Germany Day 19 - Is that an Eibsee I See?

Apparently, when we made our vacation plans, we were really clever and made sure to slow down a bit right at the end of our German adventures.

All we had planned for today was a hike around Eibsee, a beautiful and very clear lake that is surrounded by mountains. The hike is 7km long, and is a bit up and down hills in places, and it was a lovely hiking path.

The bad part was that we went on a Sunday, during a freak hot weather pattern. ALL the locals came out to cool off in the water of Eibsee. Paul and I talked about how it reminded us of going to Holland's state park on Lake Michigan on the weekend growing up. You know, lines and lines of cars waiting for parking, people all over the place with beach gear, etc. You can't have motors on this lake, so instead of jet skis and motorboats, it was a lake full of those people who stand on surfboards and a few paddleboats.

The nice thing though was that most of the crowds were here for swimming. So the hike was mainly quiet and calm. It was a nice change of pace from our hike yesterday at Hell Valley! Paul and I strolled the hiking paths at a nice meandering pace, while holding hands, and soaking in the beauty of the forests, lake, and mountains. It was cool, one side of the lake had rolling green mountains that reminded me of the Appalacians and the other side was huge craggy Alps. 

At about the halfway point, we stopped for a picnic lunch and swimming. It was weird to realize that we had ALL day to chill at the lake, with no other plans, and it took us a bit to really relax. We went swimming in the clearest water ever, and it was the perfect temp!

After swimming, I read a book while Paul napped. Then we walked a bit longer, found another lovely spot, and sat and read our books for some time again. At no point did we feel the need to check the time.

We finished the hike at a slow, relaxed pace, while soaking in the incredible beauty. You should visit Eibsee! It's incredibly beautiful.

We finished off the day with a 2 hour drive to our last airbnb on our vacation. This one was in Austria, and I was a bit nervous about crossing those steep Alps to get there! However, there was a tunnel under most of the steep part and the drive was very safe. We've got a great view from our airbnb balcony, and we ate dinner on the balcony watching the sun set behind the mountain majesty.

Germany Day 18 - Heck Valley

There are some days where you just feel really fortunate. I've got my health, enough money to travel a bit, and a wife that will do things with me even though they terrify her (ask her about the time we wrestled anaconda in the Congo). Today is one of those days (the blessed thing, not the anacondas). We embarked on the most spectacular hike I've ever been on. When asked how she liked it Cris admitted that she was also present on the hike. Welcome to ... Hell Vallley:

The pictures don't do justice to the terrifying heights, powerful waterfalls, and awesome tunnel network. Back in the WW2 era the quite pleasant German army needed a lot of lead so they created tunnels along this gorge and mined like crazy. There were a bunch of pictures in a little museum of miners carrying wooded ladders and bridging across crazy caverns. Luckily, there's a bunch of volunteers that maintain the rickety bridges and slippery tunnels for danger-hungry folks like Cris.

I usually try to be nice and not give Cris a hard time about her fear of heights and this place was genuinely scary in places. However, there was one point where a girl (in pink in the below pic) was heading back hugging the wall and Cris was going the opposite direction also creeping along. They had to pass each other on this little walkway and I couldn't help but laugh. Pink girl's boyfriend was guiding her along while I watched and laughed as Cris shakily passed them on the scary side of the path.

There were a bunch of places where there was still snow over the river and at one point it made a really slippery bridge across.

It was a long, uphill hike but eventually we made it to the wide-open vistas where deer were frolicking. Like most hikes in Germany there was a beergarden on the top of the mountain which was packed with people. Seriously, every hike we went on there was at least one restaurant along the hike that was miles from the nearest road. Gotta stay hydrated on a hike with beer I guess.

The walk back was pretty easy but we were still exhausted by the time we got home.

Germany Day 17 - Toboggan? More Like TobogFUN!

We made what we thought would be a brief stop this morning at a church in a small town. It's really just a few houses and farms and then a huge church on the hill, not sure why they needed such a big church. When we got there the Thursday morning service (I guess that's a normal catholic thing?) hadn't finished yet so we had to wait for a coffee-filled while. 

Back in 1738 in Wies there was a little Jesus statue that started crying (that's the story at least). As a result people from surrounding regions started flocking to this tiny town in a sort of pilgrimage. The Abbot of the area decided that they needed a church for these people to worship in so the Pilgrimage Church of Wies was born. 

Outside the church was a bit strange. Most churches we've seen this trip have been free and didn't really have anyone selling souvenirs besides candles, but this one really wanted to cash in. We had to pay for parking and then there were several buildings solely for selling cheap church-themed junk and they had pay bathrooms as well. The coffee was good and the church was stunning. It is pretty similar to the Ottobeuren abbey we saw a couple weeks ago but the paintings on the ceiling were bigger and better in this one. However, Ottobeuren was better overall, just way more to look at. The Church in Wies is still ridiculous:

After the church it was Summer Toboggan time (obviously). This may be the biggest disappointment of my young life: the toboggan was closed for maintenance! Youtube 'Steckenberg Summer Toboggan' and you'll understand my devastation. Luckily there was an alpine coaster down the street which is pretty similar. It's on a track like a coaster instead of a toboggan but was still super fun. 

I went up on the ski lift and then rode down the track on a probably totally safe kayak type seat. There were hand brakes and a seat belt from a car and they just shove you down with no instruction. It was fast (40ish kph), twisty, and fun. The top half had views of the alps and after that it was pure speed through the woods. It took several minutes to get down, it's surprisingly long. Youtube Oberammergau Alpine Coaster for this one.

Once I came down from the adrenaline rush we went to the equally exciting Mittenwald. They're known for their violin making so we were hoping for a cool violin-making demonstration or something but it was basically just a touristy shopping town. Besides making violins they also make beer so at least there was something to do.

Our new thing the last couple days is to make our own food for dinner at home. We've been pretty whelmed by all the German food we've had and it isn't cheap at restaurants. I bought a huge tub of sauerkraut and each day we just grab a meat and a fruit from the grocery store. It has been more delicious and much cheaper. Most German food we've had is just boiled sausage with dry bread or fries so we can definitely do better at home. Here's one of the many cute buildings in Mittenwald (photo taken by JJ Abrams):

After dinner Cris wanted to relax but I still had restless energy so I went for a hike. Germans are great at road signage but don't like to tell hikers much of anything. There was an arrow pointing toward a waterfall so I just started walking. And walking. I pretty much climbed the whole mountain but the waterfall and views at the end were worth it.

Twas another great day and now we're in the Alps! Oh, also the water in Austria is weirdly blue:

Germany Day 16 - "Beach" day

We started the day by seeing one of the castles that was on the list for yesterday and was cancelled due to our headaches. It was time to see Sigmaringen castle!

Sigmaringen was owned by the same family as the Hohenzollern castle from the day before, however, they are different branches, probably cousins or somehing. The Sigmaringen family side was technically not as powerful (the other castle was owned by the King of Prussia and such), this castle was actually in a city, and was therefore the center of the administration for the area. The Hohenzollern castle was just a hunting lodge, and Sigmaringen was actually a family home.

The difference was huge. Sigmaringen castle was exactly what I assumed most 17^th/18^th century castles were like: huge dining room, entrance hall symbology, parlour after parlour after parlour for visiting certain types of guests, etc. It was interesting to see the lady of the house's rooms, which included a “modern” bathroom, then a room where she could recover from her bath and discuss what dress to wear for the day (this room had shorter ceilings b/c the dresses were in an attic space above the room, and the servants could get to the dresses from a secret servant door panel), then a room where she was dressed for the day (and had to change 3-6 times each day, for different parts of the day activities), and finally, her bedroom, private study, and private living room.

It was an awesome tour, and we finished up by doing the highly recommended audio tour of the armory. It was FULL of old weapons and lots of great info on the audio tour about the medieval history of weapons.

After that, we ate lunch at our airbnb and then off to Meersburg, a German city on Lake Constance, which borders France and Austria. It was, of course, another super cute medieval town, totally pretty and full of windy streets and way too cute of buildings, palaces, castles, etc. We had hoped to eat at a stunning winery on the lakeside, but it was closed due to a private event, which was kinda frustrating because they didn't mention it on their website and we had technically driven 40 minutes to see it.

Fortunately, there was gelato all over the place, and since it was another hot day, we sat in a pretty courtyard and ate some tasty gelato. This town was creepy quiet. For real. It was FULL of German people, all eating at tables outdoors or walking up and down the lake side. But Germans barely ever talk over a quiet voice, so the town was quiet. We stopped at one point to listen, and it was so crazy how crowds that big could be so quiet. Americans are WAY too loud at everything they do. I wouldn't mind cities so much if they could be this quiet! No screaming kids, no loud voices, no music at all, no anything. Paul said that these were his people. Laugh.

After the gelato and listening to quiet crowds, we walked in the blazing hot hot sun for a little bit to a place where we could go swimming. It took a bit of time to figure out where to swim, because there isn't sandy beaches, but instead a few gaps in the trees where you can get down to the water. The water felt AMAZING. We were hot and sweaty and the water was super clean, clear, and cold. We soaked it all up and relaxed for a good long time before heading back to the airbnb.

Tomorrow should be interesting! We'll be heading toward the mountains, Austria, and Paul will try tobaggoning.

Germany Day 15 - One last day of Castles

Plans changed at the last minute before we started for the day when Paul learned there were giant redwood trees and a minor castle ruin in the area. Yeah, those big trees from California are in Germany! Some fancy noble over 150 years ago thought that redwoods looked cool and started growing them over here. Tragically, it was a freak hot day, over 94 degrees, and by the time we got to the ruins, about halfway to the trees, we were brain-fried and overheating.

The good news was that the ruins, called Albeck were WAY cooler than described on the internet. We had the castle ruins all to ourselves, and it was cool to see some pictures/descriptions along the route about how the castle was attacked and such. I have no idea why anyone attacked castles back then, since they were all built on super steep hills or mountains with really clever defense structures!

After the ruins, we headed off to Hohenzollern Castle. It was gigantic and super fancy, and in typical german-fashion, it turns out that it was really just a show off castle back then, and used only once a year to go hunting in the area. It was amazing to tour the lavishly styled rooms and think that this was just their hunting lodge. Crazy, stinking wealthy nobles!

The castle and the tour were great, however, Paul of all people had a headache through the whole thing. Paul rarely has headaches, so it was kinda concerning. I had unfortunately taken all the medicines into our airbnb, so we were without headache pills. By the end of the tour, I also had a small headache, so we were starting to get a bit miserable.

It was one of those moments on vacation when you debate just heading home, wasting precious sight-seeing time, or you suck it up and try to squeeze in more memories. Well, Lichtenstein castle was on the way home, so we decided that we would at least look at it on the exterior, before heading home.

Sadly, by the time we paid for parking, my headache was raging bad. I was so miserable that I didn't even look at the castle, I couldn't walk without making the pain worse, so I sat on a bench by the parking lot and Paul went to check out the castle alone. Yeah, I skipped out on a castle! That's how bad it was.

After briefly checking it out (you had to pay even to see the courtyard, so Paul didn't see much), we headed for the car. I had high hopes that we could get back to the airbnb without me barfing from the pain. Unluckily, there was a HUGE detour around a closed road that added about 30 minutes to the trip back home and Paul had to pull over for me to...admire the wildflowers. Sigh....

Back to the airbnb for pills and sleep, but still full of energy and excitement for more adventures tomorrow!

Germany Day 14 - Black Forest Fun

We (especially Paul) are getting a bit sick of being the car for long drives, and today was another long day of driving, so we are probably going to start adjusting the schedule for a bit of a driving break hopefully. There's quite a lot of traffic in Germany and lots of slow trucks so a two-hour trip can turn to 3 pretty easily. And don't get me started on the ridiculously long detours. 

