Day 18 Tuesday August 19th - Travel Day Frankfurt -> Calgary -> Vancouver or we are out of underwear

Yes, it is time to come home now. Our Air Canada flight to Calgary departs from Terminal 1B at 13:30. We grab some sandwiches and some goodies to eat now and later. Our bags are packed and we have re-weighed each of our three pieces of luggage and they are all around the 21-22kg mark.

We decide to leave the room around 11:00 to check out of the hotel and check in/security queue and getting to the Air Canada lounge. Lucky we left early as security was quite backed up. A very long queue. We spend time in the lounge and get an English speaking newspaper. It is a relatively blue sky day today as we sit in the lounge near the window.

We decide to arrive at our designated gate early. Wow, it is a growing pandemonium. The staff decide to validate everyone's Passport and stamp the boarding pass as a pre-clearance. For the Priority boarders there is a horde that gets bigger and bigger. Pretty obvious this flight won't leave anywhere close to the time. Looks like a full flight and Lana gets bumped up to First Class. I can't get bumped up with her as I am flying on points/miles. Our gate agent decides to disregard the announcements about pre-boarding and the horde gets angrier. Economy is beginning to board and families/disabled individuals. Then as she finally decides to let us go towards the entrance a family gets stopped as they were not validated. There is no way Germans would organize anything like this chaos. Typical Air Canada mess.

We depart about 40 minutes late which can be entirely blamed on the huge confusion and incompetence at the gate. Guaranteed we will miss our Calgary connection given it was scheduled for 70 minutes after our original arrival.

Lana gets bumped up to First Class and is enjoying a glass of champagne before the plane leaves.

This is our haul of 18 bottles of wine. We are 14 bottles over the limit. The Calgary customs cashier asks us to check our bags before she will calculate what we owe given some of the bottles may have broken. This causes more of a delay, but fortunately no broken bottles. She charges us around $50CDN based on the cheapest bottle at $6CDN. We have four bottles of Red Burgundy, one bottle of Champagne, two bottles of Aperitif and most of the rest are different styles of Riesling from the Rheingau.

Yes, we make it to Calgary and then lose about 90 minutes to being scheduled on a later flight. We are both way back in the plane given we couldn't be choosy about our seats and the flight was full. Uneventful flight to Vancouver where it is around 22degrees and mostly blue skies. Taxi home costs about $28CDN inclusive of the tip.

As we pull up to our house we discover that both our cars are gone! The City of Vancouver was pruning the large old trees along the block when we left. We think that the City must have returned for more pruning and then towed us. We check our voice mail and our neighbour Fraser confirmed that just tonight the City was moving cars. We must have just missed it. We arrived home a little before 19:00. Lana checks Busters Towing and the City towed our cars to other streets in the neighbourhood. PHEW!

I forgot to bring my electric shaver charger cord on this trip. Within about two days of arriving in France, my shaver was dying. This is about two full weeks of growth. One of my first tasks is to shave! 

BEFORE PIC

 AFTER PIC

For those still reading our blog, we hope you have enjoyed following our adventures. While it is a lot of work, I like writing about our trips and the blog serves as an excellent online diary with pictures. Back to reality!

Day 17 Monday, August 18th - We have a travel luggage scale!

No rush to get up this morning as our taxi doesn't appear until 11:00. We need to pack our three suitcases (one extra piece of luggage for the wine haul) so they are all below 23 kg. On the internet, it reads that the average full wine bottle (750 ml) can weigh around 1.5 kg. The third suitcase is carry-on size. We should be able to manage being under the weight limits? Lana's Air Canada status gives her the ability to check 3 suitcases with no additional fees.

