Jever, Germany Aug 2 - 6, 2010

Here we were in northern Germany, and guess what? It looked like Holland! Of course, it did, since it was part of the flat country on the border of the North Sea. We had no trouble finding the little town of Jever, and the hotel was on the main drag, so we drove right up to it. The owner was there to guide us to the parking area in back of the hotel. But oh my gosh, she nor her husband spoke a word of English. Right away Jack had to use his German, which is very good, by the way. But immediately he had to think German. He had bought a handy little dictionary, and it was by his side from that time on.

We walked into the small town to find a restaurant and some schnitzel! I was looking forward to eating schnitzel and pomme frites, so we found a typical place and had a nice meal. We walked around the shopping area; everything was shut down for the evening, so we could just look into the windows.

Our hotel was a very nice one; it looked like a huge family home, with beautiful furniture and accessories. Our room was a little one in the back. It was very adequate and comfortable and we had a good night's sleep. We reported to breakfast in the morning in the dining room; this breakfast came as part of the fee. It was a big dining room, with about ten tables, so we met all of the other hotel guests. I don't think a single one of them spoke English, but they were very friendly. I couldn't imagine why people would come to stay in this small town; but I think it was just a jumping off point for more outdoor activities, like hiking or biking.

Our first assignment here in Jever was to find the small town of Sandel where the Luehrs family came from sometime in the early 1800's. Jack had visited there with his family back in the 60's when they lived in Germany. Cliff, Jack's dad, had driven up there to find his relatives' graves before they had to report to Bremerhaven and the military ship that would take them back to the States.

Jack remembered it as a wind-swept, desolate place. As we drove through the countryside, we did not see that kind of scenery. These small towns had pretty little houses, lush green countryside and very good roads. It looked like Germany was very prosperous, at least in this part of the country. There were rolling hills, filled with corn or wheat, or dairy cows munching on the grass. Everything looked so peaceful and pleasant. I have included some photos of the cows, the land full of crops, and the dozens of modern wind mills. Many of the dairy barns had solar panels installed on their roofs. At least in this part of Germany the people seemed to be well off, though they probably worked very hard in the fields.

We drove to Sandel and found the church; no Luehrs there. We found a maintenance man and asked him about the name, etc. He said he had never heard of that name. We began to study the map. Jack had remembered that his dad always said Sande, not Sandel. Sande was another small town, not far from where we were but closer to the harbor. We drove over to Sande and found another church. Lo and behold, we were in the right place. There were lots of Luehrs in the church cemetery. The name Luehrs in German is really Luhrs, with an umlaut on the "u". We spent the next several minutes taking photos of the different headstones. I was so glad that we found this church; I think Jack was glad that he was able to trace his relative, though we wandered why they moved from this beautiful country to Michigan, many years ago.

We found that the church was open. Jack remembers that his dad found a Wilhelm Luehrs name on the list of those from this parish who had died in WWII. Cliff's first name was William. Sure enough we found the plaque and the name. The fact that there was a William Luehrs fighting against a William Luehrs in the Second World War was very sad indeed, but I am sure that this example was one of millions throughout the world.

We took several more photos the spot - I even found a woman named Cornelisen buried there. My maiden name is Cornelison, so similar that I had to take a photo of that grave also.

The next couple of days we traveled the coastline of northern Germany, someplace I never expected to see. It is really like Holland, especially the windmills and the low, flat countryside. We drove to the North Sea; there were lots of people spending their last days of their holiday biking, hiking, camping and just enjoying the scenery. When we got to the sea I was shocked - there was no sea! It was mud flats everywhere. The North Sea is so tidal that it literally disappears. Then I realized how the Dutch and the Germans were able to claim so much land and hold back the sea because of the intermittant disappearance of the water.

We spent about five days in this area and then we were heading south and east to Hameln, the city of the Pied Piper fame. I spent my last hours studying the map and marking a plan to get there. I planned to get a better map as soon as we got to a bigger city.

Jack was experiencing an allergic-type problem: his nose was completely stopped up and he could not breathe. I thought he was allergic to something in the air or the cool, rainy weather, and I insisted that he take some of my allergy medicine. But none of that seemed to help. We were just in Jever for a few days, but he was really suffering and wondered if he could stay in this kind of atmosphere. He was very discouraged and wondered if we should just head back to Dallas, if he was going to be in such pain.

We decided to skip Hameln and go directly to Gottingen to see if we could find a doctor.

