As soon as we landed in Frankfürt, we took our rental car (no, not the golden one), and started driving towards Schloss Burg Rheinstein,, our first castle of the day:

We went to see an old castle, the first one of many:

nice view from the top

grapes everywhere

After a quick stop in Bacharach to pick up the room key in our Pension/B&B, and went to the neighbouring town of Oberwesel where we walked the city walls and saw its towers afer visiting its museum::w

after this city wall tower went unused, that church stole in and grafted itself onto it :)

some pepole live up there and use the draw bridge

nice paint job

We then went to Bacharach to park our car and catch a boat ride down the Rhine:

We then took the train back and had a quick walk around the city before getting dinner:

little castle like entrance for the train tunnel

We got off the boat at St Goar, and then took the train back to Bacharach, and did a quick way through town to our restaurant and then back to our room:

nice view from our room

We then went for a morning walk around Bacharach:

found this baby mouse on the path, I could have picked it up :)

Next, we drove to Burg Rheinfels, old castle ruins interesting to visit still:

bring your flashlight for the inside tunnels

france owned that region for a while under napoléon

Nice views from the castle of course:

Next, we drove to Koblenz to see the German Corner (merging of two rivers):

From there, we crossed the Rhine and drove to Marksburg to go visit a very nice medieval castle:

while due to timing we only caught a tour in German, the tour guide was great nonetheless

damn, I'm hungry just tpying this now :)

the armours could weigh up to 50kg

good views, again

We then made the fateful mistake of driving back down to Loreley, just across from St Goar, and instead of taking the car ferry right away, we drove up to a viewing point at Loreley:

This however cost us a lot, we were unable to drive back down to Loreley (cops blocked us as they had locked down the city due to fireworks), so we couldn't take the ferry across, and I had to drive a very round about way to Filsen nigher north. Filsen is not far, but the police forced us to go the long away around lots of mountain twisty roads. Good thing that I drive those things for breakfast, but even so, we had wasted over an entire hour going around to Filsen, getting the car ferry there, and driving back down to St Goar through the 61 highway because I was worried they'd close the river access road to St Goar too.

Eventually we made it in St Goar, parked a bit far away, walked back in beginning rain and only managed to score chinese food in a covered spot, waiting for the fireworks to start at 21:00. When they did, they were quite nice, despite the rain. They get started from a barge in the middle of the river, and then from the top of 2 castles on each side (although those are a bit less impressive) with a big finale launched from the river again. It's hard to get a viewing spot where you can see all 3 locations, but 2 out of 3 was easy. However, it was very hard to get good fireworks pictures when it's raining on your camera though, so these are the next best few:

We then walked back to our car, and back to bed for some much needed sleep, jetlag and all...

We left not too late, and drove towards Burg Eltz, a very nice Castle from a rich family that was able to stay friends with everyone around and keep their castle :) The tour in English was quite good, but started at 10:00 instead of 09:30 like Jennifer thought, so we went to the treasury first. Also, it's actually a 15-20mn walk from the parking lot, in the middle of nowhere, and the shuttle only started running at 10:00, but luckily we found the shuttle going to work, and the guy nicely picked us up.

big family

Next, we drove to Cochem, which we didn't really have time to visit, but stopping at the bridge to take pictures was good enough:

From there, we drove to Beilstein, where we stopped for a bit over an hour to visit castle ruins, a viewpoint, and walk through the small downtown:

stairs to the top of the tower

Next we went to see the church and downtown:

We then had to leave by 13:30 for a longish drive to Trier where we had to hit some museums that would be closed the next day (Monday). Trier used to be a major Roman town, so there are several roman relics left (although Arles and Nimes have more left, even if they were more minor in the Roman empire): Jennifer got to practise on the autobahn:

LandesMuseum had most of the Roman finds

that poor wild big found herself a companion of size :)

the city in Roman times looked very nice

They had a nice amphitheatre and a horse/chariot race track

We then had just enough time to drop the car by the hotel and go see the city museum before it closed (also closed the next day). We then walked to the downtown plaza for dinner, before some well earned rest:

new layout of the city

Sadly, due to other time commitment, I had had 0 time to practise the track on a computer beforehand, so I just showed up with 0 idea of how the turns were going to go, blind crests, or anything, but to save myself, I booked a private coach who rode with me during those sessions. I got lucky to be assigned to Winnie and he was absolutely awesome, he gave me the instructions I needed during each lap so that I would not drive off the track, and at the same time allowed me to drive as fast as I thought was safe (and I'll freely admit that I drove to the edge of my comfort level for a track I don't know at all). I was really impressed that he didn't keep telling me to slow down or asked me to work my way up slowly, which wasn't going to be possible with just 4 laps or so (in the end we were quick enough that even with a refueling stop, and him driving one lap to show me, I got 6 laps and he got one).

