Natali here. I'm handling this blogpost instead of Reed since some of the photos are from my own time in Germany before Reed came out to join me. 2017 was full of many trips to Germany for work but this post will focus on one of my two week work trips in May that I extended by half a week so that Reed and I could travel around a bit. In my first week in Frankfurt, they were having their annual "Green Sauce Festival." The festival is all about celebrating this famous creamy green sauce that goes on meat, potatoes, and pretty much anything. Don't even ask me what's in it because I have no idea but it's delicious. Isn't this meal below just about the most German-looking meal you have ever seen? I got this at the Green Sauce Festival and it was delicious.
One of my first stops every time I'm in Europe is at a supermarket for cheese and chocolate. There is just something about Europe, cheese and chocolate that really brings me a silly amount of happiness. I remember one night towards the beginning of this trip when I found myself sitting in my cozy bed in the hotel room with chocolate in one hand and cheese in the other and I thought to myself "I can't believe I'm getting paid to be on this trip...this is the life." ;-D.
It can get lonely on work trips but sometimes it can be nice to get some quiet alone time. During this trip, I ate at an incredible french restaurant alone and it was one of the most incredible meals of my life. There is something kind of cool about just eating in silence and focusing only on the delicious flavors of the meal.
Over the weekend on this trip, I also was able to get away from Frankfurt to experience the legendary Brenner's Spa in Baden Baden. The spa was awesome but the best part was the beautiful pool (pictured below) that opened up into a garden right next to the river that runs through Baden Baden. Baden Baden translates to "bath bath" and it's actually a very famous spa and bath house town. But be careful, all the spas have dual-gender areas and if you accidentally venture into them (like I did), you may see some sights you NEVER wanted to see (and those sights might still give you nightmares years later haha). Below are some pictures from spa day and tour of Baden Baden.
And now for the fun part when Reed came to join me in Germany.... We started in Frankfurt but Frankfurt is not very picturesque so soon after Reed arrived, we headed out to Strasbourg in France. Reed found a charming little bed and breakfast for us to stay in outside of Strasbourg while we explored some of the adorable towns along the Alsace wine route.
First up on our Alsace win tour was Riquewihr. It's a very cute little fairytale town with both French and German influences. It definitely felt more touristy than some of the other towns we saw but it's great for pictures so we took a lot! Here are some of our favorites:
Many of these little fairy-tale style towns are top destinations for the Christmas market tourists in the winter so they often have little Christmas stores like the one above open all year long and the decorations are always gorgeous. As shown below, we stopped for a "small" lunch before moving on. We got cheese and potato dishes (with a little salad), as those are pretty safe bets in these areas.
After Riquewihr, we moved on to Eguisheim. If you are in the area, I highly recommend stopping in this town and walking around because it is adorable and the perfect French fairytale town. Also, as you can see below, they have insanely large birds nesting at the tops of their churches that are also pretty cool to see haha.
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After Eguisheim, we went down to one of the most beautiful French cities I've ever seen: Colmar. If we did this trip again, we would stay in Colmar instead of Strasbourg. We thought it was a lot cuter and did not feel like we had even close to enough time to see it (though that was partly due to the fact that we did this whole trip in just a few days since I'd already been gone for two weeks when Reed arrived).
The next day, we spent the morning walking around Strasbourg. Here are some photos of Strasbourg:
In the afternoon we headed back to Germany to show Reed one of my favorite places in Germany: Heidelberg. It's a must-see in Germany and I highly recommend going up to the castle.
After Heidelberg, we drove to Rothenberg aub der Tauber. We made it just in time for the Night Watchman Tour. He was great. He told us about the history of Rothenberg and the stories were fascinating. It is such a beautiful little town and I highly recommend spending the night there because they close the city gates at night so the only tourists there are the ones actually staying within the walls. It makes for some beautiful night photos.
The next day, Reed woke up early to take pictures of Rothenberg without a bunch of tourists and then I joined him during the normal waking hours :-).
That night we headed to Wurzburg. In Wurzburg, we ate at an incredibly delicious restaurant that had no menu--you just ate whatever the chef was making that day. It was so fun and yummy! Then later that night, I tried to take some night photos and was getting frustrated that cars kept pulling into my shot. But then I realized I could probably do something cool with that so here is my night bus shot that I'm pretty proud of :-):
And on the last day of our little Germany vacation, we just bummed around Wurzburg. Here are some photos we took during our little tour of Wurzburg.
Reed thought this bench was VERY well designed as you can tell :-)