We travel with these wine skins/plastic bubble wrap as they are the best for minimizing the chances of breakage due to baggage handling. To date, only one bottle has broken inside our suitcase out of about 50-60 bottles transported. We highly recommend these :)

Our destination is Frankfurt am Main Airport (Flughafen) and the Hilton Garden hotel located right at the airport. If you book in advance you can get a very cheap rate and it comes with free wifi. We use it quite often as our final night given you just wheel your luggage to the Terminal. Plus, we know the subway system quite well so can easily access downtown Frankfurt and its Altstadt (old town). By taxi, should take around 25 minutes so pretty handy to reach from Wiesbaden. Raining heavily in Wiesbaden this morning.

All went well with the taxi to the airport. Dropped off and only about 7 minutes to our hotel located beside Terminal 1. We are in Room 10272. Always clean, dependable and convenient. We decide that it is now lunch time and we know a place (REWE grocery store) that has schweinshaxe (German pork hock). Yes, it is tender, juicy and delicious and very cheap at the airport (near the Long Distance train terminal). The lady serving us was so helpful. Even provided real silverware rather than the plastic knife and fork which we realize would be a challenge to use to eat the pork hock.

Schweinshaxe yummy! Crispy skin, tender roasted pork.

We get an all day S Bahn (subway train) group ticket for Euro15 which is pretty cheap as we both use it. Spend the afternoon in downtown Frankfurt near the Altstadt and the major shopping area. At the Galleria, we buy a bottle of our favourite sweet Gewürtztraminer wine for Euro8. Lana finds a new bicycle helmet and purchases the one below. Notice the brand is "Melon".

Our friends Susan and Jose had talked about a travel luggage scale. We found this one in a Relay store when we stopped to buy an english language newspaper. Hooray!!! We can figure out our three pieces of luggage and take the stress out of not knowing if any are over the 23 kg weight limit. First thing we do when we return to the room is weigh all three pieces and all is good.

Lana thought this was cute. You know when you are in a country that worships sausage when they adorn their garbage cans like this. They even have some senf (mustard).

Just as we get into the S Bahn subway it begins a torrential downpour so our timing was good. While we are in our hotel room the sun comes out so it is bright and sunny. Lana naps and we decide to get to the Sachsenhausen neighbourhood of Frankfurt and Apfelwein Wagner restaurant. We have been there three times in the past with friends and pretty good results. The place is super busy tonight and they have communal tables inside. You need to find a place where there is no reserved sign and you will be sitting with others. A server does help us find a spot on the end of a table across from another couple and three persons on the other end.

For some reason our server decided to mess with us. At least, that is what we think. We eventually found a menu with no assistance from the male server. While he was busy, he wasn't too good with actually coming to ask what we wanted. After a few gestures, he came our way and we tried to explain in Deutsch what we wanted. He corrected our pronunciation of käse given the local dialect pronounces it differently. He did not do this in a friendly manner. You would think in a restaurant that has lots of tourists and locals he would appreciate our trying to speak Deutsch.

Lana orders a main dish, but they don't have it. She asks for his recommendations. He doesn't have a choice from her, but wanders off with our order so far. This seems odd. He returns and Lana gets in her order for the main. A new couple sits down across from us and they order and then receive their food before us. He comes by to advise in perfect German that they don't have what Lana ordered. He knows we speak English and he speaks good English. Nope, he has to have us on. He doesn't give Lana a menu to make a new choice. We go and find a menu. He eventually returns and takes Lana's selection. Later he brings my main and neglects to bring the salat (salad). We have to get his attention when he returns to the room to ask for our salad. Lana receives her main finally with no apologies. Why did it take him so long to figure out that her first dish wasn't available? The couple across from us tried to get his attention to order a dessert and he snubbed them and eventually came by to announce the various desserts and then disappeared. We get his attention for the bill. He makes some face and then returns with our bill we think. He then proceeds to ask us what we ordered and manually writes it down and manually adds it incorrectly. We correct his addition as it was Euro10 too much. I guess that was the topper.

Our last meal in Deutschland was excellent in terms of quality and taste. The downside was the absolutely brutal service and attitude.

Apfelwein. Basically a dry apple cider. Very much a regional drink that is popular in Frankfurt.

