June 2nd, 2017 – Strasbourg, France & Worms, Germany
Hello there everyone! Today is Trent and Carolyn’s last day in Europe. Tomorrow they will be flying home. We’ve had a great time, but we can tell they are a little anxious to get back home – if for no other reason than to get to sleep in their own bed and hug their kids. For now, that will have to wait, because today we are heading to France. We will make a quick detour to the small town of Worms, where Trent and I both lived in 1969 & 1970. That was 47 years ago, and the town of Worms is not so little anymore. Trent was only 5 years old when we lived here and I was 14 so our memories are a little sketchy, but we wanted to come back and see where we used to live.
The drive to Worms from where we are staying near Darmstadt is about 45 minutes – mainly because of morning traffic and the fact that they seem to be working on so many of the roads around here. The drive into Worms is as impressive as I remember it. You have to cross over the Rhine River on a bridge and pass through the impressive stone towers that once protected the small town of Worms. The bridge looks much bigger and newer than I remember, but the stone tower is still the same. We decide to head over to the St. Peter’s Dome and Cathedral so we can learn about Martin Luther and the famous Diet of Worms. The Cathedral is now surrounded by buildings and shops. My memories of it are that it was very visible from the town center & Rathaus, but now the cathedral is largely obscured by other buildings. all you can see are the spires soaring above the buildings. We see the Trinity Church that stands on the sight were it is believed that Luther posted the tenants of his Diet – (a Diet was a tribunal and not a weight loss program). Martin Luther came to Worms to express his beliefs about the need for reformation of the church in the 1500 because Worms was a Free Imperial City, meaning that it reported to and was to some extend governed directly by the Holy Roman Empire.
Martin Luther believed that the religious hierarchy of the time had become corrupt and more concerned about raising funds and controlling the peoples relationship with God. Luther espoused the belief that man could have a personal relationship with God and man should be able to have, read and interpret the Bible directly, rather than having it spoon fed to them by the church. After convening the Diet to discuss his beliefs, Martin Luther was declared to be a heretic and Church Elders wanted him taken into custody. However, Luther’s ideas struck a chord with the people of Worms and with other noblemen of the time. One of whom actually came to Luther’s rescue and gave him refuge in his castle. Although Luther only spent 10 days in Worms, his teachings took root and set in motion a Protestant Reformation of the Church. All of that happen right here in Worms.
While we are walking the streets, Elisa happened upon a dress shop and decided to look for a dress for Krista’s upcoming wedding. Now mind you, she has already purchase a dress for the wedding, but now she is having second thoughts about it. So what better thing to do than to shop for a dress while we are on a quick side trip to Worms. Guess what, she finds one she likes – at least for now – so she decides to buy it from a little shop where we will never be able return it if she should change her mind. In any event – she is happy – so I am happy.
After the dress purchase, we get back into the car for our 2 hour drive to Strasbourg, France. We have chosen to come to this particular city in France because both Trent and I remember coming here with our parents when we lived in Germany all those years ago. We remember how quaint and lovely the old city was. It has some of the best restored and preserved gothic architecture in Europe. In particularly, what we remember is having lunch at the Maison Kammerzell, or as the German’s call it – Kammerzell Haus. This restaurant is located in a building that was first build in 1427 as a Civil building. It was renovated in the 1460’s and again in the 1500’s, but it is largely unchanged since then. The building has been occupied by a hotel and restaurant since the 1600’s. When we came here in the 1960’s It was arranged a bit differently. The building is a 5 story structure, and what we remember is that the first floor had a large bar and informal seating and dining along with outdoor dining. The next three levels of the restaurant were dedicated to fine dining with the menu and quality of the food and service increasing the higher one went in the restaurant. The kitchen would occupy the 5th and top floor with prepared meals being delivered by a food elevator system. Today it is a bit different. the large bar on the first level is no longer there. It is a more informal dining room and the outdoor seating remains. The menu is the same regardless of where one sits. The next 3 floors are more finely appointed dining stations with a bit more service staff, but there aren’t any difference between the three upper floors and the menu is the same for all parts of the restaurant. The restaurant has occupied a prominent place on the Cathedral square. In fact, the building that the restaurant sits in was there before construction of the current cathedral was completed. Today, there are streets with trendy shops that now lead into the square where the Cathedral and the restaurant now sit. It is really breathtaking when you come around the corner and are confronted with both the cathedral and the Maison Kammerzell building.
We enter the restaurant for lunch and we will be dining one level above the street entrance. Our waiter directs us to our roomy corner table that has a great view, albeit through wavy glass that is original to the renovation in the 1600s. We are having a late lunch so we are all a bit hungry.
For Starters we each place an order. Elisa opts for the smoked salmon with a cheese garnish. The salmon is and excellently prepared and served with a delicious cheese sauce and caper berries. Carolyn, has the cold soup of watermelon and melon. She is really thrilled with and finds it refreshing on this warm day. Trent has the Onion Pie – which is like a quiche – Carolyn takes a taste and describes it as follows, “if you could take a serving of classic French onion soup and put it into a quiche, this is what you would get. We all try it and it is very special. I have the snails in classic butter, garlic and herbs. They too are wonderful.
For our main course: Carolyn has the beef filet served with gratin potatoes, a vegetable soufflé and hollandaise sauce with her steak that has been perfectly grilled. Elisa has the beef tenderloin. It too is perfectly cooked and seasoned, but she wishes she had some of the hollandaise sauce to go with it – so Carolyn shares. Both Trent and I have the lamb chops that are served with a array of vegetables, a wonderful brown sauce, and a crostini that is covered with an olive tapenade that to our surprise complements the lamb quite nicely. We also split a bottle of French Medoc that is wonderful.
