A Travel/Personal Essay--Example

Hotel Zur Linde

The Hotel Dining Room

A Guest Room

A few weeks ago I reviewed a new anthology edited by Marlene Cullen titled The Write Spot--Possibilities. One of my travel essays and a poem were included in the book, along with some writing advice from me. This essay was also published a few years ago at Dave's Travel Corner website.

Since last Friday's post was about delivering a message in your personal essays, travel essays and short memoir pieces, I am going to share my travel piece that is included in the book. It is a combination of travel/personal essay. When you read it, look for a message, a universal truth, or how I was affected. Sometimes the messages are merely inferred, not spelled out.

A Hungarian Hotel in Germany

 Our heads were fuzzy and our legs like jelly when we left the long, overnight flight from Kansas City, Missouri to Munich, Germany. After clearing passport control and getting our luggage, my husband and I headed to the rental car area of the airport. Despite our fatigue, we managed the paperwork and check-out with only a minimum of frustration. An hour later, we settled into a Mercedes C Class sedan and made our way out of the city, Ken at the wheel and map in my hand. Our second job of the day was to locate the hotel we’d booked on the internet. I’d searched diligently for a reasonably priced hotel not too far from the Munich airport. I found many, but somehow one kept calling to me, so I clicked and clicked until we were booked for the first three nights of our three-week stay in Germany.

    

The half-hour drive to Hohenlinden turned into an hour, then another hour. We learned that German roadways are excellent but that German road signs leave a great deal to be desired.  We also discovered that the GPS in our rental car was programmed in German. Useless for us. Round and round we went, on highways and byways, roundabouts and little-traveled pathways. I was near tears and Ken near eruption point when we somehow pulled into the small, rural village of Hohenlinden. Relief is far too mild a word to describe our feelings. Surely the Hotel Zur Linde would soon appear.

    

“I think it’s on the outskirts of the town,” I told Ken as he gripped the steering wheel more firmly.

     

“Not so,” he said slowing down in front of a three-story stucco building with Hotel Zur Linde painted on the side, right in the middle of town. He pulled into the side driveway and around the back to a miniscule parking area, and we walked wearily into the hotel. A small reception area appeared dark and rather uninviting, but a teen-aged girl in the office cubicle smiled, told us her name was Hanna, and greeted us so warmly, our spirits rose like a hot air balloon on a sunny day.

    

All we wanted was to go to our room, take a shower and change clothes, but it was not to be.

    

 “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Hanna said in perfect English. “You cannot go to your room until 2 p.m. But you can have lunch first. Her smile erased any irritation we might have had as she led us to the outdoor biergarten surrounded by greenery, an arbor, and sweet-smelling flowers. We could easily spend an hour and a half here.

   

A tall glass of the local beer and a bowl of Hungarian soup helped revive us. We lingered in the pleasant outdoor garden until 2 p.m. when we unloaded our luggage and stepped into a tiny elevator to go to our room. It was small but clean and nicely furnished. A big window looked out on a church across the road. The bed with a snowy white duvet, sheet and soft pillows looked so inviting.

    

Showered and clothes changed, we set off on a walk around the town. Quaint houses, small shops, and flower gardens cooled our blood pressure back to normal as we savored the quaint houses and small gardens. In one front garden, a man wearing a long cotton coat, worked with wood using a standing saw. Seeing him thrilled Ken. He told me he’d seen pictures of men doing work like that and wearing the coat to protect their clothes.

As we walked, we discussed our plan for the next day when we were to go back to the Munich airport to pick up good friends from South Africa, who would be traveling with us.

    

In the evening, we went to the formal dining room and enjoyed a leisurely and excellent meal served by a waitress who had charm plus. Several patrons ate with well-behaved dogs lying next to them. Hanna was nowhere to be seen, but her mother was the dining room hostess and hotel clerk for the evening. Mama was tall, slender and blonde, wearing a low-cut blouse and spike heels. We chatted with her and were a bit surprised to learn we had booked into a Hungarian hotel.  Good German beer and German food like roast pork, red cabbage, and potato dumplings and a few Hungarian items on the menu, so, not a problem, especially with the special way we’d been welcomed.

    

When our waitress brought our food, she asked what we would say in English to wish someone a good meal. “Enjoy!” I told her, “or even Bon Appetit!” With eyes sparkling, she called out “Enjoy!” as she hurried back to the kitchen. Our food proved to be as satisfying as the hotel itself.