Gronningen, Holland July 28 - Aug 2, 2010

Well, we were expecting a short trip up north from Arnhem to Gronningen - just about fifty miles. The train station in Arnhem was torn up, but only for those trains that were going south. We were told that we could hop the train with only one train switch north to Gronningen. We got to the train station fairly early, about 10:30, bought our tickets and trudged up the stairs to the platform.

After a few minutes, all of the train information blanked out and we were standing there, wondering if anything happened, or was it just a momentary glitch. Jack said, oh, nothing is wrong. I, the pessimist, decided to ask the conductor. He told me that the electricity went out about five kilometers from the station and there was no way to get to Gronningen from Arnhem that day. All these trains run by electricity, of course. I said, please come and tell my husband, because he will not believe me if I tell him the trains are not running.

The nice trainman explained it all to the two of us: the trains could not run from this station, period. We would have to take the bus to a neighboring town, board that train, go to Utrecht, and then change again in Utrecht. We had a good idea of the geography of Holland by now, and we realized we were not headed north but just zig-zagging from west to east and back again. Eventually we would be someday heading north. The trainman even helped us drag my suitcase up the stairs and around the station to the bus.

We took a half hour bus ride to the little town of Ede, hopped on that train and headed to Utrecht. We had been in the Utrecht train station many times, so we knew our way around. I wasn't sure of the next leg of the trip. I asked at the information desk; he directed me to track 11. We headed down there. I asked another train - woman this time - about this train. She said, yes, get on this train and get off at some town, but be sure to get on the last cars of the train. The front cars would be going to Belgium, but the last cars would be going north to Gronningen. I followed her directions to the T; at this point Jack was not sure where we were headed but somehow he trusted me.

We finally got to Gronningen and to the hotel. We thought that we would have a pleasant trip north; it ended up as an adventure. But we were safe for the night. The hotel was very nice, another NH hotel. It was in easy walking distance of the town, and we immediately found nice restaurant for our evening meal.

The next day we headed into town and looked up the tourist information bureau to see if they had a walking tour. They did and off we went, looking up at this and down at that. This town is so far north that I thought noone even lived here, but it is a very lovely town, with lots of nice restaurants, a pretty good town hall and a nice cathedral. We checked the cathedral first and found they had Friday noon organ recitals, so we made plans to go. This was a university town, and they have a pretty big music school.

We took it easy here; there wasn't too much to see and we had actually come this far north to get a car and drive into northern Germany. We enjoyed our few days here, wandered around the town, explored the markets and had our usual wine break in the early afternoon.

The town had its usual pedestrian walkway with its stores of shoes, eye glasses, electronics and telephones. But the stores were, as a rule, very junky and I would not buy anything from any of these stores. The merchandise was just not interesting, and the clothes stores were really bad. I am not sure why I say that, except the presentation was just not interesting.

We took our walking tour and saw a lot of the university buildings; school was not yet in session, so this part of town was pretty quiet. It was a pretty little town, and we enjoyed our time there. But we were ready for our next adventure: getting our rental car and driving over to Germany. I had gotten a pretty good map and so I was ready.

We got up early on Monday, August 2, got a cab to Hertz rental company, got the car - little Ford Focus hatchback - and off we took to Germany. It was a beautiful day and we were in good spirits. We had enjoyed our three months in Holland. It is a beautiful little country with lots of history, lots of canals and lot of windmills. We were glad that we had taken the time to explore Holland, and we had a good appreciation of its art and and its geography.

Arnhem, Holland July 19-28 Part 2

Our most important reason for going to Arnhem was the WWII battle fought there, "A Bridge Too Far", and we had explored all of the history of it for several days. But there were two other interesting sights we wanted to see: the Koehler-Muller museum and the Het Loo Palace.

Koehler-Muller Museum

Not far from the city of Arnhem, just a bus ride away, was the estate of Mrs. Koehler-Muller. She was a rich German woman who had married a Dutchman, Muller, and they built a beautiful hunting lodge in the middle of probably the only woods existing in Holland. Her father was an industrialist of some sort who hired Muller to run his business. Muller made it into an even more profitable business, and, he married his boss's daughter.

In the meantime, she, - I keep calling her she because I can't remember her first name - was very interested in art and had a good friend who was an art dealer. He kept an eye out for good product, and he had a chance to buy several of Van Gogh's last paintings. This was probably in the early 1920's. She and her husband designed and constructed a huge estate in the middle of these beautiful woods and intended to spend their days there. As part of the estate, she established an art gallery for her works that she purchased.

