Germany 2024

This amazing holiday was Elisabeth’s way of saying thank you for taking her on holiday to Wales a couple of years ago. After a couple of days in Frankfurt, including a tram ride to the Taunus for a lovely walk, we set off for Chiemsee. We stayed at a lovely traditional Bavarian house in Gänsbach. It was bitterly cold for the first couple of days, but we managed a lovely visit to Rothenburg to sample a Schneeball and walked to the Ratzinger Hӧhe viewpoint. The highlight of the trip (as the weather warmed) was a trip to the Kӧnigssee, probably one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Germany’s highest lake was beautiful and after an electric ferry ride across the lake, we walked to the Obersee, where we had some beers with our bread rolls followed by a refreshing swim! The next day we continued to make use of our “Deutschlandticket”, taking the train to Munich for Kathryn’s birthday. After listening to the Glockenspiel at 11am, we had a walk round the city and despite Elisabeth’s suggestions of museums and galleries, we ended up at the famous Hofbrauhaus, where we had a few litres of beer and Kathryn had her first Schnapps as well as a traditional meal. We somehow managed to smuggle a beer glass our of there as a memento! After a strange ice cream from the crazy ice cream shop we walked around other sights in Munich before settling down in the Augustiner-Keller for some more beer and Pretzel. The next outing was to Salzburg where it was “Kerb”, so all the locals were dressed up and there were beer tents and Oompah Oompah music everywhere. We climbed the Kapuzinerberg for magnificent views of the town.

Back in the North of Germany we headed to Gallus to party with Benjamin and Sirwa. As ever, it was a great night with great food and far too much alcohol. We had to be up the next day though to get to Gelnahusen, where we had coffee and cake with the Grauel family, before heading back to Frankfurt to have a meal with Nora and Amanda, which was lovely. Our final day of visits was to Limburg, where we met Waltraud and Roland for a thoroughly pleasant day. We had a lovely lunch, back to theirs for homemade Apfelwein and then to a fantastic restaurant where we enjoyed the biggest pork chops ever!

A big thank you to all our German friends, especially Elisabeth, for looking after us so well. Our suitcases made it home filled with gifts of wine, schnapps, salamis, cups, tea and of course the stolen beer glass!