Burg Eltz

On Friday we were furtunate enough to meet up with one of Shaun's old friend's in Frankfurt. We met for dinner at a very nice restaraunt - Osteria. We highly recommend.

Germany must have hundreds of castles. During our random, and sometimes accidental, drives through the countryside we must have seen at least a dozen. On Saturday we decided to go to one of the better maintained castles, Burg Eltz. It is about an 1.5 hour drive from Mainz through the Mosel Valley to the castle. The castle was beautiful and they give a great 45 minute tour...albeit it was a struggle, at first, to find someone who would give an English speaking tour. After paying admission, we were told to enter the courtyard of the castle and press the red button to request an english tour. So I stepped up and pushed the button to request the tour (luckily at the same time another English family arrived, so between us we had 7 people). We were informed we did not have enough people because we needed 10. Luckily prior to the tour others arrived and the tour ended up having around 30 people in it! Lesson learned- good things happen when you push red buttons. Unfortunately, you can't take pictures of the inside, so we have a ton of the outside.

Sunday we took Kooper to the Hundewiese (dog meadow) at the Volkspark Niddatal in Frankfurt and let her run around off-lead and meet some Germany pups. She had a great time and it was a great chance for her to burn off some extra energy. See link at right to see her running around like crazy (I'm still learning to use the video camera!)