However, as the economy began to slip in the 1920's, she realized that she may lose everything she owned, so she willed her lodge and all of the art work to the Dutch state. As a result, we now are able to visit this wonderful estate and see Van Gogh's work.

Most of the Van Gogh was done around 1890, and so many of his very famous pieces are there: a lot of his outdoor work, as in the wheat fields and, of course, his cafe at the forum, which I love. There are other wonderful works there - I think some Mondrian's - mostly modern art. The house itself is great, and the grounds are open for biking and hiking. We spent the whole day there and had a wonderful time.

The Het Loo Palace
The royal family of the Netherlands had a royal palace, Het Loo, in the country, away from their official home in town. It was fashioned after the Versailles, but on a much smaller scale. Sometime in this century, the royal family willed the palace to the state, so now it can be enjoyed by all. Again, we took a bus from downtown Arnhem to the town of Appledorn, just a few miles away. From its central bus station, we caught another bus out to the estate. Of course, I had to question the bus driver about the place to catch the bus back to the central station, which he did very graciously.

We walked into the grounds of the palace. The entrance is right on a busy street in Appledorn. I think that it must have been way out in the country once upon a time, but now that it is open to the public, things grew around it - like hotels and restaurants and busy streets.

The estate is also in the middle of some glorious woods, so the walk up to the entrance is quite beautiful. We stopped at the little coffee shop and had coffee and a brioche, then made our way to the entrance. It was probably about eleven o'clock in the morning, so there wasn't too much stirring. We had found that the Dutch are not morning people; we had the place practically to ourselves.

There were two things: the house and the gardens. We decided to go through the house first and then enjoy most of the time in the gardens. The house itself is quite beautiful, though not extraordinary, like Windsor, with its huge ballroom and dining rooms. This was really a country estate for a family. The rooms were not huge but very comfortable. When Queen Wilhelmina gave over the crown to her daughter, she moved here permanently, and her rooms were kept as she had them until her death.

Ok, now the gardens. The royal family had designed this garden to copy the gardens of Versailles. They weren't nearly as large, but they were certainly beautiful. They were very French: laid out very symmetrically, with lots of water - fountains and running waterways, and lots of colorful flowers. There was a garden on the side where the queen had her rooms, and another one of the side for the king. The whole gardens stretched out about three football fields. We were so lucky that day; it was sunny and bright, with lots of lazy clouds in the sky. It was a perfect day. I have included a few photos of the gardens. I can just imagine strolling through these wonderful grounds, or setting up for a wonderful party. They are beautiful and serene and just the perfect place to enjoy the afternoon.

Our time in Arnhem was coming to a close. We had a wonderful hotel room, with a great setting of the Rhine right outside our room. We had seen very interesting and beautiful things almost everyday. We found some good restaurants in town, and we had taken a lot of photos. I guess we were ready to head to northern Holland. We headed to the train station for the short train ride to Gronningen. We left Arnhem with lots of good memories.

Photos: Jack, Het Loo Gardens, the full moon outside our hotel room, overlooking the Rhine, and Het Loo palace.

Arnhem Holland - July 19-28,2010 Part 1

"A

Bridge Too Far"

Photos: St. Elizabeth Hospital, where hundreds of the wounded were taken; the Airborne cemetery, British and Polish dead; two angles of the John Frost Bridge, as it is now named. It is the bridge over Arnhem, and it is the "bridge too far".

For many years we had planned to go to Arnhem to see the bridges and study the roads that lead to that famous WWII military failure of September 17-24,1944, written by Cornelius Ryan and made into a movie in 1977. Jack loves military history, and by process of osmosis, so do I. We started watching that movie years ago, and I must say, I was very confused those first few times, because one needs to know the geography of the place in order to understand what they were trying to do and why they failed so miserably.

I used to drag my atlas out and find the places where the bridges were located while I watched the movie. It began to make sense, and we said one day we would go there and follow the road across the four bridges.

So, day finally arrived where we could follow the action, and we were ready to explore the story. The interesting thing was that by some weird coincidence, we chose a hotel that was located in the middle of a lot of the action of the book/movie. The NH Rijnhotel is located right on the Rhine river. Our hotel room was lovely, and it had a balcony overlooking the river and the land across it, just used for grazing land to this day. We found out as we explored the story that we were just down from the St. Elizabeth's hospital, where so many of the wonded were brought; we were actually on the road where Frost's battalion marched to the Arnhem bridge and we were just steps away from the house where Urquhardt was holed up for more than a day, surrounded by German soldiers down in the streets, looking for him.

