Travelog for: Theodore

Hi Mummy,
today we visit Rastatt.

This is the beautiful castle of Rastatt.



I played hide and seek in this tree bark.







Bye
Theodore

Hi Mummy,
we are in Bavaria now. When I look out of the window of the guesthouse I can see Troestau.





We had to leave then to visit more relatives.

We are still driving on the motorway. Which exit should we take? This one ...



or this one?

Whereto now?



Selb is a town in the district of Wunsiedel, in Upper Franconia, Bavaria, Germany. It is situated in the Fichtelgebirge, close to the border of the Czech Republic.

In the middle of 19th century Selb became famous for its porcellain producing factrories.

Now I will show you a little bit of Selb.

Selb - city of porcellain







Here the company Hutschenreuther has an industrial selling.



The famous onion pattern ...



Wild animals like me ...



I don't behave like a bull in a china shop





Goodbye for today
Theodore

Hi Mummy,
today we went to Weissenstaedter See, a beautiful lake in Weissenstaedt, about 25 km apart from Selb. The lake is fed by the river Eger.







It was really cold - yes, I am sitting on ice!









Later I played with this "wildcat", she was very friendly.



A christmas market will be held between these ancient walls - it's look lifted our spirit.



By the way, our guesthouse was located close to a golf court.





The guesthouse is called "Waldesruh", this word has got something to do with forrest and calmness, there does not exist any reasonable translation. Guesthouses and cemetaries are sometimes called like this.



I tried to get into contact with this guy, but he did not answer. What happened to him?



That was all from my journey to Bavaria. I really enjoyed the journey. Katja and I bought a bottle of sparkling wine for Elke to say thank you to her.

Bye
Theodore

Hi Mummy,
it's snowing here!

It already started yesterday with a bad storm which destroyed some of the booths on the christmas market that will be opened next week. It was getting cold and colder and suddly the falling rain turned into snow. When Katja came home in the early evening she brought a new ToyVoyager with her, SaruMaru from Florida had to be picked up at the post office.

Today we all took a look out of the kitchen window.





I hope we will go out later!

Bye
Theodore

Hi Mummy,
in the afternoon we took a walk to the muncipal park. The sun was shining and everything looked beautiful.

First we had a look at the pond with ducks and turtles.



Then we walked through the park.





This is the observatory, located at one of the entrances to the muncipal park.





We rested on a bench, enjoying the sun.









I hope that more snow will fall during the night.

Bye
Theodore

Hi Mummy,

today I accompanied Katja when she went shopping to the farmer's market, SaruMaru also went with us.

Usually the farmer's market is taking place in front of the town hall. Now the christmas market is there, so the farmer's market had to move to a space close to the muncipal park.





We bought some vegetables here.

On the way back we came along a playground. There were no kids playing because it was quite cold outside.







I can see the tower of this church from our living room window.



The next photos were take in the vicinity of my current home. Most of these houses were built in the late 1800s or early 1900s.



The house in the background with trees in front of it is a grammar school.





hen we came home we had to unpack the vegetables that we bought on the market.



With today's mail a ToyVoyager arrived - Thiele, a cute little pelican.



A friend called and asked if Katja wanted to take a walk with her. Of course she wanted because the weather was really good today.

Thele, Moley and Titch stayed at home, SaruMaru and I went with Katja.

We went to Hasten, one of the oldest districts of Remscheid. Here you can see many houses which are typical for this region. They are often covered with schist and have green shutters, like the house on the next photo. They were usually built in 19th century.



I also liked this house.



We walked back home along the route of tools.





Bye
Theodore

Hi Mummy,
I'm celebrating my birthday!

We had cake in the afternoon and in the evening we had something much better: fruit in rum.

Fruit in rum is called "Rumtopf" in Germany. Many people prepare it during summer. You take a large ceramic pot and put fresh fruit into it. The fruits have to be washed, peeled and cut into pieces if they are larger fruits. You usually start with strawberries, then cherries, peaches, apricots, plums .... everything you like. For each portion of fruit you also take rock candy (for 500 g fruit you take 500 g sugar), than you fill in as much rum (rum with 54% alcohol content) until  the fruits are covered completely. Every time you like you fill in the next fruits, rock candy and rum.

