Germany, Czech Republic, Italy
Wow! What a whirlwind the first month was. Dave was amazing driving the rental car on the autobahn and through all the twisty, narrow city streets. No grid system anywhere! Just names that we couldn't pronounce that maybe were labeled but likely not. What we learned to do was to plan out the next days drive in the hotel with wifi and take screen shots of the route (plus extra city shots so that when we got lost we would have pics of the surrounding area). Then, when we were driving with no wifi available, we could look at the pics and we had an instant map. We also learned to take screen shots of or hotel confirmation emails, and pics of what the apartment/hostel/hotel looked like since they're often not marked in any way.
Lothar, Sue, Katie, Cooper, and Dave.
For me, the best part of that first month was meeting Lothar and his family in the town where the Freiheit clan lived for a good part of their childhood. Lothar is the son of Lothar Sr., the man that went to school with, and was friends with, Opa and Uncle Herman. I felt awkward phoning him and asking him to show us Hagenau, but it was really important to us to see the area, and we wouldn't have known what to look for without him. It was also awkward because my German speaking skills were going to be put to the test! Eek!
The Elbe in the background.
Well... who knew this would turn out to be such a wonderful experience! Lothar was amazing. I had hoped that he would meet us in Hagenau and show us the house Opa grew up in. Instead, he did so much more! We had late breakfast/early lunch together and then he drove us to a beautiful town called Tangermünde which has a beautiful castle. He told us about the terrible flooding of the Elbe, which the area is still recovering from. We met his girlfriend and watched some traditional dancers in the square outside her flower shop. We were lucky the dancers were there, as the site of the dancing moves every year, and we just happened to hit on the day that they were performing.
Later in the day we went to Hagenau and met Lothar's family. They were so welcoming and kind! Herr and Frau Büst made us dinner. Dave loved the soup so much he asked Lothar to send us the recipe. It was so great to be in their home and to be welcomed so warmly. Sitting there, I'm sure Dave was imagining his dad sitting and chatting in the same room, as an adult, and maybe even as a child.
Elke, Katarina, Lothar, and Dave... Windows to the right were Opa's house.
Lothar Sr. with us.
Elke's husband, Helmut, is in charge of ringing the church bell each night at the same time. He took us up into the ancient church tower and we plugged our ears while he rang the enormous bell. Cooper took the clanger for the smaller bell and Lothar showed him how to clang it after the big bell was rung, in a rythm. They clang the smaller one by hand because the old tower is getting a bit too rickety for both the bells to be swinging at the same time. The key to the tower was a seleton key about a foot long!
I remember Opa and Aunty Grete telling us about their memories of the enormous Linden tree in their front yard that was so big they thought they needed 6 people to get their arms around the trunk. When they visited as adults, they found the tree wasn't as huge as their memories made them believe. We had to pose for a picture with the tree!
A big thank you to Lothar and his family for giving our family these great memories!
I also just want to quickly mention Linnderhoff castle. Everyone knows about Neuschwonstein, which is amazing, but Linderhoff is equally as beautiful, although very small as you can see in the picture below. In a way, I liked it better. You could walk through the gardens, take a great tour of the castle, and visit this amazing grotto with weird stalagmites. I highly recommend it! Instead of staying in Munich (München), we stayed in Füssen, which was easier for us with the rental car than staying in the big city. It was also cheaper and was closer to drive in the morning and you have to get to Neuschwonstein very early because it's so busy.
I'm sure the next leg of our journey will be equally exciting. Leaving Dave in Rome was so hard. I don't think I let it show! Had to be brave for the kids! : )
The grotto!
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