- Driving on the German autobahn is like having a long conversation with a number of pleasant (and some not-so-pleasant) partners, all of whom share a common language, the language of the road. If one wants to pass, one does not slow down, but drives rapidly up to the rear bumper of the preceding vehicle until said vehicle pulls into the slow lane. If the faster vehicle is polite, it will hover about 6 feet to the rear until allowed to pass; if not-so-polite, it will stay about 2 feet from the preceding vehicle and may also repeatedly flash its headlights. Alternately, if a car is driving in the fast lane and another vehicle approaches, it will pull over to the slow lane, rather than assuming that because it is driving so fast, it is impossible that another driver may feel comfortable moving at an even faster pace. At this point, if desirous of passing, the following vehicle will put pedal to the floor to pass as quickly as possible; however, if the following vehicle desires to drive at the same speed and prefers to follow rather than lead, it will pull into the slow lane behind the preceding vehicle. The whole thing is so elegant and good natured. It is rare that a driver will prevent another vehicle from passing, and usually is due to heavy congestion in the slow lane which would require too great a drop in speed. I loved it!
- German roads are by far the best. They are beautiful roads, smooth and freshly maintained. I did not hit one single pothole in Germany. The autohofs (gas station complexes by the side of the road) and rasthofs (rest stops) were also fantastic. However, this comes at a price. Germany must spend a huge portion of its GDP on road maintenance. Every 100 miles or so, traffic would slow first to 120 kph, then to 100, then to 80, and thence to 50 kph as we all crept past the maintenance crews. Once past, a profligate expenditure of petrol would bring us all back up to cruising speed, and a short period of confusion would ensue as we all sorted out which of us comparatively belonged in the fast vs. the slow lane.
- The Danes really do seem to be a bit on the dour side. After the Netherlands, which is full of smiley, happy people, and Germany which was a very comforting country, Denmark seemed unfriendly and pretty edgy. There was more ethnic diversity and greater extremes in style.
- Amsterdam seems to be experiencing a population explosion. Small blonde children were everywhere, sometimes three to a bike.
- Netherlanders seem to have family bikes the way that Americans have family cars. I had no idea that you could pack an entire family of five onto one bicycle!
- Germany reminded me of my grandparents' house. There were rag rugs, beer steins, wooden carvings, clocks with familiar tones to count the quarter hours, and pastoral paintings. Even the smell reminded me of childhood afternoons with my grandmother. It was lovely.
- Cow manure smells different in different countries. This was a truly disturbing discovery - not that the odor differs, but that I had grown sufficiently accustomed to the smell that I could detect subtle differences!
- German country villages are very religious. In one small town, Gutenland, the entire village assembled in front of a small kirk for the Saturday evening service. There are also very strange crosses everywhere, containing farm implements.
- Europe is very small. We accidentally drove through Austria on our way to dinner one night. I wanted Mexican food and GPS alerted us to a restaurant called Sausalito's in Garmisch 27 kilometers from our gasthaus in Hohenschwangau. those 27k ended up taking about an hour and a half to drive and we were fortunate to discover a good restaurant with great music and a super fun vibe at the end of the trip. Afterward, we discovered that although the restaurant was in Germany, our road through the Alps had gone primarily through Austria. The road was so beautiful that we went back the next day to take photographs.
- German food was the best in our trip! Especially for vegetarian choices. Every German restaurant had a minimum of 4 vegetarian entrees, usually in a section clearly labeled vegetarian. When ordered, these entrees came as a full meal. In the States, an entree is one dish. If you want a meal, you must order and pay for 3-4 different dishes. In Germany, an entree comes will a starch and a salad, and German salads are amazing! At first, they look uninviting, with a white sauce that I assumed to be mayonnaise-based. However, this sauce is actually made from yoghurt and is tangy and light. In Gutenland, my Kasespatzle (German mac 'n' cheese with homemade noodles) came with a salad buffet with 3 different types of coldslaws one of which tasted just like my grandma's.
- France has toll roads! This came as an unpleasant surprise while driving through Lorraine and Alsace.
- Luxembourg must have lower gasoline taxes. Petrol there was around 1.10/liter versus 1.36ish everywhere else. Other than some nice gorges, I'd say that's the only recommendation for the country.
