The only person reading this blog who will know the answer
right away is Lucy, as we are visiting her son Aaron and daughter in law
Antonia in their Bavarian village of Haselbach!
It’s a small village about 170kms from Munich. We drove here safely from Prague, after a
last museum visit – this time to the National Museum of Prague, which had a
large amount of Picassos and a couple of Klimts, and we enjoyed it.
We stopped to get fuel – and use up our last
few Czech crowns – when a traffic policeman approached us speaking French. This is what happens when you are driving a
car with French number plates!! We
explained that pathetically, that despite our French car we could only speak English! He then found his supervisor to ask why we
didn't have a vignette displayed in our car.
Well, that would be because we didn't realise we needed one! We were fined 500 Czech crowns and then had
to buy a vignette for 350 Czech crowns - then drove back into Germany 20 kms later :-)
It was great to see Aaron (who incidentally I've known his entire life!) and we appreciated Aaron and Antonia putting us up for a few days. You get to see a different side of a country when you are with friends or family :-) Antonia got home from work around 9 pm (she works very long days commuting from Munich). She told me that we need a vignette for Austria too, and the fine is 300 Euros! So we were very lucky just to get pinged in Czech republic.
Yesterday I visited Antonia's hairdresser. It was very important to keep those grey hairs at bay - what greys I like to say? She straightened my hair which I hoped with the cold weather would last for a few days (that hasn't been the case - it's getting curlier as I write!) and I felt very smart. Nothing like being pampered. Aaron had given us the address of the big supermarket so we could do some food shopping on the way back to the house (Greg was cooking) - however the GPS wouldn't accept the address and we had to wing it. I saw it from the autobahn and we took the next exit, and got hopelessly, hopelessly lost. We did see a lot of Schwandorf (the district they live in). Greg attempted the tried and true "follow my nose" technique which ended up with us back on the autobahn heading for... the opposite direction. After about 40 minutes we gave up and back tracked to a small supermarket we'd found. Then put Aaron and Antonia's address into our GPS to get back with no further dramas!
Aaron took us to see Regensberg, a big uni city with lots of Roman ruins about an hour's drive away. We were going to take the train but were delayed by drinking beer, so we had to drive instead! We had a little wander and sought solace from the cold by stopping for more beer and wurst (I didn't indulge in the wurst, but Greg liked it so much he bought a roadie when we left!). Then it was back to the casserole Greg had prepared - Coq au Vin, delicious. Antonia's parents Andrea and Karl came to join us and there was more beer and wine!
Today we had a traditional Sunday Bavarian breakfast - weisswurst with bread pretzels and Weizenbier. The very first time I've had beer for breakfast! Or sausages for that matter - I haven't eaten them for over 40 years as I can't stand all the fattiness, but I was brave with these as they didn't (and weren't) fatty. Aaron talked us through how to skin them - apparently you never eat the skin, thank goodness he was able to save us making that faux pas! The pretzels were salty and delicious! Then we drove to Amberg, a gorgeous town about 20 minutes away where Aaron catches the train to work every day. The old part of the town is surrounded by a wall and is very charming. i took a photo of Bella looking very swish in her new Prague boots - she loves them! We parked there and caught the train to Nuremberg, which is where Aaron works. So kind of him to make the journey with us when he has to go there every work day! It's such a pretty city. Its just amazing to think that it was totally re-built after WW2 (as it was razed by bombing) . We had a warming gluhwein, then headed to the Albrecht Durer House. It was interesting, because it really was his house and has been well preserved/re built, but we were disappointed that all the Durer paintings on display were original copies not originals. Liam still took some inspiration from the sketches on display and hopes to work on some more hands soon! We re-joined Aaron and Antonia for .... beer, what did you expect? Some more wurst and cheese (good cheese). Then we walked around the castle. Liam and I are turning into castle fiends. We can't see enough of them!! I like to imagine I was someone wealthy and royal, not a scummy servant, in old times. Greg tells me I'm dreaming :-)
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