Frankfurt, Germany

My poor bestie Heather.  She's been left out of a few trips. Ok, just one, but it was a big one.  Back in 2013, Sara and I went to Paris for a long weekend and to this day, I don't even know WHY we didn't invite her.  Maybe because Sara and I have a love for all things Paris and we had never heard Heather ever mention that she might be interested, so we just didn't think to invite her!  But it's the source of MANY jokes between the three of us now.  Then, when Heather took a new job some time ago, it meant travel to Germany maybe once or twice a year.  Of course, the last two times she has visited, we have been cavorting around Europe somewhere and I haven't been able to see her.

Until now, yay!

Even better?  Hubs stayed home with the kiddos and I got to enjoy a full, kid-free 24 hours!

Her flight didn't land until about lunchtime, so we went to the hotel and dropped our things off and went into the city.  Frankfurt isn't exactly Germany's most exciting city.  There isn't a lot of history and it's mostly a very modern city and financial hub. But we managed to find a fun little street fest in the Hauptwache!

We enjoyed some currywurst (me) and some brats on brot (her) and of course, a couple of beers!  Because... when in Germany!

We were quite confused by this little street fest as it more resembled a 4H Fair than anything else.  Cows in downtown Frankfurt, cool!

The Café Hauptwache sits in the middle of the square and was a police station and prison in the 1700s.  It was destroyed in WWII, but rebuilt again in the 1960s (and this was a second rebuild due to construction work on the subway that sits below it).

All the meats for sale from this little meat wagon in Frankfurt.

They had a stage at the little fest/market and they were cooking something with HANDKASE!!!!  I cannot imagine how disgusting whatever they were making was.

You could even pretend to milk a cow, if you wanted to!

The Römberger is a little area in the heart of Frankfurt with half timber buildings.  The Frankfurt Town Hall is also here.

Isn't the Römberger so pretty?

The Frankfurt Rathaus is adorable, too!  I love the staircase roof!

Going down to the Eiserner (Iron) bridge near the river was really nice.  There's lots of restaurants that line the river and it's a great place to grab a drink on a nice day.

The pretty clock tower at the Frankfurt History Museum.

Frankfurt is a major hub for commerce and finance, hence the tall buildings to house plenty of companies.

No open tables for us here, unfortunately (although again, I'm not loving the floodplain management here!  What happens in a big flood?  This gets destroyed and causes a ton of debris downstream.)

FC Bayern Munchen in the house!

Naturally, I had to introduce Heather to the German tradition of cake and coffee in the mid afternoon.

From the Hauptwache, you can see that there were people on top of the Galleria shopping center, so we decided to head up and check it out.  Look!  Super views from the top!  Frankfurt, you aren't totally unfortunate looking!

Looking south from atop of the Galleria.

We swung by the Cathedral on our way to dinner, but of course, it's under construction. There's been a building on site since the 7th century, but this one was built in the 1500s.  Naturally, it was destroyed by fire (1867) and again during WWII, and finally reconstructed again in the 1950s.

Since Heather couldn't come to Bavaria, I had to take her to Bavaria for dinner.  Paulaner has a restaurant in Frankfurt, so we went for some Bavarian food and beer!  Notice her schnitzel has a fried egg on it! MMMM!

Hilariously, "on this date" in Facebook showed that she and I took our daughters to a Princess Party in Wellesley!  In 2012, we were princesses... in 2017, we drank beer in Frankfurt!  Hooray for best friends!  I miss you, Heather!

Random August and September Happenings

Lots of things happened in September that weren't really travel related but I like to document them anyway!  First... we had the first day of school!  

First, the "nice" first day of school picture on the front steps.

Second, always a funny first day of school picture on the front steps.

What?  What is this?  Where did these babies go?  Who are these big kids?

One day, the kids and Todd went on a hike in Pottenstein (leaving Mommy at home to GSD.)  They did a pretty decent hike!

They hiked so hard, Grant had to take off his shirt!

But the views in Pottenstein were amazing!  Kind of wish I had gone!

This was a pretty cool tower that you could climb and get really pretty views of the Swiss Franconian countryside.

See?  Super pretty!  Little boy and little girl have their walking sticks.  Isn't Bavaria pretty?

There's a spot in the grass where you can place rocks and make your name or a phrase out of it.  I think you can see what my family did with the rocks that they spent 30 minutes collecting!

Then the cuties went over to the Pottenstein mountain coaster and took a ride!

Cool pic of Grant doing some jumping in Pottenstein.

Nat getting some major air in Pottenstein.  They love doing this!

We also had a tornado come through near Vilseck and Sorghof when we were on our trip to Liechtenstein!  Thankfully, there wasn't much of any structural damage, but the trees got tore up!

