Denmark and Berlin 2017

Our goal for this morning was to arrive at the Reichstag building before the ticket office opened at 8:00 a.m. so we could get in line to visit the big glass dome and rooftop terrace. We had learned too late that advance registration was required, but Marty said that it...

This morning we could get up at our leisure. While we showered, dressed, and googled “Schumann Scenes from Goethe’s Faust synopsis,” Marty went out to the bakery and came back with some croissants and a Schokoladengebäck (chocolate pastry) for Michael, who favors that sort of thing. Marty also scrambled some...

After our wonderful dinner last night, we knew that Marty would not disappoint us at breakfast—and he did not. We woke to a delightful breakfast spread of yogurt, butter rolls, muesli, pineapple, avocados, cucumbers, and sundried tomatoes. The highlight, however, was the rhubarb juice, not just because it was unusual...

Last night we had told the manager of the B&B that because we wanted to get to Hamburg by 10 a.m. to catch a train, we needed to leave Als Kloster by 7 a.m. Would we be able to get an early breakfast? “I’m sorry, but we don’t start serving...

Getting ready to begin today’s activities involved trying to keep water within a minuscule shower whose sliding doors did not quite meet at the edges, avoiding bumps on the head and left elbow from the sloped ceiling over the sink, and wondering whether the cool fog outside the window was...

We wanted to get on our way by 7:30 this morning, so mindful that Ørslev Kloster has no housekeeper on staff, we got up early enough to strip the beds, clean the sinks, and collect the trash before we left. Breakfast was at Søster Lagkage (Sister Layercake), a bakery-café in...

Rain was coming down fairly steadily when we got up this morning. Notice that we said “got up” rather than “woke up,” a full night’s sleep still being too much to expect. Last night Michael was plagued by a headache, and Nancy often has trouble sleeping when the only available...

Having only partially adjusted to the Central European Time Zone, both of us woke up early and had showered, dressed, and mostly repacked by the time the breakfast buffet opened in the Hotel Barceló’s sleekly modern dining room. It was a nice spread: like most European breakfast buffets, it included...

Now that we are veterans of several overseas journeys, packing has become a lot easier. However, anticipating what we would need for this trip presented some unique challenges. Today we did not need to worry about protecting the rest of the items in our luggage from dusty hiking boots and...

“You know what I’d really like to do sometime?” Michael asked Nancy one morning early in July. We were still in Colorado at Nancy’s sister’s mountain retreat, cleaning up after the family gathering where we had celebrated our fortieth wedding anniversary. “No,” Nancy responded. “What would you really like to...