Lufthansa has given us a room in a 5 star hotel with three full meals and use of the room for the full day, until we need to head over to the airport for the flight. We are still boiling mad from their shoddy treatment of us last night at the airport, and this gesture seems more like a throw-anything-at-the-customer-to-get-them-to-stop-complaining ploy than a concrete attempt at customer service or problem resolution. We soon discover that this gesture has been given to everyone who was bumped from the flight last night. With all the money they are throwing at trying to bandage their lack of service, we wonder how they can stay in business.

Over the course of the day we pass members of our “Lufthansa group” in the halls, restaurants and elevators of our hotel and say “Buenos Aires?” We snort and roll our eyes at each other and although we don’t speak each others’ languages, we understand each other completely.

We meet a couple of guys who are heading to Buenos Aires to judge a major “best in show” cat competition (Dee, the movie Best in Show immediately jumped into my head). They have exactly the same story to tell as we do and at lunch we laugh together, and curse Lufthansa over a nice bottle of wine, on Lufthansa’s tab, of course. We plan to attend the cat show in Buenos Aires and judge the judging work of Louis and Fabrice. They had also been told to get their boarding passes last night, but sitting on the other side of us is another victim of Lufthansa, who was not told to do this. We tell him to go to the airport as soon as he finishes his meal and check-in immediately.

Naps and journaling take up most of the day. We lounge, and read our books, and cry and lament over the results of the U.S. election, nattering away on CNN in our room. We occasionally switch to BBC World for the real perspective on what’s going on. Let me add an even more surreal aspect to this scenario: there are about 150 U.S. Army personnel, in full army fatigues, wandering around the hotel and its facilities on R&R leave. They seem strangely unaware of the election playing out around them but we can guess who it is that they voted for.

We opt for dinner on the plane this evening which will turn out to be a mistake, but more on that later. We catch the shuttle to the airport around 7:30 and literally retrace our steps from last night, carrying the same carry-on bags and wearing the same clothes (we had not gotten our checked bags back last night). It is very disconcerting.

The lounge is filled with the same weary travellers as last night and we pick out the familiar faces from the hotel, still snorting and rolling our eyes at each other as we wander by to refill our beers or grab the news-crammed USA Today.

They call our flight and we head down to the gate. All 360 passengers are crushing the gate, trying to be the first one on the plane. We look back at the check-in desk and see angry customers being bumped from this flight. We see our neighbour from lunch talking angrily on the phone. Whatever he says, it works; we see him later on the plane.

The lounge is hot and everyone is cranky. The flight finally leaves almost a half hour late and we settle in for some pampering on the second to last business class flight that we will have in a while. At least we are on the plane!

However, there isn’t a happy ending to this story. We are seated in the back section of two in business class. Food and drink options quickly run out. Service, when there is any, is abrupt and impersonal. There are long waits between courses and nobody returns to fill your wine glass. When we question the service there are many “oh, I am sorry” but no improvement. They speak to us in German for the duration of the flight.

We awake early the next morning to exactly the same service. But wait: the story doesn’t end here.........

Gent to Frankfurt: 451 kilometres

Kilometres driven in Europe since June 16: 19,796

It is a sad day today as we leave the comfort of Yves and Marc’s great home, and Europe, to continue our journey to Argentina and the last leg of this year-long journey. Our time in Europe has been wonderful and we have travelled much of it. We are both in agreement about some countries we don’t have to see again. There are more that we have enjoyed thoroughly, that we will return to.

The second 5 months of our trip have proven very different from the first 5. Traveling by car has meant that we have uprooted ourselves and moved more often than when we were traveling mainly by air. We have discovered that the stress of being constantly on the road has been compounded by having only 1 driver, and by constantly making our way through unfamiliar streets and cities. But we have also experienced lots of little victories in our travels, and feel quite confident that we can find our way through any city anywhere.

