Heidelberg, Germany

We stayed at a fantastic campground just outside of Heidelberg, Camping-Haide. Right on the Neckar River with fantastic weather - probably mid-to-high 70's (farenheit, for those international readers). Lovely city... more later including pictures.

Ciao for now!

15.October - Belatedly adding some pictures and comments from our Heidelberg experience - enjoy! According to the city web site, the town has about 150k residents and over 3.5M tourists per year. This is one of the first spots that we ran in to other Americans, making for fun dinner companions one evening and for lively conversation at the top of the church tower.

1. Family dinner in the city center ... we were caught off guard with the informality of how paying for one's food works at outdoor diners. First let's acknowledge, that to the world's tiniest tables, they bring the biggest dishes. Not sure how we did it, but we were able to fit 4 very oversized plates, 2 beers and two glasses of water on the over burdened table. After ordering and enjoying our food and beverages, the waiter asked us what we had consumed! He tallied it up in his head on the spot and we agreed on a price... we were astounded at the informality of the whole exchange.

2. Church tower & interior shot (sorry - can't find the name of it right now... it's the church in front of the Rathaus.)

3. Heidelberg Castle - yes, the kids walked up the entire way. To tired little ones, ice cream spells happiness.

4. Heidelburg Tun - Massive wine vat... Inside Heidelberg Castle, one finds a pharmaceutical museum and the largest wine vat, capable of holding about 55k gallons (I doubt even I could drink that much in a lifetime...). To give perspective on the size, I've shown the stairs you descend after climbing to the top of the vat. Whew. Hope those supports don't give way.

Köln, Germany (aka: Cologne, Germany)

What a fantastic city!
We are back in Germany, enjoying camping near a huge, beautiful city. The spot is a "Reisemobile" spot - basically a parking lot with water/dump station near by and electrical boxes that you run extenstion cords to. The cost is 8EUR per night + 1EUR each 12 hours for electricty and an additial 1EUR per about 40 liters of water. The only downside is the water and dump station were a little inconvient to access for us.

To our great surprise, we finally were not the biggest RV in the lot! We were neighbors with a gentleman from Switzerland who is traveling in a Newmar. Was nice to not be the sole source of attention for once.

With the bikes, we were about a 10-minute ride to Köln Centrum. So cool to ride under the bus tunnel and surface at the Kolner Dom, the largest Gothic church. Megan and Sophia are adamant that we visit, promising to be good. I think they just are in awe at the size and beauty of the churches we've ventured in so far.

We also found our first Starbucks of the trip - right outside the Dom - enjoyed a caffiene boost in the middle of the afternoon. Beautiful!

On a whim, and without any idea exactly where we were going (there was no internet connectivity at the campground... and we didn't stop at the tourist office), we took the Gondola ride across the Rhine. On the Köln side, you have the zoo; on the other side, you have a fantastic park with views of Köln along with sculptures, fountains, gardens and a playground. We spent a few hours enjoying the park with the kids, though managed to not take the small train ride around.

We left all too soon - partly we need to either bite the bullet and visit the tourists offices (which means we'd be admitting we're tourists...) and partly we need Internet connectivity to research the history of our destinations and what we should be seeing and doing. Was fun to go back to the Köln web page and see that of our own accord, we managed to see and experience several of the city's historic buildings, just by virtue of being tourists on the loose, biking around the city.

On a whim, we stopped by a wine "museum" and shop on the outskirts of town. They actually grow grapes on the roof of the building! Sophia and Megan were given a handful of wine grapes (we didn't hear a peep out of them while they were enjoying the treat) and I was directed to a couple of German wines to try out... my choices:

• Weingut August Perll - Mittelrhein 2006er Bopparder Hamm Fässerlay Reisling Spätlese trocken
• Knipser Cuvee Gaudenx Pfalz from 2003
• Badischer Federweißer - a mini science experiment in the RV - Federweißer is new wine. It's a bottle of white wine that was brewed the day prior to my purchasing it. It's capped, but not tightly as it's just beginning to ferment. A day after, it is very sweet and about 1% alcohol - tasted almost like fresh apple cider. As you allow it to ferment, the alcohol level increases and the sugar level decreases. I'll try it again tomorrow (21.Sept - 4 days after being bottled).

And finally, at MediaMarkt, we were able to purchase a USB device that allows us to watch European TV on our laptops. It's fun to have TV back - if only to be able to stay a little in touch with CNN News. In Köln we had a variety of channels (CNN the only English channel) and good reception. Will see how it fares in the smaller suburbs we visit.

