Voyage Junkie

The final day trip we took was to Nuremberg. It was a pretty quick trip from Munich, and it was good we'd saved it for last, as we had tired ourselves out with the long trips to Berlin and Heidelberg. Nuremberg is a smaller, solid city. It's downright normal and charming, while also being very much a city. It's like Cincinnati in that way. We spent a leisurely day walking the cobbled streets, checking out the famous market space, wandering the castle grounds, and of course eating lunch at a delightful restaurant. This is a view of the city skyline from a garden at the castle. We didn't spend a lot of time in the castle because much of it is rented out much like Burghausen . Also to go deeply into the castle requires money, and we spent this trip more in search of free experiences. Below, the top image shows the outdoor market, and the bottom image shows some of the architecture over a canal downtown. Matt was really excited to get this photo of Albrecht Dur...

Again using our trusty train passes, we journeyed to Heidelberg. This was a bit of a hike, as we took the high-speed train to Stuttgart, then changed to another local train which took us right to the historic district. We were able to easily walk to the beautiful old city, and saw gorgeous graffiti on the way. On the way into town, we didn't take this tunnel because we weren't sure of the directions. On the way back, we did, and it turned out way easier (and was also covered in spectacular graffiti). Once in the heart of the old city, we chose a Thai restaurant for lunch. Pictured below is the view from our outside table, at least before the hornets moved in a chased us inside. Can you spot the tourist trap kitsch on the left side of the frame? After our meal we wandered around the old city, checking out shops and cobbled streets. Matt wanted to visit the University library, so that was our main destination. It was an impressive structure both inside and out. The exterio...

Oh, Berlin. This is a city for artistic souls if ever there was one. Matt and I spent a lot of time trying to work out a way to do a successful day trip here, which was incredibly ambitious of us as Berlin is quite far from Munich. We had just watched Babylon Berlin  on Netflix and were determined to make it work. Before our trip we researched the heck out of the German Rail Pass , a rail pass for non-European travelers. We decided to get a 4-day pass that we could use any 4 days of one month, on all DB lines. We used this for the first time on our trip to Berlin, and the cost of that train just about covered the cost of the pass for us both! We visited Berlin on the 4th of July, 2018. Since 2017 we've made it a priority to be out of DC on the 4th and it's lovely. The history of Berlin shines through its recovery, and they seat it center stage. It felt a lot like visiting Hiroshima, another city who wears its tragic past visibly as a warning to the future. The hope, vibrancy,...

Before our Iceland trip last year, we also took some time to kick around Germany again. Of course we had to visit Martina and Christian in Munich again! The city is still amazing, still historical, and still beautiful. I still want to move there, right now . If anyone in Munich wants to hire me, or my husband, or both of us, the answer is yes. Let's go. All joking aside, after meeting a delightful high school exchange student on the plane who saved us spaces in line for our connecting flight in Iceland, we landed in Munich and made our way out to the burbs. Martina and Christian purchased a sweet not-so-little house a few years ago, and had one 2 year old and a baby on the way. Meanwhile Matt and I were just barely pregnant with our first (who, spoiler alert, died about 8 months later, but that's another story for not-here not-now maybe-not-ever-don't-worry-we're-ok), and renting a very overpriced DC one-bedroom pad. We're still in that overpriced pad but now I...

I have not posted for seven years since leaving Japan. I have been through a lot, as has Matt, and we've begun a little bit of traveling again in order to reconnect and heal. I have been re-doing this blog and stumbled upon this post, that I started but never posted, a few months after our return. I chose not to change it, since I liked the words from my younger, more carefree self. Enjoy! Nearly three months after leaving Japan and the better part of two since our Germany tour, I am finally finishing up the Germany-themed posts!  It's been a whirlwind few months that feels much longer.  Now we're looking back on two years of incredible travels and experiences, trying to find work in our strangely inhospitable native country, wondering... what's next?  And what better to do at a time like this but to look back fondly at travels through a functionally stable, health-care-providing country! Regensburg was beautiful like all the other cities we visited in sout...

I've been remiss in posting the rest of our Germany trip, and for that I apologize.  Matt and I got thrown into family gatherings and looking for jobs the minute we set foot on American soil.  Although we've only been back for about 2.5 months, it feels like a lot longer!  Partly this is due to just how much we miss traveling around Japan and Germany, and how much we want to go back, coupled with how hard it is to find a job in America these days.  But enough of our whining.  On to a magnificent castle! We were lucky enough to be able to visit Schloss Nymphenburg , pictured above in cloudy glory.  It was the summer home of Bavaria's rulers back in the day, and very Baroque in style.  Construction began in 1664 and wasn't finished for some time.  The view above is the front of the palace, seen over the second of two massive ponds filled with swans.  Where we are standing is close to the center point of the front entrance, which is ent...

One of our lovely hosts, Christian, hails from the town of Burghausen.  We went to stay with his parents for a night and were treated to some spectacular sights as well as amazing traditional food.  The weather was gorgeous so we walked through the town to Burghausen castle.  It is the longest castle in all of Europe, at 1.051m, and it is truly enormous.  There are six "courts," or sections of the castle.  Each court was specific in purpose and historically housed very different types of people and affairs.  The sixth court is the outermost court, and has the clock tower, a guard tower, was a place for executions, and housed manual workers and couriers, among other things.  The fifth court holds the exterior chapel, an observation tower, a park (where we played on see-saws), and was the place for ducal administration with the granary and cashier's office.  The fourth court is the prison.  There is a hexenturm  or witch's tower, that...

Munich is peppered with churches, as can be expected of a country that is historically very Catholic.  There were two that stuck out to us, on opposite sides of the spectrum.  One was all white, clean lines and open space.  The other was dark, violent, and looked like a potential Tim Burton movie set. As you can see, it is a lot easier to get a clean shot in a bright white church! There's just something fascinating about this  church. I think it's all the skeletons.