After our trip through the Black Forest to Baden-Baden, we decided to head north to Heidelberg. We were told it was a beautiful town and since I used to be in the printing industry I was very familiar with Heidelberg presses.
It wasn’t too far of a drive from Stuttgart, maybe two hours with the typical construction delays. When we got there we were struct by how many people rode bicycles in the town. All German towns tend to have a higher percentage of bicyclists then in the United States but I think Heidelberg tops them all.
Our first impression was that it was a beautiful city. It was big but still had an old world charm.
When looking for a parking spot we realized why everyone rode bikes, We eventually found a place to park but after the drive we both felt like we needed to find a restroom. During our vacation, we learned that bathrooms are very difficult to find in Germany. We weren’t desperate so we stopped at a store but the clerk was a bit too pushy so we left.
We walked around for a while hoping to find a restaurant where we could both have lunch and use the restroom but the only restaurant that we were interested in was an Italian deli that had no restrooms.
We walked down to the main bridge because I wanted to get a few photos from there but also because Google said there was a public restroom near there that we were never able to find.
We wanted to see the city but at the same time look for a restaurant that had parking, so we got in our car and drove around for awhile.
It really was a beautiful city but we could not find a place to eat lunch that had an open parking space anywhere near it so we decided to head back to Stuttgart. I don’t remember if we found a restroom on the way back or if we just held it for that long.
Once back in Stuttgart, we walked down to the Dinkelacker brewery restaurant where they not only serve good beer, the food was also fantastic. I think it was one of the top three meals that we had while in Germany.
I rarely drink beer, or any alcohol, when I go out for dinner but while in Germany I could not pass up the opportunity to try the local brews.
My next post will talk about Triberg and our cuckoo clock purchase. I hope you will watch for it.
On our first full day after arriving in Stuttgart, we wanted to go to the black forest to look for a cuckoo clock. I found that Freiburg seemed to be the place to go for cuckoo clocks but my wife heard of many towns in the Black Forrest and thought we should look for one or two that were closer. I looked it up and found a list of towns that were closer. She remembered hearing about Baden-Baden and thought that would be a good place to visit.
The hotel gave us a card for the parking garage and we conveniently got into the elevator and took it to the basement where our car was parked nearby. It was so much easier than our last hotel in Munich.
Rose wanted to drive through the Black Forest and see the scenery so I set our British navigator to the scenic route which took us through the northern part of the Black Forest. It certainly was a great drive with some beautiful views. We would see beautiful scenery followed by a small town and then more scenery.
We did run into some problems, mostly from our navigation system which seemed to be plotting against us. It started by taking us off a main road, bringing us around in a big circle, and the putting us back on the road again. I thought we misunderstood her so we paid close attention and followed her instructions to the letter but ended up doing the same loop. It felt like a Star Trek episode and we were caught in a time loop. On the third loop I told Rose to ignore her and stay on the main road and the navigator seemed happy with that choice. At least she didn’t complain about it.
Another time she took us off a two Lane road and onto a road only wide enough for one car.
This road had some steep inclines and when it ended we had a choice to go left, down to the main road, or right up to who knows where. The navigator said to turn right. Eventually we ended up on a road so narrow and steep it was foolish to go any further so Rose had to carefully back up to a place where we could turn around.
After that we were taken to a road that was closed. It was actually closed on one end but open so people could get out. Rose wanted to go through anyway but I figured it was closed for a good reason and said I would find a way around so I opened Google maps and guided her around a very long loop in the other direction. It connected to the road we needed to be on several miles ahead but when we got close to the connection point, that road was closed too. This time it was completely blocked off. I then had to find us a way out of the mess we were in. Eventually we got fat enough away for the navigation system to change the route.
The other things that would happen is the navigator would suddenly stop talking and we would miss a turn. I would then have to fiddle with the controls or reset the map to get her talking again. I also tried to turn off the radio once because of bad reception but couldn’t figure out how to do that without also turning off the navigation. Finally she would sometimes tell us to turn were there were no roads, even though the map on the screen showed us continuing straight. If there was a road, we would turn on it and then be told to make a uturn back to the road we were just on.
Dispute all the navigation problems, the drive was very beautiful and well worth the trip. We are blessed with beautiful beaches where we live in Florida but there is nowhere in Florida that I know of that has countryside as beautiful as I have seen in Germany.
