Danish Anyone?

So… as I hinted at in the last post, we left Luxemburg and headed for Bingen, Germany, which, from our research was the beginning of the road through the middle Rhein.  On our way, we saw some beautiful country in Eastern Luxemburg/Western Germany…

Here is a little taste of Luxemburg… Though the weather looks cloudy… it has been hot and humid for all of our travels with some torrential rain at night… thunder and lightning in Luxemburg that sounded like it was hitting very near us.  Coming into Germany, we were greeted by what always gets a geek like me excited… tons of wind turbines and solar arrays!

Making it to the Rhein River Valley, we found what we were looking for… loads of castles from different eras.. dating back 1000 years and more.  I lost count of how many castles we went by… seemed like they were around every bend in the river.  This area was an important trade route along the river, so all the biggies had to have their pad!

We of course had to stop in the Medieval town of Bacharach.  This town dated back to 900 A.D.  Amazing… we wandered around and up into a church that had apparently been bombed out in the last World War… sad… but what a piece of living history.

Here are the kids standing at the original gates of the walled city of Bacharach (Real Wheels anyone?).  As Heather was cruising around, she found a birthday present to herself that she couldn't live without… I wonder why?

Recognize this little guy?  If not… he's a Nutcracker and will be center stage this winter for Heather's performance.  The real deal.

We followed the Rhein River from Bingen all the way to Koln (Cologne), Germany, where we found a nice… but Wifi-less campground right downtown.  We took a nice walk on the shores of the Rhein.  I swear those German folks are fit… tons walking, biking, running along with us.

Here's me looking for a special rock for brother Ronnie's studio window.  Pretty sweet spot in the middle of a large city I must say (Cologne, Germany).

From Cologne, we decided to make a fairly long driving day of it so that we could get as far north as possible.  We couldn't help but chuckle every time we saw these exit signs on the highway… I wonder why?

We made it quite a ways… from Koln all the way through Hamburg and up through the small channel of Germany into Denmark.  We found a great little spot right on the Baltic Sea to rest up, and have a quiet evening.  Our neighbor here at the park spoke English very well and we exchanged some conversation, and he (indicating that he likes rock and roll) of course got a Lord Ellis CD.  Anyway, he told us about a hurricane that they had last year where his tent from his camper was the only survivor and apparently there is some more weather on the way.  We looked online and couldn't find any warnings, so maybe he's just razzing the Americans.  Cool dude though.

Here's me smiling on the Baltic Sea.  Again… looks cloudy and crap… but very warm and humid.  Actually… now that I say it… we're having some rain.  Hopefully we don't get blown away tonight!  (Just a joke mom… )

Here's Heather enjoying some of the amenities at our Danish camp site… very color coordinated with the pillowy trampoline thing!

Okay… that's about it for now… hopefully we'll be getting nearer to Sweden tomorrow.  Maybe take in a Viking Museum in Denmark on our way!