The Novotel Karlsruhe kept the tradition of insanely awesome breakfast. In spite of walking 8-10 miles a day and not sitting in front of the TV once all week, I swear I'm gaining weight. After breakfast we headed out on foot to the Schloß. The Karlsruhe Schloß is one of my favorite castles of that era. It is truly a magnificent site to behold. Once again .. Walking down Karl-Friedrich Straße was a bit depressing. I so wanted to show Heather, Tim, a...

Spelling counts. Spelling counts, especially when you are in a foreign land, using a GPS. We found this out this morning. Thankfully, we discovered it early. After another relaxing breakfast, we packed up our VW Touran and headed out. Destination - Freiburg. For this trip, we have basically been putting in the city center of the next destination and then tweaking it once we dig out the address. This is more because we are so immersed in this trip that we don't t...

As I was saying .... All is never as it seems. Breakfast at Schloss Hornberg was a splendid event. We are finding that Germans .... They love their Früstück. I love that they love their Früstück because I too love Früstück. After .... Well .... Früstück .... we decided to wander the grounds of the "castle" we were staying at. It didn't take long for us to realize how incredibly wrong our first impression was. We were ind...

I was a little surprised this morning that I felt as good as I did. For the last several days, I have done things to my body that would put Ric***********s into an absolute tizzy ... the only saving grace being copious amounts of walking, hiking, and climbing ... and zero minutes in front of the idiot box. But I felt great. Wonderful ... WUNDERBAR!! (for the record, if you try and spell check 'Wunderbar" it wants to change it to "underwear" .... I FEEL UNDERWEAR...

After our last nights sleep in Filzmoos, we awoke on the 7th with our next days adventure locked and loaded. Berchtsgaden. The Eagles Nest. Hitler's twisted mountaintop conference center. I was a little foggy because after eating and drinking too much too late, I awoke around 2 am for a pit stop. The cottage a few doors down has this eerie porch light that would turn on … stay on for about 10 seconds .. and then shut off. 3-5 seconds later it would turn on ...