Day 36 (June 7) Sababurg & More

Some days I need to be pinched and this was one of them. The riding today to the northeast was unbelievably good through farm fields, forests, up and down twisty mountain roads and through many little villages. At times I thought we were riding in the Big Money Rally as we were were constantly looking for Grimm Bros. fairy tale articles, and we had limited info about their exact location. Some were simply missing. But we snagged Rapunzel, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, the Goose and Girl, and Puss 'n Boots plus this simply amazing collection of miniature castles at der Mühlenplatz before riding home in about an hour retracing our outgoing route.

Day 35 (June 6) Alsfeld

Today (Mon) was devoted to heading into the land of Rotkäppchen (Little Red Riding Hood).  While travelling, Monday's are my least favorite days as generally all museums are closed.  Today was no exception.  They were all closed. However, in Alsfeld the tourist information office was open.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

When we arrived in Alsfeld after a nice ride south from Niedenstein, we found a parking spot and began to remove our motorcycle clothes.  A policeman came up to us and asked if we had a parking permit to which we had to answer, "No".  We then asked where could we park the motorcycle (generally in Europe they can be parked anywhere), and he said they didn't have specific motorcycle parking areas, but we might be able to find something up near the church.  We thanked him, re-geared up and rode a few hundred yards to the church where we found a spot to park.  It was about 100 yards from the tourist information office.  Score!

At the tourist information office we picked up a walking guide that would lead us on a one hour tour of town taking us from place to place where each numbered place was marked with a placard written in German and English.  In all there were 38 stops.

One of the cooler stops was at a fountain in from of a house labelled 'Funk Family' which is our youngest daughter's married name.  Another cool stop was at the birthplace of Dr. George Kober who served at Kamiah during the Nez Perce wars.  He went on to head the medical school at George Washington University and was a key researcher in infectious diseases ( before the end of the 1800's).

The most striking building was the Rathaus which appeared to be built up on stilts to provide for a farmer's market underneath.  We then enjoyed some inexpensive Chinese food at a local restaurant.  

After lunch we toured the local church which was quite plain inside, and then suited up in the 80°f weather in order to ride to the next three cities associated with fairy tales:  Schwalmstadt, Knüwald, and Efze.  The museum was closed in the first city, and the others were only tangentally related to the Grimm's so we did drive throughs before returning to our hotel.  We did note that the grass crops were starting to be cut.  Soon we were back at our hotel where we had pizza for dinner before retiring for the night.  But first, one last food picture from lunch:.

Day 34 (June 5) Return to Hanau

Today (Sunday) turned out to be a long day in the saddle.  After breakfast we rode to Hanau to see the play Rapunzel which was being performed in the ampitheatre on the grounds of the Phillipsrühe castle.  I had the GPS route us there on non-autobahn roads and the ride was shorter than on the autobahn by 40 kilometers  and just a bit longer in time.  But it was so much more interesting.

Before the play, we had fried cheese for lunch at a local tavern and visited another castle.  The play was interesting although I did not understand a word.  

We then visited the Phillipsrühe castle to see the museum with particular interest on the Bros. Grimm exhibit and the paper theatre exhibit.  Our GPS then routed us back home on a different set of back roads.  In Alsfeld we had a quick salad for dinner before finishing the ride back to the hotel.  At the hotel, I tipped the bike over on the slanted incline with no damage to us or the bike, just my pride!  The hotel's cook saw it happen and helped me right it.

We then unwound and retired for the night.  It had been a long day!

Day 33 (June 4) Kassel

Today was not a big day for miles.  We rode to Kassel to see the Brothers Grimm Museum which is now housed in a new building.  Getting to the building turned out to be a bit of a challenge due to blocked streets and road construction.  The museum was fabulous!  It took about 2 hours to see it.

We then rode to the Herkules monument which was very impressive perched on its hilltop location.  It's been there from before the time of the Bros. Grimm!  While the man made waterfalls were not operating due to ongoing repairs they were impressive as well and the big screen video of them in the visitor center was terrific.

After our ride back to the hotel, we walked up to the town center for the little international festival they were having.  A singing group Dark Vatter was singing German country western songs in the local dialect.  We also met some Americans who were there visiting some friends.  Following a pizza dinner at the Italian restaurant, we walked back home and retired.

Day 31 (June 2) Niedenstein - 2

The two faces of adventure were still around today. I woke up early and saw that the maps had downloaded overnight. That was the good news. The bad news was that I still needed to create the map files and transfer them to the GPS. I started the process and we left to go on a morning adventure to explore the town and hike up to the tower.

Niedenstein is situated on the side of a hill and was one of the cities from which the Bros. Grimm collected their stories. We hiked up through the center of town to the Rathaus (city hall). From there the path departed up the hill to the tower. It was a steady hilly and twisty path upwards which eventually yielded some gorgeous views. At the top was a very cool chair from which to enjoy the view. But there was more. The tower was open and we climbed the internal winding stairs to the observation level where there was a 360° view.
Hiking down the maintain was much easier and we wandered our way through the local streets and found an antique Jewish cemetery as well as a swimming pool and Noah's Ark preschool.