We’d noticed the church across the street filled the summer air with its bells every hour on the hour--lovely bells which chimed for a couple of minutes. We strolled over to the church after dinner and found a small cemetery on one side of the building. Each plot was outlined in paving stones and perennial flowers, some with stone angels adorning the area where the marker sat. We were taken with the loving care each grave had been given and the gentle, dainty look the flowers and statues added.

Hand in hand, we crossed the road to our hotel and bed. “I can’t wait to see Mike and Mavis tomorrow,” I said to Ken.

    

At 6 a.m., the church bells began to peal. Nice, I thought, as I pulled up the duvet and snuggled deeper into my feather pillow. But the bells went on and on and…. fifteen minutes worth! Enough to wake the entire town! Surely, no one in Hohenlinden needed an alarm clock.

    

After a pleasing breakfast, we zipped into Munich in less than half an hour. Amazing what you can do when you have the proper directions. We picked up our friends at the architecturally impressive airport and brought them to Hotel Zur Linde. Our innkeeper greeted them warmly as new guests and we as old friends, having been there an entire 24 hours.

   

 “Oh, what a nice place this is,” Mavis said to me as we helped them to their room down the hall from ours. We met in the biergarten for a tall glass of beer to toast the beginning of our time together. Living halfway across the world from one another, our times together are treasured. We ate outdoors that night with many of the locals who were having a good time judging by the chatter and laughter.

The next morning I asked if there was a guest computer. “Oh yes,” the innkeeper said, and she led me to a folding screen in the breakfast room which hid the computer. I tried and tried to get onto the internet but could not find the @ on the keyboard. I finally gave up and went to the office to ask for help.

“That is a Hungarian keyboard,” the woman told me. “Come, I’ll show you what to do. ”She said to hit Shift and q and the @ would come up. Success at last, but the y and z were in the opposite places of our keyboards. Otherwise, they were the same. I finally got it figured out and was able to check my e-mail.

   

We woke each morning to the 6 o’clock bell concert. By the third morning, I was awake and waiting. Instead of being irritated at the early awakening, I looked forward to it, knowing a wonderful German buffet breakfast awaited us on the floor below. Fresh fruit, cereal, cold meats, cheeses, and hard rolls accompanied by strong coffee and a few pastries filled us to satisfaction as we lingered in the sunlit dining room.

    

Before we checked out of the hotel, we booked it again for our last night in Germany, negotiating a lower price for our return.

    

After touring the back roads, small towns and villages of southern Germany, for three weeks, we returned to Hohenlinden. When we pulled into the parking area, it almost felt like coming home. The four of us strolled into the reception area, and our Hungarian innkeeper came to greet us, three-inch heels clicking on the tile floor, her face alight with a warm welcome. We were definitely home.

    

A rainy night meant dinner in the formal dining room with a fire burning to take the chill out of the air. Good food and drink and a recap of all we’d done while touring Germany gave us a lovely final evening in the Hotel Zur Linde.

    

The grand finale came at six the next morning when the church bell concert began. I lay in the comfortable bed, listening to the swell of the bell tones, pleased that I’d found this charming small hotel, or did it find me? With so many choices, why did this one keep calling out to me?

    

We checked out after breakfast and loaded the car, ready to go to the airport. The four of us made one last trip inside for a warm farewell from the Hungarian hostess of this special hotel. The church bells rang to let us know it was eight o’clock as we drove out of town. My instinct when searching for a hotel online had served me well.

The writing prompt:  Write about a memorable travel experience.

Grandpa's Town--A Travel Essay

Friday's post illustrated a personal essay with travel as the topic. Read it here if you missed it.  Since this is the time of year many of us are on the road, I decided to give you one more example of a travel/personal essay in hope of inspiring you to give one of these a try. 

This time, it is of a more personal nature. One summer, we rented a car and did the back roads, small towns and villages in southern Germany. One of our prime destinations was Lahr, the town where my husband's grandfather grew up. This piece was published at Dave's Travel Corner along with another about a special hotel near Munich on a different trip. Take good notes as you travel as it's far too easy to forget little things once you are home. How about submitting something to this travel website?

