Dana Blankenhorn

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What I Learned on my European Vacation

Regular readers have missed me, I hope.

I took a two-week break to take my bride of nearly 46 years to Europe. Specifically, we flew to Germany, where my father’s people came from. On our first day we saw a ruin called Castle Blankenhorn, built in the 12^th century. Folks who came from that castle, which was controlled by the Hohenstaufen dynasty, took its name when they moved on.

We moved on, too, in a 2022 VW Tiguan with a 6-gear stick shift, along Autobahns which at times had no speed limit. We saw the Neuschwanstein Castle, the fairy tale accompaniment to an older pile built on a ruin like “da castle a my fadder.” We saw a statue dedicated to Carl Laemmle, the founder of Universal Studios (and 20^th century Hollywood). We went to a soccer game in Ingolstodt, visited its street festival, and explored the “Romantic Road,” created after World War II specifically to lead tourists to medieval sites (and extract their money). I do wish they extracted a little more of mine, in the form of hats, t-shirts and the like, but they’re still into books, postcards and refrigerator magnets.