Pegontheroad

Good advice, Manhattengirl, except not for me. I will be finishing a month-long trip during which I will visit about 11 different destinations.

Past experience has taught me that I'll be sick and tired of sight-seeing and will want nothing more than a clean, cheap, comfortable hotel with a shuttle to the Flughafen.

Pegontheroad

I just received a cool and useful gift from my nephew. It was a little reward for all the phone-a-thon calls he made for his daughter's school. It's a little flashlight that has a handle on the back that you turn to charge up the battery.

I was planning on buying two of those little LED flashlights to use for going into the interiors of some of the ruins at Hitler's Lair in Poland. I figured I'd buy the second one as a backup.

The other cool thing is that it has the name of his daughter's school in Seattle (Holy Names Academy). I attended Holy Names in Spokane 60 years ago.

PatrickLondon

Offtopic, peg, I hate to add to your reading-list, but I've just come across a book that looks as though it might interest you: Born in the GDR: Living in the Shadow of the Wall, by Hester Vaizey.
http://www.hestervaizey.com/

Pegontheroad

Patrick: Thanks for the suggestion. On Vaizey's website, there are two other books of hers that look interesting. Just what I need--more books! I'll put them on my kindle to read during my next trip.

I've started reading "Immortal Irishman," by a local boy who's made good as a writer. It's about a troublesome Irishman who escaped from Australia, came to the U.S., fought for the Union in the Civil War, became the governor of Montana, and died mysteriously, at the age of 43.

I am finishing "Terrible Terry Allen," the story of the combat general in North Africa and Italy--I like his name--"Terry de la Mesa Allen." His mother was Spanish, so the parents followed the Spanish tradition of having the names of both father's and mother's family.

I'm partway through Rick Atkinson's "Day of Battle"--also about N.Africa and Sicily and "Team of Rivals," about Lincoln's cabinet.

My brother game me Beevor's "Ardennes 1944," which I'll start soon. Plus I have about a trillion other worthwhile and exciting books on my kindle already. However, there's always room for more--though I think I have enough books to last me for ten more years.

PalenQ

I'm not sure what to do about Weimar and Erfurt. I spent a couple of days in Weimar and liked it. I spent a couple of hours in Erfurt but didn't see much. My Frommers suggests that there is architecture that I'd like. I am tempted to spend 2 days in each. Any suggestions?>

2 days in either itself would be a day too much for the average traveler (but you're not average!) - but visit also Naumberg, a gem of a smaller town near Leipzig and Eisenach for Luther's Castle - the room with the ink stains on the wall where he allegedly threw his ink well at the Devil - the Devil made him do it!

and all four and Leipzig itself are all on the same train line not that far apart.

I like Weimar the most of any as it has large green areas and modern Bauhaus architecture.

annhig

Peg - like you we stayed 2 nights in Weimar and didn't see everything that we could have but it was probably enough for us; we spent 2 hours in Erfurt and felt we'd like to have been there longer.

I think that this has been said before, [if no on this thread on one of your others] I can recommend Naumburg for ½ a day or so, ditto Eisenach. However the jewel in the crown is definitely Halle - and the Francke institute the most interesting thing to see there, but there are other things to see too like the Haendelhaus and the Botanical gardens.

PalenQ

wow - I missed Halle when in the Weimar area - actually never heard of it - oh well in my next lifetime perhaps...

https://www.google.com/search?q=hall...w=1745&bih=868

annhig

well, I'm not sure that Halle is a place that we'd have gone to if we'd not been taken there by our german hosts but it's a most interesting city. The first time we had a guide who had taken that up as a profession in DDR times specifically because she wanted to be able to meet to people from the west and that was the only way to do it; the second time we saw both the Francke Institute [well known in the US as it sent many missionaries to heathen America] and the newly restored court building, which if you can gain access is well worth seeing.