Europe Trip Part I {Germany}

Last month little Lizzie and I went on a grand adventure to Europe! Mark and I decided to use one of his 96's (they get two periods of 96 hours to take off and can go where ever they want) and meet up in Germany! We left the two big kids with Carmen (which I'll ever be grateful for! There's no way I would have done this with all of them! eek!) There is a military resort there so the room was pretty good priced and a good location to do lots of fun things! It was SO much fun and I'm so glad we did it! I've never gone anywhere outside of the U.S. except for the little cruise we went on for our honeymoon but even then I didn't have to get a passport so this was my first time going out for reals :) 

The first day was pretty much us just getting there...Elizabeth and I left on Sunday afternoon and arrived Monday morning...she did pretty good on the flight- mainly because it was over night so she spent most of the time sleeping...me not so much :/ Anyway, we landed and got our rental car and drove to the resort, which was a little bit of a drive but it was super fun to drive on the autobahn! And it was a gorgeous gorgeous drive! So we checked in, showered, took a nap, ate dinner and then went back to Munich to pick Mark up from the airport. It was so wonderful to see him! The baby did so good with him too. She loved having so much attention to herself! :) 

 The next day we kinda took it easy, we went to a nearby spot and hiked the Partnach Gorge trail, which was gorgeous. I loved the color of the water in Europe, all the rivers and streams we went by were so pretty and the prettiest color of blue- kind of seafoam-y aqua....loved it! After that we walked by the Olympic stadium next to it and went back to the resort where I got an awesome hot stone massage. It was amazing! Just kinda wished I had it done at the end cuz we did SO much walking this trip! :) After that we went around the downtown area of the town we were in, Garmisch, which was super cute and so quaint and awesome. I absolutely loved the houses there- all of them had these awesome carved balconies and the detail and character they all had was just gorgeous. Makes our boring subdivision/cookie cutter houses seem even more boring! :/ Some of them also had these random murals painted on them, some of countrysides, some of country people/activities, etc. We ended the night by eating at this Italian place that had super yummy food!

View from our hotel!

entrance to Partnach Gorge

see? pretty color?

this is how she spent most of our hikes/walks :)

Olympic Stadium

a random painting on a house 

balconies everywhere and everyone had flowers!

Italian dinner! 

there's ice cream EVERY WHERE in Europe! Loved it!

The next day we went up the mountain to the Alpspitz mountain peak. It was supposed to rain the next day and we had plans the day after so it was the only day we could do it and it turned out to be pretty cloudy most of the time we were there :( So that kinda sucked cuz we didn't get to see the whole view of the valley but there were random openings in the clouds so we got a few peaks of it. We also walked out onto the viewing platform that goes out over the edge of the peak, which was pretty scary so I stayed for a second and went back to the main part ;) We got to walk down the mountain a tiny bit in between the gandola things that brought us up and down so it was nice to be out in the mountains.

After the mountain we went into town to have lunch, we just picked this little cafe and it turned out to be SO GOOD! One of my favorite meals there. I got a potato soup with salad and corn on the cob, which seriously had to be cooked in butter- it was delicious! The soup was AMAZING and the bread on the side was awesome too! :) After that we took a little drive over to the first historical place we went to- the Linderhof Palace. We saw all of King Ludwig II's castles and the one he grew up in. This was his smallest and the only one was fully finished inside. He was known as the "Fairy Tale King" and spent most of his time dreaming up castles and building them :) This one was pretty awesome, the grounds were gorgeous and the inside was the most ornate, detailed, over-the-top decoration I've ever seen! He had an obsession with the French and King Louis XIV so the inside was very influenced by the French style. We don't have any pics of the inside cuz they don't allow but you can go online if you want and I'm sure they have some somewhere :) 

delicious potato soup!

walking around...loved the streets :)

the trees were cool here- the grew curved around the frame of the walkway

That night we went out to dinner in town again to a Bavarian restaurant and had some real Bavarian food...which was good but we had a sampler plate of things and there was SO much food! I couldn't eat it all. And then we had crepes for dessert, which were super yummy :) They had Bavarian Slap Dancers there too which was cool to watch.

The next day we went to another castle of King Ludwig II's castles...Castle Herrenchiemsee...it was a bit of a drive but it was a beautiful one and the castle was amazing! It wasn't fully finished inside but what was done was awesome. This one was again influence by his love of the French King Louis XIV, this was Kind Ludwig II's version of Versailles...definitely not as big as the original version of Versailles but still huge! We walked around the grounds a bit, took a tour of inside (no pics again :( ), had lunch at the little restaurant inside and then drove back to the resort! As you can see from the pics, the weather was perfect and gorgeous- not rainy and cloudy like it was supposed to be, which was good but also annoying cuz we could had a better view of the valley from the mountain! :)

Our last full day there we went to two castles- one that Kind Ludwig grew up in, Castle Hohenschwangan, which was pretty cool! It was neat to see and hear the stories of him and his family and the things that influenced him. I liked the inside of this one a lot too- not so OVER the top as some of the ones he built. and the second was another castle he was building, Castle Neuschwanstein, which is probably his most well-known castle since Walt Disney used it as inspiration for his Sleeping Beauty Castle in DisneyLand. This Castle was pretty awesome though too! Although the walk up to it was terrible! The line for the bus was way too long though and we would have missed our tour time so we walked it and man....that was tough....it was worth it though...the view was gorgeous and the castle was amazing.

more ice cream :) 

and pretzels everywhere too! This one was bigger than Lizzie's head :) 

After the castles we walked around the nearby town Fussen, the downtown kinda shoppy/restaurant part. We went inside the coolest bakery and had some yummy strawberry cake. Then we walked around the shop area and ate dinner at this place that had Doner Kabobs, which was one Mark's list of things to eat and were super good, my other top favorite meal there. 

these truffles looked so good!

Fanta...the only pop in Germany was Fanta, Coke, and Sprite :/ disappointing :( 

Doner Kabob!

Then the last day was just us going to the airport and saying goodbye :( very very sad but he's coming back for his R&R in November so not too long til then! Let's all hope I have my sanity in tact by then :) Anyway- the trip to Germany was amazing and once again, I'm so glad we did it!