On to the next location - somewhere enroute to München. If the weather holds out, a visit to Koblenz enroute.

Ciao for now.

Heading back to Germany

Wandering as we are, we finally made our way out of The Netherlands and back to Germany. It is the middle of September, afterall, and Oktoberfest in München is right around the corner.

Enroute from Holland, we attempted to visit Delft. Our checking account must have sounded a sigh of relief when we were turned away from the campground - they were booked full and as we didn't have a reservation, we were out of luck. Wandering on, we spent a night at a campground chosen only for it's name and location, deQuack in Hellevoetsluis. Nothing spectacular to write home about, we enjoyed a stroll on an inlet of the North Sea and wandered on the next day. (I've now officially taken Dan to hell and back, with a stop at "deQuack.") [sorry, mom.]

We stumbled on the perfect kid's campground, Prinsenmeer, in Asten, Netherlands. We didn't leave the park - just spent a few days doing only kids stuff... swimming, playing on the playground, playing in the sand and lake. The weather was gorgeous and we were a little sad to leave - the kids were too - the loved the indoor and outdoor playground, swimming pool and ready access to ice cream!

Catching up on 12-days - the short version!

Will try to be brief, which most of you know is impossible and catch you up on our last 12-days... will post full details and back date them - so expect LOTS of email in the next few hours if you are subscribed to Windows Live Alerts.

Q: Why the prolonged delay?
A: the ISP at our campground would not allow us to log in to Blogger. For the first four days of our connectivity, we were only able to view Hotmail, could not send via webmail or log in to online services, including Skype (well, it let us sign up for Skype and test drive, but wouldn't work again). We still are unable to connect to Gmail. Though Google.com works fine.

Q: How'd you fix it?
A: I'll let Dan explain it in a future post.

Q: Where have you been?
A: The Netherlands - from Arnhem, we wandered to Apeldoorn, Amsterdam and are presently in The Hague (Den Haag) - with a side-trip to Gouda that will be explained in a separate post.

Q: What have you been up to?
A: Lots! The summary version:

• Arnhem - before leaving, we visited the Kroller-Müller Museum, located in the Hoge Veluwe National Park - it was a 10km bike ride each way - our first with the kids. The park has 1,700 free bikes for visitors to use - unfortunately, there are no bike locks to go along with it and our return ride home was sans one child seat. Megan was a trooper and sat side-saddle on the book rack of Dan's bike!
• Fantastic van Gogh exhibit - early to late works with too many other great artists to count. Sadly, we didn't have time to enjoy the sculpture gardens out back (they close at 4:30 and we didn't make it to the museum until around 2'ish).
  
• Apeldoorn - Paleis Het Loo & shopping - first purchase of cheese at a cheese-only market - mmmm smoked gouda. Life is good.
  
• Amsterdam - what can I say? For those of us who are uninitiated with Amsterdam, a coffee shop is NOT for drinking coffee and a cafe does NOT serve food (cafe = bar). We spent a few days wandering the city (avoided exposing the girls to the red light district, thank you!). The city is much more beautiful than I would have imagined, given the stereotypes associated with it.
  
• Took at tourist canal boat from central station to The Arteis Zoo and loved it. Nothing better than a zoo in the middle of a very busy city.
  
• Gouda - In Sherry's latest attempt to get Dan stuck in a small town, we tried to visit Gouda and camp at the "Klein Amerika" (Small America) parking lot in Gouda. I'll add the pictures at some point -you will plainly see it wasn't my best choice so far. Though their traffic control for the parking lot is cool - when the lot is full, it won't let the next person in until someone else leaves. Needless to say, after pulling in and holding up traffic to get out, we moved on to The Hague.
  
• The Hague - Once a day just isn't enough. We pulled up to the campground and I took the LONG walk in to the reception desk. Their pitches are max 10x10m. We're 10.5m long. They offer us a spot in the "back" where it's OK to overhang a bit. The grass looks deceptive when covering sand. Front wheels immediately immersed in sand and digging in in more with each attempt to get out. A novel combination of using the front jacks to lift the front tires off the ground and Sherry, in a skirt for the first time this trip, madly pushing sand under the tires led to the amusement of those camped around us (who didn't bother to offer assistance). To add insult to injury, there was a light pole directly behind the RV, enabling us to only move a few inches with each iteration of raising, shoveling, lowering, moving.... add to camping gear: Shovel, rake... and don't travel in a dress again.
  