When we arrived in the town of Baden-Baden, I was reminded of a college town, and I learned there are several colleges in the area but I didn’t know that at the time.
We drove around but we couldn’t find a parking spot. After awhile we found an Italian restaurant we wanted to try so we drove down the side street next to it and up the next street before finding a spot to park.
We walked down to the restaurant which was also a hotel. The lady inside said the restaurant was closed and then added “It’s Wednesday,” like that was an obvious reason for closing a restaurant. After that we decided to go back to Stuttgart.
When we got back we made a reservation and then had dinner at our hotel’s Italian restaurant which was very good and more reasonably priced than the restaurant at our Munich hotel.
I will talk about our trip to Heidelberg on my next post. I hope you will join me.
After spending three nights in Munich, it was off to Stuttgart, a place you might call our second base of operations. When we booked our vacation we didn’t want to have to change hotels every day or two so we chose two locations that were near places we wanted to see, namely the Bavarian Alps and the Black Forest. Of course, there were plenty more places around Germany that we wanted to visit but we couldn’t see everything in nine days.
That morning was our twentieth anniversary. Our main anniversary gift to each other was to be a cuckoo clock that we bought together in the Black Forest so on this morning we just exchanged cards and token gifts. As soon as we were ready that morning, we checked out of our hotel and headed to Stuttgart. Before leaving one of the hotel staff took our photograph.
On the way to Stuttgart we stopped at a town called Ausburg. It was an okay town but it didn’t seem special enough to spend a lot of time in.
While we were there, Rose saw a sign at a corner bakery that looked like a pretzel so we parked and I went inside but saw no pretzels at first. I did see pastries that looked like pretzels. Then I saw it. A single lone pretzel. I still didn’t know the German word for pretzel so I just pointed and said “Diese pretzel, Bitte.” When I got back to the car Rose opened the bag and noticed it was cut in half and had some kind of lunch meat in it. She gave me the meat and ate the pretzel but was not impressed. So our hunt for a good German pretzel continued.
We arrived at our hotel in Stuttgart, The Park Inn by Raddison, at around 1:45. As in Munich, we also had to park in a public parking garage but this garage was cleaner than the one in Munich and the elevator near were we had to park brought us up to just outside the reception desk inside our hotel. It also brought us up to just outside our room which was very covinient. The hotel was more modern than the Excelcier and we had a real king bed, although, like in Munich, we had no top sheet and two single comforters. They did have USB chargers near the bed, which meant I didn’t have to deal with power converters, at least to charge our phones.
Our room was number 703 on the seventh floor, or eighth considering the lobby was considered zero. It was the only floor with balconies and we were glad we spent the little extra money to get a balcony room because we had an awesome view of the city and it was just nice to sit outside since the weather was near perfect for most of our trip.
We then took a walk through Stuttgart. Rose was looking for a large market that she heard about but it was too far to walk to with her bad foot. We walked a few blocks and passed the beautiful Saint Maria’s Church.
We then ended up eating an early dinner at a place called Rathaus im Gerber. They actually had real German food, and it was good. We also had a nice conversation with a waiter who was Indian and spoke good English. He talked about how great Germany is. He said it is the safest county in the world and people don’t have to worry about pickpockets, purse snatchers or even businesses ripping you off. He did not have the same kind words for Italy.
When we returned to the hotel, we sat on the bacony for awhile and enjoyed the evening view.
The following day we took a trip to Baden-Baden. I will talk about that on my next post.
Our third day in Germany saw us heading out of the country, to Salzburg, Austria. Salzburg is where they filmed The Sound of Music and Rose read that it is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and wanted to see it.
Our rental car agent told us we would need to buy a toll pass sticker to drive on Austrian higways after Rose mentioned to her we would be going to Austria. Without the sticker, we could have faced hefty fines. On the way there we stopped at a convenience store. Since I didn’t know how to ask for it in German, I asked the clerk, “Sprechen Sie English?”
“Ein bissien” was her replay so I said “Toll pass?” She said, “Oh, vignette?” I said, “Ja bitte,” then added, “zehn Tage,” before she could ask how many days. The shortest option, a ten day pass, was about ten euros.
