Hardigrees Invade Europe!

Info Note: Jeff and Amanda will be referred to as Jeff and Amanda. Jena will be Jena, but for distinction Jeff Lee will be referenced as Jeff (L).

We had a great visit from our friends from Georgia. They arrived in late June and stayed through the 4th of July. Jeff and Amanda arrived at Frankfort International and we began the two hour drive home. We stopped in Manderscheid and viewed the medieval castles there from a cliff side view, just to set the tone. After a quick nap and freshening up, we headed off to one of our favorite restaurants in Metterich, a quick 6-9 minute drive from the house.

Jeff got his first taste of Kristallweizen (crystal vie-sen) Erdinger. Which is a wheat beer that has been filtered to look crystal clear. Amanda dug into the local Mosel Reisling wine. Both enjoyed the schnitzel and Oma's (grandma's) dumplings. Jeff (L) ordered a local dish of white asparagus, which was an immediate hit with Amanda, too.

On our first full day, we went castling (is that a verb? to castle?) at Amanda's request. First stop was Burg Pyrmont, a smallish castle on the way to Burg Eltz, a large-ish castle set in a deep valley about an hour from the house. The castle, dating back to the 1300s, is still the residence of the family who built it. They occupy 1/3 of the castle and the rest is open to tours. After the tour, once she knew all there was to know about castles, learned the complete history of the Germanic people, and was ready for duty, the people of Germany rose in a great public upwelling and crowned Amanda Queen (see below):








After the coronation, we sat for an amazing bowl of really thick, flavorful split pea soup with a frankfurter and some brot (bread). Of course, you'll notice the Erdinger Hefeweizen (cloudier cousin of the Kristallweizen) as the centerpiece of the meal!






While waiting for the rain, we sat inside the castle, finished our drinks and made plans for the rest of the day.



Next stop, Cochem castle, just down the Mosel from Burg Eltz. Cochem is deep in the heart of the Mosel Wine Country, the picturesque and easy going, winding valley that runs the western side of Germany. Here, YOU see us with the Burg in the back ground, but OUR view is decidedly better...you'll see what I mean.



The photo below was taken from our previous vantage point. In the back ground is the Mosel River. If you look to the right side, you can see the steep vineyards creeping up the hill.

From Cochem, it was time to head further south (upstream...yep, that's right, the rivers flow FROM the Alps to the North Sea, so they flow north...weird, but logical) to Bernkastel-Keus, or Bernkastel for short. They apparently couldn't make a house in 1409 that would stay straight for 600 years, through hundreds of floods. So this Weinstube (wine bar) is a little crooked. It gets worse once you are inside.

This is inside. We had a Wienprobe, or tasting, where the glasses are labeled and you can compare side by side. Unfortunately these weren't all that good. The dark orange one near center is a 1976 Auslese--definitely an acquired taste!

Okay, so we castled like the wind. Now it was time to do Paris and Versailles. First stop, a picnic in front of the Eiffel Tower. The previous day we had all discovered the wonder of Eiswein, and ice-wine, made when the vineyards freeze. We brought a bit of Germany to the Champs Du Mars and took a sip on the grass on a sunny day. Our picnic was cheese, ham, bread fruit, wine...I am ready to go back!

Next, a little visit to Napoleon's tomb. A little tiny monument with a little tiny solid gold dome about 300 feet tall...The little general would have loved it!

Connected to the tomb church is Les Invalides, the world's largest military museum and Jeff (L)'s favorite museum on earth. The French were not to be caught off guard this time, and immediately sent tanks to attack Amanda, the new Queen of Germany!

Finding absolutely NO hunchbacks at Les Invalides, we caught the Metro (and sang the 1980's "Riding on the Metro") over to Notre Dame--a virtual hotbed of hunchback sightings. If you've been here in the past, you'll notice it is beautifully cleaned up (all the black pollution cleared off, leaving it brilliantly white.

Daring passer-by Algerians to steel our camera and run, we got a group shot anyway. I think you can see Quasimodo in the upper tower, if you look closely. You can definitely see the flying buttresses, supporting the walls from outside, which allows the massive interior spaces.