Incidently, the way to Nurburgring was when I got to drive on an Autobahn, and barely managed to get our Renault Mégane to reach 200kph (that had to be downhill). The 1.5l diesel engine couldn't go past 190kph-ish when level. Obviously I've driven much faster in the past in better cars, but that was the fastest I've driven legally on a public road :)

I only got 200kph for 2-3 seconds and wasn't fast enough to get a clear picture

Eventually we made it to Nurburgring, I checked in at Hotel Parc Fermé to sign my live away and allow a 7000 euro desposit from being taken from my credit card in case I didn't bring the car back in one piece :) Given that I was driving with Willie, I wasn't overly worried that would be a problem :)

the renault RS cars were well built with a half cage and paddle shift (although on top of a slushbox it seems)

nice stitching for a race car :)

public driving was only open for 2h15, the plan was that I'd get at least 4 laps and each lap would cost 60 euros extra (ride ticket plus wear and tear on the car)

I got to see a bunch of other cars that had just come off a track day:

and then came time for our turn

Jennifer was a trooper and got a few pictures of me when I got in and out

As expected, the track was a handful, but a lot of fun. Random impressions:

Yet, with the awesome help of the coach I had rented for the 2H (for a not cheap 300 euros), it was an awesome experience. I'm impressed how he let me go that fast without fearing for his life and shouting at me to slow down, especially since there were clearly turns that I wasn't doing quite right and never really had time to improve much in just 6 laps. Given that, this was the best 300 euros I ever spent for 2H of someone's time :)

I was kind of happy when I barely managed to get 200kph out of our crappy renault mégane 1.5l diesel (!) on the autobahn, that took a good downhill, but that was nothing compared to going pass 200kph on the Nurburgring for a few short seconds :)

Sadly I was not able to properly record my last and fastest lap (09:22), but here is my previous lap (09:28). Considering my first lap was a 10:13, I was definitely getting faster with each lap, but 6 laps weren't enough of course:

For comparison, my instructor did a nice clean lap (except for the yellow flag we got at the end):

For comparison, the car I had (or a slightly better version?) can apparently do 08:23 balls out: http://fastestlaps.com/tracks/nordschleife

Anyway, this post is about Trier and what we had left go see while we were there. We started with Porta Nigra, so called because the stone turned black over time:

Nice view from the top:

We then walked around town to St. Peter's Cathedral after going through marketplatz. It was absolutely huge and pretty:

Next, we went to Basilica/Imperial Throne Room, which is more historical, but not as impressive inside, outside of the sheer size:

From there, we went to Viehmarkt Baths Museum, vestiges of Roman Baths:

We then walked through downtown a bit again, and drove to the Roman Amphitheatre before heading off for Nurburgring:

Before leaving Trier, we hit Bishop's Museum (Museum am Dom), a small museum with Church and Roman relics that was closed the previous day. They also had a section on Nero, the Roman emperor full of vices. Interesting displays:

Next, we did a longish drive to Baden-Baden, and because it's not a very car friendly city (virtually no parking), we had to park at the casino when we arrived. We arrived there too late to visit the Casino in the morning, and did not feel like dealing with their BS (clothing guidelines, renting a jacket, etc...) to go back later, even if it's supposed to be nice inside. The TI next door was quite nice though, old Roman decors. Of course, I should probably mention now that Baden Baden was an old Roman town too, and it was known for its Roman baths, which have been kept up to date and are still running today (we went that evening after dinner):

Next, we went to a Russian Orthodox Church, which wasn't big, or as nice as the one we had the chance to visit in Nice, France, but still worth a quick visit, especially for all the stuff written in Russian inside :)

what language is this? Arturo?

Since we hadn't parked the car in a final location yet, we used the opportunity to drive to the Funikular that takes you to the summit of Merkur hill. The top had a decent view on the valley and Baden-Baden:

We then drove to the Lichtenthal Abei, but with its limited sporadic opening hours, we got to see nothing, that was a waste:

So we went to our B&B in Baden-Baden to drop off our car in their private garage, and walked around town towards the Lichtentaler alley:

although I had to stop at this bakery on the way :)

sadly that church had just closed by the time we arrived there

Lichtentaler alley is more historical than a must do IMO, but eh, we did a good part of it

the floral garden at the end of our walk, was nice though

We then walked back to town center, had a simple dinner in a cafe:

And then we walked to the Roman baths (Friedrichsbad), and did the full 2H+ 14 course roman bath experience, including a German guy who scrubs you hard with a brush and soap. For some reason, he spent much longer scrubbing naked Jennifer than naked me, I'm not sure why :)
You use the baths naked from start to end, and they are segregated, except for the last 2 big pools, 3 days a week, and mixed the rest of the week. We ended up going on a mixed day, which was fine with us:

the full course to follow

We left Baden Baden just after breakfast and went for to Vogtsbauernhof Black Forest Open Air Museum. It's a bit like the Folk Villages we've seen in Asia, although the houses were very different of course (and more comfortable):

wooden key, nice...

