Mosel Bike Day

The next day we went up to the Mosel River to participate in an Auto-free day.

A lot of villages throughout the year take a Sunday during the spring and summer to close off the streets so that bikes and roller bladers or walkers can use the road without autos.

This day they blocked off the road along the Mosel river. It extended for 140 kilometers (about 80 miles). Don and I always wanted to do this and so we did!!! We managed to ride for about 3 hours. We took a break halfway and ate at this old church. I'm not sure if it was a monks retreat or what but it was great eating out on the patio overlooking the Mosel.
Jeanne above and Don below on bikes.

Bicyclists along the road. Note the red cross van on the left above. They were available along the route for assistance with medical problems. Most towns had events throughout the day to entertain you. We didn't stop except for lunch.

Limberg volksmarch end

The rest of the Volksmarch was through the countryside. Cliff

Pond

Trail alongside the pond.

Limberg Cathedral

Okay, I put these in backwards, so you'll get to see the inside of the cathedral first. I thought this ceiling made a great picture!

Waterwheel with cafe at base of cathedral (above)

Coming up to the Cathedral on our walk

One of the spires of the Cathedral built in Romanesque style. It got it's start in 821 and gradually became the cathedral it is today.

Volksmarch in Limburg an der Lahn

Last weekend we went on a bus trip with the Roadrunner Volksmarching group. There was a volksmarch in Limburg that is about a 2 hour drive. The city is beautiful and huge. This volksmarch took us through the town first then the countryside. It was packed with tourists and townspeople enjoying the sunny day. I loved all the half timber houses.
Above is a May pole. Many of the german towns put them up still on May day.

Don waiting for me to take a picture. Lynne and Brad walk on ahead!

Bad Durkhiem area (Freinsheim)

We took a drive a few weeks ago to Bad Durkhiem area and sat at an outside cafe with this view.


This is a Magnolia tree in my friend's front yard.

Spring has sprung!

Flowers and bushes around our house

Volksmarch in Bliekastel

April 30 and May 1 (Thursday and Friday) Germany had some volksmarches that I went on with a friend. It was in Bliekastel, about an hour from here and a nice walk.

Rodenbach House

We found a very nice house in Rodenbach about 10 minutes from work. The home was custom built by the owners. The landlady says it is too big for her and her son now and wants something smaller for about 3-5 years. Perfect for us as we will be here about 3 years. It has a nice sun room or "winter garden" as they call it.

Fussball - Kaiserslautern

After we arrived in Germany. Don started working and settling in. We stayed in a hotel on base and tried to find a house to rent, and all the other millions of things you need to do when you move.

The second weekend here, we attended our first Fussball (Soccer) game in Germany. Somehow we missed doing that when we were here the first time. Above is the Fan section. They are holding up knitted scarfs with the teams logo on them. They were very loud. The stadium, for this relatively small town, seated over 40,000 people that day. And this team is a losing team... at least this year. They have very loyal fans.

They dedicated this game to 3 companies in town that are talking about closing their factories in K-town. Two were American companies and the team let 4000 employees in the game for free.

They are called the "Red Devils"

Traveling to Germany - Feb 6, 2009

We drove our car from England to Germany. We took a ferry from England to the Hook of Holland. Then stayed overnight in Holland and drove on to Ramstein, Germany the next day. Above are pictures of the ferry.

Don's Going Away Party

The Military really does a nice job of throwing going away parties. Don had a lunch at the club and was presented with many nice gifts. Above is his boss in England presenting a gift.

Tower Bridge

View of Tower Bridge

View from top of Tower bridge walkway

January

January was a busy month for us. Don got offered a job in Germany, back in Ramstein and it was an offer we couldn't refuse! So January was spent packing up and hitting London twice to say goodbye. We saw two shows: Wicked and Buddy Holly. They were fantastic. (In December we had gone to see Billy Elliot and got hooked on the shows.)

Big Ben with the London Eye in the background

Winston Churchill Statue

Christmas 2008

We spent Christmas in Ohio again this year. It was great seeing everyone. We split our time between Sandusky, Avon Lake and Dayton. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures!! Amazing. We'll have to do better next time.

End of Cruise

This was taken high up in the city of Barcelona overlooking the sea, with our cruise boat in the background....getting ready for the next set of vacationers.... unfortunately our trip is over. Although it was a very cold and rainy trip, we had a great time. On to the next adventure.....

Sagrada Familia by Antoni Gaudi

Barcelona has many buildings designed by Antoni Gaudi. They are very modernistic and use curves instead of straight lines. We got to see a few of the buildings via bus on the last day of our Cruise as we headed to the airport. It was raining hard that day so we didn't get to spend much time outdoors. Here are a few pictures of the Sagrada Familia (Holy Family) Cathedral that is not complete yet. He worked on the Roman Catholic Cathedral for 40 years. Gaudi has since died, but the city is trying to complete the church, in Sept. they are supposed to be able to have services inside, but the building won't be completed until 2026.

The holy family

This is the newer section that is being built now according to his plans but with some updates.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving they had a formal dinner night and served Turkey (it was an American Cruise line) They even had a ice sculpture in the shape of a turkey.

Naples - Pizza!

Since we were in Naples, home of the original pizza, we had to stop and taste one!
Kiln that they made the pizza in...

Ummmm good

Pompeii pictures

We made it to the ruins of Pompeii and took lots of pictures. It's amazing the extent of the city they had.

Mount Vesuvius in the background. (With clouds not smoke!)

Pompeii

Don and I spent the next two days exploring the ship and port cities which was restful.

On the fourth day we stopped in Naples, Italy and decided to make it on our own to Pompeii. The taxi drivers were out in full force as we exited the ship, but we made it through them and went to look for the city bus... which would take us to the train to Pompeii. None of us knew any Italian so it was quite comical. The last picture is the "boys" trying to buy the tickets for the bus to the train station.

When we got to the bus, we didn't quite know where to get off and one of our shipmates was from the phillipines and she started asking questions of another philippino (in Tagalog) on the bus... she took us to the right station.

Then we had trouble finding the right train and an elderly train station attendent took us under his wing and led us to the right train.... at least we hoped he was taking us to the right train... we figured if he headed for an alley we'd run the other way! The second picture is us waiting for the train and still not knowing if he led us in the right direction! Of course when we got there, he held his hand out for a tip!!!

We did make it to the right train and found out there were two Pompeii's, fortunately we got off at the right one.