In early winter you can taste the Rumtopf. It really tastes delicious! SaruMaru was eager to taste it.

We had a glass of rum from the Rumtopf and some fruits. We had cherries, kiwi, peach, plum and a strawberry.

Moley, SaruMaru, Titch and Thiele were celebrating with me.

















I'm afraid we all will have a bad hangover tomorrow ...

Bye
Theodore

Hi Mummy,
it has snowed again! We went to the attic and had a look out of the roof light. The sky is fully of heavy clouds.



When Katja had to shovel snow we were sitting in front of the house, watching her.



We went into town later. We have to walk only a few minutes to reach the town centre.



Something must have happened on the other side of the street. Some fire engines were standing there.



This is the entrance to the shopping street. The forceps are a symbol for the local tool industry.



When it was already dark we went to the christmas market. We bought a little present for one host who posted her wishlist here.



Bye
Theodore

Hi Mummy,
today we visited a christmas market in Cologne, in  Stadtgarten (a park area). You could buy nice things there.





We had raclette to eat. Raclette is melted cheese, served over boiled potatoes or rye bread with black pepper. This delicacy comes from France. The lady on the photo is scraping pieces from the hot cheese.



One of the town's landmarks is the telecommunication tower which was built in 1981. It's height is 266 m.



We did not visit the part of Colone where Cologne cathedral is located.

Bye
Theodore

Hi Mummy,

we baked christmas cookies today! We made nut macaroons.



You need
100 g ground hazelnuts
250 g flour
200 g butter
125 g sugar
about 60 hazelnuts



First we had to mix ground nuts and flour. Then we had to stirr the butter foamily and add sugar. Flour and nut mix had to be worked into butter and sugar.





From the dough we had to made small balls. Those were put onto a baking tray. As a last step we had to place a nut into the middle of every little dough ball.



The cookies had to bake for about 20 minutes.





It's done! The cookies are delicious. (Of course they are - I love everything that is made with nuts)

Bye
Theodore

Hi Mummy,
we had fantastic weather today. We already had planned a trip to the most interesting touristic highlights of this region. We wanted to visit Muengsten Bridge and Schloss Burg. I visited Schloss Burg already in October, but I loved it.

Here you can see the river Wupper which marks the border between the towns Remscheid and Solingen. In the background you can see a lookout pavillion. Later we came to another one similar to this one.



We reached Muengsten Bridge, the  highest railway bridge in Germany. It was completed in March 1897. It is 107 meters high and 465 meters long. It was built with about 5.000 tons of steel (5.000.000 kg). The bridge is overstretching the valley of the river Wupper. A few years ago a theme park was established. There are beautiful playgrounds for children, takeaways, lawns for relaxing, a miniature golf and souvenir shops. Katja told me that every year in summer a big festival is held underneath the bridge with fireworks.







We found a plate with some facts about Muengsten Bridge.



From here we walked to Schloss Burg. Along the path you can find artworks. On the surface of this table shaped rock  these impressions of hands are engraved. On other rocks poems are engraved or riddles. Most of them are not so easy to discover because they are partly covered with leafes and dirt from autumn and winter.



We had to cross the river Wupper here.

We walked along an old cemetary. It was built here in 1732. The tombstones were all made of a special sort of sandstone in a similar style.





From here we saw Schloss Burg for the first time, located on the hill above the river Wupper.



I saw this beautifully decorated house.




Solingen-Unterburg is located at the river Wupper. Here you can see the chair lift which goes uphill to Schloss Burg. We were not lazy and walked there through the forrest.



We than reached the lookout pavilion. From here you have a good view across the valley with the river Wupper and Unterburg.





We also visited Schloss Burg. Today we went into the castle courtyard where the medieval christmas market is taking place.





Katja and her friends had a coffe here. They also had a punch made of fruit wine before. SaruMaru was glad about that and tasted the punch immediately.



We had a little rest here.



We than had to walk back to the car for at least another hour. We reached the parking lot just in time before it was getting too dark outside.

We are all tired now.

Bye
Theodore