Germany. We got here as fast as we could...literally!

April 24, 2012
Yesterday we traveled by bus from the hotel to the Haarlem train station.  From Haarlem we took another train to Amsterdam and immediately transferred to an international train to Frankfurt.  From there we rented a car and are now in Bacharach, Germany.

I said we got here as fast as we could because, in Germany, apparently they like to go really fast !  Our international train stopped in Cologne and from there to Frankfurt there were no more stops.  That's when we learned we were on a high speed train!  We sped up and I said to Nika, "we're flying".  We were running parallel to a highway that was perhaps the autobahn and, as stories go, they like to drive their cars "pretty fast" on the autobahn.  If it was a speed contest, we were winning!  Soon, Nika said her ears were popping.  An American couple that was sitting a few seats behind us asked, "how fast do you think we're going?"  We were going 186 mph and that was cool!

Once in Frankfurt, we rented a car and then drove on the autobahn.  I've only ever heard stories and they're true!  If you move all the way to the fast lane to pass a car you better move right back.  It might be all clear behind you and then you blink and there's an Audi, BMW or Porsche coming up "really, really fast".  We were driving 80-90 mph in the slow lane! 

We made it as fast as we could to Bacharach!  We are in a 1000 year old building, that is now a hotel.  The hotel is in a town that was established in the early 11th Century.  Our room overlooks both the Rhine River, a castle on a hill and a vineyard.

 Hotel entrance

Our hotel room window is 2nd from the top in the tower.  The castle is on the hill behind our hotel.

 View from the front window of our hotel room.

 View from the back window of our hotel room.

 Out for a walk in Bacharach, Germany

 Bacharach sidewalk

 The town of Bacharach.

This paragraph will be for my friends who go by the last name of Johnson.  We ate our evening meal last night in the hotel restaurant.  It was interesting to see that Jagermeister is a drink item listed on the dinner menu.  Not sure if it comes by the bottle, glass or shot...lol.  (We shared a bottle of wine)

When we travel, Nika and I always take time to stop, look up and ask ourselves, were in the world are we?  We're in the middle of Europe probably 6000 miles away from home and we're off to see this area of the world.