Hamburg, Germany (1 Day Itinerary)

After a less than fabulous experience in Frankfurt, saved by a last minute excursion to Rudesheim, I was a little nervous about our upcoming plans for Hamburg. We gave ourselves a full day to get from Frankfurt to Hamburg due to the sheer amount of driving. Let me first show you our driving map again. We took a ferry from Denmark to Germany at the beginning of our trip after spending a day in Copenhagen. Then we drove in a big (oddly shaped) circle that got us back into Denmark on the western/land side.

The drive from Frankfurt to Hamburg alone was over 5 hours, so we planned two pit stops at some gorgeous looking castles. When you plan a big trip like this, you do it over the course of several months, not realizing that everything you planned would be seen and experienced over the course of 2 weeks. What I mean, is that when you plan a trip, the key to a successful holiday is diversity! That's not to say that this trip to Denmark, Austria and Germany didn't have lots of diversity, but at the same time...it also had way too many castles. Granted, I LOVE castles, but even by the end of the trip, I didn't need to see that many more. Unfortunately, when you have a 5 hour drive between 2 major cities in a foreign country where you don't speak the language, your sightseeing options are relatively limited.

Our first stop for the day came about and hour and a half after leaving Frankfurt. We arrived at Eltz Castle still owned and lived in by the Eltz family. I find this exceptionally cool! We took the guided English tour that showed us some of the older parts of the castle (obviously not the current living apartments), and then got back on the road. What I especially liked about this castle is that you could get really awesome views of the entire thing by taking a little walk up the hill.

Eltz Castle

The next castle (Loverin Castle) was about three hours away from Eltz. We stopped for gas and grabbed some gas station lunch and continued on our way. Now, you have to realize that at this point in the trip, we started suffering from travel fatigue. That's only natural when you go anywhere for 10+ days and do as much driving around as we did. City after city, castle after castle...driving, driving, endlessly driving. I honestly don't know how my husband did it.

So, we neared the next castle, but missed the entrance for parking which was a bit of a walk from the castle itself. We could have easily turned around, parked and continued with our visit, but the day had turned a little rainy and dreary, so instead we just gave up and decided to push through and continue to Hamburg.

We hadn't intended on spending another 3.5 hours in the car, but the drive to Hamburg proved difficult thanks to traffic and construction. Those German autobahns can be speed limit-less but when there's construction, you find yourself going 45 MPH with the rest of the cars on the road.

Weary eyed and exhausted, we arrived in Hamburg. We found the ARCOTEL Onyx easily, and were pleased with the underground parking garage and keycard elevators. The hotel advertised as being in the "Theater District" and as we exited the hotel to find dinner, we quickly realized that "Theater District" is apparently synonymous with "Red Light District" in Hamburg. Lord have mercy! We certainly did not expect THAT.

Prostitution is legal in Germany, but up until now, we saw very little overt signs. Perhaps our other hotels were in better parts of town. Not that our Hamburg hotel was in a bad part of town. There were families with children all over the place, and our hotel room faced a children's playground. We also saw signs for the Lion King...it was unfortunately right next to a brothel that advertised their "services" for the bargain price of 30 Euros. As we walked down the street, it was obvious to us that while this particular neighborhood was trying to become the theater district, the red light district still dominated. Shop after shop after shop tried soliciting new customers to enter their "adult" shops, gentlemen's clubs, etc. It was more than awkward. (Side note. When we visited Bangkok, Thailand a few years later, we made a point to avoid the infamous Thai red light district though looking back, I think it would have been interesting to compare the two.)

Perhaps our American prudery got the better of us. We dashed into the first dining establishment we could find (a Burger King), and then quickly retreated to the comforts of our hotel for the evening.

We only had about a half day of activities planned in Hamburg because we had more driving ahead of us in order to make it across the Danish border by dinnertime. The first stop for the day was a place called the "Minature Wunderland" in the warehouse district. This part of Hamburg still has many of the historic buildings used for the massive shipping industry for which the city is known. I encourage you to read about the Hamburg fires during World War II. Interesting story.

