Bet you said “Alexander Graham Bell,” but you would be only partly correct. In the small provincial town of Gelnhausen, not far from Frankfurt am Main, Germany there is a statue in the market place dedicated to the “Founder of the Telephone,” and his name is not Bell. It is Johann Philipp Reis, and he […]

Model train buffs, especially those into the HO size, would go crazy at the “Modelbahnschau” located in a former train station in the town of Bad Driburg, Germany. Back in 2005, about 20 enthusiasts got together and created a couple of villages, a landscape, two castles, numerous roads, crossings and a switching station all at […]

Today’s postcard is from the beautiful city of Salzburg, Austria and the gardens at the country estate of the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, laid out in 1730. From here, the prince-archibishop could survey his land and his city from what used to be a country estate. Nowadays of course the entire area is surrounded by buildings […]

Claudia (Harsh) Auerbach, Clara Harsh, Becky Thornton, Jenean Derheim and Dave Harsh check out some leftover hops We discovered this hidden gem in the Thuringen Forest late in July. The hamlet of Singen, near Ilmenau (south of Erfurt) is home to the Schmitt Brauerei, the last of its kind in Germany. The little brewery pumps […]

All traffic stops on the road from Schwangau to Fuessen as two farmers bring the cows back to the barn for the evening milking.

A funny story from our visit today to the Heimatmuseum in Waldgirmes, near Wetzlar, Germany. The museum’s director showed us a shoe made in the late 1800s by a local farmer/shoemaker. He placed the studs in a certain way so that he could track his daughter’s movements around the village. (Which back then had dirt […]

Roman column in Igel, Germany We’re traveling with the Harsh family in Germany this week. We started our adventure in the oldest city in Germany, former Augustus Treverus, founded in 16 BC under the Roman emperor Augustus. The city is a fascinating blend of ancient, not so ancient, medieval and modern. One of the landmarks […]

The village of Oberwesel, Rhein Valley, Germany We recently hosted the Bassford-Nelson-Albrecht family on a tour which started in Paris and ended in southern Bavaria. What memories! There are too many to recount here, but here are a few. Cruising the River Seine Jenean met the family in Paris on June 18. Three nights is […]