Christmas and New Year.

We can only say here, it was beautiful, we had both a white Christmas and white New Year. It was family time for us and really special.

Germans celebrate for all three days. 24^th is really just immediate family, starts with going to church and coming back to open presents first, (otherwise Jim would not have eaten) and then a wonderful meal.

25^th was then with Marina, (Nicole’s sister, she was out in SA with her daughter 4 years ago) Wonderful lunch with all the trimmings. 26^th Was with Franks family, wonderful soups and cold buffet and then on to other family for a drink and snacks. We really tried to have a rest from eating before doing the New Year thing.

This year Nicole chose going out to a pub, a lot of the people on the Carnival committee. Although there was music, nobody danced, really missed Karula’s evening. But really otherwise lovely, midnight, celebrated twice, at 11pm here for SA, phoned home had a cry and then did the whole thing again at midnight German time. As we all went outside there amongst all the fireworks (and plenty of it) it started to snow again and there we had our White New Year. During the evening a type of auction was held. You buy in the form of a playing card. A full pack of cards are then shuffled and the first so many are pulled without any prizes, then about a third of the tickets (matching playing cards) are put together with prizes. During the time of the cards being pulled you can buy someone else’s card for a price which is auctioned, sometimes it has a prize attached and sometimes you buy it and it comes up later before the prize ones, (obviously you then have paid for a loosing card) quite loud with lots of laughs. Wolf won a Gazebo (a second prize) the first was a suitcase, he promptly told Jim to see if the guy with the suitcase would like to swop, quite humorous to see Jim go over without any qualms, and two minutes later we owned an aluminium suitcase.

It snowed New Year’s Day and the day after.

This did not stop us moving, all ready with itchy feet to see more. We left on 7^th January, ready for a super month away. Started off in Bamberg, a little town about 90 km from Nuremburg. It boasts a beautifully preserved collection of 17^th and 18^th century buildings, palaces and churches. It is bisected by a large canal and a fast flowing river that are spanned by little bridges and it has its own local style of beer. A beer called Rauchbier, which means smoked beer. It has a bacon flavour when you first taste it. It is a very smooth brew and I rather enjoyed it but Wolf was not impressed. The town has been recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage site.

The impressive number of buildings, a fair number of different styles are spread on either side of the Regnitz River but the “Altes Rathaus” (the city hall) is solidly perched on its own island. Its lavish murals are among many around the town. A lovely church, a Romanesque and Gothic Cathedral housing the statue of the chivalric King-knight, the Bamberg Reiter and a beautiful statue of the Lachelnde Engel (Smiling Angel)

A former Benedictine monastery, St Michaels, with a wonderful painted ceiling. Attached at the side of the cathedral there was a museum of Nativity Scenes, only open from November to Mid January. It was really fantastic. From the old fashioned scenes to the ultra modern, all from different countries of Europe. Did a little bit of shopping and had lunch with the local beer and local food in a lovely small pub on the street.

Spent the next day with a round trip of about 100km circular route, visiting Lichtenfelser, home to definitely the most moving and feeling church I have ever visited. It is called Basilica Vierzehnheiligen, (translation Fourteen Saints) and it was built on a spot where there had been a vision of angels. The actual church is built around a central altar which is the actual place where the vision took place. We went onto Kulmbach, home to the Kulmbacher beer, also home to the most famous experts of Pewter Figures. Obviously they have the largest collection of these little works of art in the entire world. Their home is in the walls of the Plassenburg Museum. It now has over 300,000 figures. We visited a Animal Park, although I don’t like zoo’s this was quite different, most of the animals in the open. They have wolves in this park and I was very keen to see the difference between this one and the Ethiopian Wolf. It was quite good and the White Owl’s a very different and beautiful Owl.

We also visited and rekindled a friendship of 10 years ago with Bianca, who at the time was married to the German Engineer responsible for the Maputo project, both Bianca and her ex husband also visited us at Ingwelala. She now lives in Nurnberg with her new partner and we had a lovely day with them and were invited back to stay with them on our way back from Bavaria.

On arrival at their house, we were given a beer to start off with, “Gutmann Bier” Genuine, really is a brewery called Gutmann Bier. Imagine the laughs!!!

We then left for a month in the Bavaria Forest.