Hamburg Warehouse District

Even if you're not into model trains and train platforms, the "Minature Wunderland" is really neat. The trains were only a very small part of the massive displays. The miniature cities and towns impressed me the most. They had European cities, old fashioned carnivals, small towns, and even a section to the United States (my least favorite part actually as it really only featured New York City and Las Vegas). There was even a miniature chocolate factory with a button visitors could push that spit out a real piece of chocolate. As a child who loved doll houses, I simply loved this miniature display. My in-laws weren't as impressed with it as I was, however. I think it just depends on your personal taste. The place does get really crowded, so try to get there early. Watch their website too for peak times to avoid when lines and crowds are at their worst. We visited on a Monday morning in August, and we were fine.

Minature Wunderland - Hamburg, Germany

Minature Wunderland - Hamburg, Germany

After the Minature Wunderland, we made our way further into the more modern area of Hamburg to a placed called the Chocoversum. I read a lot of reviews about this place before we visited. Many of the reviewed warned that the tours were all in German, but that it was still worth visiting. I was definitely wary of that, but we decided to go anyway. We arrived to catch the 10:15 tour, and true to the reviews, the tour was completely in German. They did give us a laminated English guidebook that went into pretty good detail about everything that we were seeing, but even after we finished reading the English portion, the tour continued on for 10+ minutes at each stop completely in German. Our guide, however, did speak English and after she finished talking in German, she came over to us and covered quickly in English, whatever wasn't covered in the book.

Aside from getting to make our own chocolate bars, the best part of the tour was getting to taste different things throughout the whole chocolate making process. First was the raw seed from the cacao plant which had a very bitter, herbal taste. We then could taste the inside of the bean after the defermentation process and again after the roasting process. Only after the roasting did it even begin tasting like what we think chocolate should taste like.

The next chocolate samples were melted. The first one was after the chocolate is first mixed with sugar, but still very dark. The second was the milk chocolate powder. Third was a sample of the milk and dark chocolates on a wafer. Lastly, they gave us a sample of chocolate after it's packaged for shipping.

Cacao pod with edible seeds

Proportions when making dark, milk, and white chocolate

Making our own candy bars

We retrieved our personalized candy bars at the end of the tour, and then proceeded to do some massive souvenir shopping. The gift shop not only had ever type of chocolate you could imagine eating including super dark and flavored chocolates, but they also had every manner of chocolate scented products. I really enjoyed this place and highly recommend visiting if you're ever in Hamburg. Quick note, the visit wasn't long either. I mentioned that we took the 10:15 tour, and we were finished by lunchtime.

We found a quick bite to eat (and not a terribly good one, if I recall), at a little street-side cafe. On our way out of the city, we made one last stop at a place called the "Port of Dreams" aka the Hamburg immigration port. Here, thousands and thousands of immigrants left Germany and sailed to America. We took a look inside the main building itself and then took advantage of the research computers they had with free access to Ancestry.com. I wish I had been more prepared for that to look up more information about my own family heritage.

Hamburg - Port of Dreams

From the immigration port, we packed back into the car and hunkered down for another long drive. Fortunately, the winds and traffic were in our favor, and we experienced the true meaning of the notorious German autobahn on our way back to Denmark.

German autobahn - 180 kph

Thanks for reading!

- Foxy the Traveler

Frankfurt, Germany & Rudesheim on the Rhine

I realize that I left you all with a bit of a cliff hanger at the end of my last post. Having just come from the lovely town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, and the quaint Black Forest towns of Freiburg and Triberg, we weren't quite prepared to wind up back in a big, bustling city. Perhaps this blog post should be titled, "What do to when you have a whole day planned and you suddenly decide to change it." That just seems a bit wordy though. Haha!

Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened. We arrived in Frankfurt after spending the day in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, and we quickly realized that we just didn't want to spend a whole day and a half here like we planned. Instead, we condensed our sightseeing of Frankfurt into half a day, and found another quaint little town just a short drive away. 

Frankfurt didn't necessarily start off on the wrong foot. We arrived at our hotel, Fleming's Hotel Frankfurt-Main Riverside. (Fleming's has a few hotels in Frankfurt, FYI). The hotel was lovely. Don't let the glass enclosed shower in the middle of the room throw you. We read a bunch of reviews before we booked from people that were shocked and appalled that a hotel would put the shower in the middle of the room, but it didn't bother us. The hotel was within walking distance of many things to see in Frankfurt like the cathedral, the Romans and the city tram. 

