Into the Looking Glass

One of the things which we totally love about the trip, is visiting different factories and learning how the different products are made. After missing a chance to go on the Mercedes factory tour we decided we had  to make it to at least one German car factory tour, and thus we made our way to the Gläserne Manufaktur.

The Glass Factory is where Volkswagen does the final assembly of its luxury sedan, the Phaeton. Its  located in Dresden, and though we didn't explore the city at all, it did look rather charming. True to its name, the factory's is almost completely made out of glass, and looks amazing at night as can be seen from the picture below.

Within the factory, there is a Kugelhaus, which allows visitors to view all the Volkswagen commercials over the past 50 years. Of course there is the hugely popular Darth Vader one, but even before that they had some hilarious advertisements though for some reason I can't seem to find them on youtube. Suffice to say, we were fairly entertained for quite a while watching the various advertisements. There is also a meeting/ conference room which is available for rental if you are so inclined, though there was no one there the day we were visiting. 

Our group was fairly large but our tour guide did the best she could. No photos are allowed inside the factory at all, so any photos in this entry will be just what's available online. The Phaetons are made to order, and since the factory is only for final assembly, everything has to be brought in from outside Dresden. Being German, they have of course made sure that everything is as efficient as possible and at the same time, minimizes their carbon footprint. You can read all about it on their website thus I won't repeat it here. 

We were suitably impressed by the thought process they had, from the design of the factory, to how the assembly line should be to ensuring birds won't fly into the building. Seem like most of the factories in Europe are built with this kind of thinking, whereas in Asia it just seems to be more of what can you squeeze out from the space. It was fascinating how quiet everything was and though we could only observe the assembly of the cars from a platform, it was still pretty amazing. I had expected it to be a lot nosier, something like what we experienced in the Ducati factory but this was nicely quiet enough to hear what the guide was saying. 

photo credit : volkswagen

After the tour ended, we had dinner at the cafe within the factory and ended up chatting with the waiter. Surprise surprise, he actually knows where Singapore is! He has a friend working or worked in Singapore (can't remember) and he actually wants to come over as well. It's usually a surprise when people actually know where Singapore is since half the time they think we are part of China. A nice ending to the day before we made our way to Munich. 

Germany’s Highest Waterfalls and a new member to the family, no not what you are thinking

We went to Triberg purely because it had the highest waterfalls in Germany. The waters of the Gutach plunge over 160m in seven cascades into the valley below. We had a visitor card from the hotel so we were able to get in for free, but after 5pm or 6pm (can’t remember the time), it seems like you can get in for free as there is no barrier or guard preventing you from getting in.

Not a big plunging type of waterfalls but majestic nonetheless

Mesmerizing black forest

We ended up going to the waterfalls three times during our stay as there was really nothing much to do in the town other than visiting the waterfalls. There were hiking trails around the waterfalls so we did some of that. We also wanted to do the high rope course as well but it was never opened no matter what time we went, so in the end we gave up.

Had a "Return of Gandalf " moment here

One thing we did manage to do, or rather I managed to do, was eating black forest cake! Haha… since we were in that region, I thought we had to eat black forest cake in the black forest region and that’s what we did. I seemed to recall that black forest cakes were quite the thing in Singapore a long time ago, now they seemed to have disappear underneath all the macaroons/ cupcakes creations that are so in fashion now. It’s a pity though as I think those are really just for display and not so much for eating. Another thing to do was to buy a cuckoo clock, but we didn’t do that as I didn’t really fancy having something clucking at me every hour.

Black forest cake!!!

And lastly, say hello to Bonn, Haribo Bonn. Bonn was born in Germany, and his first name is Haribo and last name Bonn.

Bonn, not shaken not stirred, just sweetened

We picked him up when we went mad and bought all those sweets in Bonn. I thought he looked rather cute with his tuft of hair and asked CS whether he would like one. So now, he’s part of the family and joins our group of Totoros in the car and having an adventure with us. His picture is taken in the Black Forest, don’t you think the green background suits him so perfectly?

