Bamberg, Germany - Take Three!

Of course when Warren and Carole were here, we had to take them to one of our favorite cities - Bamberg!  We take everyone here, but it's really just a fun city!

Why hello there.  I didn't see you peeking out from behind that centuries old column.  So dashing on your regal horse.  You might be a Nazi supporter, a devastatingly handsome gentleman of the Aryian race... but more likely you are King Stephen I of Hungary!  (He was married to Henry II's sister, so although it's not confirmed, many think this is him.)

The alter of the Bamberg Cathedral.

My wide zoom lens is the bomb!  It captures so much more!

One of my favorite things about the Bamberg Cathedral are the faces on the ceiling designed to scare away the baddies.  I thought I had seen them all but... nope!  I discovered this one up near the alter (on the left in the above picture.)

I literally cannon find anything out about this.  There wasn't any information at the cathedral and I can't find anything online.  It was in the crypt downstairs, and it appears to be a finger?

Intricate wood carvings can be found all over the Bamberg Dom. This one, the Kirchgattendorfer alter depicts the life of Mary, as well as Jesus in his childhood.

If you have to use the facilities at the Bamberg Cathedral... well, you can't!  You have to leave the cathedral and walk down the north side of the church and find the public WC and pay your 50 cents.  But at least you get treated to this beautiful old building and the millions of flowers it has covering it!  This is known as the Alte Hofhaltung and still contains some of the original 11th century masonry!

The Alte Hofhaltung (or Old Court) with the Bamberg Cathedral behind it.

We swung by the Hofbrau for a little lunch and libations.  I love this picture they had on the wall.  I'm sure everyone in these parts has a love/hate relationship with tourism!

Me and the ma-in-law having a fine lunch!

Warren taught his son to love a good brew.

We love the Hofbrau in Bamberg!  I had an amazing pumpkin vegetable stew with jasmine rice!

Bird on a Bamberg wire.

I will probably never tire of the Town Hall in the middle of the river in Bamberg! Queen (and Saint) Cunigunde is peering over at us from the other bridge!

Strolling through Bamberg.

Ahhh!  Our friend, the stork.  I'm guessing this is really a baby store since the legend of the stork (and actual real storks) live many hours away in the Alsace region.

First, we were undecided whether they were tearing down this building or putting it up.  (Also:  let's talk about how you're floodproofing that...)  Next, how fun is the island of grass and weeds (?) in the middle of the river?  I grew up in a town that was literally made like this.  Put up some seawalls, throw in some fill dirt and viola!  Instant city!  In this case though, they smartly just use it for growing greenery.

The wide zoom lens has yet to disappoint.

All of the little towns you pass on the way home from Bamberg are so cute.  Many of them have little castle ruins, also.

Castle ruin on the hill in Tuchersfeld. I took this picture and put a star in my google maps to remind me that I want to come back here to visit and hike this castle!

Until next time, Bamberg!  (And there will likely be MANY next times!)

Nuremberg, Germany - Take Four!

The good thing about living close to some big cities is that no matter how many times you visit, there's likely something new you can see!  This time, my in-laws Warren and Carole were visiting, so we decided to take them to the Nazi Party Rallying Grounds in Nuremberg for a few hours one day. 

This is one strange looking building from the outside.  Technically it's called the Dokumentationszentrum Reichsparteitagsgelände, and judging by my poor German, that translates to something like, "Documentation Center Reich Party Grounds."  German's like to throw a bunch of words together to form one really long massive word.  Instead, we'll call it what it was:  The Nazi Party Rallying Grounds. This picture doesn't even begin to show the breadth of the land that these grounds occupied. One of the wings of the "Congress Hall," which, if finished would have seated 50,000 people houses the museum.

We got our audio guides and away we went!  It was super exciting to me to be able to visit a museum without my kids.  What? You mean I can actually listen to the audio guide and read all of the information and look at all of the pictures?  What????  (Well, not quite because we ran out of time because we wanted to go downtown before we had to go pick up the kids!)

