropical storm making its way up the East Coast, our flight was put into two holding patterns before touching down.  Then we sat on the tarmac for 45 minutes.  Since our layover was only an hour and a half, we ran from one terminal to the next to try and catch our flight to Copenhagen.  They had just closed the door at the gate and told us to go the help desk.  After a while Delta finally got us on another flight with Air France to Paris, where we would have a nine-hour layover!  So, we had to run again to another terminal to barely make it on that flight.  After a long flight we made it to Paris.  We tried to get on an earlier flight to Copenhagen, but we were misled by a crusty Air France worker.  After nine hours of sleeping and aimlessly wandering the Paris airport, we finally caught our plane to Copenhagen.

Unexpected layover in Paris

Getting some sleep in the Paris Airport

We arrived in Copenhagen around midnight, almost 12 hours later than expected.  We then jumped on the metro to the area where our Airbnb was located.  After a 2 km walk to an office complex to pick up the key and another 2 km walk to the apartment (all while pulling our carry-on bags over cobblestone.. well at least Becky’s bag.  One wheel on my bag broke, so we had to strap my bag onto Becky’s with Becky’s belt), we finally made it to our Airbnb around 1am and crashed in bed.

 

Sunday, November 13:

            Even though we were tired, we couldn’t sleep in.  We took the metro back to the airport where we picked up our rental car (fortunately they held the car for us).  We then drove back to the area close to our Airbnb, parked the car, and then walked into downtown Copenhagen.  Our first stop was Freetown Christiania, which is a free-society, quasi-hippie type neighborhood.  We walked around a bit and then headed over to a church with a cool spiral steeple. 

Our Airbnb in Copenhagen

Freetown Christiania

            After a bit of walking, we arrived at Nyhavn, which is famous for its multi-colored houses.  The Christmas markets were opening up, so everything was getting covered in decorations.  We spent some time wandering around the markets and then made our way over to the Copenhagen Cathedral, which is home to the famous statues of Christ and his Apostles by Thorvaldsen.  Though the Cathedral is somewhat plain on the outside, the statues inside are magnificent!  We then went over to Christiansborg palace and looked around, then started the long walk back to our car.  

Nyhavn, Copenhagen

Nyhavn

Christmas Market

Copenhagen Cathedral with Christus Statue and Apostles

Old Stock Exchange

Christianborg Palace

 

   Since we still had a five-hour drive to Hamburg ahead of us, we got in the car and drove across Denmark and headed south into Germany.  We arrived in Hamburg late in the evening and found our way to Lucy’s family’s apartment, where we met her family.  Lucy was our exchange student that lived with us from 2019 to 2020.  We stayed up late talking with her family until Lucy arrived home.  Lucy and her dad then took us over to her Dad’s shop, where they had a nice room where we could stay.

 

Bridge in Denmark

Monday, November 14:

            Since the room we were staying in was completely black and we were exhausted, we overslept (we didn’t think we would need to set an alarm since we kept waking up early), and got to Lucy’s apartment really late for breakfast.  We felt bad that they were waiting for us!  After breakfast, Lucy, her parents, and Becky and I took the train into downtown Hamburg and went to the Miniatur Wunderland, which is a huge complex that houses small-scale models of famous places with miniature trains, planes, and automobiles!  It has several world records for the most miniature train tracks.  We were amazed at all the details in each diorama.  There were several hidden “Easter Eggs” that you had to spot in the dioramas. 

Miniatur Wunderland

Lucy and Becky at Miniatur Wunderland

Airport

Las Vegas

The Alps

Becky, Lucy, and her parents

          

One of the hidden "Easter Eggs"... bear attacking a camper

Scene from "Star Wars"

Murder scene... notice the body in the creek

Lovers in a field of sunflowers

  

We then wandered through the old warehouse area and over to the new opera house that sits right in the harbor and has a great view over the city.  Once it was dark, we headed over to the Dom, which is a huge fair in the St. Pauli area. There were lots of tasty food options to sample and we even tried a few rides and games.  We then wandered over for a quick look at the world-famous Reeperbahn and then made our way to the Rathaus (city hall) and finished the night looking at a few shops in a mall.

Warehouses, Hamburg

Opera House

View of Hamburg from the Opera House

The Dom fair in Hamburg

Taste testing the food

Reeperbahn

Rathaus, Hamburg

Tuesday, November 15:

            After breakfast we went to a few thrift stores with Lucy and her dad.  We then met up with Lucy’s mom and we took the train back to downtown Hamburg where we met up with Katy, another exchange student who stayed with us briefly when Covid first broke out.  All of us then hopped on a ferry taxi and took a tour of the harbor and the river.  We said goodbye to Katy and then went over to an old elevator system that took you down to a tunnel that went under the river and connects the city to the harbor area. 

Tour of the harbor with Lucy and her parents and Katy

Becky, Lucy, and Katy

Elevators down to tunnel

Tunnel under the river connecting the harbor and the city

After this we went back to Lucy’s apartment.  On the way we stopped at Katy’s mom’s beauty salon and surprised her (she knew we were in town, but didn’t think we would stop by).  She gave us some awesome shirts and jewelry from Africa.  We sat around in the salon and talked with her for a while.  We ended the evening going out to dinner with Lucy and her parents and brothers.  The food was excellent and we enjoyed sitting around and talking.  Lucy and her dad then took us back to the shop where we had to say goodbye until the next time we see each other.

