Flower carpet and flower wall, in Bad Homburg

Bad Homburg had some striking resemblance to Westchester NY. We walked around a garden adjacent to the golf course. There was a spa that Kaiser Wilhelm I and II seem to have frequented. 

 

 

Green and light

 

Mini break at the garden behind the church in Eisenach. View from above and view from below.

Wartburg castle overlooking Eisenach

The castle on top of Eisenach town was a place I wanted to visit for some time. While you could go very close to the top by car, it was nice that we accidentally walked through a steep hill in a forest to get to the top. The mere imagination of waking up to the perfect view in a bedroom here was fantastic.

But of course the highlight of the castle tour, which came unexpectedly at the very end, was the room where Martin Luther stayed in 1521-1522 when he translated the bible. I of course tried to breath in the same air as much as possible.

Last stay in our mini German tour

 

        

We stayed the night in this little old German town before making our last stop in Eisenach to conclude our mini German tour. It seems to be similar to the case of other well preserved places, that these formerly east German villages did not have the money to renew the buildings, thus have been fortunate to preserve the old look. 

Our hotel was a former castle and had a mini moat in the back. Lovely place with surprisingly good French like German food restaurant.

Burg Edelhof
Address: Am Edelhof 5, 99326 Ilmtal, Germany
Phone: +49 3629 777811

Series of angels and ominous clouds in Dresden

 

Angels against angels...

 

... above your head, on important buildings in Dresden.

Beautiful Dresden on the grass

After the 2-hour walking tour of Dresden, we spent the entire afternoon on the grass, fooling around with baby and wine, and me reading a new book A Death in the Family by Karl Ove Knausgaard. I assume due to the terrible flood experiences in 2002 and 2013, the river bank area was massive and exceptionally beautiful in green.

Grand Cafe und Restaurant im Coselpalais in Dresden

This place was particularly strong in dessert, and the crepe with blueberry, ice cream, and cream we had was just perfect.

 

The inside had many differently themed rooms, like the below blue room.

Coselpalais - Grand Café und Restaurant anno 1765
Address: An der Frauenkirche 12, 01067 Dresden
Phone: +49 351 4962 444

Neat apartment looking buildings in Dresden

Dresden is now possibly the most beautiful city in Germany

I remember coming here with family in 2000, when everything was under construction, and I could only see a glimpse of what was to come. How things have changed! First and foremost the Frauenkirche used to not exist. In fact, most of the buildings were so badly damaged after WWII, followed by the GDR regime that little reconstruction happened until after the wall came down. Now, there are so many old majestic buildings reconstructed, which cost was more than USD100m or 200m each!

Russian war memorial park strewn with flowers, in Berlin

Berlin has cleaned up so much

 

A view from the Steigenberger Hotel in front of the central station, a typical mecca for drug addicts but not in Berlin. 

Going over the wall

 

It is still always incredible to remember that the Wall in Berlin only came down in 1989, a mere 26 years ago. My friend Susanne took me to the installation created in the baby boom town of Prenzlauer Berg on Bernauer Strasse. The wall here used to go through Bernauer Strasse and 150+ people successfully went over it through the houses where the front opened to the west and the court yard to the east, before the windows were completely sealed off and the wall formally erected. Photos really tell what was reality back then. 

Photo credit: Berlin Wall Memorial

Perfect Weimar

 

What a perfect nice little city Weimar was, and it seems everyone lived here from Bach to Liszt, to Goethe to Schiller.

A crooked house from a pretty but bad drawing

From the same town as the egg decoration.

Egg installation in a small village between Frankfurt and Weimar

First stop of our mini German tour. We made a pit stop at this small village between Frankfurt and Weimer. The eggs were hanging very pretty.

Auberge Kalopetri in Rhodes Greece

This place was probably the highest rated hotel that we ever stayed in, and for a very good reason. It feels like you are staying at a very generous friend's place, with a quick walk to the beach, breakfast overlooking the ocean and green as seen above, and a very comfortable room with a kitchen to cook some local produce. Everyday, we repeatedly went to the beach, ate lunch at Johnny's, and cooked a nice dinner at home. Slow life...

Auberge Kalopetri
Address: P.O. Box 265, Kritinia / Kamiros Skala 851 08, Greece
Phone:+30 2246 031168

The islands

What can you say...

Best food ever in Greece

The aubergine salad and the greek salad have been a combination we never missed to add to our meals here. Who would have known aubergine is to be had everyday! These are from a nice restaurant called Johnny's, right by our beach (the 17-minute place from our hotel). Really, good, honest, Greek food. I must also say most places in Greece have extremely pleasant services (they say thank you for everything nice they do for you!).

Going down to our beach in western Rhodes

A romantic 17-minute path down to the beach from our lovely hotel.

Here we are!