Our appointment to return the car in Frankfurt is at 6:00 p.m. After a quiet morning and 1 final walk into downtown Gent for lunch, we start the journey at about 2 p.m., lots of time, assuming good traffic. And of course, we get only to the outskirts of Antwerpen when the traffic bogs right down. But we need to average only 112 kilometres/hour to make it, so we don’t worry. Traffic in Belgium and Holland, which we pass briefly through, is averaging about 130 kilometres/hour.

We are sorry to be giving up the car: a Renault Laguna 5 door diesel, it has been the perfect car for us: not too big, but big enough for our years-worth of luggage; powerful enough to keep me happy on the autostradas of Europe; wonderfully economical in gas consumption, drinking a very modest average of 5.7 litres/100 kilometres, well less than half of what our car back home drank. This has been a real bonus on a continent where diesel, 20% cheaper than gasoline, still costs an average of 1 Euro/litre, about C$1.65.


So long, car!

By 4:30, we are in Germany, and traffic is moving considerably faster: at 130 kilometres/hour, I am without question the slowest car on the road. My speed nudges up a bit, to a point somewhere between Greg’s comfort level (less than 140 km/h) and mine (something faster), and we drive up to the door of the Renault service bureau at 6:05, to find it locked up tighter than a drum, and dark as dark can be. We try all the phone numbers we have, and none are answered except the Renault roadside assistance number, in Paris. They have no suggestions, except to wait. And to call again if nobody had shown up by 6:45. And so we wait. At 6:40, a man drives up in a van, and our hopes rise, but it turns out he has rented the van and is returning it after hours. We call Renault service at 6:45, and they tell us they have nothing to tell us. We decide to shove the keys and documentation through the late-night slot, and take a taxi to the airport. Fortunately, the man returning the van knows where to find a taxi, and offers to drive us there.

By 7:20 we are at the airport, our initial frustration dealt with, and in lots of time for our 10:10 p.m. Lufthansa flight. We check in, and are told that seats won’t be assigned until later, at the gate, so are being given stand-by passes. We think nothing of it, until we get to the lounge. The woman who lets us in says “this is very bad”, and makes some phone calls, but cannot get us seats. She tells us that, due to weather, the plane will require extra fuel, and not everybody who has a confirmed seat will get onto tonight’s flight. She says there is nothing to do but to go to the gate at 9:20, and hope.

As instructed, we are at the gate right at 9:20, but there is no hope. We will not be boarding the flight tonight. Apparently, the plane will take off with 60 fewer passengers on board than there are seats on the plane. We are told to head to the Transfer Desk, where we will be given accommodations and our schedule adjusted. We are also told that if we are lucky, “you may get on tomorrow night’s plane, there are no empty seats”.

We walk to the Transfer Desk. The Lufthansa agents there tell us that they cannot help us; we need to go back to the gate. Needless to say, we voice our disapproval, and somehow, after we continue to voice our disapproval, they get authorization to help us. But they do not do it gracefully.

When all the rearranging is done, we are on tomorrow’s plane. The agents give us a strongly-worded suggestion that we go back to the lounge and wait for tonight’s flight to take off, as the minute it is gone, we can be checked in for tomorrow night’s flight, and can then get our boarding passes. There is the suggestion made that bad weather is also expected tomorrow night, and that 120 people will be disappointed, as there will be a backlog of 60 from tonight, and then another 60 who are confirmed for tomorrow night’s flight. We do as they say, and wait patiently until 10:45, when the agent in the lounge smilingly (the only smile we’ve seen all evening) hands over our boarding passes.

Finally, just before midnight, we have been checked into our hotel, and are seated in the hotel bar, which at this late hour is also the only dining option available. We recognize almost everyone sitting there from the chaos at the gate. And we decide to enjoy Lufthansa’s hospitality, and order a good meal and a nice bottle of wine.