- Do not attempt to find breakfast in France, Luxembourg or Belgium. It is impossible outside of a major hotel which caters to foreigners. Thick coffee and a sweet roll is the standard and not even in McDonald's will you find an egg dish. Really, I was desperate enough to eat an egg mcmuffin only to find that I had the choice of a croissant or a cup of coffee.
- The Global Positioning System is the best invention since the telephone. Amazing! I can't believe how easy it was to get around Europe using the GPS. I'd love to program in a different voice (maybe Sean Connery), but otherwise it was perfection. A GPS in combination with a functioning mind is an unbeatable combination. However, one of those items alone is not enough. Without a GPS, there is no way that I could have found some of the things that I did, notably, two hotels and a number of castles; without a functioning brain, I would have driven onto a closed section of freeway and a harbor. We were only lost a couple of times, and each time, only had to wait a minute while our unit was "recalculating".
- Wartburg castle in Eisenach, Germany is a must-visit. It's an UNESCO world heritage site as a perfect example of a Medieval castle, and we happened to visit right on the weekend of the Lutherfest which was pretty much a Rennaisance Faire. There were hordes of costumed people wandering the castle adding to the revelries.
- People from other countries have some very odd thoughts about Americans. In Gutenland, our host asked us what Americans typically had for breakfast and was crestfallen to be told that we usually have cereal or occasionally some eggs. He had been in Pittsburg with the German military for some sort of training exercise and had apparently been taken to McDonald's for breakfast. He came away with the impression that Americans typically eat hamburgers for breakfast.
- I now understand why Scandinavians are usually blond - it's because the sun is so darn strong! It isn't even necessary that the temperature be above 21 or 23; if the sky is clear, the sun is a burning oppressive force that lightened my hair a shade over the course of a week. Just think of what a whole summer of that sun could do.
- August really is rainy season in Germany. Almost every day, we had short burst of rainfall, some of which were very intense. We preferred driving in the rain to driving in sunlight. There was little danger of hydroplaning since it had rained so often that there was no oil on the roads, and the sun made the car unbearably hot. In fact, I now understand the concept of a burnoose as I had to fashion one out of Greg's t-shirt on a number of occasions.
- Having a lumbar pillow on long drives makes a world of difference. Why do car makers make seats concave rather than convex? The spine should be straight or slightly arched; sitting hunched over the way that seats are designed is a recipe for a sore back. I don't get it at all.
- Paying for a cabin on an overnight ferry is a very wise investment. Sure, there are plenty of seats that you could doze off in, but the cabins are wonderful and taking a shower in the morning makes the whole day brighter.
- You simply must try mustard butter! - butter mixed with whole mustard seeds. It is amazing! Only slightly less delicious is mustard cheese.
- Some famous expatriate (whose identity escapes me), when asked what he missed about his homeland, Germany, replied that he most missed the bread. I thought this answer was a little pathetic unless I ate German bread. Actually, all of the bread that we ate was wonderful! Here, we seem to add brown dye to white flour and call the result "whole wheat". In Europe, the rolls have flax, pumpkin, and sunflower seeds; have a mixture of grains; and are purchased fresh every day or two. They are amazing. In the Netherlands, we even bought a multigrain croissant! This is ordinary bread, to be found in any bakery, not a specialty item you need to go to Rainbow to find. Yum.
- The whole world needs to have a single currency. I know that it would eliminate some rich financial speculation markets and would strike at national identity but it really is great to be able to use the same currency in different places. On this trip, we had 3 currencies because neither Denmark nor Sweden have as yet switched over to the Euro, but we were able to use Euros in every other country. This made for less confusion, savings in currency conversion commissions and fewer coins left over at the end of the trip.
- The Alps are amazing. I've grown up with the Rocky Mountains and have traveled to some very mountainous areas, so I thought that I knew what to expect. Nope! The Alps are a whole 'nother class of mountain. They are just so big, so steep, so beautiful. They speak to me in a way that flat Holland never could. The Netherlands are lovely but the Alps are inspirational.