Grandpa’s Town

By Nancy Julien Kopp

My husband wanted to go to Germany, rent a car and travel the scenic southern area. He had a yen to visit small towns and villages instead of big cities, which we’d already seen on earlier trips. Ken planned to drive the secondary roads and stay off the autobahn. For people who had relied on tour guides in the past, this was definitely an adventure.

In January, we started planning. I did multiple google searches on hotels, restaurants, attractions, transatlantic flights and car rentals. Ken’s job was to map out the route. He spread a huge map of Germany across our dining room table, leaving half of it clear for us to eat meals. He agreed to fold up Germany when company came.

Pointing to the map one morning, he said, “Here’s Lahr, the town where my Grandfather Kopp grew up.” His finger circled the immediate area. “It’s on the edge of the Black Forest. We could stay there for a few days and take in the surrounding area.”  

With that simple statement, our understanding and love for his grandfather grew tenfold, but not until we’d experienced Lahr.

We arrived in Grandpa’s town on a fine June day. We’d had good luck winging it as far as hotels went, but Lahr proved a different story. One hotel didn’t meet our standards. Three others were open but we could never get assistance. They appeared deserted, even though the front doors stood open. We began to wonder what kind of place we’d come to.

We continued to drive up one street and down another. Around a curve, we happened on a place I warmed to immediately. I sent Ken in to look and book. It proved fit for kings and queens, and that’s who could afford to stay there. Ken kept driving, while I had visions of sleeping in the car. Then I grabbed Ken’s arm.

 “There! The Hotel-am-West-End. It looks nice.”

I liked the all-white building and the big, leafy trees that lined the street. The open deck on the second floor, ringed with colorful, overflowing flower boxes beckoned. Ken went in and returned smiling. We had a room.

We climbed to the second floor reception area, and Ken introduced Dirk, the owner. Dirk must have lost his razor—either that or he liked the stubble on his face. His clothes were clean although a bit rumpled, but he gave us an effusive welcome, his smile warm and genuine.

Ken told Dirk that his Grandfather Kopp had grown up in Lahr. Dirk looked at the register where Ken had signed in. “Kopp? Ja, we got lots of them here.” Ken knew of cousins who had moved away but not of any other relations here. Apparently, our last name was a common one in this part of the world.

We ambled down the hall on oriental carpeting, dragging our luggage behind, mouths opened as we tried to take in the amazing antique art and furnishings that lined the walls

We learned later that Dirk ran the small hotel and dealt in antiques on the side.

 After a quick look at our pleasant room, we met the Guest Relations Manager in the hotel restaurant. Schef was a short-legged, fat amiable dog, who plunked himself next to my chair, hoping perhaps for a morsel of my wiener schnitzel to fall his way while we planned our agenda. We’d only been in Lahr for a few hours but already felt warmly welcomed. 

Schef, Guest Relations Manager

Lahr was not a tourist stop but had its own charm. The town was surely much smaller in the late nineteenth century when Grandpa lived here--where he went to school, played games

and maybe gave a wink to a pretty girl now and then. Maybe some of these shops were the same ones where his mother sent him on errands.

Each day, we thought of Grandpa as a little boy, a teen, and then a young man. In this clean, working man’s town, he learned values and formed opinions that lasted a lifetime. His cheerful outlook on life had been cultivated here on these streets. Every letter we’d received from him in our early married years began “I am fine and dandy. How are you?”

We did venture to the surrounding area each day, visiting the Black Forest region and crossing the border into Strasbourg, France. After one of these daylong excursions, Ken went out for a walk by himself. He seemed a bit surprised that he felt so much emotion while visiting his grandfather’s hometown. He wanted to see as much of it as possible in the time we had, and he snapped myriad pictures to show his brothers when we returned home.

Ken in the shopping area of Lahr

Wilhelm Kopf moved away from Lahr at age twenty to try his luck in America. He left mother, father, and baby brother as well as friends. More than fifty years later, he returned for a three-week visit telling Ken’s family in Illinois that he’d see them soon. Three months passed before he journeyed to America again. I have a feeling long-buried memories flooded back as he walked his boyhood paths and visited family and friends. He must have been reluctant to let them go again. But the pull of his family in America proved great enough to make him return.

Our visit to Lahr touched Ken deeply. Even more than a century after his birth, this was still Grandpa’s town, and a part of his own heritage. Ken’s connection may have once been a fragile thread, but by the time we left, it had strengthened considerably and had drawn me in, as well.