Day 32 (June 3) Niedenstein - 3

Today was to be our first loop touring day retracing our steps from the previous day only in a clockwise direction. The weather forecast was not looking promising, but we really needed to get out and snag some of these Brothers Grimm sites on the Fairy Tale Tour (FTT).  After a nice continental breakfast that's part of our room arrangement, we geared up and headed for Gudensberg where after a little searching we found the lovely town park which is home to a cute little fairytale stage.

From there it was a short ride to Fritzlar which still has a walled old city.  In the parking lot, a kind lady gave us her parking pass which we displayed on the rear license plate (we probably didn't need it as motorcycles generally park for free anywhere).  As we walked through the wall gate, it was like we were transported back in time.  The ancient cathedral was a focal point, but there were dozens of classic timber framed houses some of which were terribly out of square due to settling.  We hooked up with a local tour guide and stayed with her until the cathedral, but decided to see the remainder of the city on our own.  We still paid her, and stayed inside the cathedral (this town has maintained its state of being a strong Catholic community for many centuries) in an effort to let the rain subside after which we went back to the TI office where a helpful clerk showed us some important things to see and we also purchased a detailed guide to the event we are doing.  It has lots of detailed info about each town along the route.  After wandering the main square admiring all the various timber frame buildings, we made our way back to the motorcycle.

Bad Wildungen was our next stop.  It's perched on a hilltop which made the riding a bit challenging at times.  We parked in a motorcycle space in a hillside garage and walked through town in search of the TI office.  We found it and acquired some more helpful information before visiting a shop devoted to the event and having a fish lunch.  On our walk back to the bike, we visited the cathedral which is now a Protestant church but has over the centuries flip flopped between being used as a Catholic and a Protestant church.  It has a very nice and old mural on the altar that depicted various biblical accounts.  Otherwise the church was very plain inside.

Our next two stops at Waldeck were high points of the day.  The first stop was at the famous Edersea dam which was breached by the British in May, 1943 and rebuilt before the end of the war.  At the point where we parked our bike, we had sone pleasant conversation with some Dutch Harley Davidson riders who were attending a nearby Treffen (camp out).  There were hundreds of riders attending the event from what we could see as we rode by it.

After visiting the dam and walking over the formerly breached section, we headed up the twisty road to the Waldeck Castle.  The police had radar traps set up probably due to the HD Treffen down the road.  After we parked at the Castle, we hiked up to the observation area where we snapped a few pictures.  The museum there is a prison museum, so we didn't bother to visit.  We did enjoy a refreshing drink in the restaurant overlooking the lake.  

We continued our ride to Wolfingen where we stopped at an Aldi to provision up.  While waiting at the bike I could see a big storm coming in.  Before Angela got out of the store, the clouds unloaded, and everything got drenched.  When she got out of the store she had to put everything wet on.  Fortunately our path of travel was away from the storm, and the outer garments had a chance to dry.  Back at the hotel, we spread out the wet clothes to dry on the heat registers and prepared a little snack.  Unfortunately it was not enough, so we went downstairs to the restaurant for a small bite to eat before retiring for the evening.

Day 30 (June 1) Niedenstein

Adventure can both be found and can find you! Today was a mixture of both.  After our continental breakfast at Knopf Tours, we packed our meager belongings that would be travelling with us on the motorcycle and put the bulk of our belongings in short term storage at Knopf Tours.  We said our goodbyes to the three fellow riders who were either departing today or in a few days.  And we were off!

Today our route to Hanau would be by the autobaum so that we could make significantly better time.  Just north of Heidelberg we made our only refueling stop.  It was quick and we were back on our way.  Soon it began to drizzle, but that turned into full fledged rain!  We didn't stop as there was no covered areas to adjust our clothing.  By the time we reached Hanau I was pretty wet.  We found the town square and then looked for parking.  I pulled into a parking garage but the ticket machine wouldn't print a ticket despite the help of the driver behind us.  We were trapped between the security gate and a lady trying to get in to park her card behind me.  Finally the garage attendent remotely released the gate and we entered and parked in the garage despite the admonition to not park in there.

After covering and locking the bike we walked to the main square where we found to the statue of the brothers Grimm along with a very active Farmer's market.  

It then took a bit of looking to find the Tourist Information office.  It was surprising the number of official people who didn't know where it was given that it had moved.  We were able to get Sunday afternoon tickets for Rapunzel.  We grabbed a quick lunch from one of the food trucks and the wursts were great.  One of the bigger adventures of the day was to find the parking garage where we left our bike.  Eventually Angela's sense of direction prevailed and we suited up and headed for Niedenstein, again by the autobahn.  Portions of th trip were miserable due the drizzle and rain.  About an hour from Niedenstein we took a break at a BK which allowed the rain to stop.  The rest of the ride into Niedenstein was terrific and when we arrived I knew immediately it would be a hit with  Angela due to the decor and location in the little village.  Then when we saw the room with a terrace balcony there was further little doubt.

After we unpacked, it was time for some schnitzel in the little restaurant downstairs.  Angela was able to help a Bulgarian/Canadian with the German menu.  

After dinner the adventure found me!

I was working with my Netbook and GPS, and received an error message that my GPS maps were corrupt (it might have been an explanation for the problems I experienced a couple days earlier).  So I pressed the button to fix it and whoosh my European map files vanished from my GPS!  This was not a good sign.  So I started the process of downloading the map files from Garmin which literally takes over 4 hours using the hotel's WIFI connection.  So we went to bed hoping the download would complete on its own.  Would it?  Stay tuned.