Germany travel stories
It is a chilly Sunday evening in Berlin. Late October and the trees have shaken off their leaves. I shuffle my feet through piles of golden yellow and approach two steel doors with graffiti scrawled on them. Two smokers huddle in the cold, shifting from one foot to...
I was eighteen years old, standing in the Portland International Airport with a backpack that still smelled like home and a ticket to Frankfurt, Germany. It was the first time I had ever left the country on my own. Most of my friends were just starting their summer...
It is a wonder the Cathedral was not bombed into oblivion. It was World War II and GPS precision bombing had not yet been developed. Although the Cologne Cathedral stood only meters from the train station, which was the intended target of the Allied Air Forces, it...
My favorite thing to do when traveling is - play the "Next Train Game"?. As a traveler it can become monotonous waiting for the train to so-and-so place at so-and-so time. I don't want to spend my time waiting to travel, I want to be traveling each and...
7 tips on how to make the most of Oktoberfest This Saturday, September 21, Oktoberfest will open its gates for the 180th time with the famous words "O'zapt is!"? (It's tapped!). If you want to experience it like a local, here are seven tips on...
(December 19, 2011) "? Northern Germany's top chefs in Berlin and Hamburg continue to rack up Michelin stars, firmly establishing the two cities at the top of the country's gourmet food chain. Their young, inventive and creative chefs have solidified the...
The train shudders as it crosses the bridge to Cologne. Barges and cruise ships pass below on the Rhine. Cologne straddles the river for miles; a million plus citizens call it home. Koeln Hauptbahnhof is one of Germany's major train stations, its tracks spreading...
Standing in the historical center of Munich, the Marienplatz, while looking at the massive Rathaus, I got a first impression of toys at play. Every hour, the Glockenspiel chimes and out comes the figurines of Bavarians dressed in traditional clothing, dancing high up...
What to do on a rainy day in Munich? I looked at the information leaflet I had picked up at the Tourist Information Centre on Marienplatz and found, to my delight, two quirky sounding museums. One was the Nachttopf Museum (chamber pot museum) and the other the...
Apart from it being Germany's richest city, the nation's advertising and fashion capital (where Claudia Schiffer was discovered), and the hub of many Japanese corporations and banks, it's also a city of eclectic art -- ultimates and extremes, a sensational...