• MC Escher exhibit - very fun for everyone. Sophia loved the virtual reality exhibit. Dan and I could easily have spent the entire day exploring the exhibit. Alas, the kids just don't hold out so long and we all needed food.
  
• Train trip to Gouda - had to go and visit this historic town after almost causing a traffic jam last Saturday. The town has a long history and is presently known for Gouda cheese and Gouda stained glass windows in St. John's Church- which is also the longest church in The Netherlands.
  

Q: Where to next?
A: Delft is next - home of the famous blue pottery.

Side Note: We have been able to use Windows Live Call through Verizon to make inexpensive calls back to the States through our laptops (e.g. 3-cents per minute vs. 4 Euro/minute on our pre-paid cell phone). Yay! We feel back in touch for the first time.

Before I post this, I have to point out a great article in The Seattle Times, "The World According to Rick Steves". It's an interview with Rick Steves, who presented a lecture on Politics of Travel on 13.September in Seattle. It's a good read with a few laughs to go alongside. Enjoy!

Den Haag (The Hague)

Crammed a lot in to today - first order of business, a bus ride to Den Haag (The Hague) to tour the M.C. Escher in Het Palais exhibit – very cool! Even Sophia got into it during the virtual reality tour. Some form of misunderstanding took place and the museum curator put the headset on Sophia (who was on my lap) instead of me. Sophia wouldn't share... so I sadly missed out on the VR tour. Was very cool to see Megan interested in the exhibit and starting to pick up on the use of lines to make images (we've been learning about the elements of shape in our drawing lessons).

Then we were off on a side trip to Gouda , which had been our intended destination prior to Den Haag, but the parking place was too small. (If you check out the web site above, click the British flag in the upper right of the screen for the English version of the site). We were so overwhelmed by the beautiful city (and to be honest, tired, it was a lot to cram in to one day) that we forgot to purchase Gouda cheese from Gouda. Oh well - we are enjoying plenty of fantastic cheese.

Note - we had originally tried to stop at Gouda for a few days... the picture below is the street leading in to Gouda; the picture on the right is the "Klein Amerika" motorhome parking spot - there are a few spots for motorhomes, needless to say, ours was a bit oversized for this particular stop...we would have had to make it around the bend and through the traffic control gates - which were already backed up as the parking lot was full. Wound up having to stop traffic coming in to and out of the parking lot in order to manuever the RV around and get out... needless to say, Dan was NOT amused with my choice.

Back to our visit to Gouda, we visited St. John’s church which is the longest church in the Netherlands and is filled with famous Gouda stained glass. From the exterior, you can’t tell that the windows are stained glass. The exterior of the windows are covered with mesh-like wire to prevent vandalism and are coated with a substance to help reduce impact from environmental pollution. Once you enter the building, the stained glass windows all but glows at you from the interior. These windows were cataloged and removed from site for storage in 1938. According to the brochure, the amount of stained glass inside the church is about 50% of the stained glass that is yet to be discovered from hiding in the NL. Inside the church, a wedding processional was about to begin. Funny that they don’t stop tourist tours for a few minutes to allow the family some private time for the wedding. On the positive side, we finally got to hear the fantastic organs in a European church... and on the selfish side, some poor sould is destined to hear about a "dream" wedding from Megan (in a huge church with fantastic stained glass windows and beautiful chandeliers...).

Stopping in a candy store, I found some 99% chocolate bars from Lindt. Dan had just given me a web link to a chocolate tasting experiment. So, dutifully, I grabbed 65%, 75% and 99% chocolate. The clerk warned me, "The 99% is not for eating. Only baking. If you even eat a tiny bit, you will get an instant headach." Righto.

Later that night, after the kids were in bed and over a glass (or two) of Malbec, I broke out the chocolate. I let one square of 65% slowly melt on my tongue. Yep. Tastes as expected, yum! Next up, 1 square of 75%... let it melt, slowly, slowly... don't rush it. Mmmm, nice, dark taste. Finally, a quarter of one square of 99% - let it melt - it wasn't bitter, but also not sweet. I found it enjoyable, Dan not so much. After savoring the 99% for a few minutes, I worked my way back down... 75%, then 65% - and that's when it really hits. The flavor differents completely POP - especially with the fruitiness of the 65% chocolate. Patience, the right frame of mind and overall, a very enjoyable experience. I don't know that I've ever been satisfied with eating only 4 1/4 squares of chocolate before ... I'm normally gobbling it up, wishing for more. ;-)

Den Haag (The Hague) - Kijkduin Park

We arrived on 9.September in Den Haag (The Hague) and the nearest campground was in Kijkduin Park. It was about 20-25 minutes by bus from The Hague city center. But, that's jumping ahead a bit.