The tree damage was so bad on this section of SR2166, that they had to close it for a period of time while they got all of the trees out of the road!

I also went to see my sweet friend Jessica in the (female version) of the Odd Couple at the GPAC.  That's her on the far right. She was SO funny!  Such a good performance!

Natalie also got a mega haircut!  Isn't she lovely?

THEN there was Hurricane Irma.  My parents had to evacuate, which meant my dad had to take his traditional "drinking the Wild Turkey" picture before the storm hit.  It's one of my favorite things that he does!  It's so him!

At one point, this was the track of Hurricane Irma. RIGHT. OVER. MY. CITY.  I stared at the radar for hours, and as it made its turn toward the Florida Keys, it was supposed to head northwest but began instead to take a more northerly turn.  Frame by frame, I watched as the storm stayed on a northward path. It was the best situation for Tampa Bay, because it would have more land mass to chew it up before it got there, weakening it significantly.  And that's what happened!  In the end, my parents had a lot of landscaping damage and about $1500 worth of damage to the roof.  They were definitely lucky to avoid major damage.

I might have had a birthday in September, too.  My husband sure knows how to decorate a cake!

OK forget the darn cake.  LOOK WHAT HE MADE ME! Seriously!  He made this!  That's one of my Makers Mark bottles! He's like MacGuyver! I can't tell you how thrilled I was with this gift.  Seriously thoughtful and he put so much hard work into it!  (Now I told him he has to make more and sell them so we can do more traveling!)

Now we're on to October!

Nuremberg, Germany (Take Five!)

We went over to Nuremberg for an afternoon when Todd's old roommate Jen and her husband David were in town briefly as a stop on their whirlwind tour of central Europe working on some things for their super cool company Approach Guides (check it out here!  http://www.approachguides.com/)

Walking through the original walls of Nuremburg.  They were built sometime between the 12th and the 16th century.  Funny story... we were watching the Patriots game recently and a commercial came on that advertised a beer that had been brewed since 1925.  Natalie actually laughed at this!  She said, "1925? Really?  Please."  HA!  I told her this was a "European kid problem. EKP."

The Frauentorturm is located in the Handwerkerhof, a little area where people sell handmade crafts in little shops.

Our little family with Jen after we ate at the Mauthalle in the Barfüßer restaurant.  The building (not pictured in the photo) was built around 1500 and was originally a grainery for the city. The brewery has only been here since about 1994 (when I graduated high school!)

Since we were already in Nuremberg, we wanted to go see something we hadn't already seen.  Jen suggested the DB Museum, which was a great suggestion if you have kids.  You know I love superlatives, both large and small... this is the oldest train wagon in the DB Museum and it is a coal car from 1829.

There are plenty of examples of railroad cars throughout the years.  This one was from early on in the days of the railways.

I literally have no idea why there was a goat in the DB Railroad museum. What's up goat? Say hello to your mother for me!

There's even an ICE train in the museum!  Not that this is super exciting since we've actually been on ICE trains before, but I think this was Grant's favorite.

Grant inside of the ICE train.  First class, only the best for my baby!

Ludwig II is everywhere in Germany.  An example of one of the train cars he used was on display here. Love me some Ludwig!  (This just tells a small part of the history of his reign.)

An example of Ludwig II's train car.  There were sleeping quarters, a living area, and an office.

THIS was hilarious.  What is this thing mommy?  It's a rotary telephone like the ones that we used when I was a kid.  I had to show them how long it would take just to dial Nana and Pop Pop's number.

If anyone knows where I can get this in poster form, I want it!

This kid rides the Kühlwagen.

My first thought when I was in this museum and noticed that there was a "history of trains in Germany" was - what about the trains that deported Jews to concentration camps?  They did have a small section dedicated to this.  This was a suitcase brought by someone on a train to Auschwitz.

We tend to let our kids wander a bit in museums (not far from us, just near us) but this museum was a bit tough to do that with because there was literally nothing in English.  Didn't bother Grant though... he found a little presentation in German and plopped right down on his jacket to watch!

There's a new section in the upper floor of the museum called Kibala, and it's entirely for kids!  Of course, my big kid had fun "driving" a train.

There's another room where you have a little speed shifter that you can push forward to go faster, and pull back to slow down and that was reflected on the screen.  The simulation is really cool, and Grant didn't want to leave!

The Kibala area also has a mock swanky old tyme train car.  Natalie felt RIGHT at home here with all of her princess sass.

There's also a little train you can ride (they will give you tickets for this when you buy tickets for the museum).  Natalie was eager to ride but Grant didn't want to!  He's too much of a cool kid these days.

One more simulation room is that of the DB Bahn ICE train.  Kids (and parents!) can "sit" on the train and watch the scenery go by on the screens/through the window!

Until next time, DB Bahn Train Museum!