Why Germany Keeps Calling Us Back (Besides the Sausage)
Some couples have a “beach place.” You know, where they disappear for a week, drink out of pineapples, and come home sunburned and swearing they’ll never eat shrimp again.
Not us.
Give me cobblestones over sand. Give me castles over cabanas. Give me a bratwurst, a good pair of walking shoes, and my wife smiling like she just found the exact antique dresser knob she didn’t know she needed — and I’m in heaven.
I Lived There. She Shops There.
I spent seven years living in Germany thanks to the U.S. Air Force. That country feels more like home than some zip codes I’ve had stateside. I’ve traveled back several times for official duty, and unofficial schnitzel.
Now, we go as often as possible and for me, going back is like flipping through the most vivid scrapbook you’ve ever seen — except I get to share it with my wife, who somehow sees everything like it’s brand new, even if I’m saying “this is where we had the best currywurst” for the seventh time.
She’s a great sport though. And she has her own reasons for loving Germany:
- Every Trip = One Original Painting.
She started collecting paintings from our European trips — just one per visit, she said. Fast forward a few years, and now the wall under our staircase looks like an aristocratic estate in the 1800s. You can practically hear chamber music when you walk by. - Antique Shops Like Heat-Seeking Missiles.
My wife can find an antique shop in any town, even if it’s tucked behind a goat farm, two vineyards, and a medieval well. I usually get assigned “official vase holder” duty. Our carry-ons have been dangerously close to “ceramic shrapnel” levels. - The Food. Always the Food.
We both treat every meal like it’s our last, which is fine until we realize we still have 14,000 steps to go on that day’s walking tour. She’ll “split” a dessert with me, which means I get the last raisin and a plate to clean. - Kathe Wolfahrt: A Reckless Holiday Habit.
Every time we get within a 200-mile radius of either Heidelberg or Rothenburg, she has to “explore” the Kathe Wolfahrt Christmas store like she’s never seen it before. We marvel at the same trinkets we saw last time. And the time before that. That place alone has caused more fiscal turmoil in our household than any stock market crash ever could. One more nutcracker, and I may have to start investing in firewood futures.
I Plan It All (and That’s Fine…Mostly)
Flights? That’s me. Trains? Me again. Hotels? Yours truly. Restaurant reservations, scenic routes, museum tickets, currency conversion, local phrases? All. Me.
And what does she do?
She shows up, smiles, and somehow always ends up with the window seat.
Truthfully? I wouldn’t change a thing. Seeing her eyes light up the first time she saw the Cologne Cathedral or took her first bite of käsespätzle — that’s the good stuff.
I even surprised her for her 50th birthday with a trip to Munich to see Adele. She thought we were just heading to Germany for another round of castles and currywurst. Next thing she knew, we were singing “Hello” in a stadium packed with Germans who knew every word.
Our Kind of Romance
For us, Germany isn’t just a destination. It’s a tradition. It’s a recurring inside joke. It’s “why did we buy this cuckoo clock again?” and “remember that slight increase of a hill we hiked around Lake Eibsee?” (She will probably hit me when she reads that because her recollection is that it was much more than ‘slight’)
It’s walking hand-in-hand on uneven cobblestones. It’s watching her swirl a glass of local wine like a professional, then hand it to me because she doesn’t actually like it.
It’s her painting the memory, and me painting the itinerary. And somewhere in between, we keep building this life we love — one bratwurst, antique vase, and castle selfie at a time.
And yes, I still get goosebumps every time I hear church bells echo through a village that looks like it fell out of a fairy tale. I look over, see her grinning with a tote bag full of art, and I think —
Yep. This beats the beach.
