Saturday, May 31 Gyor

Several of us started the day at 7:30 with a hike to a coin laundry. At first glance on the map it had seemed pretty close, but a more careful look revealed a hike of about six blocks. It was a bit of a challenge at that time of the morning carrying our laundry, but we survived.

We drove past Vienna and on to Wallern, near the Hungarian border, home of Frank’s grandfather and Diane’s great grandfather. Here they are outside of one of the family homes.

It was pretty warm during our stop. It was 30 degrees C when we passed Vienna and at least that during the Wallern stop.

We carried on to Gyor for the night. We ran into a bit of a snag in that the GPS had no detail for the city, so we had to purchase a map and eventually found our hotel. By 6 pm we were gathered for supper, wrapping up about 9. See our 2006 blog for pictures of our very quaint hotel.

Friday, May 30 Salzburg

We started a little later this morning, which was good, because our hotel was beside the railway station and some people were awakened by every train, so a little extra time in the sack was welcome.

We hit the road at 9 am for Munich, arriving in time for lunch at the Hofbrauhaus.

From there we were off to the Haus der Donauschwaben in Bayern. This is the Bavarian provincial equivalent to the national facility that we visited in Sindelfingen. Although the library here was quite limited, they had a huge collection of village trachten (costumes) and a special music collection compiled by one of their members.

We were checked in at our hotel in Salzburg at about 6:30 and headed for the old town for supper. Mary Ann was searching for a special dessert called Slazburger Nockerl that Helmut (our driver in 2006) had recommended to her.

We left the restaurant at 9. Most of the gang headed straight back to the hotel, but Mary Ann took off to explore on her own and Celeste and I wandered the old town until 10. We found the parish church (the size of our catherdral at home) and the cathedral next door open. In the cathedral, people were walking a labyrinth of candles.

Today was another warm and sunny day, temperature in the high 20s C. The hotel room was again pretty warm. Air conditioning is not very common in Europe. And their bedding arrangement is different from North America. There are no top sheets or blankets, just a quilt. If you cover with the quilt, you are way too warm. If you kick it off, you can become too cool. You have to arrive at a sort of half and half arrangement that works for you.

To Make a Short Story Long

I have a bright red hat with a white maple leaf that I purchased several years ago while in Ottawa for Canada Day. I wore it on our 2006 tour as a beacon to help keep people from being separated from the group. I am using it again this year for the same purpose.

While checking in at the hotel in Ulm, I thought the girl behind the counter looked familiar, so I asked her if she worked here two years ago. She said yes and I explained that we had been here for three days two years ago and I thought I recognized her.

When the group met later to go out with me wearing my hat beacon, she called to me, “Herr Schwartz, I remember you too!”

Thursday, May 29 Ulm

Today was warm and overcast with a forecast for afternoon thundershowers, but we didn’t care as we planned to be inside all day. In the end it cleared off to a hazy sun and temperatures in the high 20s C.

We started the day with a very nice buffet breakfast at the hotel, boarded the bus, and arrived at our destination 15 minutes later. Frau Henriette Mojem introduced us to the Haus der Donauschwaben and gave us a tour of the facilities, museum and library. We then met Herr Johann Neumayer, head of the AKdFF, who offered us the use of his library also. The rest of the day was spent in the museum and libraries. We brought in some KFC for lunch so as not to waste too much time waiting for food. Everyone enthusiastically dug in to the many books and found something worthwhile. The offices closed at 4 and we were off to Ulm.

We were checked in to the hotel by 5:30 and went out to eat soon after. Mary Ann took us to a place she remembered fondly from our previous trip. It was a Pfannkuchen restaurant where everything from entrees to dessert was served on gigantic pancakes just a little thicker than a crepeand more than 18 inches across. Most of us were kind of decadent and went for the dessert right off the bat, but a few conscientious people had real food.





Later, we went for a walk along the Danube by the old city wall to the monument to those who sailed down the river to settle the Banat. After that we wandered over to the cathedral, which is supposed to have the highest church steeple in the world.