But I get ahead of myself. I must give a summary of the book/movie in order to get a clear picture of what we wanted to visit here in Arnhem.

It was summer of 1944; D-Day was a huge success but Allied armies were struggling to get across to Germany because their supplies had to be brought in by boat near the channel and brought over land, which took many days. Montgomery wanted to jump start the operation of getting into Germany, so he devised this huge plan to drop thousands of allied paratroopers and soldiers in Holland, then cross the Rhine at Arnhem, Holland, right on the German border, and forge into the industrial heart of Germany to cripple them - and get the boys home by Christmas.

"Monty", the British commander, was dying for some extensive plan to exceed D-Day. Eisenhower bought his plan to jump start something in Europe, rather than watch the slow movement of the troops through Belgium, so in the space of a few days a huge project was underway.

Market Garden

This plan called for thousands of paratroopers to be dropped behind enemy lines in Holland, have them capture the bridges south to north, from Eindhoven to Arnhem, and then the British infantry could march up the road to Arnhem, taking the ground and marching into Germany where the Rhine River marks the boundary of Holland and Germany right at Arnhem. There were reports from Dutch underground that the German army was in tatters; they were retreating back to Germany. There would be little resistance from them as the British and American armies took this part of Holland away from German occupation.

The plan was very intricate; everything had to go exactly as designed or there would be disaster. The more complicated the plan, the more room for error. And, as it unfolded, nothing really went as planned and therefore it was a huge disaster. First, the Germans had coincidentally chosen Arnhem to be the resting place for several of their Panzer divisions; the weather played havoc with the schedule, and the drop zones had to be so far away from the bridges that it took away the element of surprise for the Allies.

The British airborne was dropped west of Arnhem and had to walk about three or four miles east to get to the Arnhem bridge. They were supposed to secure the bridge and wait a short time for more troops, more ammunition and more supplies soon, at most just forty-eight hours. It turned out that they got none of the support, and after a heroic struggle of four nights and three days, after constant bombardment from the Germans, they had to give up and be taken prisoner.

Because Holland is so water soaked, the drop zones of men, jeeps, tanks and supplies had to be miles from where they were needed. Everything was confusion from the beginning. There were so many men and equipment needed for the project that the drops had to be spread out over three days. The weather in England was miserable - too much fog - so the drops continued to be delayed. By the time the supplies were dropped in Holland, the Germans had overrun the zones, so the British got no ammunition, no supplies, no food.

After almost a week of fighting, the British decided to abandon the plan and to retreat back across the Rhine. Browning, the man in charge and deputy to Montgomery, said to Urquhardt back in England that he always thought the plan called for a bridge too far.

The Germans had regrouped as soon as they saw what was happening, so instead of "old men and boys" defending the German line, there were seasoned soldiers who pounded away at the Allies on all sides. The German generals quickly ordered more and more troops, ammunitions and equipment back to Arnhem. The Dutch underground found out about these reinforcements and reported them to the British, but they were ignored. The Dutch also tried to tell them about the narrow roads that the Brits had chosen for the pathway to Arnhem, but again the British ignored them and went ahead anyway with their plan.

The only thing going for the Allies is that the German general, Model, refused to blow up the bridges, because he said they needed them for their "counterattack". Only the Son bridge was blown up. Unfortunately, that bridge was the first one to be used by the British infantry. It took thirty-six hours to rebuild it before any movement north could happen.

The bottom line is that Market Garden failed miserably and the men finally had to give up and retreat from Holland. It was a disaster for the Dutch, because the Germans completely destroyed their town and ordered them to evacuate the entire area. The Dutch suffered greatly for being the focal point of this Allied effort to defeat the Germans, at least for the time being.

The area all around Arnhem still remembers the great effort of the Allies to liberate them from the Germans. They renamed the Arnhem bridge the "John Frost Bridge", and they have a museum at the site. They have the airborne museum west of Arnhem, in Oosterbeek, about five miles west of Arnhem, where the Allies set up their headquarters. They have the airborne cemetery not far away from the museum to honor those who lost their lives trying to liberate them. Every year they have a march to the Arnhem bridge to honor the march of the Allies to capture the bridge.

They also have a museum some ten miles south of Arnhem, at Nijmegen, where the American paratroopers captured and held that bridge so the British infantry could march into Arnhem. We visited the Nijmegen bridge also, where the soldiers had to row across the mighty Waal river to take both sides of the bridge in order to secure it. Many men were lost in that battle also, mostly American.

