We headed to Brussels from Strasbourg and, as we did on the trip to Strasbourg, tried to find an interesting location to stop for lunch.  That time it was Hagnau Germany on the shore of Lake Constance.  This time it was Luxembourg City Luxembourg which ups this to a six country trip.

Brussels has some amazing buildings, especially those surrounding  the Grand Place, some of which date to at least the 15th century.  There are probably too many shots of them in this post.  It has a zillion chocolate shops, their waffles and lots of beer.  Now none of these things do we normally consume and we didn’t here either.  We had some very nice meals including Bocconi, Kasbah and a family Italian place called Gabbiani Reali.  We even stumbled upon a Turkish patisserie called gulluoglu where we were introduced to a pastry called borek and had the best cappuccinos of the trip.  And we stayed at the lovely Hotel Amigo which is just one block off of the Grand Place, so a great location.

But in the end, Brussels did not click with us.  Not a bad time but not motivated to return.  Whether is was the over the top aggressiveness of the restauranteurs in the Rue des Bouchers, that it seemed dirtier than other cities, was definitely much stinkier in numerous spots (we just kept getting hit by an unpleasant smell), their archeological ruin site only being open one morning a month, some unkempt gardens or their focus on the  their little urinating statue, the Manneken Pis, we just didn’t fall in love with Brussels.

Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in Eastern France and sits right on the German border.  It has been the possession of both Germany and France over the centuries, is where Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press and is home to Strasbourg Cathedral on which construction began in the twelfth century.  For awhile, it was the world’s tallest building.

They speak French here but the combination of German and French influence is most obvious in the food with many dishes in restaurants combining a part of each country’s historically significant cuisine.

We are fond of Strasbourg and hope to return, both for the city itself and as a jumping off point to beautiful and interesting areas of both France and Germany.  It is a medieval city with beautifully preserved Rhineland black and white timber-framed buildings and the intelligent use of its waterways, something I’ve wished they had done in Denver ever since I first visited San Antonio Texas.

We stayed at the Regent Petite France Hotel in the Petite France district of the city.  We dined outside at Lohkas Winstub on Rue Du Bain Aux Plantes and twice indoors at La Petite Alsace on the same street.  Unfortunately, they still allow smoking in the outdoor areas of restaurants on the continent and that generally kept us indoors to dine.

Lots of pictures as it is a beautiful town with a beautiful cathedral.  Off to Brussels.

This will be a long post with a lot of pictures.

We have a travel book of backroads tours in the various European countries.  We have been in Strasbourg France the past few days and decided to take one of the road trips nearby called the Alsace Wine Route.  There are 16 places to visit on this trip and the first one is Obernai France.

We arrived in Obernai shortly after 10 on Sunday morning and found the streets into the city centre blocked.  As we approached a full close-in parking lot we spotted a man walking into the lot so we followed him.  Fortunately he was leaving and six hours later so were we.  Needless to say, we made but this one of the 16 stopping places on this trip and had one of the finest travel days we’ve had the pleasure to experience as we by chance had shown up at the Fete d’ Automne in previously unheard of Obernai France on a perfect fall day.  Or should I say perfect automne day.

Obernai is about 11,000 people, it is surrounded by a medieval wall, has a gorgeous cathedral (Cathedral of Saints Peter, Paul and Mary) and is just a darn beautiful little town.  Wonderful shops, a large variety of restaurants and in true European style, flowers everywhere.  And man, do they know how to put on a festival.

Music, food, processions, children and adults in historical garb, music, lovely shops, food stands, fantastic bakeries and chocolate shops and music.  Did I mention music?  Yes, there were four bandstands spread around the town with traditional local music from local bands, American pop and American big band, also from local artists.  Music…one of America’s great contributions to the world.  Hearing our music played with French conversation from the stage in between songs reminded me of at least this one contribution we have made that seems to be well accepted.

