As my time here is slowly coming to an end, I decided one place that I needed to spend some more time is Germany. I have a German friend who was an assistant in Reims who lives in Würzburg, a student town near Frankfurt, and she invited me to come visit her there. My friend Devin wanted to visit Germany before leaving Europe too, so he found himself a plane ticket to fly back home to the States out of Frankfurt, and everything fell into place for us to visit her.
We were once again really lucky with the weather, it was warm and sunny our whole time there. We enjoyed the food, lots of beer, and met lots of nice Germans. I was stunned by how great everyone speaks English there as usual!
One little day trip we took from Würzburg was to a town called Bamberg, where I've wanted to go for a while. It was just like all the towns that I love, the cute little picturesque places, and of course with the buildings that resemble the Alsacien architecture I was sold. We had a great day, walked around town, enjoyed the beautiful sights, and ended our day in a brauhaus, where Devin got his first taste of some delicious traditional German food.
I knew that after Würzburg I wanted to go back to Alsace to see Thibaut's parents, but I had a few days to kill before the weekend came. I decided to make a little stop in a town called Bacharach. My family has been going to Bacharach for over 30 years, originally my Grandma's brother went there when he was over here in the military, and eventually my grandma, grandpa, and uncle fell in love with the town too. It's a cute little village in the middle of the vineyards with delicious wine from the Rhine Valley. Luckily, there is an amazing couple that my family used to hang out with that is still living in Bacharach, and I was able to get a hold of them before my arrival. When I got there I went straight to their tourist shop to say hello, and I was greeted with the most amazing hospitality! They were the nicest people, they took me to dinner, showed me around, drove me to my hostel (which was wayyyyy up on the hill) and insisted on taking care of me the whole time I was there. It was so great to hear old stories about my family, all the good times they had there, and to get to know their friends.
The one thing that I had time to do there was to take a boat cruise along the Rhine. There were so many beautiful old castles that were from the year 1000 (!) and even before. I visited the little town of Rudesheim for about an hour, hopped on the boat back to Bacharach and headed directly for the pool at my hotel, because it was over 90 degrees.
And also apparently my family wasn't alone in their love for Bacharach, because Rick Steves loves it too. I saw over a dozen Americans wandering around with their noses in their Rick Steves guide books. Makes it a little bit less authentic, but since I love Rick so much I just couldn't be mad about it.
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| Bamberg |
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| my amazing hostess in Bacharach! |
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| after dinner drinks |
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| view from the hostel |
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| the Alte Haus |
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| that's my hostel, wayyy up there |
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| Rudesheim |
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| Drosselgasse in Rudesheim |
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| view of Bacharach and the Rhine |
