Travel Report - Rhine River Valley, Pumpkin Sculptures, Elvis Presley, Red Squirrel Sighting, Steep Vineyards and Sheep

From eastern Germany, we traveled south and west along the Rhine River on our way to the Netherlands. Here are some natural and horticultural photos from along the journey:

You might think of Germany as being the Land of Beer, but the Rhine is all about Wine!
In many places - as here in the town of Bacharach - you'll see steep hillsides blanketed with vineyards.
Just climbing this hill seems like it would be a challenge, never mind planting, tending and harvesting the grapes!

Here and there, you see sheep on the hillsides...   :)

The town of Ludwigsburg, Germany claims to have the World's Largest Pumpkin Festival. Typically, more than 400,000 pumpkins are pressed into service to make larger-than-life sculptures.
Here two medieval pumpkin knights on horseback prepare to joust before a royal audience (and a cafeteria).

Some of the pumpkin kings are of the playing card variety...
(although wouldn't Jack say he was the real Pumpkin King?)

And then there's the King of Rock and Roll!

Have you ever seen such a conical tree?!
And with a statue sheltering beneath it like an umbrella?
This is not my taste at all, but I had to admire the moxie of the designer and/or pruner in this palace garden in Wurzburg, Germany.

Grey squirrels are super common in the States.
In fact, my mother used to get her exercise chasing squirrels off our back porch. (They were always trying to steal from the birdfeeders.)
But if you want to see a Red Squirrel, you have to head to Europe.
And even then, you better keep your eyes open, because the red squirrel seems much more shy, elusive and rare than its grey North American counterpart.
Here was my best attempt at snapping a pic of a red squirrel in a Wurzburg garden.
Now I know how those photographers feel when they try to convince people that their photos really do depict Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster.
Honestly folks, that blur is a red squirrel!
(Incidentally, Germans apparently cannot say the word "squirrel".)

Beautiful vista from this formal hilltop garden in Wurzburg, Germany

And on that exposed hilltop garden was a palm tree!
(The palm was surrounded by a very nice patch of Sweet Alyssum.)
I'm no expert, but I think this could be a Chinese Windmill Palm (Trachycarpus fortunei).
What do you think?

Finally, a field of orange flowers (poppies? marigolds?) makes a delightful carpet leading up to this Wurzburg palace.

Travel Report -- Sweet (Bee) Dreams in Berlin at the Ritz-Carlton and the Scandic on Potsdamer Platz

Rooftop beehives at the Ritz-Carlton Berlin, with the Tiergarten park in the background

In September, I took a trip to Germany and the Netherlands. Over the next few posts on Garden of Aaron, I'll be sharing some of my garden related experiences and memories from the trip.

But first, any travel involves finding a place to sleep. Personally, as a gardener, I try to find places with an eco-friendly sensibility.

In Berlin, I found two hotels that actually maintain their own beehives and produce their own honey - the Ritz-Carlton and the Scandic, both of which are on or near Potsdamer Platz.

Wikipedia has a great entry on the history of Potsdamer Platz, once the busiest public square in Europe. Destroyed in WWII and subsequently divided by the Berlin Wall, Potsdamer Platz became a desolate no man's land.

But after the Cold War ended and Germany reunified, the platz sprang back to life. For a while, it was the biggest construction site in Europe. Heavy investment has transformed it once more into a showcase for modern Germany.

All of which is to say that from a traveler's perspective, Potsdamer Platz is interesting, historical (you can still see remnants of the Berlin Wall) and convenient from a transit perspective.

When I started researching eco-friendly places to stay in Berlin, it was the beehives at the Ritz-Carlton that first caught my eye. Installed in 2011, the seven beehives house up to 400,000 (!) bees in the summer -- fewer in winter -- who collectively produce 250 to 400 kilograms of honey each year. Some of that honey shows up at breakfast in the hotel's restaurant, while jars of the sweet stuff can be purchased as souvenirs at the hotel's gift shop. Some of the honey even makes its way into the hotel's delicious signature lavender-honey cake!

