July 5, 2009

This morning our first stop was Baden-Baden, the site of several famous baths and a casino. We toured the casino and spent a couple of hours wandering around the city. Baden-Baden is a beautiful little town with many attractive buildings. We took a peek into the grounds of one of the baths or spas and were quite envious of the people getting their treatments.

Our next stop was Strasbourg over the border in France. The highlight was, yet again, another cathedral. The cathedral in Strasbourg is absolutely spectacular, especially from the outside. It has literally hundreds of various figures carved into the walls, and the interior is also very impressive, although we thought the stained glass windows in Speyer were more attractive. We splurged a bit and had various cheesecakes at a bakery.

We then took a more scenic drive off of the autobahn to Freiburg and then to a little town in the Black Forest called Kirchzarten, where we checked into our first hotel during our time in Europe. We are using credit card points for most of our hotels, which is really saving us a lot of money. In many cases we need to book two rooms because most hotels in Europe only have double or triple rooms. We had a typical German meal and then had some ice cream before retiring for the evening.

The weather has been quite warm while in Germany, and often fairly humid. I would say the average high temperature has been around 30 degrees Celsius. A few clouds roll in and we might have a sprinkle or two, and then we are back to sunshine again. It sometimes feels warmer here than in Ethiopia, due to Ethiopia’s high elevation and dry climate. Oh well, we can’t complain at all. We are having a great time, although we need to be a little more deliberate in planning kid-friendly activities a bit more. The cathedrals and castles are getting to be a bit much for Isaac, although Richard can’t seem to get enough of them!