In February 2007 I flew to Frankfurt, Germany for almost 10 days with plans on getting over to Berlin. However, I wasn't sure what it would be like traveling without my honey. Oddly enough, there were a number of things that seemed to say it was OK. The first of which was that I had to renew my passport. Even though we had filled our passports with stamps while traveling together, I was starting over with an empty canvas and an empty feeling. The second thing was at the airport while I was on my way to the gate. I know some people have seen celebrities while at the airport (there are plenty of them), but how often do you see the doctor that took care of your wife. He remembered me and he remembered Sharon. Thirdly, the plane I was taking to Germany had just flown in from Honolulu, where we had taken our last big trip together. It was almost as if we were just coming off that trip and starting another together. Lastly, our lucky number kept coming up in various forms every single day. How often does a particular number jump out at you, especially one that is special? The number 13 came up in a couple of my hotel room numbers, the access code to a hotel room (but this hotel room did not have a 13 in it), the tag on my luggage, my airplane seat, a train track, the number of photographs I took one day, the address of the building next to my hotel in Berlin was 113 (which could be interpreted as 1/13), and also in Berlin I found out the Berlin Wall was started on August 13th in 1961.
Despite having flown into Frankfurt a number of times, I have never actually seen the town center. This trip was no exception. I had some other small towns to see so I drove out of Frankfurt and started heading for Berlin. The town of Erfurt, Germany has a nice town square and was good to walk around in. I continued on to Meißen, Germany which is on the Elbe River. This town had a very nice old town with great architectural buildings and a lot of cobble stone lined back streets that made for interesting walking. Right along the Elbe River in Meißen and high on a hill is the majestic Albrechtsburg, a castle from the 15th century that is almost fairy tale like.
When I arrived in Berlin I was surprised by how well laid out the city was for driving. Like most European cities, the 'highway' does not go directly into the center. Amazingly I was not only able to stop in the city to look at the map but I was also able to park on the street to do it. I ended up leaving the car in the hotel garage and using the public transportation, which is wonderful. I was able to see everything I wanted in a shorter amount of time then I planned. The day I arrived in Berlin I had time to see a couple sites near my hotel. Then the remaining following days I covered the city north and east and then west and south. When I walked into the Berlin Wall Memorial museum, I found a €20 note on the floor and no one around. In Berlin I had planned to spend 4 nights, but because I saw what I wanted to I cut it down to 3 nights so I could see other things on my way back to Frankfurt.
Going back to Frankfurt I took a day to visit Potsdam, Germany. Here the Palace of Sanssouci was the summer residence of King Friedrich II (Frederick the Great, former King of Prussia) and was built around 1745. This has several grand buildings as well as a huge garden area. Finally, on to Coburg, Germany to see the Veste Coburg fortress originally built around 1055. It's actually just outside of town but is on a hill overlooking the town. I couldn't find it at first, but once I knew it was there, I couldn't miss it.
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