Medieval to Mod

Bavaria day three (Rothenburg): funf wurst (five bratwursts)...sadly, that's the last of Bavaria.

Munich (Munchen) is great, and cheap - go there if you can. Since Gena isn't the most practiced bike rider, we didn't do that in this very bike friendly town (or Amsterdam, which may be the Western Hemisphere's bike capitol). Not that we needed to, as Munich is very walkable.

Leaving Munich, we stopped off at Rothenburg o/d Tauber (like Springfield in the USA, Germany has many Rothenburg's so you need some suffixes to make sure you end up in the right one). This Rothenburg is pretty much what you envision when you think of olde timey Europe at Christmas. It was beautiful in the heat of August, so it has to be tremendous with some snow in December.

Then we headed up to Bacharach, a little Rhineland burg. Bacharach is tiny, with good food but not much going on. Using it as a cheap home base, we toured the Rhine's castle-row by boat and hiked the town of St. Goar and it's massive castle remains. This length of the Rhine between Bacharach and St. Goar (about 90 minutes by boat) has (from memory) six castles...physical testiment to Germany's feudal system past.

The Rhine has for centuries been a key trading transportation hub - some say it sees more annual trade traffic than any other river in the world. The castles would be set up (one literally in the middle of the river) to block boats from passing until they paid a fee. Would sorta be like all of Ohio's counties along Lake Erie assessing their own pass-through fee for every boat headed to/from the Upper Great Lakes. Some of the strongest supporters for doing away with feudal principalities in favor of a stronger/larger Germanic nation-state? Would you believe....the merchants who utilized the Rhine?

After this foray into the Rhineland, our train pulled into Amsterdam. We really only had one day - which I thought may be too little time, but now I'm not sure you really need much more than that. First, if you're planning on going there in the next three years, the train station is under heavy construction. So, just kinda follow the crowds for the way out of the station and onto Damrak (the city's main drag). Second, English might as well be the national language. If you were hoping to practice your Dutch, better find another location.

In many ways, Amsterdam is Europe's Las Vegas. Obviously, there is the, ahem, reputation for ill repute in both cities. But in my mind's eye - they are unnatural settings for human existance. Vegas is in the middle of the desert. Amsterdam is in the middle of, well, the ocean. Without tremendous human engineering, neither town would exist. As such, to me, both cities are a little silly, if not preposterous.

A ton of federal and state taxpayer dollars go into keeping Vegas supplied with sufficient water supply. On the opposite end, Amsterdam has to pay dearly to keep their city above water. The buildings are on top of thousands of pilings, that are hundreds of years old. As those pilings fail, the buildings get a shade slanty. Hopefully we can post some pics, because it's like people are living in the Leaning Tower of Pisa all over town. Trouble is, the townhomes are right up against one another...so as one starts to lean...

The buildings are beautiful, but if I lived there, I would definately stay a renter.

Thankfully, the Anne Frank house is not one of the slanty houses. It is, however, one of the saddest homes you would ever hope to visit though. The world owes Anne Frank much. Perhaps because she was a child, when her diary was finally published many readers could identify with her. As a result (and a few other works like Night), it became ok for other publishers to print material from Holocaust victims/survivors. Without the chord that her diary struck across the world, we may not have widely published works from other survivors. Check out Primo Levi if you can.

Gena & I agreed the house itself was larger inside than we had previously imagined, with the steepest stairs we'd encountered. But we were only inside for a couple hours...Anne and her fellow hiders were there for years, of course. Though the house is unfurnished (intentionally), some of her personal effects remain such as the posters she hung on her shared bedroom wall to daydream herself out of the house. Heartbreaking.

Altogether another form of daydreaming can be done at the Van Gogh museum, which is also excentally presented. While it does not currently have Starry Night (perhaps his biggest crowd pleaser), it's collection is stellar. From Potato Eaters to Sunflowers to Wheatfield with Crows, the museum is excentally laid out including his influences, life chronology, and stylistic development. I was previously unaware of how crucial his sister-in-law was to ensuring his works were protected after his death.

I found cruising the canals of the city (more numerous than Venice) underwhelming, though there are worse ways to spend an afternoon. It is a nice view of the city's pretty architecture, but the canals themselves are fairly littered with debris, taking away from the experience.

As for the Red Light district - not as dirty and seedy as I had anticipated, but still pretty sketchy and surreal (especially when we would see a customer duck into a door...or worse, come out). We cleared out before darkness fully fell, though, so it could be a bit ranker then.

But let me tell you about the fully modern hotel room we had in our last night in Europe - best thing ever! Citizen M...trippy cool lights with matching music soundtracks, separate freestanding/circular enclosures for the toilet and shower, and all electronics on a PDA-like remote control. And about 1/3 the cost of a traditional place in Amsterdam, with walking distance to the airport (which we found quite difficult and frustrating to navigate). They have an expansion plan across Europe in the next couple years - so if you're making the jump across the pond, check to see if they're in the city you're planning on going to.