Hauenstein - The Shoe Village of Germany

I had a card for a Josef Seibel Outlet Store, so I decided to check it out.  You know me, I love a bargain.  Lucky for my wallet I am not addicted to shoe shopping as I have heard many ladies talk about!  Hauenstein turned out to be an entire street of shoe stores and some athletic apparel stores.  It really does seem to be  be the shoe capitol of Germany.  

They have a pool and water park facility, and it appears according to the pictures on the signs that there is possibly a creek or small river that runs through the village.  There were signed that had writing (which of course I didn't understand) but they also had a picture of people in a canoe.

At the water park area they had a large banner hanging on the building with something about shoe workers.  I don't really know what it said, but based on the other signs I recognized shoe workers!

 

After I looked in all the stores, I decided to drive through the village.  It is a really awesome place, there are mountains and rock formations all around the village.  And like all the wonderful places in Germany it is very clean!

I saw this house and it was really pretty with nice door hanging decorations and the
 Sponge Bob utility box in front really set it off!

This statue of shoe makers was in the village center.

 This is the church in the Village.

This grotto was built into the side of a mountain,  it was pretty!

More pictures of my apartment

Even though I have a one bedroom apartment it is very roomy.  I am really glad because I wanted to have plenty of room for the family to come visit.  I have the kids scheduled in July, hopefully Angie and Billy will be coming in August and Sylvia and Butch are coming in September.  Thanks to all of you I will not be homesick!  Stephen is staying until September 4th!

My living room, looking in from the door.

Looking out at the balcony from my couch.

Looking to the kitchen dining area from my living room

Huge bathroom with a separate tub and shower.  I am so glad to have a tub!

My bedroom, yes, the ceiling is slanted, so I have learned to duck when I walk up to my bed!

Still the bedroom from the doorway

This is the area at the top of the stairs, basically you come to three doors the one on the right is the living room/dining kitchen area.  The center door is the bedroom and the door on the left is the bathroom.

Rhine River Cruise

There are so many castles along the Rhine River that I can't post all the pictures here!  I am going to upload them to Facebook so that you can all can see the entire trip!  But here are a few to spark your curiosity!

This one was built in the river, the owner used to spread a chain across the river and
you had to pay to go  up or down the river.

This one is a Hostel that you can actually stay in, either rent a room or a bed in the dorm .

Burg Rheinstein (1st stop on the Rhine River Cruise Tour)

Ann standing at the beginning of the hike to the castle!
Herzl Willkommen means Hearty Welcome!

Saturday, Ann and I took the Rhine River Cruise through Ramstein Tours and Tickets, RTT.  We left the base at 6:30 a.m. and went to Burg Rheinstein for a tour of the castle.  It is very interesting - the tour was hosted by the owner of the castle.  The family bought the castle in 1975, I wonder how much a castle cost???  Our tour guide was the daughter in law of the owner, they have a house built on to the castle, she said it was really awesome living there, her children basically grew up in the castle.  Can you imagine the fun those children had?  I bet they had some really fun adventures.

This Castle is situated high on a rock 270 feet above the Rhine River.  The earliest mention of the castle is 1323.  It was erected in the early 14th century.  In 1344, the castle fell to Mainz.  In 1572, the castle had lost it's importance.  It was never destroyed, but it gradually decayed.  In 1823, it was bought by Prince Friedrich of Prussia for the price of 1000 Talers.

After the climb to the top of the rock, I had cappuccino and Ann had breakfast.

This is called the Burgundergarten, named for the "Burgunder Grape Wine" the type of grape that is being grown in this garden.  These grape vines are over 200 years old.

This basket hanging from the highest tower of the castle is where people were put when they did something wrong.  This gave them the opportunity to think about what they had done.  I would think that only one time in that basket would be all I need to straighten up my act!

This is the chapel, which houses the crypt of Prince Friedrich of Prussia who bought the castle from his cousin in 1823.  He rebuilt the castle between 1825 - 1829.  He died at the castle in 1863 and was buried in the crypt as he wished.

My favorite flower, an Iris, in a beautiful shade of purple that
I have never seen on an Iris before,  on the path up the castle.