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Berlin to Dresden: 193 kilometres

We pack up after our week in Berlin, and start our drive to Dresden. The road we follow goes through the old East Berlin, and while there is a motorway under construction to get us out of the city, it is not finished yet. The road is fairly well-marked, but there are a few corners where we are forced to make a turn without any signs to guide us. Whether we made the right decision or whether all roads lead to Dresden we aren’t sure, but soon enough we are on the right Autobahn – and feeling right at home as we drive along at 150 kilometres/hour, the slowest car on the road.

Dresden is amazing! Virtually completely destroyed at the end of WWII, most of the important buildings in the centrum have been rebuilt. The Frauenkirche, the architectural masterpiece of Dresden, is almost completed – we are surprised to see that it had been left as rubble until well after the reunification of Germany in 1991.


The river Elbe, the Brûlsche Terrasse (the Balcony of Europe), with the Albertinum on the left and the almost completed Frauenkirche on the right

A beautiful city – we walk happily through the streets. There is a street festival happening around the Frauenkirche, and late in the afternoon we join the happy throngs for a cheap beer. After that, we walk slowly back to our B&B, exploring some of the side streets.


From left: the Frauenkirche, original and new; the Hofkirche; the Schloss


From left: the Semperoper; the Zwinger; detail from the Procession of Princes, the 102 metre long porcelain mural along the outer wall of the Royal Stables

We come up to the Dreikönigskirche and find in front of it a beautiful square surrounded by restaurants. We study menus, and choose 1, Gambotti for dinner. The food is fantastic and the prices even better. We fall into conversation with Alex, our waiter and we discover that he is one of the owners. Alex happens to come originally from Buenos Aires, so we compare notes about one of my favourite cities. About 11, there is wonderful display of fireworks – nobody knows why – and we sit on the square and watch. Thomas, the chef and other owner of the restaurant, has joined us. After the fireworks, we elect to continue the conversation, and wander off to the newer area of town, where Thomas and Alex choose a bar and we get a fuller understanding of this beautiful city from a local's viewpoint.

A beautiful, perfect, summer day. We should have done laundry yesterday and gone to Potsdam today, but we do laundry today – once we find a laundromat, which is easier said than done, as the first 2 we find have gone out of business. Fortunately, a call to Alex gives us the information we need, and we spend the afternoon doing our chores.

We hook up with Derek for dinner, our last evening in Berlin. He heads off at about 8:30 to meet up with a friend, so we say our goodbyes. About 30 minutes later, the skies darken, lightning starts to flash, and we move inside off the patio to avoid the rain. Inside there are more people than there is room, and we start chatting with another patron, Kai, who turns out to be visiting from Norway. We compare notes about Norway, and Kai tells us that the average worker in Norway makes what sounds like a huge amount of money to us – the only way they could afford to live there.

The weather today starts a bit overcast, but with sun peeping out from behind the clouds occasionally. We decide to head out to Potsdam, where the Hohenzollerns made their summer homes, and where the Potsdam Conference happened at the end of WWII. We go by S-bahn – we are very impressed with the public transit system in Berlin: the city is vast, much bigger than London or Paris although having less than 50% of their population, but the transit system goes everywhere. (It makes us wonder why we are always told in North America that cities with urban sprawl cannot have good transit.)

By the time we get to Potsdam, the weather has changed – it is pouring. At Potsdam Station we are confronted with the reality that the day of walking in the royal parks that we had anticipated will be miserable. So onto a tour bus we get, despite the fact that the tour is being done in German only. As we drive along, the tour guide keeps handing out paper towels so that everyone can wipe the fog off the bus windows.

We start with the Neues Palais, a baroque structure similar to those we saw in St. Petersburg, built at around the same time. Across the street are the Kommuns, 2 beautiful smaller palaces, that are actually the servant’s quarters and kitchens, positioned here to hide what lies behind them, and now part of Potsdam University.


From left: 2 views of the Neues Palais; nice servants’ quarters

As we drive around the grounds, we realize how large they are. Although the palaces are not as large as those outside St. Petersburg, the grounds are much vaster. And we are glad not to be walking.

