Friday the 13th

Our journey home began at 6:45 Friday morning. We grabbed a quick breakfast and then drove to the Munich airport. We checked in and went through security (my dad was the problem this time, they had to search his bag) and then took a two hour flight to Paris.

In Paris we had to take a bus from the plane to the gate where we were supposed to land. Once there we had to take another bus from that terminal to the one where our flight was leaving. Both bus rides were at least 10 minutes, maybe more, and we got a tour of almost the whole Paris airpot. We also had to go through security again and this time my mom was the problem. Not only did they search her bag, but they confinscated her airplane-safe scissors (while my cheap ones made it though fine, and hers have made it for the past 3 years or so). That was just the beginning of our trouble.

Once we arrived at our gate, we were informed that the plane was going to be an hour late. The nice thing is they provided us with drinks while we waited. So, originally the plane was to leave at 12 something, but they said the departure time would be 13:15. Well, after waiting for quite a while, they said that the boarding time (originally scheduled for 12:30) was going to be delayed until 12:45, but that the flight would still leave on time. Around 1:30 we were waiting in line to board the plane, but just standing, not moving or anything of the sort. We finally made it on the plane around 2:00 and it took forever to board.

The flight, although 7 hours long, wasn't too bad. I found a number of things to do and even slept a little bit. We arrived in New York at 3ish. We had actually made up some of the lost time which was kind of nice, but our layover in NY was supposed to be 4 hours, so the delay in the other plane trip made that a little shorter.

Fortunately our plane from NY to SLC arrived and departed on time. The flight left around 6:00 and we arrived in SLC around 11:10. I was looking forward to sleeping on this flight since it was a little bit shorter and because I would have normally been sleeping at this time if we were still in Europe. Unfortunatly there was a screaming baby on the plane which made it very difficult to sleep. I was also in between Brianna and my mom. Brianna let me use her as a pillow for a while, but it still didn't help very much.

Once we arrive in Salt Lake we got our bags, which came out relatively quickly and then took the bus to our car and drove home. It was so nice to sleep in my own bed again, but my schedule was so off I didn't get a lot of sleep.

It is good to be home, but the trip was so much fun! I'd go back in a heartbeat. Thanks to my parents for taking Brianna and I with them. We certainly couldn't have done it without them!

For your information....
We flew: 12,946 miles
We drove: 2,040 miles
We walked: 110 miless

Castles Galore

This morning after breakfast we set out for Schloss Neuschwanstein, which was the inspiration for Cinderella’s castle in Disneyworld. Driving up to the city surrounding the castle we had a great view looking up at the castle itself. It was very overcast and rainy today so the castle looked a little bit eerie up there.

Across from Neuschwanstein is Hohenschwangau which was the boyhood home of the king that built Neuschwanstein. We didn’t go inside this one, but saw several views of it as we walked around the city and Neuschwanstein.

We took up bus up to Neuschwanstein, rather than take the steep 30 minute hike. From where the bus dropped us off we walked out to Marienbrüke, or Mary’s Bridge, which has an excellent view of the castle. The bridge is over a canyon with a waterfall and is the reason King Ludwig built the castle. He loved the view of the mountains and the bridge was there before the castle. He positioned the castle so that there would be a great view of the waterfall from the windows.

(The last two are views from inside the castle, we could take pictures out the window)

After touring the castle we walked back down to the town. We did some souvenir shopping and also got lunch, bratwurst on a roll, which was delicious. After we walked around for a while we drove out to another castle. Along the way we stopped at a huge waterfall, Lechfall. As we drove up to Linderhof, we saw three other castles. Two were on the top of the mountains and are mostly ruins now, but it was still very impressive to see them.

We didn’t actually tour the Linderhof castle, but we walked all around the gardens. The gardens were very formal with a lot of statuary and gazebos. There was also a covered walk way going up the hill to a view of the castle. Everything was very ornate and a lot of it was painted gold. In front of the castle (which is relatively small compared to the others we’ve seen) was a gold fountain. Every half hour it would go off and the spray from it was huge!

Following our walk around Linderhof we drove out to a city called Oberammergau. This little town was different from others we’ve seen in that many of the walls of the buildings had murals on them. Several of the buildings had fairytales on them. The fairytales we saw included Hänsel and Gretyl, Rotkäppchen (Little Red Riding Hood), Aschenputtel (Cinderella), and Puss in Boots.

It was raining pretty hard while we were in Oberammergau so we decided to stop for dinner at one of the hotel cafes. We had some warm soup and got to watch Germany play Croatia in soccer. It was pretty exciting to watch, although it looks like Croatia was quite a bit better than Germany.