Here is only my second attempt at video embedding, so let me know how it goes. Here Amanda and Jeff (L) did a little shopping, while Jeff and Jena waited on us. It is just such a typical Paris busy street scene, I had to take a little video. If Jeff tips his chair back a little, he'll lose his head to a mirror!

From one church to another. We left the 12th century Notre Dame for the early 1900's Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart). This church was built in the Pig Alley area, home to the Moulin Rouge and the famous art, bar, prostitution, drug district of Paris, where Toulouse Lautrec, Hemmingway and many others have come over the years to drink absinthe and lose themselves or escape the world. We just came for the crepes and the view!

Sidewalk cafe with a view of Sacre Coeur, beer, crepes, coffee, and a waiter with a great sense of humor. Oh yeah, for all of you ugly Americans: we had a blast and everyone was quite nice.

Now the subway is a different story. This Metro pic was not crowded. We took a couple of hops when going to the Arc D' Triumph when we were packed like sardines and it was HOT. Hot like sweating-through-your-clothes hot.

After the Arc, we headed to the Tower for some night viewing. We were accompanied by 2-3 thousand Algerian beggars, trying to sell birds, jewelry, key chains, etc. They were a serious pain in the ass and hopefully France gets their act together and gets some cops out with batons to administer some beat-downs. After wading through those guys, we were expecting this huge Eiffel Tower. Huh, it turns out, Amanda can reach the top while standing flat footed. What a gyp!

Oh wait, that was just a trick of PERSPECTIVE...my bad. Interesting fact: The bridge over the River Seine, pronounced "sane" (if you fall in, are you insane? Get it?) is named the Jena Bridge. Built by Napoleon to commemorate a glorious victory over the Prussians in the town of Jena, not far from us! Anyhow below is a view of the tower in the late evening.

"But," you say, "what if you all four went and stood exactly under the center of the tower, laid, the camera on the ground, and took a picture straight up? What would that look like?" Well, I'm so glad you asked, for you see, we had a long discussion about what people might ask when we returned and made a blog, and this photo is the result of such forward-thinking:

Paris: done. Now for Versailles (Ver s eye), the palace of the French monarchs. Built to grandeur by Louis XIV (the 14th) aka "The Sun King" it is a monument to lavishness unlike anything else on earth. The 14th could get away with it as he conquered most of Europe by force or treaty, was loved by everyone, and ruled for nearly 70 years. His successors rested on his laurels and by 1793, Louis XVI (the 16th) and Marie Antoinette found themselves permanently a head shorter after checking out the inner workings of the guillotine.

Jena and Amanda hanging out in the Hall of Mirrors, one of the most photographed spots on earth. Add this one to the tally, Mr. Guinness.

Where the royal magic happened, Marie Antoinette's bedroom. It is divided by a short banister, so people could visit here, but knew where they stood, literally. The king had his own room, across the entire palace (lucky) and a private passage that opens next to the bed. It's good to be the king.

Here, the Hardigrees take in a couple of the huge paintings in the palace, this one is a favorite of ours, Napoleon crowning Josephine in Notre Dame. After he had already crowned himself Emperor, of course.

We loaded up and headed back to Germany after a short but full trip to Paris. No trip to the region would be complete without a visit to Trier, once the capital of the Roman Empire, 30 minutes from our house. (Yes, I too used to think Rome was always the capital). In the background, you'll see the building on the left (pointy roof) is made of red brick. This was built for Emperor Constantine the Great or Constantine I. He's the guy that made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in the early 300's A.D. We viewed the baths and strolled the town Walk Platz (place), sampling Bratwurst and wine along the way.

I won't bore you with the details here, but below is the Porta Nigra--what is left of a huge Roman wall system that once encircled the capital. I highly encourage you to "Google" or Wikipedia it and see what it looked like new. Anyhow the Jeffs explored it and watched a guy dressed like a Roman Centurion give a tour to school kids, complete with yelling and sword brandishing.

