Germany

About 20 minutes outside of Cologne, Germany, in the quaint little town of Weilerswist, we spent 4 days with my cousin and her husband.

He is an avid gardener, and has a beautiful garden We spent many hours on their lovely patio, taking in the view (and a little wine, and sauerbraten and herring salad and lots of other yummy traditional fare.)

While walking around the area, we saw many gorgeous gardens. I was surprised to find that most of the plants were actually familiar.

Their gardening style is quite different, and the gardens don’t look much like mine or my neighbors’, but I do know and grow most of the plants that I saw there.

Even though I am back home again, I thought I’d share with you a little sampling of my German garden tour!

Now that you’ve wandered through with me, do you recognize all of these — are you growing any of them in your garden today?

Traveling along the Rhine River from Frankfurt toward Cologne last week, we simply couldn’t keep up with the cameras. There was a castle (or two) around every corner. Some small ruins and some fully preserved.

You can’t really tell from the pictures, but the Rhine really is a massive, fast-moving river. We saw many barges transporting materials up and down the river, going through locks and keeping commerce moving in a very traditional manner.

After a lovely traditional lunch of schnitzel, pommes frites and beer, we went up to this castle for an afternoon of exploring. This is the castle Schoenburg, in Oberwesel, right on the majestic Rhine River.
This is where we ate lunch.
How quaint this doorway is.
I’d have a hangover if I drank this whole glass of wine!
And this is the farmhouse at a place that that raises and shows horses.

Struggling a little with photo programs since my DH flew home a few days ago and we are working with an unfamiliar PC program and not my normal Mac, but we’re figuring it out. Tomorrow is our last day and we’ve planned some light sightseeing in Frankfurt and some shopping.

Most of the churches we’ve seen on this trip have been Baroque in style, but on our way out of Trier, we stopped to see the city’s famous Rococo church.

This is the St. Paulinus Church, which looks very simple, albeit elegant, from the outside. Only the ornate doorway gives a little hint of the amazing decor inside.

These beautifully preserved churches are amazing, not only for the craftsmanship and the talent they display, as well as all the years in the making, but I am also in awe of the idea of the wealth and power of the church in those times, when it was also the center of government.

Here you see my little munchkin dwarfed by the grandeur of it all.

And then we left for Weilerswist and my cousin’s house. Here Kallie is getting a tour of the garden when we arrive. If I can manage the techno piece when my husband leaves this week, I will have many more garden photos to come! Wish me luck on that!

This is the St. Mathias Church, built around 1500. This is the church my mother and her family attended when she was growing up.

The original church was built between 1127 and 1160, and was named the Eucharius church, built on an ancient Roman cemetery outside the city’s fortifications.

But, when it had to be rebuilt, they discovered the tomb of St. Matthew buried on the site of the former church. So they rebuilt and changed the name to honor St. Matthew.

The church site also houses the crypts of Trier’s first bishops, St. Eucharius and St. Valerius that were buried at the site in the 4C and 5C.


We were lucky enough to be in the church for a rare treat, as the organist was meeting with some people and she played a little while we were inside. It was truly inspiring. And we were also there to listen to the bells in the bell tower as we were entering the church.
And this is my grandparents’ grave. We came to pay our respects and to tend to the grave, as that work is typically done by family over here. Since there is no more family here in this city, our relatives now use a service that comes a few times a year, but I was so glad to be able to come and help just a little. I pulled some weeds and dead leaves out and planted the sweetest little mum with miniature yellow mounding blooms right in the middle of the gravesite.

It’s cathartic – tending to this little patch of garden that means so very much to me – and honoring the family that came and went before me.

Tomorrow we we leave Trier and move on to visit my cousin and her husband in Weilerswist, a small town outside of Cologne. I’m very excited about getting to see them. She’s like a sister to me, and he has the most amazing garden I can’t wait to show you — be sure to tune in tomorrow!

Oh – and these were the most beautiful flowers I saw in the cemetery – a lovely splash of color.

Austin…hot, dry…104
Germany & Austria…wet, rainy…55

We’re making lemonade here. Yesterday we started our day in Fuessen, a charming town at the foothills of the Alps. Our plan was to climb up the side of a mountain for a tour of the spectacular Neuschwanstein castle, built by King Ludwig II.

When we woke up, it was pouring. When we got to the mountain it was pouring. When we stood in line for the bus part-way up the mountain it was pouring. And it poured on us as we walked the last undriveable 15 minutes up the mountain.

There were no photos allowed inside, but we got this one from a nice vantage point on the path. The castle was finished days after Ludwig died in 1896, and is amazing. Very ornate, it is full of frescoes of all the scenes from Richard Wagner’s operas, which is why it is called the “Fairy Tale” castle. It’s the castle on which the Disney castle was modeled.

Our 5-year old was great – and she enjoyed it immensely, in spite of pants soaked to the knee and a drenched rain jacket.

Our drive east to Salzburg was tedious – heavy rain, a small, two-lane road and German drivers. But it was beautiful.

The rain and cool air brought the clouds and the mists down over the alps and gave them an eerie quality that was really a sight to see. Not sure this captures it very well, but you get the idea.

Yesterday afternoon we arrived in Salzburg…in the rain. We walked a little down our street, enjoyed a nice Austrian dinner and turned in early. It’s 2:45 a.m. here as I blog this (jetlag is still waking me up in the night) and I’m eager to see the city. It’s beautiful, the birthplace of Mozart, and full of castles and fortresses and baroque churches.

And, for right now, it isn’t raining … I’m keeping my fingers crossed (and my unbrella handy!)