Next, we drove to Furtwangen's German Clock Museum, which was absolutely awesome. It showed a history of clock and watches, and the history of Coo Coo clocks that were made in the region (some entirely out of wood, including wooden gears):

wooden clocks with wooden gears

if you have a hard time waking up in the morning ;)

the unavoidable progression to quartz clocks

atomic clock

oh my, europe timezones used to be a mess...

They even had automats and music playing devices that they demoed for us:

After this great museum, we drove to St Peter and went to visit the beautiful Benedictine Abbey there:

It was a short visit though, as we had to hurry to get to Freiburg to visit the cathedral and museum before they both closed at 17:00, and it was still a bit of a drive, which got compounded by the big mess that parking there was. Eventually we found a public parking lot, ditched the car there, and we started with Freiburger Munster Cathedral, which included a back section for 2 euros and for 2 extra euros, we could climb to the top tower:

long staircase to the top

bell tower

great view from the top

Next, we went to Augustiner Museum, which housed a lot of pieces from Freiburger Munster Cathedral that were being damaged by weather:

who knew that it was Jesus who invented 'air quotes'?

awesome stairs in the sister museum

After everything closed at 17:00, we went for a city walk:

lovely statue mooning people underneath :)

And that was that for Freiburg, nice little mostly pedestrian and bike town.

After another nice German breakfast, we headed out for Staufen, a nice little town sadly 1h out of the way south, but worth the visit nonetheless:

I kept looking for ratatas in the rathaus we saw in multiple towns, but often didn't find any :105)

After that, we had a long (4H) drive to Füssen in Bavaria, and we did out best to arrive by 15:00, so we had some time to visit the local museum (Museum der Stadt Füssen) and castle (Hohes Schloss Füssen) before they closed at 17:00. The only hitch was that the town was closed to car traffic during the day, and we were unable to access our hotel the way we arrived. I ended up wasting 20 precious minutes trying and failing to get to our destination and eventually driving around town in bad traffic to re-enter it from another direction.
At the museum, the castle, and the church we saw subsequently, we found out that Bavaria has incredible art on its walls, mostly in some of its churches. The best I've seen anywhere:

They had multiple musical instruments:

Bavaria is known for lions:

Next, we went to Hohes Schloss Füssen:

Good view from the castle:

We then went to see the not that special from the outside, church (Benediktinerkloster St. Mang), and it was beautiful inside. Turns out that was going to be a pattern for every nice church we got to see in Bavaria:

After the Church, we did the city walk before going for dinner:

oh yeah, we hit another 'minor' church on the way, again beautiful

While we had to start early that day, we still got to enjoy a good breakfast at 07:00 sharp when it opened:

This day was pretty full due to how hard it is to get to Hohenschwangau & Neuschwanstein and how regulated it is. We had to get up around 06:30, be in the car by 07:40 and go pick up our reserved ticket by 08:00 when they opened, for our 09:15 tour (yes, they want you to be there an hour early, a huge waste of time). After the first castle, we had to again wait 45 for our next reserved tour at 11:15 because they refused to give us an earlier reservation if we did both castles back to back (in hindsight we should have made 2 reservations, one with each of our 2 names).
Then, to add to the annoyance, they disallowed pictures in both castles, and the 2nd one I really wasn't able to take pictures, despite looking at ways to do so, so I added a few stock photos I found on the internet. Now, both castles were very nice, especially Neuschwanstein. They were owned by the same family and Neuschwanstein was built to replace the old castle. Now, to be fair both castles were very impressive, and that's likely why they are so popular, but it took a lot of planning and dealing with BS to be able to see them. Jennifer really did a lot of work to line them up, and we had to hurry up and wait multiple times to deal with them.

After the first castle, we went to see the 2nd. That was a line for a bus for a ride up to a hike (45mn or so)

we first went to the bridge for a great view

Neuschwanstein does indeed look good

stock pictures from the internet

Once we were finally down with both castles, which again were very nice, but burned a lot of time, we went to TegelbergBahn, a small ski resort, to try luge for our first time. So luge is fun, but you only control your speed, no steering and no passing. Compared to luge in New Zealand where you're on a track and you can steer and pass around people (a lot more fun). So,if you haven't done the NZ luge, the German one is fun. If you have done the NZ one, the German/Austrian one is sub par :)

meuh!