For 4th of July (yes they have a 4th of July, 5th of July, etc), we went to the Rhine River city of Rudesheim am Rhein. We took the ferry across. You can see the vineyards in the background. They just happened to be holding and annual event called the Rhine in Flames. Basically, there is a giant wine festival in the town, with bands playing American songs (70s and 80s), a cable car up to the mountain, and a huge fireworks show in the evening.

Here we are listening to the song by America "Horse with No Name" and John Denver's "Country Roads" while enjoying the beautiful weather. Afterward, we ate a great schnitzel, gravy and potatoes meal, probably with some Spargel (that delicious white asparagus).

Then we took the cable car up to the top, to the German Unification monument (1871 not 1990). While waiting on fireworks from the river down below, a rock band played Skynyrd, Doobie Brothers, CCR, BTO, etc. We even did a little dancing under the stars. The fireworks were amazing. Part one was visible as the flotilla of 40+ boats rounded the bend and the castle on the opposite shore let loose a 20 minute barrage, illuminating the vineyards and river below, filled with ships. Shortly thereafter, the boats repositioned across from town and a barge based show began, lasting another 25 minutes. Finally, the show was over and the cable car line was so long, we walked in the dark at 1 AM down to the village and the car for the drive home. What a great day.

Too soon, it was time for Jeff and Amanda to head home. We saw them off to the airport, feeling like they had just arrived. It was a visit we were really looking forward to, and now is a fond memory.

Belgium - Seafood, Trappiste, Culture

Another getaway without the children. This was in June, mainly the weekend of 20-22 June. Belgium is just west of the house here. It is a mere 25 minutes to St. Vith and just over 3 hours to the farthest point, near Oostende, on the northwest coast. In between lie Antwerp-famous for diamonds, but loved by us for seafood and Rubens' artwork; Brussels-a transportation hub for us on the Eurostar; Bastogne-the focal point of the American struggle and victory in the Battle of the Bulge over Chritmas 1944; Waterloo-site of Napoleon's defeat; Brugge-the moated medieval town, considered the epitome of Flemish history and culture. On this trip we'll hit Antwerp, Brugge, Oostende and Waterloo.

Our first stop, Antwerp, two hours away on Friday night. Jeff is dressed in Euro style, black on black, dining curbside at an amazing and reasonably priced seafood joint in the Zud neighborhood, called Fiskebar (fish bar, really). After this we found a bar serving 550 beer types and ran into a group of Americans, Russians and Poles. We drank a few and wound up singing Neil Diamond (one guy had a guitar) among other crowd favorites--FUN!



We spent the night in a little hotel right beside the cathedral seen below, which houses the masterpieces of Jeff's favorite painter, Peter Paul Rubens. This was his home church in the 1570s to 1640s.



Just past the church was this building which we assume is the town hall. What was cool is we stopped to watch ths bride and groom come out and march through the square with the "Oompah" band. Then a couple of minutes later another couple emerged and got on a horsedrawn carriage. Then a couple came out and got in a limo. This place was cranking out a new couple every few minutes.

Another view of the square. Between this square and the church, Jena found an antiques guy selling silver. She picked up a cute tea service. Jeff bought Westvletern beer and some beer glasses...not from the silver dude, from a beer shop!

Inside the church, you can see Rubens' "Elevation of the Cross," done in a tri-fold, which was the style back then.

So, out in the square, what else could you expect but Hare Krishnas?! They had the one guy painted gold while 6-9 of them danced around singing (guess what) "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna..." They had the pajamas and shaved heads with the ponytails and were pretty convincing. That song is kinda catchy and we spent the rest of the day singing "Hare Krishna..."

After we decided NOT to shave our heads and give the little gold guy all of our wordly possessions, we hopped in our capitalist, Christian BMW 730 and cruised an hour over to Brugge (also "Bruges," pronounced Brooj). This is a walled, moated medieval city in north Belgium in the heart of the region of Flanders.

Brugge is famous for two things, Mussels and Beer. We had both. Plenty of both. Here's a little neighborhood pub with 500+ beers. We had a banana beer. It tasted like a banana shake, but looked like beer...mmm..beer.