We were fortunate to get to savor the wonderful and beautiful food at Parkhotel Wehrle, Triberg

Bathing in Baden

One of the main things that we planned to do in our trip was to drive, and obviously not just along highways but also along some other more scenic routes. The Black Forest region of Germany is one of its most picturesque routes, obviously with a lot of trees but also beautiful scenery. It was quite a lovely drive and since it wasn’t yet summer and full tourist season, we pretty much had the roads to ourselves most of the time. Baden-Baden is one of the stops along the Black Forest route and we stopped by there to explore a little.

City of Baden-Baden

Baden-Baden actually means ‘baths’ in German so obviously one of the things we did was to visit one of its famous baths, the Caracalla Spa. The spa contains many pools of different temperatures, a sauna, steam room and you could also get a massage for an additional fee. It’s a bit like soaking in the hot springs of Japan or Taiwan but here, the pools are shared so everyone wears a swimsuit and the pools are a lot bigger. In the sauna though, even though it’s shared they go the Full Monty. We gave that a miss as we thought it would be too weird and sit amongst strangers of the opposite sex with our bits on display. Yes, the germans are very open about nakedness. Since it wasn’t yet peak tourist season, we had quite an enjoyable time going from pool to pool and just relaxing in the thermal spring waters. We also managed to get a massage (on a different day though as their system was screwed up and we couldn’t get one the day we went for the spa) which was rather good but a little weird at the same time. Again you go the Full Monty here, unlike massages in Singapore where they at least provide you with disposable underwear. The thermal spring water is also supposed to be beneficial for health if you drank it. After trying some, I say better to soak in it than to drink it :p

Pork knuckles, Bavarian sausages and a good beer

Spatzle (german noodles) with stewed beef and another good beer...

With the city tax we paid as tourists, we get a free tour of the city, BUT it was conducted in German so we gave up after about 15 minutes and decided to walk around it ourselves. We were lucky that the weather was good and the flowers were blooming. It seemed like everyone was out that day just enjoying the weather, all in all very lovely place to visit and just spend some time relaxing.

Beautiful blend of flora

A, B, C, E, M, R, S, which is the right class for you?

After going crazy drinking kolsh and buying up all the Haribo sweets we could carry, we moved onto Heidelberg to visit its castle, supposedly one of the best castles in Germany.

The drive to Heidelberg was uneventful enough but getting to the castle was a whole different story. We didn’t want to drive up into the castle as we had read that parking could be a problem. There was a train ride you can take to go up the hill but it wasn’t working the day we were there, so the staff told us to take a bus. However the directions were so bad, we ended up taking it in the wrong direction and spent about an hour being lost. After a lot of grief, we finally drove up to the castle and found parking pretty quick.

Heidelberg, not our expected image of a castle

The castle is one big ruin with an intact façade but we couldn’t enter most of the rooms, you can imagine how bored we quickly got. We did get into the Wine Vat Building that had a Great Cask which is capable of is capable of holding more than 208,000 liters of wine. You can climb to the top of which was quite cool. There was a wedding that night, thus it was fun to see them setting up for it. In all honesty, if we had a tour guide with us or if there were more explanations for the buildings, it would have been a lot more interesting, however as it is, the place was really a bit of a bore.

Giant wine vat

After that disappointment that was Heidelberg, we headed to Stuttgart, home of Mercedes and Porsche. We had originally wanted to visit the Mercedes factory but they couldn’t fit us in and thus they offered us a tour of the Mercedes museum instead which we took up. There is a Porsche museum in Stuttgart but we gave it a miss as CS wanted to co-drive the Porsche on a test track in Leipzig. We thought we could do the Porsche tour in Leipzig, though eventually we missed it due to lack of time.

The original Daimler

The Classics

Notice the Singapore Airlines logo?

(apparently they sponsored a London to Sydney rally in 1977!)

There were only 4 people on the tour, us and another elderly couple (can't remember where they were from). The tour was rather informative, and we learnt some interesting facts like how Princess Diana drove a Mercedes 500SL but she gave it up due to public pressure as she was expected to drive a British made car. There was also a secret prototype Mercedes in the courtyard when we were there, but since it was a secret prototype, it was all wrapped up in black plastic and we couldn’t exactly see the shape.

