Garden Show. Every year, twice a year, for the past 16 years Volker’s brother who is a landscape architect organizes a garden show. One of the shows is at a nice little castle outside the city, about 20 min drive from Nuremberg, and the other is at the family residence, which while not as grand […]
We are planning a short trip to Italy next week. Today we decided to go for a pizza and some pasta to start getting our guts used to, not only the wonderful flavours of Italy, but also to the crazy portion sizes. At L’Osteria, a quiet little place on a side street in Nuremberg, real […]
After the beer fest, and the walk around the castle grounds, we walked some more around the old town before going home. Every time it seems we get out for a stroll we find new and interesting things to look at and take in. Good times.
After some fun in the moat at the beer festival we went for a walk around the castle gardens and then the old town. It actually did not rain – unbelievable.
Germans love their beer – that much is true. We don’t, but we try an occasional sip or two. Kids on the other hand can just run on beer fumes.
Many of you might be thinking that this adventure of ours is all fun and games, and you would be right for the most part but… In order to give you the best and the most immersive and realistic impression of this trip we face a huge burden of having to try and test as […]
Today is, if you are a god-fearing folk, a Happy Cadaver Day, literal translation in German. This means it’s a holiday and everything is closed except churches and beer gardens, both of which are open for business and will gladly take your money. Since we don’t drink beer, but have been to church before, we […]
While we have not managed to triumph over the Polish Bureaucracy yet, we have in fact spotted this classic Triumph bike on our way to a Beer Festival at the castle in Nuremberg. Not only did this thing look and sound great – the guy rode it like he meant it too!
I still have not seen the last F1 race from Monaco. I though I would be watching it already but we are still over 350km away from home. Having been stuck in traffic for over 3 hours it was time to stretch our legs a bit and make up for some lost time – F1 […]
Baustelle – at first that sounded like some exotic French pastry we thought. After a nice rest we drove by a sign that read “Baustelle in 7 km”. With a bit of traffic on the road going rather slow around Leipzig, we looked around at all the nice cars including this great looking CLS wagon. […]
It’s pit stop time. After a few hours of bad weather, we finally got some sunshine about 40km from the German border. We decided to stop for a little break and have some food. You might say that this really is just an average stop, on an average autobahn in the middle of Germany. Kind […]
The toll highways in Poland are quite amazing. Rain or shine there is always someone working on their maintenance. Always! The second amazing thing is that, and I never will get tired of this, is that trucks are always and always in the right lane and they are restricted to going 90km/h. How awesome is […]
We are leaving rainy and cold Warsaw today and going back to Germany. Now that we have updated the maps on the GPS we think we should get to Nuremberg in about 8 hours or so, maybe a bit longer with the heavy rain. We noticed that a lot of people have secondary antennas on […]
I could not believe the prices for things in Poland, especially “luxury” items. That being said, there is still much that can be purchased. Especially these Made in Poland dealies.
.. but never duplicated. I think today I found the missing link and the explanation as to why some Eastern European women wear carrot tops on their heads, and they do it with such pride. “Words are very un-necessary” here so just click through and shake your head in disbelief.
Łazienki or the Royal Baths is a 17th century park in Warsaw. This is the largest park in Warsaw and it is located in the centre of the city. We went for a nice afternoon walk, listened to Chopin concert in the park. The kids run around trying to scare the peacocks and force them […]
Today we are heading to Bransk, a small town of about 4000 people in the eastern part of Poland. We are picking up some more documents and visiting family. On 18 January 1493, Brańsk received a city charter based on Magdeburg rights from the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Alexander Jagiellon. It was the first city in Podlaskie to receive such a […]
Lord thundering Jesus. I never thought I would say this but I do now see the benefits of bylaws. I say the more the better. Edmonton is said to be the king of bylaws and everyone always complains about it. This is what happens to a city that has little to no bylaws. This is […]
Our relentless pursuit of the required documents continues. Sometimes I think it would have been easier to find a Yeti in the Himalayas than to get the right stamp on the correct piece of paper in the Bureaucratic Republic of Poland. Undaunted we forge ahead. Today we set out to Plock, the last place where […]
There is much that can be said about navigating the Polish bureaucratic maze and perhaps even more that shouldn’t be said about the same. I have to say that while no one is particularly helpful about what we need to do, everyone is exceptionally nice and polite about it. I feel like we are […]
Today we are going to Warsaw! For me it is a first trip back to Poland in 29.5 years. For us, as a family, it is the first trip to Poland. We are going to be staying in Loziska just outside Warsaw with Anna’s cousin Robert. The drive itself is about 960km but we managed […]
Today we went for another walk around our neighbourhood. We went towards the centre of the neighbourhood where we found more beautiful and quaint old homes, shops and old buildings – some dating back to 776.
