Freiburg Saturday 17th May

Today was travelling home day.  Breakfast and packing before leaving our cases at reception and paying a visit to the Archaeological Museum.  Another small, empty and excellent museum with good English boards in each room.  We went back to the Grossermeyer Hof for lunch where we had asparagus, boiled potatoes and hollandaise sauce and I had a small schnitzel on the side.   Then the trundle to the station with the cases, the airport bus, a stay in the executive lounge and then to the departure gate.  Here there was a hold up, but they decided to board us and we sat in our seats for over an hour before taking off.  The compensation was that our cases arrived in Norwich when we did.  The last hurdle to reaching home was a taxi....expected wait 40 minutes!  However, it came before then and the driver carried out bags into the lobby.  

We had a very enjoyable week.  It was sunny and warm and we managed to find good things to do.  Very glad to be back in our own bed again!!  

Freiburg, Friday 16th May

 Today we took the Hollentalbahn train to Titisee, where Peter had been with his parents and Belle and Fred when we was about 8 or 9 years old.  The train journey was alongside a deep valley and there were good views.  We were taken aback at Titisee to find it rather modern and touristy with a whole avenue of shops and restaurants leading down to the lake.  The lake however, looked wonderful in the sunshine.  We wandered around and avoided buying anything and sat on a terrace for coffee overlooking the lake.  After another saunter to the end of the shopping area, we returned to a smart restaurant and had lunch on the terrace, served by a stooped, elderly gentleman with a touch of the Fawlty Towers about him.  We had excellent asparagus soup, followed by trout, potatoes and seasonal vegetables (more asparagus) and shared cheesecake for dessert.  Back on the train (all very clean and efficient) in time for a concert at the concert hall near the station - a huge and beautiful building.  First a wind quintet - very enjoyable, then a string quintet playing a Dvorak piece.  It was too late to eat out by the time the concert ended, and we had had a substantial lunch, so we dived into a supermarket 10 minutes before closing time and hastily put together a picnic which we ate in the hotel bedroom. 

Ruth by Lake Titisee

Peter, ditto

Freiburg, Thursday 15th May

Today I woke up feeling off colour - a bit dizzy.  Was it all the walking in the sun the day before?  We decided to have a low key day and after breakfast wandered in the direction of a park and sat on a bench and watched the people, the school parties and the mothers and babies.  We had lunch in an Inclusive Cafe which employed people with disadvantages, where we had stopped for coffee earlier.  It was very well run and we had quiche and salad - in Freiburg the salads are enormous! We went back to the park and took a ride up the hill on a fenicular and wandered about a bit and took in the view.  After another sit in the park we went back to the hotel and 'rested' and went out later to go to a concert we had seen advertised in the church next to the Inclusive cafe. There was a service going on in the church so we sat on a bench on the other side of the road waiting for signs of a concert.  There were other people also looking uncertain and then I noticed that a man had walked round the side of the building and returned and fetched his wife.  We got up and followed them round the building and found that the concert was reached by a side door!   A quartet was playing.  A Russian husband and wife and two other people who might not have been regulars.  The husband gave a long introduction in German and we were left wondering which pieces they were playing in which order!  They played Puccini, Greig and Mendelssohn.  They were good  musicians but we enjoyed the Mendelssohn most.  We left promptly at the end in order to eat and found a restaurant open nearby - more of a beer place with food. Peter had a good schnitzel and I had sausage and mash with sauerkraut which was very tasty.  

Going up! 

Coming down! 

Freiburg, Wednesday 14th May

We got up earlier and there was more choice at breakfast - a seemingly important consideration when staying in a hotel where breakfast is free and a bigger deal than at home! 

We had a day planned at Weil am Rhein, visiting the Vitra campus home to Vitra furniture and the history of design gurus Ray and Charles Eames.  The sideboard in Southwold is made by Vitra and designed by Eames - though disappointingly there wasn't at example in the museum.

Vitra helter skelter

We managed to buy our tickets from a machine at the station in Freiburg and got out at Weil am Rhein and eventually located a very discreet sign pointing to the Vitra Campus.   There was a long walk in the sunshine and plenty of notices direction you to parts of the campus, but none that were very helpful to us. We found a cafe (and had a cold drink), and a Piet Odoulf garden and smart loos, but the first design museum building we found was holding an exhibition about Nike trainers which was not what we were looking for.   We understood that there was a collection of Vitra furniture to see and the helpful woman at the desk directed us back to the start of the campus.  We wandered back past the helter skelter (not tempting!) and found another cafe that we had pretty much ignored at the start.  Now ready for lunch we enjoyed poached eggs on sourdough toast with iron crusts and very good iced latte.   At last we were ready for the furniture but it turned out to be a vast warehouse of shelves, a bit like the reserve collection at the Sainsbury Centre, but firmly behind glass with just a couple of places where you could peep through!   We has to content ourselves with a small exhibition of 'science fiction' related furniture and some chairs and a quick look round an expensive shop!   Altogether a slightly disappointing day, but there were certainly some very interesting buildings on the campus.  Another long hot walk back to the station at Weil am Rhein and then the train to Freiburg. 