Appetizer of Handkäse mit Musik. It is a German cheese dish that is difficult to describe in terms of taste and texture. It is delicious though.

Traditional Grüner (green herb sauce) with hard boiled eggs and fried potatoes (Bratkartoffeln). Lana loves the green herb sauce and dips my schnitzel as well.

Wiener Schnitzel (Austrian schnitzel with veal) with German fried potatoes (see above). I love Bratkartofflen! They fry the potatoes in bacon fat. Fantastic tasting and so bad!

Get back in the subway system and transfer to the S Bahn 8 train to the airport. Lana wants to get to REWE for German supplies and some goodies for friends and family. Also, we get some fruit for our breakfast in the hotel room tomorrow. We have a fridge in the room so that helps with some of our supplies. 

No rush to get up tomorrow as our flight doesn't leave until 13:10. Today is our last full day of our vacation and it has been very relaxing.  

Day 16 Sunday, August 17th - ... and nobody died

An overcast day and another late wakeup. The plan is for Randy and Philipp to make brunch for the ladies and Adrian and Tina. It is fun to make brunch with Philipp and with Lana's helpful supervision.

The main attraction - blueberry pancakes.

Our brunch lineup: blueberry pancakes, sausages, ham, smoked salmon, cream cheese, bagels, whipping cream, blueberries, bananas, nutella and freshly made orange juice with Sekt. Many hours later everybody was still healthy so that is good. Everything was delicious!!

We drove two cars to Weingut Robert Weil located in Kiedrich. It is our favourite Rheingau Weingut due to the quality and taste of their many wines. It is about a twenty minute drive from the apartment so pretty close. Today is overcast with some blue skies. Another excellent wine tasting. Adrian and myself did the wine tasting from Trocken dry wines to the very sweet Spätlese wine styles. More confirmation of why I love their wines. We purchased four bottles of wine to take back to Vancouver. They export up to 20% of their wines, but not sure if our BC LDB carries their wines.

Weingut Robert Weil

Vineyards surrounding Weingut Robert Weil.

Walkway to the wine tasting room at Weingut Robert Weil. Wine vines surround the entrance and you can see the grapes.

We returned to the apartment and had a good chat. Later we walked to an Italian restaurant located on the fringes of the park. This is Philipp and Manu's favourite Italian restaurant and it did not disappoint. Everybody enjoyed their meals and Adrian and Tina had to leave around 19:30 to get their rental car back to the airport and then fly to London.

We walked back to the apartment with Philipp and Manu. Our last walk which we have now done a number of times. Beautiful night as it wasn't raining and you could see some blue sky. Lana remembered a box of macarons we purchased at Ladurée in Paris so this was our dessert we shared with our friends. Said our goodbyes to Philipp and Manu as they left to go back to Manu's apartment. Before he left Philipp organized a taxi to pick us up in front of the apartment to take us to the Frankfurt airport for Euro40. Pretty good deal as we will now have three suitcases and they will be heavy with the wine bottles.

Day 15 Saturday August 16th - Exploring the Rheingau

It was a slow start to the day. All three couples had late nights. Tina and Adrian came  over in the later morning and then Philipp and Manu joined us. We planned to drive to Rüdesheim for their annual Rüdesheimer Weinfest. Yes, another Riesling wine festival although on a much smaller scale. The village of Rüdesheim is in the western part of the Rheingau wine area as you can see from the map below.

Map of the Rheingau wine area

First thing though is to get to a grocery store to buy supplies for brunch tomorrow and to find German products we can't get in Vancouver. The German grocery store has the same general smells as any North American grocery outlet. Check out the parking spot reserved for mothers with babies. I don't think we have this in BC?