Before I left she asked if I wanted coffee or anything else. I said, “Ja, zwei Kaffee bitte und Eine pretzel.” I didn’t know how to say “pretzel” but she knew what I wanted. I added the only thing I could to the coffee, which was lowfat milk, and then dumped both cups into a Yeti mug. It tasted so bad neither one of us could drink it.
On the way to Salzburg we noticed a long traffic jam in the opposite direction. We hoped that by the time we drove back it wouldn’t be as bad.
I was expecting some type of border crossing. I thought they would stop us and perhaps check our passports but we didn’t see anything like that. In fact, if there was a sign announcing that we were entering Austria, we missed it. I think that when we entered Salzburg, I checked Google Maps to make sure that we actually crossed the border.
Even though Salzburg was said to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world, when we got there we couldn’t find any of that beauty. I thought maybe there was more than one Salzburg and we were in the wrong one. We drove around for awhile but if there was beauty to be found, it was hidden well.
I didn’t take many photos there, mostly because I didn’t see anything worth photographing. I’m sure if we looked harder we probably would have found something interesting but after a half hour of driving around we decided to head back to Munich. On the way back I tried to find places to go along the way But the phone signal was intermittent so it was time consuming to search the internet.
On the way back we hit the traffic jam that we saw earlier. We noticed that drivers were inching along on the far side of their lanes, leaving a gap in the middle. I assumed there must be a law requiring drivers to leave space for emergency vehicles. If there is, it is a good idea because 30 seconds after Rose took the photo below, a police car with its lights and siren on cruised past us in the gap.
After we go out of the traffic jam, we stopped near a lake called Chiemsee where we parked and got out for some photos.
We then we drove around the area for a while and ended up at Aldi’s. I was hoping to get real heavy cream for our coffee but the didn’t have it. They also didn’t have light cream or half and half. We ended up buying some weird artificial liquid coffee creamer.
We then found a cute little town called Rosenheim. We drove around for a while admiring the small town charm.
I noticed corn fields, which we don’t see in Florida, but Rose was not impressed. She told me they are everywhere but I don’t pay attention. For that, I had to put up with her pointing out corn fields for the rest of our trip.
We then found a restaurant that was attached to a hotel. The place was called Hotel & Landgasthof Happinger Hof. This looked like real German food, which we had not yet had on our trip, so we decided to have lunch there. Our server asked us, in German, if we wanted to eat here or in the beer garden. The dining area we were in was covered but outside. The beer garden was nearby and also outside. We told her we wanted to eat here and sat at a table overlooking the beer garden and a small playground.
Our server did not speak English but we managed to communicate with her pretty well. I actually liked that she didn’t speak English because I needed to practice my German, but it was obvious that I needed more practice. Rose asked me about potato pancakes so I asked her, “Haben sie kartoffelpuffen?”
She laughed at that and quickly stopped laughing when she realized she was being rude and said, “kartoffelpuffer? Nein.”
I wasn’t offended buy her laughing at me. She was, after all, very nice. Who knows, maybe kartoffelpuffen is slang for “stupid tourist.” If that’s the case, that would have been very funny.
It was a very good meal, perhaps the best or at least one of the top three meals of the entire trip.
Our lunch was also reasonably priced. We paid 45 euros for two meals that included drinks and desert, and that was including a good tip.
When we got back to Munich, Rose wanted a real German pretzel from a vendor that made them fresh. So far, I could only find them in gas stations or small markets. We had a hard time finding pretzels, or any German food, within walking distance of our hotel. Not only could we not find a German restaurant, we also couldn’t find a stand that sold sausages or fresh pretzels. We walked to Karlsplatz looking for a place that Google said sold pretzels but it wasn’t there. We then walked past Karlsplatz until Rose’s foot started bothering her. She stopped to rest and I continued for a hundred yards or more but found nothing. We ended skipping the pretzels and went to a place called Ruff’s Burgers for dinner.
The next day we checked out of our hotel in Munich and checked into our hotel in Stuttgart. I will write about that next.
Rather than explore Munich on our first full day in Germany, we chose to take a road trip. My wife and I are not big fans of crowds and prefer quiet and peaceful over hustle and bustle. I suppose it was not very smart of us to book all of our hotel stays in large cities instead of small towns but that is a lesson learned for our next trip.
