For once we did not need to wake to an alarm. No flight to catch, no breakfast that we had to make, no train to catch. So we let ourselves sleep in and had a marvelously solid night of sleep. We had a leisurely breakfast of kaese und schinken mit brod (cheese and ham with bread) that we had purchased at the market the night before. Well fortified, we headed out to explore Neustadt. What a delightful town! It is a wonderful blend of old winding streets lined with quaint buildings, block after block. But instead of tourist shops, the beautiful buildings are filled with modern German shops filled with high quality goods. We have seen some nice art and jewelry and lots of great clothing and shoe stores. One day in town and Tami already has a new pair of shoes, and Mike is considering several others. Peggy also got the same style shoes that Tami did, so good thing they wear different sizes. We have seen more pairs of shoes that we like in the shops in one day here than we do in an entire year in the US. Decent prices, too.
Neustadt is so picturesque!
It is quite the transition to go from an English-speaking country to a place where some, but not all, speak English. Most people in the shops and restaurants speak English, but not all. Even those in the tourist center did not all have English. But Peggy knows enough German to get us by and we are picking up key words fairly quickly.
Our biggest issue so far is that we haven’t found anyplace yet that will take any of our credit cards, even our chip card. We seem to be far enough off the beaten path that only a Euro card will work, and we have no idea what that is. So good thing the debit card will work in the cash points. It is very odd, though, to see card readers everywhere and they all say they can’t take our cards. It will be interesting to see if it will different when we take a day trip to Heidelberg.
A little more research indicates that credit cards are not widely accepted in Germany. Mike found one quote that said “a credit card in Germany is as useful as a stone”. Most Germans seems to use a special kind of debit card called an EC (EuroCard). Large hotels and department stores may accept credit cards, and maybe a few other places like train stations and gas stations, but in general, the advice is to get cash from ATM’s and use that for most purchases.
Only in Germany – a Porsche kiddie car
Today we had rain, although it is not cold. We are hoping that it stays a bit dryer for our planned hikes in the forest and down the weinstrasse, but we are well equipped if it doesn’t.
At lunch today we had a delicious lunch of soup (smoked salmon for one, and red lentil with coconut for another) along with flammkuchen, which we had seen on a few menus and finally figured out it is a flatbread with various toppings on it. We had schinken, kaese and Pilsen which is ham, cheese, and mushroom, yum! But even better was the neuer weine, which is the local specialty of the season. It is a “new wine”, so it is just barely fermented. It has a bit of sparkle to it, is cloudy with yeast, a bit sweet, quite light, and utterly delicious. It looks like lemonade and is usually about 4% alcohol. Mike called it “wine beer”.
Neuer weine
In the evening we went to the Neustadt wine festival. There were carnival rides, a band, and lots of booths selling wine and food. Mike was in sausage paradise! We had some more new wine, along with some regular local wine and even tried a bit of sparkling. We were pleased to find that there are a number of dry whites (troken means dry, so it is the word we look for) that are delicious. I always associate German wine with sweet, so this was a good discovery.
An interesting thing we also noticed was that, unlike in the US, they served the food on real plates and the wine in real glasses. When we got our order, we were surprised that the amount they charged us was more than it seemed like it should have been from the prices on the menu. We finally were able to decipher that they were adding in a deposit on the plates and glasses that would get refunded when we brought them back. An interesting system, but it was much nicer than eating on paper plates with plastic cups.
We also tried some roasted chestnuts, something we have always heard about but never actually had. They were tasty and fairly meaty. Apparently we can pick them up in the forest and roast them ourselves. At the tourist center they even told us how to prepare them if we find any hiking. If we get some weather good enough for a hike, we may try that!
Our abode for the week, the apartment on the left
The band was fun. It was a big band full of old geezers our age or so. That meant that they played a lot of music from our generation, like Oya Como Va and Sweet Caroline, along with some German songs and a Big Band song or two. The fun part is that the crowd sings along with the band when they know the song, and quite enthusiastically at that. We also saw groups of young women arm in arm, swaying to the music. and older folks dancing in front of the bandstand. We were sure that the singing probably got even more enthusiastic as the evening wore on. We, however, were worn out and ready to retreat to our apartment on the quiet side of town.