The future, green technology

(or blue efficiency as Mercedes Benz calls it)

Ahead of the times

Race cars

The "secret" prototype

German wantons and noodles at the museum

Other than the exhibits inside, the building itself was also quite remarkable, the interior has a double helix structure to maximize space. They also had a cool fire safety system which generates a 37m high artificial tornado to channel smoke out of the building in the event of a fire. After the tour, we ended the day with a meal at their in-house café which was quite lovely. All in all a rather good way to spend a day. We didn't do much for the rest of the stay in Stuttgart other than relaxing in our lovely jacuzzi in our room :)

TUV-ing it out

After arriving in Germany, we realized that Germany has implemented low emission zones in various cities and only vehicles which meet these emission standards are allowed to be driven into those cities. All vehicles thus had to obtain an Emission Disc/ Badge that states their particular emission and affix this disc/ badge onto the windscreen. No exceptions are made for foreign cars. Without the relevant disc/ badge, authorities could tow the car away even if its parked, so being the law-abiding Singaporeans that we are, we made sure we got one. And thus our adventure began…

While these discs/ badges can be obtained before arriving in Germany, we only knew that we had to obtain them after arrival. Apparently these discs/ badges are obtainable from car dealers, so off we went to Renault to get one, however the lady there informed us that we had to get it from TUV (the German equivalent of our LTA) instead. She didn’t just dismiss us though, she gave us the address, called them up to ensure that they were open, that they had the stickers and that it was indeed the right place to go. Really helpful and nice, I hardly think we would get the same treatment in Singapore. Thus, armed with the address and with the help of our trusty GPS, off we went again.

When we reached the address, we actually wound up in the wrong building since the address we had pointed us to what looked like a shopping centre. We eventually got there and it was a crazy long queue! What was weird was that almost everyone who was queuing had car plates with them. We just couldn’t figure out why though. We were the only 2 Asians in the queue and after getting our number from registration, we had nothing else to do other than wait. I felt like I was waiting to see the doctor at the polyclinic as there were so many people and they will flash the number outside the room when it is your turn to go in. After waiting for what seemed like forever, we finally made it in. We were served by this slightly eccentric German lady who seemed quite tickled by us and our requests for the disc/ badge. When we handed her our passports, she kept chuckling and muttered something to her colleague which we obviously didn’t understand. In any case, after waiting the whole morning we finally got our disc/ badge!! Now CS can zoom down the autobahn in peace, lol…

Our ride.. (eco certified on the corner of the windscreen, it's the green sticker in case in case you are still wondering where it is)

So after TUV-ing it out for one whole morning, you can say that we rewarded ourselves pretty well after by stopping over at Bonn…. Now you may think why would we go there and the reason is CS is a HUGE, and I mean HUGE fan of Haribo sweets and since we were in Germany, of course we had to go visit their flagship store in Bonn. We would have loved to do a factory tour but sadly they don’t conduct any so we had to satisfy ourselves with the flagship store instead. The store itself wasn’t exactly the biggest, but it had the largest variety of Haribo sweets ever and it was really busy! What was interesting was that there were the young, the middle aged and the elderly ALL buying sweets. I mean in Singapore, its mostly the kids and teenagers buying sweets, we hardly see grandmas and grandpas buying sweets for themselves. The lovely grandmas and grandpas were definitely buying it for themselves cos we saw them snacking on the sweets, haha...

Haribo museum and megastore

Unending rows of gummies, chewies, stripes and bears!

The Governator has his own Haribo gummy!

Suffice to say, we both went a little crazy at the store. We had a lot of fun deciding which sweets to buy and we bought so much, that even though we bought the sweets at the end of March, we are still eating the sweets now in August so you can just imagine the amount we bought. Well, if you can’t here are some photos to help you out, crazy huh?

As much as I can squeeze into the photo

Kolsh in Koln

Koln (or Cologne) was a rather easy and compact city to walk around in, we walked almost everywhere and of course since we were in Germany, we had loads of beer, sausages, schnitzels and pork knuckles! Woohoo….

Schnitzel and sausages! Our first meal arriving late in Koln!