and then down

From there, we drove to Wieskirche Church, in the middle of nowehter, but because it has a weeping statue of Jesus in the past, and many pilgrims that went there, they built a super nice church to host the statue, and I do mean super nice:

doesn't look like much from the outside

but damn is it nice inside

There was a nice bridge on the way after that, where we stopped briefly for pictures, as well as a small store just on the other side:

And our next destination was Oberammergau, a small town known for the multitude of mural paintings on people's houses:

small church there too, also beautiful

Next on the route was Linderhof Castle, the castle where the kind who built Neuschwanstein, lived while Neuschwanstein was being built, and as a single person castle, it's not bad at all :)

After the supposed no pictures guided castle tour, we went to see the rest of the castle grounds, which weren't crappy either:

the guy built his own grotto with water, boat, and mural...

he also built a turkish like building and room

very nice

And no, the day was not over yet, we still had time for Ettal Monastery, which thankfully closed later, and at the risk of repeating myself, was also super nice:

And then it was finally time to drive back, a 1H drive we did through the Austrian side for mountain and lake views:

Damn, this was a long day, but we sure saw a lot :)

While this day wasn't as crazy, it was still a bit long, mostly due to the 3H drive to Salzburg at the end. We started by trying to go to a scenic flight from Hofen airport, but turns out the runway was being paved and there were no planes at all when we came. So, we scratched that plan and went directly to our next destination, Ehrenberg Castle Ensemble.

we had to buy a vignette to be able to drive in Austria

and saw gliders at the airport, but no planes, so moving on...

Ehrenberg Castle Ensemble is really a bunch of Castle ruins, but still worth seeing for historical value and views and the super long suspension bridge they have:

really super long...

crossing the bridge takes you to fort claudia, or what's left of it

Back across, and wer'e at Burgruine Ehrenberg, and from there, a streinous 15mn hike up gets you to Festung Schlosskopf, which doesn't look like much either, but at least from there there is a great view:

a crane to put big rocks in place

view didn't suck

After 2.5H there (counting all the hiking necessary), we went to Biberwier Lermoos for its famed luge course. Again, it was fun and challenging-ish, but really you can only go faster until you go so fast that you fall off the course and get seriously injured. I'm just not convinced... I got my times from 2:26 to 2:12 and then 2:02 on my last try. I'm sure I could have done sub 2:00 with one more time down, but again I can only see how this would have ended badly eventually :)

I didn't have my GoPro saldy, and filming this with one hand didn't seem safe, but he's a video from someone else. I was 6 seconds faster and got good air on the jump where they didn't :)

From there, we drove to nearby Tiroler Zugspitze to get a gondola to the top for great views:

damn, no new snow :)

how did that car get there?

Lots of people up there:

you can cross from Austria

to Germany while being at the top

This was the real top, but required climbing with carabiners to be safe, which we didn't have. Going there was not the best idea ever, but by going slowly, and hanging on for dear life in case our feet slid, we made it ok:

I celebrated :)

From there, we then had a longish drive to Salzburg and get some sleep.

After arriving in Salzburg the previous evening (another city that's a mess for cars, with one ways everywhere, and even pilons that come out of the ground and close roads unless you have a special code to enter), we got up the next morning and went to visit the old town. We started with Helbrunn Palace, a bit outside the city. It has an impressive garden with displays and trick fountains designed to get guests wet:

every seat got wet, except the archbishop :)

nice antlers that got everyone wet

levitating a cone with a jet of water, not bad

getting out without getting wet was hard

because you had jets directed at you

After the tour of the fountain gardens, we went to see the rest of the garden and palace:

Next we drove back to our parking lot 10mn from the hotel and walked to Mozart's residence:

From there, we crossed the bridge to old town, and apparently filling bridges with locks has also become "a thing", there:

We then ended up in the Salzburger Dom, adjacent to the beautiful Salzburg Cathedral, and the museum has an interesting part where it goes inside the cathedral on a catwalk and lets you view the cathedral from inside and from the top:

Next, we moved to the Salzburg Museum Neue Residenz which had various displays about the city, and other collections:

By then, it was already 16:45-ish, so we were starting to run against the clock. We went to Mozart's birthplace house (closing at 17:30), which had a small museum:

From there, we went to he Salzburg Cathedral, which was cathedral was both massive and beautiful, I'll start with some pictures from the Dom earlier, and then pictures from the floor:

Done with the cathedral, we headed towards Petersfriedhof complex before it closed at 18:00:

And we still had to hurry up to Fortress Hohensalzburg where we arrived just by 18:00 to have just 1H to tour it before it closed at 19:00. We had just enough time to take a few pictures, and join the guided tour A, and barely make it to the self guided tour B by 18:30. Pfew, that was close :) Good view from the city up there of course:

old city walls

This day also happened to be the anniversary of someone who helped develop the salt industry that made Salzburg rich, so they had a big party in the old town with costumes, music, dancing, and octoberfest like beer gardens:

