Ah, Deutschland!

     This has been a fun summer! We checked out Alaska with my family, and then, for Gerhardt's landmark birthday, we returned to Germany. Ah, the sights, the sounds, the food! (Schnitzel, bread, kuchen - roll me home!) We also checked out Strasbourg, a charming city in France that has gone back and forth between Germany and France for hundreds of years. Gerhardt had been wanting to see it for ages. So, there's something checked off the bucket list now.
     In addition to that city, we prowled around the part of Bavaria where mad King Ludwig nearly broke the country with his feverish castle building. (Of course, these castles have since become tourist attractions and they have paid for themselves about a million times over.) We also visited the spot where the poor king, who was tall and a good swimmer, mysteriously drowned, along with his doctor, in only a couple of feet of water. Many people think the man was murdered. A good way to get rid of a problem. We're hoping to write a novel together based on this so it was good to check out the geography of the area.
     My only disappointment was that the grotto at Linderhof was closed and will be for the next 5 years as it gets refurbished. Darn! I'm hoping to put up a mystery I wrote years ago with a scene set in it and I'd wanted to double check my facts. Oh, well, I'll have to work from memory of my visit years ago.
      While the sights were lovely and the food delicious and the shopping fun, for me, the best part of our visit was seeing old friends. The way to get to know a country is to get to know it's people. And with all the wonderful people we've met over the years, no wonder we love visiting Germany so much.