It also made me think about what we have done to our small towns, an issue I have had for the past nearly forty years.  We have destroyed our small rural town histories by tearing down old structures that had historical meaning rather than investing to preserve them and then connecting our economies to that history.  Here, it is not uncommon to see them add on or re-do interiors and many times they do it in a style not consistent with the external appearance.  But in any case, they do not destroy the original structures and their history.  There is no way a Wal-Mart would move into the fringe of one of these towns and destroy their downtown.

If you ever get the chance, the Fete d’ Automne in Obernai France is not to be missed.  But perhaps it is true of other small towns in Europe also.  We hope to explore this more.

A lot of pictures with this post but I just couldn’t resist showing it all.

King Ludwig II of Bavaria is the man who created what has become known as “the fairy tale castle.”  You know what it looks like.  Think Cinderella.  His placement in the Alps high above Schwansee (Swan Lake)  is just up the hill from his boyhood home of Schloss Hohenschwangau, a palace his father purchased when he was king.  There are plenty of places to check out the story of Neuschwanstein and the eccentric King Ludwig II with his passion for castles and palaces.  But at 1.4 million visitors a year to Neuschwanstein alone and probably half of them coming in with Asian money, perhaps he wasn’t so crazy after all…

There’s nothing like a King Ludwig II palace or castle.  They had to kill him to get him to stop building these puppies.  But I think he was actually an early adopter of the “build it and they will come” theory.  Because he built them and boy do the people come today and dump the tourist dollars here.  The number of Asians touring Germany is astounding.  And their behavior is so adolescent as they cannot contain their excitement for the landmarks they visit here.  I’ll bet they spend like crazy.

Linderhof Palace was inspired by Versailles althoughLu dwig clearly had a smaller budget.  Located in Bavaria in Southwest Germany near the Ettal Abbey, Linderhof is a particular gem when you consider it was built for one occupant…King Ludwig II.  But in addition to the splendor of the structure, this location is magnificent.  The Alps are absolutely gorgeous.  The fact that the Rockies in southwest Colorado resemble them makes that part of our state the most beautiful.

After concluding our time in Salzburg, we headed for Schwangau Germany, home of King Ludwig II’s Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau Castles where we were booked to stay at the das Rubezahl Hotel (http://www.hotelruebezahl.de/en/).  The hotel is quite nice and has unobstructed views of the castles and the Alps.  Breakfast and dinner were included in our room rate so no reports on restaurants in the area.

We made two stops on the 126 mile drive.  The first was in the village of Bichl.  I was curious if there might be anyone there named Bichlmueller, the name of my maternal great grandfather who emigrated to the USA from Germany in 1884.  There were none in the phone book for the area though Bichlmaier was common.  As “bichl” means hill, the Mueller’s from probably “the bichl” could have been from anywhere in Germany but I am glad I made the visit just in case there was some interesting discovery to be made.

After a wonderful lunch at the Gasthof zue Post (where fortunately the chef spoke enough English to describe the menu to us) in Benediktbeuern, which is adjacent to Bichl,  it was off to Ettal to see the Baroque Benedictine Abbey there.  Very lovely of course.  From there we headed on to Schwangau.

As mentioned above we have no restaurant reports from this stay.  But we did spend some time on two afternoons at a market in Fussen called Feuerhaus which had a bakery, wine bar, beer bar, cheese shop, meat counter and a place to buy Mediterranean snacks and dishes.  A pleasant conclusion to our days and a style of “relaxing” it would be nice to have more of in the States.

Our trip to Salzburg went well with no problems on our Denver to Chicago to Munich flights.  We spent a couple of hours in Munich before driving to Salzburg where our fall 2013 European trip would officially begin with a return stay at the Hotel Sacher Salzburg which sits on the banks of the usually lovely Salzach River directly across from old town.  I say the usually lovely Salzach as it was not so lovely this time with the river running very high and with debris from the very heavy rains in the area.  Yes, we left flooding at home only to be with flooding on vacation.