First, there's the issue that we're right on the coast. Second, the campground initially told me they only have pitches that are 10m x 10m. We are 10.5m in length. Another employee joined the conversation and the offered to let us stay "in the back" of the park, where they are planning to build cabins and it would be OK if our RV overhung the parking spaces in front of the pitch. Next, the pitch number... 666... I should have known something would go awry.

We immediately got the front tires stuck in the sand. Huh. Guess the receptionist failed to mention that the ground is soft and heavy vehicles should beware. Do know, we had gotten oiut and walked around. There's heavy grass growing over the sand and it feels deceptively firm. Guess you just can't turn your wheels on the stuff. The few folks camped around us stepped out to watch. For some strange reason, I had decided to wear a skirt that day (it's travel day, why not?). I only wish I had thought to take a picture - we were up to the middle of the wheels in sand and were backed up against a light post. No one bothered to help - they were more amused to watch us. Thank goodness for the front jacks, the autoleveling system and Dan's quick thinking. In about an hour, we were able to slowly inch ourselves out (an hour and a lot of lifing the front of the RV with the jacks, pushing sand under the tires with our bare hands, lowering... to sink again for an inch of movement).

While we were getting the RV unstuck, the kids were off playing nearby. I got to see Megan climb her first tree... isn't this cute (sorry, it's a little blurry) - or at least, I got to see Megan in the tree for the first time. She claims a school friend taught her how to climb them. She invited me to join her, and because I declined, she's now convinced that it's because I don't know how to climb trees and that it's her job to teach me!

Overall, it was a little like visiting Ocean Shores, just on the North Sea. While the map above makes it look like we must have had a great view of the ocean, we were sheltered by sand dunes. The weather wasn't that cooperative and the first four days, the wind blew something fierce. In fact, we found ourselves at the beach, being sandblasted by the wind... the kite surfers were having a great time, but no one else was out.

On our first venture in to the city, we found a sale on bikes and purchased two folding bikes along with child carriers. Note - the intended use of the folding bikes is NOT to add child carriers - the frames aren't really strong enough. But, we do and it's concurred by a clerk in the store that what we want to do is possible, though not pretty. We wrangle the bikes and child carriers back on the bus and back to the campground (picture me... one folding bike that wants to open, one child seat, one child... manuevering on a bus by myself as Dan and Megan had taken off on his bike for the final stretch back to the camp site... talk about not pretty. =) ). Anyway - it is a great solution, inexpensive, and we are finally mobile!

Good thing the territory is mostly flat - we are now on a single-speed bike, with an additional 30-40 lb each - kind of starts to let us know what Matt and Gretchen must feel like biking around the world.

The city itself is quite beautiful. We have limited time to explore and limited patience for museums - but are enjoying the beautiful parks, fountains and buildings.

Interesting thing about Internet connectivity. Just because you have an Internet connection doesn't mean you can send or receive email. We signed up for a 7-day pass and could browse just fine. Dan was able to change his settings over in outlook and send/receive email, but we were not able to send from Hotmail and were not able to log in at all to Google. Messenger worked and through some workarounds, Dan was able to make things work around day 6. Note - tech support never really responded to our emails... after we sent a complaint, about 4 days later Hotmail services worked, but I was still unable to access Gmail or Blogger.

The other fun development is we found a solution to our expensive calling needs. Every call to the US on our pre-paid cell phone was costing about 5EUR to initiate, followed by about 4EUR per minute. Dan initially tried out Skype, but after having some difficulties, gave Windows Live Messenger a try. We’re now able to make phone calls to the States for about 3c/minute US as long as we have Internet connectivity.

Laundry continues to be an interesting exercise in both patience and expense. We again encountered a dryer that won't dry ... and wound up hanging the clothes in our shower with the oil heater running. If you ever have a video conference with us and see laundry hanging all over the RV, know that it's raining outside and the dryers didn't do their jobs!

The pool and playground at our park are most popular with the girls. They love the free time to run around and be loud kids. Megan's school work is progressing and in spite of her objections, she's picking up reading quite quickly.

