The boy and I went to Germany for the weekend. Mainly to take my grandparents back (not speaking English makes travelling from Scotland to Germany rather tricky), and also to see everyone again. I wasn't originally going to go home over the summer, but I quite enjoyed it. We arrived on Friday afternoon, and after an hour of lazing about at home we set out for Wuppertal and its Brauhaus, a large bar housed in the old public baths. It was sunny and warm so we sat outside in the beergarden for a pint of the beer that they brew in the Brauhaus. Nice. Then we went to the Donaustuben, a very old-fashioned themed restaurant (that has been there for just over 40 years). Its theme is the Danube, and the different countries it flows through. They're menu is gigantic (not very veggie friendly, but it's asparagus season at the moment, so I had a lovely asparagus* dish and some deep-fried camenbert). Inside the restaurant there are lots of little wooden houses, all named for different regions, and a paper-mache rock and a huge barrel where people can sit in. It's very tacky and kitschy, but rather fun.
*German asparagus is almost always the thick white kind, and hardly ever the thin green stuff. I prefer the green kind, but the white is very lovely when it is in season (which it is at the moment). I foolishly mentioned this to my mother, who sent my grandma out to buy some for us to take back on saturday. She bought 3 kgs!
This is some of the asparagus we brought back, waiting to be peeled and steamed. We're having some in a risotto tonight.
On the saturday we set out for a trip down the Rhine and Moselle rivers. We stopped of at Eltz Castle, a very picturesque medieval castle situated in a lovely valley.
I really like the old-fashioned postbox (with a sloping roof, and slits either side), and the little dragon rainsprout:
We then had lunch in Cochem, which also has a nice castle (a lot more Disney-looking that Eltz), and a pretty market place and library.

The library. See the little sign? It's shaped like a book!!
We spent the night in Bernkastel-Kues. It's a pretty Moselle town, literally halfway down the river, with lots of timber houses and wine tasting.
Very German, no? We ended up having dinner in the restaurant on the left, which was excellent. I had a salad with goat's cheese on home-made bread, and the others all had wild garlic pesto linguine. Delicious!
Bernkastel-Kues is always lovely. We stayed in the Kues part of town, across the bridge, where Nikolaus von Cues (or Cusanus) was born in 1401. I've been a few times before (usually on the way to Trier), and I do love it's Germanic charm.
The view from the bridge over towards Bernkastel and the vineyards behind it
The other side of the market square
The market square again
There were a number of very cool old-fashioned shop signs in Bernkastel, such as the cafe, and the pub:


Bernkastel also had a pretty exciting postbox (a reproduction of a nineteenth-century one):

Stay tuned for the second half of the trip: Trier (the oldest city in Germany) and a family BBQ to round things off!