Rothenburg - A little taste of Bavaria

My sister, Kathy, stayed a week and then headed back to Michigan to be with her family.  My parents stayed for another week-end.  We wanted a little taste of Bavaria and my parents had heard that Rothenburg was a nice city to visit.  So we decided to head southeast for a few days to check it out...

Rothenburg is a famous walled city that is located on the Romantic Road.  The city began around 1200.  There is a covered walkway on top of the wall on the eastern side of the city.  We enjoyed walking up there and seeing the views of the city.  We even stayed in a hotel in the city that was in the city wall.  The city seemed surreal, like it hasn't changed in hundreds of years.

Our hotel was in the city wall and the that was one of the towers in the city wall.

These are views from our room.  

This is a valley outside the city wall that we could see from our room.

Walking the city wall.  

We climbed the stairs to walk the city wall.

Dad was a little taller than the people who used to live here.

This was a lookout in the wall.

These were some of the views from the city wall.

This was one of the town entrances.

These were views from a tower that we climbed up within the city wall.

 It was fun walking through the city too.

This was a famous spot in the city where two streets meet.

 There was a famous bavarian Christmas museum and store.

We bought our first nutcracker that looked like this one, but smaller!

Another store we went in had many handmade bavarian cuckoo clocks.

 Vivian and Jack seem to be growing a lot in Germany!

 This is the town hall.

  Everyone is gathered around to watch the cuckoo clock perform as the clock chimes.

  I think this is our favorite town in Germany so far!
We loved Bavaria and we hope to go back to see more.

Vivian and Jack have a week of vacation this week so we are heading to Paris tomorrow!  We are excited to see the city and Mark and the kids are especially excited to go up in Eiffel Tower.  I do not look forward to going up that high in a tower having a huge fear of heights.  But I hope to keep myself accountable by writing that we have tickets to go up to the top!  I'll let you know how it goes.
Until I write again... thanks for visiting our blog!

Family Fun in Friesland

It was great having my Mom and Dad and my sister, Kathy come to visit us last week.
The first weekend we drove to Friesland, a northwestern region in the Netherlands.   

Notice the cute Friesian flag!  This picture was taken in Workum, the town we stayed in.

On our way to Friesland, we stopped at a little town called Giethoorn.
It's known as being the Venice of the Netherlands.
We were able to catch a boat ride to view the town from the lovely canals.

Don't let that innocent face fool you!  My sister, Kathy, tried tipping the boat over and tempted Jack to jump in!

 Many of the houses had thatched roofs.

When we got to Friesland, we had fun exploring the little towns, especially Bolsward.
That was the town where my Grandpa DeVries grew up before he immigrated to the US when he was about 12 years old.
  

The Town Hall in Bolsward.

 We found DeVries and Visser names all over Friesland.  Here is a DeVries residence.

My Mom brought along post cards that my Grandpa DeVries kept from the early 1900's.
We were able to find the exact places that were on the post cards.

 Can you tell the postcard above is the same as the picture below?

Behind us (in the picture below), there is a womens' clothing store called "Visser Mode"

The postcard below is a picture of a planetarium that was invented by a man named Else Eisinga who lived in a nearby town called Franeker.  He created the planetarium by hand in his living room.
We were fascinated by the fact that the planetarium is still in working condition since 1871.

Postcard picture in Franeker.

We took a ride to the lakeshore in Hindeloopen. 

The other side of the hill is the lake shore.

There were sheep grazing by the shore.

It was a beautiful day to fly a kite!

All the towns were similar, but different in their own way.
Harlingen was a port town located on other side of the locks by the sea.
Because of salt water and access to the sea, there were many large fishing boats.




These were the locks going from the inlet lake to the sea.

I think I can speak for all of us that we really loved our visit to Friesland.
We had fun driving from town to town exploring our dutch heritage and enjoying the view of the quaint dutch landscapes, farm animals, and counting old and new windmills.

The Friesian cows were friendly and cute!

 

But the funniest part about driving in Friesland was to see sailboats in the middle of a field!
They were sailing in canals, but it looked like they were in the middle of the field.  Look closely at the picture below.  Can you see the white sail?