Frankfurt

Most of my time in the city of Frankfurt was spent at the Christmas market, so I don't have much more to show here, but Frankfurt is a fun and easy city to walk around with a great tram train system. I arrived in Frankfurt late on a rainy evening, as I ran out of the station trying to get to my hotel I was excited to see how nice it looked.  The next morning I work up and went back to the area round the station only to notice that it was just a photo of the original station.  I did not realize it was under covers when I first saw it the evening before.

 Outside the European Central Bank in Frankfurt is a large Euro sign.  I don't think we should let this stand without some sort of US response.  At a minimum we need a large dollar sign, maybe a little taller than this Euro sign, somewhere near Wall Street.  Or even a copy of the Euro sign with a red circle and line through it, we can get creative.

 These ghost were painted on the street outside of a church.

 This plaza is near the Christmas Market, Frankfurt is really easy to walk around.  Even if you think you are loss but  decide to just keep walking, the way the streets are laid out, you end up walking in circles and eventually back where you started.  And you will probably pass this spot 2 or 3 times.

 This is the Frankfurt skyline.  It's the financial center of Europe.

 If you are ever in Europe, Germany or Frankfurt and hungry for Mexican food, you can always visit the new Chipotle near Frankfurt main station inside the Skyline Plaza Mall.  I think if you had a 5 hour layover at Frankfurt airport that would be sufficient time to exit the airport, take a train and get to Chipotle with time to get back to your plane.

 Frankfurt has a great mass transit system, many tram lines.

 This part runs along River Main.

 I thought this large blue sign was a sign for Frankfurt station, but it's actually an advertisement for newspaper company.

Stuttgart

Stuttgart is often referred to the 'Detroit' of Germany, it is home to Mercedes-Benz and Porsche.  I arrived by train at Stuttgart main station from Karlsruhe, the trip was about 50 minutes long.

 Stuttgart station has lockers for suitcase storage and a few shops.  I stopped at this one and had some American style coffee.  Coming from Italy, coffee in Germany seems a little watered down.

 This is the Schlossplatz, one of the main plaza's in Stuttgart and the base of a part that leads to the Mercedes-Benz Museum.

 On a map the distance from Schlossplatz to the Mercedes-Benz Museum does not seem very far, but in reality it's between 3 to 5 km.  But most of the walk is through a really nice, well kept part.  The park even has a massive chess board.

 Sings to help find your way around the city.

 Near the museum is the Mercedes-Benz and Porsche stadiums.  These are used for soccer.

 This crazy building is the Mercedes-Benz museum!!! Found it.  Germany has many car museums, BMW, Porsche and a few others...  If you don't have time to visit all of them I would recommend this one, it's not just a car museum but also walks through world history as seen by Benz.

 Old school Benz.

 Limited edition Benz.

 Super limited edition, one of only a few pope-mobile's that have been made.

 Getting ready to depart, most of the train stations I visited had christmas decorations.

Karlsruhe

I learned from my grandfather that my family came from Karlsruhe before moving around all over Europe and ending up in the upper mid-west of the US.  I visited Karlsruhe for about 36 hours and I hope to visit again, it's a cool city.   First things first, all over the city is art.  I'm not sure what these panels said, but I'm assuming it's art.

 In the center of Karlsruhe is the palace which contains a museum that has absolutely nothing in English.

 Behind the palace is a large garden and forest, this part of the forest is gated off.

 But if you look around a little bit you can find an entrance to the forest and this forest needs a little cleaning up.

 As you exit the palace and head south into the city you enter a large pedestrian area.  There are a couple of US shops and looking in the window you get the idea that US is basically people dressed as Army and playing pool.

 This is the pedestrian area, it's easy to walk around.

 In the southern side of this area is a restaurant called Stovchen, it's kind of local food and beers.

 Very chill atmosphere and good food, I would recommend a visit.

 Another very interesting area to visit is the media museum called ZKM.de .   You are not allowed to take photos inside but this sculpture is outside so I think it's okay.

 This is one of the main plazas, outside the area where Karl Wilhelm von Baden memorial is.

 I was only here for 36 hours, it's really not enough time to visit.

 This is Karlsruhe main station.   It's really nice and it turns out it's not far from the boarder of France.  It's a great starting point for a visit to Paris.

This city feels like home!

Christmas Markets

This past week I took holiday and made a large loop through central Europe and visited Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, Frankfort and Prague, and before I post more about the trip I want to show some Christmas Markets.  Often when you talk about traveling to Germany during this time of year, people say you need visit Munich or Berlin to see the best Christmas market.  But after hitting a few cities at random I don't think it really matters where you go, every market seems awesome.  The first market I visited was in Karlsruhe.

 This is also where I tried Gluhwein or warmed mulled wine in Germany.  It's a popular way to keep warm.  Wine cost about 3 euros for 2cL, but you need to pass 3.50 or 4 euros when you get your cup of wine.  When you finish the wine, you return the cup and get the difference back.

 Karlsruhe also had what I thought was a large copy of those Christmas windmills that is powered by candles... I thought this was large... [update: it turns out I did not take a photo but Stuttgart had a monster one of these things]

 The markets had stands selling all sorts of stuff.

 Karlsruhe also had nice live music during the market.  Someone dressed like an angel came to the edge of the stage during this show and started to hand out bread to kids, the bread was shaped like an owl with raisin eyes.  I managed to get a piece of owl bread after all the kids got some, it was not really great taste but still nice they were passing it out.  I'm assuming there is a story behind why the angel was passing out bread.

The Stuttgart Christmas Market had four blades in the form of ice skates hung from the top of the entrance.  I had to look twice to make sure it was safe to pass under here.

 This is a very large market, the front of the market is at Schlossplatz near the castle and other historic buildings.

 This is the courtyard of the castle.

 The Gluhwine in Karlsruhe was great, it was from a local vineyard.  Stuttgart also had great wine, I meet met a couple of friends from Italy at this market.

 This guy was filling cups of wine for people, he was offering to help us out with that task.

 The largest market I visited was in Frankfurt, I'm guessing they have 100's of shops many sell little buildings.

 Some offer 1000's of Santa's.

 This is the main square of the Frankfurt Christmas Market, the center of the square is one of the original Gerechtigkeitsbrunnen statues or lady justice statue.  But finding the statue is difficult with all these people around.

 This market also has a double decker merry-go-round.

 Crazy hat.

 Got to keep warm, oh wait, here is some Gluhwein.

 Every market has great food stalls, this one serves all sorts of sausage.

This is the tree off to one of the sides of Frankfurt main square.

 One of the beer stands, this guy was keep busy by the crowd of people.

 You can see the crowd below, this was one of the main sidewalks going through the market and on both ends of this sidewalk was trams.  So when a tram had to pass everyone had to stop walking.

 Prague also had a Christmas market, but it did not really compare with Germany.

 But it was still a nice market.

 At the market in Karlsruhe I was enjoying Gluhwein talking to a few old guys who happen to know English.  Tourist are not so normal in Karlsruhe, so they asked me why I was there.  I explained that my grandfather told me that his family was from this city so I thought I would stop by and see if I could find any relatives.  Once they confirmed that they were not of the same last named, they follow up with 'what was their address?'  I thought to myself, 'Shoot!  That is a good question.'