Almost immediately after checking in, we headed out to visit the Cathedral of St. Bartholomew. This is a very interesting place to visit. Construction on this cathedral started in the 700s but was not officially finished until 1994. They have a picture inside that shows the years and the progress, though I'm not sure if my picture of the picture below does it justice. 

Cathedral of St. Bartholomew

Frankfurt, Germany

Evolution of the Cathedral

The Cathedral of St. Bartholomew is lovely, but I'm afraid the duomos and churches of Italy have ruined me forever. The castles in southern Germany are equally as incredible in their own right, but the cathedral in Frankfurt seemed less than impressive after everything else we'd seen so far on this trip.

Maybe we were just hungry? Maybe that's why Frankfurt didn't strike us as a more pleasant city when we first arrived. (Or maybe it's because the only thoughts I've ever had of Frankfurt were from the 1930s Shirley Temple movie Heidi, where they have scenes in Frankfurt at Christmastime in the 1800s with horses and real sleigh rides. Oddly enough, that's not the Frankfurt we saw in August of 2013.)

Dinner only further soured our experience in Frankfurt. We found a nice looking outdoor cafe, but all four of us couldn't stand the thought of more bratwurst. Three of the four of us ordered the smoked salmon appetizer which wasn't terrible, but the heat made turned the cold salmon warm very quickly. My husband's dinner took the cake! Not one, not two, not three...not four...but FIVE different types of pickled herring. THIS was a meal that went down in history. Imagine a perfectly normal fish...pickled, and then slathered in some sort of mayonnaise based sauce. Each sauce supposedly had a different flavor...ick! Even the memory makes me want to gag.

What exactly was the butter for?

We left dinner and headed back to our hotel disheartened. The last thing we wanted was to spend an entire day in this weird place. Maybe if we had started in Frankfurt, it wouldn't have been so bad. Or maybe even if we came to Frankfurt right after Berlin, we may have thought better of it. But spending several days in Austria and southern Germany with quaint villages and beautiful castles, returning to a modern city caused more of a shock than we expected.

So, we spent the last few hours of the evening coming up with a plan B. We had two activities the next day in Frankfurt that we didn't want to miss, but after that, we wanted to go somewhere... anywhere else. Hurray for free hotel wifi! My in-laws found a small wine town nearby called Rudesheim that sat right along the Rhine river. Rudesheim had a sightseeing triangle (similar to Miyajima in Japan) which sounded like a much better way to spend our afternoon.

The next morning, we enjoyed breakfast at the hotel. Upon first glance, it looked like they only had bread and fruit, but then around the corner they had cold meats and cheeses. As soon as we sat down to eat, a waiter came over and offered us made to order eggs as well.

Before the trip, I got us timed tickets to go to a place called the Blind Museum. They have a few of these around the world, where they give you the experience of a blind person. Our tickets were for 11AM, so before that, we headed to the Frankfurt Romans.

The Frankfurt Romans are, without a doubt, the most famous place for tourists in the whole city. It's a pedestrian square with buildings designed to look old. At one point, they actually were old, but they were destroyed during the war and only rebuilt in recent years. Another example of the devastation of war. I appreciated that Frankfurt rebuilt the Romans, but at the same time, I knew I was looking at a "replica". Again, how can you compare something that's been rebuilt to the original 11th century structure that's still standing in Italy or Kyoto?

Frankfurt Romans

The Blind Museum was a very unique experience. They set the museum inside the rain forest in Brazil, and gave us each a walking stick. At one point, we all sat down and listened to the various sounds while our guides explained how our ears began compensating for our lack of vision. I really enjoyed this place though I sort of wished they made it simpler. I would have rather gone through a house set up, to learn how blind people get around their home. That, to me, would have been more interesting than being blind in the rain forest, but I still don't regret visiting.

After the blind museum, we took the tram back to our hotel, and drove an hour to Rudesheim. We took two different chair lifts and a boat down the Rhine river itself. The chair lifts were beautiful and breezy, but the boat ride was incredibly hot. Still, I enjoyed this place much more than Frankfurt.

At the top of the first chair lift before taking the little trail to the next one, we were surprised with a nice cultural dance performance.

After the boat ride, we found a little restaurant for dinner. Honestly, I have no idea what the place looked like, but I do remember being so excited that they had other menu options besides bratwurst. My husband got pork chops, my in-laws got weinerschnitzle, and I got pesto pasta. Yum!