In the evening we ate at The Kartoffel Haus where everything contained potato!  It was OK, but only just! 

Evidence of two long walks! 

The Vitra Museum and cafe

Freiburg, Tuesday 13th May

Peter outside the art museum. Our first coffee stop

Today was a day full of museums and walking.  Freiburg is busy but not frantic.  The streets of the old town have virtually no traffic, other than bikes and trams and most of the tourists are German.  There is a very laid back atmosphere.  We were late to breakfast - 10.00am!  Then we visited the Tourist Office across the square from the hotel and collected a small map. We has coffee on the terrance outside the Modern Art museum,  a small but very interesting museum with an extraordinary exhibition of puppets. Lunch was white asparagus and potatoes beside a stream, then on to the Augustinier museum (early Christian art), not much to our liking but the roof structure on the 3rd Floor was beautiful.  Then we walked to find a restaurant for the evening.  A quick visit to the Cathedral where we lit a candie for Rupert (a thing he like to do in cherches in France when he was little) and then we stopped for lemon tea and cheese cake before a visit to the natural history museum.  Pity we has no small grandchildren with us as the museum was exceptional.   All the museums today were free and  virtually empty! More guards than visitors.

Poster for the puppet exhibition

Our lunch stop

We at at a restaurant on Konvictstrasse called Lichtblick and had a good meal - good service and surroundings, a healthy buzz.  I has foie gras followed by rabbit and wild mushroom risotto.  Peter had a small salad and then swordfish.  We both finished with apple strudel and ice cream. We asked for de-caf coffee but were not sure we got it as we both has trouble sleeping! 

Lunch

Outside our bedroom window men digging up the road began work at 7.30.  The bells rang the hours, the quarter, the half and the three quarters throughout the night! 

My dinner - rabbit and risotto

Small water courses

The streets of Freiburg have small canals or water courses running through them.  Sometimes there are metal 'crossing' places, otherwise people just step over them.  Small children paddle or pull along little sailing boats.  Occasionally there are decorations! 

Freiburg, Germany: Monday 12th May 2025

The journey from Norwich to Amsterdam and then Amsterdam to Basle and then Basle to Freiburg was a little fraught!  The flight to Amsterdam was delayed and we has a very short time to get to the next flight which was, seemingly, miles away!  We hustled through the airport and were relieved to find the Basle flight delayed. Idly looking at our boarding passes for this flight we realised that we were seated far apart, so we went to the desk and lo and behold, there were new passes in our names waiting for us - and in business class.  We ate the superior lunch in favour of the tuna sandwiches we has brought from home.  At Basle, our luggage failed to appear and there was the laborious task of working our way through the questions on a machine to register the fact.  We caught the bus to Freiburg and signed in at the Hotel am Rathaus. The room was fine, with a splendid bathroom.  We later realised that the bed was incredibly high and it was an effort to climb onto it and the shower tray was very slippery.  Two minor complaints!  We had already booked a restaurant , Grosser Meyerhof, and it turned out to be a busy, laid back traditional restaurant with good honest food and an excellent waitress.   Our luggage had arrived by the time we got back to the hotel - thank goodness! 

Nice, France 9th March to 17th March 2025

We'd been to Nice several years ago, but decided to go again to see if it was somewhere we might go on a regular basis to escape the winter, Peter having been complaining about being cold!  We have friends who have been on several occasions for one or two months at a time and are very enthusiastic about Nice.  

We had an Airbnb in a quiet part of the town, very handy for the excellent transport - buses, trams and trains - and close to the old town.  It looked good at first, until we realised how many things needed fixing and how uncomfortable the seating was!   I didn't have a decent night's sleep the whole time we were there.  And it rained for some part of every day.  It didn't stop us going out and about but it cut down on strolling about in the evening - we made quick dashes to restaurants leaping over puddles. 

We did a lot of 'art'.  The Chagal Museum and The Matisse Museum.  We took the train to Cannes and went to the Bonnard Museum.  We took a bus to Villefrance and visited the Ephrussi-Rothchild house with a very interesting garden and an elegant dining room where we had lunch.  Also in Villefrance we found the 'underground' road. 

We had some good meals and the sun came out on the last day and we were able to amble along the Boulevard des Anglais. 

We decided that we wouldn't be 'wintering' in Nice.  There wasn't' quite enough to do once we had ticked off the museums and we didn't feel particularly 'at home' there.  

The underground road at Villefrance

Old town, Nice

The view from the dining room at the Ephrussi-Rothchild House

Lunch

Octopus

Gardens at the E-R house

Garden at the E-R house

The port, Nice

Sweetbreads