We returned to Salzburg after having been here only 10 months ago because in November 2012, we had lousy weather, several key attractions were closed at that time and the summer gardens were long gone.  In addition to staying at the Sacher again which is a no-brainer very high quality repeat, we dined at L’Osteria, a very popular pasta and pizza place (also in 2012), Pizzeria il Centro on Linzergasse (tough to find casual places on a Sunday but the pizza was very good) and St. Peter.  St. Peter was a repeat from 2012 and claims to be the longest serving restaurant in Europe (since 803 CE) which I think means they could say longest serving in Europe and the US and Canada, and…

In addition to just touring around and enjoying the city, we visited Hellbrunn Palace with all of its crazy water features and its gardens, we traveled to Berchtesgarden (Germany), a small town about 30 minutes away through beautiful countryside, Hohenwerfen Fortress which dates to the 11th century and offers great views and a good tour, Liechtensteinklamm, a scenic area near St. Johann which includes a great hike through a canyon cut by glaciers that left high walls, narrow passages and a beautiful stream and falls.  We also re-visited Mirabell Gardens, this time with its beautiful floral displays, Kollegien Church (closed for restoration last year) and the gorgeous little town of Golling.  This downtown was so beautiful you could easily tell they did not have a Wal-Mart to ruin it.

We were fortunate to get a lot of touring in without losing much time to the intermittent heavy rains.  Next we will head for Bavaria.

In 1904 Robert Butchart built a cement plant among limestone deposits by the Tod Inlet on Victoria Island.  As the limestone deposits were consumed for the production of cement, Jennie Butchart planned to convert the area to create something of beauty from the exhausted limestone pit.  And that she did.  It is now apparently on the 1,000 Places to See Before You Die list.

That’s a good idea because amateur photographs never do a place like this justice.

Konnie and I left Seattle on August 27 after some recreation and work, including an evening with former Steamboat neighbors Mark and Bonnie Porter, for Victoria British Columbia.  We traveled via the Victoria Clipper (clippervacations.com), a pleasant two hour and 45 minutes sea voyage, with old travel friends Dave and Lisa Wangsness from the north Georgia mountains.

Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, is a lovely city and our mistake on this trip was not allowing enough time.  But then, we really didn’t have any more time with my having to prepare for work, our getting the house in Steamboat Springs ready for a bogus renter, my going to Indiana over Labor Day weekend and our upcoming departure for an 18 day trip to Europe.  So the Secret is that two full days is not nearly enough time for Victoria.  She needs more.

We toured the downtown, stayed at the Hotel Grand Pacific (hotelgrandpacific.com), visited the Royal BC Museum (royalbcmuseum.bc.ca), and dined at (in the order of how much I like them) 10 Acres, Catalano and The Black Olive.

We liked beautiful Victoria very much and will try to get back there soon.  Especially to see  The Butchart Gardens in a different season.  Butchart will receive its own post coming next.

We lingered awhile in Saint Louis before heading to Kansas City (thus a couple of Saint Louis pictures here).  Busch Stadium is beautiful and is, of course, downtown.  Add to its own beauty the view of the Arch from inside the stadium and you’ve got a superb ballpark experience.

Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, on the other hand, has been our only stadium not in the downtown area or otherwise densely populated spot such as the Bronx.  We significantly prefer the former.  At 40 years old this year, they have done an outstanding job of maintaining and remodeling the facility so it doesn’t feel much different than the newest ones.  I’m just not a fan of the zillion acres of parking lots and no hotels or restaurants within walking distance.  The dispersion of traffic alone among the many parking facilities in the city locations is a major attribute of those parks.

The Royals were held to three hits and took a 9 to 1 shellacking at the hands of the Chicago White Sox but it was the fastest game of our six being played in under two and a half hours, i.e., the way it is supposed to be done.

That’s it for 2013.  Six games in six cities in seven days.  4,000 miles, two great grandmothers and 9 major league baseballs.  22 major league games together at 17 different stadiums, 25 baseballs and five theme parks in four years.  Oh yes, and about 35 days alone with my grandsons.  They’ve signed up for next year so more to come…