Jeff had business in Germany, so we took an extra week and spent it driving around the central and southern part of the country and into Switzerland. I had never been to Europe before so it was so much fun to see that part of the world! We left the end of April and stayed through the first week of May. The weather was AMAZING! Most days started out cool (light jacket) but by noon you felt very comfortable with just a t-shirt and jeans. Absolutely NO humidity (which was great after Malaysian weather).***Side note: The reason it has taken me SOOOOO long to blog about this trip is we flew straight on to Dallas after this and were there until June 4th. Since then I have just been trying to catch up.
OK, back to the trip. We arrived in Frankfurt late Saturday April 30 and stayed at the on-site Sheridan hotel for the night. The next morning we rented a car and headed to Freudenberg, a small town right outside the city Jeff would be working in the next few days. The Hotel Zur Altstadt was located in a an area that has structures from the 1600's. In 1664 a fire destroyed all but one structure and the people rebuilt the entire town. The area is now protected by laws so that any remodeling must be done according to the original architecture. The streets are all cobblestone and there are sidewalk cafes, bakeries and coffee houses, along with cute little crafty stores. There was a beautiful old church DIRECTLY across the street from the hotel (actually we could almost throw a rock out our 3rd story window and strike it). It had a church bell and they rang it every half-hour and hour. THAT will get you moving at 6 a.m.:-)
Sunday afternoon when we got settled into the hotel we drove the short drive to Cologne and went to the Cologne Cathedral, one of the best-known architectural structures in Germany. Construction of the cathedral began in 1248 and took, with interruptions, until 1880 to complete. It is fabulous, inside and out! I especially loved all the stained-glass windows inside the cathedral and the towering ceilings. Next morning Jeff went to work and, after using the hotel sauna, I got dressed and walked around the cobblestone streets wandering in and out of stores. We had dinner both nights at local restaurants. Very good food and the beginning of a lot of eating in Germany!
I've decided to write separate blogs about each location we travelled to in Germany, so keep reading to learn about the rest of the trip.
