Day 3 - 4 in Thuringia and beyond

Our last two days of our little Thanksgiving journey were eventful. We started off the day early-ish on Wednesday to explore a bit of the Thuringian forest by car. Our first stop was Saalfeld - just 30 minutes away - and the famous 'fairy grottoes.' Apparently, this location is in the Guiness Book of World Records for being the world's most colorful cave. You can only visit by taking a tour, which, unfortunately for me and the kids, was in very fast German. Steve tried to translate, but I'm afraid he's a bit unlearned in mining terminology. So we bought a little book at the end and figured out that it used to be an Alum mine, from which they made vitriol. Very little is said about what it's used for other than for paint...but the mine was used as a source for mineral water as well. There was a sample at the end of the tour, and it tasted....minerally. But as you can see from the picture, the grottoe looks like a fairytale castle with surrounding village. When we got to this special cave, they presented a nice sound and light show featuring Enya, of all people, singing the theme from The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. The kids were thrilled!

Our next stop was Lauscha - a glass manufacturing village where the glass eye was invented. We visited one of the factories there and watched them work the glass over a flame into different shapes and colors. We didn't buy anything there though, because I just couldn't picture us getting it home in one piece! They had marbles which I suppose are pretty sturdy, but .... the highlight for us was, believe it or not, a wonderful meal at the cafeteria there! Steve had venison, which we all tried - yummy - and we all had 'knudeln' which are these huge potatoe dumplings. (A specialty for the area, I guess.) They were tasty, but the texture took getting used to. A bit like eating a hot ball of glue.

Then we went to a horse breeding farm deep in the forest in Maura. This is quite famous, I guess, for the Haflinger breed of horse. These are the largest breed of pony, and were bred for work in the mountains and forests hauling wood and such. Because they are smaller than normal horses, they have the ability to walk the narrow paths there, yet are quite strong and hardy for the cold. We got a tour of the place - and the kids loved it.

We then traveled through some gorgeous forests and headed 'home.' We spent our evenings there playing Settler with the kids, watching American movies on tv dubbed in German, and basically just hanging out. (They do a very good job here of matching voices to American actors, actually. I thought that I'd be really annoyed with it, but it's pretty entertaining, really.)

SO - Thanksgiving morning we packed up and drove to Leipzig to drop off Steve at his conference for Von Humbolt scholars, and the kids and I drove on up to Wittenburg to visit the Luther museum there. On the highway (read Autobahn) they had McDonald's restaurants, so we had our Thanksgiving dinner there. (see picture) The kids were obviously thrilled to death about this. As for our visit to Wittenburg, it was raining and getting dark quickly, so we only went to the museum. I hope to go again in the spring to visit the churches there and more of the town. The Luther house is formerly known as the black cloister where Luther lived as a monk. It was then given to him (sort of) later after the monks had departed and he got married. The government spent some 1.7 million Euros for renovated the place, and it was well worth the trip.

Six hours later, we got back to Muenster - and I could write a whole other entry about what it's like to drive the Autobahn in the rain and in the dark. Suffice it to say that I was very happy to get home! (I've had a crik in my neck for a week as a result of that very tense drive.)

All for now! Keep checking in - Christmas markets here are next!!