Finally we get to Schloss Sanssouci, Frederick the Great’s retreat. It is surprisingly small, but with a spectacular garden. We wish it weren’t pouring.


Schloss Sanssouci and its garden

From here we drive through Potsdam to the Neuer Garten, the 2nd area of Hohenzollern homes. We are heading to Schloss Cecilienhof, built by the last Crown Prince of Germany to be his home. We find it amazing that work continued on this home, styled as an English country home, throughout most of WWI, and that the home was actually finished in 1916. Surprising because we doubt that many other homes were built in Germany during the war.

Although his father, Kaiser Wilhelm, never returned to Germany after the war, the Crown Prince and his family lived in this home until the end of WWII, when it became famous for another reason: the Potsdam Conference, the meetings between Churchill and Atlee, Roosevelt, and Stalin, were held here. Today, the conference rooms are a museum, and the rest of the home is a luxury hotel.


Schloss Cecilienhof

The tour over, we are thoroughly soaked. We head home, make hot tea and have a quiet evening.

Today is a shopping day. John has pretty much worn out his shoes, wearing them practically every day for six months. We both had expected to be sporting more summer oriented foot wear - sandals or flip flops - but the weather hasn’t co-operated plan and so we are wearing out our walking shoes. Our plan is have a leisurely shop for shoes.

We take the U-bahn to Wittenbergplatz Station and walk out and are confronted with an enormous directional sign telling us that this was one of the major departure gates for Jews deported from Berlin. Sadly, they were leaving the city for places like Auschwitz or Dachau. The sign lists at least fifteen final destinations and it is the first thing that you see as you exit the station. It is a daily and humbling reminder for everyone who uses this very busy U-bahn station.

We gaze up the promenade and at the first curve in the street, sitting in the midst of all this stark commercialism, lies another example of the effects of war on this city. Here are the stark remains of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Church, bombed by the British on November 22, 1943. Its broken west tower is all that remains.


From left: Wittenbergplatz Station; 2 views of Kaiser-Wilhelm Church

We have walked up to the Kurfûrstendamm (Ku’damm for those in the know), which used to be the commercial heart of West Berlin but nowadays is showing its age. However outdated some of its shops are, it is still a place where Starbucks and the Gap have set up their businesses and it is a bustling, busy street. We start our shoe hunt.

We stop at Starbucks not only for an expensive coffee but because they have a hot spot for wireless internet users and we are desperate to update the website and pick up email. Berlin does not seem to have many internet cafés and those that want to bring laptops in to work will find almost none that will host you. We set up our laptop and anticipate an hour’s break over our iced lattes and some email and web time. Alas, this is not to be. The network is not working and no one behind the counter knows how to fix it. Thankfully, a friendly English speaking gentleman overhears all of this, and tells us of an internet shop down the street, close to Wittenburgplatz station.

We strike up a conversation, introduce ourselves and finish our coffee. Alexander Frey is an American from Evanston, Illinois but considers himself a Berliner, having made the city his permanent place of residence for the last fourteen years. An accomplished conductor and musician, Alex has an international career recording, conducting and playing with many of the world’s established symphony orchestras, and having won a German Grammy for one of his recordings. He offers us his mobile number and insists on us calling if we need assistance again.

The shoe shopping is a success with a new pair being purchased at of all places, Timberland, we head back to Wittenburgplatz station to find our internet café and to update. Again, we are without luck as that elusive café is not to be found. We grab a bus and ride back to our flat where we call Alex on his mobile and sheepishly ask for help again. Interestingly enough he is sitting in an internet café right then and why don’t we join him. It is in Kreuzberg, conveniently close to our flat, and over we head. Alex greets us at the door and we step inside and discover one of the cheapest internet cafés around.
We do our posting, some banking, email and research and afterwards, Alex takes us on an impromptu tour of the area, which turns out to be his neighbourhood, showing us beautiful Victoria Park, with its views over the city, and walking us through the rapidly gentrifying area, back in the centre again after having been, when the wall was still up, a forgotten area on the edge.

