There are dozens of festivals in the fall around Frankfurt. This is one of the largest, with over 3 million people. There were lots of bands, good food, and great people watching along the river on a sunny Saturday evening.
I have eaten more bratwurst and bread in the past month than the rest of my entire life!
Lanternin Festival in Bad Homburg
...in keeping with the meat theme (there was also fruit on a stick dipped in chocolate, which was out of this world)
9th Grade Class Trip with Outward Bound to Havelberge
Last week I went with 120 9th graders and about a dozen teachers on a week-long Outward Bound program in Havelberge. Havelberge is about an hour north of Berlin, in an area pocked with lakes. I was fortunate enough to go with a group of 12 students on a biking/canoeing/biking adventure to the biggest lake in Germany - Muritz (not counting the one to the far south which boarders Switzerland).
Our bus ride was an epic 11 1/2 hours from Oberursel up to Havelberge. I graded a lot of papers!
Biking past beautiful country homes.
Leppinsee Lake, where we camped.
Many of the lakes were interconnected by thin waterways which wove through forests. This was the first time canoeing for many students, but they did a great job.
The students did a great job planning and organizing their gear and food (on a tight budget) and navigating using basic maps. These were the lakes we canoed through.
boat houses with thatched roofs.
This was East Germany territory, and we passed a few war monuments with the statues removed from the tops. Poverty and unemployment levels are still pretty high here after the fall of the wall.
A Bike Trip Through Wein Country!
Last weekend Spencer and I took a long bike ride alone the Rhine River through wine country.
We boarded the train in Oberursel with our bikes, headed down into Frankfurt, and then to Mainz, which is on the Rhine River (close to the spot the Mine River, which runs through Frankfurt, meets the Rhine). From Mainz, we traveled west to Rudesheim, through many small wineyard-based towns.
Waiting for the S8 train in Frankfurt
We followed a specific bike-and-drinking-wine route which followed the Rhine through the various towns. This was the route marker.
We finished in Rudesheim by climbing a giant hill to a church. This was the view from the top overlooking Rudesheim and the Rhine.
We realized later that we could have taken a nice gondola (you can just make it out following the ridge line) ride up the mountain to the church...ach well!