Today we went to visit Volker’s mom for a Sunday lunch. She lives on the other side of Nuremberg in a beautiful home with a pool, backing onto a huge park and some impressive trees. The most prized possession in her garden is a heritage peony flower that grows more like a shrub with wood […]
After a bit of fun and exploration we sat down for a piece of traditional plum cake and a cup of coffee in the village just below the castle. Great atmosphere, great views and beautiful weather.
After doing some summer sledding we headed over to the Devil’s Cave a short drive up the road. The Devil’s Cave is about 1.5km long which makes it the longest cave in Germany. The only way to get in and see the cave is with a guided tour. It is about a 45 min walk […]
The plan for this Saturday was to go to Pottenstein. Pottenstein is a small village about 60km north of Nuremberg. It is famous for its cave, its trout smokehouse and the summer sledding park as well as a beautiful castle perched on the top of the hill.. We decided to spent a relaxing day away […]
A practical approach to distracted driving. We have been here for almost a week now and it seems that every time we get in the car we have to get on Autobahn. Autobahn is a precarious thing. It seems to have a life of its own. There are speed limits and there are a lot […]
One might say, that this was an experience out of this world, but don’t take our word for it, and we have pictures to prove it.
Here are a few more……
Both Anna and I have been to Lucerne a long long time ago. In fact, after a nice long drive through the Swiss Alps we stopped in Lucerne for a cup of coffee to take in the sights and relax before our trip back to Bern. It is in Lucerne that we found out that […]
Berlin is another city on the TO DO list and it is not only because it has another Legoland theme park. Boris is very excited to go to Berlin and it looks like sooner rather than later we are going to be checking this off the list of things that we have done.
Here is Venice. While the real Venice is on our TO DO list on this adventure – our first taste of things to come is made out of millions of little colourful bricks.
Some of the sights and sounds we enjoyed in the Miniature Land.
Legoland is great. The food is great, the shopping is great, the rides are fun, the shops are cool and millions and millions of little Lego bricks just make it special in a way that warms your heart and makes you feel like a kid all over again, it is impossible to be unhappy there. […]
The happiest place on earth, at least right now for Boris and Evelina is Legoland. About 197km outside Nuremberg or 1.30h drive from Nuremberg is Legoland-Allee, Günzburg Legoland. We got a family pass for all Legoland attractions throughout Europe for 1 year, unlimited admission for €257 including parking. This includes all Legoland fees, free parking, London […]
For the first time this week we managed to have an early dinner which was at 7:00 pm, this left us some free time to go out for a walk around the neighbourhood. The neighbourhood is an eclectic mixture of old homes, new houses, and historic homes that have been fully renovated but totally modernized […]
We headed out to get a hair dryer and after searching far and wide, in one electronics’ store, Saturn, we found what we needed. Then a quick stroll around the old town for a pretzel sandwich. You heard it right, a giant pretzel cut in half and stuffed with a whole whack of goodies, from […]
While the Polish Consulate in Munich was a huge disappointment, or preformed as expected, the rest of the city was a treat. We were expecting to spent good 2 to 3 hours waiting to see the Consul but with this option out of the way there was simply more time to explore the city. […]
We set off to Munich to get our passports done. It took exactly 2 min to be sent off with a litany of excuses. Wrong documents, wrong translations, wrong day, wrong time, wrong reason and with the wrong rhyme! With a whole day ahead of us we decided to explore this wonderful city and it’s […]
While wondering around town we stumbled upon this lovely bunch. The whole cast was well represented and from the looks of it – Darth Vader was well surrounded. Its amazing what one can do with a bit of yarn and some traffic posts.
Today we had a chance to get out and see the old town. We had a quick stop over at Volker’s office, a nice lunch with some friends and off we went to get our to do list out of the way. Passport photos, laptop connectors, and lots and lots of pretzels to eat. Most […]
After a dreadful night of insomnia we got up early to go to town. The drive itself is about 9 minutes to get to the centre and at 12:30 pm was a breeze. The plan was simple, visit Volker at his office for lunch, grab the F1 race, park the car in the garage, get […]
We now have access to a set I wheels! Freedom awaits with this new development. I never thought of Volvo as being something that comes with a manual transmission but there it is a nice S80, 6 speed manual with leather seats. Nice. We will be taking it to Munich tomorrow and see how it […]
First day in Germany. Moving on to plan A – getting over the jet lag. Promptly, in accordance with the said plan we got up at 3:30 local time, which is well in line with local Edmonton time. After a quick coffee and breakfast we managed to get out of the house for a quick […]
After a short and uneventful flight we arrived in Frankfurt. Option Plus upgrade is the best money we spent on this adventure so far. After a short and a quick drive through the rolling hills of Bavaria we arrived at home in Nuremberg. The end of the journey was celebrated with some Luxembourg goose pâté […]
Waiting for the fuel to be topped up and making sure all phalanges are in the right place.
I think we are ready for the takeoff. We have reduced our necessities to 16 pieces of luggage.
We are finally packed and ready to go. After months of planning we are setting off on the adventure of a lifetime. We are not there yet but we are taking bookings for visitors. See you all there!!
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