The sun is setting, and many Berliners are out enjoying what seems to be their first taste of summer. We all have a drink afterward and lots of conversation. Our friend Derek joins us after his work and our night is gladly later than originally planned.

Berlin is a huge city with so much to see that we have decided to stay a few days longer and not rush our visit. It is sunny and gloriously warm again today. We enjoy our morning and decide to focus on a walking tour of the older parts of Berlin, some of which we stumbled across yesterday. We select some bread and fruit for lunch from the Turkish gentleman across the street from our flat and grab the U-bahn and start our tour.

Our tour takes about 2 hours and focuses on Old Berlin (what there is left of it), most of which is in the former East Berlin. The city certainly doesn’t amaze you as you turn every corner but, the Pergamonmuseum, the Altes Museum, the Alte Nationalgalerie, which are all situated on Museum Island, and the Gendarmenmarkt, which sells itself as the most beautiful square in Berlin, all are wonderfully striking areas to enjoy. And of course the Doms: The Glorious Berliner Dom (which is, despite the +/- 250 rather creepy sarcaphogi of the Hohenzollerns in the crypt, spectacular), the Französicher Dom and the Deutscher Dom all stand out as beautiful tributes to a glorious pre-war city, surviving a post-war communist tear down of much of what remained. Berlin has its own distinctive feeling - not as romantic as St. Petersburg or Istanbul - but nonetheless rare and compelling.


From left: the old and the new: The Berliner Dom and the TV Tower; the museums of Museum Island


The Gendarmenmarkt

We have plans to meet our friend Derek this evening for dinner and we wind our way over to the Hackescher Markt and the neighbourhood of Scheunenviertel, which is close to the old Jewish quarter of the city. Derek gives us a min-tour of the area showing us small memorials and buildings that have been left intact after the war, bullet holes included. We walk another block and Derek points out where a building once stood. It was obviously bombed during the war and the building was not replaced. The row of tenements on either side of this open space are as they were, somewhat modernized but still standing. On the inward facing walls of those remaining buildings are the names of Jewish families, inscribed on big plaques legible from street level, placed where their flats once were. It is a little chilling.

We pass the Neue Synagogue, destroyed by the Nazis on Krystallnacht and now completely rebuilt. It is heavily guarded by Berlin police officers.

We have a good nosh of Thai food on a patio overlooking the square that is abruptly interrupted by a tremendous thunder and lightning storm that quickly overtakes the city. We run to the S-bahn, which cannot contain the torrents of rain, wait it out a bit and take the train to Derek’s car where we ride through the flooded streets to our neighbourhood and head to a bar to continue our interrupted, wet catch-up.

Happy Birthday to both Dylan Baker and his mother Robin Geller!

Our apartment is comfy and cosy; small enough for us to be in each others’ way and big enough for it not to matter. I sleep in, as usual, and John makes his way to the corner to buy some breakfast staples for the next 5 days or so that we are in Berlin. We have coffee and orange juice, some cereal and rye toast and head out in warm, sunny weather to navigate the U-bahn to discover Berlin.

Berlin, with its deeply tainted historical record, is a complex city. It is this history, some very emotional, that immediately confronts the visitor. You must leave all your preconceptions of the city, the country and its people behind you before you take it all in. The entire rebuilding of a metropolis can be experienced here. There is old with new but the new outpaces the old. From a city bombed into rubble by the Allies to one completely divided by a wall, Berlin has many layers and neighbourhoods to experience. It is all at once a vibrant, European capitol with cafés, theatres, banks and museums and also a testament to history, showing its sometimes humbled face as you turn a quiet corner.

Our first stop is the famous Potsdamer Platz and its completely rebuilt landscape. Potsdamer Platz was once one of the busiest squares in Europe and then after WW II, a no-man’s land in the shadow of the Wall. Much of Potsdamer sat in the Wall’s “death strip” but it is now home to Sony and DaimlerChrysler, and their huge entertainment and restaurant complexes. It is a completely modern tall glass tower complex with a tented canopy. The new “Cathedral”.

We have some lunch here and wander down to the Pariser Platz and the home of the Brandenburger Tor and the Reichstag. We pass the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, an ambitious memorial under construction that will be a moving and emotional commemorative sight when it is finished.


The Sony Center


Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, under construction

We reach the Brandenburger Tor and see the top of the Reichstag ahead. On one side of the gate is the Unter den Linden, Berlin’s most famous and celebrated boulevard and on the other is the 17 Juni Strasse that cuts through the Tiergarten, the main park in Berlin.

We wander, with all the other tourists and decide to buy a city guide to Berlin, our Lonely Planet guide of Europe not covering the city as extensively as we would like.


From Left: The Brandenburger Tor; the Reichstag

This area reveals nothing of its original splendour; sleek modern buildings now line the boulevard. It is a somewhat unsettling viewpoint: so much history and now nothing to show for it. I’m not sure how I feel about a city that holds such a cruel and horrific history now all clean and shiny but I am trying to leave my preconceptions behind. There is unique and creative evidence of atonement in many places. The Jews are touchingly remembered in many places but there is little evidence of the Wall left. Some parts of East Berlin still remain as dreary and grey as they were before the wall came down. Tomorrow is the 60th anniversary of the attempted assassination of Hitler by one of the resistance groups. There is a major commemorative planned with heads of European governments participating. It is big news here.

We walk over to the Reichstag and around by the river, past the brand new parliament buildings and around to the front. The line-up is long to get into the Norman Foster remodelled glass dome of the Reichstag. We understand that it is a must see but not today. It is 4:30 and we sit on the front lawn for a bit before taking the U-bahn and heading back to the flat for a nap and then out to our Schöneberg neighbourhood and one of the many restaurants it has to offer.

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Sassnitz to Berlin: 333 kilometres

The alarm rings and wakes us both at 6:45 – we quickly shower and pack the car. Despite the promises of the night before that breakfast would be ready by 7:30, there is no sign of it, nor of any life at the bed & breakfast.

At 8:15, we sail – we are taking a ferry across the Baltic, from Trelleborg to Sassnitz, and then will drive the rest of the way to Berlin, saving hours of driving, and paying no more than the cost of the bridge & tunnel tolls and gas.

At 12 we dock. We start our drive, not taking the fastest route, but rather driving through small towns on country roads until we finally hit the Autobahn, about 150 kilometres outside Berlin. It is a high summer day today – the sun is magnificent in the sky, dancing on the wheat fields that we pass, looking almost ready for harvest.


Land Ahoy!

We are driving through the former East Germany – and although reunification is old news, 14 years old, there is a different look, somehow, than the solidly prosperous Germany of Frankfurt am Main and Köln. And on the radio we hear in English (there are British and US military bases, broadcasting radio from home) a discussion of the economic consequences of reunification on Germany, still being felt through a depressed economy and high unemployment.

We find relatively easily the apartment we have rented for our stay in Berlin. It is in Schöneberg, a bit south of the city centre, but right on the U-bahn. After settling in, we head out to Nollendorf Platz, a few blocks up the street, to find a café for dinner. We scope out the selection, choose 1, and order in halting German – with the assistance of the woman sitting at the next table. To our delight, a meal that would have easily been well over $100 in Scandinavia totals less than half that! The $20 green salad (which we could never bring ourselves to order) is replaced with one for $6, the $12 beer with one for $5, the $35 bowl of pasta with one $10. Welcome to Germany!

Monika, as she turns out, teaches French to Germans and German to foreigners in Kassel, a town in central Germany, and is visiting Berlin for a couple of days, having left husband and children at home. We spend an enjoyable hour or so talking to her about the state of Germany and of the world, during which we discover, amongst other things, that Germany (but not Austria or Switzerland) has decided to discontinue the use of the letter ß, and to replace it with two s, so Saßnitz becomes Sassnitz, and straße becomes strasse. Monika expresses some sadness, and also some doubt about the value of the cost – every textbook used in the German school system is being replaced, at huge cost, as a result of this small change.

We started dinner seated outside, but over the course of dinner and our conversation, the weather has changed – huge thunderheads rolled over, followed by lightning and high winds, then the downpour. We retreated inside, and decide to stay for another beer, hoping the rain would stop. The rain has different ideas, and so we run to the U-bahn, ½ block away, and take it to the stop ½ block away from our apartment.

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Amsterdam to Hamburg: 498 kilometres

The weather is not promising - a major storm is supposed to blow in off the North Sea today. A good driving day - except that we are planning to drive over the Afsluitdijk, and if the storm gets too bad, the road over the dike will be closed. The Afsluitdijk is the 30 kilometre-long dike that the Dutch built in the 1930s - and which created the Ijsselmeer, a freshwater lake where the Zuider Zee used to be - to prevent future flooding of their lowlands, including Amsterdam. We consider our options, and decide to take the risk - if the road is closed, it is only about 100 kilometres back to Amsterdam and the overland road, and we have enough time that we can do it if necessary.


The Afsluitdijk ¡V the North Sea is on the left, the Ijsselmeer on the right

Our luck holds - we get across the dike with only a "high winds" warning. But soon after we get across, the storm hits in full fury. It comes and goes, heavy wind and rain when it is upon us. So heavy, in fact, that we pull over to the side a couple of times, and sit out the deluge.

The Dom, Köln’s cathedral, is the major building on the skyline and it dominates everything else. One of the largest Gothic buildings ever constructed anywhere, it was mercifully spared during the night blitzes of WWII – the stained glass windows, which are magnificent, were all removed during the war, and thus also survived.

Much of the rest of Köln, unfortunately, was not spared and everywhere you go you see modern, rebuilt buildings interspersed with occasional, original buildings. Based on those few original buildings, we think Köln must have been a lovely city before the war.


The Dom

We also see, as we walk the streets, silent reminders of another aspect of WWII – square brass plaques inset in the concrete sidewalks, giving the name of someone who once lived in a home that stood nearby, with the date this person was deported to the camps.

Greg has slept well – over 12 hours; I have also slept well, but don’t have his capacity for sleep. Out of this I experience an unexpected benefit of staying in a B&B – there is more space available than just the room. So while Greg sleeps, I sit at the kitchen table, making and drinking copious quantities of coffee, looking out the big window at the home and garden next door, reading.

Special hellos to those whose birthday happened while we were in Canada: Michael George and Charles Wattles, both on June 9, and Susan Eckel and Eric Bradley, both on June 13

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Frankfurt to Köln: 205 kilometres

Renault provides a seamless service as we pick up our brand new car – we are met at Frankfurt airport by a happy German who vigorously shakes our hands and drives us to the Renault lot for the final paper work and signatures before the car is ours – Renault takes a big IOU, in case we disappear with the car. We hit the autobahn and head to Köln for the first 2 days of phase two our trip. Although we are driving at a good pace, car after car zooms past us on the right, traveling at speeds that make us look like we are crawling.

Köln, or Cologne as English speakers call it, is an extremely pleasant city of about a million people nestled on the Rhine River about 190 km northwest of Frankfurt. Our B&B owner Thomas has given us good instructions, and we arrive in the city centre by about 1 pm. We park, drop bags and walk off to explore the downtown. We don’t get too far – our long flight and the stress of the 200 kilometre drive from Frankfurt to Köln catch up with us, and we spend the rest of the afternoon napping. We head out again about 9 p.m. for dinner. After a light meal, we head back to the apartment, ready for sleep, despite the fact that at this northern latitude, the sun is still shining brightly.

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