We drove for a bit in the morning and stopped at Rotteln ruins, which were really beautiful castle ruins and they are some of the biggest ruins in the area. This castle was well defended with lots of gates, a thick wall around a village, followed by more gates, drawbridges, and thick walls around the castle. There were towers, arrow slits, tar holes, etc. for protection. This castle saw a lot of battles!

After that, we wanted to enjoy the beautiful Black Forest so it was time to go up a mountain. Feldberg is an apparently popular place to hike and it was busy, which was kinda annoying. We were looking forward to a nice, quiet hike in the mountains. Instead, you had to pay for parking, pay if you wanted to use a ski lift for half of the hike (we chose to walk), and pay to climb the tower at the top of the mountain (we didn't do this either). We were able to have a nice hike and found a bench all to ourselves to enjoy the views.

There were giant fields of flowers at the top of the mountain. Sometimes I like to get a bit artsy with my camera with mixed results:

Germany Day 13: Spa time, baby!

Our AirBnb is on the top floor so it gets hot up here, but there is a big window with a great view so it's okay. Overall, the places we've stayed have been really great, there's a lot of nice people and thoughtful hosts in this part of the world.

The main goal for today was to enjoy the thermal waters of the spa town called Baden Baden. There's something about the water in this area that makes it (supposedly) really good for your health/skin. It's been a thermal spa town since the Roman times!

We decided to get the 'all day' package for the more modern spa place. The other one is old tradition, and men and women HAVE to be naked together in a bunch of small pools. No thanks!

There were a bunch of pools of water (everyone has to wear bathing suits at this spa place) that were different water temperatures, and some of them had waterfalls or bubbles, etc. One was even a lazy river. There was also an aromatherapy sauna room and a salt inhalation sauna room. Paul got the extra package for more sauna rooms, but I chose to get a 50 minute massage instead.

Ahh...this was the perfect way to relax halfway through our vacation. We were there from 10am until 3pm, and I would have gladly stayed longer! Paul didn't enjoy it quite as much as me, but we were both very relaxed by the end.

We stopped at Cafe Konig so that Paul could try their famous Black Cherry Forest cake, a local delicacy. I had something else, since I don't like fruit and chocolate together.

Then we stopped at two sights on the way home: Geroldsau waterfall, which was okay, and Allerheiligen Cloister ruins, which was also just okay. It was a great day!

Germany Day 12: More castles and another medieval city

Today was a great day, but there *was* a tiny annoyance because our next airbnb host wanted to meet and greet with us before handing us the keys. They were old people, so they preferred that we be there before 7pm. When we looked at our plans, that was impossible, so we managed to get them to compromise for 8:30pm. However, that just meant that we were looking at the time more than we usually do, which can put a damper on things.

First up, we went to Harburg Castle. I LOVED this castle! It was super beautiful, and it's still a residential home for some German Prince sometimes, so it was interesting to see how that works in an old castle. The tour for this beautiful castle was fascinating: they had a clever wooden ball thing to make shooting cannons easier back in the olden days. They also had a TON of different prisons. There was a prison for enemy knights (kinda decent), a prison for local villagers (not very nice), a pit for really bad prisoners (the longest anyone survived down there was 30 days), and a few torture chambers. This was an actual working castle for the area back in the medieval times, so it was a center for justice and such. That was cool to learn about and see. Also, the castle *only* burned two women at the stake for witchcraft. The staff was really proud of how progressive the castle owners were. Laugh.

After Harburg Castle, we headed to Nordlingen. This is the only city left in Germany that is completely walled in by medieval walls. It's also built in a meteorite impact crater. It's really cool seeing it on Google maps, because it's almost a perfect circle.

You can walk the entire wall system, which is over 2.5 kilometers long. If I lived in that city, I would walk the walls every day. So cool! We did a bit of the walk, and these wall walks were taller than Rothenburg's, so Paul didn't have to hunch over. Then Paul wanted to climb the church tower (350 stairs). The church had a lot of really intricately carved things all over so I looked at those while Paul climbed.