When we finished eating we drove back to our hotel (and stopped for chocolate along the way). It poured rain nearly the entire drive (about an hour). Once there, we packed and got ready for our flight home tomorrow.

This is a picture of our car which took us over about 3,300km (about 2,000 miles) of 4 different countries. It’s amazing to think how far we drove and how much we saw in just 12 days.

Our flight leaves at 9:30 AM from Munich and we arrive in Salt Lake City at 11:30 PM. It’s going to be a long day of travel. What a trip this has been though!

Living the Sound of Music

June 11

We woke up early this morning and enjoyed a gourmet breakfast at our hotel. It seems each breakfast has progressively been bigger and better. The breakfast at the Marriott was delicious. We had a variety of foods to choose from including French toast, omelets made to order, granola, fruit, etc. Good thing we’ll be able to eat this two more times!

The first city we visited today was Salzburg, Austria. This is the birthplace of Mozart and where Sound of Music was filmed and actually took place. It is a beautiful city. We parked and started walking around by the Mirabella gardens. Not only was it a beautiful garden, but part of Sound of Music was filmed here. This is where the children and Maria sing “Do Re Mi” and hop up and down the steps. It was gorgeous and there were a lot of roses in bloom.

From the rose garden at Mirabella there was a good view of the Hohensalzburg Fortress. It also provided a good view of the lower garden with the Pegasus fountain and other statues.

Another part of this garden was the dwarf garden. There were 12 or so little dwarf statues all in a circle in this garden. Some of them were cute or silly, some of them were a bit odd, but it was very unique. The VonTrapp children actually walk through this garden in the movie as well.

This is a view of Salzburg from the bridge crossing the river.

After walking around the garden we ate some Mozart chocolate and then went to one of the most famous streets in Salzburg, Getreidegasse. This street is full of shops, which turned out to be quite expensive, and also has the birthplace of Mozart. One thing that made the street so interesting was every shop had a metal baroque sign hanging in front of it. Even McDonalds had to have such a sign.

The next stop in Salzburg was St. Peters chapel and cemetery. Due to Euro 2008 (a fussball tournament) a lot of the famous fountains and buildings were surrounded by venue tents and such. However, we were able to see the cemetery at St Peter and go inside the chapel. Both were beautiful.

By this time Salzburg was packed with tourists, probably due to Euro 2008, and we had seen most of the sights we wanted to see so we grabbed a late lunch and took an hour and a half drive out to Hallstatt, a beautiful city between a salt mine and a lake.

It was a little overcast and sprinkling when we arrived, but it was still beautiful. As dad was taking a picture of me in front of the city view the light hit the city beautifully. It was amazing. We looked at the view for a little bit and then walked through the city. Parts of the city are supposed to be dated several centuries before Christ. From the looks of it, the foundations are about all that are still that old.

The city was just as cute and quaint as some of the other cities we’ve seen, but still with a unique charm. The buildings were brightly colored and flowers were growing all over. One of my favorite buildings had a tree that was trained to grow around the windows.

Not long after we made it to the heart of the city it started to pour rain. It rained for about 5-10 minutes so hard that we stayed under a tunnel waiting for it to let up. When it finally slowed down to just over a drizzle we walked out to the other end of the city to see the view of the other side of the city. It was still raining pretty hard but it was cool to see the city surrounded in gray.

We stopped at one of the restaurants and had some hot soup and delicious cakes and pancakes before we drove back to our hotel. It was really interesting to visit these two cities on the same day and see the contrast. While it is fun to see the sights in the bigger cities I really like the small towns, especially along a lake or ocean.

Ahhh… Germany!

June 10

This morning we woke up to the sound of a lot of bells ringing loudly. As it turns out, the local ranchers were herding their cows up the street. Each cow had a gigantic bell hanging around its neck. Even just a herd of 5 cows made a lot of noise, but the herds of 20 or so were even louder. It was exciting to watch them slowly walk up the street following the lead cow. There were probably about 5 herds that came up the street, maybe more before we woke up, but that’s not something you see every day.

After we ate breakfast, I went up to the internet café to post to my blog. It was beautiful. I sat typing on my computer in the cool, crisp mountain air, watching the fog slowly lift off the valley below. The sun was just coming up over the snowy peaks and shining on the waterfalls making them sparkle. I watched all the backpackers walk by, headed to various destinations.

When I had finished blogging and enjoying the beautiful morning, I walked back to the hotel and we packed up and headed out of town. We stopped at the bäckerei to get some rolls and meat for our lunch later on today.

The drive out to Rothenburg was quite long, well, about 5 hours. Unfortunately there weren’t a lot of scenic views because the autobahn has trees and walls all along it.

