Visiting Cousins in Grafshaft Veldenz, Germany

August 11 Give us 11 months to prepare for a family history trip and you just never know what you are going to experience. How about stepping foot into the house where your great-grandmother lived as a little girl? What about wine tasting with cousins, who by the way, also make that wine? What about […]

Toast to Ancestors in Wine Country of the Mosel Valley, Germany

August 7 Thanks to exhaustive research carried out by our partner Roland Geiger (far left) our guests from Missouri were able to toast ancestors in a vineyard above Veldenz that was owned by them before they emigrated to America. Making it extra special was the fact that current-day cousins are also wine makers. Barbara is […]

Finding the Beauty in a Rainy Day in Tyrol, Austria

September 27 Rain, rain, go away, but tomorrow they promise a sunny day. Something like that. We took a short excursion from our home base in Lans, Austria to the Ötztal Valley to the west of Innsbruck for photography and a short hike along the longest and highest waterfall in Tyrol. Even though it rained, […]

Celebrating a Birthday at Hirschhorn Castle

September 10, 2012 Sometimes while on a trip around Germany one just has to say “why not?” and go to a castle for a dish of ice cream to celebrate a birthday. That’s what we did the other day to celebrate our guest Beth Renney’s birthday. Up, up, up we drove into the hills above […]

The Gorgeous Oetztal of Austria

May 20 We spent the day in one of the most scenic valleys of Austria, the Oetztal, near Innsbruck. The Oetztal is perhaps best known for the discovery of the “snow man,” nicknamed “Oetzi,” found frozen in a glacier high above the valley floor. Oetzi is now in a museum in Bolzano, across the border […]