Coming soon .... the traveling CC travels again

Stay tuned! 

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1:23 of Not Many Escalators

We filmed a followup to 5 minutes of escalators while we were in Frankfurt.  Our interest in the Frankfurt subway system actually arose from the complete lack of turnstiles, not the crazy length of escalators.  Enjoy!

Note:  Be sure to turn on CC for narration! You can't see us, but we're chatting! 

Hilton Garden Inn - Frankfurt

We would not recommend the Hilton Garden Inn in Frankfurt.

It is a nice hotel.  One block away are huge city business buildings.  One block in the opposite direction is the redlight district.  Accessing the parking garage involves a 'man-trap' for your car.  

Rüdesheim am Rhein

We made a return trip this year to Rudesheim, home of the Christmas store!  Sadly due to schedules and time, we weren't able to actually visit the Christmas store again but did find some new sites around Rudesheim to explore. We visited a nearby castle (sorry, no pics) and rode a boat across the Rhine!  

We enjoyed dinner in Rudesheim at Drosselmueller.  

Last, we made a quick stop at a local grocery store, but decided against purchasing these Cool American Doritos!  :) 

Burg Berwartstein

Today we visited Burg Berwartstein.  It is located a little over an hour from our hotel.  With that long of a drive ahead of us, we began the trip with a quick pause at Real for some coffee.

#SelfieStick FTW

Wifey particularly enjoyed this drive, as she chilled in the back seat and left navigation assistance up to our friend, Joe! He did an excellent job, and after a bit, we arrived at Burg Berwartstein.   

This privately owned castle seems to be mostly a destination for school or similar groups.  If you have a large enough group and plan ahead, you can get a narrated tour.  We did not have this chance, but we did get a few pointers before we struck off on our own!  

Once such pointer (and display) was of the below well.  Our almost-guide drew some water from this well and then released it back into the pit.  It fell and fell and fell and fell and EVENTUALLY splashed.  We have no idea how deep the well is, but it is DEEP!

From various balconies, we were able to enjoy great views of the surrounding county and village down below.

Wifey loved going on this tour with Joe and Hubby - they found things interesting that honestly she doesn't care about and played off each other's interest, creating a fun afternoon.

The interior of the castle included some pretty wall paintings and a relatively large number of coat of arms.  

Hey, Wifey's Mom - you were asking about ceiling fans ... this isn't a fan, but would you consider this as a light fixture in your new place!?  

This is a weapon.  The boys asked Wifey to take a picture of it.  

Halfway through the tour, we ventured outside into a garden.  From here we were able to see the castle's foundations.  This castle is not built on top of the rock mountain, but into it.  Hubby found a cavern in the foundation and began to explore.  You can just barely see him in this next photo in the center-right of the shot.   

Here's the view following his climb.

We are forever grateful for the English speaking staffer who gave us some pointers before we began our un-guided tour.  One thing he mentioned is that while you're in the garden, there's a door you can enter and tour UNDER the castle.  We would have surely missed the resulting delights.  As it is, we have little to no idea what these passages are for or why/how they were built.  

We used our cell phone flashlights to guide our way through these dark passages.  Thanks goes to Joe for the following picture.  

Some of the passages had small areas cut out with tea lights which provided enough light to make it through, but not sufficient light for easy photography.  The next couple of shots were long-exposures. 

After our Burg tour, we decided to enjoy dinner on site.  We knew we wanted a decent meal before the men-folk went to work and didn't really want to look for one along our route with our limited data access.  

After touring the Castle, we stayed around for dinner at the on-site restaurant. Joe had a tarte flambée and Wifey Meat Dumplings.  Which apparently are actually meatballs on a horseradish-based sauce.  

The natural light accommodating these pictures makes wifey swoon! 

We didn't let Hubby eat.  Kidding!  In reality, the kitchen forgot his meal, and then later brought it just as we were trying to leave.  We asked them to pack it to go.  After several minutes, we were brought the following to-go container.  :) 

 

To-Go meals aren't really a thing in this area of Germany, and we really appreciate their ingenuity in finding something to meet our needs.  

Potzberg

Today we visited the Wildlife Park in Potzberg! The pictures pretty well speak for themselves!  In case they don't though, be sure and scroll all the way to the bottom for videos.  Note: Videos have no dialogue, only German in the background. 

Ticket booth

Map of the park.  We wished several times we had taken a picture of this BEFORE entering, as they weren't any flyers available for our reference.  

Since it is the summer break for kids here in Germany, the park has extra shows and we were able to participate in one show during our visit! To entice the birds to come to visit the guests, we were given a chicken foot while the trainer motioned them over.   

EWW!

Hubby even embraced the experience by petting a bird while it perched on his hand!

After the scheduled show, we took some time to walk around the premises and view other animals.  

And the videos: