A popular theme for our vacation was to leave a city for another city but stop at a very popular tourist site on the way. On our way out of Munich we drove to Neuschwanstein castle. This is a very beautiful castle built by King Ludwig II starting in 1869 and built over 60 years however, it was never completely finished. King Ludwig II was only able to live in the castle for 172 days before his mysterious death. The castle is beautiful and is the castle that Walt Disney used to design his Cinderella castle.
Close to this castle is King Ludwig's fathers castle which is beautiful but far less impressive.
Upon leaving the castle, we drove a whole 8km to the charming town of Fussen. It was such a cute town I wish we would have had more time just to enjoy the town. But we did have a great meal and a cute hotel with a living room. It began to rain that evening so we decided to play some cards. At some point Shelly and I ended up running through the rain in search of more...beverages.
Again, we were on the move. Now we were headed to the great land of Switzerland. Of course, it was partly cloudy and rained on us on occasion but it only did this to us on our drive. We drove through the most beautiful country I have ever seen. Let me reiterate, Switzerland is BEAUTIFUL! Anytime we saw something pretty and had a place to stop we would all hop out and take pictures.
We decided to stay in the "Jungrau Region" of Switzerland and within that region we decided to stay in the tiny town of Murren. Murren is a car free town and in order to get there we had to park our car in Lauterbrunnen (down the mountain) and ride a sky tram up the mountain. Once we were up we had to hop on a little train to ride across to Murren. It was a fun, different experience.
As I mentioned before, it was rainy/cloudy our first day. So we checked into our hotel, sorta explored the town (most things were closed) and then found a comfy place to sit in our hotel and play cards. Our hotel had the most wonderful views. While we were sitting we were blessed with beautiful rainbows.
The next morning we woke up early and headed to the Schilthorn (via cable car) for a 007 style breakfast. The James Bond movie "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"was filmed and set here. The Schilthorn is a summit where you can get great views of the 3 famous mountains: Jungfrau, Eiger, and Monch. From this point we literally felt like we were on top of the world with the clouds floating below us. Our breakfast included champagne and a rotating view of the mountains all around...very 007.
After a long leisurely breakfast at the Schilthorn we returned to Murren with nothing big on the agenda. Micah and I decided to head out for a hike. We had a slight idea of where we were going and the paths were well marked. At the beginning of the hike I was excited and happy. By the end I was still excited and happy but kinda thought I might die. Altitude is a killer.
 |
| Are we there yet?? |
At the Jungfraujoch they also had a little place set up for skiing and sledding. Micah and I had a blast racing each other down the mountain. We sledded in the Alps :)
Even while planning this trip and our time in Switzerland Micah and I were really hoping to go paragliding. Luckily, we were able to work it out to where we could drive to Interlaken on our way out of Switzerland and make a quick stop for some adventure sports. All 4 of us ended up going and we even paid extra for extra air time. It was such a great experience and I'm so glad we all decided to go. If I lived anywhere where paragliding was possible I would have to take up the sport.
Sadly, it was time to leave Switzerland. Although there were a couple days left of our vacation I felt like Switzerland was the end. After that we were just on the downhill slide. On our drive we headed back to Germany via the Black Forest. We made a stop in the Black Forest at Triberg to go see the Triberg falls. These falls are supposed to be the longest in Germany. This is where I talked Micah into buying me a beautiful cuckoo clock.
From Triberg we continued driving to Freiburg which is a city still in the Black Forest. This is the first place we ran into hotel problems. First it took us forever to find the hotel and once I did they had no memory of our reservation and they had no vacant rooms. The lady I was talking to first didn't speak English so she had to get her cook out to translate. Poor guy had to be the mediator of our slightly tense argument. In the end she helped us find another hotel and gave us 24 euro for the price difference. Of course I would have preferred the hotel I picked but in the end it turned out ok. At last we settled into our new hotel and headed out to explore Freiburg. It is definitely a cute place with a college town atmosphere.
The final stop on our tour was Heidelberg. I chose Heidelberg because so many people had told me how wonderful it is and my grandpa was stationed there for about 2 years. We really didn't have much time in Heidelberg but we were able to see the main streets, castle, bridge and eat our final German meal. Again, it was a cute town that we could have spent more time exploring.
It's time to pack up the car for the last time.
Look out Saudi Arabia, the Sperling's are on their way!
No comments:
Post a Comment