Joe and Lou's Travel Blog

She was so good the first time we have asked her to add another installment so take it away Joy.

Well, here we are back from Germany on another rather overcast day. The weather was similar over there, but it far from tainted our enjoyment of seeing a new country and being in the company of such good hosts.

Our first visit was to Frankfurt where we met Ellie, our student from last year. She has been flatting with her friend, Rebecca. The flat is nice, but rather small, so Simon and Joseph stayed at the Youth Hostel a few stops of the underground away.

Next morning, She took Rose to her school for the morning while the rest of us met up and walked into the city. Frankfurt was celebrating the harvest of their apples and making them into apple wine (cider). In the middle of the city, there were many stalls set up selling apples, apple juice and this new apple wine, along with many food stalls selling all sorts of sausage, and cooked food, there were even farm animals in the market, not to sell, but for the children to see. The atmosphere was festive and we enjoyed a pleasant walk sampling the food (we had a traditional pasta dish served with a variety of mushrooms) and apple juice. Later, after meeting up with Ellie and Rose, we went up to the tallest building (58 floors) in Frankfurt for an excellent vantage point. We were delayed at the top for some time as it was announced that there had been an electrical fault with the lift and we had visions of descending many floors by foot, but luckily we were able to go down the lift eventually, at half speed, which was still pretty fast. Frankfurt is not a big city, but it is the centre of commerce, and has the tallest buildings in the country.

We returned to Ellie’s flat later where she and Rebecca made us a delicious pizza, we played a game called ‘beananza’, a popular card game, and then ventured out to the local pub. One thing we noticed about Germany is the number of people that smoke. It is still quite accepted to smoke inside restaurants, in the street, in cars, at home and, of course, the pub. It is quite extraordinary when every packet is plastered with information that smoking kills!

Next day, we were up early as we had a train to catch to Cologne and we needed to meet up with Joseph and Simon on the way to the station. We had secured an excellent fare on a slower train at a weekend rate, so it cost us €30 instead of €85.

We were met by Sandro at the central railway station in Cologne and from there were taken under the wing of the Pitzalis family. Sandro is a mixture of a Spanish/German mother (Iris) and an Italian father (Mussimo) and has the fortune to know German, Spanish, Italian, English and French. His parents operate a business started up by Iris’s parents of importing all sorts of food and wine goods from Spain into Germany for distribution to Spanish supermarkets and restaurants. The warehouse, which is alongside their large home, is massive.

As I say, they took us under their wings and showed us the sights of their fair city. These included a huge, in fact, incredibly massive open cast coal mine, fairly close to where they lived, where a whole village had been uprooted and relocated some kilometres away so that the area could be torn open by gynormous digging machines. The fact that people’s lives were affected so much seemed less important than quarrying for a fuel to keep the country viable in electricity. These coalmines, of which there are 6 around Cologne, account for 15% of energy requirements for the whole of Germany. I could not see this happening in our country.

On a brighter note, we saw the famous Cologne cathedral, panted up to bell tower for an impressive view of the city, after which we cruised along the river Rhine ending up in the famous Fruh house for a traditional German meal with their special Cologne beer. Next day we visited Mussimo’s father’s Italian restaurant for lunch, then went on a fairly long trip to a gorgeous typical old German village. We watched glass making and then walked through the cobbled streets imagining what it must have been like so many years ago. On the way back we cut through Belgium, but wouldn’t really have known if Iris hadn’t mentioned it as no boarders exists between EC countries any more. Finally, we meet up with Mussimo and their younger son, Pablo, and went to the tennis club, where Mussimo’s sister and husband run an Italian resturant and had another delicious meal.

It was good that we left the next day, as we were all feeling that if we stayed much longer, we would not be able to fit our clothes! What fantastic hospitality! I only hope I can be such a good host when they come in a couple of years.

Friday 1 October 2004

Our last day in England. It has been such a great holiday, and for all, a time to assess our future. We have all decided that we would like to learn another language-most likely Spanish- and it has wetted our appetite to travel some more. Joseph and Louise have invited me to meet up with them in Brazil next September, so that is something to work towards.

We have not slackened the pace the last few days, we have had a London Pass to use, so have visited the Tower of London (meeting on our arrival a Beefeater from Auckland! All Beefeaters live at the Tower and are all ex-Army personnel.), St. Paul’s cathedral (also walking up to the top of the dome including the Whispering Gallery-it really works!), The Globe theatre (unfortunately the season had just finished so couldn’t see a play performed), Sherlock Holmes Museum (and got soaking wet, in the rain, in the process), went on the London Canals from Little Venice to Camden Town (thanks Nancy-Jean for suggesting it), the London Zoo (why not!), through Regent’s Park, and then finally to the London Aquarium. Phew! We finished it off last night by having a meal out with Lou’s family.

Today, Lou has gone into Leicester Square to see if she can get some half priced tickets for a show tonight, we are meeting up with Paulette (Ellie’s Mum) for lunch and then she and Reinhold will meet us for the show, whatever, it is later.