The days of September have flown by. Usually the weeks leading up to my departure for an extended trip seem to drag. Not September. Suddenly I find I have just four days before I fly out of the newly monickered Northwest Florida Regional Airport, known among the flying cognoscenti as VPS. (Airline personnel learn its code by the phrase “very pretty sand.”)

There were a couple uncomfortable hours last month when I received a message from Priceline.com telling me the airline changed my itinerary. I’ll return in three legs, Frankfurt to Philadelphia, Philly to Charlotte, S.C., then Charlotte to VPS. Well, USAirlines cancelled that last leg for the Saturday I am to return. But not to fear, the Priceline agent assured me, they rebooked me on a different flight.

But herein was the problem: the flight left Charlotte at 2 p.m. but I won’t arrive in Charlotte until 6 p.m. “There is a scheduling conflict,” the Priceline agent understated.

As it looked like the sort of adjustment that would take a while, she offered to call me back once everything had been worked out with the airline. Through my mind went the horror stories I had heard of people who booked tickets for extended trips online only to be left with no recourse when something exactly like my situation occurred. However, within 45 minutes, the agent called me back.

The solution USAir offered was to have me spend the night in Charlotte and then fly me home to Okaloosa County the next morning. That seemed reasonable enough—until the agent told me I would be responsible for arranging and paying for my own accommodations in Charlotte, plus getting to and from them. No go, I firmly told the agent, who chuckled and said, “I didn’t think you’d like that.”

Fortunately, the change was not my doing. If I had originated the change in itinerary, then yes, I almost certainly would be stuck paying for an overnight visit to Charlotte. But knowing my rights as a passenger, I stuck to my guns. After a further quarter of an hour of discussions with USAir, my agent again returned to the phone. I was to receive an extra day of vacation! I’ll return Sunday, 19 October, instead of the day before!

That extra day will be spent in Koblenz, from whence my relatives on Dad’s side of the family hail. It’s a 1,000+ year old city situated strategically by the Romans at the confluence of the Rhein and Mosel rivers. It survived World War II pretty much unscathed, apart from a few stray bombs. But in early 1945, Allied bombers did some heavy damage, severely decimating its ancient heart, including many beautiful old churches. I guess our guys were making up for lost time, because with the Germans in disarray, Hitler just weeks from suicide and the surrender of the Third Reich imminent, it sure wasn’t necessary.

My cousins Ingrid and Gisela live there now, both sweet ladies enjoying their early golden years. They were children when the bombs of early 1945 fell. When I first began visiting them, Ingrid still lived in the 1930s flat her parents had moved into when it was new and part of Germany’s vigorous urban housing program. When she retired in the early 1990s, she bought a larger flat across the hall from Gisela and her husband Karl in a similar 1930s building down the street. Gisela and Karl’s bouncy daughter Christel lives two floors below her parents, sharing her flat with her boyfriend Rolf. Our family is under one roof!

Koblenz is special to me, and not just because of its rich history, lovely, lively Alt Stadt (Old Town, the historic district), and its situation as the perfect headquarters for exploring several dozen castles in the Rheinland-Pfaltz Palatinate, of which it is the capital. Koblenz is also a place to which I can trace part of my family’s roots and connect with relations who still live there today.

The first time I visited, during my first backpacking trip in 1985, we sat at Ingrid’s kitchen table and surrounded by old family photos and documents, drew a family tree in my journal, supplementing Ingrid’s material with family information I knew. (Later, when I got home, my mother and I used family information in my grandfather’s Bible to fill in some of the blanks, so I could send a more complete lineage back to Ingrid.)

(In case you wondered how we’re related, Ingrid and Gisela’s grandmother was one of seven sisters, some of whom immigrated to the U.S. during the late 19th century wave of German immigration. One of the sisters was my Great-Grandmother Schnabbe, whose name was changed to Schneider upon settling in the area of Mount Holly, in southwest New Jersey. My paternal grandmother, Lillie, was born very soon after they cleared immigration at Ellis Island. She married Edgar M. Hughes and they settled in Collingswood, a New Jersey bedroom community near Camden. Two years ago, while visiting Philadelphia, my roommate Leon and I visited Nanny and Poppa Hughes’ house. Apart from vinyl siding and the removal of the wall between the kitchen and dining room, and expanding the front bedroom out onto the porch, it is not too drastically changed. From this house a constant stream of post-war relief parcels organized by my grandmother through their church, was sent to Ingrid and Gisela’s mother to help alleviate the deprivations and squalor forced on the innocent German population after V-E day.)

Koblenz is also special because it’s the place where I usually begin or end (or both) my trips to Europe. Frankfurt’s airport is one of Europe’s most convenient, and usually less expensive, to fly in and out of. It’s just an hour’s train ride up the Rhein. When I arrive for a European trip, it’s nice to relax and shake off my jet lag with “die Koblenzer,” as Ingrid often signs her letters. And when I depart, I enjoy connecting with my roots again while visiting the jovial, hospitable folks who share my blood. Plus, I know lots of great stores in Koblenz where I can do last-minute shopping for gifts and souvenirs!

On this trip, my traveling companion David and I will begin with a visit to friends in Darmstadt, a manufacturing and research center south of Frankfurt. But as no visit would be complete without a stroll around Koblenz’ cheerful Alt Stadt, that’s where we’ll wind up. There’s a great ice cream café in Am Plan, one of the main squares, where I hope we’ll have time for some spaghetti ice cream. If we get some, I’ll let you know what it’s all about. Suffice to say, there’s no tomato sauce—nor spaghetti—in it!

Best of all, I’ll get to enjoy Koblenz for an extra day after we bid David “auf wiedersehen” at the newly renovated Main Station!

The Liebfrauenkirche rises over Koblenz

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