We had always wondered how accurate the movie was and we found out it followed the story very carefully. The film was full of movie stars, but it turned out that those stars actually resembled the characters they were portraying: Sean Connery, Dirk Bogarde, Anthony Hopkins, Gene Hackman, Michael Caine, Maximillan Schell and Liv Ullman. Also, the movie either filmed right on the bridges, or found similar ones. The Allied headquarters in Oosterbeek, the hotel Hartensein, looked exactly the same, with the surrounding woods where more and more wounded were laid.

Jack said the book/movie should have been named "Too Far to the Bridge". The soggy ground of the Dutch countryside, laced with canals and rivers, just could not sustain the amount of men and equipment to get them close enough to the bridges, so they had to be dropped miles away and, therefore, gave the Germans the time they needed to regroup.

Our experience was quite sobering yet interesting that an event more than sixty years ago is still upermost in the history of the area. The Dutch still remember the enormous effort the Allies made to liberate them, and they still, to this day, commemorate that effort.

Utrecht, Holland July 8-19,2010 Part 2

Scenes in Utrecht:

one of the old canals,

an architect's humor - the "rope" is actually part of the stone,

and I am relaxing in the cloister of the church.

One day we took the bus in the opposite direction of downtown Utrecht to the university campus. This is not your typical "campus" with a main building and grounds with lots of grass. This university is almost like a town, with lots of tall buildings that were either libraries, classrooms or labs, student housing, etc. The guidebook told us that several well known Dutch architects had designed many of these buildings. We went into one of them: the Rem Koolhaus building that was an arts building, with theater, art spaces and a cafe area.

Since it was really the summer break there were not that many people around. I can just imagine how crazy it is when all of the students are here, riding their bikes. In the meantime, we thought the university is a bit cold, since we were used to a traditional university campus. Just a bunch of tall buildings, quite far apart from each other. It is probably convenient to the students who spend the entire day in one building, but it just doesn't look like a community.

Every night at 6:00 we would gather in the garden, near the canal, and have a glass of wine with Marc, the hotel owner. It was such a nice touch, and we enjoyed getting to know Marc and other people who were staying at the hotel. During the conversations, I said something about riding bikes and how it would be to ride around the town - how it would feel to get back on a bike. Marc said he had a couple of bikes we could use. Jack wasn't interested, but I thought it would be fun, so one morning, while Jack was still sleeping, I sneaked downstairs, unlocked the bike, and made my way around the neighborhood. I wanted to go out in the morning because people of Holland just don't get started until after ten in the mornings, so I thought I would have the streets to myself.

Oh my gosh, don't ever believe that 40 years later you can hop on a bike and take off. At least, it wasn't that easy for me. Fortunately, it was the kind of bike where the brakes were in the pedals, not the handles. I learned on such a bike as a kid, so I was more comfortable with that method now. But it seemed that the bike was so fast and I was so high up on the seat. I don't know, it was just weird and I was so glad I didn't meet anyone during my half hour of biking around the neigborhood.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to do that again, but Marc persuaded me to try again on Saturday morning; nobody would be out early and it would be cool and nice wide streets with no other travelers. I did try it and got a little more used to it. I traveled much farther away from our hotel and felt pretty good. Maybe if I practiced everyday I would get more confident and then actually be able to get out on the road with other bikers and cars and busses. Maybe.

Jack and I spent a whole day working on the next six weeks of our itinerary. He does the reading and research, figures out where we should stay and makes an educated guess on how long to stay at each place. I get on the computer and try to find hotels in the towns he has chosen. I am sure there are hundreds of web sites that I could use to find places to stay, but I have had good luck with two: Venere.com and Booking.com. They are easy to use, the hotels have descriptions and photos of their rooms; they have reviews from people who have stayed at the hotels. and above all, you can book online and get confirmation immediately. We have had to resort to other methods in the past, and they are very inconvenient: you have to email the hotel and wait a few days for confirmation or no, or you have to call the place and try to talk to them. All of that is too complicated; I would rather be able to handle everything online and be done with it.

I had no trouble with the first three places in Germanhy we were staying, but the hotels in Berlin turned out to be very expensive. We were going to stay several weeks there, and most hotels I was interested in could not take us for that length of time. I had to break up our stay to sets of two weeks at a time. We will see how that works. Getting to stay in a place for a long time is nice, so we are not packing and unpacking; however, in a large place like Berlin it might be nice to learn different neighborhoods. We will see.