Signature lavender-honey cake at the Ritz-Carlton Berlin

Where do the bees gather their nectar and pollen in the midst of a giant urban area? Well, Potsdamer Platz is nearby the Tiergarten, a large city park. I also noticed quite a few bees buzzing around inside the display cases at local bakeries and donut shops. Coincidence? :)

The restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton Berlin incorporates ingredients from approximately 5 acres of land that are farmed exclusively for the hotel. The farm is in the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern region, a couple of hours north of Berlin. In season, the farmer (who is also the supplier for the Ritz-Carlton Berlin's organic lamb meat) grows more than 60 kinds of organic and bio-certified vegetables and herbs for the hotel, including pumpkins, onions, carrots, cabbage, Jerusalem Artichoke (known locally as topinambur) and lavender.
(Photo courtesy of Ritz-Carlton Berlin)

The beehives are just one of the many environmental initiatives at the Ritz-Carlton Berlin, which recently became the first five-star-superior hotel to win certification from the EU's Eco-Management and Audit Scheme. The hotel managed this feat by taking a number of eco-friendly steps, including installing energy-saving LED lights, using environmentally-friendly cleaning products and reducing water usage.

I was impressed to hear that the hotel partners with a recycling program to transform its paper waste into school notebooks. The hotel provides approximately 25 tons of paper materials every three months that are then processed into more than 1,300 notebooks, which are distributed to welfare organizations in Germany and abroad.

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After a couple of nights at the Ritz-Carlton, I checked out and walked ten minutes to my next hotel, the nearby Scandic Berlin Potsdamer Platz.

This was my first time staying at a Scandic hotel. Headquartered in Sweden, Scandic is a Nordic company with hotels in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Poland.

The company has a long track record of supporting sustainability initiatives over the past two decades. One thing I really liked and don't think I'd ever seen at another hotel was the way the hotel had subdivided the in-room wastebasket to allow for easy separation of organic and paper wastestreams.

The cheerful and clever subdivided wastebasket at the Scandic Berlin Potsdamer Platz.

To reduce packaging waste, you'll notice that the hotel has done away with the innumerable little bottles of shampoo and body soap that you find in most hotels and replaced them with refillable pump bottles in the shower.

Refillable pump bottles of soap and shampoo in the shower at the Scandic Berlin Potsdamer Platz

As a gardener, I loved the way that the hotel incorporated nature themes throughout its decor. For instance, this translucent panel between the shower and the bedroom is decorated with a leaf motif that glows when the bathroom light is on.

These nature motifs continue in the hallways, where murals (giant decals perhaps?) adorn the walls at the ends of the corridors. Piped in nature sounds such as birdsongs (motion-activated like the lights) provide a soothing soundtrack. I believe there are also ambient nature sounds in the elevators.
 

You'll even find the nature theme continued on some of the lampshades in the guest rooms at the Scandic Berlin Potsdamer Platz.

Clearly the Scandic has less Old World luxury than the Ritz-Carlton. Still, I was impressed with the Scandic's trendy modern design. I liked the wooden floors for instance, and the floor-to-ceiling windows.

The Scandic Berlin Potsdamer Platz seemed really new and clean. Here's another eco-friendly design choice -- a dual-flush toilet designed to reduce water usage. I like how the Scandic shows that you don't have to sacrifice beauty when you emphasize eco-friendly design. Personally I think it would be nice if every toilet in hotels (or homes) offered the dual-flush option.

I didn't get a photo of it, but like the Ritz-Carlton, the Scandic Berlin Potsdamer Platz also produces and sells its own honey. Some of that honey also ends up on the breakfast buffet, which was included in our room rate and featured a selection of packaged and fresh organic products (which are typically labeled as "bio" in Europe).

So if you're a gardener or just a traveler who wants to support and encourage eco-friendly business practices while still enjoying a comfortable and convenient stay, I'd have no qualms about recommending either the Ritz-Carlton Berlin or the Scandic Berlin Potsdamer Platz.

(Well, maybe one qualm. In an effort to save energy, I believe the Scandic Berlin Potsdamer Platz turns off its air conditioning between 9 p.m. and 9 a.m. We had a little bit of a warm spell during our time in Berlin and I did find it a little hard to sleep at night. I'm a little concerned that the room might become a sauna during a Berlin heatwave... Clearly I'm not the only one who had concerns over this practice. Reviews are generally very positive on Tripadvisor, but the few negative reviews generally reference the lack of nighttime A/C as the reason for giving a poor rating.)


Starting next week, I'll be sharing photos from my visits to German gardens. Stay tuned!


Full disclosure: Both the Ritz-Carlton Berlin and the Scandic Berlin Potsdamer Platz allowed me to stay in their hotels on a discount media rate. That said, all of the opinions expressed in this review are still my own.