On this day, our plan was to head to a town called Garmisch-Partenkirchen at the base of the Bavarian Alps. At one time, this was two separate towns but they were combined in an effort to snag the 1936 winter Olympics, which they did.
We awoke at around 7:30, which was much later than I wanted to get up. We wanted to get in the car and explore so getting an early start was relatively important but I guess it didn’t hurt to sleep either.
The parking garage is closed on Sundays so we needed a hotel employee to walk down there with us and let us in. We then walked down to the car where I eventually figured out how to get the navigation system to use English. It was British English but it was English.
When we got to the exit of the garage, we had to put our parking ticket in a machine where we could pay for the parking but it was having trouble reading my card and kept giving me an error message. After a few minutes of trying, the same hotel employee drove up behind us but we were blocking his exit. I asked if he could help and he tried but he could not figure out what was wrong so he went back to the hotel and got their pass to let us out. We just had to pay him 25 euros. I think the machine would have charged us 20 euros and he seemed apprehensive charging us more but we were just happy to be out of the garage and gave him 30 for his trouble.
Rose drove this time and we headed south. She stopped at a gas station and I was surprised to find out that the pumps don’t take credit cards and also that you pump your gas first and then pay. Apparently, people are more trustworthy in Germany. I put in less than eight euros. I thought she stopped because we needed gas but I think she didn’t understand the gas gauge. I also learned that gas station employees are less likely to understand English than hotel employees.
I have been learning German for a while but I probably understand only about 35-40 percent of what I read and less of what I hear, especially if they speak fast. Because of that I felt uncomfortable trying to communicate in German but surprisingly, I felt more comfortable speaking German to non English speakers. I don’t know why. Maybe I felt less judged.
As we got closer to our destination the landscape became very beautiful with rolling hills and lush green grass. We also came when the leaves were changing color which made it even more beautiful.
When we got to Garmisch-Partenkirchen we parked in a lot, paid the fee, and then went looking for a bathroom. The first place we went to was a little café. The guy said they were closed. It was 10:50 and they closed at 11 but Rose made the mistake of asking for a bathroom before ordering. Since it was Sunday, most businesses were closed and the only place nearby was a Pizza Hut so we ended up having pizza for lunch so we could use the bathroom even though we were not yet hungry and we were looking for German food.
We walked around town and found a small shop open where Rose bought some post cards and a couple of other little things. It was a very pretty town and I felt like we could have spent more time there if it wasn’t Sunday.
Many people that come here continue on to Zugspitze, Germany’s highest peak. I would have liked to do that but we had other plans for the day. Rose wanted to visit Neuschwanstein Castle but that wasn’t set in stone. We thought we would decide when we left Garmisch. Our decision was to go instead to the less extravagant but much closer Linderhof Palace. It was also on the way to Neuschwanstein Castle in case we wanted to go to both.
I assume many homes in the area are heated by fireplaces which would explain why we saw so many firewood storage areas like these as we were driving toward Linderhof Palace.
When we arrived, we paid four Euros to park and then walked up some stairs and then a short way to gift shops and a restaurant. From there it was a bit of a walk to the Palace, perhaps a quarter mile or more. That was tough on Rose because her foot pain flared up again on the way there but she held up like a real trooper. We rested a couple of times but made it there okay. At least it was a beautiful walk.
I didn’t notice it at the time but the map shows a much shorter route from the parking lot that avoids the restaurant and stores.
We didn’t pay to go inside. We just wanted to see the outside. Unfortunately, the palace was covered because of renovations or repairs so maybe paying to go in wasn’t an option anyway. We were able to see the bath house though.
On the way back to the car, on an area map posted by the washroom, I saw a town called Oberaumagau that I thought it would be interesting to see.
The town is famous for the Oberammergau Passion Play which has been performed once a decade since 1634. I had heard about this before but didn’t make the connection at the time. In 1633, the residents of the town asked God to spare them from the bubonic plague. If he did, they vowed to produce a play every 10 years for all time depicting the life and death of Jesus. The town was spared and the citizens have kept their vow for almost 400 years.
We decided to make the short side trip and we were glad we did. It was a very picturesque town, like we would expect of old world Germany.
