Riding the German trains to Aachen and Bremen

We had a good night's stay in Belgium's Hotel De La Couronne Liege, right across from the colorful new train station. While traveling this second part of our European adventure, we booked all of our stays in places with two criteria in mind: 1) they must be within easy walking distance of the train station and 2) they must have air-conditioning. We found our first criterion was very important since we were exclusively using the trains for transportation. Because we had such cool July weather in Germany, we found that our second criterion was not important. We ended up staying in more modern lodging, when we would have preferred the ambience of the older family-owned lodges of Europe. On this cool morning, we walked the short distance to the train station, and caught the 7:19 a.m. local train that would take us across the Belgium/Germany border. We had gone grocery shopping the night before, so we ate our yogurt-and-fruit-and-granola breakfast on the train. We saw that our fellow passengers were mostly hikers with big overnight packs that were using the train to take them to trailheads. But we were twelve stops away from our first destination of the day--Aachen, Germany.

It was 8:22 a.m. when we got off the train in Aachen, and noticed right away that the streets were cleaner and there were more flowers here in Germany. We headed straight for Printenbackerei Klein. We had been conversing with a friend that has lived in Europe for years, and she recommended a stop in Aachen to try a dessert unique to this little town. 

We were wearing jackets on this July morning when we found ourselves in the warm little store. They seemed happy to see us, and gave us lots of samples when they found out that we were on a mission to find the best printen in Aachen. We found they had "original printen" which was something like a thick gingerbread cookie with a hint of licorice flavoring. But they also offered printen that was soft or hard or with hazelnuts or covered in chocolate.  They had printillo - finger-shaped cookies encrusted in white or dark chocolate with or without nuts; and weichprinten - flat square cookies dipped in chocolate and neatly stacked; and printenkonfekt - bite-size chunks of cookies plain or dipped . . . Mark is smiling because he tried them all.

We couldn't decide on our favorite, so the best deal for us was a bag of broken seconds that included all of their choices for just 7.50 Euro.

Since it was still early in the morning, we bought milk and had a printen brunch in the local park while we waited for Aachen to wake up.

Our friend had recommended the Klein family bakery (Printenbackerei Klein) over the better-known, but more touristy Nobis Printen shop. The Nobis bakery was fancier, but more expensive, and was surrounded by the steeples of the Marketplatz section of town.

Besides our bakery stops, we were also in Aachen to see their cathedral that is a UNESCO world heritage site. It is one of the oldest cathedrals in Europe, and was the center of Charlemagne's empire. The sign outside explained in German that they had 7:00 Mass, then 8:15 Schulgottesdienst. Any guesses what that might be? We found out that was a daily service for the local church school. 

As the school children exited, we followed a tour group inside to hear the last of the postlude from the grand pipe organ.

The combination of mosaics and stained glass and pipe organ music was heavenly!

We enjoyed the narrow and colorful streets of Aachen, with its puppet statue fountain.

This was not a town on the normal tourist route, but we weren't normal tourists. We were glad that our friend recommended it to us.

We also found the statue of Charlemagne, and the turrets left from his palace. This leader was also famous for building the cathedral here, and his bones were laid to rest in Bremen. While we have struggled to find a cross to buy from most other European countries, we found several choices for a German cross here in Aachen. We also took a quick picture of the Rathaus--which is an interesting German word for city hall.

We didn't have a place to leave our luggage while we explored this old historic city. We had to say that these uneven cobblestones make rolling a carry-on bag a challenge.

We had a brisk walk over those cobblestones to get back to the train station in time for our 10:51 train. This was a regional train, and we didn't make a reservation. Some of the high-speed trains require a reservation, while most regional trains just recommend it. Reservations take away the flexibility because you are required to be at that specific train at that specific time. They also cost an additional reservation fee (above the price already paid to ride the train) that can cost around $10 per seat. So we chose to ride without a reservation unless it was required.

But that leads to the chance that you might be standing up if the other passengers reserved every seat on a crowded train. We were learning how to find a seat without a reservation. The best option was to find one where the display on the side of seat was blank. That means that this seat cannot be reserved and will be available the entire journey. The next best option was to find one (like in the picture below) whose display said "freigeben." That means this seat was reservable, but it was not reserved at the time the train left its initial station when the data was downloaded. This seat was free, unless someone shows up with proof of a last-minute reservation they paid for. Then the squatter would have to give up this chair to the passenger that paid for a reservation. Many of the seats of this train listed that they were reserved from Koln--a very busy intersection station--to Duseldorf. We didn't want one of those seats, because we would have to give up our seat at Koln (Cologne) for sure. Finding a seat was a tricky business, because we didn't want to stand up for this 2.5-hour train ride.

