Treetop walk in the woods (Germany)

The town of Bad Wildbad is about an hour drive from Stuttgart, and is worth a return trip for me! My favorite attraction this time was the beautiful boardwalk up into the trees, followed closely by the return walk on the forest floor.

You can either start the experience by driving up the hill and parking, or taking the tram from the town in the valley. Strolling through the woods is at no cost, but the boardwalk ramp includes an admission fee. The structure felt very safe, but you are clearly walking through thin air, many feet above the ground. The sides are high enough to seem quite safe for children, and there are optional side adventure that I did not partake of (for example a small swaying bridge on a detour from the path).

After a medium-long and pleasant uphill stroll, the round treetop structure comes into view. The spiral is large and solidly built, feeling safe and wide with high railings. The views are spectacular, and vary as you walk higher through the trees.

Only at the top did I feel ready to head back down, since the top is the outside of the spiral, but others lingered for the amazing views. For the brave at heart, there is a slide that twists down through the structure, for a 2 Euro fee. Lots of happy people shrieked their way down, but not me.

There are restaurants and snack bars near the tram stop at the top, and plenty of cafes in town. There are also thermal baths, gardens, shops, and hotels. Several other treetop walks can be found in other cities around Germany, which is a fun way to explore nature and see the area from above. Search for “baumwipfelpfad” for several locations. This is not a sponsored post- I just highly recommend it/them.

  

Garden mysteries

The 1st week of deployment was tough, so I thought that a post about the budding plants in the back yard might focus my mind on positives. It is good to see new life come to the garden this spring. Some plants I recognized even in the winter, but others are a complete mystery to me.

We have several of these odiferous plants (above). If the blossoms are beautiful, they stay. Otherwise, I will trim them down substantially. We had a butterfly bush in Massachusetts, and I’m curious to see what color these will be (below).

I wonder what kind of a tree has golf-ball-sized leftovers in the fall – you can see one of them in the lower left branch in the photo below, and there were several on the ground. 

I believe we will have plenty of lilies coming up, based on what this looks like!

I’m not sure about these guys….waiting and seeing.

No idea what these cute yellow flowers are called, but the bees are very happy. Clearly, I need more practice with editing photos- just trying to break up the routine here.

These red branches brought cheer among the snow, and now they are sprouting green leaves.

I really hate to mow the lawn when it is filled with several versions of cute flowers! Thankfully, my neighbor said that most Germans wait to mow their lawn until the first week of May around here. 

I wonder if this is a bleeding heart- will see. I recognize the furled leaves from Massachusetts.

I definitely recognized this bunch, but was surprised that only one daffodil bloomed in the front and one in the back of the house! Will have to fix that in the fall. Hopefully the squirrels will not dig  up all the bulbs!

Mallorca, Spain (waaay off the beaten path!)

After living in Germany for 3 years, we have heard over and over about the vacation destination on an island in the Mediterranean Sea! We finally took the time to go, and April is the best time of year as far as we are concerned. It was barely above freezing when we drove to the airport, and it was in the low 70’s when we landed! There was still elbow room to be had on the streets, at the beach, and in the pedestrian areas, unlike the packed crowds of summer we heard about. It was humorous seeing locals wearing winter coats while tourists were in shorts and flip-flops.

We stayed in a quieter town on the north-west side of the island. This gave us down time to wander along the beach in Puerto de Soller and enjoy the slower pace of life. We highly recommend the food at 54 Beach Club, and had a terrific house-made lemonade and ice cream sundae at Kingfisher.

In the town of Soller, we learned about the extensive history of modern art on Mallorca at the Can Prunera museum, which is a gorgeous home with stunningly engraved windows. We had outstanding homemade ravioli at Can Llimona, along with a stupendous dessert. The fish soup at Luna 36 was delicate and worth writing home about!

The most serene restaurant was Can Gata, complete with a resident cat in the garden courtyard. We noticed that we have been learning to relax over the years in Europe, starting with thermal baths- just hanging out (in bathing suits!) for hours. In Spain, if your dinner is 1.5 hours, the waiter may comment about how quickly you ate! Thus, on the last night at Can Gata, we were proud to have chilled over a 2 hour dinner, from bread to dessert!

We took a day trip to the capital city of Palma, where we had a peaceful vegetarian lunch at a place on Temple Street called “Temple Natura”. Even if you are not vegetarian, the garden courtyard is worth having a bean burrito or whatever else in. The neighbor’s dogs gave us a friendly greeting and visited for a few minutes. The cathedral in Palma is unique, and worth the admission fee. The antique train from Soller to Palma was nice,  though pricey, and the bus trip between towns is practically a state secret. I wish I had taken a photo of the clean, well lit, and organized underground train and bus station in Palma. For less than a quarter of the price of the train, we took the bus back and even had a good pastry from the bus station bakery.