We were ready to move onto Arnhem in a few days. It is located on the border with Germany and very far inland from the North Sea. Not many people we met had much to say about Arnhem, but we were anxious to get there. One of our favorite movies was "A Bridge Too Far", the story of a huge Allied military operation in September, 1944, which was to end the war if it was successful. However, many things happened to make the plan fail, and we had always wanted to travel the road in Holland where the action happened. We were ready to follow the story.

Gottingen Germany August Part 1

We drove to Gottingen in the late morning. The day was miserable. It was foggy and wet, and we had intermittant showers all the way. We deliberately took the "back"roads but there was plenty of traffic on these roads, including lots of truck, so it was treacherous. Jack's nose was very stopped up - he just could not breathe - and had not slept well the previous night. I was worried about him, but we kept on going. Maybe in Gottingen he would be able to breathe.

We finally got in the town; my Google map directions were fine but when it says "turn right at Gartenstrasse" or "left at Mertensplatz" that doesn't help much, since they don't much believe in road signs. When we are traveling by car, we learned while we were in Spain a few years ago, to drive into the town, stop at a hotel and ask directions to our hotel. They always knew all hotels, they had city maps and they gave us good directions. We did this again and it worked like a charm. We probably would still be driving around, looking for our hotel if we had not stopped. Sure enough, the signs on the road really are there, after you know what you are looking for.

We were staying at an NH hotel, our fourth such hotel. It is a Spanish chain and it has very nice hotels. This one was nice though standard. The first thing we did on checking in was to ask about laundry - what time in the morning should we bring our clothes down. The second thing was to find the doctor that was recommended for Jack.

It so happened that he was at the clinic just up the road from us, so at the proper time we walked over and asked to see the doctor. We waited for about five minutes. I was prepared for a long wait; I had my crossword puzzles and my Kindle, but in about fifteen minutes Jack was back, armed with a couple of prescriptions.

We walked down the street to the pharmacy; they filled the prescriptions - some kind of pill and some nose drops - and we were on our way back to the hotel. The doctor thought that Jack had some kind of viral infection rather than an allergy problem. Jack took a couple of pills and sprayed his nose and suddenly felt better. I was a little skeptical - how could he have a viral infection in all of the places where he had nose problems: western England, Ireland, northern Germany? I saw those places as cool, rainy, full of trees and hay and grasses... that sounded like allergy problems to me, but I was not the doctor. I just murmured how great that he might be feeling better soon.

There was a bus stop in front of the hotel, and most busses went downtown, so we hopped a bus to find a place to eat. The bus driver was very nice, but I don't think he spoke any English. Jack asked questions about directions, and the bus driver started rattling off directions. I asked Jack later what that conversation was about and he said he got about 20% of it. Anyway, the bus driver motioned us when to get off, and we found ourselves in the middle of downtown.

The Germans have the required pedestrian area where all of the shops are, just like in Holland. This was Thursday night, a late night for the shops, so the town was still pretty lively. We found a cute little cafe and walked inside to have a schnitzel, what else? It was crowded but we were in no hurry, and enjoyed the atmosphere. The food was pretty good too.

We walked around a little after our meal and then headed back to the busstop, hopped the number 4 bus to head home. It really wasn't far back to the big road where our hotel was; this street, Kasseler Landstrasse, a four land road, is full of hotels and automobile franchises, with a few private homes squeezed in among them. I am guessing that many years ago this was a nice road out of the town, and people thought they lived in the country. Then they built the autobahn down this way, with an exit on this street, and businesses and hotels sprang up here, just like any American town with an exit on the freeway. We even had the customary Burger King and McDonald's.

We were going to spend Friday in town to see what history Gottingen had and what interesting sights it had in the middle of the city. We called it a night and hoped that Jack could get a good night's rest for the first time in a long time.

It didn't happen. He couldn't breathe any better than before. He was miserable. The next day was Saturday, so he was going to have to wait until Monday to see the doctor again. Jack tried to put on a good face in the morning, but he was tired and felt awful.

We did get in the car on Sunday to drive to Eisenach, about fifty miles down south. The road followed the Wesser River, and all along the way there were encampments, where Germans were spending the last days of their holiday in their little campers with the daytime activities, like walking, biking, boating. Jack says that Germans like the outdoors and like the idea of camping. I thought it would be very uncomfortable, having another camper right up next to mine, etc. But Jack says that it is fun to camp - they did it in Germany when he was in high school. You meet people, you have good campgrounds with showers and bathrooms, and the weather is good most of the time. I guess.

