Do You Know Your German Wine Festivals? Having told you so much about wine festivals in the Palatinate for the past two weeks, we simply have to take you to one. Although I must quickly add that the Kaisertafel in Speyer, the region’s historic capital, is not, strictly speaking, a “wine festival” and more of…
Hiking in Germany For our second hiking trip in the Palatinate, we tackled the stretch between Waldfischbach and Heltersberg, which is largely identical with stage 4 of the 9-stage “Pfälzer Waldpfad” (the Palatine Forest Trail). The Soul Rocks in the Palatinate Out of our three planned hikes, this was the one about which I had…
The ZumStein vineyard in Bad Dürkheim is one of the oldest and one of the most modern in the Palatinate wine region. It has a long tradition of producing high-quality whites for clients in Germany and abroad (including some prestigious corporate ones), but owner Dirk Renzelmann makes it a point of offering more. A lot…
Day Hiking in Germany A Coal Mine Called Nightingale Nightingale or Nachtigall Colliery (“Zeche Nachtigall“) at the foot of the Muttental trail prides itself on being the “cradle of coal mining” in West Germany. Coal was actually dug out of the surrounding hillsides as long as 300 years ago, and in 1839, at the very…
Got Two Hours in Cologne? Cologne is one of Germany’s main hiking hubs: whether you are going to the Rheinsteig, the Rothaarsteig, the Eifelsteig or any other trail in the Northwest of Germany, you are likely to pass through. But rather than just hopping off the airport bus into Cologne central station or using the…
What to See in Germany While I don’t think it is slanderous to call most, perhaps all, of its cities ugly, Germany’s old industrial heartland of the Ruhrgebiet is still a great place to visit. Mainly for two reasons: One, the Ruhrgebiet landscapes are nearly always interesting and can, occasionally, be downright idyllic – something that people…
Where to Eat in Germany German Culinary Institutions part II, and today, we’ll take you one notch up to a proper restaurant. (No offence, Profi-Grill, I still love you.) This one is a few kilometres down south from Wattenscheid to Cologne, hub for many a trip to hiking trails in Western Germany. German Culinary Institution…
Hiking in Germany The Coalminers Trail There are two things you should know about the Muttental Mining Trail, east of the Ruhrgebiet, Germany’s old industrial heartland: Firstly, for nearly all of the trail’s 9 km, you would never think that you are in the middle of what is essentially a city of 7 or 8…
What is a Forest? Hands up everybody who spontaneously said “Something with a lot of trees in it.” Strange, isn’t it, how much we take certain things for granted without ever thinking much about them. Forests are there – because they have always been there, haven’t they? This is an idea that probably still…
Spend Two Hours in Hamburg The best thing about Deutsche Bahn’s Across-the-Country 1-day rail pass (the “Quer-durchs-Land” ticket or QdL for short) is that it’s very cheap. Forty eight euros for two people on any regional train in Germany: that’s an unbeatable offer. Journeys take a little longer than on the fast IC trains, that…