Like many buildings in Germany with artistic paintings, we found one in Oberaumagau. This one was of Little Red Riding Hood.
We drove around for awhile admiring the town and the surrounding landscape.
We then stopped at a store and Rose went inside. She bought an Alpine hat for her son, Nick, and a few other things while I tried to figure out how to pay for parking. I had to download an app, register my car’s license plate number and the tell the app the parking lot number. There was no charge, perhaps because it was Sunday. I don’t know.
We then parked closer to the center of town near a cool looking fountain where Rose found another store that was open.
We went inside and I was impressed that they weren’t just selling tourist junk. They had a lot of stuff that I think was made by local artists. Rose bought some ornaments for Christmas. On the way out I noticed some hand carved canes and walking sticks. I looked into buying something like that online a month or two earlier without success. We found a nice one but they all had a pointy metal tip that would make a great weapon, which is why we couldn’t bring it on the plane. It was also too long to pack in a suitcase. We brought it inside and one of the clerk’s was able to remove the tip.
We then drove back to Munich and went out for dinner. It turned out that finding real German food in Munich was quite difficult so we got something at a Middle Eastern restaurant that slightly resembled a gyro but with a different kind of bread. The weather was nice and there were plenty of tables set up outside so we ate there. It was nice sitting outside and the food was actually quite good.
I will talk about our trip to Salzburg, Austria on my next post.
After finally getting to Munich, we had been awake for over 24 hours and were exhausted. We slept for about three hours and got up around 4:30. We didn’t have time to explore the city so we just decided to go out and look for a place where we could have dinner.
There was a coffee shop across the street which we were happy to see but it was not what we were looking for at the time. After traveling thousands of miles to Germany we wanted real German food.
We walked down to Karlsplatz, which was about two blocks from our hotel, maybe three at the most. We passed the Italian restaurant in our hotel, a Middle Eastern Restaurant, a burger place and another hotel bar and restaurant. We then passed through a sea of people and made it to Karlsplatz.
After passing the large fountain we could see a coffee shop and a very large McDonalds but no German food. We were thirsty so we went to McDonald’s and bought a bottle of water for three and a half euros.
I wanted to continue on toward Marienplaz but by then Rose’s foot was hurting. It was an old injury that comes back to haunt her occasionally and it chose this time to come back.
We decided to just have dinner at our Hotel’s Italian restaurant. Our German waiter was very friendly and not only spoke excellent English, he did so with a bit of a Scottish accent. We found out later that he spent a lot of time in Scotland and the UK.
The food was very good and it was nice that we didn’t have a long walk back to our hotel when we were finished. The only drawback was that it cost us 100 euros. In comparison, the second most expensive meal we had on our vacation was $65 euros. We learned later that Munich was more expensive than anywhere else we visited.
That night jetlag caught up to me and it took about three hours for me to fall asleep. It was probably because we went to bed around 4 p.m. Florida time.
The next morning we set off on our first road trip and it was an awesome day. I will write about that next.
My wife and I wanted to do something special for our twentieth anniversary so we decided to finally book the trip to Germany that we had been talking about for years. Now that we are back from that trip I decided to write about it in segments because there is just too much to tell for one blog post. I should mention that the first 24 hours did not go well but please stick with me because the story does get better.
We got up early Friday morning, October 11th, and got ready for our trip. We booked an Uber because parking our car at the airport would have cost us around $180 but an Uber was only about $40 each way and that was with a tip. The driver picked us up a little after 8:00 a.m. He was a little older than us and moved here from Crete, Greece in the 70s. He also survived cancer by refusing chemotherapy and changing his diet. I know this because he was talkative. Very talkative.
Our American Airlines flight left for Charlotte just after noon. I sat in the middle seat next to a guy sitting at the window and Rose sat next to me on the isle. The guy had taken over the armrest so I felt squeezed in like a sardine. He also had both his windows closed, as did the people across the isle from us so I couldn’t see outside. That made me feel even more like I was in a sardine can. It was a very uncomfortable flight. Fortunately it was less than two hours. I don’t think I could have survived if the flight lasted much longer.
