This is part of a series from our recent travel to Europe in June/July 2026.
There are mornings when you wake up with somewhere to be, and it changes everything about how the day feels. This was one of them.
Michele was graduating.
We took our time over breakfast, the kind of unhurried morning that a hot European summer almost demands, and got ourselves ready for the occasion. The day was already shaping up to be another warm one, and in the middle of this heat wave that meant choosing outfits with some care. Comfort and occasion, negotiated in front of a wardrobe.
By 10:30 we were at the school, taking our seats in the hall alongside Anna, Thomas, Fabio, and what felt like the entire extended families of every graduating student in Hameln.
A quick note for anyone unfamiliar with the German education system: what Michele was graduating with is called the Abitur, or the Abi, as everyone calls it. It’s not the same thing as an American high school diploma, and the difference matters.
The Abitur is the highest German school-leaving certificate, the qualification students need to get into university in Germany. Students typically finish it after twelve or thirteen years of schooling, capping an academically rigorous final phase that combines two years of advanced coursework with a demanding set of written and oral exams across multiple subjects. Somewhere between a high school diploma and an AP program, but with more weight behind it and more effort required to get there.
In other words, this was a big deal. Michele had done it. Not just done it, he’d excelled.
The hall was full in the way that only a room without air conditioning can feel full in thirty-plus-degree heat. There were no fans. The air was very still, and the building had absorbed several days’ worth of summer warmth into its walls and was now generously sharing it with everyone inside. We fanned ourselves with whatever was available and reminded each other that we were there for Michele, which made it all entirely worthwhile.
What the German Abitur ceremony lacks in American-style theatrical production (no marching procession, no Pomp and Circumstance pumped through a sound system) it makes up for in genuine warmth. Students, parents, and teachers celebrate together, and the relationships between them feel close and real even to an outside observer. Speeches were made. Names were called. When Michele walked up to receive his certificate, we were on our feet.
Back at the house, we changed into the lightest clothes we had, the graduation formality officially behind us, and headed out for lunch near the Schwöbber Castle, now called the Schlosshotel Münchhausen.
Schlosshotel Münchhausen was built by the wealthy mercenary leader Hilmar von Münchhausen in 1570, the castle remained in the Münchhausen family for centuries. It was fully restored in 2004 to become the luxury hotel it is today.
The setting was something else, a castle reinvented as a luxury hotel and golf course, the kind of place that manages to feel both historic and quietly indulgent at the same time. Lunch on the grounds, celebrating Michele’s achievement with the family, was exactly the right note to strike.
The afternoon called for a gentler pace. The heat had made its point convincingly over the past few days, and we were all content to return to the house and let the warmest part of the day pass at its own speed. We sat, talked, rested — the kind of afternoon that doesn’t make for dramatic blog content but makes for a very good trip.
By evening, though, we had a reason to venture back out.
Anna and Thomas drove us to a nearby village, Bodenwerder, which was hosting the Sound of Wine, a music and wine festival that sounded like exactly the right way to spend a warm Friday evening in the German countryside. We arrived around 21:30, found a spot, and settled in.
The wine was good. The company was better. The music, to be honest, wasn’t entirely to my taste, heavy on the electronic and the thumping bass end of things, which is a perfectly valid genre for people who enjoy that sort of thing, and I am apparently not one of them. Chris may have had a slightly different opinion. We found common ground in the local beer and a burger, which turned out to be the right call regardless of what was happening on stage.
There’s something nice about sitting outside in a German village on a warm summer night, even when the DJ is making choices you wouldn’t. The atmosphere around us was festive and easy, and we were happy to be there.
We stayed until around midnight, a respectable showing, and made our way back to the house, where a glass of Prosecco somehow seemed like the logical conclusion to the evening. We fell into bed around 1:00 in the morning, tired in the pleasant way that comes from a day that held a lot.
It had been a good one. We were proud of our guy.
