Germany takes it up a notch

Germany simply has a stunning countryside. We arrived and did our typical local drives first and then all got sick and stayed home in bed for a couple of days....for a little while we just wanted to be home as once you're sick you sort of want to be home....and the fact that we don't speak German has made me feel a little helpless I suppose. France was cool as I could manage enough French words...but Germany...woo!

But today we were all well again and went to a tourist town where they spoke English.....result....GREAT DAY!!! But these pics are from the last couple of days....

 Above...we had crossed the Rhine....grapes from the river to the horizon....yes really!!...then we stopped off at this town to see some of Germany for the first time. The Autobahns don't offer much in the way of scenery....just thick forest....so this stop off was really worth it ..

 Above....our next home for the next 2 weeks...

 Rabbits ...a couple of pigs and horses to play with....

 This is really typical of our Bavarian countryside....no fences and forest meeting crops.
Click these to enlarge.

 There are also fossils to be found in the local rocks....We are far from the sea but there is marine history here.

 Time to collect some timber with Klaus our host in the forest.

 Klaus and Ella-Rose tending to the horses.

 Noah does some grooming

 Sensational local bridge!

This local Castle is inhabited by relatives of our Queen Elizabeth. She has visited here.

Last days in Belgium

The kids having some fun in the front yard

The structure to the right is the Citadel  in Dinant 15min from home. Huge bloody history dating back to 1000 AD. Only 2 homes were not destroyed here during WW2. Th Citadel houses a war museum with some Commonwealth graves incl 1 Australian.

 Inside part of the museum. We took a guided tour which was excellent.

 1200 French war graves from WW2. Lives lost here at the Citadel.

 Cable car ride down into the township. 

An Australian grave (middle). I checked his details and mission using Google later on for a sobering insight into someone else's short ans sacrificial life. We were surprised at how the visit for us was a moving experience....it was unexpected.

 Stocking up on some brilliant Belgian beers before we moved on to Germany. These are quite "rich" beers ....just like their chocolate. And these beers are around $1 - $1.80 AUS each. Quite cheap....their cheap beers however are more like our tasteless beers like VB etc ...but at 50 cents they're steal.

These are an interesting delicacy too. The Belgians and the French have a way of putting chocolate on just about everything. This is a waffle.

Birthday trip to Brussels and Ghent

Had my birthday yesterday and took a 90 min drive north. Belgium is divided culturally so that the north speaks Dutch while the south speaks French. North of Brussels the road signage changes to Dutch making it difficult to know exactly what they mean. Brussels from our experience was huge .....gridlocked, and busy like any city so we didn't get out of the car. It must have something worth looking at but we didn't find it....it basically added an unwanted 45 min to our trip north to Ghent.

Ghent on the other hand exuded character and charm. It was full of people on bikes as you would expect from a scene from the Netherlands. Crazy traffic though. The bikes ride anywhere....across in front of you etc....and cars try to squeeze past you all the time....but it all happens in slow motion....very different to Paris.   I made a few mistakes...signs were hard to see and understand and at one point I realised I was the only traffic. I had missed a 'no entry' sign (which is essentially a blue arrow) and proceeded into a large town square full of people and continued driving along cobble stones past people sitting at cafe tables ....masses of people around the car making a U-turn difficult so I proceeded for a while....which was a mistake and then turned around. We were the centre of much attention. This is the square below once we had found a park and returned. It is the medieval hub of town rather than the business district and sports all sorts of shops that spill into this enormous square. There was a concert setting up as we strolled through.

So my birthday present was an hours guided boat tour around the canals....this was cheaper than lunch at McDonalds!

The pub behind Jacob's head sports over 100 Belgian beers

These gondolas was brought here (I think from Bangladesh?) for a restaurant. An inventive way to dine!

 This castle is one of the reasons I decided to come to Ghent. The original owner (10th Century) took a trip to Damascus and saw a castle he liked, so this one is said to resemble it. I would never have thought there were castles like this in Damascus? This one has been fully restored but we missed the last tour of the day.....managed to see a little bit of the foyer though....amazing!  

 There were some buildings with murals over looking the canals. Click to enlarge this one....very strange! Not something we would see back home....not on a building anyway!

I had promised myself we would visit a dedicated chocolate shop. You can imagine what it smells like inside. We were too tired to eat them last night so I am looking forward to our chocolate feast tonight. The shop keeper stands with a white gloved hand and you select individual chocolates to purchase....or you pick a box size and ask for an assortment which we did.

And then there were 5 _ Belgium

We are half way through with 3 months left. Next stop Belgium for a fortnight in a chateau. Essentially a family chateau has divided off a small portion of the house to rent out to people like us. Its on a 3 hectare plot, fully landscaped with dense crops of deciduous trees. It has history with WW2, as the Germans took over the Chateau and around 1000 troops camped on and in the property. We were showed a swash sticker scratched into our bedroom window sill by a soldier. Apparently there is more under the wallpaper. This is where the Battle of the Bulge was fought....the last German campaign of WW2.

 Our accomm is the 2 storey annexe on the right hand side

There are goslings, chooks and a baby lamb to feed (bottle) a horse and a dog. Our first week here is up and we have spent most days at home or not too far away just getting over the previous long drive.

This path is on the property....be,ow are a few chateaus that we have found close to home. These are not tourist attractions....people live in them ...the pic immediately below is about 3 km from us in a small town.  Its completely surrounded by flowing water and entry by drawbridge which is not uncommon from what we've seen. It dates from 1289  with cellars from the 9th century and framework of the 17the century. Obviously done some renovations over the years. After a while you realise these buildings are scattered everywhere. In fact there is 1 castle/chateau/25km square in our southern region of Wallonia!

Image above is our nearby bigger town called Dinant. It has a bloody history, both politically and during the wars. There's a citadel on the top of the rocky ridge which has been sieged and rebuilt over the years  which has been fought for on and off for the last 1000 years.The church is pretty spectacular too.

A brief flirt with Paris ....not Hilton!

Mum, Nat and Steph's time was coming to an end so a bit of Paris retail therapy was needed. We drove past Disneyland, which was a bit of an eye opener ....its essentially a suburb of hotels and 2 theme parks...it's enormous. Drove through Paris traffic....a bit like Melb. on steroids, but decided to stay out of the main tourist areas. We stayed 3 days. the shopping was remarkably cheaper than back home and the shopping centres were precincts. Their version of Coles (Carrefour) is so large that shop assistants move around on rollerblades. And the variety of foods is simply amazing.

As for the Eiffel Tower etc....we have left that for another day. Below is a tollway upon entering the outskirts of Paris. We counted nearly 40 lanes on the highway at this point...and that was not including both way traffic.