Catching Up the Travelogue: March's European Vacation, Part Two

When last I left you, constant reader, Beth and I had just arrived in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, on the first leg of our brief but incredibly packed vacation to Europe.  We met Beth's college friend, Ursula, at her flat in downtown Frankfurt, and sat down for a fantastic lunch / early supper and some great German hospitality.

Ursula catered us lunch with some fantastic dark, dense German bread; several cheeses (yes, European cheese is better than anything in America); fresh, hand-squeezed blood orange juice; and some incredibly tasty German coffee.  Then, we set out for a walk along the Main at sunset.

The Dom Sankt Bartholomäus, or Frankfurt Cathedral, looms over all of the riverfront in Frankfurt.  Although it was damaged severely during World War II (and burned down in the 19th century), the Gothic icon has been rebuilt and today is as imposing and impressive as other.

 

We were in Frankfurt a few weeks before springtime would really come into bloom, but nonetheless during the walk we took through the park along the banks of the Main we could see what a sight it would be during the summer, with tropicals (which somehow survive the harsh German winters) more at home in Irvine, California, than continental Europe, and rows and rows of coppiced trees ready to sprout new green growth for summer evening walks.


Though the sun wasn't at a great angle, we also could see Frankfurt's skyline; as the financial capital of continental Europe, Frankfurt is one of the few cities with much to see in terms of skyscrapers.  Even London, the hub of everything across the pond, lacks the sorts of buildings those of us who've traveled at all to New York, Chicago, LA, and the other metropolises of the United States are used to.

On a more somber and disturbing note, Ursula did point out a somewhat industrial section of the river which apparently once housed a train depot from which Jews were sent off to concentration camps.  I know Germans aren't fond of speaking of the atrocities of World War II and their preeminent role in the same; the section was being remade into a park and, if I recall correctly, several bank buildings.


(No, the photo taken of the light rail beneath a footbridge with Frankfurt Cathedral in the background is not said hellish depot; its simply an image Beth fell in love with and suggested I photograph.  The ersatz train depot was not photogenic, as you might imagine.)


After a lengthy walk through the park--including several common European bird sightings which were nonetheless new life species for both Beth and I, such as the Egyptian Goose, Greylag Goose, Chaffinch, and the ubiquitous Great Tits--we stopped in from the late-winter chill at a cafe with what Ursula described as some of the best hot chocolate in Frankfurt.  Beth opted for a spicy apple wine, though, of all things; I'm not sure she enjoyed the local specialty (and certainly not like I did the hot chocolate!).


The cafe was very close to the caricature museum; I was jetlagged enough I missed much of Urusula's description of the place, other than the moose-in-trenchcoat statue Beth posed with:

We headed back to Ursula's flat at dusk, where Ursula's longtime male companion Thomas prepared for us a fantastic European feast.  I didn't realize until that point that Beth and I are very European in our dinner habits, dining late in the evening most nights; Thomas served dinner around 9:00pm, apparently a normal time of day for supper in Germany.  As a gourmand and everyday chef, I know what goes into meal prep, and I simply can't imagine how Thomas prepared the feast (baked and pan-fried fish, boiled potatoes, salads, and a delicious cabbage dish) and managed to entertain the downstairs neighbors' two toddlers in such a short period of time.


Wine flowed all night, from prosecco while Thomas cooked and we chatted with their French and Czech (I think, on the latter--they understood English but spoke very little) friends who'd been invited to dinner, to Italian and French reds... and finally a Grappa-like moonshine distilled by the Czech friend's father.


We slept in despite plans to get up and walk down to the Main in the morning light; after the redeye flight, long drive up from Munich, the stroll down to the river and cafe, and then our well-past-midnight supper party, I can't blame us.  Ursula and Thomas prepared us a fantastic breakfast, similar to the snacks Ursula had had for our arrival but with the addition of some hardboiled eggs which flummoxed Beth in their presentation in little egg cups.

We did have a snag in our plans to travel onward to meet up with Michael and Sam in Italy, though: I noticed the fine print of the rental car contract said that driving a Mercedes into Italy was verboten, and though we had a hatchback, economy-style car, it was still a Mercedes.  After much back-and-forth with Hertz with Ursula serving as our translator (and chief negotiator), we discovered the problem wasn't the Mercedes so much as the fact we didn't have snow tires on the car: driving through Austria on the way to Italy required snow tires.  After much discussion, Hertz agreed to swap out our car at Frankfurt Airport, saving us the trip back to Munich's airport (yes, it was Hertz's fault; we'd told them we were going to be in Germany, Austria, and Italy).  Still, this detour cost us several hours, and it was late afternoon when we finally left Germany laden down with lunches prepared by Ursula, a bag of fine Eilles coffee, and some chocolates in our new Citroen for the eight hour drive to northern Italy.


As usual, the Nolleys were behind schedule: I'd already told Michael, when he asked if he should make dinner reservations for our arrival, "Come on, you know the Nolleys... best not to plan on a specific time."  But so far, our trip was off to a fantastic start nonetheless.  Would we make it through the Brenner Pass, or would the snow we had seen falling in Munich be a sign of rocky weather ahead?

Catching Up the Travelogue: March's European Vacation, Part One

Back in mid-March, Beth and I took our first real vacation since our engagement trip way back in December of 2003 (that's right: we hadn't even taken a honeymoon after getting married in 2005!).  We made a lightning visit to friends in Germany and family in Italy, packing the brief week with visits to Munich, Frankfurt, Venice, Vicenza, Verona, Padua, and Soave, along with a drive through the Austrian and Bavarian Alps.