Randy's list of Rheingau Weinguts:

At Wiesbaden's Rheingau Weinfest:

Schloss Johannisberg

Schloss Rheinhartshausen

Franz Künstler

Schloss Vollrads

At Rüdesheimer Weinfest:

Weingut Josef Leitz

Weingut Georg Breuer

Not at the Weinfests:

Weingut Robert Weil in Kiedrich (get to on Sunday)

Weingut Eva Fricke in Kiedrich(only open Saturday and almost sold out)

Weingut Königin Victoriaberg in Hochheim (not able to reach)

About a 30 minute drive to Rüdesheim, but very difficult to find parking as this village is pretty busy with their Weinfest and the many other tourists and tourist buses. Adrian and Tina have their car as well so we need to find parking for two cars. It is an overcast day with some temporary rays of sunshine. Not that easy to locate the Weinfest area, but we figure it out.

We are all hungry as it is now the early afternoon. There are ten Weinguts at this smaller Weinfest, but I am interested in the two highly recommended Weinguts listed above. Same as the other Weinfest in that you need a glass for Euro2 deposit then you can purchase pours and/or a bottle of the wine you want/like. Very informal and much smaller scale than the dramatically larger Rheingau Weinfest in Wiesbaden.

Käsespätzle (Cheese noodles that are a German Swabian dish). These were slightly different with the addition of crispy onion pieces sprinkled on top.  Definitely a great flavour enhancement.

A local dish Schlemmerzunge (more cheesy goodness that is very flat like a pizza and very comforting)

Roasted pork butt, roasted onion, bread and a pickle. Very filling and the meat was tender and juicy with a crispy skin. 

Rüdesheimer Weinfest stage

From the left: Tina, Adrian, Lana, Manu & Philipp. Everyone enjoyed the food and wine tastings. We purchased some wine bottles at Weingut Josef Leitz. Tina was talking with the people at Weingut Georg Breuer's booth and their Weingut was two blocks away and open for business. We decide to get to their Weingut for more wine tasting/purchasing. My backpack from the three bottles is very heavy.   ;-)

The three of us are involved in the wine tasting at Weingut Georg Breuer. Like most German Weinguts very unpretentious and free tastings. The pours are extremely generous and the staff very knowledgeable. There is no pressure to purchase. They are so proud of their wines that are from their own vineyards. In this case Robin was from Belgium, but had lived in Georgia, USA so had an American accent when speaking English. At the Weingut the wine is much cheaper to purchase and 95% of their wine is available to taste and purchase. The three of us spent a long time tasting and then decisions to purchase. Some of the bottles we tasted were as old as 2008. It was such an excellent experience. Lana and I purchased two more bottles. We are now down to only four "slots" available for wine purchasing.

Decision to stop along the way back to Wiesbaden for dessert. We find Schloss Johannisberg open and they are located on the top of a gently sloped hill for an incredible view while we enjoy our desserts.

View from the Schloss (Castle) looking towards the Rhine river and valley.

 Another view

You might think Germans only do Apple Strudel. They have an array of delicious desserts although they don't use the same amount of processed sugar we use in North America for our desserts and they are delicious!

Raspberry tart with pistachio ice cream

Plum tart

Apricot cheesecake (a lighter version of our North American cheesecake)

Blueberry not cheesecake (same as above) 

We are back to the apartment with our five new bottles of Riesling around 6 ish. We need to get to the Weinfest to meet our friends from Heidelberg, Wolfgang and Adri. The news prior to us arriving in Europe was that Adri was expecting their first child. We had bought some baby gifts. Adri showing off one of their gifts. We didn't know the gender of their baby so Lana selected neutral colours but they did find out they are having a girl!! It just happened that this is Adri's favourite colour and their first baby gifts.

Alexander Knapp, myself and Philipp. A couple of years ago I went to a Bundesliga match in Mainz with Alexander, his wife and his mother-in-law. Alexander is a good friend of Philipp and now lives east of Mainz.

Our friend Markus from Frankfurt. 

