While I often travel alone and enjoy it, traveling with a group can be great too, In October 2014, my Aunt Julie organized a family trip to Germany. Our ancestors came to the U.S. from Germany and she is very passionate about genealogy. This trip was a great opportunity to spend time with family, see where my ancestors are from and tour Germany. The trip included Julie and her husband Al, their son, Tim, my Aunt Sandy and her husband, Tom, my cousin, Deb, and me.
We flew from the U.S. on various flights and met in Frankfurt. After checking into our hotel and resting for a bit, we set out for a walking tour of the city. I was able to find a private guide after reading Rick Steves’ book and consulting Trip Advisor. The guide, Jo from Frankfurt on Foot, gave us a wonderful tour of the city. She spoke great English, went at our pace and was very knowledgeable about the city. She also recommended a great restaurant for dinner.
The evergreen wreaths below are pretty but don’t buy them for a loved one – at least a living loved one. They are grave decorations. The bull is a statue outside of the board of trade.
Frankfurt is known for their green sauce and apple wine. I liked the green sauce on schnitzel (below). I was not a big fan of the apple wine.
After spending a day in Frankfurt, we set out to explore other areas of the country. We split up on day 2 – Al and Julie went off to do some genealogy stuff while the rest of us spent the day in Bamberg. Bamberg is a wonderful city. The city center is a listed UNESCO world heritage site. The most well known building is the Bamberg Altstadt, which is the building/bridge in the first three photos below.
During our exploration of Bamberg, we passed by the bar below several times. Everyone who spilled out seemed to be very happy and having a great time so after walking around the city for a few hours, we decided to check it out. It was worth the stop, other than they were not serving food (we were very hungry by this point in the day). The beer was very refreshing and the atmosphere was fun (sort of cave-like inside).
The two photos below were taken in the area of Bamberg known as “Little Venice.” If you squint and use your imagination, you can almost see Venice, Italy.
We finally found food – a brat from a street vendor! It was really good, even competing with the brats from the Edgewood Locker in my opinion (I think it was the bread that made it so good).
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