 

Meeting Katy's mom at her Salon

Wednesday, November 16:

            In order to beat the traffic in Hamburg, we got up very early and got on the road and drove south.  It was raining extremely hard, so we couldn’t drive as fast as we wanted to on the Autobahn.  Our first stop was at the Frankfurt temple, which is outside of Frankfurt in the small village of Friedrichsdorf.  

Frankfurt, Germany Temple

    We then continued driving south and arrived in Heidelberg.  I visited Heidelberg in 1996 and it was exactly how I remembered it.  We took the funicular up the hillside to Heidelberg Castle.  Inside the castle we looked through the pharmacy museum and then wandered around the outside of the castle.  Everything was beautiful with most of the trees in their autumn colors.  We then spent some time looking around Heidelberg and checking out some of the shops. 

Heidelberg Castle

Pharmacy museum

Largest Wine Barrel

Heidelberg Castle and town

Heidelberg

            Since we were so close, we decided to drive over to Speyer to get some dinner.  Back in 1996 I spent a summer in Speyer as an exchange student.  It was very nostalgic to walk around by the Speyer Cathedral and then go to the Domhof, a brewery and restaurant where I used to go for food.  We ate at the Domhof and then took a few more pictures around town.  We then got back in the car and drove a few hours over to Stuttgart. 

           

Speyer Cathedral

Domhof Brewery and Restaurant

Eating Spatzle

Thursday, November 17:

            Our first stop this morning was the Mercedes Museum.  The museum is built like a double-helix.  You start by taking an elevator to the top and then winding your way down the ramps and looking at all of the exhibits.  The first cars you see are the first automobiles ever built, by Daimler and Benz.  You then go through the various galleries that covered everything from public transportation, to luxury cars, to racing, and everything in between.  I had to get a picture next to my favorite car of all time, the 1955 300SL “Gullwing” (there was a very observant security guard strategically positioned next to the car, since everyone wanted to get a picture of it).  Of course, there is a large Mercedes dealership at the end of the tour.  I asked Becky if we could test-drive one and take one home as a souvenir.  You can probably guess her answer!

First Automobiles, Mercedes Museum, Stuttgart

One of only two produced... the other sold for $64 million!

My favorite car... 1955 300SL "Gullwing"

Mercedes Museum, Stuttgart

            After lunch we drove two hours over to Rothenburg.  Rothenburg is an old, walled city that contains many old houses and is famous for its shops.  Once we entered the old part of town, we headed over to the torture museum.  This small, but enlightening museum contained lots of torture devices that were used to either get information out of people, shame them for their bad behavior, or punish them, which usually ended in death. 

Torture Chair

The rack

Iron Maiden

Shame Mask

Chastity Belts

            Since it was November and cold and rainy, there weren’t a lot of tourists around.  Normally Rothenburg is packed full of tourists.  We walked around town, stopping at some of the more picturesque sites.  You can even walk along the wall around the entire town.  Unfortunately, it was already night time when we decided to try to walk along the top of the wall, which was too dark and dangerous with only our cellphone flashlights. In the evening, we joined the nightwatchman’s tour.  A local tour guide dresses up as a medieval nightwatchman, whose job was to wander the town at night to make sure there were no intruders or fires.  Though it was raining very hard, there were about 25 people on our tour.  We followed the nightwatchman to several spots around town where he told stories of what life was like back then, with lots of humor woven into his tales.  By the end of the tour we were tired from a very long day, so we went to our Airbnb outside of town and crashed for the night.

 

Rothenburg

Main Square in Rothenburg

Most photographed house in Germany

Friday, November 18:

            This morning we left Rothenburg and drove south for about three hours until we arrived at Neuschwanstein Castle, which is close to the Austrian border.  Fortunately we had booked our tour tickets several weeks in advance, since this world-famous place is busy, even in the late fall.  We walked up the somewhat steep road to the entrance to the castle and waited for our appointed tour time.  Once inside we were quickly shuttled through various rooms in the castle.  Since mad King Ludwig died before his fairytale castle was completed, only certain rooms were finished.  Sadly, you couldn’t take pictures inside, except at the very end in the kitchen section.

Hiking up to Neuschwanstein Castle

Looking over at Marienbrucke, or Mary's Bridge

Kitchen inside the castle

 After touring the castle, we hiked over to Marienbrucke, or Mary’s bridge, which is famous for it’s amazing view of the castle.  Normally the bridge is jam packed with tourists, but since it was raining and the off-season, it wasn’t very crowded.  We then decided to hike for a bit up the hillside that is after the bridge.  The further we got from the bridge the crowds got smaller until we were the only ones around.  After climbing for about half an hour, we arrived at an amazing viewpoint of the castle and the surrounding countryside, including Hohenschwangau Castle, where young King Ludwig grew up, and the Alps.  It then started to gently snow on us and started to get dark, so we quickly hiked down to the castle and back to our car. 

The view from the castle looking toward Hohenschwangau Castle

Looking down from the bridge

Neuschwanstein Castle

View from our hike

Setting up a picture

Neuschwanstein Castle

From there we drove another hour and a half into Austria and over a few mountain passes.  Our Airbnb was located in a small village called Obsteig, which is right in the middle of the Alps.  It was very dark and rainy and we got lost trying to find the place (our car’s GPS took us to the middle of a field).  Thankfully a local stopped us and helped us find the right place.  Since we were in desperate need of some clean laundry, we spent the rest of the evening washing clothes in the shared washing machine and trying our best to dry them in our room (the dryer was broken).