Travel Tales
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| Peter Tergas (left) and Jean's daughter with the Pied Piper van |
Every month we feature funny, inspiring or cautionary anecdotes from travelers. If you have a true (short) travel tale to share, send it to stories@ricksteves.com. If you have a photo that illustrates it, please attach it. And don't forget to tell us your first name and the city where you live. We'd love to hear from you!
So glad we got lost
Arriving by car in Trier, Germany, my husband, daughter, and I are trying to follow Rick Steves' guidebook advice to park near the old Roman gate. We find the first road sign...but miss the next one. As we're circling around the old city, my husband spots a little van with an ice-wine bottle painted on the back. Well, we'd also like to visit a winery in the area, so we decide to follow the van, hoping it might be returning to its "home" after morning deliveries. We keep right on his tail. In a suburb, the driver stops and rolls down his window to talk to a pair of pedestrians. We stop and wait behind the van, motor running. One of the locals keeps waving at us to "go around, idiot, go around!" (to paraphrase Bill Cosby), but we decline. The van starts moving in a few minutes, and we eventually follow it to...the winery! The driver parks and gets out, warily eyeing his stalkers in the next car. Our daughter, who's been studying German, hops out to explain our behavior.
We spent a nice long time with Peter Tergas in his tasting room and bought dessert wines. Then he took our daughter in the van and told us to follow him. He drove up private roads into the vineyards where he showed off his plots, had us smelling the blooms, and took our pictures. We also had magnificent views of old Trier. Next he took us into town, past a barricade, and into the nearly empty main square in front of the Trier Dom. He sent us in to check it out. Then he took us to the Market Square to show off Constantine's foot. Finally, he led us to the Porte Negra and the parking garages that we'd begun our day looking for. The day we were lost became a favorite memory of a three-week trip in Europe.
— Jean in Norcross, Georgia
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