Post from Michelle: Germany, February 2013

Winter trips to Germany can be rough when the weather is nasty. It's not so fun to go "exploring" when it's below freezing and windy and you have to run into a store every ten minutes to thaw our your fingers and toes.

But not this trip! It was above freezing, though it did rain and snow a bit. Overall, pretty good for February in Deutschland.

Sunday we flew to Frankfurt and had a cozy dinner at Rucola on Bergerstrasse, around the corner from Olaf's old apartment. This is where Olaf and I ate on my very first day in Europe, in 2005. I had the same thing I had seven years ago, salmon and spinach. Same servers, same atmosphere. It was great :)

Alte Oper in Frankfurt

View of Frankfurt from hotel room

Olaf's old flat!!!

Baeckerweg 5, where Olaf lived

Bergerstrasse

Artwork on Bergerstrasse

On Monday we took the train to Cologne. We had dinner at Brauhaus Päffgen, which was totally booked and we had to sit in the service area. Or I should say we "got to" sit in the service area, because many parties were turned away after we snatched the last table.

Tuesday we headed by train to Stuttgart. We booked the fastest train, the ICE. However, there was a suicide on the tracks so our train was diverted to the slower, scenic route. An unfortunate cause, but a good result as the scenic route follows the Rhine River between Cologne and Frankfurt. We've taken this route in the past, but it'd been a few years so we easily settled in and enjoyed the ride.

In Cologne, with the Dom (cathedral) in the back, before catching our train.

Along the Rhine River, it was cute village after cute village

Olaf working on the train

Schloss (castle)

Snow as we arrive in Stuttgart

Our train to Stuttgart

We spent the afternoon in Stuttgart, before heading back to Frankfurt. Olaf, of course, had business meetings. I went wandering and found a nice gourmet grocery store, Feinkost Böhm. We were visiting Daniel and Sabine later that night, so I picked up some cute kids books for their daughter at Wittwer.

Our train ride to Frankfurt was bizarre. While speeding through a deep tunnel, the train suddenly ground to a halt. We were eating dinner in the Bord Bistro, and had to grab our glasses and plates to keep them from flying off the table. People started freaking out, until finally, the conductor announced that we had hit a "wild animal" and that the brakes had been automatically triggered by the collision. Which didn't make sense, because we were deep inside a mountain and what animal would be in there? Anyways. After 20 minutes we finally got going.