We had to change trains in Dortmund, and our train was running four minutes behind. We were glad that our connecting train was running eleven minutes behind so we could make the connection. While German trains are pretty precise, they obviously aren't perfect. We then had another two-hour train ride to our final destination of the day in Bremen, Germany. This train was also crowded, with fans wearing their teams' soccer shirts and waving flags. They were going to the 6:00 game with Germany vs. Spain in Stuttgart in the quarterfinals of the Eurocup. Emotions were running high in anticipation of the game! We liked riding the trains in Europe, but they weren't as easy as we remember from twenty years ago when reservations and travel plans weren't required. We were missing the days of yesteryear when we just jumped on and off trains and showed the conductor our paper Europass card. The Hauptbahnhof (train station) in Bremen was a grand old building, and our hotel was right across the plaza from it.

We were staying at another hotel that fits our two part criteria at Plaza Premium Columbus Bremen. We won't need the air-conditioning again tonight. We think we might have been upgraded to a suite, because this room was huge by European standards. We had a refrigerator, two sinks, a microwave, couch and chairs and two twin beds scooted together to make a king. Just like all the rooms in Europe, the bed had a fitted sheet, but no top sheet, and only a duvet covering. 

Even though it was sprinkling when we arrived, we couldn't let that stop us from exploring the town of Bremen. Denisa had a list of things to find, and many of them had something to do with the fairy tale, "The Town Musicians of Bremen" by the Brothers Grimm. While not all will recognize this German fairy tale, it has been around since 1819. It tells the story of a donkey, dog, cat, and rooster who set out to the town of Bremen to become musicians.

While not on the usual tourist route of Germany, we think Bremen is a little fairy tale town. We spotted our first European windmill as we started our walk through town.

We headed first to Markplatz, the central market area of the old town.

Again, we found buildings that are on the UNESCO world heritage list all around us.

While we had eaten grocery store snacks on the train, we were hungry when we arrived. We ate at the "Stockhinger Die Guten Vom Rost" which was in the middle of the Markplatz. That name translates to "the good ones from the roast," but locals call it the wurst kiosk. 

The owner cut our wursts in two pieces so we could try both. It's a cash-only place and no English was spoken. It took lots of charades and pointing to their overhead menu to accomplish this simple meal.

The old town hall was pretty when lit up at night, and it was closed by the time we arrived. You might notice the tram tracks right in front.

Through this oldest section of town, the town of Bremen has laid the infrastructure for an electric tram. It's quite a difference of time to see the eleventh-century green roofs of Saint Peter Cathedral with a twenty-first century electric train silently passing by.

We noticed a guy dressed in a bright costume working on the steps in front of the church. He was sweeping up bottle lids that his "friends" kept dropping all over the steps. His friends explained to Denisa that it was a birthday ritual and they encouraged her to spill more lids for him to pick up. It seemed like a cruel thing to do to someone that was supposed to be celebrated on their special day. Or maybe this was just another fairy tale?!?

We looked above the Markplatz and saw a couple silhouettes high in the air. What's going on here?

They were balancing on tight ropes that were strung from the tall spires of the old buildings. We were glad to zoom in a see that they were secured by harnesses to the ropes as we saw one of them fall off.

Bremen was such an interesting town to wander!

We found another statue of the musicians of Bremen, and we rubbed the donkey's nose for good luck.

We wandered down the Schnoor Quarter, the oldest district that was once a fishing community. The narrow alleys now house candy shops and cozy restaurants. Also on Denisa's list was the Schlaten, the pedestrian zone along the river. The Wezzer River was once a main harbor, but now it's more of a cruise river.

As we walked further along the river, we found more and more graffiti. Then we found something that was not on Denisa's list. We found that this town was in the middle of their four-day celebration--Bremenales. There were concerts and food booths scattered all along the river and through the city. We found a solid police presence and lots of portable trailers labeled WC (that's the European symbol for water closet which we call bathrooms). The grounds along the river were muddy from the recent rain, but wooden planks were fitted together to make dance floors. We found a group with instruments setting up for a concert that started at 7:30, and we enjoyed their blue grass music with clarinet, harmonica, saxophone, guitar and banjo accompaniment. We found we could two-step our way across Europe. We giggled as we noticed people holding up their cell phones to video this odd dancing couple from somewhere far away.

We found other music venues starting in the evening, including this one in the old historic center of Bremen. It seemed like another strange contradiction of time to see a very modern light show stage amongst the steeples of some European relics.

We also noticed people gathering in pubs to watch the Germany/Spain Eurocup soccer game. Since we were living like the locals, we watched the end of the game from the television in our hotel room. It was tied 1-1 towards the end of the game, when Spain won with an amazing head shot. We also saw them replaying a questionable hand hit by Spain that would have changed the outcome of the game. But we couldn't understand any of the commentary from the sports-casters. We might try to live like locals, but we're certainly not understanding the language as we're riding the German trains to Aachen and Bremen today.

Who's that in Luxembourg?

