Maria Laach

This past Saturday we thought it would be a good idea to combine our workout with a little sightseeing. We headed to Maria Laach which is a Romanesque church built in the 11th century. It is now a Benedictine abbey with 55 monks who earn a living by running the nearby hotel and selling their organic apples and houseplants along with other products produced by monks elsewhere in Europe.

The outside of the church was a gorgeous example of Romanesque architecture but the inside was surprisingly a little plain. It unfortunately had lost most of the original décor in the 1800s. However, I would expect it to have a lot less ornate decoration than a Catholic church, since it is run by monks. I think that is their thing, no bling.

The abbey is situated on a volcanic lake (Laacher See) and is nestled in the forest with hiking and horse trails all around the lake.

After we checked out the church, we decided to take a hike. Unlike most hiking areas in German, there was actually a main map that outlined 6 different trails of varying levels of length and difficulty. We, of course, went for the longest and most difficult trail – 21 kilometers.

We were hopeful that the trail would be well marked after seeing a central map. Ah, how naïve we are. Things started out well, but quickly disinigrated. We found ourselves at an intersection with three different trail options and a sign that had fallen off of the tree. Since we were unable to discern from which tree the sign had fallen, we figured we had a 1 in 3 chance of choosing the right path. Oddly a lot of the trails were marked when there wasn’t any intersecting trail but when you had a number of different options there was no sign to be found. However, it was better than any other hiking trails in the Bonn area. Although a few wrong turns and some back tracking ended up in a slightly longer hike.

During our hike, we couldn’t help notice how many hunting tree stands there were in the forest. It seems quite odd to have hunters set up along hiking trails. I’ll have to remember not to wear my antler hat and leather coat when hiking next fall.

I think these trails would be beautiful with the fall colors. We will have to go back to do some trail running in the fall or spring. Jim wants to do a marathon in the spring so we may be back soon to do some long runs there.

Nice Neighbors

When I got back from Colorado I was disappointed to find that our new downstairs neighbors had not yet moved in. I was looking forward to meeting some new people. However I didn't want to get my hopes up too high because Germans can be a bit reserved and not overly friendly to strangers so I wasn't sure what to expect.

On Sunday morning as Jim was leaving for his ride, he found a vase of flowers with a handwritten note (in German) just outside our door. Our neighbors had been at the house when we were not in and left the flowers for us. In their note they let us know that they wouldn't be moving in until the end of April or beginning of May but would be around now and then working on the apartment to get it just the way they want it. They gave us their contact information and even a website so we could see what they looked like. Of course, I had some difficulty reading the handwriting so took the note to my German teacher to make sure that I had everything right. I was quite proud that I was able to understand the generalities of the letter.

Then last night our neighbor rang our bell and came up to introduce himself in person. He was very nice but when pressed to speak German I struggled a bit so it was a short introduction.

Now I am even more motivated to take my German to the next level. I want to be able to have a meaningful conversation with our nice new neighbors.

Daytripping in Dusseldorf

After discovering Robert's Bistro on our last trip to Dusseldorf, I have been jonesing for another great dinner and to see Dusseldorf by day.

We decided Saturday would be a good day to go so that we could do a little shopping, sightseeing and eating. We started out visiting our friend's bike shop to catch up with them and check out their store. Shockingly, we left the store without any major purchases. Although I think Jim was trying to figure out a way to justify buying a new helmet, but even he couldn't work out a logical argument so knew it was futile to try to convince me.

We decided to park the car near Robert's Bistro which is located along the Rhine river in the Medienhafen (harbor) area. This area has recently changed from an industrial looking harbor to a more modern warehouse district with some very cool architecture. Frank Gehry is the architect of a number of buildings in the Medienhafen but my favorite was the Neuer Zollhof building to the left.

I originally wanted to visit a few museums and check out the Schloss Benrath which is about 10k from Dusseldorf. However, our late start to the day altered our plans a bit so we decided to just explore the Altstadt and then head over to the high end shopping street of Koenigsallee.

After walking for about 30 minutes and seeing the area get increasingly more industrial, we discovered that we had been walking in the wrong direction. It was rainy and a bit chilly so I had been in a hurry to get moving and didn't take the time to orient myself. We were making great time though, just in the wrong direction. Luckily, the city is quite compact so we were still able to see a lot of the city in the 2 hours of daylight that we had left after getting lost.

We visited St. Lambertuskirche and Andreaskirche in the altstadt. Both churches had elaborate nativity scenes surrounded by evergreens. Each church probably had at least 20-30 trees around the nativity. Andreaskirche reminded me a lot of the Frauenkirche in Munich with its white ornate stucco ceilings but on a much smaller scale.