Fortunately, when we arrived Wolfgang and Adri had a table and their friend Hector was there as well. Hector is from Spain, but lived in various parts of Europe. Currently, he is living in Frankfurt. He speaks English, German, Spanish, Italian, French and a couple of other languages. Usually difficult to find tables to sit at. Philipp, Manu, Adrian and Tina join up later so we have quite a crowd.

While it wasn't cold there were threatening dark clouds. There was a heavy cloudburst and some of us got soaked by the rain or rain washing off the top of the awnings. Oh well, it was like being in Vancouver. More Riesling being drank, but mostly we were drinking Trocken and Feinherb/Halbtrocken style wines. Basically dry and semi-dry Riesling wines. We had food at the Weinfest to help soak up the wine drinking--bratwurst, spundekäse (a cream cheese like dip for pretzels), homemade potato chips, spiesbraten. We left to walk home around 12:30 am and it wasn't raining. The great thing is despite the wine drinking nobody gets stupid, violent or aggressive just lots of socializing with friends and meeting new people at your table. 

Day 14 Friday August 15th - Spa Day and ...

Late start to the morning as we both slept in--it's Friday. Lana loves going to spas so we walked to Kaiser-Friedrich-Therme (Spa) located fairly close to the Rheingau Weinfest area. It is raining as we walk (15 minutes) and not very warm. I am wearing my light jacket and it is mid-August.
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LANA:  It is a coed spa and everyone is naked. We came to this spa on our first trip to Wiesbaden 4 years ago so we are pretty familiar with the process, layout and set up :) We sign in and obtain two wristbands with a chip that you use to lock your personal belongings into a locker and pay for any amenities. The spa charges by the amount of time that you spend there. The recommendation is to gradually warm your body temperature via dry or wet sauna, then you immediately cool off either with various cold showers, cold pools, an ice shower (warm water with small chunks of ice that melt on your skin on contact) or the ultimate, a cold dunking tub. They have towels for rent, but the locals bring their own, along with flip-flops and bathrobes.

In between the various hot and cold treatments are lounge areas where you just sit and relax and many patron are reading the paper. How civilized!! Within each treatment area there is a clock while the saunas have a small sand-glass timer that you turn upside down when you enter so you can track the time you've spent. The sauna's even have small cubby holes just outside the door for people who wear glasses to store them before they go in. The wet sauna has a bucket of hot stones that get heated, then canter-levered over to a small cauldron of water where they are lowered twice to create steam.  Once completed, the stones go back to other side where they get heated once more.

We do at least 3 cycles of hot hot hot, then cold cold cold.  It's refreshing and good for your constitution.  When we say everyone is naked, we mean EVERYONE is naked.  And quite casual about it all--some people wrap themselves in towel, others generally hold their towel in front of them and some just let it all hang out.  Except of course the staff--who are fully clothed.  This must seem odd to be wearing clothes while everyone else around you is naked. Even the change room is unisex--only the shower rooms/bathrooms are separate.

The Therme has spa treatments that you can book as well--massages, facials, etc. etc. I opt for a 20 minute facial massage as a bonus. If we lived here, Lana would like be coming here once a week!! Randy loves the cold dunking tub. I love the cold water pool where you can gradually immerse yourself.
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After the fantastic time in the spa, it is now close to 14:00 so we head to the Weinfest for some lunch. There is hardly anyone around, so it must have been raining heavily before we arrived as it was not raining now. Very strange to see so few people, but that is the weather and it is the mid-afternoon. No lineups for the food though!

Most of our lunch was Spiesbraten. This is yummy roasted pork cooked to tenderness with sautéed onion. Came with German potato salad and cabbage salad. Lana loves the roasted pork because they do it so well. More comfort food! Pairs well with a Rheingau Trocken (dry) Riesling wine that we bought at Weingut Künstler.

This is a German goodie Lana found at the Weinfest. Name is Poffertje. They are like mini-pancakes. Puffy on the outside and soft inside with chocolate sauce and icing sugar.

