December 21

Erfurt!

It took us about 24 hours longer to get here than originally planned, but twelve of us finally made it to Erfurt. And we now have an updated itinerary for Debbie, who will fly out of PDX on Friday and will meet up with us in Munich Saturday around noon.

The five arriving today showed up as scheduled. Cody, Cayden and  Cherry arrived on an early morning flight (landing before 6 am).  Those of us already in Frankfurt were just a kilometer away at our hotel, but sleeping dead to the world, so they waited at the airport for Kurt and Jennie, who arrived at 9:30.  That crew then rented another van and met up with us at our hotel. 

We then caravaned to Erfurt using the infamous Autobauns A4 and A5.  But except for a few limited stretches, we found the freeway to be heavily congested.  At one point, we were at a dead stop for probably five or more minutes. We never did find out the source of the slow-down.  A trip of 263km, which should have taken less than three hours stretched to more than four, and we arrived in Erfurt just as it was getting dark.

Donovan and Jess were waiting for us at our hotel along with Joy--who had the run of the place the prior night as four of our five paid-for rooms sat empty.  It's a cute place run by a Polish family.  We essentially have the entire first floor to ourselves. D&J had brought bottles of champagne to toast our arrival.  Jess had also made up some "travel bingo" cards -- created well before our misadventures of the previous days.  We all got a laugh at how many items we had already covered:  cancelled flights; delayed flights; lost baggage, etc.

Given that we now had one evening and a short morning to see their home town; most of us immediately went off with Donovan on a walking tour.  Our hotel is just a few blocks from the main square, which is set up with their main Christmas Market.  I say the "main" one, because there are special stands set up all over town selling crafts, food and beverage.  According to Donovan, Erfurt now has one of the largest Christmas markets in Germany and it is favored by the locals with tour buses coming in from all over the country to take in the festivities. 

The official drink of the market is Gluhwein - a hot spiced wine available either white or red.  Every stand seems to have their own mugs to serve it in. The mugs can be kept as souvenirs or returned for the 2 Euro deposit.

D&J had attempted to find a restaurant for us all to have dinner tonight, but we unable to find any place that could accommodate a group of twelve.  We assumed we would need to break into smaller groups, but while walking through town, Donovan went into one place to see if they would have room.  Sure enough, they could seat us all--right away.  We were in a downstairs room with arched ceilings that could have been a wine cellar at some prior time.  The food was very traditional; Bratworst, Sauerbraten, etc.  Kurt decided to be adventurous and tried the "Thoringen Spiced Meat" -- a decision he regretted when something came out that resembled spam with carrots added.  He won the travel-bingo space for "WTF Food".

Tomorrow morning, we will make a brief return trip to the Christmas Market--we got their too close to closing time to see it all--and then head south for our next stop in Kroning at our first Airbnb location.