As You Wish

“As you wish”……is a great line from my all-time favourite movie, The Princess Bride, and I find I am repeating this line more and more often in my retirement years where I spend a full 365 days with my lovely princess bride…...but I digress.

When we last left you, we were deep in the Black Forest. On our final day there I still didn’t spot a fire swamp or any rous (rodents of unnatural size) but we did see more beautiful churches (St. Blasien marble work) and continued our lovely countryside drive. In Bad Sackingen there was a 400 year old, 200 metre wooden pedestrian bridge across the Rhine to Switzerland. When we walked across the bridge we observed many Swiss residents returning from Germany after doing their daily shopping in the less expensive country. There was a bit of confusion (on our part), returning our rental car when we arrived back at the Basel Airport, since we entered the Swiss side rather than the French side (cheaper car rentals in France). Fortunately, there are no ‘manned’ border crossings in this part of Europe, so it was not a lengthy passport-induced return to France and the other side of the airport.

Last week-end we spent Saturday travelling to Freiburg, Germany with Rachel, a one hour train ride. Freiburg is a nice laid-back medieval town along the Rhine, surrounded by vineyards. We spent most of our time in the Old Town, enjoying the Munsterplatz market, well preserved buildings and walking along the river. On Sunday we walked around the Old Town of Basel since we really hadn’t spent much time doing that even though it had been our base for almost 3 weeks. It really is a beautiful place to live and we can now better appreciate our daughter’s desire to remain here (and nearby Europe in general). While walking along the Rhine, I also found my first geocache on this trip. It was a rather unique one, with the GPS coordinates pointing to the middle of the river, but we soon saw an engineless boat (using the river current and a metal line, 10 metres above the fast moving river) bringing passengers from one side to the other, and correctly ascertained it was our target.

On Monday morning we took a $50, 1.5 hour flight to Berlin for this week’s adventure (Note – update from my previous blog…….I couldn’t seem to get any traction from the locals on re-building the wall, so I have moved on). While there we stayed in an apartment owned by a friendly French woman who had previously been to Quebec and loved our country. We spent our first day walking around the core of the city to get our bearings. Alexanderplatz, with its World Clock (with Edmonton listed on it for some strange reason), the 1200 foot high version of our CN Tower (1800 feet) and the Rathaus (Red Town Hall) attracted most of the crowds (more tourists than we had anticipated in this ‘off’ season). Then it was on to the Berlin Cathedral (Protestant actually) which provided a good 360 degree city view from the Dome walkway once we had climbed the many, many steps to get there. The Brandenburg Gates and Reichstag (Parliament building) were also highlights. The next day we focussed on the historical East-West split. We visited the Berlin Wall Memorial and the DDR Museum where we saw what life was like for the East Berliners in their controlled society. After that we went to Checkpoint Charlie where we were reminded once again about the years between 1961 (wall built) and 1990 (wall torn down). It was an excellent refresher for a major event that occurred during our lifetime, and ended happily for most, especially the East Germans who no longer had to risk their lives to escape their country. We capped off the day with a more light-hearted Salvadore Dali exhibition (over 450 exhibits) where we had the chance to live inside the head of this weird and wonderful artist. On our last full day in Berlin, we took a 30 minute train ride to nearby Potsdam, summer home of the Prussian kings and German Kaiser until 1918 (the completion of WW1 and their loss of power).  Our main focus there was to visit the many preserved palaces that started with Frederick the Great in the mid-1700’s. The Sanssouci (‘without concern’) Palace was his summer retreat, and while it was magnificent inside, his adjacent Art Gallery was even more spectacular in our minds. The Orangerie and Neues Palais (New Palace, 1769), built for receiving and entertaining important guests were also wonderful to wander through. It rained on and off for the day……we have had really good weather so far….. but the timing worked out well for us, spending much of our time that day wandering through the palaces that were all situated in the large Sanssouci Park.

We are now back in Basel, spending our final few days with Rachel until she joins us in Barcelona next month. We have done plenty of walking while we have been here, so our legs are still in good shape as we move on to Lyon, France for a quick stop before entering Spain and our upcoming Camino de Santiago trek. Gute nacht.

Freiburg - Historical Treasury building

Basel - Old Town home

Shoe scraper, built into the bottom step of the old homes. Not there to remove ice or slush, rather to remove horse manure (from the cobble stone road days).

Father and daughter enjoying a cold beverage during our walkabout.

Berliner Dom - a beautiful Protestant Church with a walkway around the dome (and no elevator to the top)

Remains of the wall at the Berlin Wall Memorial where locals chiseled off pieces to keep back in 1990.

From the Salvadore Dali exhibition - over 450 pieces of his art were assembled.

Schloss Sanssouci - summer palace for King Frederick and his successors. This was the Music Room.

The Art Gallery that Frederic the Great built. Some items purchased and others, the fruits of war.

Neues Palais (New Palace) - built in 1769 to receive more important people than us. The separate service quarters across the parade grounds were also very large and eloquent.