The trip began at Dulles International Airport, my home away from home.  I was happy to finally have an opportunity to drag Beth over to the Lufthansa lounge over in Concourse B; even though we were flying United, as a Star Alliance Gold flyer (thanks to my 100,000 miles a year on United and my 1K status), we can use any Star Alliance Gold lounge--and the Lufthansa lounge at Dulles is 100,000x better than the United Red Carpet Club.  Whereas the latter has a few apples, some prepackaged cheese, individual-serving crackers, and a cash bar, the Lufthansa lounge has a nice selection of hot soup, salads, pasta, hors d'oeuvres, and even cheesecake for dessert.  Plus free beer--good free beer, including a nice Belgian white ale Beth and I enjoyed during our late lunchtime visit.  We did trek back over to Concourse C for our flight and stopped by one of the Red Carpet Clubs, where I accepted the correct number of bar "drink chits" (2 required for anything above the level of Bud Light) from the front desk--this is something frequent flyers grouse about to no end, mind you--and headed down into the dark, crowded, noisy, and hot lounge, where Beth and I couldn't even find two seats.  What a contrast!

As another benefit to making 1K last year on United--I flew several "mileage run" trips with no purpose other than to get the necessary miles!--I'd used my "systemwide upgrades" to book us into business class instead of economy.  The flight attendants all wondered over Beth's "Asian Vegetarian" meal selection (you have to pre-book anything out of the ordinary), which wasn't bad at all and consisted of several different Indian dishes.

The flight crew couldn't get the business class lights to go out overnight (!!), but an Ambien and I slept until breakfast anyway--and found an "apology" $250 certificate on my seat when I woke up for the trouble.  After breakfast, on approach into Munich's airport, I heard the dreaded news on Channel 9 (United's air traffic control broadcasts onboard): "Attention all stations: due to braking coefficient, Munchen Airport is closed."  Yep, snow on the ground had shut down the airport.  And sure enough, once we finally landed, it was indeed snowing in Munich.

Now, we had quite an itinerary planned out for our short six days on the ground: we would drive up to Frankfurt-am-Main to visit Beth's college friend Urusula, then drive down to Italy to spend the rest of the trip with my cousin Michael and his wife, Sam.  And, time permitting, a stop or two in the Bavarian Alps on our drive back to Munich for the flight home.  (Erika and Brooke will probably commiserate over the pace we endured on this trip: my sisters were "victims" of my vacation planning and draconian cracking of the schedule whip on the visit to London we all took in 2002, in which we managed ever single tourist attraction in London plus a trip to Stonehenge and on to Bath.)

The drive up the Autobahn was largely a pleasure, due not to the speeds per se but the fact that people simply knew how to drive!  The roads were largely four lanes--I'd always imagined the Autobahn some 8-12 lane freeway--and drivers used the left lane only to pass and always gave way to faster drivers.  Still, a few construction zones were limited to 2 meter lanes (that's more narrow than a lot of American cars, and white-knuckle driving at 110 km/hr), and after a short redeye flight I was struggling to keep my eyes open toward the end of the nearly-four-hour drive to Frankfurt.

We arrived in Frankfurt in the early afternoon... but that's Part Two of our travelogue (and one loaded with photos, I promise!).

Five Things I Miss About Europe

Beth and I are back from our too-brief European vacation, a trip which took us to Germany, through Austria, and into northern Italy, and already I have a hankering for what we left behind.

1. The Autobahn.  Yes, the fabled "no speed limit" highways of Germany (and their fast-but-limited cousins in Austria and the Autostrade in Italy).  It wasn't so much that the Autobahn's speeds--and curvy sections, construction zones, and busy metropolitan stretches did actually have speed limits, typically between 50 and 70 mph--but the fact that everyone knew how to drive.  For a frustrated American driver, what a breath of fresh air to see cars yield to overtaking vehicles, to use the left lane for passing, not cruising, and to refrain from typical passive-aggressive road rage machismo.
2. Coffee.  Real, honest-to-god, Italian coffee.  Beth and I are both coffee junkies and to a lesser degree connoisseurs (we've done the slurp-from-a-spoon coffee tastings), yet we rarely drink espresso in and of itself at home.  After a week of some of the best espresso and espresso drinks we've ever tasted, I'm off shopping for a quality machine that goes beyond the typical steam-driven "espresso" machine built into our coffee maker.
3. Wine.  Yes, we've our share of fantastic wine in America, and Beth and I are downright European in our wine-with-every-dinner habit, but we visited Amarone country.  (A bit of tangential wine trivia: in the novel Silence of the Lambs, it's a big Amarone Dr. Lecter enjoys with some fava beans and his victim's liver, not the Chianti from the film--the screenwriters felt no one in the US would know what an Amarone was.)
4. History.  We've got our share in the United States, but to be fair, as a nation our past stretches hardly more than a handful of centuries.  Europe may not have been the cradle of civilization, but Western civilization does go back millennia in Europe.  Ancient buildings, buildings reconstructed after World War II in their original style, Roman ruins... well, we were quite inspired by some of the colors and architecture and techniques and brought back many great ideas for our "wine bistro" we're going to build at Chateau Papillon.
5. Friends.  Last but not at all least, we miss the great friends we left behind, and who played such great hosts to us during our trip.  Ursula, we'll have to make a trip just to Frankfurt sometime.  Michael & Sam, it's too bad you'll be heading back from Italy so soon yourselves!  I'm tempted to give you two a hand bringing some of your stuff back... by flying over with a couple of empty suitcases.  Yes, I think I could stand to do that, indeed.