I finally understand "reclaimed land" - once you see the extensive use of canals and homes sitting on little island plots with a canal running down the middle of the neighborhood that's higher than the house, it makes a very memorable impression. I have to admit to getting a little freaked out the night that the wind blew so hard that it sounded like waves crashing up outside the RV. The next day was when we first heard about the massive earthquakes that shook Indonesia (click here for the USGS Link to one of the many quakes during this time period).

52.03091°N 5.85797°E - Arnhem, The Netherlands

29.August-1.September

We ventured in to The Netherlands. First destination was supposed to be Njimegen, the other city left to the woman in the Swan Tower story (see entry from Kleve, Germany).

We only knew of one camping spot in Njimegen, and after enduring re-routes due to road construction, roads that are on the map but don't exist, and driving most of the 20km on tiny farm roads, we were out of patience. For the record, Njimegen is the oldest city in The Netherlands and is a university town as well. What we saw of it from the RV was quite active and beautiful.

We made our way to Arnhem – well known for its role in WWII and the movie A Bridge Too Far, among others. We inched our way to a promising campground, to be turned away – they said we are too big. Our first rejection of the trip! Frustrated with the day, we backtracked as there were three other signs for camping on the main road and found Buitengoed Hooge Veluwe. They happily accommodated us, though perhaps the shrub hedges were not as pleased with our arrival.

The campground is huge, with an increasing number of what appear to be cabins (mobile homes) being placed on site. Not sure if these are retirement homes or just folk’s summer houses. The lots are quite small, but most are quite beautifully landscaped.
This park has a huge emphasis on kids – mini-playgrounds in the center of most pitch areas, indoor and outdoor pools, laundry, etc. A little expensive, being that our unit is self contained – but we did use the swimming pool and showers (easier to bath the girls in the double family shower than in our RV).

Since we’re on the hygiene theme – the Dutch seem concerned with hygiene. So far, every public toilette has had either an attendant fussing over it and cleaning the stall after each use, automatic toilet seat cleaner, or has a sanitizer dispenser so you can clean the seat yourself.

The campground is about 8km from town, so we are finally forced to explore public transportation. It was about 300km to the bus station – which took us about 15 minutes with the two kids then about 20 minutes by bus into town. Small, crowded city with a mix of very old, very new, and very new-but looks old architecture.

While Dan was out searching for a new fuse (did I mention I burned out the first fuse?), the girls and I entered the Church of St. Eusebius and immediately took an elevator ride up! Yes, I said “elevator!” – Smack in the middle of the entryway, stands a glass front elevator (and a bar too – but it wasn’t open). The elevator slows as you rise so you can look at the bells in the tower – this church being more of a Belgium church with many, many bells of varying sizes. The girls and I were simply in awe! The view at 73m was phenomenal – there was a stairway accessible to allow us up another 10m, but it was really narrow and no ballisters – no way I was going to attempt that with 2 kids on my own! We spent a good amount of time at the top – enough to hear the bells toll, then met up with Dan in the lobby to tour the rest of the church. We were able to descend in two areas and tour small catacombs that have been excavated. Megan was a little scared of the first, but was determined to follow dad at the second location. Very cool as they reside in the original structure of the church, which has since been rebuilt since being destroyed in WWII. Worth mentioning, one of the original bells remains on the church floor, where it landed when the church was destroyed.

Our first bus ride home was not quite as successful as the ride in. Somehow we got off on the wrong stop and wound up walking a very long way home. Kind of cool in that we are in an area bordering the largest nature reserve in The Netherlands, De hoge Veluwe National Park . There are several homes with thatch or grass roofs which are very cool to see.

My second venture in to the city was by myself - to make copies and get groceries. I wound up getting on the "short" bus on the way home - so got off at the last stop and waited 10 minutes for the full-route bus. by the tiem I got home, lugging 220 copies, 3 textbooks and 2 bags of groceries, I felt like I had worked out with Michel but with the addition of rain. (Michel - if you ever need to really make a point with your clients, just make them walk about 4km with 40lb in the rain.)

This trip has made us realize how much we take things for granted. We are functioning without a car that's appropriate for cities and without bicycles. Whatever we want has to be hand carried from wherever we buy it. We largely conserve water as we usually have to move to fill or empty our tanks - so the less we use, the longer we can keep the RV in it's spot. We watch the energy usage so we don't blow fuses... It's fun and enlightening. I didn't realize how much we consume in our every day lives.