Marz&Micha

Yep. We did it.

Life happens, or not, and sometimes we have to take big decisions. This time is my mother who is not doing really well so we decided to visit her now that we had the chance and to not regret it later. We might talk about it in a separate post, is just not the moment right now.
So, we traveled, and we had COVID-19 some months ago so we felt sliiiightly safer. Here is more or less the whole experience (for a travel between December 31 and January 11.

We traveled Germany-Netherlands-Costa Rica and the other way around. Costa Rica was not asking for any requirements at the moment so we only needed to fill up the ones for the Netherlands; a PCR test done no longer than 72h before the flight and a paper for the ministry of health.

Arriving to Costa Rica was just easy going, the normal procedure. We got to see my parents, my aunt and uncle my brothers and my cats. And of course also we are some real nice costarican food.

Then for coming back to Germany was more complicated, we needed a PCR test and the letter for the Netherlands, which we got, but the German rules were not so clear. A test must be made either 48h before you arrive or immediately. I never made the math for our existing Netherlands test and when we arrived to Germany everything was empty. Confusing. Oh, you also have to register in a German website, basically giving your data, contact information and address, but that’s it. I guess it must be harder if you arrived directly to Germany from Costa Rica without stops. Anyways, for our region you can make 5 days quarantine before you go and get another PCR test. If this is negative you can cut the quarantine there. If you don’t want to do it you just stay in quarantine for 10 days.

The travel itself was nice, KLM is one of the best airlines ever and my respects go fully to the poor pilot who brought us from Costa Rica to The Netherlands, it was literally a flight in turbulence and we made it alive. I really hate to travel in winter now but next time I need to do it it will definitely be with this airline again. And no, they’re sadly not sponsoring us haha.

Is not so hard to travel, but is uncomfortable and really expensive with so many tests in between, don’t do it unless you have a reason like ours, though we hope you don’t. Stay healthy and love each day of life as if it was the last, really.

This is definitely the most German thing to do in winter, at least in normal winters

I have seen proper christmas markets only 2 years, in 2018 in my first winter in Germany and last year. Unfortunately in 2020 due to the pandemic is not the same, yet some cities like Lüneburg are making a nice effort to give the people something similar

Christmas markets are a 100% German thing, yet apparently you can also find them spread a bit around the world. Anyways, in Germany itself there are some Christmas markets that are more famous than the others. Here in the north the one in Lüneburg is known for being cute and in a historical pretty town. There are 2 in Hamburg, one typical and one in St Pauli. This one is way more modern and you can get not only the classical eggnog and Glühwein but other random things. There are also parties around it and techno music going on. I think the most famous Christmas markets might be in Nürnberg and Aachen, which unfortunately I haven’t had the chance to see yet ( we planned to do a Christmas market tour in 2020 but… you know) but they’re the biggest of the country.

I think this markets being in the hardest part and darkest time of the year make the winter more bearable. All those lights, sweet smell of caramelized nuts, beautiful colors and cozy beverages make up for a magical scenario that can make you feel happy quite fast, this year there was even snow so I can only imagine how beautiful it would have been magical. Let’s hope for a 2021/2022 where all this can happen and then we can make our Christmas market tour and show you more about them 🙂

Well as the name says it, it is _in the region of Lüneburg_ but a bit far from Lüneburg itself. Like 1h in a car. The best moment to visit the Lüneburger Heide is definitely by the end of summer (or mid summer also) so you can see all the Heide plants in full bloom.

They have a pink tone, almost purple like lavender but brighter and they don’t smell (or if they do we could not feel it in that moment) but they do attract bees! This makes us really happy, as bees are usually in trouble of getting enough food, specially when time starts getting colder, and thankfully the Heide is a really cold-resistant plant.

Around 9000 Moorland sheeps get in the Heide annually to keep the birch trees and pines at bay, they also keep the Heide (or heather) at a lenght ideal for it to grow new sprouts and flower more. So long story short, the sheeps make community service in the Lüneburger Heide keeping the species of plants there at their best 🙂

Or the last stop in our holidays before i got my first German job :D.
We visited Aachen after the Schwarzwald trip, to finally visit a friend who lives there and feel again like we could cross the border to the Netherlands and Belgium anythime!… if there was no corona and there was more time.

Here we were for only 2 days but still, Aachen is great. Driving in Aachen not so… is very confusing. We were mostly in the old town, cause we have been told a lot that Aachens cathedral is the prettiest of Germany

I still like Freiburgs cathedral the most but Aachen’s is HUGE. Like, i had to step reaaaally far away for the picture above. We got scolded by Micha’s mom cause we were not inside and apparently we were missing it BIG TIME, so if you also go to Aachen -to visit Eliah as we did- go inside the cathedral!

Ánd as the foodies we are we got Aachen’s most popular thing: Printen!

