Some thoughts of being a tourist in Germany

1. There saw tabacco automats in middle of historic center or rural residential areas along the sidewalk.  As you don't see that anymore in Belgium and the Germans have such a strict correct regulated reputation, this seemed odd. 
2. In any town, there are always multiple public toilets (paying) that are clean and they are well marked on city maps or with arrows.   In my experience in France there are also regular public toilets but those are dirty. 
3. German has this reputation of harsh ugly language but when we mimic German, we make a caricature and often pretend to sound like German yelling soldiers. 
   In reality it's also about "Gerne" "Schon" "Shuss", "Naturlich", ...It's sounds actually as quite a gentle language. 
4. There are always roadworks everywhere and the lack of speed limits is a true myth. I don't think we've driven on 5km of highway without a speed limit. Actually, most of the time I've been restricted to drive 100km/h for hours. 
5. German wine is not sweet
6. There are many steep beautiful wine hills
7. Germany seems a fairly religious country.  In the public street, you can often see billboards referring to something religious.  At the entrance of each town, the different churches and hours of service are listed and in the tourist info, we could not get a self-guided city walk, but we did get a brochure with a page on each church existing in the extended Wiesbaden area.  
8. A few days before our arrival, almost all covid restrictions were lifted...similar situation as in Belgium. But unlike Belgium,  the signs of mask were not all taken away at doorposts of stores and cafeteria. As a result, half of the people inside were still wearing (FPP2!) masks.  In Belgium, as soon as the restriction was lifted, you hardly saw anyone wearing one anymore, but that's not the case in Germany.  Sometimes in touristic area's such as an abbey or museum, it was explicitly asked to continue to wear a mask.  Self-made cloth masks are not to be seen: it must be surgical or FPP masks. 
9. It is very hard to find a spot for a light lunch.  Restaurants are still closed at noon or only serve true dinner dishes (baked fish, schnitzels, sausages, ...) or you find a bakery where you can only get some sweets.   A bistro with some sandwiches, omelets, salads, pancakes etc is really hard to find. We spent each noon walking around for quite a while to find something to eat that we did not consider breakfast neither a big dinner deal. 
10. Gas prices were 10% higher than in Belgium.  Our government has recently decended the taxes and you can see the difference in comparing the gas prices with countries surrounding us.  
11. Tourism starts after mid April or even later towards June or so.  Typical tourist attractions were not open yet before Easter. 
12. As soon as you cross the border you are in awe of the many many wind mill parks in the Eifel but in the area of Bittburg there are also impressive huge fields of sun panels on the flanks of the hills there.