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 12th 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 20th 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.
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