Deutschland
Weinheim
Our flight to Germany was nice (and non eventful....) Another plane in Africa crashed on the same day, so we are very thankful that we arrived without a glitch! The Lufthansa plane was enormous, and every seat was filed. About 400 people. We had a very nice check-in man, who we told it was our honeymoon so he gave us special seats. They didn't have individual TV's like Qantas, and everyone spoke Deutsch - our first contact with the language barrier... Luckily little parts of the German I learnt in school are coming back to me, so we have been able to get by.
We landed at Frankfurt Airport at 5:30 am. We searched the airport (about four times) for a sim card seller so we could contact our hosts here in Germany. We sat down for coffee at Starbucks - coffee, juice & 2 muffins for €11.00. We then eventually found the sim card seller, and made our way out of the airport. The trains are very expensive here, and we took another option - the Lufthansa shuttle bus, which would take us to Mannheim (two towns away from our destination - Weinheim). The shuttle bus dropped us off in Mannheim and we put on our packs for the first time and headed off for an information centre. We saw one sign in the town square, but no more signs as soon as we had passed it. We walked to the Bahnhof (train station) and saw the centre nearby. After paying €0.50 to use the toilets, we waited for the centre to open. We got a map, some directions and started to plan our way to Weinheim. The phone card would not let us call our hosts, who we were staying with. We tried again and again, and even from a pay phone we could not get through. So we jumped on an OEG (tram) to Weinheim, hoping that when we got off there would be a map or something to get us to the right street. There was no such thing. We walked up into the streets that looked like the main town, passing very old buildings and lots of boutique stores. There were lots of people around but no maps or information centres to be seen. We went down a small street to try to find a cheap cafe, and we ran right into the information centre! Pure luck! The lady inside gave us a couple of maps and showed us where SchlossGarten Strasse was. We bought lunch at a supermarket (€6.71 for 6 bread rolls, salami, ham, cheese & water - not bad....) and ate in a small park in Weinheim. We followed the map through a historic Marketplatz - a very traditional open marketplace complete with a man on accordion and lots of children.
We kept walking and found our street. The streets are beautifully green and wide here. The house is right near an enormous park where lots of people picnic and play, and also an Exoten Wald - a large park full of exotic woods and plants. You can see where we are here: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=weinheim&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=43.983628,73.652344&ie=UTF8&ll=49.544979,8.66825&spn=0.00221,0.004495&t=k&z=18&iwloc=addr&om=1
Jurgen & Elke are wonderful. They are great company, and very kind. They have taught us some more German, and yesterday took us through the flower gardens here, and showed us where to get to the Castle walk. Yesterday Ivar and I walked up the mountain to the old castle - Windeck. It had a great view of Weinheim and a narrow tower to climb up in. We then hiked to the new castle, Wachenburg, which was built by 'student corps' from all over Germany - who descend upon Weinheim once a year for a huge festival. (In about 2 weeks time). The woods are beautiful to hike through and there are no animals that can eat you! They have massive bumble bees, but they haven't bitten us yet.
We bought icecream in the marketplace (ordered in German!) and had traditional Schnitzel and Spargel (white asparagus) for dinner. It was delicious! Elke and I went for a walk after dinner through the ExotenWald, and then Jurgen cut us some Ananas (pineapple) in a fancy Mauritian way for dessert.
Today we are going to Heidelberg, an old historic University town. Today is our first cloudy day :( Elke says the weather we have had is so rare in Germany, and that it has very bad weather in general. We have been very lucky - it was 23C at about 5PM yesterday! It stays light until 9PM here at the moment, and will get even later in summer! Our mobile is now finally working too......so now we can leave our comfortable home here in Weinheim and start exploring the rest of Europe!
Weinheim Sunset
Our flight to Germany was nice (and non eventful....) Another plane in Africa crashed on the same day, so we are very thankful that we arrived without a glitch! The Lufthansa plane was enormous, and every seat was filed. About 400 people. We had a very nice check-in man, who we told it was our honeymoon so he gave us special seats. They didn't have individual TV's like Qantas, and everyone spoke Deutsch - our first contact with the language barrier... Luckily little parts of the German I learnt in school are coming back to me, so we have been able to get by.
We landed at Frankfurt Airport at 5:30 am. We searched the airport (about four times) for a sim card seller so we could contact our hosts here in Germany. We sat down for coffee at Starbucks - coffee, juice & 2 muffins for €11.00. We then eventually found the sim card seller, and made our way out of the airport. The trains are very expensive here, and we took another option - the Lufthansa shuttle bus, which would take us to Mannheim (two towns away from our destination - Weinheim). The shuttle bus dropped us off in Mannheim and we put on our packs for the first time and headed off for an information centre. We saw one sign in the town square, but no more signs as soon as we had passed it. We walked to the Bahnhof (train station) and saw the centre nearby. After paying €0.50 to use the toilets, we waited for the centre to open. We got a map, some directions and started to plan our way to Weinheim. The phone card would not let us call our hosts, who we were staying with. We tried again and again, and even from a pay phone we could not get through. So we jumped on an OEG (tram) to Weinheim, hoping that when we got off there would be a map or something to get us to the right street. There was no such thing. We walked up into the streets that looked like the main town, passing very old buildings and lots of boutique stores. There were lots of people around but no maps or information centres to be seen. We went down a small street to try to find a cheap cafe, and we ran right into the information centre! Pure luck! The lady inside gave us a couple of maps and showed us where SchlossGarten Strasse was. We bought lunch at a supermarket (€6.71 for 6 bread rolls, salami, ham, cheese & water - not bad....) and ate in a small park in Weinheim. We followed the map through a historic Marketplatz - a very traditional open marketplace complete with a man on accordion and lots of children.
We kept walking and found our street. The streets are beautifully green and wide here. The house is right near an enormous park where lots of people picnic and play, and also an Exoten Wald - a large park full of exotic woods and plants. You can see where we are here: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=weinheim&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=43.983628,73.652344&ie=UTF8&ll=49.544979,8.66825&spn=0.00221,0.004495&t=k&z=18&iwloc=addr&om=1
Jurgen & Elke are wonderful. They are great company, and very kind. They have taught us some more German, and yesterday took us through the flower gardens here, and showed us where to get to the Castle walk. Yesterday Ivar and I walked up the mountain to the old castle - Windeck. It had a great view of Weinheim and a narrow tower to climb up in. We then hiked to the new castle, Wachenburg, which was built by 'student corps' from all over Germany - who descend upon Weinheim once a year for a huge festival. (In about 2 weeks time). The woods are beautiful to hike through and there are no animals that can eat you! They have massive bumble bees, but they haven't bitten us yet.
We bought icecream in the marketplace (ordered in German!) and had traditional Schnitzel and Spargel (white asparagus) for dinner. It was delicious! Elke and I went for a walk after dinner through the ExotenWald, and then Jurgen cut us some Ananas (pineapple) in a fancy Mauritian way for dessert.
Today we are going to Heidelberg, an old historic University town. Today is our first cloudy day :( Elke says the weather we have had is so rare in Germany, and that it has very bad weather in general. We have been very lucky - it was 23C at about 5PM yesterday! It stays light until 9PM here at the moment, and will get even later in summer! Our mobile is now finally working too......so now we can leave our comfortable home here in Weinheim and start exploring the rest of Europe!
Weinheim Sunset
posted by Dee at
4:17 PM
1 Comments:
Glad to hear you guys were not on that tragic plane flight !! We are enjoying the articles about your terrific journey. How are the German beers ? Do they rate against our pure blondes. Stay safe, love uncle Ian......
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