Germans love their käse (cheese) and they have many pastry and other goodies that incorporate käse. The name of this goodie is Käsegeback. Crunchy outside and softness inside with a good blast of cheesy goodness. We would call these cheese sticks. They pair well with Riesling.

This is a picture I took while sitting at our table having lunch. You can see the administrative building and the Cathedral in the background. The Weinfest is situated around these buildings that dominate the skyscape. Umbrellas are needed for certain with all the rain and when hot the sun.

After our lunch and purchase of a bottle of Kabinett Trocken Riesling at Weingut Künstler, we navigated around the Weinfest and side streets. We walked back to the apartment and discovered Philipp's fantastically fast wifi/internet was down. My Mac and Lana's iPad were not working and neither were our iPhones. It is a tragedy!   ;-)

The wifi/internet is down for many hours. Philipp returns from his business trip to Berlin and he can't get anything to work on the O2 network. His girlfriend Manu returns from her business trip to Munich and around 8ish we are walking to a Japanese restaurant Mosch Mosch. Kinda weird having Japanese food in a German city, but it is a favourite of our friends and the food is pretty decent. 

BBQ pork steam buns. 

Pork Ramen with kimchi.

Our friends Tina and Adrian are in town for the weekend (from London) so we meet up at the Weinfest. No longer raining, although fairly chilly in the late night air. We find a spot on the grassy lawn protected by a short fence. We are away from the milling crowd and bumping and jostling. Each couple takes turns buying a bottle of Riesling and we enjoy the conversations and meeting some of Philipp's friends. The wine is excellent and properly chilled. We leave around 12:30 am so it is a late night. No more rain. 

Day 13 Thursday August 14th - Rain rain go away

This is Philipp's apartment building on Richard Wagner Strauss. We are staying on Floor 1. Floor 1 in Europe is actually what we North Americans would call the second floor. What we title the first floor they will call the main floor so the second floor is their Floor 1--make sense? The building is beautiful and very modern. The entire neighbourhood is upscale and on a hill overlooking the city.

Lana's guilty German pleasure:

While Paris is dotted with great Boulangeries and cake shops, I (Lana) have to admit that Germany's Bäckerei's serve up bread that is just as delicious including a pretzel croissant that is a cross between the two that is not to be missed. When I'm working at Walldorf for SAP I stay in Heidelberg and catch the train to the office. The main reason for this is that I really shouldn't drive while here in SAP but secondly, there is a great Bäckerei at the Main Train station called Le Crobag. This shop is a chain that you'll find across Germany and I think it makes make than decent pastries. One in particular is my guilty pleasure--the Wurst Croissant. Wurst = sausage like hot dog + Croissant. A German version of "pig in a blanket" where the sausage is encased in croissant pastry and baked to crispy, flakiness. I don't even want to think of the calories consumed in this treat so I usually only have 1-2 when I'm here. But it's the best guilty pleasure and I highly recommend having one if you find yourself in Germany and you come across a Le Crobag :)

Lana's guilty German pleasure

Great sleeps last night as we actually have curtains and a king size bed. The weather is cloudy with the occasional blue sky that peeks through. Lana tries to have a shower, but there is no hot water! We try looking for a hot water heater, but no luck. It must be a communal hot water heater shared by the building owners. We then see a couple of trucks parked in front of our building and working guys carrying tools and buckets into the apartment. Of course, the printing on their trucks is in German, but Lana deciphers it is a plumber. A man is carrying a large caulking gun.

This is where the infamous Murphy's Law comes into action. Lana decides to heat up some water and then use this hot water to wash her hair in the bathroom sink given we don't know when we'll actually have hot water back. About 11:30 the first truck disappears and I test the hot water and it is working. This is just as Lana has finished washing her hair.    ;-)

We head out after 12:30 to the wine festival as our destination for lunch. On the way, we arrive in front of the self-proclaimed largest cuckoo clock in the world and it is 1 pm. A crowd has gathered so we stop and listen to the 1 pm cuckoos. You can see the red door and they both open separately. ;-)

Lana is on a mission for Flammkuchen. She has her favourite place at the wine festival and for Euro12 you get this. It is like a German Alsacitian style pizza, but not really a pizza. Thin crust, creme fraiche and toppings like cheese, proscuitto ham and arugula. Delicious as always!