We arrived in Charlotte before 2:00 and our flight was scheduled to leave for Munich two hours later but it was delayed for two more hours because they found a dent in the plane and had to wait for another plane. Perhaps the pilot hit another plane while backing out and didn’t tell anyone. Whatever the reason, I don’t mind a little inconvenience in exchange for my safety.
The flight to Munich was a little better because we had bought the economy plus which had slightly wider seats, twice as much armrest room, and only two seats in our row. It was also a wide body plane so getting up to streath was a little easier but it didn’t have a lounge like a 747 so there was nowhere to go.
Every seat had a video screen but mine didn’t work right. I tried to watch a movie but had to restart it every two or three minutes because of an error that told me, “Where sorry. The channel is no longer available.” After restarting the movie more than ten times, I just gave up and turned it off.
The last few hours of the nine and a half hour flight were very tough. I was tired but couldn’t sleep and everything was hurting.
When we finally arrived in Munich I had to pee but everyone was blocking the isle and I didn’t want to wait until the line started moving out of the plan to use the washroom so I figured I would go when I got inside the airport. That was a mistake. Upon leaving the plane and exiting the jetway I noticed we were not connected to the airport. Instead, there were busses waiting for us. That did not please my bladder but I had to grin and bear it.
When we got inside the airport we were directed upstairs where there were no bathrooms in sight. First, we had to go through customs but there were no customs agents around. The room slowly filled with people and the ones in the front were waving trying to get the attention of someone on the other side.
Ten minutes went by before anyone came out but they were not customs people. Three or four walked past us pretending not to notice. Finally, after about fifteen minutes, someone said they were on the way but they didn’t say from where. I think a half hour went by before they started processing people. By then many people who came in late filtered around the line to the left and got ahead of us. By the time I got through and made it to the bathroom I was ready to explode.
We got our luggage and proceeded to look for the Avis car rental place. It was quite a long walk and when we got there and saw how long the line was we were not happy. Rose guessed we would be in line for a half hour but it was actually closer to 50 minutes before we got to the counter.
We preordered a Mercedes six months before but we were told they didn’t have any and we were given a Volkswagen SUV insted. They offered us insurance for $350 euros, which was more than the cost of the rental, but Rose said our insurance would cover it and didn’t buy it. We then had to walk what seemed like another mile to the Avis lot where we passed about 500 cars, including several Mercedes. When we got to the car Rose wondered if we shouldn’t have gotten the insurance. I suggested she call our insurance company, which she did, and they told her they did not cover cars outside of the United States.
Now we needed to get the insurance but didn’t want to walk all the way back and stand in line again so we called them. The phone system put us in the queue but never answered. Since our phone company was charging 25 cents a minute we decided to hang up after almost ten minutes.
Rose said she would wait in the car and I could go back. She told me not to wait in line but go right up to the person who helped us. I felt uncomfortable pissing off everyone in line but I went. When I got there the woman was busy with a customer but another woman was off to the side talking to a customer. I decided to talk to her when she was finished so I waited behind the customer. When she was done she ignored me and walked away. I took that as a sign that they were not going to help people out of line so I walked back to the car.
Rose’s was pissed at me for not doing what she said. I told her we should could call the Avis corporate customer service and we got right through to them but we were told only the desk agent could issue the insurance policy so Rose and I both walked back to the counter. When we got there Rose butted right in behind the agent’s customer and when she was done the lady took care of us. I guess I should have listened to her.
When we got back to the car we wanted to put the hotel address into the navigation system but it was in German. Despite all the German I learned, there is still more that I don’t know than I do know. I tried to figure out how to change the language but the solution was far from obvious so I put in the address in and hoped for the best.
Once on the road the navigation system seemed to contradict the road signs on two or three occasions. I wasn’t 100 percent sure I programmed the address right so I decided to trust the signs and ended up adding ten or fifteen minutes to our trip. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem but at that point we were both very tired and ready for the trip to be over.
At home, Rose drives because she claims that I am a terrible driver but really she is a terrible passenger. This time I drove because she knew I would understand the road signs better. It was a bit stressful, especially driving through Munich because there was so much traffic and so many pedestrians. Add to that the fact that I didn’t know where I was going and it made for a less than pleasant drive.
When we finally got to the Excelsior hotel, we saw we couldn’t drive to the front of the hotel like every other hotel I have ever seen. It was a pedestrian only area.