Old German Marks, the unit of currency up until 2002 came in various forms over the years.  At the time of WWII, it was known as the Reichsmark.  Notice the high values of these marks due to inflation.

EVERY single time I visit anything to do with Hitler or the Nazi's, I feel incredibly creepy and weird.  But we all know those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.  (Ya hear that, America!?)  We MUST learn how this crazy person gained control so that we never let this happen again.  This museum had excellent information and stories regarding Hitler's rise to power.  Naturally, it's never just one thing, but a collection of occurrences that led to this.

Many of us know about Mein Kampf, but did you know that after a failed attempt at a coup in Munich, Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison?  He only served eight months and was released on good behavior.  He then wrote this book.

Let's play "Destroy the Nazis" with my Army men!

OMG What a creep! 

Kind of like having a bust of a decent world leader in your house (maybe someone like Kennedy or Reagan), folks could purchase a bronze Hitler bust for the mantle.  ("Shudders!")

 Tons of great information about the use of the Nazi Party Rallying Grounds followed the section about Hitler's Rise to Power.  The grounds were designed to show the power of the party, and indeed they did.  Much of the stone that was used to build the structures on the grounds came from quarries near concentration camps, in which the inmates put forth all of their labor to mine.  The area was originally 11 square km (although now is only about 4 square km), and consisted of a Zeppelin Field, the Congress Hall (again, this was never finished), the Luitpold Arena (it could hold 150,000 people which is about 43,000 more than Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor!), March Field, Great Road, German and Municipal Stadiums, and SS Barracks (later used by and known as the Merrell Barracks by the US Military until 1992).  

Nazi Party gathering in the Luitpold Arena on the grounds.  Can you even imagine!?

We had to skip over some of the museum, including some sections about the concentration camps which I fully intend to go back and see.  But naturally I need to post a picture of the American troops taking over the area and liberating Nuremberg!  A lot of the buildings on the Rallying Grounds were destroyed in the battles leading up to liberation.

The great Congress Hall wasn't totally destroyed, but then again it had never been completed in the first place. 

This is what it would have looked like if it had been completed.  You can see that it would have even had a roof!

One of the saddest displays was a mock railroad leading to an empty tunnel, with the names of the final destinations written on the wall.  Auschwitz.  Belzec.  Chelmno.  Majdanek. Sobibor. Treblinka.  Each of the cards you see laying on the tracks is the name of someone who had been on the trains to these concentration camps.

I pretty much could have spent all day at the Dokuzentrum, but we wanted Warren and Carole to see the downtown Nuremberg area where the Christmas Market is always held.  The square (which was relatively empty today), is home to the Frauernkirchen (Church of Our Lady) and was finished in 1361.  Of course, like most other wonderful, old buildings in Europe, it was mostly destroyed in WWII.

All that was left was the western façade and sections of the Nave walls.  (Photo source: www.mcgady.net).

Within the entrance to the western façade, you can see a bit of the original church in the form of sculptures surrounding the inner doorway.

It really is a pretty church!  After some crepes and beer in the square, we headed back home.  Until next time, Nuremberg!

Munich, Germany - OKTOBERFEST!

Since Todd won "best lederhosen" at the German-American Volksfest this summer, he got two free tickets on the MWR bus to Munich for Oktoberfest.  He picked 9/24 and the weather was awesome!  Warm and sunny!  So we packed up the kiddos and boarded the bus to Munich.  Because of recent terrorist activities here in Germany, backpacks weren't allowed in, so we had to make do with a purse.  But thankfully MWR allowed us to keep our bags on the bus while we went to Oktoberfest.

I wasn't able to get a Paulaner this year, but apparently it was a 6%er.  Yikes!

I'm not as good as Todd at this picture.  Willkommen zum Oktoberfest!

