Kathleen
Hannoversch Munden, Germany, August 2, 2013
Although hard to pronounce and remember the name, we won’t quickly forget this very quaint, very Bavarian-looking (although actually still North of Bavaria) little village, full of genuine timbered houses (this is what they seem to call tudorian) many hundreds of years old and all in different astonishing-looking states of seeming to be well-maintained and manicured but in some dangerous state of tilt so that you wonder how they all manage from falling over. This is a very small town, and although we enjoyed walking the streets and admiring it very much, it did not take very long and, realizing that we were hungry, we headed for the Rathskeller (most towns have one of these, translated literally as the celler of the city hall, which is where they generally are located). HM’s Rathskeller had a very large biergarten set up in one of the town’s main squares and we could sit and have some traditional German food and a bier and enjoy hanging with most of the local population!
Leaving Hamburg, we once again picked up a rental car as we were heading out into more countrified areas where our destinations would be less likely to always be on the rail line and parking would once again be feasible. Steve was pretty excited to get his first crack at the German Auto-Bahn (no speed limit for major travel areas) and we were a bit disappointed at the rather high level of construction on the highways, but I guess it is summer and that is the time for those sort of things the world around (well, the part of the world which gets cold enough that they can’t do this sort of thing in the winter anway). Anyway, it was actually nice to get on the road again explore at our own pace!
On the way out, we stopped at the Wilhelmshohe Castle Park in Kassel. This was an absolutely fabulous park with fantastic and whimsical monuments, bridges, waterfalls and the like. Kassel is a place few people have hear of and its only international claim to fame is that the brothers Grimm were from there, but this castle park was fantastic and also came with miles and miles of hiking trails. This place would be a HUGE destination anywhere, but Germany is so packed with wonders, that few seem to have even heard of it. I attached a few pics but if you are ever in Germany, check it out…we could have spent a couple of days here, but we were on the road and only had a couple of hours…