There was an area relatively close but there were cars parked there so I drove past and found a parking garage. I was under the impression that the parking lot was owned by the hotel but this was a city garage that charged by the hour.
We pulled in and went down one level but there was nowhere to park so we went down another level and found a spot way in the back. Nearby there was an elevator and we took it up to the main level. When it opened we were looking at the inside of a department store. There we were standing there with two huge suitcases and back packs and needed to go through an entire department store. Rose was willing but I didn’t want to do it and talked her into going down one level and walking up the ramp. She was not happy with me, again, and complained that the garage smelled like piss.
We paid for a room that Friday night simply so we would be able to check in early Saturday morning because we knew we would be tired. By the time we got there it was so late that it wouldn’t have mattered. We got the keys to our room on the third floor and went upstairs with the sole purpose of going to sleep
We expected the beds might be weird but weird doesn’t begin to describe it. Essentially they were two single beds pushed together, each with a single fitted sheet, no top sheet, and two heavy comforters, one for each side. The pillows were also a bit weird with the main pillow being square instead of rectangular.
Our room also had a great view of more rooms.
The good news was that we had arrived and had many days of adventure ahead of us. Next I will write about our first day in Munich.
My last post talked about Mary Boleyn and her daughter Catherine who may have been the product of an affair with King Henry VIII. She may also have been the daughter of Mary’s husband, Sir William Carey. Because of the uncertainty, I will focus on the ancestors of Mary Boleyn.
Sixteen generations before Mary came Henry Beauclerc. Henry, the fourth son of William the Conqueror (1028-1087), was born around the year 1028. When William died in 1087, William’s eldest son, Robert inherited Normandy and William’s third son, William, inherited England. The second eldest son, Richard, Died in 1075. Henry was left without land but he did receive £5000, which I am sure was a lot of money back then.
King Henry I
William died in a hunting accident in 1100. Henry was with him at the time and some suspect it may not have been an accident. Henry moved quickly to seize the English throne while Robert was away on a Crusade. He tried to gain favor by promising at his coronation to correct many of William’s less popular policies. He also married Matilda, the daughter of Malcolm III, King of the Scotts, three months after his inauguration. This, no doubt, bolstered his support from the north.
Henry had as many as 24 illegitimate children in his lifetime, 9 boys and 15 girls, many born before his marriage with Matilda. His firstborn son, Robert FitzRoy, my direct ancestor, was born about 1090. Henry and Mitilda had two children, Matilda, born in 1102, and William Adelin, born the following year.
By July of 1101, Robert had formed an army and was ready to take England from Henry by force. Robert landed at Portsmouth on July 20 with a few hundred men that were quickly joined by many of the English barons. Their armies met at Alton where peace negotiations produced the Treaty of Alton. Under the treaty, Robert recognized Henry as king while Henry renounced his claims on most of western Normandy and agreed to pay Robert £2,000 a year for life.
During the next couple of years Henry gained influence with many of the Norman barons and eventually invaded Normandy in 1105. By late 1106, Henry had conquered Normandy and taken Robert prisoner. He remained Henry’s prisoner for 28 years until his death in 1134.
The king’s only legitimate male heir, William Adelin, died when the ship he was on, The White Ship, struck a rock in the English Channel and sunk in 1120. The accident happened because William supplied the crew with plenty of wine and they were probably drunk at the time.
Henry wanted his daughter, Matilda, to succeed him but after his death in 1135 there was great resistance to her rule. Stephen of Blois, a grandson of William The Conqueror, took the crown. Henry’s oldest son, Robert FitzRoy, was not eligible because of his illegitimacy.
Matilda contested the crown going to Stephen and years of civil war, known as “the Anarchy,” followed. A compromise was reached in 1153 called the Treaty of Wallingford. Its terms stated that Stephen was to retain the crown for the remainder of his lifetime. It would then revert to Matilda’s son, Henry, who would become King Henry II, the first of the Plantagenet’s dynasty.
While double checking the accuracy of my connection with Henry Beauclerc, I followed his line down a different path and was surprised at what I found. It turns out that Sir William Carey is a direct descendent of King Henry I
My ancestry research eventually led me fifteen generations back to Lady Catherine Mary Carey. The name didn’t ring any bells at the time but then I learned the name of her mother, Mary Boleyn. That name seemed familiar but I didn’t know why so I looked her up.