We then drove the hour back to Frankfurt elated from finding such a gem at the last minute. We turned in early knowing that the last few days of our trip involved a lot of driving (ha...as if we haven't already driven a lot so far), in order to get back to Denmark. And I must say...if Frankfurt wasn't our cup of tea...Hamburg certainly wasn't either, though after the shock of Frankfurt, we handled Hamburg a little better. We were taken a bit by surprise, however, when the theater district (where we thought we were staying) turned out to also be the red light district. Live and learn. Click HERE to keep reading.

Thanks for reading!

- Foxy the Traveler

Rothenburg ob der Tauber - Germany's Christmas town

From deep in the heart of Germany's Black Forest, we drove north toward Frankfurt stopping half way at one of the most enchanting little towns I've ever been to. The place initially reminded me of Lucca in Italy with its original city walls and oodles of charm. But unlike the ancient Tuscan village, Rothenburg ob der Tauber had an extra magical touch.

We left the Black Forest around 9AM on Thursday, August 15. We flew to Denmark on August 5, so we're 10 days into the trip. We took our time driving to Rothenburg ob der Tauber. As we neared Saxony, we arrived at Hohenzollern Castle after an hour and 45 mins of driving. We decided not to tour the castle (after a while, they all start to blend together), but we did spend an hour or so walking the grounds and indulging on some local ice cream that tasted like a fruit roll-up. 

Hohenzollern Castle

Arial view of Hohenzollern Castle

We then drove another 45 mins or so to the Lichtenstein Castle. Again, we didn't go in. Instead, we walked the grounds and got some bratwurst for lunch at the castle cafe. 

Lichtenstein Castle

We took a little break from castle hopping to visiting the small German town of Musberg. It took us about another hour to drive there from Lichtenstein Castle, but prior to the trip, the other couple we traveled with had traced some of their family history back to this small town. We stopped at the historic Lutheran church and strolled through a nearby cemetery though it was far too modern for the names we sought. 

After that last pitstop, we continued north around Stuttgart toward our final destination, Rothenburg ob der Tauber. Little did we know that by driving inside the city wall, we would be driving down cobblestone and highly traveled pedestrian streets. Immediately the beauty of this place hit us. We found our hotel, parked the car and took full advantage of this walkable little town. 

The Burgarten Palais is a stunningly beautiful hotel. The whole place reeks of charm though the rooms are modern. It felt more like a guest house than a hotel. We booked through hotels.com and the other couple traveling with us used booking.com. Both worked fine and both bookings came with breakfast. 

We ate dinner pretty soon after arriving and then took a twilight walk through the city gates. One of the delicacies in Rothenburg ob der Tauber is schneeballen. Schneeballen is a crunchy, tasty delight. They're made with small pieces of dough baked together and then covered in delicious toppings. I'm finding it difficult to describe, so I'll let my pictures do the talking. 

Schneeballen

Rothenburg ob der Tauber city gates

The next morning we started off the day with scrambled eggs, cold breakfast meats, fruit, and fresh bread. We then set out to explore this magical town. Even in August, we soon discovered that the shops of Rothenburg ob der Tauber love Christmas. 

Our first stop was a toy and doll museum with a large display of doll houses. From there, we went to probably the largest Christmas store I've ever seen. I forced myself to stop at 4 ornaments though I could have easily purchased enough to decorates numerous trees. There is no place I wanted to photograph more, but I respectfully obeyed the "no photo" signs throughout the store.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking about the town, in and out of shops. We indulged on some lemon cheesecake and coffee and vanilla cake for lunch at our hotel and met up to leave this lovely place around 3pm. It's a relatively small town. If you're just passing through, you really don't need to spend more than a day here, but it was truly a splendid day.

I got to chatting with a coworker years later about this charming little town, and he told me that it's an even more enchanting place to visit during Christmastime. I've often said throughout my travels, that I won't return to anywhere I've already gone until I've been everywhere else. Rothenburg ob der Tauber may be the exception. 

Most famous street in Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Back in the car, we bid farewell to Rothenburg ob der Tauber and made our way to Frankfurt in about 2 hours. Almost immediately, we realized that we made a terrible mistake! Click HERE to read about how we turns our plans completely upside-down.

Thanks for reading!

- Foxy the Traveler