Beer in Koln is served a little differently from the rest of Germany, instead of a big mug, they serve the beer in little glasses of 200ml. I really prefer it this way since I don’t drink my beer fast. The beer is kept cold and you get fresh beer frequently, win-win situation!!! And the best part… the moment you sit down, they serve you the beer, cos that’s the only beer and the only size, no time wasted in deciding what beer you want and in what size, its super efficient and I like it. The beer is called Kolsch and its only served in that region, or made there I think. In any case, we both enjoyed it a lot. The food was also pretty good and cheap, we ate lots of schnitzels, sausages and pork knuckles. M had told me about the currywurst before I went and though it sounds really strange (sausages smothered in ketchup topped with curry powder anyone?), it tasted oh so good. Super fattening food but we couldn’t stop eating it. It’s like the ultimate street food.

Pork Knuckles and chilly glasses of Kolsch!

And since we are on the topic of food, we visited a chocolate museum in Koln as part of our trip, the Chocolate Museum. The museum is also known as the Lindt Chocolate museum and for a while, we were wondering why a Swiss company had a chocolate museum in Germany and if in fact, Lindt is actually German and not Swiss. Well, luckily, we are not that ignorant, Lindt is actually Swiss, the thing is, Koln had a chocolate museum for a long time and Lindt then decided to sponsor the museum, thus the name. The museum itself was fairly educational, it covers quite a bit of history about how cocoa was discovered, how its harvested, how the world reacted to its discovery etc. They even had an area set up as a rainforest so visitors can experience what its like in a rainforest environment. I was missing the heat of Singapore since it was still freezing in April so we went in there, however it was so so humid it was difficult to breathe so we only stayed for a very short while.

One of the more fascinating sections was the one where you can see how the actual production of chocolate is like in a factory environment. It ain’t no Willy Wonka and there were no Oompa Loompas, instead we had a few grumpy German ladies working there as part of the demonstration. Nevertheless, it was still fun to see how the little chocolate bars were being made. I found it quite remarkable that they actually bothered to put in that in the museum. I also quite enjoyed the section showing the old advertisements selling chocolate.

Classic Lindt

Old brands of Schokolade (chocolate)

Now that we’re done with the food, let’s talk about the other places we visited, namely the Kolner Dom, Museum Ludwig and Wallraf-Richartz Museum.

The Kolner Dom is the largest Gothic cathedral in Germany and we managed to get a guided tour of the cathedral with a very bubbly German lady as our guide. I actually can’t remember much of what she told us but I do remember that the tour was good, so that counts for something I guess. We were also able to get up close to the Shrine of the Three Magi and we learnt that though we normally think that three kings paid a visit to Jesus when he was born, the bible actually doesn’t say that there were three kings, it only states that the kings brought gold, frankincense and myrrh. Since three gifts are mentioned, people just assumed there were three kings. We also wanted to climb up the tower but didn’t do so due to bad weather.

Kolner Dom

Inside Kolner Dom

As for the two museums we visited, I really enjoyed the Wallraf-Richartz Museum. They had a special exhibition on Corbet which was designed by Christian Lacroix. Corbet was one of the renowned classical artists of his time, but he is kinda forgotten now and some would say he fell out of fashion. I must say I really enjoyed his paintings and I would say his works are pretty good. The museum also gives a really good overview of the evolution of art through the ages, you do need to be patient and read through everything though. It’s kind of like a Art History 101 lesson.

We didn’t really have a lot of time in Museum Ludwig but I did like the exhibitions on Pop Art. The Portable War Memorial was interesting and I got frightened by the woman figurine. CS had pointed out the fake woman and told me it was a figurine but I didn’t believe him, but when I found out I thought it was quite freaky. The artist’s idea of art was to make strikingly realistic human models and place them inconspicuously and get a reaction from the viewer, which he certainly got from me.

We also did a little shopping in Koln, and since it is the birthplace of the original eau de cologne, you can guess what we bought! I must say I don’t like the scent of the original, I prefer the new scents they came up with. It was quite weird that they had a tap in the shop which had a continuous stream of the original eau de cologne though.

All in all, we both really enjoyed our stay in Koln. With good food at reasonable prices, fresh beer and some interesting sight, what more can you ask for. Most importantly, its not overrun by tourists yet. Definitely a place to visit.

One last picture of food to end the entry. Almonds flakes on steak and another german favourite, potato dumplings.

Not so much for me though...