Thursday, February 20, 2014

February 15-Climbing Trees at a Park in Göttingen






February 7-8-Frankfurt, Germany-Saying Good-bye to Papa John and Grandma Earnie

The train station in Frankfurt.  We arrived on Friday morning and spent the day looking around a bit before Mom and Dad left Saturday morning.  :(

This is the Rathaus.  The building is curved.
Frankfurt was like being in an American city.  So much was destroyed during the war that there were lots of new buildings.
This is inside MyZeil (a mall) that was architecturally quite impressive.  It rained and you could see the water coming down this tube.
Saturday and saying good-bye.
We had time before we caught our train back to Göttingen.  We went in the Main Tower and out on the 56th floor for a view of Frankfurt.  It was very windy.

This is the train station.
Here is our ride back to Göttingen.

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

February 2, 2014-Munich

We spent one night in Munich on the way home from our Bavarian trip and then spent a few hours the next morning looking around the city.
So funny



Saturday, February 15, 2014

January 29-Headed South to Bavaria

Here we are with our first rented vehicle in Germany.  We forgot to practice driving a standard before we came (actually I never learned how) and most cars here are standards so that has limited our driving.  But with my parents here my dad agreed to do the driving and Joshua did the navigating.  He turned the British lady off pretty quickly on the GPS. It was a very nice and spacious VW van.  It is not typical for people to drive such a big vehicle here.


First stop, Würzburg.  These tall doors with the smaller doors cut out make me laugh.  Joshua is entering the Würzburg Residence.  
The residence was heavily destroyed during World War II but has been completely rebuilt.


A church in Würzburg.  There is also a Fortress (castle) overlooking Würzburg that we visited.  Unfortunately, Luke left part of his stomach there and I don't have any good pictures.  
Then we drove to Rothenburg ob der Tauber and had dinner at I think the cleanest restaurant I have ever been to in my life and spent the night in this hotel that had an old water mill attached.

The next day we walked around in Rothenburg a bit.  They still have their city wall intact, surrounding the city.
Such a neat little place as we walked through the streets.
My favorite bakery we have eaten at is Brot & Zeit.  Everything was delicious. We bought breakfast for the next day too.

Another of my favorite things is schneeballen (snowballs).  They are a deep fried pastry filled and coated with scrumptious things like powdered sugar, strawberries or chocolate.  They don't taste greasy and deep fried.  I really like them!

We saw several trees like this on our trip to Bavaria. I don't know exactly how a tree grows like this.  I'm sure they are beautiful when they are blooming.
The cottage on the right looks like a nice place to live.
You can walk around the top of the city wall.
Then on to Dinkelsbuhl.







Next stop was the city of Augsburg. This is the Augsburg Rathaus.
It had a beautiful gold ceiling and everything that was painted had significance.  Brooke listened as Joshua explained just about everything about it.
Some neat stands in Augsburg.
Two "mountain" climbers I spotted.
Brats for dinner and then Seth lost part of his stomach that night.
Next day, the pilgrimmage church of Wies.
What a sight to see located in a very secluded place.



Hohenschwangau Castle built by King Maximilian II of Bavaria. It was finished in 1837 and was his family's summer residence. It overlooked a lake and the beautiful Alps.  We had a guided English tour and the original furnishings were still in the rooms we toured. The tour guide talked to "Grandpa" a couple of times because my dad was wearing his monogrammed Grandpa hat.
King Maximilian's son, Ludwig II built Neuschwanstein and is the castle that the Cinderella Castle at Walt Disney World is modeled after.  
Neuschwanstein is what I had really been looking forward to seeing!  It was so exciting that it was a clear day. We could see it so well.  We are standing at another castle and you can see it in the background.
The beautiful alps. We really had beautiful weather.
Papa John was eager to ride up the hill to Neuschwanstein instead of taking the 1 hour hike.

Passing through a town in the alps.
On to the German Alps, such a neat little church we saw after we rode in the train that takes you to the top.
The winds were blowing at 75 mph.  It was unlike anything we have ever experienced.  It was a bit freightening as the snow pelted you.  The slopes were closed because of the strong winds.  Joshua had planned on skiing, but he lost part of his dinner in the night.  So this drive south is actually called the Romantic Road and as you can tell there are lots of stops as you drive down the Romantic Road.  It kind of seemed like we were vomiting down the romantic road-yuck!  Thankfully everyone recovered very quickly.

There was an igloo hotel at the top.  We made ourselves at home and wandered through all of it.  There were at least a dozen rooms.  None of us wanted to book a room, but it was impressive!  Each room had a different theme and had different things portraying that theme carved into walls.
You could order drinks in this part.

It even had a hot tub.
This is the entrance door to the igloo.
Then we got in the cable car and went to the very top of the German Alps, Zugspitze.  We ate lunch at the top. The only table available was with a German couple, who like most, spoke pretty good English.  They were friendly and it was nice to talk with them.  The winds died down a bit so we were able to go outside the restaurant and look around-wow!


This is "the" tallest point.
What good gifts God has given us.