Travel Tips

The Euromeet week-end was a stellar event for the city of Karlsruhe and for the whole world. The global effect this meeting had can only gradually be determined over a longer time span (complete results will be available in 6792), but one thing is for sure even now: it was a truly unique event that will never happen again in this shape, form and consistency at exactly that time.

The Euromeet was not about the best possible investments of your Euros, but rather about spending them and having fun in the process of it. Eating, drinking, sight-seeing, laughing and being merry were some of its major side effects.

Many different events, some of which took place simultaneously in parallel universes, were this season's highlights for Karlsruhe, Planet Earth and the Universe in the year 2008. No doubt, the wonderful memories are going to last for a gazillion of light years.

The most important pre-pre-pre-Euromeet event took place in Durlach. In this context I would like to set up yet another petition to be fed-exed to giampiero6 (Giampiero) to please, please, PLEASE add Durlach, Germany to the list of VT destinations. Thank you in the name of all the participants and Durlach. Supporters of the petition please sign on the dotted line ........................

Anyhow. The pre-pre-pre-Euromeet, Durlach chapter, began with an extremely revealing tour through Durlach's old city, guided by Trillian2005 (Gabi), starting at the St. Peter-and-Paul church next to the Üxküll Park and cemetery with the mandatory visit of Friedrich Emich Count of Üxküll's tombstone, wading through the city moat, closely following the historically crumbling city wall to the Karlsburg Palace Park, then via Karlsburg on to Pfinztalstrasse (Pfinz Valley Street) where a great part of the afternoon was spent at Judy's café, sipping bionade and strawberry cake. After we had refueled our energies, we went to see the "Sex in the City" Fountain as well as the city church and the city hall. All three of them are getting along nicely side by side on Durlach's Market Square. A visit to a well-stocked supermarket on Pfinztalstreet completed this extremely informative tour.

The picture shows the wonderful tour participants TravellingSpirit (Gillian), yumyum (Sonja), Trillian2005 (Gabi), igraine (Ingrid) and nhcram (Natalie) in Üxküll Park.

On Saturday, very early in the morning, one of the most unforgettable sight-seeing events was a guided tour through Newtown Karlsruhe. The tour was guided by Bernd_L, (Bernd), Jadefrau (Andrea), and several other excellent tour guides. That tour was the ultimate Karlsruhe experience. For the first time we learned a wealth of facts about Karlsruhe that we had never known before. The tour started at the Baden State Theater with its famous equestrian sculpture in honor of the talking horse and comedian Mr. Ed.

We then continued to "Rondellplatz" (Circle Square) with the Constitution Column and the Constitutional Griffin. This square is the place where two famous sayings set out from Karlsruhe to conquer the world:
- to carry griffins to Karlsruhe
- to square the circle

After "Rondellplatz" we continued our happy trails to Marktplatz (Market Square) where they sell an assortment of goodies, including flowers, fruit, and fire engines. Marvelous mickeybleck (Daniela) decided to pass the bargain on fire engines and bought a bowl of strawberries instead. This was a truly sensible decision because who wants to eat a whole fire engine?

The picture shows one of our excellent tour guides, Bernd_L (Bernd). No, he is not a Martian. He knows too much about Planet Earth in general and Karslruhe in particular to be an extraterrestrial.

Here you can see one of Karlsruhe's ultramodern public transport vehicles. They are unique to Karlsruhe, energy-saving, solar-powered, very affordable and go from here to there, in other words from anywhere to everywhere.

The photo shows the great benazer (Az) who just loves the Karlsruhe public transport.

This is one of the many most famous buildings in Karlsruhe, the "Karlsruher Schloss" (Karlsruhe Palace, nicknamed "Charlie's Castle").

There is a lot that can be told about the castle and our tour guides told it all. They made us learn the facts by heart and after we had been tested and graduated in Charlie's Castle's history lesson, we were permitted to take a break and leisurely walk around the Palace Park and to the lovely and exotic Botanical Gardens. The Botanical Gardens are the hottest hotspot in Karlsruhe and that is the reason why you can find many exotic plants there, such as monkey puzzle trees and sphinxes. In addition, some of us found an exotic café that constantly serves a multitude of exotic cakes and beverages. There we rested, rehearsing over and over again what we had learned on our Karlsruhe tour until we completely didn't remember anything.

The picture shows Charlie's Castle, Charlie himself, and a gazillion of lovable VTers.

Speaking of lovable VTers, this is the opportunity to say a big THANK YOU to the fabulous organizers of the fantastic Euromeet:
- Jadefrau (Andrea)
- Bernd_L (Bernd)
- tini58de (Christine)
You guys rock!

After many fun hours and fruitful discussions in the Botanical Café, ray_d (Ray), Trillian2005 (Gabi) and TravellingSpirit (Gillian) continued their discussions on iPods, small dogs and cats with personalities underneath a Coolibah tree. Behind Trillian and Gillian are the twins, who originally were triplets before one of them had been sold off at e-bay.

After our final preliminary conclusions we tried to buy a screwdriver on Karlsruhe's famous Kaiserstreet but they had run out. In order to complete that afternoon in a happy manner, we then went to Café Karstadt where I had an apple cooler and the others had something else to drink.

The picture shows Trillian and Gillian next to the Twins-Formerly-Known-As-The-Triplets, looking for zombies in Gillian's camera.

And last but not least meet charming ray_d (Ray), a bit off-centered from the Coolibah tree and momentarily disconnected from his iPod. I took this photo after we had exchanged countless words of wisdom on iPods and sung all 7000 songs the iPod contains. It was great fun, especially the Maltese folk song Waltzing Matilda, which was brought to Australia by Maltese immigrants (originally written by the Maltese composer Billy Borg for his wife, the lovely Matilda from Marsaxlokk) and became the unofficial Australian national anthem.