We made it to Rothenburg around 2:45 and parked just outside the wall of the city. We made it into the market or central part of the city just in time to see the last glockenspiel of the day. It wasn’t as exciting as we thought, there were just two guys drinking beer on either side of the clock, but still better than closed windows.

The city was quite impressive. The architecture reminded me a little bit of Brugge, with the stair step roofs. The buildings were all bright colors and some of them were a little crooked or misshapen.

The most famous view of the city is of this tower with the clock. It was a really neat little street with some great shops. Brianna and I both bought hats at a little shop near the tower.

Also on these streets, all the signs stick out from the street and are ornate and beautiful. It is interesting to see the different ideas people come up with for their sign. I took pictures of quite a few of them which totaled about 35.

Rothenburg is surrounded by a huge wall. We were able to walk along a lot of it at the lower end of the city. Every once in a while there was a window or slit where we could look out. The view on one side was looking back on the city. It was amazing to see.

After walking along the wall for a while we went back down into the city and did some more shopping. One of the shops we went into was a famous Christmas shop. The decorations and ornaments in there were incredible! There were two floors that just had decorations and ornaments and then another floor that had a museum, which we didn’t go into. The store was very impressive.

We had dinner in Rothenburg at a little shop along the street. I had a typical German meal of Wienerschnitzel with lemon juice and fries. My dad hat bratwurst and sauerkraut, and my mom and Brianna had hamburgers. It was fun because I got to order in German, although the waiter did understand a very little English.

After we ate, we walked back to our car and then took a 2 ½ hour drive to our hotel in München. We’ll be staying in this hotel for our last three nights here and just taking day trips out to the various places we will be visiting. A few minutes after we got up to our room in the hotel they brought up a little treat to welcome us to München. It was delicious!

Lauterbrunnen – “Tal des Wasserfälle”

Tal des wasserfälle means valley of waterfalls, and that couldn’t be truer. One of the brochures we picked up said there were 72 waterfalls in this valley. Everywhere you turn you can see a waterfall.

This morning we ate breakfast with an excellent view of several waterfalls and steep mountains surrounded by patches of clouds. The blue sky started to creep in so it turned out to be a beautiful day. All of the locals we talked to were very excited about the blue sky, so we were fortunate to have the good weather.

We began our day with a visit to Trümmelbach falls. The thing that makes Trümmelbach unique is that it is hidden away in the mountain. It is slightly visible from the road, but all you can see is the crack it created in the mountain. We took a lift up inside the mountain to view the first 5 falls. It was incredible to see the powerful water as it shot out of the rocks. It was so loud we had to yell to talk to each other. It was also quite cold inside and very wet.

Technically, this was one big waterfall, but there were several lookout areas where we could see different parts of the falls. We walked through tunnels and up and down stairs both inside and outside of the mountain to see the different falls. I couldn’t believe how powerful the water was, and yet it ends up in a very small river (with a fast current).

After we visited Trümmelbach we walked around Lauterbrunnen for a while and did some shopping. We purchased a variety of souvenirs including cow bells. Afterward we drove to the base of a mountain and took a cable car to the top. We visited the city there called Gimmelwald.

Gimmelwald was definitely not a tourist city. It was cute and quaint and almost untouched. There were fields of wildflowers with goats and cows wandering through. They all had bells around their necks so there was a constant ringing.

One of the best parts about the city was the view. There was a beautiful view of the Alps in almost every direction. It was amazing to see the tall peaks with the snow while walking on quaint streets alongside brightly colored flowers. We weren’t there too long before we had to take the cable car back.

For lunch we went to Hotel Oberland and had fondue and raclette, both Swiss dishes. I had the raclette and everyone else had fondue. Both were cheese dishes and both very delicious. After enjoying the main dish we finished with Apfelstrudel. Of all the meals we’ve eaten, this was by far one of the best.

After lunch we drove out to Schloss Oberhofen. While it was not as big as some of the English or French castles it was still a sight to see. The shingles on the roof and the overall castle is very unique, especially because it sits along the lake. The gardens at the castle were also quite beautiful with an excellent view of the lake as well.

From Oberhofen we took a drive along the lake and out into the valley until we came to two large waterfalls we saw on the way in. We stopped and took a few pictures although the rain was coming down pretty hard by this time. At least the day started out sunny and beautiful, although the sound and smell of the rain was quite refreshing.

For whatever reason, I had hiccups almost all day today. They started just after we finished visiting Gimmelwald. Fortunately as soon as we ate fondue they were gone, but they came back while we were in Oberhofen. As soon as we had chocolate though they disappeared as well… Interesting how that works.

After seeing the waterfalls we drove back and had some dinner and then relaxed and watched a little more of Cranford which was “quite agreeable.”