The next day we drove to Worms on the Rhine river for a large fest. I love the smells of German fests, all the BBQ’s and beer tents just have their own unique smell. Plus the rides there seem much larger and more frightening than our local fairs seem to have. We went on a log ride, haunted house ride and a few more stomach churning rides before taking a stroll along the Rhine River. The river was so low you could actually see the bottom from the lack of rain all summer. Once back home I drove to Jurgens for a few hours, leaving my treasure of jelly bellies, microwave popcorn, Sponge Bob pajama’s, etc… Later that night Tom BBQ’d some wursts for dinner. 2 days in Germany and already 2 fests and a BBQ. The trip was off to a good start!

Anyway, got here around noon after a 1.5 hour drive from Kibo. Spent the afternoon driving by the old army depot, saw the old PX, Burger King, Barracks, NCO club, etc… This really brought back a lot of memories.
Later we walked the pedestrian zone, eating a curry wurst along the way. Thankfully, not much has changed and it didn’t take long to get a feel for the area again. Gießen is not a place I would suggest going out of your way to visit, but if you spent a lot of time there like I did it’s a place you come to like and enjoy. Late that night we had a wonderful dinner at the Alt Gießen brewery. Look at the web link, it is really a great place with tasty beer and fantastic food. After walking the town and doing a mini pub-crawl we returned to the Alt Gießen brewery again for a late night beer. While there they were draping the walls and light fixtures with long strands of hops. In fact if you look at the web page you will see the hops in the photo’s. They said the hops last up to two years before needing to be changed. Back to our dive of a hotel to listen to traffic all night.

Sept 9th, 2003

Lousy night of sleep due to street noise. We were up and out of Gießen by 8am. First stop was the village of Wetzlar, which amazingly I never actually visited during my stay in Gießen. If memory serves me right Elvis was stationed either in Wetzlar or very near. The morning was cool and there was a light fog or mist hanging over the river as we arrived. There was a Roman style stone bridge crossing the river, combined with the light fog it was quite a dramatic sight. The town is full of half timbered building and easily walkable in a short time. We toured the church, market square and back alley’s before heading off towards Braunfels on der Lahn. Again, another nice village with lots of half timber building and a stunning castle overlooking the village. As we walked up a narrow street towards the castle we passed the local flower and vegetable market. It was a crisp, sunny day and the colors and smells were really vivid. The castle was huge and I couldn’t wait to tour it, but they only do tours and the last one had just left and the next one wasn’t for another hour. So instead we toured the castle museum before heading back to stroll around town again.

Since we got off to such an early start we decided to head north rather than head back to Giessen as planned, and visit Biedenkopf and Marburg. We drove the windy yet scenic back roads north to Biedenkopf. The reason for visiting Biedenkopf is one of my clients grew up here as a young girl. She is now in her 60’s and hasn’t been back for quite some time. Since the town was close to Marburg and looked nice enough I thought it would be fun to stop by and take a few photo’s for her. I’m glad I did. We first drove up to the castle. When paying the entry fee I told the lady why I was here and she showed me a few books on the area. I bought one for Frau Wasmer along with a few postcards before touring the castle. The inside was very interesting, featuring lots of the towns logging history. The view of the village and surround hills from the top of the castle was great, and I couldn’t wait to get down to the village and get a little lunch. On the way out of the castle the cashier came out of her booth and gave me another book on the castle and Biedenkopf, FREE. She said she was so pleased to have someone show an interest in the castle and the area and she wanted us to have the book. What a nice gesture! We then strolled the old town, eating lunch at a small imbiss in the town square. I had a wonderful Gyro’s and Jurgen had a curry wurst. After taking a few more photo’s we head a little East to one of my favorite towns in Germany - Marburg.

Marburg is a university town much like Heidelberg and has a wonderful old town that seems to spiral up towards the castle above. We spent an hour or two touring the old town before sitting at a small café, the Club 1900 to have a beer and people watch. Jurgen had never been here before and kept saying how much he liked Marburg and how he wanted to surprise his wife and bring her here for a weekend. When the trip was over he said Marburg was his favorite sight we visited. When I was in the Army they took you to Marburg by train after your 1 week language course. You had to buy your own train ticket and order lunch in German. The only bad part was they made you wear your dress green army suit. Everyone looked at us like we had 3 arms or something, real embarrassing. (Lol)
By the time we left Marburg it was a little after 3pm. I had wanted to visit the Licher brewery the next day, but figured why not cap off the day with a visit since we still had a little time. So we took advantage of the no speed limit on the Autobahn and flew to the village of Lich, just a little East of Gießen.

At the Licher Brewery our first stop was the gift shop to pick up a few gifts. I bought a few Stammtisch items and a menu board. The gentleman behind the counter asked it I used to be stationed in Giessen and I told him I had and that I had drank way more than my fair share of Licher Bier back then. He then gave me a packet of free pens and some other items and then asked if we would like a beer. “Does a fat dog fart?” I asked. Apparently that didn’t translate well. So he took us to an elevator and took us up 8 stories to their beer garden. A tour had just finished and the place was packed with a group of retirees that had come on a bus tour. One of the men on the tour had toured the brewery 8 times. So the man sat Jurgen and I down at a bench and quickly brought us two baskets of breads and wurst. He then said we could stay for 2 hours and drink all the beer we wanted, FREE. After hugging him and getting my picture taken with him he brought us a couple Licher Pils and wished us well. How we got home that night is still a little sketchy but what a great way to end the day.

Part 2