We got to Eisenach and it was pouring down rain. It never stopped the whole day; we made the best of it. This little town is very important because it not only has the Luther and Bach houses, where both of these famous people grew up, but it has the Wartburg castle, where Luther was protected by the German princes while he was on the run from the Pope. He was excommunicated, which meant that he was fair game to be killed by just about anyone. I grew up Catholic, so Martin Luther was considered a very bad guy, but other than that, I never knew much about him. Around these parts, he is considered a hero and one who changed history.

The Luther house is just your ordinary old house, with old furniture. I must admit, I didn't get much out of it, since all the signs were in German. But evidently, Luther was a very good student, and he decided early on to become an Augustinian monk, so he could study and have a quiet life. I guess he never realized how much he would do in his lifetime to upset the order of things and go on to be such an historical figure.

The Bach house was fascinating. Bach also grew up in this little town, some two hundred years later than Luther, and he was also a good student, music wise. The house was extended to include a wonderful little museum which housed instruments that were in use in Bach's time, a great room with earphones where you could listen to all kinds of his compositions, and a music room, where we heard a lecture in German and a demonsration of several different kinds of percussion instruments that were from Bach's day.

This part of Germany used to be in the eastern part, and I couldn't help but wonder how these people lived during that time of occupation, so to speak. Everything seemed ordinary, but I couldn't shake the feeling that these people had a hard life during those times.

Fortunately for me, every sign in the Bach museum was also in English. I read about his experiences in each of the churches where he worked. The sad part was that in most of his church jobs he was misunderstood. so he had to put up with a clergy that was ignorant of music and gave him a hard time with his plans and his music. I shook my head sadly: this kind of tension between church musicians and their pastors has existed all those years ago and still goes on today.

Since it was getting late and the rain was not letting up, we decided to save the Wartburg castle for another day. We made our way home through the rain. The only good thing was, all over Europe on Sundays, trucks are not allowed to use the highways, so we had a peaceful trip back despite the bad weather.

Jack was prepared to get up early and go to the clinic to see the doctor again; hopefully he would help him. He left for the clinic and was back in less than an hour. The doctor gave him some pills that were more powerful, some other nose drops, wanted to see him again on Wednesday, and made an appointment for Jack to see a specialist if he did not get better in a few days. We crossed our fingers and hoped that these new pills would do the trick.

In the meantime, we decided that we could not leave Gottingen. We had reservations for Magdeburg in a couple of days, but we rescheduled that reservation and extended our time here in the Gottingen hotel. The most important thing for Jack was to get well, or at least to feel better. Our march across northern Germany was secondary at this point.

Utrecht, part 1 July 8 - 16 2010

Views of the "dom", the cathedral in the middle of Utrecht.

The train from Gouda to Utrecht was easy and fast and we were in the big city in no time. Our taxi took us out to the residential part of the city and dropped us off at Hotel Admiraal. I wasn't even sure if it was a hotel; it looked like a city apartment. All of these "houses" are connected through each block. We got there just as the workers were trying to set up the fire alarm for the rooms. But Marc, the owner, was very gracious during the little confusion. As the alarm was sounding off and on, he showed us to our room in the back with a balcony, overlooking the canal. But he said, "it is going to be warm here for the next few days. Perhaps you would like the room with the air-conditioner???" I jumped at that one and asked to see the room. It was perfect. And such big rooms! This hotel was just the opposite of that one in Gouda; I was in heaven.

Evidently Holland does not have any zoning for residential or business; most of the hotels we stayed in were mixed right in with the houses. The Admiraal was such a hotel,located in a residential area. It was a beautiful spot and so quiet. Just down the street was a school; I am not sure how quiet the neigborhood is during school days, however. We were there during their month long holiday, so maybe the atmosphere was a bit different at other times. I don't know, but now it was very pleasant, with very little traffic.

We quickly unpacked and set up our things: open our suitcases, set up the electric toothbrush and our computer notebook - oh, yes, among other things this hotel had free wireless - and which side of the bed we wanted to sleep on etc. It is amazing how quickly one can get used to a new environment: the bed, the bathroom, the space itself, the bed lights, how the sun comes through the windows. Once you are in a new space you can adjust in a few hours. And then it is yours, until the next place.

