Berlin, Germany

With many visits to Germany under my belt, I had never visited the East nor the Capital.  So, Berlin was yet another city on our 'must see' list.  As we continued our zigzag through Europe, we drove to Berlin and stayed two glorious nights at the Westin Grand on Friedrichstrasse right around the corner from the Brandenburg Gate and Unter den Linden.  We were in walking distance of everything, which was great because once we were finally able to access the hotel and valet the car, we weren't about to get it out until we left for Poland.











Who would have guessed that Berlin would still be rebuilding after all these years?  There are blue water pipes running all through the city.  One day this city will be the European capital of its former glory, but that day won't be anytime soon.

Our first stop was Checkpoint Charlie.  The Wall Museum is across the street from here on the East side.  The museum was done very nicely and included some great photos and pieces of the wall.



Our two days in Berlin were very educational.  Maybe contemporary history is more relevant to us than medieval times?  The wall came down 24 years ago when I was graduating from college.  Surprisingly it stood for almost 30 years until 1989.  It is impossible to imagine in today's times that a physical wall could encircle  half of a city and entrap the other half for that long.

The wall surrounded West Berlin but was designed to keep the East Berliners on the outside, yearning to get in.  One large section of the wall still stands.  There is a controversy over taking it completely down to make way for development vs. persevering it as a relic of sorts.  I'm not sure how I would vote?

The Brandenburg Gate is the most iconic symbol of Berlin to me.  Built in 1791 and after World War II, it is the only remaining gate to the city still in tact.  The gate was in no-man's-land between the walls of East and West.  For this reason, the underground station for the Brandenburg Tor was completely off limits at the time.  It has been preserved in it's 1960's state ever since.

We really loved the cool green subway tiles.  These would look good on a kitchen backsplash, right?

Ampelmann

This little guy would make playing the children's game Red Light / Green Light really fun! Ampelmann is the actual figure of the walking signs from East Berlin and has now become one of the very few (if any) symbols to be fondly remembered from the Russian era.  After reunification, he was almost extinct, but through a resistance movement, citizens halted the abolition of the quirky character.

We bought into the hype and purchased gifts for all of our family in the store.  Capitalism at its best!

The Holocaust Memorial

The grey color of the 2711 concrete columns that make up the installation are supposed to be in remembrance of the ashes of the Jews who were cremated.  The museum is located sort of around the corner from the Brandenburg Gate.  To me, it is located too central to the city and would be more meaningful if it were off on its own somewhere?  Even still, you can easily get lost in the maze and the sad history.

Rothenburg, Germany

In order to accomplish one of my 2013 Goals, we needed to visit Rothenbug ob der Tauber.  Somewhere on a long drive to Prague, I realized that I have actually visited almost all of Rick Steves' Best of Europe recommended locations.  Lisa gave me the book as I left for our European Adventure and we used it on several occasions.

Rothenburg is a beautifully preserved medieval town in Bavaria.  When we were planning this diversion, Jeff kept saying how it sounded like Frankenmuth, Michigan which was in fact settled by Germans from the Franconian region of Bavaria (aka Rothenburg).  So, I suppose he knew what he was talking about?  Further along the way, he told me that he had also visited an authentic medieval town like this somewhere in Germany.  Turns out, when we got to Rothenburg, Jeff realized that this was his second visit.  This is like visiting the Neuschwanstein castle without realizing it inspired Cinderella's castle, or watching Austin Powers multiple times without getting the James Bond reference :)

We arrived on Easter Weekend and it was definitely the shoulder season in Germany.  Since the tourists had yet to arrive, we found plenty of open restaurants and streets for sightseeing.  The days were still cold and grey, but the town had decorated with hand painted hollowed eggs.

Rothenburg ob der Tauber means Red Fortress over the Tauber River.  The medieval city walls were built to surround a castle high on a plateau over the river below.  The walls are topped with red tiled roofs matching most of the buildings in the town.  You can hike around the town via the wall and get some great views.

There were several gates still standing as well and we really enjoyed the scenery, apparently unchanged for thousands of years.  Our guest house had also been around for many years and due to the family holiday, we were able to get the room with these four front facing windows.  We enjoyed the modern bar in the basement and a young bartender who gave us all of her 'mistakes'.



We found some great treats in town but our favorite was the Italian gelato.  We met up with a family that runs a wonderful gelateria in Rothenburg during the tourist season (they had just opened up for Easter) and then goes home to ski all winter in the Dolomites.  Very nice life!  Well, you can certainly see the resemblance to Brugges in this picture as opposed to the other very German looking buildings.  We were glad to have visited Rothenburg, but as Jeff might say, once you've seen Frankenmuth, you've seen it all.
 

Somewhere in Portugal

 Monday after the race, we took a vacation day and decided to explore the surrounding area in search of a potential beach community.  We knew that this wouldn't work for Chase and Carly since they speak Portuguese here rather than Spanish, but it was still fun to explore.  We found Cascais, which is a resort community on the coast.