We left our Paris apartment in the morning before 7:00 a.m., trying to be quiet so we wouldn't wake up our nephew's family that we have been traveling with for the last two weeks. We will sure miss them as we continue our travels! This morning we had to make two metro rides and a walk to get to the Paris Gare de l'East train station for our 8:19 a.m. train. After being pampered with others making the plans and figuring things out, we were on our own for the first time in two weeks. We had made a reservation on the TGV high-speed train, and used our first Eurail pass day. We had done our homework on the train we needed, the pass we needed to buy, made the seat reservations and paid the extra $22.50 reservation fee, and researched how to activate the pass. We did all those steps while we were sitting at home last month. Even though we felt prepared, our on-line pass wouldn't scan correctly at the turnstile at the station. Then it wouldn't scan right when the conductor checked our ticket when we were hurtling down the track at 180 miles per hour. Just about the time we were worried they might throw us from the train, suddenly our tickets came up correctly. So far, we're not great fans of the new automated Eurail pass system. Traveling with a rail pass isn't as easy as it was 20 years ago when you just flashed your pass and went anywhere on any train! Our high speed TGV train made three stops on our way out of France, and we arrived in Luxemburg City at 10:32 a.m. Whew! But wait . . . Who's that in Luxembourg with Mark?

While we said "good-bye" to a nephew in Paris last night, we said "hello" to another nephew in Luxembourg this morning. Stephen has spent time in Europe for most of the summers of his adult life. This year he flew to Europe specifically to go to as many Eurocup soccer games as possible. When he heard we were going to be in his part of the world, he planned to meet us in Luxembourg. He took the train from Trier, Germany, this morning and arrived nine minutes ahead of us.

We left our bags at the station for 5 Euro each, and took off on a little-planned bus and walking tour of the capitol city of Luxembourg. Denisa did enough research to know that all public transportation was free in Luxembourg. But she didn't do enough research to know which bus we needed to board. It was a good thing it was free, because we jumped on, then off, then back on buses until we finally got the right one. We jumped off close to Notre Dame church.

This shouldn't be confused with the more famous Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, but it was a nice start to our walking tour. We were hoping to find a cross to buy from this new-to-us country, but we did not. We checked our first stop off Denisa's list.

Denisa had a check-list of places to visit in Luxembourg City. Second on the list was the Palace of the Grand Dukes (also known as Palais Grand Ducal to the locals). This is the official residence of the Grand Duke, and guards were on duty outside. Check!

We picked up a map at the local information office, and then almost immediately got lost. So we just started wandering around, finding things on the list randomly. Our first "find" was the Chemin de la Corniche. Known as "Europe's most beautiful balcony," it is a pedestrian street high on the hill overlooking the historic old city below. Check!

This lovely walking path was once the ramparts of a fort built in the 1700s. Now it is patrolled by tourists and ringed with summer flowers that were obviously very happy here. 

From our perch on the Chemin de la Corniche we could look down on the historic old city known as "The Grund." Denisa kept saying that she wanted to get down there, so we took every path leading downward . . .

 

until we found ourselves down in "The Grund." Check!

We were also searching for a bathroom, and we might have found the best one in Europe. During our first two weeks in Europe, Denisa and Katrina developed a rating system for bathrooms based on their cleanliness, availability of soap, toilet paper, and paper towels, location, price to use, etc. We gave this one a 10 out of 10 on our rating system! Check!

We wandered around and through the arches and old walls. Who's that in Luxembourg? It's Stephen, who even agreed to be in some of our pictures. 

We had beautiful weather and nice temperatures for our wandering. After a very hot start to this European vacation, we had traveled far enough north to enjoy some cooler summer temperatures.

Because we weren't following our map well, we didn't always know exactly where we were on Denisa's list. But we're going to put a check mark beside the Bock Casements . . .

and the lovely church in the Grund. This was St. Jean du Grund Church.

This church had been sitting on the banks of the Alzette River since 1606. While we thought the views were great from the balcony trail looking down, we had to say it was also lovely from the valley looking up to the balcony.

We found some fun art on our walk, including a pink mermaid . . .

and some locals dancing their way across the square.

Lunch was at a local favorite--Kumpir Happy Potatoes. The owner had to explain all the toppings that we were allowed to pile onto a giant spud. We needed that food to give us energy to make the walk back up out of The Grund. The plan was to take the free public transportation back up the hill. But we never found it, so we slogged all the way up to the top on our own.

It wasn't until we had already walked up, that we finally found the Pfaffenthal Lift. 

So we rode this glass elevator to the bottom of the city again, just for the experience.

It even had a glass bottom so we could see where we were going. The trip was free, and we rode down, and then right back up again. Check!

While we concentrated on the old historical parts of Luxembourg City, we could look out from the top of the elevator to see more of the modern bridges and buildings in the distance.

We walked through the modern shopping district with its trendy shops and restaurants. We could spend days here exploring more of the different levels of Luxembourg and its capitol city.

We took a picture of the Luxembourg and EU flags on display at this tiered park on our walk.

After a great time in Luxembourg, it was time for us to head back to the train station. We collected our bags at the station and then parted ways with Stephen. He headed towards another soccer game, and we took the train to another new-to-us country. But for this stop, we were glad to answer the question of "Who's that in Luxembourg?" with another of our nephews. It sure was fun spending time with family in Europe this summer!