This blogger hearts the Deutsche Bahn. Photo (cc) flickr user Train Chartering and Private Rail Cars

Everyone in Germany, it seems, likes to complain about the trains.  A train will be five, ten minutes late, and you know that at least a dozen people somewhere are muttering (loudly) under their breath about how intolerably unreliable the Deutsche Bahn is.  But I am an American, and frankly, the tendency to be disappointed in the state of the German public transportation system is a cultural tick that I will never understand.  The people grumbling about the delays have obviously never ridden Amtrak or Greyhound.

Photo (c) Resident on Earth

Aachen was an important city in Germany in the Middle Ages, and is where the kings of Germany were crowned. It was Charlemagne’s favorite place to be, and undoubtedly his mark is felt on the city.

I really enjoyed our visit to Aachen–at just this time last year. The Mann lived there when doing graduate work, so he was able to show me around. I thought the city had a really nice vibe and feel to it. It felt low-key, and yet it had that energetic “university town” element to it. We talked a lot about how livable it feels.

The Kölner Dom: Hard to fit in one photo. Photo (c) Resident on Earth

One day last May as we were zipping along the Autobahn at light speed, we decided to make an impromptu stop in Köln (Cologne) to see its impressive and famous cathedral, the Kölner Dom. So we zipped in, saw it, and zipped out.

And impressive it is, to say the least. I craned my head back, looked up at it, and said, “Mein Gott!” It was hard to even fit the whole front facade into one photo. The cathedral is one of the world’s largest churches, and is the largest gothic church in northern Europe. With its enormous twin spires, it boasts the largest facade of any church in the world. Construction on the cathedral began in 1248, and building continued intermittently until its completion in 1880. It seems the cathedral is continually under some kind of renovation/restoration…always.  The Mann says this is the Sagrada Familia of German building projects.

Photo (c) Resident on Earth

One Sunday last June, despite the fact that we were monstrously tired and the weather was rainyish, we trekked all the way out to Gelnhausen for their medieval festival. Of course it was only marginally historical, but still, rather fun.

This is where Germans love to dress up in spectacularly bad costumes and act all medievally by laboring with crude materials and standing around smoky fire pits cooking food that went out of style for a reason. At one food stall they were actually roasting a pig’s head – yes, a pig’s head, and some tourist was eagerly kneeling before the fire with his crude wooden plate outstretched and waiting for the medieval impersonator to carve off some meat.

On a sunny day the view from the Hercules monument is spectacular. Photo (cc) flickr user andreasmarx

Once upon a time I had a friend, another fresh-off-the plane American ex-pat au pairing in Germany, who wanted to see the fairy tale road.  The Brothers Grimm, you see, had travelled all over Germany collecting local yarns and inspiration for the fairy tales that would make them famous worldwide.  The places where they had lived, worked, and visited comprise the fairy tale road.

The clock that, just maybe, had turned Cinderella’s coach into a pumpkin when it struck twelve and the city where the pied piper had played, she told me, were on the 600 kilometer route that runs from Hanau to Hamburg.  So one rainy Sunday morning we got up at 6 am, bought a Schönes-Wochenende-Ticket, and got on a regional train to Kassel, one of the most popular stops along the fairy tale road.

The dunes of Norderney. Photo (cc) flickr user HaystackPhotography

An island that can be reached only by boat?  The thought alone had images of pirates and buried treasure dancing in my head.  Budget airlines had made “exotic” locations easier to reach, and so, several articles told me, people had been flocking to foreign coasts instead of Germany’s own bit of the North Sea.

But the tide was coming back in, and I wanted to get a look before too many tourists remembered that the German coast is a pretty sweet spot to spend a few relaxing days.  So when a friend invited me to come along to Norderney, I jumped at the chance.

Altes Haus: a wine tavern in Bacharach. Photo (cc) flickr user candyschwartz

Perhaps, unconsciously, it had been my love of raw onions that had brought me to Germany in the first place.

I had tottered into “zum Rebstock” in search of food.  At first I had been drawn to the most impressively old—and, probably, most underhandedly touristic—of Bacharach’s wine taverns.  Altes Haus (Old House), it was called, and though the kitchen had already closed for the afternoon, the waitress had brought a glass of the local Riesling to my table while I perused a book about the area.