We’re glad we went to Mallorca, and recommend an April trip. If you don’t mind the heat and crowds, go any time!

Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

This this trip was very short, but here are a few photos and tips. We drove to Bavaria along the Autobahn that dips briefly into Austria before curving around back into southern Germany. It was a beautiful route, requiring only a short stop before Austria at a highway rest stop to buy the sticker for the car’s windshield. This system of buying a "vignette" for the vehicle seems more efficient than paying tolls along the way in Switzerland, the Czech Republic, and Austria.

We stayed at the American hotel, but will probably stay at a German hotel the next time we go. Breakfast and dinner at the American hotel were ok, but we are so used to European food now that we noticed the difference. For some people, this hotel is a bit of “home”, but we didn’t need carb heavy meal choices with lots of meat and iceberg lettuce. Our weekend group did not provide child care, but another group that weekend did, and their kids seemed happy with the activities, food, and pool.

We enjoyed two local restaurants with plenty of veggies, and salad including different types of lettuce. The walk into town from the American hotel is do-able (about 30 minutes), with beautiful architecture and painted houses. The mountains were scenic, although we did not have the chance to participate in any snow sports this trip.

Tübingen, Germany

What a nice university town less than an hour south of Stuttgart! It reminded me a bit of Cambridge, Massachusetts, with the best of Germany thrown into the mix. We parked in one of the garages just outside of old town, having been alerted that on-street parking is tough to find and time-limits are strictly enforced. It was a short walk past vegetable vendors and florists, to a warren of cobblestoned streets leading uphill past assorted shops and cafés, including a record store (yep, real vinyl!). 

The City Museum is closed on Mondays, FYI, but there are plenty of other things to see and do. There were bookstores with titles in English, a super falafel place with well-spiced lentil soup, and plenty of top name brand shops from muesli to bath products. On a serious note, a church shop on the main square featured a reconciliation video of Germans apologizing for the war crimes of their grandparents to Jewish and Polish people around the world during several “Marches of Remembrance”. Very powerful and moving. A rock had been thrown through the church shop window the week before.

One of the large churches had an organist rehearsing so loudly that we could hear the music outside, so of course we went in! A lovely chocolate shop enticed us to buy gifts for other people, and we climbed the hill to the castle for fantastic views over the city. We didn’t go into the castle museum, but will do so on a future visit. There were flyers for lectures and activism on social justice issues – I may need to take some advanced German classes so I can understand more complicated vocabulary in order to attend some of those events.

We picked up a bunch of fruits and vegetables from an outdoor vendor on the way back to the car, so be sure to bring along your reusable shopping bags- though there were thin plastic bags available. We look forward to returning in the warmer weather, and again when it gets cold next December for the chocolate festival.

Another round of “yesses” and “nos” from this move:

Yes, you can sign over your washing machine and dryer to the new tenants in your rental home. No, you can absolutely NOT sign them over, we don’t do that any more. Yes, we will make an exception for you this time.

No, you cannot book a move by telephone and e-mail, you MUST come in to the office. Yes, we will e-mail you the form to fill out and e-mail back to us.

After the move, art class in Stuttgart (Patch)

No, we cannot guarantee your preferred moving dates. Your furniture will be picked up before Christmas and delivered after New Years. It is irrelevant that the new job will not pay for temporary quarters since the new location is only 2 hours away from the old location. Yes, we can pick up before Christmas and deliver between Christmas and New Years. Yessss, we can maybe pick up and deliver before Christmas.

Yes, you can make an appointment to get your new license plates. No, you cannot get your new plates because of a computer glitch with your insurance company. It doesn’t matter that you were on the phone for half an hour before the move to notify your insurance company of the move.

No, you cannot drop of your cats’ veterinarian records on Thursdays, because we are closed. Yes, the website says we are open on Fridays. No, you cannot drop the records off on Friday because we are CLOSED. Go away. Come back next year.

Yes, you can make an appointment to get your ID card updated. No, you cannot get your ID card at your appointment because the new machine is broken. Yes, you can sign in for a “walk-in appointment” and wait an hour for your updated ID card.

Door in Konstanz, Germany

No, you cannot order an orange bin for recycling at your house, only your landlord can do so. Yes, you can drop off your recycling at the center a few miles outside of town. In the rain. With insufficient parking. #firstworldproblems

That’s enough for today!!!

Cafe in Konstanz, Germany