Life in Karlsruhe

We rested up and settled into Hayhow family routine - I was ready for a little down time. Theirs is a comfortable apartment on the 4th floor in a mixed neighborhood, like Laporte Colorado but different. ;-)

Moon over Karlsruhe

Here is a a view from their kitchen window.









=======================================

Saturday, we walked to the palace and botanic garden. There were exotic plants in the first section. Exotic?? It looked like our  ridge in Bellvue!! ;-)  Lots of cactus and spiny succulents.

Tree girl

Typical Karlsruhe couple

We walked through tended areas and less tended too. The girls enjoyed being outside. It was nice.

Claire & Erin play at Botanic garden

Sprites deep in water
sculpture forest

==============================================

The next day - off to  Fleckenstein castle. That meant a tram to the Hbf, a train to Winden, switch trains to Wissembourg (see the German and French in this town's name?), then a bus to Château du Fleckenstein. Same thing in reverse later - just more crowds.

Image from side of our bus
illustrates the place
better than mine

Hayhows on top
of Fleckkenstein  castle

We had a gorgeous day and this was a great castle to visit. It was built on an enormous sandstone monolith and tunnels and stairs were dug in the rock for living and moving around. This is not Versailles but the vanity and sense of self is apparent here too. It was like an enormous, interesting play ground. Great fun but being comfortable on uneven surfaces helped.

Castle viewed on walk back
from picnic and playground

Into the forest
on our way home

After a little walk through trees, we had a nice picnic. There was a children's playground and it was fully utilized. Nearby was a tourist spot with a hotel and restaurant. Artisans were making cider and flammkuchen  (a rich, savory, creamy pizza like snack - thanks Reid).









=========================================

The rest of our time here is on school days so our activities will  be more domestic than tourist. That's okay! Even though I'm beginning to smell the barn, I realize a good part of the barn smell is here in Karlsruhe. :-(

This could be it for the blog. We'll see. Thanks for taking the time to read it.

Gene



Hbf - http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Hauptbahnhof

flammkuchen - http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCkQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FTarte_flamb%25C3%25A9e&ei=PVBpUK_mMYfFswbaz4GABg&usg=AFQjCNGQ021ZIlBTYZXf3D4Aw-9TZyKfHg&sig2=-9v-RJ73Dxpr-h2W-ZDvBw