Put me on a highway and show me a sign…

If you read this blog, you know we don’t stay put long: we drive all over this region of Germany and France on a pretty regular basis. Along the autobahn, I’ve always noticed brown signs heralding the next tourist stop but have typically passed them by on our way to some predetermined destination. On Sunday, we packed the kids in the Truckster, headed south on A5 and stopped after one of the first “monument” signs we saw. We ended up at a Schloss, or palace, in Rastatt, about 30 minutes south of Walldorf. For a small city most folks around here have only heard of on highway signs, Rastatt has a very impressive palace, reminiscent of the one in Schwetzingen although the garden is much, much simpler. We walked around the impressive museum filled with art and an amazing array of military hardware before taking the guided tour. I think we paid 15 Euros for all 5 of us. Not bad at all. The café outside the Schloss sells good Cuban cigars! I stocked up on some primo stogies, including some Cohiba cigarillos, something I haven’t seen in tobacco stores in Heidelberg (although I usually by my Romeo y Julietas without comparison shopping much). The variety of swords and guns in this virtually unknown museum is astonishing. They also have a big collection of military uniforms and scale ship models. The guided tour took us through some of the rooms in the palace. The conspicuous, vulgar display of wealth boggles the mind. The tour extended about 10 minutes beyond the attention span of the kids, but I’ve never seen them enjoy a museum so much.
After getting our fill of history for the day, we headed to a friend’s house and then proceeded with her and her parents-in-law to the Portuguese festival in Malshenberg, close to where we temporarily stayed when we arrived in Germany, a city called Bad Schönborn. On the way we saw a farm where you cut your own flowers so decided to take a bouquet to Andrea. Despite both Emily and Robert cutting themselves in the process of putting the bouquet together, it was an enjoyable experience. The Portuguese festival ended up not having anything discernibly Portuguese, but the kids had fun on the rides. As the organizers of this event didn’t see fit to ensure that Hefeweitzen was served (I had to drink that bilge water known as Piltz), I’ve initiated a lifelong boycott that I should have little difficulty maintaining. My favorite picture of the day was of this dancing beauty below. I’ll let you guess who was the Beast.