GERMANY - DAY 5 We traveled towards Berlin with Paul sharing insight into German history and the lead up to the Second World War. It was fascinating finding out more about Hitler. He really had some serious problems. It was interesting to find out that six of his seven girlfriends committed suicide, or so the reports go. There is a lot of speculation that his political party had several of them killed to protect Hitler's reputation. We arrived at our hotel an...

GERMANY - DAY 4 An earlier start today as this was our longest travel day of the entire tour. After a wonderful breakfast we ventured forth onto the bus and settled down to travel to Hamelin, made famous by the brothers Grimm fairytale, "The Pied Piper of Hamelin." The Germans have a more sinister name for the pied piper, they call him 'The Rat Catcher'. Along the way Paul entertained us with the story of the pied piper. After a quick pit stop with very inter...

GERMANY - DAY 3 We left Frankfurt and headed towards the river Rhine. Along the way we stopped at a hill with this massive monument on the side of a hill built in 1878. It was called Niederwalddenkmal. It was built to celebrate the unification of Germany. The artist modeled the figure on his daughter. It weighs 32 000 kilograms and is 38 metres high. There was a cable car that you could take from the village to the top. The view from the top of the Rhine River...

GERMANY - DAY 2 We lounged around the hotel until it was time to head to the tour. We caught the tram across the river to the end of its run. We were helped to find the correct tram (because the one we thought would take us all the way no longer runs there) and we sat watching the school children playing across the road until the tram arrived. We boarded it and again travelled to the end of its run. We could have waited for the bus but decided it was such a b...

GERMANY - DAY 1 We decided that we would head into the city today and visit the Archaeological Museum. After a few wrong turns we found it tucked away behind an abbey. We paid our entrance fee and wandered around looking at all the various artifacts from Stone Age to the Middle Ages. Have to say we were a little disappointed. There was not really a lot in this museum. We left and headed towards the river. We wandered down the bank of the river in the beautifu...