From Heidelberg Castle to Helsinki

Worldcon has kept me very busy, so this post is a couple of days late. Wednesday was Heidelberg Castle. We stayed in town the night before and the 28 of us fit into 7 taxis to get to the base of the furnicular that takes people up the hill. The castle is at the first stop, so my vertigo never had to endure a long trip over empty space.

Unlike the others, Heidelberg Castle is in ruins. For the post part I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, since there was too much detail to remember.

Hohenzollern Castle

Today we took a short trip from Tübingen to Hohenzollern Castle in Baden-Württemberg, the ancestral seat of the Prussian monarchy. It has about 300,000 visitors a year, about a fifth of what Neuschwanstein gets but still ranking as one of the most popular castles in Germany. The tourist income goes towards castle upkeep and restoration.

Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau

This morning we left Munich in Bavaria and drove towards the Alps to see two castles close to each other: the famous Neuschwanstein in the hills, with Hohenschwangau in the valley below.

The Short Story Intensive Workshop

On the last weekend of July 2016 I was fortunate to be able to participate in a short story workshop taught by Mary Robinette Kowal over a Google Hangout, with seven other students. It was advertised as "Intensive" and it sure was! But even though it turned out to be a bit too intense for me (I wasn't able to complete the Sunday exercises due to brain weasels and other problems), it was enormously valuable.

The Lessons of WXR17

I’ve divided my blogging about the Writing Excuses Retreat 2017 into travel (the last few entries) and lessons from workshops (this posting). We were asked not to record the sessions, to respect the intellectual property rights of the instructors, so I’m not going into a much detail about the presentations. Instead, I’m focusing on how I think the retreat has affected my writing and me personally.

Tallinn

Wednesday August 2 involved a short three-hour tour of highlights of the city of Tallinn, Estonia, particularly the upper and lower parts of the Old Town.

Copenhagen and Stockholm

I’m dividing my blog entries into travelogue and writing; this is the description of the travel from leaving Kiel to touring Stockholm, with Copenhagen in between. Unfortunately wifi on the ship was sufficiently slow I couldn't upload photos in realtime, so this is several days late.