The Rheintal, or how to polish floors on the cheap

The weather turned out to be remarkably good this weekend, so I decided to take a last minute trip to the Rhein valley just to get out of town and get someplace more vertical.

The scenery was quite nice and the drive along the river past all the castles was pretty fun and scenic.

But quite disappointing was that all the towns were deserted. Windows were shuttered, restaurants closed, leaving it looking pretty much like everyone had just decided en masse to take vacation.

In fact, this may have been true. This weekend is a long weekend in Germany, and it is the end of karneval, so lots of people may have been gone. But, this meant that I got very hungry on this trip because nothing was open. I barely managed to find dinner, but I did manage to get a Rüdesheimer kaffee, so not everything was lost.

Today was spent finishing up the things I couldn't see Saturday. At one castle I visited, everyone was given a giant pair of felt slippers to put over their shoes when they walked inside. Instead of walking normally, you just shuffled along. It was a little unusual, and I couldn't help but think that maybe the real point of it all was to get the tourists to clean the floors for them.

The pics from this trip can be found here.

Skiing

Last night a few of us tried something a bit different, indoor skiing. Just down the road from here there's a place where they have a big building full of snow and you can ski down the *massive* 35m hill with a 200m run. Woohoo! It was fun, but I'm not sure you can really call it skiing. It's kinda like having a taste of food when you're hungry, it doesn't fill you up and just leaves you wanting more. But, interestingly, the place is open year round (I wonder what their electric bill must be), so I think we should definitely go again sometime when it is really hot outside, just for the irony of it.

Stuttgart & Ulm

After much tardiness, I have finally gotten around to doing the entry on my trip to Stuttgart and Ulm that I should have done over two weeks ago. Sorry, I'm slow and busy lately, not a great combination.

Ulm is a nice little city with a pleasant old center and the world's tallest cathedral. Needless to say I climbed all 770ish steps to the top, and got very dizzy in the process.

Probably the best part about the visit was that our hosts took us out to a very nice dinner of swabian food in a cozy old restaurant. The rest of the pictures from Ulm can be found here.

The next stop along the was the Porsche museum in Stuttgart. You would never find this museum if you didn't know it was there. It's tucked down a little alley in amongst all the factory buildings. It doesn't really even have parking. But, behind the factory lobby, there is a small museum. It only has about 20 cars on display, but they are nice ones at least. It appears that they are building a much bigger museum nearby, so it may be worth a visit once that is open. The pictures are here.

The final stop was again in Stuttgart, this time at the Mercedes museum. I'd been there once before, but they have built a completely new musueum since then. Again, it had the most impressive audio guide I've ever seen. Lots and lots of cars. It was really nice. But, it was a bit confusing as the museum is a double helix and you have to keep back tracking a little to get the stuff on both helixes. And, it had this
This is the best looking car you could ever find. If anyone is looking for christmas present ideas, here's one. The rest of the pictures can be found here.