Amberg Platz

I have discovered my ambition for the rest of my life. I want to sit in the Amberg platz and drink fresh beer from one of the Amberg breweries and people watch in the summer evening. This is what I have been doing for the last two nights. Doesn't seem like it could ever get old.

I have no pictures from tonight. This is because I was too busy being entertained by three year old Liliana, who wanted me to see her coloring. Liliana got so excited that she started screeching--VERY unGerman--and I could tell it was making the older Germans extremely uncomfortable so I was forced to deny her my attention so her mother could get her calmed down. So my pictures are from last night. Virtually the same place with better weather (tonight it was more rainy):

Now for something ... different. Very different... By way. Now I have spent a lot of time in Germany. I've seen some weird things. Some really weird things. But this ranks as one of the weirdest. Maybe the All-Time Weirdest.

Being quite smitten with Amberg, and given the distinct possibility I will be returning here soon, I researched city hotels. I would like to come back here and bring my Frau with me. So I was researching Amberg hotels. 

Well, this hotel is really something. It's a prison-themed hotel. Set in a real prison. Or at least a former prison. A former German prison. I invite devoted followers of this blog to watch the video..or not...in the attached website. I'm not really sure how to understand this. And I don't want to cast aspersions, so to speak, but it just so happens that this, um, "modern" hotel, so to speak, is next to Amberg's Red Light District, so to speak:

http://www.hotel-fronfeste.de/index.php/zellen/doppelzelle

Nuff said. Maybe too much.

Gertraud's Altstadt Hotel

Because of my late travel plans I was forced to book lodging "on the economy". In other words, all the good hotels were full. So I did a web search and chose a hotel in Amberg that had almost five stars and a bunch of positive writeups. It turns out this was a good call. The delights of the city are many, as previous blog posts attest.

All of this led to the Altstadt. The Altstadt is on the outer edge of the old walled city of Amberg and therefore close to everything, especially delicious restaurants. It's also owned by Gertraud S.-P., pictured below. There are layers of stories here, both about the hotel and the owner, but I've only begun to peel them back. The layer I have not been able to peel back is the "-P", which apparently refers to Gertraud's (latest?) husband, a rather gruff, tattooed man who pretends not to speak English and to whom Gertraud says he has only been married a couple of years. Hmmm.

As for Gertruad, she was Amberg's "Princess" in 1972, which one can see from the painting with the crown behind her in the photograph below. She also had pictures of herself from around that time which reveal that, quite frankly, she was at one time a ravishing beauty. 

Now she owns the Altstadt Hotel, also pictured below, and a shot showing her welcoming another guest as he steps into the hotel lobby.

It is also worth mentioning that the Altstadt is across from the train station, which makes it great for people watching. Pictured below, the train station complete with bakerei and Subway. My Ford Focus ST rental car is second from the left. I wasn't too thrilled about a Ford Focus until I discovered just how fast it can go on the Autobahn. Now I'm a big, big, big fan. Oh, yes. 'Nuff said.

Amberg

Drinking room temperature Mineralwasser (mit gasse) after taking a long, long walk through the beautiful town. Waiting another hour or more before dinner, after which the exhaustion will overtake me and I will crash. Until then, must...stay...awake.

The city has two town squares and a lovely river running through it. One of the squares features a statue with Jose wearing the HOI. Just like Heidelberg last fall, there is pro- and anti-immigrant graffiti, such as in the last picture below.

Mountain High

Nojoqui Falls Hike

Santa Barbara Harbor

My sun-averse wife explains something of such riveting importance to our friend that our son (behind) yawns and the friend scrolls through her device:

The horrible spring weather casts a sunny pale over the dreary coastal view. It's enough to make one consider declaring Worst Ever:

All Is Well In The World