We found the old man in his shed by following signs from the main road, signs that got progressively smaller and less distinct the closer we got. The man spoke no English and possibly not much French—most of our communication was through German and hand signals. His signs said he produced something called “Rouge de … Read more
About to leave for a very long day of traveling, so no blogging for a while. I’ll try to do some writing catch-up en route so I can post when I get home. (Sigh. Do not want to leave!) By the way, if anyone is going to need some free wifi access in France in … Read more
In order to maximize our time in Strasbourg, we got tickets on one of the earliest trains out of Stuttgart. This seemed like an excellent idea when we were making the arrangements, slightly less so when we had to get up in time to return the rental car before making our train. I wish I … Read more
The second castle in Ludwigsburg, Shloss Favorite, was built as a vacation home for the main castle. It’s about fifty yards away, across a main street. I guess in Germany, vacation must be more of a state of mind. It was set in a large parkland, which seemed to be somewhere locals liked to go … Read more
In order to make our transfer from the flying portion to the train portion of our flight to Stuttgart, we had to find the train terminal in the Frankfurt airport, check in and claim our bags there. That the check-in process was unnecessarily complicated and line-intensive I have already covered. Not complicated, however, were the … Read more
Having, in my own way, taken the pulse of the city, I retired to a café, where I had a really disappointingly bad pretzel, like white bread in a pretzel shape, along with some not-at-all disappointing hot chocolate. It wasn’t that I needed the snack so much, but getting it bought me a table in … Read more
I had grand plans for the places I was going to go and the things I was going to do while in Stuttgart. I had heard of a spa town somewhere nearby, off to the west in the Black Forest, and there was another medieval town highly recommended by the guidebook away to the northeast. … Read more
On the plus side, I did manage to find most of what I was looking for, mainly because if you are wandering randomly over a very small area for long enough, eventually you find everything. The first thing I found was the marktplatz (translation somewhat unnecessary, as seems to happen sometimes with German). And, in … Read more
For the first two days of our trip, Cameron’s time is taken by the conference, so I’m on my own for exploring. Today I went to Tubingen (two dots over the u), a small and ancient college town on the banks of the River Nektar. I traveled there by train, first on the local line … Read more
Only two days in, and already falling behind on updates? We have a new record! Seriously, I would but I’m tired. Soon, I swear.