Here and There Blog

Behind the malls is a secured outdoor area with a few exhibits. The Indian Army has a few trucks outside depicted with paintings of...army life I guess. No signs around explaining so I have to interpret it as I see it.  Side of one of the trucks  Watching over us  If only we could climb in! Guards were watching though.

After 6 days of not venturing beyond the short 2 minute walk from the hotel to work, I broke out and walked around the surrounding area. Sakat's a suburb of Delhi with a couple of shopping malls and slightly better security and traffic control than other areas.  I thought for sure the buses would collide with the Tuk-Tuks but they sorted themselves out.  Graffiti on the wall. No idea what it says. Looks like an empty face.  And the endless piles of trash. I haven't seen any rats yet but the place has to be infested.  So some good along with the not so good.

A late night arrival meant I couldn't see anything out the window last night.  I wasn't expecting a park! The hotel is adjacent to a couple of shopping malls so my guess is I'm in a destination area. I thought the city would be more sprawling and not as much greenery. This makes for a pleasant surprise. Nice clear skies this morning deny the fact that it's monsoon season and each time it rains the roads flood. Then it dries up and the mosquitoes are out in heavy numbers.  I packed for many contingencies but forgot the insect repellent!

The trip is over and I am jet-lagged from lack of practice. It's easy to never have jet-lag when you're always in different time zones but this year has been easy up to now. I got lazy! That's fixed since I'm off again in a few days. For now, the last few old rock pictures. Below Celtic headstones in the Rheinfels Castle.  One of the tower structures in the castle.  This is south along the Rhine in Oberwezel where I took the train back to the airport and said good-bye to vacation!

It was too hot to try dark, heavy beers on this trip so I stuck with the traditional lagers.  This was in Strasbourg.  Castle Eltz along the Mosel river  Looking down. When the castle cisterns ran out of water the servants had to climb down and bring it back up in buckets. The water is another hike down from the lover level.  The Rhine river along St. Goar. Rheinfel's Castle in St. Goar had it's own brewery!

If you can't get to Rome, the city of Trier has plenty of ruins where you can wander about. While not extensive and somewhat spread apart the columns and stairways are fun to check out. These are all UNESCO World Heritage sites and was the first crowds of the week that we encountered but not so much that it was uncomfortable or had any sort of a wait time to get in.  Looking down. No crowds right now!  There were two school bus loads of kids and a couple of tour groups. Wander off the main path and you can explore in peace. Lots of restoration work is going on. This is at one of the spa and thermal baths.  We went underground to explore the infrastructure of how the water was pumped to the spa.  Dark but easy to walk about. Below ground was like having a/c turned on but going outside, 90f and no shade. Think I'll stay a bit longer!

Today was all about checking another country off the list and trying to stay out of the heat. That made the underground casemates the perfect choice. These underground tunnels were built in 1644, and reached down to about 130 feet. The  fortress was mostly taken down in 1867, 10 of the casemates were spared,  some of which can be wandered about today. We went down as far as we could, up and down. The stairs are uneven and steep and parts very dimly lit. No one was there to stop you from doing anything stupid although emergency buttons were located on each level. Unsupervised tunneling is lots of fun!  Some go on, some dead end. The area was well defended.  Finally emerging outside we were on the river level. What a long climb back up!  All's well at the end of the day with a beer. Cheers to Luxembourg!

Strasbourg was a pleasant surprise. This was our stop between destinations and we didn't have a lot planned. The city center is small enough to walk around without getting lost and everything orients around the canals or cathedral We hiked the 330 steps to the top for great views of the city.  Then went down to the water and did the canal cruise.  Headed over the the Petite France section of town. Not much there but shops but a fun walk anyway. Churches and Cathedrals are everywhere.  And even found time to hang out in a park!

Mulhouse is home to Europe's largest train museum and OB wanted to see it, so off we went. It's a wander through train history place, indoors out of the sun and fun enough for non-train people. You can pretend to be in charge of Mulhouse Station.  Look at people props on doing good or questionable things on trains.  Find the wine car After leaving the trains we drove off (by accident) through the French forest as the GPS decided that dirt roads were a better way to the next castle instead of the big, giant, main road. When the road got dicey we turned around and followed the street signs instead.  Such a big thing but you can't see it when you're on the wrong road and surrounded by trees!

Castle Habsburg in Switzerland. This one is used mainly for banquests and private parties. You can do a short walk inside but there's not much to see. The outside is more interesting. It's out of the way to go only to see it so if you ever find yourself castle hunting, skip this one.  Castle Kitty Castle Lenzburg. Go here instead. This one is interactive, has lots of rooms to explore, and much more fun!  Flags of Castle Lenzburg A short drive away are the Roman ruins -  Augusta Raurica - Roman ruins in Augst, Switzerland. This was a good stop. It's free to wander around the the ruins spread over a fairly large area. We didn't get to them all.

It's hard to get a good castle photo with a little camera. These two castles had the classic look so it was worth a try. Me and Mrs. OB hanging out. The castles are the only places with natural a/c and the best place to visit in this current heat wave.  Church steeple peeking through.  Another castle where you couldn't go in. We hiked to the top anyway. Took this shot from the car as we drove away.

Liechtenstein is so small that you can traverse around it multiple times in a day (via car) and we did. Within 15 minute you can cross the Swiss, Liechtenstein, and Austrian borders if you so desire. We went into Austria by accident but turned around since driving there required a different road pass. In Vaduz, the main city of Liechtenstein the activity is to hike the hill to the castle. View of the Swiss side from Vaduz  Made it to the top! The castle is a private residence, can't go in.  Vaduz has a summer sculpture exhibit   In front of the bank  Hello from Liechtenstein!