Ein Wochenende in Deutschland: Snapshots from Düsseldorf and Cologne

Meindeg, 14 Mäerz.

One of the things that I miss the most about the United States is my family and friends my car. (Just kidding, fam!) While I am a huge fan of public transportation for many reasons (including environmental impact, cost, and the fact that you can nap while going somewhere), there is something so liberating about hopping in a car and just hitting the road. Need a bathroom break? Want to make an unexpected detour? Decide to extend your trip or head home early? No problem -- you are the driver and you make the rules.

So this weekend, I took advantage of housemates with cars and hit the open road for a weekend excursion to Düsseldorf and Cologne with Vicky and Lucie, two of the newest additions to my student residence. While western Germany isn't exactly Francophone Europe, the trip was too fun not to share with you!

 

"Frohe Weihnachten!" from Trier

Méindeg, 7 Dezember.

As promised yesterday, some snapshots from our afternoon at the Trierer Weihnachtsmarkt!

The entire city was decorated for the holidays, but we spent most of our time at the markets located in the Hauptmarkt (the Main Market, featured above) and the Domfreihof (Cathedral Square, depicted below). Although shops were closed and the majority of the city seemed to be enjoying a quiet afternoon in, the Christmas markets were full to bursting with people.

Recognize the Trierer Dom from yesterday's post?

Of course, what's a Christmas market without food?! I snacked on gebrannte mandeln, my all-time favorite weihnachtsmärkte treat of sugar-roasted almonds, and we warmed up with hot chocolate in souvenir mugs. (Because when it comes down to it, do you REALLY want glühwein when you could be drinking hot chocolate covered in whipped cream?)

  

For lunch, we stopped for flammkuchen, a traditional dish from Alsace that I had only tried once before while exploring the marchés de Noël in Strasbourg during my semester abroad. Unlike Alsatian flammekueche, made with a pizza-thin crust and a (surely unhealthy) dose of crème fraîche, this was made with thick, doughy bread covered in potatoes, cheese, and little bits of ham and ... oh, what's that? Sorry, I was daydreaming about eating flammkuchen for the rest of my life.

Until next time, Trier! In the meantime, wishing you all an early Frohe Weihnachten from the oldest city in Germany.

An Afternoon in Germany's Oldest City

Sonndeg, 6 Dezember.

Today I went to Trier! Or, if you are Luxembourgish, to Tréier. Or, if you are French, to Trèves. Or, if you are an ancient Roman living in the first century BCE, Augusta Treverorum. Do you get the feeling that maybe, just maybe, this city has an interesting history?!

One of the most interesting things about Trier for this temporary Luxembourger is how easy -- and inexpensive -- it is to go there! Trains run frequently between Luxembourg City and Trier and the entire trip takes about an hour. If you have a transport pass or have already bought a ticket for in-country travel, you can buy a round-trip ticket from Wasserbillig (the last stop in Luxembourg) and get to Trier for around eight euros. So when you have a free Sunday afternoon and a handful of enthusiastic housemates ... why not go?!

Fun fact: the red house is called "Rotes Haus" (three guesses what that means) and was built in 1684.

That Time I Walked to Germany

Sonndeg, 11 Oktouber.

So ... I walked to Germany this weekend.

Before you mistake me for some kind of crazy ambitious athlete, let me clarify: this weekend, I walked across a bridge and crossed the border into Germany.

After exploring Larochette and Beaufort, Catherine and I were planning to call it a day. We were going to change buses in Echternach and head back to Luxembourg City. But even the best laid plans go awry! 

Hallo, Heidelberg!

Mercredi, 18 décembre.

If you've been following this blog, you know that I've been waiting all semester to get a chance to go back to Germany. I haven't been back since we moved to the States in 2001 and I've been relying on increasingly fuzzy -- but always incredibly positive -- memories to sustain me. Sure, I got a chance to spend a couple hours in the country when travelling through Frankfurt-Hahn in October, but I really wanted to go back for real.

So this weekend, during a several day trip to Strasbourg, my friend Allan and I made the two-hour bus trip from Strasbourg (on the very edge of the French-German border) to Heidelberg. Although not quite as personally significant as Stuttgart, Heidelberg is a beautiful city with a lot of historical buildings -- rather unique in Germany, where so many cities were destroyed in World War II -- and, of course, a fabulous Christmas market. We got off the bus, partially expecting to be immediately welcomed into the historic inviting streets of ancient Heidelberg... this is what greeted us instead.

Is it a horse? A dragon? A giraffe carrying a shield? We'll never know. (And I mean that, because if 10 minutes of intense Googling couldn't identify it, nothing could.) The statue was unexpected, but surprisingly pretty in its own little way. As we headed into the Altstadt ("Old City"), however, things started getting a little more ... well, German!

A more appropriate first sign of things to come was my interaction with the Tourism Office. As we waited in line to request a map, I was relieved to hear the employees speaking in English, French and German to the tourists ahead of us. Although I had been studying up on my German on the bus, I had a feeling that I wouldn't get much further than my original request ("Haben sie ein Stadtplan?"). Well ... maybe my German accent is better than I thought. Or maybe the guy was just tired of speaking in foreign languages. But whatever his reason, he explained the map and the layout of the city in rapid-fire German.

The sun set quickly as we walked through Heidelberg: it was dark by the time we reached the historic Altstadt and started walking through the Christmas markets. We were a little disappointed, as we'd hoped to watch the sun set over the river ... but the Weihnachtsmärkte soon made up for it!

 

 

Snapshots of Christmas

Mardi, 17 décembre.

I just got back from the most amazing weekend trip -- four days exploring the sights and Christmas markets of Strasbourg and Heidelberg! I'll be uploading more pictures and anecdotes tomorrow, but here are some black-and-white snapshots to tide you over.

More coming soon!

Adventures in BeDeLux

Samedi, 2 novembre.

In the last week, I've travelled over three thousand kilometres through four countries: France, Germany, Luxembourg, and Belgium. That's two flights, three airport shuttles, four tram rides, a couple of car rides, and approximately a dozen trains and buses. And approximately 400 more photos on my already crammed iPhone. Thanks to a delicious diet of waffles, fries, and chocolate, I'm a few pounds heavier than I was last Saturday (although the weight lost by my wallet more than compensates!) and quite a bit more tired. Still, it's been an absolutely amazing couple of days.

The amount of things I've done, seen, and -- of course -- eaten in the last week is way too much for just one post! You'll have to stay tuned for a couple more posts about all of Molly's and my adventures in Luxembourg and Belgium. But first, an updated shot of my travels map, which has grown considerably since the last time you saw it!

You can find the whole map here (and check out more information about all the cities I've visited here on the blog). The purple pins mark places I visited during the first three weeks of orientation (Nimes, Avignon, etc) while the coral pins are places I've visited during the course of the semester. Blue pins represent the places I've yet to visit, but hope to soon!

But I digress -- back to my Adventures in BeDeLux. Which is, BTW, a pun on BeNeLux, the name given to the region comprised on Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. I like to think that our trip replaced the Netherlands with Deutschland! Well, sort of. Ryan Air -- the discount airline popular with study abroad students because it sells tickets for as low as 15 euros -- flies into Frankfurt-Hahn, a small airport in Germany not far from the Luxembourg border. Although the airport is quite literally in the middle of nowhere, we found that an inexpensive bus shuttle could take us from the airport to Luxembourg and on to Brussels. So hey, why not add another country to our list?