We strolled through the town into the evening (sunsets in June were about 11:30 pm) and took this shot over the canal. We use the high def version as our desktop on the computer.

We found an after hours place that was bizarre to say the least. Unless you don't find black carved waiters (statues) surrounding your table strange. Or if you don't find topless portraits of many saints (painted tastefully by the proprietor) odd...we had a drink and left a little creeped out.

The next day was a little rainy, so we drove up to the coast (20 minutes away, but sunnier) Notice the crowded beaches... oh wait it is 50 degrees and the wind is blowing 25 mph. It is summer in Europe, you know!

We drove the ENTIRE coast, East to West in under an hour, stopping at the fishing/harbor town of Oostende, which you Yanks might call West End. We found nothing of significance tourism-wise, but hit the mother load of fresh seafood. Shrimp, prawns, stone crab, langoustines, etc. Jeff ate more than his share, leaving Belgium in a seafood deficit.

Jena on the other hand couldn't get enough of this smelly dried fish. Actually, that's not entirely accurate. It was all I could do to get her to stand here for this photo!

We returned home, but soon duty called and Jeff had to fly an F-16 to Charleroi, Belgium for maintenance, so Jena drove out and we took a trip to Waterloo, where Napoleon did surrender (if you didn't catch the reference, it is from the ABBA song...but who cares). This is, in fact, the location of Napoleon's defeat at the hands of England's Wellington and Prussia's Blücher in Jun of 1815. Below is the monument.

Jeff, confident he could have done better, contemplates his eventual domination of Europe. (in the background is the less important battleground on which the future of Europe was decded, including the propulsion of Prussian dominance, which would lead to a unified Germany a scant 55 years later...)

Finally, what would any trip to Belgium be without delicious amber liquid love from the Trappiste monks? Another place with a fine selection of hundreds of beers...

We have seen Belgium, and it is good. We have returned several times since, including a trip to Tongeren, famed for it's antiques market on Sundays. We bought a 1924 phonograph player and some other knick knacks. The waffles rival the beer. Needless to say, the Belgians aren't too skinny and neither are we! Happiness is...Belgium in your backyard.

Europa Park - Disney/Six Flags Combined

In mid-June, just before the kids left for 6 glorious weeks in the States, we took Katie and 7 of her friends to Europa Park. Now I know you're thinking, "the mean parents of Katie Lee, who never do anything nice for her?" Yep, we loaded up 8 (eight) 14 year old kids in two cars, left at 7 a.m. and drove 3.5 hours through two countries to go to an amusement park for no apparent reason. But boy did we have fun! The kids were great and the park was not too crowded. There were 5 or 6 major roller coasters and dozens of minor ones setup like Disney with different lands, but with powerful coasters like a Six Flags. Fun! And the park is huge...we didn't even see it all.

Here's the gang at the entrance. Katie is far right with her black hair.

Is that Epcot Center you say? Nope. This is Jeff and Jena (self portrait) on the MIR Space Station ride in the Russia area of Europa Park.

This was the daddy of all the rides, a mean coaster 240 feet tall and very fast. Several children needed underpants changing.

Here, the girls regroup after the MIR.

Jeff rode every ride the kids rode. Consequently, he has about a 69% hearing loss due to high pitch screaming that 14 year old girls seem to use as a weapon of mass destruction, see below:

No matter how old you get, your dad has a way of looking like a dork in front of your friends just to embarrass you.

This gives a perspective of the park in the background, from the top of a water ride. The children look nervous, I wonder why.

We waited in the longest line of the day for "Blue Fire," a steel coaster with loops and twists. It was worth the wait.

The park stayed open until 8 p.m., then we stopped at McDonald's on the way home, for a little slice of Americana. By the time we rolled into the house at midnight, we were spent, but had a great trip. The weather held (it drizzled on us in line for Blue Fire) and we all got more sun that we planned. It's not too often you have that problem here, so we were not complaining. We've learned of a closer place to here, but don't know if we have time to get-r-done before the fall season overcomes us.