Kruezberg is a favorite spot

Way back in 2007 during our first visit to Germany, our friends introduced us to the popular Kruezberg Monastery located not too far from Frankfurt. Many people visit this hallowed place for the hiking and skiing in the winter, but mostly for the great food and drink available at the Monastery. There are two ways to arrive there: drive up to the parking lot, or park down at the nearby village and hike the approximate 4 km to the Monastery. Either way, you MUST first climb the stairs up to the three crosses to pay your respects (and enjoy the view) before going inside. Given our love for hiking, and knowing the large amount of calories soon to be consumed, we always go for the 4 km walk.

The rain could not hold back the girls as they set off on a furious pace right away. The guys opted for the safe rate of speed which allowed for taking in the great fall colors.

It is too bad the fog moved in. The views from these hills can be amazing, especially with the fall colors.

Our final destination is somewhere in the clouds.....I think.

Everywhere you look is a great picture waiting to be captured.

The trail heads into the final climb through the forest.

Hiking in the fall is a favorite. It is certainly worth the rain and cold....at least I say that now. I believe I uttered something different when I slipped on the mud and fell down.

The views in the forest were amazing.

Yes, even though the guys were lagging the girls and we were soaked to the core, we were still having a great time. I'm sure the thought of great food that was soon to be enjoyed had something to do with the big smiles.

Having arrived to the Monastery, we held tradition by climbing up to the 3 crosses before enjoying the food and tasty drinks.

The view at the top is well worth the effort, even on a cloud-filled day.

After descending the stairs, we headed inside to get warm and enjoyed our reward: a hefty portion of sauerkraut and bratwurst! Mmmm...... The unfortunate part of visiting the Monastery in the fall is the short days.....which translates into our hike back down to the car was entirely in the dark. No pictures to share, for it was completely dark and raining heavily. However, some highlights from the trek down include all persons wearing the appropriate hiking boots falling at least once on the slick trail. The lone person wearing running shoes though, managed to not fall or slip once. Not sure if this implies a lesson to be learned or if the rest of us simply lack the coordination to stand upright on a slicky slop in the dark. Perhaps a combination of both. I do know this, I am looking forward to our next visit to the Kruezberg Monastery. Maybe next time we can leave our winter/rain gear at home by going in the warmer months of spring or summer......but what fun would that be???!!

Cologne, Germany

We took advantage of the great weather and long weekend (Columbus Day) by heading up north to visit the city of Cologne. Less than two hours from our village, this wonderful city that sits along the Rhine river is home to over 1 million people and is Germay's fourth largest city (after Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich). Cologne is also one of Germany's oldest cities dating back to the year 38 BC and is most famous for the Cathedral, or Dom. Much more on that in a bit. Do you enjoy learning? Not only is Cologne home to one of Europes oldest universities, but you can also enjoy visiting over 30 museums and viewing hundreds of galleries. If you visit, keep in mind that most museums are closed on Mondays.

After checking in at the hotel we walked down to the pedestrian walk along the Rhine river and quickly found the Chocolate museum. The museum was founded and financed in 1993 by the former Chairman of the Board for the traditional Cologne company Stollwerck. Today it is an independent museum and one of a kind that provides an exciting insight into various aspects of the history and modern times of chocolate and cocoa. I am "told" we will be visiting this museum with each visit to Cologne. Somebody here loves chocolate.


The area around the musuem is home to the farmers market on the weekends, hence all the people. Still, the views of the Rhine and surrounding shores were worthy of stopping for a picture or two.

With over 250 churches, Cologne is thought to be the city with the highest density of churches north of the Alps. The 12 Romanesque churches are amongst the cultural highlights of Cologne, alongside the Dom Cathedral and the musuems. With limited time, we opted to skip visiting all 12 churches and 36 musuems and instead focus on the world famous Cathedral and exploring the city via a tour of some sort.