Wednesday, May 28 Sindelfingen

Frankfurter Leftovers



I had to include this picture of the ultimate portable hot dog stand that I saw in Frankfurt on Monday.






























Today was a long one! Quite a baptism under fire for our new tour members and driver!

This was Betty’s day as she had traced her line back to a few villages on the edge of the Black Forest. We added a couple of stops that weren’t on the itinerary, but when you are here maybe once in a lifetime, they are hard to pass up. Carol just realized yesterday that we were passing very close to where her father grew up in Sasbach, so we added that. And Betty had an obscure reference to a town named Waldshut that was pretty much on our way, so we thought we might as well check that out too. We deleted a possible tour of Strasbourg to fit these in.

By the time we loaded the bus it was 8:30. First stop was Sasbach, only 12 km off our planned route. Carol was quite thrilled to visit her father’s church (the cornerstone said 1740) and walk the streets that he walked, but we did not find any of her family in the cemetery.

We then drove through Freiburg and the Balck Forest to Waldshut. The scenery was beautiful along the way, not unlike the lower mountain valleys near Vancouver, except that there were no snow covered towering peaks in the background. We stopped at Waldshut for lunch and asked around about cemeteries. We visited two, but did not find anything of interest.











Next stop was Untermittingen, another name on Betty’s list. There was nothing of interest in the cemetery, but we were able to go inside the church (built in 1738) and Betty picked up a church bulletin with the priest’s email address. That should come in pretty handy! A lady in the cemetery told us that there were still people in the area with the two surnames Betty was looking for, so, combined with the email address’ she has some new leads to follow.

From there we went to the nearby village of Stuhlingen. No headstones there either, but we found two people with one of Betty’s names on the monument to WW I soldiers. Next was Villingen, a small city of 30,000-50,000 with a huge cemetery. We did a quick run-through, but didn’t find anything. As in all the cemeteries we visited today, most headstones were fairly recent and very old headstones were rare. Since about the 1970s, the law has been that you purchase a plot for about 25 years. After that, you must purchase a new 25 years or the plot goes back into circulation. Stones older than 200 years are exempt. Under this law, Betty’s stones should have still been there, but we found only a very few stones of people born in the 1800s and only a couple in the 1700s.

You have to admire how well they take care of their cemeteries in Germany. The headstones are usually quite large and beautiful. The graves themselves are usually planted with flowers or bushes. And they are meticulously cared for by watering, weeding, and other maintenance.

We finally checked into our hotel by 8 pm and ate in the hotel restaurant, closing the place up at 10. Weather to day was lovely with a high temperature in the high 20’s C (about 80 F) with hazy sun.

Tuesday, May 27 Strasbourg

I was up until about 9:30 with administration and blogging and woke up at 2:30 am. After tossing and turning, I finally got up at 4 for a shower and was down in the lobby posting the blog by 5. The combination of jet lag and a very warm room that we could not cool down made for a pretty short night. Others reported the same situation.

After a very good buffet breakfast, our bus arrived at 8 and we were on our way by 8:30. All the participants from the 2006 tour were curious whether Helmut, our driver from that tour, would make an appearance. Although the official reason is that he is on another tour, we suspect it has more to do with the problems we had at the Serbian border last trip. He said he never wanted to go back to Serbia and I guess he meant it. Our new driver, Johannes seems like a good replacement and I am sure we will come to enjoy his company as much as we did Helmut’s.

We stopped in Trier for a short tour and quick lunch. Trier is the oldest city in Germany with ancient Roman ruins and many other historic attractions. Unfortunately we were running a little late and we had an appointment at 1 pm for Mary Ann, so we did not stay long. Next time I think we will go back to the guided tour for this one.

Here is our group beside the bus in Trier: (l to r) Mary Ann, Celeste, Glenn, Betty, Miles, Diane, Nora Ann, Dorothy, Frank, Dixie, Carol, Delores, and Dean.

