Sunday, 17 June 2018: Hamburg, Germany to Canton, Ohio, USA

Today we traveled home from Germany, after a wonderful month exploring places along the Elbe River, hearing great music in historic churches, hiking in stunning landscapes, and visiting friends. We are so thankful to be home with our family again, and we are especially thankful that our daughters had safe and wonderful travels too.

Our final view of the Elbe from our hotel room balcony

We got up at 7:30 a.m. in Hamburg, with light rain and gray skies in the forecast.  It only took us 45 minutes to get to the airport. We returned the car, boarded our flight to Reykjavik, and were home by 11:30 p.m., a 21-hour trip, given the 6 hour time difference.

During the past month, we have cruised the Elbe River from Saxony, at the Czech border, to Wittenberg, all in the former East Germany. We then flew to Munich and drove over 1600 miles, from the Bavarian Alps in the south to the Baltic Coast in the North. At the end of our trip, we met up again with the Elbe in Hamburg, where the river was wide and busy with container ships, pilot boats, ferries, pleasure craft, and tall ships.

Left: Bavarian Alps near Berchtesgaden.   Right: Timmendorfer Strand on the Baltic Sea

During our driving tour, we followed the life of Johann Sebastian Bach from Eisenach (his birth place) to Ohrdruf, Arnstadt, Weimar, and Leipzig, and we heard John Eliot Gardiner and Ton Koopman conduct in the Ring of Cantatas at the 2018 Bach Fest in Leipzig.

Ton Koopman and the soloists take a bow at the July 10th Concert in the Thomaskirche in Leipzig.

In between visits to cities, we relaxed in spa towns and the seaside resort of Timmendorfer Strand.  We did short hikes in the Berchtesgaden National Park, the Thuringian Forest, and along the Lauterach River in Schmidmühlen.

Hiking with Ströbi (a stuffed bear for Cora) in the Thuringian Forest

We visited our ancestral homes in Schmidmühlen in Bavaria, and Elmshorn in Schleswig-Holstein.  Best of all, we met so many wonderful people -- friends in Berlin, Rosenheim, and Hamburg, and the many church people who helped us delve into our family history records.

Left: St. Nikolai Church in Elmshorn .  Right: Büchner House on the Lauterach in Schmidmühlen

Here is a map of Germany, with our destinations marked in purple.

I also made an Interactive map showing locations on Johann Sebastian Bach's Timeline, and here is a clear and simple Timeline of German History.

To see the trip in chronological order, click on the May 20th Blogpost, and click the back ("earlier") arrows on the posts.

Since we spent a lot of time in the former East Germany, we found it helpful to know some German.  Many of the older people in the East never learned any English in school, so at times we were on our own with my less-than-adequate German.  All I can say is that I got better as time went on.  For prospective German learners, I recommend:

1. Duolingo (App for learning basic German)
2. Basic German: A Grammar and Workbook (pdf file) by Schenke and Seago
3. Andre Klein's Learn German with Stories books (Start with Café in Berlin.)
4. HelloTalk (App for meeting up with language partners to correspond with)
5. Transparent Language's German Word of the Day Email. It's surprising how much vocabulary you can acquire with just one word a day. Nice to hear each word used in a sentence too.  
6. McGraw-Hill Practice Makes Perfect German Workbooks (Basic German, Complete German Grammar, German Grammar Drills, etc.)
7. Watch English-subtitled German movies on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Google Play Movies or other streaming service.
8. Listen to German Music on Spotify. 
9. Check out your local university or adult education programs. 

Map: 17 June