We did a little shopping and mostly took pictures of the town.  They have a Clube Naval (yacht club) and apparently do a good bit of lobster and other sea creature trappings here.  Note the Atlantic and the huge ships in the distance!

"This must be a beautiful place in nice weather"  (again)...  The long winter in Europe continues and even on the coast of Portugal today we had some chilly rain showers.

The town of Cascais really is a lovely town made popular by the Portuguese Royal Family in the 19th century.  Now, it is one of the most wealthy areas of Portugal.  By the looks of it, the school children don't have it too bad either.  Can you imagine sitting in class in a circle on the beach?  Maybe Chase and Carly will come afterall?

 There was an old castle dating from the 12th Century at the edge of the water which we found very enchanting.  Cascais is about 30K West of Lisbon and served a strategic defense position for many years.  Over the years, there were several invaders who decided to settle down and make improvements to the castle eventually turning it into a traditional citadel.  

A citadel, in case you have forgotten, is typically a star shaped walled fortress. This picture of the old fisherman is probably the most amazing graffiti that I have ever seen.  I guess you call this graffiti? Whatever it is, it is worthy of a picture.  Too bad that someone less artistic had to add the caption.

 So, I have mentioned the beautiful white tiles on the sidewalks in Lisbon.  They have those here also but additionally these amazing mosaics all over town in different patterns.  I really love this look.

 

 Of course, I'm still collecting doors for Sherry.  This one was interesting and seemed to match the color scheme of the city as well as the graffiti theme of the blog post!

 The city has stately buildings, beautiful squares, palm trees, Royalty, beaches and sunshine (we hear).  I really think this would be an amazing place to visit in the summer.  The English tend to vacation to the Algarve which is on the very south coast of Portugal.  Traveling in and out of Lisbon and visiting both Cascais and the Algarve area would make a GREAT vacation.  We might just do this with Suzanne and Corrine some day.  They were the first to turn us on to this area.

Here are some more beautiful nameless buildings and scenes in Cascais, Portugal...

Peek View

Houses hugging the road

A tiny park with a view

Meia Maratona de Lisboa (Portugal)

The race started on the other side of their version of the Golden Gate Bridge.  The Ponte de Abril 25 (Bridge of April 25) is an exact replica of the Golden Gate.  Jeff and I ran the Golden Gate in San Fransciso at the very end of my first marathon training schedule.  It was fun to run the Portugese version.  It was also flat to downhill and then all downhill to get to the water front on the city side.  From there, the last 9 miles were out and back and out and back again on the coastline.  I don't know any runner who likes an out and back race course, but at least this one was pretty and breezy.

The Stats:
Jeff:  1:49:15
Emily:  2:42:05  Slightly better than Malta when I was sick, but still nothing to blog about :)

The coolest part about this race was my outfit :)  Actually, I have decided to wear a uniform for as many races as I can this year.  My pink "Will Run for Wine" hat will be with me everytime.  In warm weather, like today, I wear my pink "West Coast Road Runners" shirt, accompanied by my iPod with pink earbuds and my new pink Garmin watch!  Jeff and I both got them at the Expo yesterday (last year's women's winner, whom I saw at the kiosk where I bought mine, also wears the pink version!).  It seems to be a good investment for our 2013 obsession.  It did not make me run any faster, but I didn't have to do math along the way, which is always taxing for me.

So, in fact, this was NOT the Rock n Roll Lisbon Half Marathon but the Meia Maratona de Lisboa (Half Marathon of Lisbon).  I didn't realize this until I ran the San Diego Rock n Roll later in the year and insisted with the organizers that I had in fact already run a Rock n Roll this year.  Wrong.  They were only advertising for the RnR which apparently takes the same course as seen in this great photo!



Jeff, as always, walks back up the finish to cheer me on - you gotta love that in a guy!  Of course since he finishes an HOUR before me, he does have plenty of time to relax, get a massage, re-hydrate, read the paper, etc....When he saw me, he pointed to the balloon banners arching over the race course ahead and told me to 'sprint to the finish'.  Well,,,you can't fool me, at least not too many times in a row!  After Eindhoven, I am hip to this, plus, it was an out and back and I knew full well that the finish was around the corner, and there was no chance of any sprinting from me on this day.

So, it seems that Portugal is a country to return to.  Now that Jeff has yet another new job, I am hoping for free tickets for me based on his miles and many more European races in our future!

Lisbon, Portugal

For our March race, we tried again to find some sun.  We ended up with a great trip to Lisbon, Portugal.  This is a perfect example of how this year of running will enable our travel fetish.  We would not have made our way to Portugal at all if we didn't have this crazy idea to run a race each month.  I still know very little about the country, but am very interested in going back and learning more.

We got a direct flight, Friday to Monday to Lisbon from Eindhoven.  Again, Paula was dead on when she said that she was glad we were in Eindhoven, since if we had landed somewhere warmer, we might not have ventured out so much.  On Friday we worked from the hotel, as best we could.

