For Easter I went road-tripping in Germany with Aline and Amaury. We touched 5 countries between Friday and Sunday (inclusively): Netherlands, Germany, France, Luxembourg, and Belgium.
Friday afternoon we drove out to Cologne, where we enjoyed local Kölsch beer and some delicious pork-food. Amaury still holds that this is the best thing we did.
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| Moholt at the cathedral in Cologne - that thing is HUGE! |
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| Amaury vs Pig |
The next day we drove to Koblenz, where the Rhine and Moselle rivers meet. The junction is called the Deutsches Eck (German Corner), and there's a cool monument there. From Koblenz we followed the Mosel river west to Trier (hometown of Karl Marx), and the windy river valley road was beautiful (see time-lapse clip here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYouDcvWda0&feature=youtu.be). There are vineyards up the sides of the valley, but the slopes are so steep there that they have to have carts on rails to take you up the hillsides to work on the grapes. From Trier we proceeded south to Freiburg (in the Black Forest) for dinner and some sleep. We stayed in a hostel that was like a Berkeley Coop that had just been repainted white - a strange yet mildly familiar atmosphere.
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| Monument at Deutsches Eck |
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| Manhole covers in Koblenz have the city seal: a boy throwing up. |
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| Eating sausages by the side of the road. Amaury in love. |
From Freiburg we drove up into the Black Forest to the city of Titisee, which is on a lake ("see" in German). The lake was frozen, and the forest was snowy, and hiking though the hills around the lake was AWESOME. We also stopped at a cafe to have some Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte (Black Forest Cake)! After the forest we drove up to Strasbourg (our one French stop), then North to Luxembourg city, a route which took us through the lovely town of Bitche.
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| Black Forest wandering |
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| Passing the city of Bitche |
In Luxembourg we started the day by wandering through the craft market, a special holiday event that happens the day after Easter there. The city is a cool mix of old and modern buildings, since they're now a big banking hub but like to hold onto their old-timey-ness. The old city is up above a river valley, and there are big walls built into the valley to protect the city. We wandered through the valley along the base of the wall; it's a really nice park these days. From there we went north to Beaufort and Vianden, both of which have castles open for visiting.
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| Along the walls in the valley in Luxembourg (City) |
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| Castle at Beaufort |
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| Hangin' out in the Beaufort Castle |
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| Castle at Vianden |
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| Alex in the castle at... uhh... well, a castle someplace... |
Ah, but all good things must come to an end! We drove north from Luxembourg through Belgium and back into the Netherlands. However, as an Easter treat it was sunny back in Delft!