They look like cookies, in the shape and size of cookies. But is more like bread. Have you seen this popular heart-shaped ginger bread cookies with cheese messages in the german christmas markets? well, those are also printen! but this ones we got can be found at any time of the year in lots of combinations! white, milk or dark chocolate, with nuts, with fruits… big or tiny, there is for everyone a printen. I love printen ♥

There is probably a lot more that we could not see, so we will be probably visiting again in the future. People say that the christmas market of Aachen is awesome so we will keep you updated 🙂

… in Nordrhein-Westphalia, cause we have closer the Altes Land in Hamburg but better acces to the area surrounding Detmold, as you might have seen already.

So Micha’s grandpa had 5 apple trees, and this year was amazing for apple picking, they were FULL of apples. Over production… and i always had wanted to pic apples, as for me fuits are better when taken directly from the trees, and i’m not used to apple trees at all so this experience had it all. The hype was palpable. We were 3 hours in the morning and 2 after lunch for a total of around 142kg of apples!

It was a massive amount of apples! And what do you do with so many apples, would you ask?… well… see it yourselves!

I repeat this a lot, and is that i used to hate apples. This foamy-barely sweet huge nonse fruit for christmas in my country. No thanks. But then i tasted this ones… is like having branches full of sweet beautiful dessert to eat as you please. HEAVEN. And we made Micha’s grandpa really happy so was a really nice day 🙂 and week… and everything cause who knows when are we gonna run short of apples. I hope never 😀

So for this holiday season we decided to visit the Schwarzwald (Black Forest). Then i discovered that the Schwarzwald is not precisely _a forest_ but like a REGION full of the same kind of forests.

We were in the southern side, almost in Switzerland, so close that we were even sad that we could not just cross the border as easy as in non-corona times. So we still have this pending 😉

We were visiting a really popular place for skiing in winter, Todtnauberg, a small village beside Todtnau in Baden Wüttemberg. So long story short, pretty south. In summer you can go visit a huge waterfall which you see from a long set of stairs from up to down, pretty good for a short hike.

You can also buy local honey and do other activities like blowing glass spheres. When you visit this place tho, you either go to the small convenience store in the village or go to Todtnau for the supermarkets. There in Todtnau you can also find Germany’s longest roller coaster ride, which of course, we visited 😀

And if you go even more to the south (not still not in Switzerland) you can find REALLY LONG hiking routes (well probably not really long but i’m not a long distance hiking kind of person (?))
It was super beautiful!!… and super tiring, like we did 15km in 5 hours, but we saw waterfalls, shallow rivers (where we were walking and taking pictures), places full of huge plants (CR style) and many more beautiful things that i wish were not so hidden so we could reach easier and have a day just there… but precisely them being so hidden is what kept this places so perfect.

The temperature that week was around 24-30 so you can imagine how much did i want to get into every water mass i saw… but i was also super eavy dressed for hiking cause the last thing i need is to be underprepared for something i don’t usually do. Not a hiking person, but i enjoy the view so sacrifices had to be done.

After this 6h of hiking we went out where we left our car and drove to a restaurant that’s probably the most German restaurant i will ever see… tho i don’t know the name cause the name i noted down, is apparently the name of a regional beer that sponsors a lot of the restaurants of the area apparently. Failed right there. But i can remember it in a map! so if anyone ever needs it i can look it up 😀 the food there was AMAZING. We should make a blogpost about food from each German area.

Oh but not everything is in the south here… did you know that in the Schwarzwald is also the sunniest place of Germany? That would be Freiburg! Which we definitely visited too!

The cathedral of Freiburg is, hands down (to me) the most BEAUTIFUL church i have seen in Germany. At least from the outside. Freiburg itself is so pretty i wished for a moment we were living there. They have also a huge expat community and it shows in the many many international restaurants and businesses you can find. We even found a Costa Rican coffee toaster. I, of course, got a bag ♥

On our way out of the Schwarzwald we made a quick stop to visit a huge wooden structure in a pretty town up in the north which name i don’t remember. There are trains that go only up and down a mountain to take you to this, tho you must still walk over a huge chain of bridges in the treetops to reach there.

I have no idea how high are this structures… you have to pay to get there of course, around 10 euros. So… like 12 dollars. Be ready to carry cash with you, tho you can also book it from internet. Just… you will have to research for the name cause in my panic i forgot most of it. Then, in the middle of this HUGE thing there is a slide. Mmmhmm, like in the Burger King playgrounds. No, BK is not sponsoring anything.

It looks like death but somehow is not even that fast, is really good, would reccomend 10/10.

So now you know. If you visit Germany in either summer or winter the Schwarzwald is a good option… unless is winter and you don’t like to ski, like me. Then better visit in summer for an amazin hike, beautiful views, AMAZING FOOD and a pretty amazing time in general