Thursday, January 1st we stayed in the same Potsdam hotel a second night.  We anticipated that we may need to sleep in after New Years eve, and in fact didn’t get moving until around noon.  We had lunch in Potsdam, then set off by train to explore Berlin. When we roughly planned out our trip … Continue reading Tour de Germany Day 7 – Berlin, Potsdam →

New Year’s in Berlin was an interesting experience to say the least.  We left our hotel in Potsdam about 7:30PM and arrived at Berlin’s main train station at about 8PM.  From then on we were immersed in huge crowds of people until the early morning. The main celebration is at the Brandenburg gate where over a … Continue reading Tour de Germany – New Years in Berlin →

Wednesday, December 31st we were in Dresden, Berlin and Potsdam.  In the morning we walked around Dresden.  Most of the buildings in Dresden were destroyed by a huge fire after a bombing raid in World War Two.  However, there are still some incredible, lavish stone buildings there that make a person wonder how grand the city … Continue reading Tour de Germany Day 6 – Dresden, Berlin, Potsdam →

Tuesday, December 30 we started in Nuremberg and finished in Dresden. We spent the morning at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg. It is a wide ranging museum with the general theme of German history. I really liked it. They have English descriptions on all the exhibits and it’s not just paintings; they have statues, musical instruments, … Continue reading Tour de Germany Day 5 – Nuremberg, Dresden →

Monday, December 29th we woke up in Munich, ate breakfast at the hotel, then boarded a train to Nuremberg at around 11AM.  The train we took was the first one to show us a speedometer.  Most of the ride was around 180 km/hr, for a little bit it did reach 250 km/hr. We arrived in Nuremberg around … Continue reading Tour de Germany Day 4 – Munich, Nuremberg →

Sunday, December 28th we spent the day in Munich and Dachau. We had a long list of things we wanted to see in Munich, but decided to start our day by traveling to Dachau concentration camp since we didn’t know how long it would take to see and didn’t want to miss it. Getting to … Continue reading Tour de Germany Day 3 – Munich, Dachau →

Saturday, December 27th  we started the day in Stuttgart, with lots of snow! We hadn’t seen any snow (besides what’s on the mountain peaks) since we left Minnesota, so we were excited.  Little did we know that it would go on to snow for the next four days we were in Germany. Our hotel in … Continue reading Tour de Germany Day 2 – Stuttgart, Ulm, Munich →

From December 26th to January 3rd, Melissa and I went on a train tour all across Germany.  The university where Melissa works was closed from Christmas Eve until January 5th and she wasn’t too deep into her work yet, so we figured it would be a good time for our first big European vacation.  I … Continue reading Tour de Germany Day 1 – Freiburg, Baden-Baden, Stuttgart →

Merry Christmas and Joyeux Noel! With a mix of comfort and homesickness Phil and I attended Christmas Eve mass here. Instead of English, the service was in French, and instead of a small country Lutheran church, we were in a stone, centuries old, Basilica. Despite these differences, the small children still dressed as angels and … Continue reading Joyeux Noël →

Last Saturday we visited a town made famous by Deep Purple, Montreux, Switzerland (just listen to the first few lines of Smoke on the Water).  Montreux is located on the eastern edge of Lake Geneva, and is about a half hour train ride from Lausanne.  It is much closer to the alps than Lausanne, with … Continue reading Montreux →