Mary Boleyn
I discovered that Mary Boleyn was the Sister of Queen Anne, the second wife of King Henry VIII, who was beheaded for High Treason. She was charged with adultery, incest and plotting to kill the king. But several years earlier, Anne’s sister Mary Boleyn, was the mistress of King Henry while he was married to Catherine of Aragon.
I had heard of the book and movie called “The Other Boleyn Girl” but never was interested in watching it until I learned that it was about one of my ancestors. I asked my wife if she wanted to watch the movie and she was more than happy to help me by watching a chick flick.
I realized that the movie was probably highly speculative and overly dramatic but it was still somewhat informative and I was interested to learn what life was like for an ancestor of mine at that time. The movie paints Mary as the younger, more reserved sister while Anne was outgoing, cunning and opportunistic. If my memory is correct, It also shows their parents as power hungry people who practically steer their daughters into the king’s bed. From what I have read since, Mary was probably the older daughter and their parents may not have been as bad as portrayed.
While Mary was the king’s mistress, she bore two children, Catherine in 1524 and Henry in 1526. Some historians believe that Catherine, and to a lesser degree Henry, were illegitimate children of King Henry VIII. Some point to the fact that Mary’s husband, William, received land grants from the king that coincided with the birth of Catherine and Henry. Others talk of the resemblance between Henry and Catherine.
King Henry VIII and Catherine Carey Knollys
It was also noted that Queen Elizabeth I, The daughter of Henry and Anne, gave special favors to Catherine and Henry, more than would be expected for mere cousins. It also seems unlikely that Mary would name her first son after the king if it was William’s child.
Whatever the truth is, it complicates my family tree. I have had to stop research on that part of the family because of the uncertainty. It would be helpful if family tree programs could allow people to have two or more branches that are listed as uncertain. I wondered why nobody ever did a DNA test on living ancestors to determine if Henry did indeed father Mary’s children but I learned that none of Henry’s four known children produced children of their own so there are no confirmed living relatives. I suppose DNA tests could be performed on decedents of close relatives of King Henry’s but those findings could be made more difficult by the fact that Mary Boleyn was actually a distant cousin of Henry’s, as we shall see in my next post.
A few years ago, I would occasionally go to the library when I had some free time to do family research. I was too cheap to pay for Ancestry.com so I would access it from there. It was a valuable tool in my research but it was not the only one. When I would find a new person on my tree I would then go home and research that person on other genealogy websites like Familyserch.org or Wikitree.com. Sometimes those sites would have information that was not on Ancestry.com. Combined, I was able to greatly expand my family tree.
I gradually started finding ancestors of greater and greater importance. It was like following a stream to a river and then to the ocean. The fact that these people held a high stature made finding information about them so much easier. After all, how many records were kept on commoners hundreds of years ago?
The turning point in my investigation came when I learned about my great, great, great, great, great grandmother, The Honorable Martha Edwardes. She was born in England in 1764, the daughter of William Edwardes, 1st Baron of Kensington, and Elizabeth Warren (no, not that Elizabeth Warren). Starting with Martha, my family expands back through time to increasingly more important positions in society.
Sir Henry Rich
Four generations earlier came Sir Henry Rich, 1st Earl of Holland (1590-1649). I’m just guessing but I bet that is where the term “rich” comes from. The Earl had an army of 500 men during the English civil war, which lasted from 1642 to 1651. The war pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of Parliament. Henry was captured during The Battle of St. Neots. He ceded the city under condition that his life would be spared. He was then put on trial and executed on February 27, 1649, less than a month after the execution of King Charles.
Other notable ancestors of Martha include Robert Rich, 5th Earl of Warwick (1616-1645); Sir Walter Devereux, 10th Baron Ferrers of Chartley/1st Earl of Essex (1539-1576); Sir Robert Rich (1537- 1581); Sir Richard Deveroex (1516-1547); Sir Francis Knollys (1511-1596); First Baron Sir Richard Rich (1496-1567); Sir William Jenkes (1480-1571); The list goes on and on.
This line would eventually lead me to kings, emperors and saints, but those are stories to come.