Mary Ann had made an appointment with the parish priest in Mensdorf, Luxembourg at 1 pm. He was running a little late, but when he arrived, he gave her an excellent tour of the church and cemetery with lots of historical information. Then, she hit the jackpot. Father Diedrich invited us back to his home (built in 1690, renovated in the last few years, with attached stable for goats) where he presented Mary Ann with several generations of birth and marriage records researched for her based on a letter she had written earlier. Furthermore, her family’s ancestral home was right across the street, information that he knew just by chance. She was grinning from ear to ear all day. Meanwhile he served wine to the rest of our group gathered around watching. On our 2006 tour, Jim had hit a similar jackpot, finding several family headstones and some written records in some villages near Metz.

We had stayed a little longer than planned in Mensdorf, so we skipped our planned stop in Metz and went straight to Strasbourg for the night. Our hotel room was pretty small, but clean enough and cooler than last night. We had a very nice meal on the outdoor patio. It was calm and warm with no bugs.

Weather today was overcast with temperatures up to about 20 degrees C until Strasbourg where it was 29 degrees and sunny, closer to what was forecast. I guess their forecasting here is much like at home.

Monday, May 26 Frankfurt

Well, here we are! Our Regina group left at 9:15 am for Calgary where we had about a three hour layover before departing at 1:30 pm on a Lufthansa Airbus A330. Just before departure from Calgary we met up with Carol Wilson, who had flown in from Cranbrook.

Here is our group at Regina airport: (l to r) Delores and Dean, Frank, Betty, Nora Ann, Glenn, Miles, and Celeste. Mary Ann is missing as she left a few days earlier for an extra side trip to Hanover.

On the flight they fed us a meal at 3:30 pm and a breakfast at 9 pm (5 am Frankfurt time). We landed at 6:30 am after nine hours in the air. Most of us tried to catch a few winks, but it was not easy when our bodies told us it was only afternoon and evening.

The three ladies from Vancouver flew four and a half hours to Montreal and another seven hours to Frankfurt. We all arrived at close to the same time and met up in the line for passport control. That was a bit of an ordeal!

There were a gazillion people in line and it was stiflingly hot, but we all got through in about an hour. Celeste and I were through fairly quickly. I was so excited when everyone else finally got through that I left the baggage claim without the Vancouver ladies! I asked a guard if he could escort me back, but he said I would have to go though security screening. I am not sure how you do that without a boarding pass. Fortunately, he suggested another option – go to information and have them paged – so I tried that. The girl at information said, “Why don’t you just go back there and look for them?” She pushed a button, the doors opened, and in I waltzed. The ladies were right where they were supposed to be, patiently waiting for me.

Getting to the hotel was another bit of a challenge. The shuttle bus only held eight people and there were other passengers and another terminal to deal with. There were only two seats available on the first shuttle, so Celeste and I took those so I could get a head start on getting us checked in. Most of the rest of the gang made it on the second trip, Frank and Nora Ann on the third, and Mary Ann, who arrived at the airport by train at 9:15, on the fourth.

Celeste and I arrived at the hotel about 8:30 to get the check in started. Of course, not many hotels have a lot of rooms available for check in at that time of the day, but we were first in line and, as rooms were cleaned, we were checked in one by one. I think we were all settled by about 10:30.

Before we started trickling off to our rooms, we decided that we would gather again at 2 pm and take cabs to central Frankfurt, tour about and have a meal. We dropped Mary Ann off at a medical clinic because she felt she had an eye infection coming on. She caught up to us later. Everybody explored on their own, then gathered for a very nice get-acquainted meal at 5 pm. We explored a little more afterwards before meeting our cabs at 8 pm for the return ride to the hotel. The down side was that the cabs were even more expensive than I remembered – 80 Euros each way for two cabs! 160 Euros or $250. Ouch! Everybody was pretty pooped by the time we returned and I am sure we will all sleep well tonight.

Here are (l to r) Betty (bent over), Carol, Dorothy and Dixie, and Miles.

The sky was heavily overcast when we landed, improving to a thin overcast by the time we gathered at 2 pm and to hazy sun for our excursion.