For desert: Carolyn has a pistachio mousse with red plum ice cream and merengue, I have a chestnut ice cream with blueberries, whipped cream and merengue cookies. Trent has a trio of sorbet (lemon, red plum and peach) they are then drenched with brandy. Once again his favorite is the lemon. Both Carolyn and I love our deserts. The meal was as good as we remember from 47 years ago and we are happy we came.
After our late lunch we are walking the town and making a few small purchases here and there. Carolyn is thinking that she might need another piece of luggage to carry home some of the treasures she has acquired along the way. However, Elisa suggest that Carolyn use her suitcase to carry home her items and Elisa will purchase a new one. One of the wheels on Elisa’s suitcase is getting a little wobbly and she would prefer a 4-wheeled roller. I’m ok with the idea, but I’m guessing that in this part of town we will have difficulty finding a luggage store. On top of that she has her eye on a Samsonite model similar to the Moby suitcase Carolyn has. I’ve spent a lot of time in France for work and my recollection is that they somewhat eschew American brands and prefer to focus on or only carry French brands such as Delsy. So I tell her we probably won’t get her a Samsonite. We look in a lot of stores and don’t see any luggage. I suggest we give up when the only store we can find that carries any sort of luggage is a Louis Vuitton store, and I’m not interested in spending that kind of money. It’s now coming up on about 5:30pm and we have a 2+ hour drive back so we decide to give up on the suitcase. Since Carolyn and Trent are flying tomorrow and we will be here for another 3 days, Elisa tells her to go ahead and take her suitcase as an extra. Carolyn says no – worried that we will be busy and not find one, or that the search for a suitcase will get in the way of our remaining days of vacation. We turn the corner to head back where our car is parked and walk smack into a luggage store. We have had that kind of luck on this trip. If you’ve read my very first post you may recall that Trent almost didn’t make the trip because of a ticketing snafu that resulted when he arranged is ticket using a shortened name than appears on his passport. The night before we left he was on the phone with a customer service agent named Minerva – who miraculously got things squared away. We deemed at that point that Minerva, the goddess of hope has blessed us on our entire trip. We weather has been great, whenever rain has been in the forecast, we have dodged it, whenever we were searching for a parking space we find one at the last second. Now, Minerva has struck once again, for not only did we stumble into a luggage store in France, this one carries Samsonite and they are having a sale. To our surprise, the price of the suitcase is very comparable to home. The other thing that Minerva has blessed us with is that the store is very close to where we parked our car.
With our Strasbourg mission now complete, we are on the road to head back to our temporary home. Trent takes a turn at driving and when we are about 45 minutes out of time, he declares that he is in need of a bathroom break. We drive along and do not see any signs for upcoming service stations. By now, Trent has been talking about needing to go to the restroom so much, that now we all feel the need. Even though we have enough gas to make the trip home, we are now in search of a gas station. After another 10 minutes of driving on the autobahn without seeing signs for service, we decide to exit the autobahn at a small town, thinking we will definitely find a gas station near the autobahn. Guess what, no gas station. We now pull over and query our navigation and find a service station located a couple of miles away. We finally find it but not without making a couple of wrong turns along the way. We are all roaming around the service station – inside and outside – looking for the much needed restroom. I finally go inside and ask the owner, a nicely dressed German woman if she has a restroom here. She replies with a very disappointing, “Nein”. With our luck we happen to find the only service station that doesn’t have a restroom. The disappointment on our faces must have been obvious because she points us toward a large supermarket a little down the street. We head on over there thinking at last. We pull up to this very nice and modern grocery store, probably the largest and best stocked one we have seen since we started our trip over 3 weeks ago. Here we are roaming around this store, wishing we hadn’t purchased groceries at the store in town, since this one is so much better stocked. We then remember, we are on a mission to find a restroom. I ask a stock clerk and he, tells me in German that it is outside near the Getrenken Automat – this is the automated machine for redeeming empty drink bottles. We find the restroom – finally – but it is locked. Elisa asks the checkout clerk and she tells us it is closed for repair. By now, we are all getting a little desperate. So I google McDonald’s since we’ve seen a number of them here in Germany. We are in luck – there is one only 3 miles away. We rush over there and we are all pleased to find well equipped and clean restrooms. Now that we are all relieved, we feel obligated to order something. Not that any of us is hungry after our gourmet French meal, but a “cheeseburger chaser” is the capper for our French dining experience.
I drive us the rest of the way back into Darmstadt and we arrive by 8:20pm. We are all relaxing and there are not thoughts of eating in any or our heads – except for Elisa. She is the only one that did not feel compelled to order something from the McDonald’s that was our oasis in a desert sans restrooms.
Elisa has now emptied her old suitcase, transferring her thing into her new and swanky Samsonite – roller bag. It is not “Moby” sized, thank goodness, but the same size as the one she had. She shouldn’t have any trouble packing all of her things. Trent and Carolyn now have plenty of room to take their goodies home with them. As they pack and take their showers, Elisa and I realize that we will miss them as we spend the next 3 days here in Germany on our own. They have been great traveling companions and together we have ventured out and done so much.
Tomorrow we will drop them off at Frankfurt airport – one of the largest in the world. It will serve as a dry run for us when we need to travel home. We will have a rental car to return and luggage to handle, so we will scope thing out as we drop them off tomorrow. With that in mind, it dawns on us that our trip too is about to come to an end.
More later on our final days.
Aufwiedersehen!
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