Welcome to the PENTHOUSE!

I have been meaning to get these pictures posted for a while, but I had to finish our Germany trip first, and then school started, but without further adieu...... here are some views of our first structure on our property at Wilderness Park up in Leader MN.  A very important structure at that!  An outhouse rightfully now named the "Penthouse."  Built completely by Paul with a little help from his friends Matt and Jake, oh and I did help with the staining.  Fully functioning, and hoping next summer we will have a little guest cabin built to accompany our "pretty fancy" outhouse in the words of Paul.  Good luck topping this structure!  Good job Paul. 

 

Coburg, Germany

May 30th & 31st

After Bayreuth we headed to Coburg, which is probably half way between Bayreuth and Bamberg.  My parents had just been there and remarked how beautiful the city and castle were.  Paul and I got off the train about 8:00 p.m. it was getting dark, and we had no map of the city.  Our goal was to find a cheap place to stay.  We headed toward the city central, looking for any sign of hotel or someone to ask.  If we didn't find anything we had one hour before the last train left back to Bamberg.  We asked some people on the street and they directed us to a place, but when we asked how much a room was it was beyond our budget.  Continuing further we ran into a couple of Bavarian police officers.  Paul thought to ask them.  All of a sudden they were calling up the station, someone was looking online, got a price, called the place, and then they drove us in their squad car to the hotel.  Was maybe a block and a half, but still, pretty amazing.  Danke to those helpful officers!  So, now we went into the hotel, and she mentioned that she had a smaller room that she could rent us for the night for even less.  We'll take it!!!  This hotel was also a Hofbrauhaus so we were set.  We had a place, we had food, and of course delicious Bavarian BEER!  Catching the last of the asparagus season, we enjoyed a fantastic creamy asparagus soup, and a couple of brats.  Played some cards with crazy German cards.  It was great.  Then to cap our lovely evening we went for a quick stroll and came upon the Ehrnburg Palace only a block away.   Coburg is where the English Royal family is from.  So beautiful and it's so fun to see things at night all lit up. 

Next day we packed up, showered and headed in to see the town.  Got a kaffee and a pastry and we set off to see the castle on top of the hill.  We headed through a large park with some of the biggest trees Paul and I have ever seen.  Not quite Red woods, but many of them were well over 400+ years.   We got our work out in hiking up the hill, steps, steps and more steps.  We made it in through the walls, got to the edge and enjoyed our breakfast.  We paid the fee to see the inside of the castle since we had not been inside any of the other forts and castles we saw.  It was pretty amazing.  Martin Luther spent some time there.  A famous room is the hunting room, which was all wood, and within the wood, wood inlay with scenes, and designs.  It is truly remarkable.  The castle also has one of the largest collections of medieval weapons.  And then some very unique modes of transportation.  Everything was so decorative while still serving a function.  After the castle we enjoyed a beer at the biergarden at the castle overlooking the town, and then headed back down.  We walked around town, and of course were ready for lunch.  We found a pizza place that at that point I was speaking a weird combo of Italian and broken German.  Regardless it worked, and boy that pizza tasted so good....we ordered another just like it.  Well that's the end of our German, or should I say Bavarian tour.  We had a great time and we hope to be back soon!  Thanks to my brother, my parents, Paul's parents who made this trip possible for us. 

Ehrenburg Palace

how do they do that?  It's all wood!

Jagdzimmer 1632

Painting of Martin Luther

Bayreuth, Germany

May 30th, 2011

Leaving Nurnberg we headed to Bayreuth for the day and then took the train back to Bamberg.  During our little mix up with Rothenburg we actually stopped in this town to make our switch of trains to get back on track to Nurnberg.  Before I could tell Paul that this actually may be a great place to spend the day, the train had arrived and there was no time to discuss.  I grabbed a brochure and we decided to see where fate led us.

Bayreuth is known for it's festivals and opera's due to having Richard Wagner as one of their most famous inhabitants.  My music history fails me here, but he was a very important 19th century composer.  The Opera house was closed, but the pictures of the inside are unbelievable.  There were several beautiful palaces within the city center.  One of them with the tera cotta can be scene below.    Paul and I spent some time in the main plaza, had some great local favorites.  We both fell in love with a dark unfiltered keller bier.  You will also see a picture of a big red & white striped pole with different signs on it.  No it's not the North pole, but a May Pole.  These were a way for richer cities to display which trades they had to offer in the main street market.  Bayreuth is also known for it's breweries.  There is a beer tour you can do, but as Paul and I do not like being on tours (even a beer one) we opted to wander on our own pace.  The German brick work is amazing.  It was Monday and many things were unfortunately closed, so we went back to the main street to people watch.  We decided to have lunch at the first  place we stopped, Oscar's.  They had my all time favorite German dish, kaiser spaetzle.  Basically, baked German style pasta with really good cheese (nothing processed here).  Paul ordered my second favorite dish, pork schnitzel.  We asked if the portions were big, and the server says..."normal, not too big."  When the food arrived, Paul's schnitzel was hanging over the already large plate.  I think he was able to finish half.  Ah, German portions.  On our walk back to the train station we made our loop through another palace and a beautiful public garden.  Due to space most Europeans do not own their own house, but have a condo or an apartment within a larger house or building.  I took a picture of a building where you can see that one family replaced the roof, and the other hasn't.  Thought it was funny.  Another thing I love about European cities....PUBLIC ART!  Love it.  Statues, paintings on buildings, fountains, simple gardens for all to enjoy.  An interesting piece was that of a forest with trees that had been cut down.  That one was not permanent, but a temporary display and offered visitors to climb up into the art.   Well, another gorgeous day and now back to Bamberg.