Travel Diary Part Two

Tues 17th –  Today we head to the ancient city of Trier, famous for its ‘”Porta Nigra” the Black Gate from when the Romans ruled here.  We are getting our folks used to the train and it seems like we meet new friends on and off the train!    We approached the Gate and of […]

German Journeymen & Wanderbuch’s

The Wandering Years On my recent trip to Germany, I caught a news story on TV that was of interest to me (although my understanding of spoken German is very limited) and perhaps to others with German heritage. The story was about a traveling craftsman and his wanderbuch.  This gentleman was an apprentice bricklayer, and […]

Using a German Website

Happy New Year! Already in the middle of the first month, can you believe it?  Time is going fast and now is the time to start thinking of travel plans for the spring or summer.  I wanted to talk a bit about our upcoming trip to the Northwest of Germany in May.  One of our […]

Freiburg Archives

We spent a day in the lovely town of Freiburg, which is in very southern Germany.  Our first stop was to the Staatsarchiv Freiburg.  We had a wonderful overview of the Archive by a Herr Strauss.  He had prepared a great lecture and showed us how to navigate their website by showing us what is […]

Black Forest Heritage

So off to the “Vogtsbauernhof” Black Forest Freilichtmuseum on Tuesday.  Weather seems to be holding and we had a beautiful ride down through the countryside.  Rolling green hills (or a little bit bigger than hills) with the tall pine trees that give the “Black Forest” their name.  In the midst of the green mountainside typical […]