The first day of travel overseas, especially to Europe or Asia, is always a bit rough. Start with jet lag, and then add the challenge of figuring out where you are going, getting there, and getting off to a good start.
Our old friend John Passacantando likes to say, "It's not an adventure till the first thing goes wrong." Well, this is definitely the first trip in memory that the "first thing goes wrong" happened on the first day. . .twice. It was probably the rockiest beginning we've ever had. I suppose I should look back on other blog trips to see, but nothing comes to mind.
We had really enjoyed our trip to the European Christmas markets in 2019 (click the link to read that blog), so this fall, as COVID numbers were falling, I sketched out another multi-country, cool trip. Oldest daughter Julia decided to join us.
We became very uneasy with the rising COVID numbers, especially in Germany. But, I figured it wouldn't be a big problem, as I kept reading how much better Europe is at handling COVID compared to the US. Yes, we had just gotten back from Portugal in mid-November, and things were going well there. But in the time between our return to the USA and this next trip, COVID took off like a rocket sled on rails in Europe.
Heck, as I write this, Portugal's case load per 100k population has quadrupled. It's still not bad, but that's a massive change in a short period. Right now, the US is 26 cases per 100k, Germany is 62, France is 52, and Switzerland is 91!. Germany was a bit higher last week, so it's encouraging that their load is dropping. France was lower, and Switzerland is pretty grim. And of course, Omicron is freaking policy makers out.
All in all, what looked like a good plan in October is not.
Now, back to our story. The flight was fine, and getting through immigration was easy. There was an annoyingly long wait for our bags, but there was no one ahead of us at Avis to get the rental car. So far, so good. The drive to Wurzburg was smooth. Everyone raves about the German Autobahn, and with good reason. There's not so much traffic that it bogs down (I'm looking at you I-95!), and trucks stay to the right probably 99% of the time (I'm looking at you, American truck drivers!).
The first challenge came when we tried to get to the location to pick up the key. In the old city of Wurzburg, which means narrow one-way streets, both of the routes we tried to go via GPS were closed (but not indicated as closed on GPS), so I gave up and drove to the free parking lot that was recommended. We set off with our bags to find the rental apartment, which was a bit of a walk. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that the GPS was inexact on where the apartment is. And since the road was inexact, we had to wander around to find the building.
The key pick-up was over a half mile away (lunacy), which would have meant over a mile roundtrip. I had assumed the key pick-up and the apartment were much closer together. Around the corner kind of thing. I thought wasting that much time to go get the key is nuts, so I called the rental guy and let him know. He sent someone with the keys. Not a good system -- they just should have met us there in the first place.
The apartment itself was nice, but none of us felt the need for a nap and shower at that point, so we went off to get lunch and sightsee. Our first indication that something was amiss was that there were no stalls in the Marktplatz, which is where the main Christmas market would be set up.
After a typical German lunch (German food works in a very narrow space where a sliver of it is good, and the rest is overcooked pork and cabbage), we headed up to the Wurzburg Residenz, which is a UNESCO World Heritage sight. Wurzburg itself is a neat looking small city, with winding streets, shops, old churchs/cathedrals, and buildings with charm.
The three of us stood outside the Palace, debating whether to go get tested. We decided to do it, as otherwise we wouldn't be able to do anything but outside sight-seeing. No castles, palaces, forts, cathedrals.
So we went down to where the gentleman told us we could get a rapid test (results in 20 minutes). The line didn't seem so bad, until it was snowing/sleeting AND the line wasn't moving. Honestly, I don't know how long we waited in line. . .at one point I sent Carol and Julia off to explore the city for a while. . .but it seemed like it was nearly two hours. The test itself was quick, and we got our printed paperwork showing we were negative.
The palace closes at 4pm to new entrants, so we rushed back to the Residenz with the test in hand.
I was quite frustrated between the lousy apartment/key pick-up waste of time, no Christmas market, and then the nearly two hours to test to be able to go into a UNESCO World Heritage site.
At that point, I felt that Wurzburg was the worst. The good news is, our days since have gotten progressively better. We've led a largely charmed traveling life, but this definitely was not charming.
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