After the Castle visit, we went back down to partake into the festivities a bit, and try to find something that would pass as dinner without us having to waste 90mn or so in a slow restaurant, so that we could get back to our room a bit earlier, but as luck would have it, as we got home, they started fireworks, so we went back out just a bit to see them :)

While we did a good job with Salzburg the previous day, we didn't finish it all, so before heading out we went to Mirabell Palace and its nice gardens, and then the Historic Cemetery of St. Sebastian before we picked up all our stuff and drove out:

some of the Mozart family is burried there

From there, we drove in the wrong direction (since we going to Munich ultimately) to see Hallstatt and Eagle's Nest, the mountain residence where Hitler used to live. This is because Rick Steve's recommended it highly like pretty much all jewish/holocaust related sites, but honestly this was not the best one, and by far. The actual house Hitler used to go to there is very hard to reach on top of a mountain you can only access with hourly-ish busses, and once you're there, it's a nice mountain, but the house has been replaced with a restaurant, and there is nothing historical to really see.
Back down, there is a documentation center that explains some history on Hitler, but nothing that was not in Munich or Daschau on our next stops, and the bunker/underground visit was closed for renovation, so there was ultimately no reason to spend the 5-6H this side trip cost us, and we should have spent the extra time in a Munich Museum instead:

after almost 1H to get to the almost top, there was a long line to get into an elevator in a tunnel. We should have hiked to the top instead

time wasted...

peak of the mountain

at least we got a good view, usually it's supposed to be foggy/in the clouds

documentation center

Jennifer who didn't know much about this side of history, having gone through the US public system, took a fair amount of time to read all the boards, and eventually we did the longish drive to Munich and aimed directly for Nymphenburg Palace that's outside of town, and where we'd get just under to visit before they closed at 18:00.
The palace grounds were huge, Versailles like, and the palace and adjacent buildings with collections, were quite nice too:

we got lucky to see this owl trying to sleep

And by then our day was almost over, but went to the Google building to go visit a coworker, and do a building tour

Another nice office to visit even if indeed the layout of towers that don't connect unless you go down to the 1st or 2nd floor, takes a little bit of getting used to:

need enough room to store the beer :)

I guess I won't open this door then

very nice gym

This was a very full day, there is a lot to see in Munich. We started by walking through downtown and seeing the monuments there.

We then went to the Residenz Museum, which is absolutely huge. However a huge thumbs down for Munich security measures and this museum that refused me entry with my fanny pack, the fanny pack where I put the things that are in my backpack that I already can't take in (a bit more understandable since it can damage walls and art).
I expressed my profound disatisfaction to the security lady about how pointless and stupid that rule was, while putting some of the fanny pack contents in my pockets in front of her to show how utterly useless it was outside of needlessly aggravating honest people. Usually Germans are better than this, but here they sunk lower than US TSA. I was not impressed.
Anyway, putting that aside, we got to enjoy the palace/museum, some 90 rooms or so:

beautiful ceiling

We then went to the new city hall (Neues Rathaus), a beautiful building with a clock show 3 times a day, so we went to see it:

We then climbed to its top tower for nice central city views:

Next, we went to see Peterskirche, a fantastic church:

exorcism

Nearby was Viktualienmarkt, a nice market place with varied of fresh produce:

fraises des bois, yeah!

We then went back to see Asam's Church, a weird church used to demo all decors you can put in a church, but sadly it was half closed all day for no good reason. We only got to see it from the entrance behind a grill, what a shame...

Then, more walking, this time to Frauenkirche

nice outfits :)

And then we went to St Michael's Church with a detour via a made up Michael Jackson memorial on an unrelated statue:

Then, we walked more (lots of walking this day) towards the Documentation Museum which explains the rise of Nazis and what they've done. It was well done and quite complete. I knew most of it, having learned it in school in France, but Jennifer not as much, so she spent 2H longer than I did, and I used that time to go to other nearby museums:

I then went to the Glytothek for 30mn before it closed, they had a good collection of greek artifacts:

From there, I went to Alte Pinakothek for some nice paintings:

And because some museums were closing at 20:00 that day instead of the typical 17:00 or 18:00, I even had time to go to the Egyptian Museum which was quite good too, and Jennifer met me there when she was done at the documentation museum:

By 20:00 we left the museum as it was closing, and we took a cab to Oktoberfest. There again, they tried to stop me from getting in with my fanny pack, but by choosing another security gate and person, I was finally allowed in with it (the first ones didn't even care what was in it and were just being stupid about it). We checked out a few beer gardens and walked by amusement rides (a nice collection) for a bit over an hour before going back to our room for some rest after this very long day:

people chanting and dancing on chairs

By 10:00 sharp, we went to to the museum for its opening:

Between 10:00 and 11:20, we just had enough time to visit the right part of the museum (the part that goes up), and we had to go back across the street for the factory tour starting at 11:30. Sadly, as per all such tours, no pictures. This was the most interesting and complete factory tour I've done amongst Telsa, Toyota in Nagoya, Mazda in Hiroshima, Ferrari and Lamborghini in Maranello. They actually showed us multiple points of the assembly line, including:

The factory tour lasted around 1H45, so after it was over we went back to the museum to visit the bottom/left section, which was more a collection of all kinds of cars, bikes, engines, even aircraft engines, and various technology panels. Also quite interesting.
In the end, we were there until 14:30 or so, much longer than planned, but it was worth it:

beautiful prototype

In the end, I probably got to see about 1/3rd of it well enough and another few bits with fast walking, before I got cornered and tackled by the museum guards and thrown out ;)

A few pictures:

a rand tube computer, I've only seen another one at the computer history museum in Mountain View

nice display showing how many transistors you have in an early micro processor

There was much more to see, but no time. Hopefully I'll be able to go back another day for a full day this time.

Our day was mostly spent in museums, first the BMW Welt, Museum, and Factory Tour and then Munich's Deutsches Museum.
When we got kicked out of the Deutsches Museum, we drove to the Englischer Garden where we walked around for a bit after seeing locals surfing in a river with good flow and a natural wave:

After going around the park, we went to Hofbrauhaus Muenchen for beer and dinner:

After not enough time in Munich, we had to head out for Dachau, Germany's oldest concentration camp. While it was never used for mass killings, thousands of people did die there due to deliberate bad treatment, and/or being literally worked to death. There was a gas chamber there, but it was mostly not used. Gassing was mostly done at Auschwitz in Poland.
The Dachau memorial had lots of rooms with static displays to read. I found the ones about medical and human endurance tests done against prisoners specifically interesting since I didn't know much about that side of what had happened:

reconstructed barracks were prisoners and detainees were piled up

there were many such barracks but they're not here anymore

cremation chamber

gas chamber, never really used at mass scale there, but probably identical to the one(s) in Auschwitz

walking through this room does not make you feel good obviously

After Dachau, our ulimate destination was Rothenburg, but we stopped by two recommended quaint towns on the way. We started with Nördlingen, a nice medieval town with fully intact town wall and entrance towers:

we then walked portion of the town wall

We then went to Dinkelsbühl:

We then finished our drive to Rothenburg, where we arrived in time to check in, despite google maps driving directions being all wrong for small towns with pedestrian streets again, have a quick dinner by the main plaza, and join the join watchman tour. That tour was a small night walk with an entertaining guide with stories about the town's history. Amongst other things, it was part of a 30 year war between catholics and protestants, or some other flavour of the same religion that's just different enough to justify killing hundreds of thousands of people over. Then, the town narrowly avoided being carpet bombed by the Americans as they were taking over Germany because someone in charge had pictures his mom brought back from a trip there, and knew it was a beautiful city (just like Kyoto was also spared because a general had his honeymoon there):

This was probably our easiest days during our trip, Rothenburg is a small city, first sights opened at 09:00 and most everything closed at 17:00, so that made for a short easy day since we were already onsite and were sleeping there too that night. We had another good German breakfast, and I took the advise given to me :)

We started with climbing up the city building for a nice view of the city:

When then did a city walk:

that's interesting math

walking the city walls

I climbed a tree and got some apples for Jennifer :)

one of the gates to the city

if you missed curfew and were stuck outside, you had to bribe the gatekeeper to let you back in through this manhole

The city had multiple museums, where we spent most of our time:

with random other displays

they also had an expo on witch hunting around the Martin Luther era

We also went to visit a few stores:

they even had a christmas store

they sell those local dough deep fried with sugar on top, we passed :)

We finished the day with an early-ish dinner where we enjoyed flamenküche, an alsacian specialty

We left Rothenburg early-ish in the morning and drove to Weikersheim, a nearby town where we went to visit Palace (Schloss Weikersheim and went through its gardens before it opened at 09:00. We then got lucky to have a private tour from their guide when they opened at 09:00. It's a nice palace that was built by another person with too much money who was jaleous of Versailles and wanted to at least match it :)
Pictures were kind of restricted inside, so I sadly only have a few shots:

We then drove to Würzburg's train station and finally dropped off our car:

2416km driven, not as much as our French trip, but not too bad :)

From the train station, we went to Residenz Palace in Würzburg, it's a beautiful palace, were very annoyingly so pictures were restricted too. By then I was really starting to get annoyed at this. When Germans go to Versailles, we let them take all the pictures they want, it's really not right that they are preventing pictures without flash in some of their nicest palaces and castles...
Another thing to know was the that palace was heavily damaged (like most of the city) by WWII bombing, so they spent a lot of time and money rebuilding it, and the rebuilding job looks really good. Anyway, these are the pictures I have:

And 3rd party pictures I had to waste time looking for, thanks again to the restrictions Residenz Palace in Würzburg had:

In the same location, we went to the Court Chapel, which was beautiful:

Next, we went through the gardens:

We then started our Würzburg walk:

We then went for a walk up to Marienberg Fortress for a guided tour that was going to leave at 15:30, and we made it up just in time:

after a pretty steep walk up, we got there

good view from up there, keep in mind the city was mostly levelled by bombs and rebuilt

We then went to visit the main museum that's part of the Fortress:

By 17:00 the museum closed, so we walked back to the town towards the train station and took a train to Nürnberg:

Because it was sunday, virtually nothing was open before 10:00, so we started by going to Rally Grounds walk around Dokumentationszentrum, and arrived there at 09:00 to do a one hour walk around the grounds. To be honest, outside of the Zeppelin Field, the rest of the walk was a bit boring, there isn't really much left to see today outside of that, and the amphitheatre that the Dokumentationszentrum is in:

we arrived at 09:00, 1H before it opened, so we took the time to walk around the grounds

overview of the grounds, including parts that were never built due to lack of funds/time after WWII started

A huge street meant for marching and displays between monuments

Congress Hall, the only monument that almost got fully built (some were planned and never started). It was supposed to get a roof though, but that didn't happen

another view

Zeppelin Field was used for huge Nazi rallys

very big

now it's an overgrown field used for sports

part of the outside of the field is actually used as a race track a few times a year, with grand stands

A bit after 10:00 when Dokumentationszentrum opened, with did the tour with the audio guide:

A bit after 2H for the visit, we took a bus back to downtown for a city walk

Saint Sebaldus Church

Männleinaufen

Lorenz church

the church, like most of the city, was heavily damaged by WWII bombing and a lot was rebuilt

Hauptmarkt

We were supposed to do a 14:30 guided tour of bunker tunnels were a lot of art was stored to be protected from bombings, but it was run badly by a company that didn't really care, and we got incomplete information which ended up with us showing up early and being told there were no spots left for the only tour of the day that's maybe in English (or not). Instead, we just had a quick walk up to Kaiserburg, the Imperial Castle, which we just had a quick look at without going in.
The city view from there was a bit underwhelming, sadly, the view was a bit underwhelming:

So, since it was close to 15:00, we opted for doing to the Deutsches Museum, a great museum that happens to contain a church inside of it (!). I barely got to see all of it in 3H, and at normal pace, it's likely worth most of a day. It has a very varied collections, from caveman artifacts, to middle ages, to church history, to science instruments, musical instruments, old paintings, new paintings and art, nouveau art, and more:

nice faucets

I then went to the church inside the museum

how many museums have a church inside of them?

We then had dinner in downtown and want to get some sleep due to an early train to Dresden the next morning

From Nürnberg, we had to get to Berlin for my conference, and Dresden was on the way, so we spent a day there, but sadly it was a monday when most museums were closed (then again, our partial day in Dresden was pretty full as is, so we'd have had to add a 2nd day for the extra museums anyway).
We took an early train at 07:30 from Nürnberg and had a 4H trip to Dresden, including a dicy train change that ended up working out as our train arrived late for the 3mn connection but thankfully the other train waited 2mn for us to let us transfer and make it. We arrived around 11:30, put our luggage in a locker, and went out in Dresden for a city walk under the rain.
That day also turned out to be German Unity Day, so there were both festivities under the rain, a fair amount of people protesting about various things, and lots of police everywhere to ensure there would not be any terrorist acts. It was a bit weird but I can't blame the Germans for being worried at this point.
Dresden was also heavily bombed during the war, most buildings had been rebuilt already:

the way from sorrow to violence is shorter than from Dresden to Heidenau

Frauenkirsche

poor church was reduced to rubbles

Art wall on fuerstenzug

sadly the celebrations on theatreplatz were kind of wet

lovely touring weather

We then went in the main museum that thankfully was not closed that day: Residenzschloss in Dresden. I has a famous "green vault" where the most valuable artifacts are stored, and for which we had a reservation. The items are stored in a vault where as expected no pictures were allowed. It was a nice collection, but it was a bit annoying that they made it that special and with those extra requirements. On the plus side "the new green room" inside the main museum had artifacts that were just as nice, where access was not restricted, and where pictures were allowed:

nautilus shell

coconut shell

The 3rd floor of the museum had other collections:

Nice coin collection:

The nearby church was accessible via a special access path for royalty, but because we weren't royalty, we were not able to use it:

when the museum closed at 18:00, we had a quick look at the nearby museum complex that was closed, and went back to the train station to catch the last direct 2H train to Berlin:

Our first nights were at the intercontinental berlin, which had a great breakfast but wasn't super nicely located for sightseeing:

very good selections

During lunch the first day, we had a quick walk to a nearby church that had been badly damaged by bombing, walking by the zoo:

One evening, we had a party next the Berlin tower and AlexanderPlatx. We had a rooftop party, but it was so cold that we only went out for a few pictures and stayed inside the rest of the time:

The first day after the conference, We went to the Deutsche History Museum, which was both unique and excellent. I had never seen a museum that recounts the entire history of a country, but that's exactly what this one did:

Next, we went to Pergamon Museum that was open late that evening, and that saved us from the usual lines they have. It's going to be in renovations for many years, but they still had interesting collections from the middle east that were visible:

The next morning, we walked to the Reichtag for a walk to the top dome. Honestly the view was nothing to write home about, but it's a nice building nonetheless:

pieces of the berlin wall

monument to murdered jews

Before doing the rest of the walk, we did a detour to the Wall Museum, with a reconstituted piece of the Berlin wall with watchtower, and no mans land in the middle. The subway also showed subway stations that got closed and became ghost stations while the wall was up (as well as escapes that managed to work out through the subway tunnels):

in some places, the pavement shows where the wall used to be

what the wall used to be like, two walls really

The walk then went to Branderburger Gate and continued the walk:

the bunker hitler finished his life in before killing himself is gone, just a plaque

galleries lafayette

Not on the Rick Steves Walk (and that is a mistake) were the German and French cathedrals by the concert hall. The French one was actually for a sect of the protestants that had to flea from France after persecution from the catholics, and the city of Berlin added a nice dome on top that one can now climb after the rebuild that happened due to WWII:

the french cathedral had a museum

new church tower with bells

just a few steps to get to the top

nice view

the church inside is very basic, as expected for protestant churches

Deutsche Cathedral

We then walked to checkpoint charlie before going to Topography of Terror, the Berlin documentation center, with its own piece of wall too. By then, this was our 4th or 5th documentation center on what the Nazi did, so there wasn't really anything new, but we still went through it in a couple of hours since it was open from 18:00 to 20:00, a bit later than others places that had closed by 18:00:

they had more pictures

some were disturbing: hangings...

shootings, etc...

By 20:00, the documentation center closed, but I had still time to visit the nearby "Mauermuseum - Museum Haus am Checkpoint Charlie". It had some interesting stories on how people escaped east berlin and got across the wall through various means: tunnels, self built aircraft from planes to balloons, ramming the wall with a big bus or truck (that didn't work so well), using fake uniforms, fitting in a suitcase, or a loudspeaker box, and so forth :)

incidently, East Berlin apparently only had one kind of car, for those lucky enough to have one. It's now an icon

someone even managed to hide in the engine bay of that crappy car

original sign from checkpoint charlie

I finally got done by 21:30, it had been a long day, and it was well past time for some rest :)

The next morning we went to the Berlin Dom/Cathedral which opened by 09:00 when everything else was closed until 10:00. Decent view from the top:

By 10:00-ish we headed towards museum island, starting with the Altes Museum, with a nice collection, but again we got hassled for BS like Jennifer being told she could not carry her jacket around her waist and put it on and off as needed. Either she wore it, or she had to check it in. Seriously?

we learned during this trip that Romans started making sarcophagus and mummified some of their people after learning from the egyptians

greeks having sex

By then it was late enough to see a small original watch tower that was used to check the wall

in that location the no mans land between the 2 walls was huge

From there, we headed back to museum island to see Neues Museum, as it's actually called:

yes, egyptian stuff isn't exactly new, but it was in the new museum anyway :)

Next, in case the names weren't confusing enough, there is also an alte national gallery that isn't the altes museum:

After that museum, we went back to finish the Deutsches History Museum, and when they kicked us out at 18:00, we went to the DDR Museum nearby. To be honest, the DDR museum wasn't as interesting, but when we got out, it was night, so we went to enough the night sights and the festival of lights:

And that was it for our visit of Berlin, much to see, especially museums, and it was interesting to see what's left of the wall in person, as well as more history about it than I had learned at home.

As luck would have it, they were open late due to celebrating Google's 18th anniversary. That was fun and well timed :)

great berlin wall logo

that sums up half the German food we ate :)

The main meeting room had a nice party:

I'm not a huge fan of driving on boring public roads, but Germany was about as good as it could have been. Hightlights on driving:

2400km, not as many as the 3700km we drove in France

About food:

My other thoughts on Germany:

we saw many solar farms on the side of the road

So, despite some of the speed bumps due to over strict rules, it was a very nice trip through a country with varied history and culture, resulting in lots of different things to see. Well worth it.