September 22

After a really great breakfast at August and Inge's, we drove to Ulm, where we visited the Saturday market, toured the cathedral, and walked around the city. The cathedral, called Ulmer Münster, is the tallest church in Europe. And I went all the way to the top, as you will soon see.

Check it out!

Inge, Dr. Rust, and I check out the elaborately carved choir stalls.

After we checked out the church, it was time for us to climb the spire. Inge graciously payed for Erik and me to go up. As it would turn out, she wasted her money on Erik!

768 steps, one way. Quite a climb!

View of the market as we began the ascent.

My art shot for today.

Erik had abandoned me by this point. He was feeling kind of uneasy and asked me to be more careful with the camera. I pretended to throw it off the edge, and it just killed him. Picture a jellied mass of cowering Erik. So, I left him at the first main stopping point. Later on, he mustered up the courage to follow me up a ways further, but he went back down before I descended.

A really cool gargoyle. It's really weird to see one from this angle. Dr. Rust's son Martin took a picture of this guy two years ago, so I was glad to find him. You really get a sense for how tall the cathedral is. See the Danube back there? Much more beautiful than it was in Vienna - even blue!

My gargoyle friend from above, surveying the marketplace.

See how tiny the people are? What crazy guy was hanging out there putting those decorations on the church?!?

Almost to the top - this was the final staircase.

Looking down at the church itself. You can just barely see the sparrow, the symbol of the city, down on the ridgepole in the middle of the church's roof.

Ulm and the Danube. What a pretty day. Bavaria is on the left shore.

On the way back down, whom did I spy but Dr. Rust and Banholtzers.

See, I made it to that last railing up there!

After the cathedral, we walked around Ulm. It was such a beautiful day, and we saw at least three newly-married couples getting their wedding pictures taken.

So many of the houses are like this.

The City Hall with its celestial clock.

For lunch we went to the fishmonger's. The shop has been operated by the same family for at least 300 years. Pretty tasty, too.

Inge and August are unstoppable, so our next move was to pile back in the car and head out for a hike in the mountains. We walked through some beautiful woods to the ruins of a castle that commands a stunning view of the surrounding countryside. The trees are just beginning to turn, so it was really beautiful. We had a really good laugh about a tourguide who was absolutely torturing a group of old people. He stood in the same spot and blabbed for at least half an hour. There was a big tent with a lunch laid out, obviously set up for the group, and someone started a joke about how there would be a multiple choice test that they would have to take before they got to eat. I think we finally established that 50 percent or under had to retake the course, 50-60% earned you bread and water in the dungeon, 70% got you dinner but no dessert, 80% was dinner and dessert with water only, and 90% and up got to have beer or wine with their meal. Okay, so we're weird, but it was really cracking us up.

The whole area lies in the crater of an extinct volcano.

After the hike, we once again hopped in the car and drove to Beuren, a pretty little town. We just walked around a bit and stopped at an outdoor café for some water. Once again, here came a poor group of people with a garrulous tourguide. This one was a lady with a crazy hat, and we decided that she must be the wife of the tourguide we saw at the castle. They exchange tips on how to torture tourists over dinner in the evenings. I swear, they stood in the middle of the square looking at the exterior of two buildings for a good 50 minutes.

We ended our day with dinner at a local restaurant, Hirsch im Grünen. That's like "stag in the country," or something like that. All the food and drink comes from the countryside around. Everything was good, and the Pils was great. The proprietor had such a crazy accent that even I could tell it was weird. Good times.