Augsburg

I am overwhelmed by how beautiful this city is. We've been walking miles every day. Here are a few glimpses. This is the gate to our apartment. You can see the garden in the background.

The first night in Augsburg we ate at a Greek restaurant that had no menu. George the proprietor just brought you things he thought you'd like. He was right  every time.

A street close to the apartment. It was chilly and raining for most of the week we were here.

Another street close by to the apartment. The light here is dramatic. Colors are saturated.

A walled park.

Another park partially nested between walls and with one of the many city canals running through it.

Here you see A and N and A's friend Mo, an incredible musician an builder of fantastical instruments and his girlfriend Nadine who is an architect. Mo builds the instruments out of recycled materials like windshield wiper parts for example.

An old guard tower along one of the canals possibly built in the 1400s.

Crossing a canal.

Some architectural details.

Nadine pointed out a window earlier that was completely fake. It was a trompe l'oil (I can't remember how to spell it). On that building I had to get up close to be able to tell that it had been painted on. I noticed right away this one was also painted on. Look closely. Maybe make the pic bigger. The windows are real but the frames are all decorative.

Remnants from when windows had roll up shades outside of wooden frames.

And here we are in Mo's apartment trying out one of his fantastic musical instruments.

Brussels to Augsburg

Well I haven't posted in a while because, well because we've been super busy and then super tired. There's so much I want to say but then feel overwhelmed by the daunting thought of trying to type it all out on this ridiculous phone keyboard. So, here is a wordless quick post on the train ride from Brussels to Augsburg. It was an all day affair with I think 2 train changes. In some ways we were traveling with a little bit of history. For example, we were on one leg of the ride with all the rowdy English soccer fans who got off our train and later made international  headlines for brawling with Russian fans in the streets. And there were other headlines that we managed to miss within moments of their happening. Lots of drama here, and amidst it all I've been obsessed with the election news. It's not in the mainstream press as you know, so I've been glued to Facebook whenever I can get an Internet connection.

I believe this is leaving Brussels in the early-ish morning:

Some well manicured German countryside:

A German train station on the way (I'll have to ask A where this was):

Oop! I left off a ton of pics from the train ride. Here are some more:

We saw at least 2 nuclear power plants on the way. The cooling steam can be seen for miles around:

UPDATE: these are coal plants, not nuclear. Apparently this is steam from burning and filtering the coal.

We had a 40 minute "layover" in Koln:

Back on the train:

Getting closer but still not there.

Finally:

Tomorrow we are going with Mo to another town, Ingolstadt, (where they make Audis and there's a car museum) so it may be a while until I post some pics of Augsburg proper. Stay tuned!

To the continent

Here are a few pics from the train ride from Lewisham to Dover. It rained almost the whole way, until the end when we got to the ferry. 

This one's for you Dad:

And here is the outskirts of Dover:

From the Dover train station:

The famous white cliffs:

From the deck of the ferry leaving Dover:

The cliffs from afar:

Inside the ferry:

Calais:

The journalist:

The Eurostar station in Calais:

Trains:

Hither Green to Bromley South to Dover Ferry: 

to Calais

Train:

To Brussels

Train:

Overnight to Augsburg

Nope overnight in Brussels

Earlyish train to Cologne 

Transfer to Augsburg