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The concrete wall comes down and a wall of 100€

The concrete wall comes down and a wall of 100€ bills is erected in its place. This mural pulls no punches. 😳

Germany Road Trip 2020: Baden-Württemberg Day 3,

Germany Road Trip 2020: Baden-Württemberg Day 3, Saarland Day 1, Stop in Bayern on the way back to Berlin
Last road trip latergram because this is getting ridiculous! We spent a day and a night in Baden-Baden. I'm not posting any photos because we really needed a lazy day, and we stayed in a wonderful apartment. Like, literally, we stayed in and just relaxed. Untanned, but rested and ready, we headed to one of the smallest of Germany's states, Saarland. We stopped in Homburg's Schlossberghöhlen (Caves, 1-2). Site of earlier fortifications and later used for shelter during WWII, the caves are incredible red and yellow sandstone. Moss grows near lights, so they give you a hard hat with a light and try to keep the interior lighting minimal. Tough to photograph but super fun to explore! Next we got to the city of Saarbrücken. We wandered the old town with a free mp3 audioguide I found about the landmarks like the castle (3), Ludwigskirche (4), and Rathaus St. Johann (City Hall, 5-6). We slept the night after a lovely dinner (in a town known for its food), and got up to head home with a single stop on the way: the Würzburg Residence. It's truly an incredible German Baroque building with art and architecture that is remarkable to behold and, sadly, forbidden to photograph. :-( Oh, well, at least the exterior and gardens were a photographic free-for-all (7-9). And that's that! That was our loop (10). Deutschland, du bist wunderschön!

Germany Road Trip 2020: Baden-Württemberg Day 2 T

Germany Road Trip 2020: Baden-Württemberg Day 2
The day dawned warm and sunny, and we had a typical local activity planned: the Hasenhorn Rodelbahn (1-3)! It's an alpine coaster -- basically a luge-style ride down a mountain. You take a chair lift up (this one with views of the town of Todtnau). At the top, they strap you in, feet first, to a car on the rails. The next couple of minutes are a blur. You careen in loops and bumps and straightaways into curves, down the 2.9km track to the bottom, sparingly applying the brake on your little car and telling yourself they don't want you to fall off and die, despite how it feels. 😆 Oh, and because our hotel had given us Hochschwarzwald Cards, it was free! We just walked up, scanned our cards, and rode down. Super easy and highly recommended. (You get the card from staying in participating hotels so look into that when planning!) After our adrenaline rush, we moved on to a more relaxed hike on the Hirtenpfad trail. The path takes you through forest and fields once traversed by 19th century shepherd boys herding their family flocks (4-7). The beauty of the summer scenery belies the boys' hard lives, but the signs along the trail gave you a picture. That's how we wrapped up our time in the Hochschwarzwald (High Black Forest). As we headed north, we stopped off at the Triberger Wasserfälle, taking in the falls and hiking a little nearby (8-9). We kept heading north, mountains and hills giving way to the lower Schwarzwald, and arriving that night in the famous spa town of Baden-Baden.

[Back to roadtrip highlights] Germany Road Trip 2

[Back to roadtrip highlights]

Germany Road Trip 2020: Baden-Württemberg Day 1
Time to climb a mountain! Okay, hike one. Feldberg is the tallest mountain in Germany outside of the Alps. We stayed in the unique Boutique Hotel Kokoschinski (10), which sits near several trails. We got up, ate a delicious breakfast and hit the trail early. The hike included open fields and forest sections (6, 9), creeks and small waterfalls (2, 4), monuments like one to Otto von Bismarck (7), views of the Swiss Alps on clear days (3, though my photo barely shows it at all), and wildflowers galore (5). The small lake, Feldsee, was a good spot for a lunch (8), and we got back to eat giant burgers at the hotel's terrace restaurant.

I'll get back to my trip photos in a bit, but the

I'll get back to my trip photos in a bit, but the continual slog of events and commentary about events in the US and around the world has been overwhelming. It's been easy to be disheartened and cynical. I have been learning so much from Anti-racism reading. This was a powerful statement among many.

Let's avoid letting cynicism guide us. Even subtle expressions of it, like the underlying belief that racism and misogyny and other oppressions are too natural to us to be lessened. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We can learn and unlearn. We don't have to uphold the status quo. We who have more power or privilege can sacrifice our illusions of fairness to help make a fairer world. We must.

"The colorblindness ideal is premised on the notion that we, as a society, can never be trusted to see race and treat each other fairly or with genuine compassion. A commitment to color consciousness, by contrast, places faith in our capacity as humans to show care and concern for others even as we are fully cognizant of race and possible racial differences." - Michelle Alexander's "The New Jim Crow"

On our way to the Black Forest, we stopped off at

On our way to the Black Forest, we stopped off at one of the most famous castles in the world: Neuschwanstein.

We didn't tour the inside, but walking around the area was absolutely worth it. The best views of the castle exterior and the countryside around come from a nearby bridge. It is small and usually gets very crowded. We've heard in the past that waiting in line for an hour was typical in order to get on that bridge. Though we had to wear masks (1), we only waited 25 minutes to get on the bridge and the views were as advertized: gorgeous (2-5)!

We decided to walk around the nearby Alpsee (5, 8-10), a lake with views of the other castle near it, the older Hohenschwangau (6). Rain clouds rolled in later, giving us the spectacular sight of clouds around the castles and only dampening our adventure a little bit. Having seen the castle, and the cows with the finest view (7), we then drove westward to get to Feldberg, a small town in the Hochschwarzwald - the High Black Forest.

Germany Road Trip 2020: Bayern Day 2 It was a day

Germany Road Trip 2020: Bayern Day 2

It was a day of unreal Alpine gorgeousness. We hiked around the Eibsee, admiring the mountains, and taking a break to swim (1). The beach was made of sharp stones, so lounging was, uh, limited, but the water was clear and cool. A family of ducklings was very into it (2). Until they learn to fly, the ducks won't get to admire the Eibsee's gorgeous colors (3), or that of the vivid green lakes around it (4), but we sure did!

Once we'd gotten our fill, we hit up Partnachklamm, a gorge in the mountains (5-10). The contrast of stone walls around us, trees above, and glacier-blue river below made for a spectacular hike.

Germany Road Trip 2020: Bayern Day 1 We spent our

Germany Road Trip 2020: Bayern Day 1

We spent our first day in Bavaria wandering around Schloss Linderhof and the extensive gardens (photos 1-3, 5-6). We saw a lot of snails (4), and a young fox (5), buckets of natural gorgeousness along with baroque art and architecture. We spent the evening wandering the town in which we stayed, Oberammergau. It is charming (7-10)! It's big enough to have lots of good restaurants, small enough to be easy to walk. Oh, and our hotel, Ammergauer Hof, had a great Turkish restaurant with legitimately spicy food! It's not easy to find in Germany, so it tasted delicious. The owners were so friendly and welcoming. It was reassuring to talk to them and see the care with which they set up their hotel and managed the Corona adaptations. Sunny weather and beautiful mountains everywhere, it was a great introduction to one of the most storied parts of Germany!

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