Prince Friedrich was the one that named the castle Rheinstein because of it's imposing rock location high above the Rhine River.  He and his family used Rheinstein as their summer residence almost every year, even after they moved to Berlin in 1850.  The last owner of the House of Prussia was Princess  Barbara of Hessen and Rhine, Duchess of Mecklenburg, she sold the castle in 1975 to Mr. Hermann Hecher, a former opera singer.  Due to the initiative of the Hecher family the castle has been preserved from misuse and decay and is once again the center of historic attraction in the Rhine Valley.   Ms. Hecher our guide at the castle said they were having a wedding that night at the castle, and our tour guide from the base said the one of the local high school's had their prom at the castle.

Spangdahlem Air Force Base

Wednesday afternoon I drove to Spangdahlem AFB, this is a lovely base, about two hours north of Kaiserslautern.  The lodging is great at Spangdahlem, when I arrived I spent the first couple of hours doing my laundry.  Which was wonderful because it saved me from having to go to the laundromat at home! Thursday at morning was full of individual appointments, and a a great TAP class in the afternoon.  When the class was over and I was getting ready to heard home, I stopped by Popeye's to get an ice tea, when I cam e out a couple of airmen were discussing that it looked like tornado clouds outside.  Fortunately, I had already asked my friends Elke and Marcus if they had tornados in Germany and they had told me that they do not, so thank God that is one less thing to worry about while I am here!

Friday was a really slow day at Ramstein because the base was having Family Day, so most of the offices were closed and the service members had a day off.  At Kleber, our Army office, they were having a training holiday, so not much going on there either!  This gave Ann and I an opportunity to catch up on paperwork and reports.  We have been working on our travel authority which is having to be completed through the computer on FedTraveler.  This is a change from my last tow OMSC tours, and trust me it is a pain!  It was so much easier to prepare the travel vouchers and expense reports by hand!  But, we are getting better every time the travel authority gets returned for us to do something else!  Maybe by the last travel authority and expense report that we complete, we will know what we are doing!

Dinner with Elke and Marcus

Friday evening Elke and Marcus invited me over to their house.  They are so much fun!  Next week I will get going to Elke's 50th birthday celebration.

Marcus insisted that I stay because he was going to barbecue.  So, Elke and I went to the supermarket to get meat.  I told her what ever they usually ate would be great.  She bought steaks that looked great, bratwurst, and hamburger meat.  I must admit the steak was not good at all.  It was a very thin piece of meat that was not very tender, they said that they really didn't like steak.  The bratwurst was very good.  Marcus also cooked something that was like Spam, it was delicious!  He grilled it with cheese.  It was great!  I will have to have him write the name of it for me!  When we were at the supermarket, I picked up a bottle of wine, it was delicious!  I almost drank the entire bottle by myself!  Elke and Marcus drank Cola Bier.  Marcus said when my family gets here he will have another BBQ for all of us.

 

Weekend trip to Trier, the oldest city in Germany

Well, I am staying in lodging at Spangdahlem, for appointments in the morning and a briefing in the afternoon.  So, I am going to take this time to post some of my pictures from Trier.  Trier is the oldest city in Germany.  It was first city established by the Romans Under Julius Ceasar in around 58 - 50 BC.

This beautiful statue is high on a mountain, overlooking a cemetery.

Isn't this beautiful?  It was on a street corner.

This was so pretty, on the side of the street when entering Trier.

Porta Nigra

 

Der Dom 

The doors Der Dom - Reminds me of the doors at the Cathedral! 

This is part of the wall that went around all the city.

The Constantine Basilica built around 300 A.D.

The Amphitheater was built in in the year 100 AD.

This is where they kept the animals, underground at the Amphitheater

The Roman Bridge is an ancient structure in Trier, Germany, over the Mosel. It is the oldest standing bridge in the country. The nine bridge pillars date from the 2nd century AD. The upper part was renewed twice, in the early 12th and in the early 18th century, after suffering destruction in war.

It is so awesome, there is a crucifix built on the side of the bridge.

These are all vineyards around Trier on the Mosel River.
They were everywhere you looked, all along the sides of the Autobahn.
This area is one of the largest wine producing areas in Germany.