After wandering around the Alstadt and having a currywurst at the market, we decided to head over to Koenigsallee. Koenigsallee is a gorgeous street with a canal, lined with trees running through the middle of it. It has all of the glitz and glamour of high end shopping in Paris or London. Dusseldorf is now my favorite place to get my big city, urban living fix.

We headed back to Robert's Bistro around 6:30, hoping to miss the crowds. It was still packed with people but we were lucky enough to get one of the last 2 spots at a long table.Unfortunately, the restaurant hadn't acquired any more ambiance since our last visit. It still had cafeteria seating, florescent lighting and the non-existent decor that I remembered, but the lamb was just as delicious as the last time.

I am excited to come back to Dusseldorf when the leaves are back on the trees and the sun has decided to come out of hibernation. I think it will be a beautiful city in the spring and can't wait to go back.

Skiing (or more appropriately not skiing) in Sauerland

I am finally back from my escapades State side, and it is so nice to be back in my own home. While I had a great trip visiting friends and family, living out of a suitcase for three weeks starts to get a bit old.

I was lucky enough to come home to 3 sunny days right in a row, which really made the transition from sunny Denver, Colorado to Bonn, Germany a little easier. I also came home to snow on the ground which is unusual for Bonn. According to Jim's coworkers, this has been the coldest winter Europe has seen in a very long time.

Since we didn't know when we'd see snow again, we decided on Sunday to investigate some cross country skiing areas in Sauerland about 2 hours west of Bonn. Of course, to get me to agree to go, Jim told me it was only an hour from here (a bit sneaky of him).

The drive to the ski area in the morning was absolutely beautiful. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the sun made the snow covered trees and hills sparkle. The drive took us through some small towns which made it much more pleasant than driving up I-70 in Colorado.

We arrived in Schmallenberg around 12:00, and it looked like a perfect day to ski. We were pleasantly surprised to discover that the ski pass was only 5 euro. Unfortunately, it didn't take too long to find out why it was so cheap. The skate skiing area was a 2k track, crowded with inexperienced skiers. All of the other trails were for classic cross country skiing only. After about 4 times around the track, Jim and I were both ready to find a different place to ski. Jim had done some research on Nordic skiing in the area and thought there was another place not too far.

So we loaded up the car and continued on our quest to find a good skate skiing spot. We decided to go to Willigen. We didn't have an address to plug into the GPS for the ski area, but we figured that once we got to the town, we would see some signs. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. We finally decided to go to the tourist area to see if there was an address there. As it was Sunday, the tourist office was of course closed, but we were able to pick up some maps of the ski trails.

Even with the maps of the trails it wasn't very clear where the ski center was. We saw a sign for a Craft (skiing and cycling clothing brand) shop so decided to stop there and ask someone where the ski area was. After driving up a narrow, residential road, we found the shop which was part of some one's house. The door was wide open so we walked in but there was no one there. I'm not sure why the door was open especially because the shop had an open door right into their home so anyone could have walked in and walked off with a lot of expensive clothing and gear.

Back in the car again, we put the ski jump address into the GPS since one of the starting points looked like it was in that vicinity. After parking the car and hiking up a hill for 30 minutes, we were able to find the ski jump and what looked like some groomed trails, with hikers on them but no skiers. From the top of the hill at the ski jump we saw some skiers below on the trails so decided to get back in the car to drive around in that area.

Finally, after about 3 hours since the last ski area, we found the entrance to the ski trails. There was no center and apparently no cost to get on the trails. By this point, it was 4:00 and I had given up on skiing. I wanted to get on the road because we had heard traffic would be bad, and I was also concerned about the fact that it would be dark soon. My experience in Germany with hiking trails is that they aren't marked so figured the same would be true of skiing trails. Jim, however, was not dissuaded and wanted to check out the trails to see if it made sense to come back here.

The plan was to meet back at the car in 45 minutes. I decided that hanging out in the cold car wasn't appealing so went for a hike on some of the trails which weren't groomed for skiing. When I got back to the car 45 minutes later, Jim wasn't there. After about 40 more minutes, I started to get quite worried as it was getting dark and much colder. I figured that Jim's aversion to back tracking had caused him to get lost. When Jim finally arrived at the car, he was pretty shaken up. He had gotten lost and somehow had found the ski jump. He figured his only option was to take off his skis and walk down the jump. That proved to be more difficult than he anticipated in his ski boots on an icy, slick staircase. After falling about 100 feet down the jump, and possibly ruining his skis, he finally got back to the car. At that point, he was more than ready to hang up his skies for the season. We'll see how long that lasts. I'm not convinced.