Since the twin towers are the second highest building in Cologne (the first being the telecommunications tower), finding the Dom was a fairly easy task. A fun bit of trivia: the towers are not of the same height. The north tower comes in at 157.38 meters while the south tower is 7 cm shorter. Both towers were completed in the year 1880, making them a much later addition given the date for the original construction of the Cathedral began in the year 1248. Talk about construction delays. Actually, the main reason for delays came down to money. A few wars and hard times fell between the years 1248 and 1880. But I digress. Where were we? Oh yes, the stats. The full length of the Cathedral is 145 meters and about 86 meters wide and has room for more than 20,000 people. The views from the outside were amazing at every angle.

Having arrived too late for the english-version tour for the day, we elected to spend our time outside and enjoyed the many different performers and street artists. I love these types of 3-D chalk drawings:

The exterior of the building is amazing to look at. Nearly every inch (or centimeter) is covered with detailed sculptures:

Standing directly under the twin towers look up:

And now standing back......

The tourist office is located directly accross the street from the Cathedral, making it convenient to plan out the next days events. Since it was getting late in the day, and we were hungry after all the walking around, we found a well-known place to eat (Fruh) and enjoyed a traditional German meal: Bratwurst, Sauerkraut, and Kartoffelpuree (mashed potatoes). I was in heaven.

After a great meal and good nights rest, we set out early the next day to begin our day of tours. Our first stop was the Cathedral for the english-version tour. We learned many great facts about the Cathedral, so it was certainly worth the time and Euro's. The views inside however, were overwhelming.

Just inside the front door looking down the aisles of pews to the head of the church.

Looking up towards the roof to one of the many colorful windows that decorates the entire building. We were lucky in that the sun was shining bright, helping to put on an amazing show of vibrant colors on the walls inside the Cathedral.

This is one of two organs inside the Cathedral. This particular organ was installed in 1985 and rests high above the ground floor.

One of MANY beautiful windows that adorn the inside walls.

Here we are near front of the church looking back towards the main front doors. In this picture you can appreciate the height of the ceiling here (over 43 meters high).

This window is the newest addition to the Cathedral. In 2007 this new lighting concept was created in what is considered the south cross nave of the Cathedral. The light, plain glass window that had replaced a window destroyed during the Second World War was removed and an artirst living in Cologne created this work of art out of endless coloured squares. When the sun shines through the window it casts a wonderful array of colors on the surrounding pillars and walls. Wowza!

This is the Gero Crucifix that hangs in the crucifix chapel. It is considered the oldest remaining large sculpture of the crucified Christ this side of the Alps.

So this may be a good point to answer the question I'm sure you have: why build such an amazing church in Cologne??? Great question, and one that we can answer thanks to paying the 6 Euro for the tour. The construction of the Cathedral began in 1248 after the remains of the Three Wise Men were brought to this place from Milan in the year 1164. The current Archbishop felt that the Old Cathedral was not an adequate resting place for such members of history and thus, began construction of what is now the Dom Cathedral. OK, but why did it take so long to complete the construction, you may ask. Another great question. The final resting place for the Three Wise Men attracted many other priceless relics and thus the Cathedral became one of the most important pilgrimage destinations in Europe.....which resulted in the funds to build the new Cathedral. All was going well until the 16th century when construction stopped. Lack of money and interest were the main reasons for this stoppage. For more than 300 years a huge building crane looked over the city on the incomplete South Tower. At the turn of the 19th century, support began to grow to resume building the Cathedral. In the year 1880 the Cathedral was finally completed. Another amazing fact we learned during the tour: even though over 90% of Cologne was destroyed during the Second World War, the Cathedral survived with minimal damage. This building has staying power. I will end the cool facts with the topic of maintenance. Over 80 stonemasons, glaziers, roofers, and other specialists are constantly at work to keep weather and the environment from causing lasting damage to the structure.

Back to the pictures.

After the tour, we thought it would be fun to take one of those sight-seeing bus tours around Cologne. The weather was perfect to sit up on top of the convertible bus. That is, until we started picking up speed and we were treated to the wind chill factor of what felt like 1 Celcius. The combination of the cold and the Berliner donut in my hand distracted us from taking pictures of the city during the tour. HOWEVER, we did pick up a few fun facts about Cologne to share. For example, the Ford motor company opened their first factory there in 1930 and remains home to their European headquarters. Cologne is a leading trade fair and convention centre for all of Europe and home to several sporting events. From the Cologne Marathon (attracting on average of over 10,000 runners) to it's soccer team (or football, as it is referred to here in Europe) to the ice hockey team, the city has something for every sport enthusiast. I even saw a billboard for the upcoming RAW wrestling Europe Tour event.

