Reminiscing About Medieval Times

We are still in Ireland but we were reminiscing about Rothenburg (Germany) last night and re-visiting our photos from that magical weekend and thought we'd share the best of them. The festival was to celebrate an event when the Mayor saved the town from plunder 400 years ago.

Rothenburg is still completely contained within its medieval walls dating back to 12th century. The wall is still in excellent condition, you can walk around most of the town on top of the wall. The whole town gives off a completely 'walk back in time' atmosphere. It is a fairly large town as well, had a population of about 6,000 back in it's heyday.

All weekend about 200 people dressed in medieval costume were walking around the town playing their trumpets, drums, flutes and singing. You would turn a corner and there was another group, either soldiers, town wenches, musicians etc. The idea is that they would walk from one old hotel to the other and effectively sing for their supper. Once they had sung some medieval 'ditti' they would be rewarded with beer and wine from the hotel.

The wall



The wenches



Singing for their supper



Hilary fraternizing with the locals



Tony showing why men have 2 arms

Idyllic Ireland

We've made it at last to Ireland. Hilary has dreamed of visiting the country for many years and it is living up to her high expectations. The weather was rainy when we landed in Dublin and that persisted all the next day. We've still managed to get some great photos as you'll see below.

Last night we stayed in a restored Coach House that was attached to a Castle back in the 1800s. The Castle is now in ruins and was within a stones throw of the house. The Coach House was perfectly restored and the grounds had atmosphere in spades. We could still see the ruins of the stables and other farm sheds.

On the way to the Coach House near Waterford, we went through the village where the 1995 movie "Circle of Friends" starring Minni Driver was filmed. The village, Inistioge, was absolutely quaint and delightful, seeing it in person makes us want to come back and watch the movie all over again. Here is a picture of the bridge that featured in the movie.



This picture was taken in the rain, we are staying in the village next Saturday night with Jessica and hope to get a sunny picture then. Driving in Ireland takes a bit of getting used to, the country roads are very narrow with hedges snug up against the road, so there are no places at all to pull over. However, it is green, beautiful and nearly every corner you go around takes your breath away, we love Ireland.

On the way to Waterford, we went down to a place called Hook where they have what is thought to be the oldest working lighthouse in the world, it has been there for 800 years. The town of Crook lies across the bay, this is where the origins of the saying "By Hook or by Crook" comes from, evidently when Cromwell was going to invade and plunder Ireland, famously he said "I'll get there by Hook or by Crook" as he was planning to land in one of these two towns.

To be sure... to be sure: off to Ireland

Tonight is our last night in Germany. Tomorrow we head off to Ireland for 2 weeks.

The stay in Germany has been great for Tony from the perspective of catching up with relatives and his heritage. He has reunited with relatives and met cousins here for the first time ever. Tomorrow morning we are off to the Zoo in Frankfurt to see if we can find some more "distant" relatives to be reunited with!

What made Germany special for us....

Delightful time with loved ones
Stunning scenery
Great architecture
Lots of forests
Very affordable place to holiday (once you get here)
Beer
More beer
Efficient transport
Even more beer
Lovely mild weather (only 3 of 10 days with rain, rest were warm / sunny and / or mild)

What we expect that will make Ireland special for us....

Do I hear the word beer???

Castles, Sauerkraut and Hofbrauhaus

We´ve just had the perfect time in Germany, got to see folk dancing in Dinkelbuhl and the amazing Neuschwanstein castle in Fussen, this is the castle that Walt Disney used as inspiration for Disneyland and having seen it we can sure see why. I even found it unbelievable that such a magical castle exists. We also climbed the world´s tallest cathedral spire in Ulm, it was 768 steps and worth every ache and pain we felt the next day.

Here is King Ludwig's fairy tale castle



Below is the cathedral from Ulm, we climbed to the very very top




We have spent the last two days with Tony´s Aunt Doris, Uncle Christoph, brother Klaus and niece Shana in Munich and met cousins Bruni and Deitgar who I´ve never met before. Deitgar is the oldest of my cousins and Bruni is one of the most talkative! :-)

Next picture in this post is the folk dancers in their traditional costumes. When we saw the dancing, it reminded us very much of how my (tony) parents would dance.



Our final Munich experience was the famous Hofbrauhaus and it was a real highlight. The place has heaps of atmosphere and we had a group of young guys seeing who could outdrink each other, it was getting pretty rowdy and it wasn't even near the evening. Quite entertaining. The beer was great as well, the standard size is a one litre jug.



Now it's your shout! (hic... :-D )

Europa!

Finally Tony makes it to Deutchland. We got picked up at Frankfurt by Klaus and Lea (Tony´s brother and partner) who flew over from Florida to meet up with us. Sure was great to see a familiar face at the airport after being awake for 22+ hours straight. Next day travelled to Bonn and spent a lovely day and a half on the Rhein river with them and Shana (Klaus´s 19 yr old daughter). Tourist highlight was going to the dragon cliff castle. Also saw Beethoven´s birthplace and caught ferry over the Rhein.



From Bonn we farewelled Klaus and his family for now and took off on the Autobahn on our own. Man those krauts drive fast and crazy!!!! We occasionally crept up to the speed limit of 130km/hr and they still roared past us like there was no tomorrow. It was nerve wracking at first but we got used to it and made it fine to Wurzburg. Thankfully it doesn´t get dark till well after 9pm so we still got to do some sightseeing that night and the this morning early. Below is a picture of Wurzburg along the river.



After Wurzburg we´ve started down what is known as the "romantic road", first stop for us along that is Rothenburg which is a medieval town which is still intact and surrounded by the original rock wall built in the late 1300s. By coincidence we are here the weekend of an annual festival and will be attending historical play in the old theatre tonight (2 hours of German language, good thing the beers are large here!). Here is a picture from the market square, the whole town is filled with street after street after street of these kind of buildings.

Fabulously different

Doesn´t take much to guess we are talking about Japan. We landed late in Narita and still managed to take an evening walk to the buddhist temple. All thanks to Jack we got a genuine Japanese hotel within 5 minutes walk of the temple. The hotel was very traditional, rice paper doors, futons on the floor and slippers everywhere.

Next day we really went through the temple properly. AMAZING fire and drum service was the highlight, about 10 buddist monks with shaved heads and very colourful robes came in tinkling their cymbals and banging their drums. One drum was about 9 feet tall with the drum head as tall as Tony.

Got to eat real japanese food in quaint restaurant, wandered around the narrow streets of Narita soaking up the atmosphere and seeing all the young school kids on their way to school before hopping back on the train to the airport.

Getting ready to go

We go on the 21st of May!!!

We'll be travelling to Japan for a day, then to Germany for one and a half weeks, will catch up with Tony's brother Klaus and Klaus's daughter Shana and partner Lea there and maybe his Dad and also two aunts of his who live in Munich.

Then we are off to Ireland for two weeks, Jessica, Hilary's daughter joins us for the second week, then the three of us are off to England for a week to see where Hilary's Dad grew up and to see parts of London with Jess. Tony will be stopping at the Oracle office in London on the 22nd of June to meet many of the emea team for the first time.

On the way back to Australia, we stop in China for 3 days, will be visiting the great wall of China and various palaces and gardens in Bejing.