Lisbon is the western most European capital and is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean and the Tagus (Tejo in Espanol) River.  The water front is where the action seemed to be as well as the race registration, so we opted for another hop on hop off site seeing bus that we could catch at our hotel.  We planned to do some site seeing along the way, pick up our race packets and be taken back to the hotel, killing multiple birds with one bus ticket.  Cool, or so we thought.

The area to the west of central Lisbon and on the banks of the River Tejo is called Belem.  This is where you can find beautiful parks and historic buildings.  To the right  is the National Palace and the official residence of the president of Portugal.

Lisbon seems a bit stuck in modern times (for Europe).  There was a devastating earthquake followed by tsunami followed by fire in the city in 1755.  Today it is estimated to have killed 10 to 100 thousand people with a magnitude of 8.5 to 9.0 - one of the deadliest ever.  The city sadly  lost a lot of its historical buildings and archives.



This might contribute to the fact that the major tourist attractions in the city are the TONS of museums.  They have a museum for everything here.  Of course, we didn't go in any of them since that isn't really our thing, but it would make a very educational visit.  Also, just south of the city is the longest stretch of sandy beach in all of Europe!  That doesn't sound so bad...

I bet you didn't know (and why would you) that Lisbon is the oldest Western European city, predating London, Paris and even Rome!  This is mind boggling to me!  Julius Caesar was involved and then, like a lot of Southern Spain, the Moors took over for a time, followed by the Crusaders.  This fact makes the loss of their archives in 1755 even more devastating to the city.  The statue far in the distance on the other side of the replica Golden Gate Bridge is Christo Rei or Statue of Christ.  It was inspired by the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  If you ask me, the Portuguese should have concentrated on recreating their own historical landmarks rather than copying others?

In addition to the bridge and the statue of Christ, the city of Lisbon has some memorable characteristics.  I love the white small cobble stones that pave all of the sidewalks.  They must help it to not be oppressively hot in the summer.  Also, the buildings for the most part are pastel stucco.  I have seen this style in other Eastern European cities as well, but it seems quite nice in the sun.  We saw the same in Cinque Terre, Italy, so maybe Southern Italy is similar?

The Belem Tower is the most remarkable site in the city.  It was built as a fortress to guard the city's harbor. In modern times, they have built a bridge to allow tourists to visit without donning a bathing suit.  We didn't go in, but I thought the dark and foreboding pictures were awesome.  We did not get all the sunshine that we hoped for in Lisbon, but mercifully, we escaped the rain on race day!

Alicante, Spain

In late January, we learned that, true to the original plan, we were really going home in April.  Very soon after, I began trying hard to come up with Plan B.  Plan B became living in my good friend, Joanna's condo in Alicante.  Now, in order for us to ink the deal, Joanna wanted me and Jeff to visit for a weekend to make sure it suited my needs.  I wondered how it couldn't, but Joanna is wise beyond her years and insisted.

Alicante is really the name of the region and we stayed in a seaside town to the south called Orihuela.  Joanna and Adam Kostecka and their two boys Jedrek and Aleksander live full time in Poland and have vacationed to this area of Spain for years and finally decided to buy versus rent.  I loved the sculptures on the rocky beach of lounging people enjoying the view.

We found a beautiful boardwalk, great shopping and ice cream stores all around.  However, the action wasn't walk-able from the condo and even in March it was already getting warm here when the rest of Europe was frigid.






I had visions of talking Paula into bringing Chase and Carly to Spain for the month of June and doing some intensive Spanish studies.  But, to cut a long story short, Jeff and I decided that, although, this was a great place, it was lacking one key ingredient:  Spanish people.  It seemed that we had landed in the British section of Spain?  Seriously, this is apparently a popular location for British to retire to and they do so in droves.  Who can blame them with their "dodgy" weather!

We spent most of our time cruising around looking for beaches big enough for the thousands of pasty Brits that we expected to see in the summer :)  We honestly didn't look hard for culture since I think this is truly a resort community but we did find this...I'm not sure exactly what this is, but it appears to be historic.

There weren't that many beaches either, at least not by Coronado standards.  The water, of course would be nice and warm here, so that is a benefit.  Still, none of the beaches would be walk-able in the summer heat.  

Joanna told me about a great kids beach so one day we went on a nice drive and saw some cool evaporative salt mines and some great natural wetlands.  This seemed just like home.  The kids beach area was nice with plenty of play scapes and we really enjoyed watching all the kite boarders.  

Yes, this is Jeff on Joanna's roof.  Of course, we were working from Spain, which was again good practice for what I would have needed to do in June.  Turns out, while Adam and Joanna have been away for a year due to the birth of Aleks, someone moved in next door and started using the fireplace which shares a chimney with the Kosteckas.  This seems harmless enough until we realized that the cable wiring had been run inside the chimney and of course had melted and burned.  A very cute Spanish guy came and fixed it all for us.  While he was at it, he fixed my computer settings which always make me crazy when I am traveling and away from my home wifi.  I can't say what was wrong or what he did, but he earned his 10 Euro tip.