check out and plan travel arrangements for the family reunion in March

We had a wonderful time in Germany, alternating time with my family with exploring Bamberg and making day trips to Nuernberg and “Franconian Switzerland”, a region which is rich of sheer rock cliffs, castles and wild woodland walks. Check out my pics

Schlenkerla Smoked Beer rulez!!!

I reconnected with my extended family and had a wonderful time. Public shots of my trip will be on my flickr shortly.

After checking a number of different car rental companies stationed in the Frankfurt Airport Terminal, I placed a car reservation.
I also got a SatNav, which was rather cheap with EUR 0.75 per day.
I also knocked 10 bucks off the price for booking “early”.
That means I can’t change the booking anymore, but with flights booked and all we won’t do that anyway.

Still nearly 40 quid per day, but that’s alright as we won’t be paying for a hotel.

Nikolaus is 16 years my senior and I’ve only met him a few times in my life because his and my branch of the family live quite far apart in Germany. But every time I got to spend time with him he was my supercool big male cousing who I adored and “flirted” with as a little girl. Part of it is the fact that I have only one more male cousin, Jochen, who my sister felt a similar connection to. Other than Jochen and Niki, the rest of my entire generation of cousins is girls. So he was some kind of a super hero for me. The big brother I never had and only got to meet every two years or so.
On top of that, he also has a wonderful personality.
The simplest thing I can say about Niki is that he is awesome. A super nice guy. A very gentle person and straightforward. He always has something positive and heart warming to say. He also talks with the Franconian accent and a very sonorous voice, which adds to the allround wonderful package.
Yesterday I rang to tell him and his wife that we would definitely attend his 50th birthday at Easter and that we’d even come earlier so I have the chance to show bf the wonderful area of Germany Franconia is. We are invited to sleep at Niki’s place and we can do day trips from there.
We’ll be flying to Frankfurt on the 20th and after renting a car, we’ll visit Würzburg for lunch and a bit of touristy stuff (residence and fortress gardens).
On Good Friday, everything in Germany is closed. The whole country is nailed shut. Very conservative christians even wear black to church that day to signify mourning. So I hope we can ramble on that day and see some castle ruins and maybe have a picknick around Pottenstein.
In the region, it is an Easter tradition to decorate the village wells on Easter Saturday. Water was a rare commodity back in the day, and the women who had to carry it home decorate the wells since the beginning of the last century to show their respect for their water. Babies are traditionally christened during the night on Easter Saturday to make them smart, and the Easterwater is sprinkled on the fields for fertility.
So if the weather holds, a tour around the region to see the wells might be a fun thing to do with my Dad (scroll this page down to see a very nice one!).
In Northern Germany, people make huge (and I mean, huge!) Easter bonfires, but I haven’t found anything on the net regarding the south doing anything like that (so far, please comment if you know somewhere near Bamberg).
I’d also like to go to drink smoke beer in the Schlenkerla in Bamberg, which has a brewing tradition since the 1600’s and has been a pub since the 1400’s.
Oh Franconia!

We’ll be flying to Frankfurt on Thursday before Easter, rent a car and drive to Bamberg. I still need to make sure we have a place to stay at from Thursday to Tuesday. The big party is on Easter Sunday, so Monday will be recovery day and Tuesday we’ll fly back to Amsterdam.
G1 – figure out beds
G2 – make a car rental reservation
G3 – find places to visit between Frankfurt and Bamberg and surroundings to do a bit of the tourist thing so bf doesn’t get too bored with my family