Travel Tales: Germany 2004, Part Two

(Actual journal excerpts in italics.)

Today was a fabulous day, despite the less-than-fabulous weather we experienced. It all began with a trip to Wal-Mart. It was basically the same as Wal-Marts in the states, but with German products (and American) and signs. Better produce too, but I imagine Europe to have better produce in general.

From Wal-Mart we headed to the Black Forest region, where we stopped at a beautiful lake and sampled black forest cake (really good with cherries and whipped cream). This is also where the rain began, and so we didn't stay very long. However, the views were absolutely beautiful and we got to see where both France and Germany are separated by the Rhine River, and a lot of large hills, though not Alp-like mountain or anything.

We also saw what the Black Forest is famous for - Cuckoo Clocks! They were selling them in the little shop where we bought the cake. They also had wonderful looking breads but we did not sample them. We did watch a guy take them out of the oven though. We decided to leave and head into Baden-Baden.

The city of Baden-Baden would probably be really nice - except for the fact that we couldn't get out of the car due to the horrid rain.... But it's a very pretty city - very ritzy - and I would have liked to have had more pictures of it. At this point, I was a little antsy from being in the car the whole time - I was itching to walk.

We got to walk when we got to France, to the city of Strasbourg. It was certainly no Paris but it was nice just the same. I love the French architecture! And Gunter pointed out some very old houses and buildings. It was really cool.

After a brief snack stop (pain au chocolat!), we went to an old church - of course I can't remember the name but it was HUGE. The inside was nice. They had an astronomy clock and it was actually undergoing some renovation but it was pretty all the same. We lit candles for Grammy Russell and Great Grandma.

Once we saw the church, we wandered around Strasbourg for quite some time, walking by the river and just enjoying the sites despite the rain.

From Strasbourg, mom wanted to go to Soufflenheim, an old pottery town. We bought a serving platter. It was a really cute little place. Again, I had some pictures of it, but mostly from the car.

Then it was dinnertime and so we headed to another small town just on the border of France and Germany. We had a really great dinner that included Flammkuchen, a creamy pizza-like concoction that was really good.

Well, this post would have had more pictures except blogger seems to be having an internal error. I'll have to add them on later!