The room itself was pretty large and the ceilings were very tall. Marc had interesting art on the walls, mostly local artists. It had a mini bar, which is a very nice touch, and a Nespresso machine! Oh, did we get hooked on that the days we were there! And, as the owner Marc told us, he offered a cocktail hour at 6:00pm. This was a great place, and we hadn't even explored the city yet.

We could walk either way from the hotel to a bus stop which went to the central train station via downtown. In every Holland town, most buses go to the central train station, and most bus stations are right next to the train station. The buses are great; they have a small screen in the front and throughout the bus, showing the names of the bus stops. A voice also announces the stop, so you can figure out how to pronounce the names of the stops. The bus stops themselves lists all of the buses that stop there and their time schedule. So you can hop on almost any bus and it will take you somewhere downtown. We bought a card which has fifteen rides on the card, so we wouldn't have to worry about buying a ticket, though it is very easy to buy from the bus driver.

We went downtown and looked around, noting all of the stores and the cafes along the main street. Our first job was to find the tourist office to get a walking tour of the town. Then we looked for a post office, an ATM machine and an Albert Hein store - this is the Holland grocery store, like Tom Thumb. Every town has several of these stores and we can get everything there: water, snacks, instant coffee, fresh fruit, supplies like toothpaste, deodorant, hand lotion - whatever you need. And they are always air conditioned, so you can relax in there for a few minutes before going out into the sun.

Utrecht has a very large university, so usually the place is packed with students; again, since it was holiday time it was not nearly as crowded, but there were still lots of young people throughout the town. It is not a large town, like Amsterdam, but it was certainly larger than Gouda.

It was nice to sit out at one of the cafes and have a coffee and a tosti - a toasted cheese sandwich, in the late morning, before it got really hot. I know that at the same time Dallas and even St. Louis and Chicago were suffering from high temperatures, but I was used to being able to escape into the air conditioning at home when it got hot. Here in Holland, they are just not used to this heat, and nothing is really air conditioned. They just sweat, and they love it, because most of the year it is so cold. Everybody wears flip flops and shorts and just endures the heat. It was close to 90 degrees that week in Utrecht and very sunny. I was pretty miserable being a tourist.

But Jack was as enthusiastic as usual, so we planned our walking tour for the days we were there. They have an interesting church, the dom, in the middle of downtown, when, in the 1200's the town had some sort of cyclone or tornado and blew down the entire nave of the church. We could see the black stones in the pavement where the columns used to be.

They have several churches in Utrecht; most had started out as catholic but were transformed into protestant during the reformation. One was still a catholic church and they even have a Mennonite church. I noticed one of the churches was hosting an English choir for a concert, so I suggested that we attend. Poor Jack has been to so many choir concerts, but he agreed so we went downtown early, had dinner at one of the cafes and then walked to the church. It was old and all stone so I thought it would be a great place to sing.

This choir was just terrible. It was a typical church choir: at least twice as many women as men. Their program listed pieces by the usual English composers: Tallis, Byrd, Purcell, etc. But as soon as they started singing I winced. First of all, before every piece, the assistant hit a very loud note on the organ to give the choir the first note. Most choirs I have been in give the first note quietly on a pitch pipe. That jarring sound before the piece was startling and ruined the whole piece.

They should have been able to sing these tunes by heart, being an English choir, but they hid behind their music folders the whole time. The choir director, who did not impress me at all, since he was swinging his arms around like a band director, was working away and not one of the choir was paying attention to him. By the end of the first half I was ready to go. But Jack said, oh, let's support this choir. I don't mind staying until the end. I reluctantly kept listening. This guy was an egomaniac; he talked too much between pieces of music, and then every few minutes he would run up to the choir loft and play a little tune, while the poor choir stood at attention.

I suffered through the second half, and as it mercifully ended the heavens opened up, as if in relief, and poured down rain. I had not brought the umbrellas, so we got soaked running to the bus stop. I wish we had left an hour earlier. Was I disappointed.

The next couple of days we spent downtown, walking through the historic part, finding the old canal, the new canal, the house where the only Dutch pope lived, the former monastery and its lovely cloister, and many other points of interest in Utrecht. We did find a Catholic church which had a beautiful museum. The pieces on display were the chalices, the monstrances, the wardrobe of the priests and bishops, and other artifacts of the old church. And the place was air conditioned; I was in heaven.

I really liked this town and was looking forward to seeing more of it in the coming days.

More photos of Lugano, July 2010

Here are some photos of our adventure up the mountain with Teresa and her parents, Carolina and Leno, her brother Guido and his dog Guiness, Teresa's sons Mahdi and Daniele, and the two of us.