Our last stop on our trip was Flanders Fields in Belgium. We stayed in Kortrijk about 30 kilometres from our destination, Iepes (Ypres). We arrived around 5:00 p.m. in Kortrijk, which seemed to be like a bit of a ghost town. We found out later that evening that it was the national holiday, similar to Canada Day. Everyone was taking a holiday, however we found some restaurants in the city centrum and enjoyed some sunshine and people watching.
The next morning we headed out to Ieper for a few hours of sightseeing. Ieper is a stunning little city, once known as "Little Paris". We visited the Mennin Gate, Flanders Fields Museum about the first world war, war cemeteries including the one where John McCrae wrote the famous, In Flanders Field poem. We returned home to Leeuwarden the same evening.
On the morning of day five we headed to Heidelberg. We decided to take the less traveled route through the Bavarian country side. This come without its challenges as we encountered several detours on the secondary highways, however, Freda coached us in the right direction. This is very beautiful country and well worth not rushing through it.
Heidelberg is in the forest, and even with the heat it seemed a little more tolerable. Our hotel, Hotel zum Nerkartal, was humble but very clean and quiet. No air conditioning was countered by patio doors accessed from our room.
Heidelburg is a busy tourist town. Everything is open everyday. We arrived around 3:00 p. m., spending the remainder of the day getting acquainted with the old town area.
The big attractions are Heidelberg castle and the higher up Konigstahl (King Throne) panoramic views of the city and surrounding countryside. We reached both by a "straight up the hill" tram. We spent the majority of our second day touring both.
A funny story... This was not before we lost our way into town that morning, missing our turnoff to the underground parking garage. We neglected to plug in Freda, so we were on our own!!!!! We were shocked to discover we were driving down the main street in the centrum, where the evening before, we had had witnessed hundreds of tourists wandering in every direction. Thankfully most of the tourists were still snug in their hotels that morning :) This was one of those "deer in the headlights" moments.
Our next stop, Regensburg
This very old city has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, not a specific building, but the entire old town! Regensburg was the original capital of Germany. Unlike many European cities, Regensburg was virtually untouched during WWII.
We stayed on the outskirts of Regensburg at the Mercure Hotel. We selected it because it had air conditioning (it was in the mid 30 degree Celcius range) and it offered a great deal of 138 Euros for two nights, the least expensive hotel during our entire trip. A short 20 minute bus ride dropped us down in the old city.
We arrived in the city around lunchtime. We couldn't check into our hotel, so we parked our car and headed by bus down to the old centrum. We got off along the Danube, bought tickets for a three hour air conditioned luxury river cruise to historical Walhalla, a Roman like structure built in the mid 1800s. No photos though, our camera needed a recharge.
We spent nine hours the following day cramming in as much sightseeing as possible in the old town. We took a tour through the famous Thurn und Taxis Museen and Schloss. The palace was originally built as a monastery by Roman monks, then then given to German royalty several hundred years later. The descendants still live in the palace.
Oscar Schindler lived here after the war, living on one of the side streets in the old town.
Beautiful churches of Regensburg.
Altes Rathaus - city hall and surrounding area.
We finished off a full second day in Regensburg at the old Sausage Kitchen on the stone bridge over the Danube. The sauerkraut and wurst were yummy!
Bamberg was easy to find, but the Hotel Europa was not! Even Freda was a bit confused. "Her consistent response was "recalculating", Delmer's response was... eer... well, never mind. The good thing was that our hotel was just outside of the old town, so no time was wasted getting to the historical sites. Bamberg is a beautiful city, with old half timbered buildings.
We found a nice outdoor German restaurant and ordered the "sampler platter", which pretty much included all of our desired food groups :) We also met a nice young Australian couple sitting next at the restaurant. We exchanged some travel tips. It was nice to chatter away in English.
