France and Germany

22.09.2023 - 30.09.2023 25 °C

Colmar, France

We had to pass through France to get to Frieberg Germany so spent the night in Colmar. It was a great decision. We arrived late so just had dinner and then checked into the Colmar hotel which was lovely, clean modern and comfortable. Such a nice change from where we had been
The next day was spent exploring the city on foot. We did take the hokey little sightsee train to get the lay of the land though.

They sell plastic love locks which are much lighter and probably less stress on the bridge
This is little Venice

A visit to the museum was quite interesting
We loved Colmar. It was quite crowded but the buildings and architecture were fantastic.

Frieberg, Germany
I had arranged a home exchange with points to spend four nights in Rothenberg ob Tauber but while in Scotland found out it got cancelled for some reason. I was so disappointed. Home exchange said they would help me find another place and some people from Germany were at our hotel and said Frieberg would be great. So we arranged that
It was a lovely home but we were not overly impressed with the area. Not for more than a day anyhow. We spend the following day walking around the town. The cathedral was very impressive.

Eguisheim, France

The next day we decided to make the short drive back to the French border towns that were recommended. They did not disappoint and I think this one was my favorite

Riquewihr, France was a few minutes down the road and just as charming. It was the inspiration for the town set in the movie Beauty and the Beast
This is wine country and known as the Alsace wine route. So many vineyards. The countryside is gorgeous and another beautiful sunny day.

After three nights in Frieberg we decided to leave a day early and drive to Rothenberg ob Tauber after all. I found a hotel in the old town for a great price so we left in the morning. The autobahn is crazy! No speed limit. Four lanes. We are on the second right, the far right has hundreds of transport trucks. So many trucks. The left lanes are for passing. All of a sudden from nowhere you would see cars racing past you at insane speeds. Sometimes we saw four cars together, usually black, seeming to be in a race with each other weaving in and out of lanes at high speeds. One incidence of road rage that was a little scary.

Then traffic would stop. For hours we crawled along with all the big trucks. There are lots of pull offs though with picnic tables and washrooms which is nice. Lots and lots of trucks pulled off at these to rest. We chose one to have our picnic lunch and give Doug a break from the stress of driving.
Our 3 1/2 hour trip took over 6 hours. We were glad we were spending the night here. We had the entire next day as well to explore this beautiful town. This was the inspiration for the town in Disney’s Pinocchio. It was lovely the evening we arrived, there was hardly anyone here. But the next day was very busy with tour groups and day trippers from other areas.

This is the famous shot of Rothenberg ob Tauber that everyone wants

Taj Mahal was a wonderful Indian resteraunt we found and enjoyed a great meal. And non alcoholic beer too!

We drove the 2 hours to our next stop, Bamberg Germany, where we checked into our lovely studio apartment with kitchenette. We made a light dinner and relaxed after our busy day.

This morning we decided to drive for an hour to Nurenberg and arranged a walking tour. It was very interesting, but a bit exhausting walking mostly up cobblestone hills and it was quite warm. But our guide Andreas was very informative telling us the history for medieval times up to the present. Of course we also learned about Nurenberg and its roll in the Second World War.

After a bit of lunch we drove to the colosseum ( Kongresshall, also known as the documentation centre) where they held the Nazi rally’s which we learned more about during our tour. The Nazi rally’s started in 1923, but the first major grand scale one was 1929 The place was massive. Hitler would have very long speeches, along with others, but his major events were here from 1933-1938. The largest rally was in 1934 where 700,000 Nazi supporters attended. It was a very an interesting day.

Bamberg.

Decided to take a break from the car and figured out how to take the bus to the old part of Bamberg. With my google maps it was pretty easy. It took around 25 minutes but we got a nice tour of the regular part of Bamberg. We wandered aimlessly for a while. First stop was city hall. Story has it that the Bishop of the time, 1386, did not want the town hall built so the mayor and townspeople made a foundation in the middle of the river and built it there, joined by two bridges.

We had no idea how pretty this town is, the old part anyhow. We wandered about, found a bench by the river to have some sandwiches I made and just had a no agenda kind of day.

The postman in the car free zone.