Our days in Berlin came to an end on the night of July 31st. We got up at 3 AM so we could get in line at the border with our rental car, to drive out through the southern corridor to Nürnberg. August 1st saw the start of so many vacations in Germany that the border crossing was literally packed. Instead of keeping the car running and wasting gas and choking with the fumes, everyone turned off their engines and we all rolled our cars to the crossing. It took us about an hour or so and then we were on our way. For those behind us in line, the wait was up to 5 hours.
We stopped at an East German, State run restaurant on the Autobahn. When asked if we were paying in East or West Marks, Hubby replied East. We wanted the girls to see what the State run restaurants were like. Soon our breakfasts arrived. The girls had ordered an American type breakfast of scrambled eggs, which arrived swimming in grease. They both took one look at the eggs and decided that the rolls and jam looked much better.
We arrived in Nürnberg in the late morning and walked all around the walled city.
Eventually we stopped for some of the famous Nürnberg Bratwurst for lunch. I shopped and bought some Nürnberg Lebkuchen to take with us, and to bring as a gift for my friend Lucie.
Nürnberg is a wonderful city with large fountains
and great downtown foot mall with a lot to do. I wish we’d been able to spend more time there, but we had so much to do in the last few days we had with Amanda and Jess in Germany.
We hopped in the car and headed south, to Starnberg where our friends live. Some of you will recall me speaking about meeting the first Shubi at Otto and Lucie’s home a couple of months before. It was wonderful to go back and to see my little friend again.
The next day we celebrated by having a barbecue down on the shores of the Starnberger See. Our friends have a small lake house there and we really enjoyed the warmth, the sunshine and the good food.
Lucie and Otto were so pleased to see Jess, as they hadn’t seen her since she was about 2 years old.
Unfortunately we didn’t have too much time to spend there before we left on the rest of our journey.
Next up, a look at two of King Ludwig’s Castles.