Next up is of course Bratwurst sausage that is about 12" and in a small bun. Yes, you can't replicate bratwurst in other countries. They are best in Deutschland. Plus, you get to use German mustard (senf) which I personally think is superior.

Next shopping mission for Lana is to find a Deutschland National Football (Fussball) jersey. They don't have any Damen (Woman) jerseys until November. We try Sports Arena first and then find a small sporting good store along the walking mall. It is Euro20 cheaper and she gets the XL children's size jersey that fits perfectly. Plus, it already has the four stars from winning the World Cup four times.

I could say we are high above the Altstadt (old town) of Wiesbaden looking down, but that would be a lie. This is a small scale model located in the heart of downtown that is pretty decent and it even has braille name plates for the streets/buildings.

This is a Russian four man brass band from Saint Petersburg. They played all the popular Classical music songs perfectly. We stayed for quite a while and listened and then dropped some change into their collection. I speculate they are professionally trained musicians.

Lana does some shopping and looking. The entire day is overcast, then some sun or more likely light and then heavy rains. A Jekyll and Hyde weather day, but mostly wet and then cold when no sun. Too bad as it must be impacting the wine festival drinking and eating sales. While we were sitting at the wine festival eating our bratwurst and older German man with his arms behind his back walks past us and lets go a huge fart. He never flinched and we both broke out laughing.

Lana is eager to buy one of her favourite wine festival pleasures and that is their German-style potato chips. They come with a sour cream dip for Euro4. They are delicious and salty and crispy.

Making the potato chip from the actual potato.

Potato chips placed in bowl with salt. 

We enjoy a glass of Sekt = sparkling wine (Euro3.50) while watching a live band sing classic old english language songs from the 70s and some newer tunes. Of course the live music played continuously during the day is free (frei). We are sitting at a picnic table covered in cloth and under cover so all is good. On our way walking back home the rain is coming down hard. Before we get back to the apartment the sun is shining and it is warming up again.
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Philipp's apartment has a lot of light switches and switches that work the blinds. It takes us at least five minutes to figure out which operates which at night before we go to bed. Funny!   :-)

When you enter the apartment front door after dark all the lights in the entrance and stairwell are activated automatically.

Walk back to downtown area for another German dinner. It is sunny and a little windy in the high teens (Celsius). We decide to get walking directions to a restaurant we ate at last year with our friends; Bäckerbrunnen. Another authentic German cuisine place although it is hidden in the Altstadt (old town) part of downtown which is why we need walking directions. Food was decent, but not outstanding. Service was dramatically better though.

One page of the menu for Bäckerbrunnen. 

Bitburger biere (beer) and one of Lana's favourite water Gerolsteiner.

Lana's Käsespätzle mit Salatgarnitur. Basically German cheese noodles.

Schweizer Wurstsalat mit Bratkartofflen. Wurst sausage with German potatoes fried in bacon fat.

We walked the short distance to the Weinfest and it was now packed with people around 20:30. Some police officers walking around. We stopped at Weingut Rheinhartshausen kiosk. We ordered a glass of their Auslese Riesling wine. This Weingut is one of our favourites. The Auslese wine is a sweeter wine made with some of their very best grapes so perfect for an after dinner drink. It was Euro5 for a pour. We walked over to the free music stand and listened to another band play english cover tunes. Hard to find a place to stand where there was a number of people trying to get by. 

Around 21:00 we decide to walk back to the apartment. The night is cloudless, but it is on the chilly side. I am wearing my light jacket. Unseasonably cold here today. Good to go for a good walk after eating and drinking. Another enjoyable easy day.