The end of the bus tour sadly marked the end of our brief stay in Cologne. But we will return. After all, the drive there is short from our village, there are plenty of museums to visit, and the city in general is a fun place to spend a few days exploring........and of course, pay another visit to the Chocolate Musuem.

Hiking around Burg-Ramstein

The weather this past weekend was perfect for a fall hike and we felt this would be a good way to ease back into our life in Germany after a month-long break. We decided to visit the village of Kordel not far from us (about 30 minutes drive). There is plenty of hiking and biking trails all throughout the surrounding hills and fields, including Burg-Ramstein. This area is known for a castle ruin that dates back to the year 915. This former residential castle stood over 4-stories tall at one time and was built in sections over time until the fire in 1675 destroyed most of the castle. During the final days of the Spanish Succession War, the remaining castle was set on fire and has since remained uninhabital. The castle ruin today sits next to a restaurant where you can satisfy your hunger and thirst after a long hike. But we'll get to that later. We should start at the beginning of the hike.

The plan was to navigate the many surrounding trails in such a way so that we completed a large loop ending at the castle ruin and restaurant. Did we bring our map? No. That would remove any sense of adventure. Instead we relied on our memory of the map at the trailhead for the entire area. Fool proof plan, I tell you.

The first section of the hike goes along the creek which offers amazing views of the water cascading down the rocks and through the forest.

The trail eventually leads to a road where you have a choice to make: head back directly to the castle ruins or push on into the fields and beyond and "find a different way" back. You know we chose the latter without hesitation.

We were quickly rewarded with some great views:

Heading back into the forest and we came across a remaining section of Langmauer, or German for "long wall". This long wall dates back to the year 364 and was built by the Romans. This wall is believed to have stretched out over 75 kilometers (or 45 miles), although the significance remains a bit of a mystery. The wall was not tall enough for military purposes (nearly 2 meters high, or about 7 feet), but would be ideal to help keep out some un-welcomed animals with poor jumping abilities. Talk about keeping the neighbors cows out of your yard.

The forest here is very open, which is quite different for us. We have spent most of our lives hiking in the Pacific Northwest where the forest floor is covered with vegetation and fallen logs. That is something that is unique about Germany: you will not see a fallen log stay on the forest floor for long as they will harvest this wood for heating of homes and fuel for furnaces. Way to keep it efficient, Deutschland!

It is amazing how mature trees have figured out how to grow on top of rocks:

Our next stop....or at least the next sign we found, was the Genovevahohle (or "Genoveva cave" in German).

I give you the Genovevahohle.

Why the name? Well, the history surrounding the name is somewhat of a misfortune. Basically a Count from years ago accused his wife of starting a family with another man while he was off fighting wars and ordered his wife and the child to be killed. Instead of meeting their end, their lives were spared by the soldiers ordered to carry out the sentence in exchange for her promise to live the rest of her days hiding out in the forest. The Count soon regretted his hasty orders and fell into deep depression. Some years later, while out hunting, he came across this cave and found his wife and the child living inside the dwelling. Legend goes that while he was overcome with joy and quickly rushed them back to the castle, his wife died not long after as a result of the tough times she endured while living off the land. Today it is an impressive structure that you can climb up into for a look around and imagine what life would be like living in such confined quarters for all those years.

OK, enough cave dwelling. We have been hiking for a few hours now and it's time to reward our efforts with a hearty lunch at the restaurant mentioned earlier. A quick pace and about a half hour later and we were finally rewarded with the most beautiful sight of the day: the nearly empty deck. You can see the top of the castle ruin in the background:

Not 10 minutes later and several small groups arrived at the restaurant. We felt very fortunate to have a perfect hike end with a perfect lunch while soaking up the warm sun and enjoying the view of the neighboring hills: