September Tour News
Hi from Rick: People-to-People Moments
I first visited Germany when I was 14 years old. It was 1969, I was traveling with my parents, and one of our stops was the medieval town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber. I have a distant almost fanciful memory of staying in the spare room (a "Zimmer frei") of an elderly woman's half-timbered house, which looked like a gingerbread cottage built into the town's wall.
One morning during breakfast, our host came over to show me her arm. My eyes widened as she pulled down the empty flap of skin hanging beneath her tricep and unveiled the scar of a bullet…where it went in and where it came out. "I lived through World War II," she told this mesmerized 14-year-old. "I survived…and I have this for my souvenir."
Earlier this summer — 55 years later — I was back in Rothenburg, updating my Germany guidebook. One afternoon, I was out wandering, turned a corner, and bam! — déjà vu… Read more