This was possibly the most memorable time in Germany so far. We had a super camp site in Viechtach, in Eastern Bavaria near the Czech Border and in a lovely part of the country for skiing.

We spent three weeks, two of them me trying to learn to ski, Wolf getting back into it quiet easily, going up mountains on ski lifts and “rodeln” (coming down the mountain on a toboggan). We actually had so much fun, it was like being children again. There is also a quite famous “Glass Route” an area which specialises in Glass Blowing, a really super area. One of the things never forgotten was in Sweisel, a pyramid of Wine glasses, weight 9.3tons; number of glasses 90,000; and size of area about 4m x 4m. Reminds me of the old times, any one who remembers this was my most memorable time when (after a few glasses) loved building glasses up. I don’t think I got past 20, let alone thousands.

We managed a short trip into Prague, in Czech. Very old city, but difficult to see in such a short time.

Too soon February arrived with us ready to return for Carnival Celebrations.

Nicole is the president of the local Carnival Club here, so again we were invited to quite a few celebrations working up to the actual weekend. The “South Africans” even got a mention on the stage. One evening we watched 4 hours of different gigs, dancing etc. The actual weekend prior to Ash Wednesday, is the real celebration weekend, starts on Thursday with the night out for women. “Altweiberball” (Comes from the old times, direct translation, Old Woman’s Ball)We went to one of the local pubs, into the evening obviously the men turn up and it is supposed to be an evening when any man can ask a strange women to dance, etc etc etc. Leave all the rest to your imagination. It was a fun evening anyway to see it all happening around you. The Saturday was a “Dress up” ball. Another night of fun. Hiring or buying suits for carnival here quite cheap and really funny. Sunday was the Carnival Pageant in this area. We watched from the streets with Jim as Nicole and Frank were on one of the “Floats” throwing sweets, and small presents at all the kids, trying to collect them all. Cologne’s (Koln) carnival in the street is one of the best in Germany and was held on the Monday. We took a train to Cologne very early and had breakfast in a pub, (music and noise already at 8am in the morning). Everybody is dressed in costumes. We then managed to get onto a stand (called Tribune here) which the whole carnival pageant, pass by.

There were about 300 floats and more than 1000 groups taking part. Some on foot, horses and carriages. For your entrance cost of Euro30 you get a glass and free beer or coke for as long as you are on the stand. Not bad considering a beer here is at least 2-3 Euro and the carnival procession lasts for a minimum of 5 hours. So you can do quite well if you drink beer. That’s the good, the bad (especially for men) going to the toilet every time you need it. Well only our pictures can tell the tale, it was wonderful and really hard to put into words. So all my friends will have to put up with home movies of Carnival. We left Cologne mid afternoon and when we reached the town we had left our car to take the train, there they were just finishing off their street carnival show, so we followed it into the town and went to a humdinger pub, where Wolf bumped into friends of his 30years back and then the party got louder and more and we had to take a taxi back home.

Well we will have a break on the blog for a while, Frank (our son-in-law) will be going into hospital for his replacement shoulder and muscles and we will be doing the Grandparents thing of looking after Jim and house.

This does not stop us doing things on weekends etc and have managed to have time with our friends in Germany and also doing some sightseeing around this area.

We visited Xanten, located on a site of the Roman city of Colonia Ulpia Traiana, Germany’s biggest archaeological open-air museum. Colonia Ulpia Traiana was on of the most important cities in the Germanic provinces of Rome. During its height, more than ten thousand people lived here. The daily lives of men, women and children can be reconstructed from the traces they left in the ground. The house of wealthier Romans were decorated with high quality mural painting, and filled with expensive furniture and precious dinnerware. The harbour temple, the amphitheatre, the towers and baths are exact replicas of the ancient structures. Reconstructed in their original size at their original locations using the same materials as the original buildings, these replicas convey a realistic impression of the former Roman city. You can also see the map of how the city connects in the old times with Rome itself.

Another trip we had was in Konigswinter on the Rhine River. We were able to walk along the Rhine River and also in the super old town dating back centuries. Walking in the little lanes among the old buildings was tremendous. Both areas and more around here must be lovely in the summer, unfortunately we have a full program for the summer and will have to miss this.

We will be leaving directly after I arrive back from SA in April, 2010 for our trip to Croatia