- I now understand why so many Dutch masters paint clouds. That's what the sky is really like! Because the land is so flat, the sky takes up most of one's vista and the sky is this pale eggshell blue that I haven't seen anywhere else. Scattered or spread about are huge puffy clouds of white and silver-gray. It is truly lovely. Even the thunderstorm our last night in Loosdrecht was lovely.
- Someday, Greg and I are going back to the Alpenrose hotel in Lermoos, Austria. It is amazing! It has a huge fantasy child's playground on the roof, including a pool, a bouncy castle and everything else a child could want. The restaurant was incredible. We just got a caprese salad, a mixed salad and a pasta with truffle sauce appetizer. This came with an amuse bouche and was incredible. I recently had a bad experience with pasta with truffles in NY and this dish reconfirmed my earlier assessment that Fig & Olive is overrated. This was amazing. Creamy and rich and complex and incredible.
- Bavaria is magical and the Romantic Road really is wonderfully romantic. There are castles and charming public squares everywhere you turn and the slower pace of life allows for real relaxation.
- I can not get used to the European habit of lingering for 1-3 hours over a meal. I like to eat, linger for max 5 minutes, then get the check and get out, preferably to go for a gentle stroll. Relaxing over a meal and then sitting at the table for another 1/2 hour is torture for me. That would be a huge cultural adjustment if I were to relocate.
- Neuschwanstein castle is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. So Ludwig the second bankrupted his entire family for 40 years to pay for it. As a result, he will be remembered long after his responsible uncle's name is lost to the wind. His insanity took a form that is beneficial to the entire world, or at least those fortunate enough to visit Schwangau or to go to Disneyland. (Neuschwanstein is the place that inspired Walt Disney's magic castle)
- There are an amazing variety of German sausages. Really. It almost made me want to eat meat, to try all the different types. No, not really.
- The Red Light District is pretty tame, really. It's full of tourists and has some pretty unattractive women sitting in the occasional red neon-lit window. It seems more a place to go to get some good ethnic food than a den of sin.
- Sweden is lovely but the people that we met seemed fairly resentful to be in the service industry. It was nothing compared to Russia, but one still got the impression that Southern Sweden could really do without the tourist industry, thank you very much. There was not an English menu to be found in the town of Trelleborg. Especially amusing was seeing the French family try to read the Swedish menu and then have a waiter act out the dishes in Frenglish.
- Cobblestones are wonderfully stimulating to walk on in the morning - they give great acupressure foot rubs. Then, after a day of walking around, they are torture in the afternoon.
- In Amsterdam, everyone rides single-speed bicycles. You would think that without any hills, one could cycle forever without getting tired. Let me tell you, after a day of riding around on a single speed with an unpadded seat, cycling can be pretty darn tiring.
- Note: if you find yourself awake and alert from jet lag at 5am, get up! it's a lot more fun to get an early start on the day than to lay in bed thinking unpleasant thoughts and dreading a day without sufficient sleep.
- Countries knows for their strong culinary traditions are the worst for vegetarians. I almost starved in Italy and I hate French restaurants. You're lucky to get one cheese-based dish or an offer of salad with meat in it while being charged the same price as those dishes which include foie gras or filet mignon. Also, no one understands that you don't want to drink wine. When you ask for water, you are immediately labeled cheap and unsophisticated. An allergy to sulfites is just no excuse!
- European hotels have a wonderful habit of offering his and her coverlets. Each double bed comes with two pillows and two blankets. These blankets are about 4 feet wide and are down with sheet-like covers. It completely eliminates the whole 'who's hogging the covers' controversy. I'm thinking about cutting our blankets in half and doing that at home!
- I can now definitely state that I am allergic to goose down. I suspected it in the past, but after sleeping in down every night for a week and dealing with stuffed up sinuses and full-body hives, I have a new level of certitude on the subject.
- Women in the Netherlands seem to wear no or very very little makeup. It's a very wholesome, natural look that I find very appealing. In Denmark, women are more stylish and seem to be wearing this odd asymmetrical blousy-style shirt that only flatters very thin women. In Germany, a popular look seems to be matching mother-daughter hair and makeup styles. Chunky hair streaks and salon sets are also popular. In France, everyone just looks groomed and put-together. It's very interesting to see so much variation in style in such a small geographical area.
I may add to these thoughts with a later post, but that's all for now, folks!
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