Dixon Parents' Visit (Part 2)

After a couple down days of laying around the house and letting the kids run wild, we packed up and started off on our next trip. Where to? Berlin, Dresden, Prague and Rothenburg ob der Tauber (about 20 hours of driving roundtrip). We headed out Wednesday after Ryan got off work and drove 5.5 hours to our hotel before finishing of the last 1.5hour in the morning to reach our first destination.

Berlin
After reading about how big Berlin was, we opted for a hop-on-hop-off bus tour to be able to quickly see it all. After we had rode the loop entirely once, we did part of a walking tour to go back around and see the sites. We started at Bradenburg Gate (we parked in a parking garage under an crazy expensive hotel...it was pretty expensive to park, but we got to use the hotel bathrooms for free AND it was still cheaper than parking in downtown Amsterdam). We walked over to the Reichstag which I had been excited to go up inside for the amazing view I had read about, BUT once there we found that you actually had to make reservations about 3 days in advance (it is still free, but you still need to have the tickets reserved). Part of the walk took us through a corner of a park that Kherington had a great time dancing to her own tune...she has so much energy!

One of the coolest memorials we saw was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. It has about 3,000 pillars of different sizes. You can walk around between them and once you have gone a few steps in, any direction you look appears to be uphill. The picture below of mom with the green tiled wall was taken in one of the old ghost subway stations (for 28 years, trains passed through the station but never stopped).

We tried out the currywursts which are pretty popular there. Basically it is just a bratwurst with curry infused ketchup. I'm not a huge fan of ketchup so it was just okay, but the bratwurst was delicious. To hold to tradition, we got Kherington some ice cream BUT she didn't want it this time so we got to enjoy it :).

The first picture below is a remaining portion of the Berlin Wall. The second is Ryan straddling the path that the wall once stood, standing with one foot in West Berlin and on in East Berlin. Then the last is us at Checkpoint Charlie which is the border between the American and Soviet sectors.

Dresden
We stayed in a cute hotel in Freiberg, Germany so we would be close to stay by the temple grounds. The room was huge, they had gummies on our pillows and free breakfast...can't get much better than that :). We were able to visit the Freiberg Temple grounds. This was the first temple built in a communist nation.

I loved Dresden. The weather was cold, but it was still sunny which made it feel refreshing. We did a walking tour here too (note: when I stay walking tour, I mean we follow one from a Rick Steves guide book). First stop: The Zwinger. According to our guide book, "Zwinger" means no-man's-land running along the city wall. However now the land has a couple different building making up the palace complex. Kherington especially enjoyed going through the 'maze' in the grass. You'll notice that some parts of statues/buildings are white and others black. White means they've been cleaned recently (or treated after their last cleaning so they don't turn black).

At the end of the tour we stopped for ginormous bratwurst. I do love kebaps, but on a chilly day, bratwurst heat you right up. We also decided to brave the cold weather and get some gelato. We only ended up with a picture of our 'spaghetti' gelato which was good, but the other one we got was even better.

Prague
We drove down to Prague in the early evening so we would be able to go up to the palace grounds. We got a little lost trying to find parking and ended up stopped at a light right next to a church building in. How cool is that? The view overlooking the city was awesome. We did a short walking tour of the grounds then headed off to find our hotel and some dinner.

Since our hotel was a little bit out of town, there weren't a lot of options for dinner. We ended up at the mall and at at a little pizza place. The food was delicious and cheap. After dinner we found a fun train for Kherington to ride and I got to do some shopping at the Tesco (UK's walmart) to find Kherington and Kevin some warmer hats/gloves.

In the morning there was a market right outside our hotel. I got some smoked paprika from the spice stand, we tried out multiple pastries (the one in the middle below was by far the best), some fresh potato chips and the best apple cidar I've ever had (too bad we didn't get more of that).

Back downtown, you can see the palace up on the hill from where we were parked. After bribing Kherington to get into the backpack by giving her gummies (yes, gummies in the morning), we headed off to a free tour of Prague (the tour guide just works for tips). They ended up splitting there group in half and there were still about 50 people per group.

We saw the Astronomical clock, part of Jewish Quarter (but since it was a Saturday the museums were closed) and more.

By the end of the tour, the kids were so cold they were crying...it probably wouldn't have been as bad if Kherington would have been willing to keep her hat and glove on. Once back in the main square, Kherington and Kevin had a blast dancing to a band that had setup there.

Rothenburg ob der Tauber
We arrived in Rothenburg ob der Tauber early enough to get checked into the hotel, wander a little and grab some dinner before Mom and I headed out for our night tour. Dinner was AWESOME. We at at a restaurant right off the main square. Service was quick, price was good and the food was fantastic. After dinner Mom and I went on the Night Watchman Tour while Ryan held down the fort in our hotel room with the kids (he did the tour a couple months ago with his parents). Before heading to the hotel we grabbed some ice cream to take back and share.

In the morning we walked the city wall until we ended at the fortress area where the cannons were then cut back across town stopping at a couple bakeries to get some bread and pastries for breakfast.

While we didn't get rained on much it was freezing most the time, but we still enjoyed seeing the sites and making more memories.

Mom was only in town for a couple more days and we mainly stayed around home. At Troc, we found a shelf to organize all the craft stuff Mom and Dad packed over for me. Mom enjoyed the flea market downtown and did some haggling to get good deals on her purchases :). The kids got some wiggle time and sleep.