We're back, and I don't even know where to start!

Hello Cate. We appreciate your report of your trip at Germany and Italy. You said Mainz and Heidelberg are much better than Rick (Steves) gives them credit for. Yes, and I heard that from other American people who were at Mainz and Heidelberg. I travelled in Germany, and I think Germany is GREAT !

Glad to hear you had a good time Cate. I agree that Rick gives some short shrift to many cities, mine included. I do wonder about that. Do they just not appeal to him or does he just get a bad tour guide? Everyone I know, just loves Heidelberg and Rüdesheim. I have recently "discovered" Mainz and want to explore more. The cathedral there is wonderful and the area all around it. Berlin is fantastic and hardly anyone on this forum talks about it.

Please come back and tell us more about what you did in each city.

Jo, I wonder about that, too. I lived in Mainz for six years, so that's how I knew about it. My German mom and I have joked about his recommends, because he says Heidelberg is too touristy but then recommends Rothenburg, where they have huge blocks set aside for tour bus parking.

We spent our first night in Heidelberg at the hostel near the zoo. After a very brief nap, we took a bus to the old city and wandered around through some of the stores and the Christmas market. It was a weeknight in winter and not a summer day, so if there were any tourists besides us, they were keeping a very low profile. It appeared to be mainly locals.

In the Dolomites, we stayed in Rasun (a very small town about 20 minutes from Brunico). We played in the snow, ate local food, and visited the Christmas market in Brunico. In Venice, we mainly just walked around. In Rothenburg, we went to Kathe Wohlfahrt and did the city wall. Yes, KW is overpriced and touristy (more than before, even), but the kids and husband were blown away. We had a short time frame, as my Opa and step-Oma were expecting us for a late Christmas Eve lunch/early dinner.

In Nuremberg, we visited the Documentation Center and Zeppelinfield, had lunch at Heilig Geist Spital and trekked up to the castle. In Berlin, we visited a flea market in Ostbahnhof, went to the Gemaldgalerie, the Pergammon Museum, and the Altes Museum to see the Egyptian artifacts. We saw the Reichstag but didn't wait in line to go inside, Pariser Platz, and the Brandenburg Gate. We also did some shopping at Ka De We and a few other department stores (C&A and Karstadt, where we had dinner). There is so much to do in Berlin- we could have spent a week there.

Mainz was our night before the airport, and we stayed at the Hilton in the city (as opposed to the Rhine). We visited the Dom and just walked around, popping in to stores, and made it down to the Rathaus and by the Rhine before heading back. Cont...

...cont. We got lost on Augustiner street for a few minutes, and I passed on a chance to see Augustiner Church (amazing, but I have seen it before), because I wanted to get back to the hotel before dark and get my husband for dinner. I spent a lot of time pointing out stuff to my kids like the C&A where my mom took me shopping, where I was bitten by an organ grinder's monkey (true, LOL), where we used to get Eis in the summer by the Rhine, and so on. It was great for the kids because they got to see my mom's hometown (Ansbach, where we were over Christmas) and then where I spent half my childhood (Mainz.)

I thought Mainz had about the friendliest people of any place we had been on the trip (Berlin was mostly friendly, too, although there were some who were not.) We had some stinky looks in a few places (not Mainz)- don't know if it's because we were American or because we had four kids, which is freakish over there! In Mainz, an older woman came up to me and told me that we were smart to have a lot of kids, and told us how her father's family was large and in times of economic turmoil, when money is useless, kids are a blessing.

Hi Cate,

Thanks for taking the time to write. Glad you had a good trip.

Hope you don't mind a few questions.

We also love the Dolomites (been three times) and would be very interested to hear how the driving was at this time of year. We visited Brunico two years ago, what the Christmas market was like?

Did you visit Brixen's Chritmas Market on this trip?

Venice is another place we want to see on our next trip to the Dolomites. You say you have "mixed feelings"? Any advice you can give would be appreciated.

No hurry for answers though, we are looking to go much later this year.

Paul

Hi, Paul! The driving was fine in the Dolomites for us. There was a lot of snow on the side but not on the roads. HOWEVER, there had been a major snow storm about a week before and apparently the roads were very bad that week, so we lucked out. We made it to the Brunico and Bolzano Christmas markets only.

Venice is worth seeing once in your life. Some people like spending days or more there, some say to stay only a day (like we did, and I feel that was enough for us.) It is fascinating and beautiful, but there is a sadness, decay, and underbelly to it that kind-of struck us- more so than other European cities (maybe like New Orleans- a playground for tourists, where they both help the city and hurt it at the same time). I don't really know a good way to describe it without seeming to nitpick, which is not my intention at all. It just left me feeling sad about it.

Thank you for the insight Cate. I do understand your comment about Venice.

I'm with Cate on Venice. Glad we went for two nites in May; knock your socks off when stepping from the train station and seeing the Grand Canal before you on a sunny, bright morning. After 3 days we were glad to head to Rome and get away from what Cate described so eloquently. Not sad to see last of the sharp elbowed touristas in the Vaporettos and narrow lanes; probably won't be going back.