If the Lord himself came down and said, "You can go to heaven if you ride this ride ONE MORE TIME," I would have to politely decline.  I've never been more terrified on a ride.  Thank GOODNESS Natalie rode with me.  Because she's brave and fearless.  I, on the other hand am terrified of heights.  I also had a skirt on which despite me sitting on it, wanted to fly up in my face.  And for some reason, I had my phone in my hand.  And my small purse on my shoulder which kept wanting to fall down.  Because of all of this, I didn't have any hands to actually hold on, and we were MILES up in the air (for real!  Miles!) and leaning at what seemed like a 45 degree angle.  I was literally cursing and praying the entire ride. 

This was me right before the ride.  (Please note I took this with my phone, which is why it was in my hand, and you can see my purse does not want to stay on my shoulder). NEVER AGAIN!

Get me a beer. NOW.  I love that they brought the kids Sprite in little mugs!  They felt like they were a part of the fun!

Me and my best girl.  Notice I'm wearing her sunglasses because I forgot mine.  Do I forget something EVERYWHERE we go?  I really do. Normally it's pajamas for me or underwear for the kids.  This time it was my shades.

I could eat currywurst every day, all day. 

The inside of the Hacker-Pschorr tent.  Only a few people standing on tables at this point.  We went to the bathroom (it wasn't even noon yet) and two people were throwing up already.  Niiiiice.  It's a long day!  It's a marathon, not a sprint, people!

Bailey family trachten photo!  We are in front of the Bavaria statue and the Ruhmeshalle (Hall of Fame) in Munich. I promise next year they will have proper shoes.

Do you see that crazy super high swing?  Yeah, no.  That's never gonna happen again. I can't believe they convinced me to get on that thing.

I love St. Paul's church in the background. Interestingly, back in 1960, a C131 aircraft operated by the USAF crashed into the steeple, and then eventually onto the ground into a tram, killing 20 people on board the airplane and 32 on the ground.  Sad fact, but history is all around us, folks!

These three clowns really loved this funhouse. I went later with Grant.  It was supposed to be 3D but really made it feel like you had dropped acid.  Not that I've ever done that, of course, but I can imagine that is what it was like! 

You had to run through this giant moving circle.  Natalie ran right through.  Grant, not so much.  But whatever works, right!?!

Mommy and Natalie in the FRONT ROW (the German guys behind us got a big kick out of that saying) on the Olympic roller coaster!

It was sunny and warm, and of course... crazy crowded as a result.  By the end of the day I was totally over it.  We still love getting on the Ferris wheel for amazing views of the entire Oktoberfest grounds!

The beer tents were very crowded as well.  There was a wait for nearly all of them.  If you could find a seat outside, you could eat or drink.

It's a battle for the coolest tower between Paulaner and Lowenbrau. Dancing beer mugs or lions drinking beer?  You decide. #thereal2016election

I love swings. I really do.  I just like them MUCH lower to the ground, like these. It's one of my favorite rides!  Just please... not a half a mile into the sky!

My biggest kid on the toboggan.

Grant is so light, he clearly won this race.  I love their faces here! 

Welcome to Munich.  Where they sometimes pretend they are in Florida.

Splish splash!  Here they go, up the Rio Rapides!  I didn't want to go on this because the sun was starting to go down and I didn't want to be damp and chilly!

Grant goes, "Mommy!  There's some hair for you to take a picture of for your blog!"  Well I never!  What is going on in this world!  Stop losing large chunks of hair, people!

Before we left, we decided to ride ONE MORE RIDE.  Well that's what we (I) get for being greedy.  The kids were dying to ride the bumper cars.  As I was standing with Natalie waiting to get a bumper car, some guy came RUNNING off of the bumper car area while looking backward and PLOWED into me.  Head first, with the crown of his head crashing into the side of my face by my left eye.  And it only hit this area because I was looking down and to my right at Natalie, who I was telling to step back and away from the edge of the bumper car area.  I mean this guy was going full speed. I really got my bell rung.  I don't know how I didn't fall over, as there were a couple of large stairs behind me.  I was so mad and embarrassed, spouting off every obscenity in the book.  It really hurt!  And do you know what Natalie said to me?  "Mommy, do you know what would make that feel better?  A giant beer!"  You're right, kiddo!

Until next time, Oktoberfest!