yodel-odel-a-hehooo

The second half of our trip was to Garmisch, Germany. The town is in the middle of an incredible alpine setting and is an outdoor sports hotspot in all seasons. The military has one of its MWR (Morale, Welfare, and Recreation) resorts there so you can not only visit an incredible spot on earth but do it in a full-up resort with English speaking staff. Its really a fantastic place.

We packed our days full of activity while we were there. The first day we rented mountain bikes and cycled a few miles into the mountains to a hiking trailhead. The trail goes into a gorge carved by a narrow and fast moving river. No kidding, at times the gorge was 5 feet across and 100 feet deep. The trail is carved into the rock wall beside the river so you spend the mile or so hike in and out of caves always along the water. Its hard to describe in words and I would have to post dozens of pictures to cover all the amazing twists and turns in the trail. Suffice it to say, even though you knew you were with other tourists on a well established trail there was always some sense of great adventure- like you were in a whole other world. It felt like Jurassic park, or maybe thats just my imagination running away with me.

The next day we drove over to the base of the Zugspitze- the highest mountain in Germany (which is also part of the border between Germany and Austria). From the base there is a gondola lift you can take directly to the top. The view is incredible as is the array of things the Germans have perched up on top of this mountain. There is a multi-story building with several restaurants, a museum, gift shop, and layer upon layers of observation decks complete with their own bratwurst vendors and hot chocolate shops. This is hardly Everest, obviously. However, the temperature on top was decidedly cold, even in summer, and when we first went outside we found that we were in a cloud which prohibited any kind of cool view of the alps. We decided to get a bratwurst and wait and see if the weather would clear. Sure enough, a few minutes later the cloud passed and we were greeted with a jaw dropping view. After riding the gondola back down we took some time to hike around one of the many deep blue alpine lakes before getting back in our car to drive back to Garmisch.

Our last day on this trip was perhaps the most exciting. Kristen had been trying for days to secure a spot with a paragliding instructor for a flight. She finally got one. It was a brilliant day to go gliding. The drill is we met Kristen's instructor at the landing sight- a nice comfortable grassy area in the valley in amongst the mountains. After some quick review of the equipment Kristen and he rode a ski-lift up the side of a mountain some way behind me. Once at the top of the lift they buckled into all their equipment and (I'm not kidding here) went running over a cliff. Well, actually it was a really steep slope but I don't think a cliff is too much of an exageration. The parachute filled with air during this maneuver and the instructor flew the two of them on a pleasant sight-seeing descent back down into the valley and back to the same spot the whole ordeal started from.

One of the most fantastic parts of trips like these is that we were only a 5 hour drive from home. So, after a dinner of Chili's at Ramstein air base, we could be back in our own bed that very night. A great trip to be sure.

Alpine castles

Earlier this summer (early June) Kristen and I took some real vacation time and traveled down to the Bavarian Alps. I'll divide this trip into two seperate posts because of the amount of pictures we took and the amount of stuff I could write about. So, the first half was castles!

The southeastern corner of Bavaria is home to some of the castles built by "Mad" King Ludwig during the 19th century. This eccentric and arguably insane monarch was obsessed with the romantic notions of chivalry and castles and all things middle-ages. Since he was King, he had castle after castle built to match his romantic notions of castles. He grew up in Hohenschwangau (the yellow castle), which he had renovated as an adult. His final project as an adult was Neuschwanstein, the castle that inspired Cinderella's castle for Disney.

First we drove down to Fussen, the town closest to Hohenschwangau and Neuswanshtein. There we stayed at a bed and breakfast that I had stayed at five years ago when I was studying at Maastricht. The place was fantastic! We walked around the town that evening and saw the old castle (an actual fortification, not just for show like H and N). After breakfast the next morning we took tours of both castles. Hohenschwangau still has all the furniture from Ludwig's childhood, so the tour shows off how royalty lived. Neuswanstein was never lived in- never finished actually- so the tour more or less shows off the over-the-top style of Ludwig. After the tour we started talking to a pair of couples who had stayed at the same bed and breakfast as us the night before and we'd been bumping into all day. We took the hike up the mountain above Neuswanshtein where there is a huge suspension bridge above a gorge from which you have a great view of the castle (last picture). From the castles we got in the car and took a drive across the border to enjoy a scenic alpine drive to Garmisch, the second half of the trip.

Nurnberg with Boppy and Cott

We had the good fortune to be able to meet up with Boppy in Cott in Nurnberg where they were starting a two week long European river cruise. How cool! We got treated like guests of honor on the boat by the staff and even the other guests.

We got to tag along with their tours to the Nazi sights just outside of town and to the Medieval center of town. Nurnberg is known for its unique small bratwursts and good pilsner beer- a winning combination if ever there was one. Special thanks to Boppy and Cott for a fun weekend.

Paris in the spring time

Back in May we took a long weekend in Paris to revisit some of our favorite spots from last Christmas and to see some of the places that we didn't have time for before. It was really a good trip. We stayed in a neighborhood very close to the Eifel Tower and every morning the markets spilled out into the streets. We started each day by buying quiche or a pastry or something in the market and then walking to our first sight to see. Good times.

The weather stayed fantastic for the whole trip and was nice for evening walks along the Seinne by Notre Dame (first picture). We also got a chance to see something that Kristen really wanted to see our last time in Paris- the catacombs. It may seem morbid, but Paris has millions of Parisians buried in tunnels under the city from the Middle Ages. The priests who reburied folks in these tunnels thought it would be nice to arrange the catacombs by bone types (and arranging skulls into the shape of a heart amid the tibias- look closely) instead of by persons. Today you can walk nearly a mile of dark tunnels completely lined with the bones of former Parisians.

While we were there we also repaid a visit to the Orsay Museum, Eifel Tower, saw Napolean's Tomb, and the Rodin Museum.