 Unfortunately, it was a Sunday, and Germany closes down most things on Sundays. So even though this was a tourist town, almost everything was closed. It was a bit of a bummer. Also unfortunately, we were pressed for time, so we strolled around a bit, but then it was time to go. I think I would like to go back to Nordlingen when it's not a Sunday and we aren't in a hurry. It wasn't as beautiful as Rothenburg, but there was still cool stuff to see (like the Ferrari and the nest of storks in the below pic).

Then we left for Ludwigsburg Residential Palace. We had to hurry a bit because the last tour was at 5pm, and then it closes down pretty quick. We made it in time to get the last tour for the day. This palace is called the Versailles of Germany, and for a good reason! It's gigantic! The tour was really interesting and we saw a lot of the rooms. I was especially excited to see a few of the servants halls and rooms. Usually, tour guides just point at almost-invisible doors and say 'that's where the servants came in and out'. This tour guide actually opened one of the doors and let us check it out a bit. That was cool!

One of the rules before we could tour was that I had to leave my purse in a locker in a locker room. Well, apparently, they take the whole closing time thing very seriously! The tour guide, near the end of the tour, warned us not to wander after the tour, because they lock everything up ASAP after this last tour of the day and people had been locked in the palace/grounds in the past. As soon as he brought us to the courtyard, he took off right away. I was worried about the locker room, but Paul was confident that they wouldn't lock it up when people were still on a tour....well, I was right this time. The locker room was locked up. The information desk room was locked up. There was no sign of any workers or the tour guide. I started freaking out, but Paul kept a cool head and we walked quickly all over the place until we randomly found a security guard to unlock the locker room for us. Seriously, why would they lock that room before the last tour was done? So weird.

After that little mini-heart-attack, we jumped in the car ASAP to try to get to our airbnb on time. We JUST made it, whew. It had great views of the mountain village and we were ready to crash!

Germany Day 11: Rothenburg ob der Tauber is too awesome (almost)

We started out our day packing up and heading off for a new section of Germany. Along the way, we stopped first at the castle ruins called Weibertreu. These ruins were a bit similar to the Castle Steinsberg from the day before: on a tall hill, surrounded by vineyards. The vineyards extended around the castle and all around the countryside for miles and miles. It was very beautiful! There were also a bunch of beautiful flowers throughout the castle ruins.

Then we went to check out the castle Neuenstein. It was crazy weird: no one was going to this castle. They only give a tour if there are 4 people interested. This castle was beautiful and in the middle of a town, but no one else showed up, so the guide sadly told us that he couldn't give us a tour. That was so sad and confusing. Why are some of these castles overflowing with tourists, and ones like this one are ignored? Probably just tourism advertising....

Anywho, it was off to the medieval city of Rothenburg ob der Tauber. I had wanted to go to this town, but I did not realize until we got there just how incredible it is. I told Paul later when I was calmed down again that Rothenburg is to medieval historians what Disney Land is to kids.

Historically and architecturally, this city is amazingly beautiful! SO many old buildings with tons of character. Since the town is mainly surrounded by medieval walls, most people just walk in the town, which takes the stress out of much of what I hate about cities. Also, it was not that busy, and the town is quite large, so Paul and I could get lost down some quaint, crooked alleys without seeing people.

Much of the town is still surrounded by medieval walls that you can walk, so we walked the walls for a bit....hilariously (and yet painfully for poor Paul), the wall walk is a bit short, and Paul was shuffling and bent over like the hunchback of Notre Dame while we strolled the walk. When he couldn't stand it anymore (ha ha), we found some stairs and then meanadered around some more on the streets where he could stand up again.

There was a section for a park with beautiful gardens that we walked through, a beautiful town square, SO many beautiful buildings, cathedral/churches, and so much more. It was a bit overwhelming for me. Rothenburg ob der Tauber was, if anything, maybe too awesome. I started out going 'ooh' and 'ahh!' over the first 25% of the city, then I was getting sensory/happiness overload and it became more like 'cool!' and 'wow!' and then about halfway through our excursions, it was just sighs of delight, and then I was too tired to even look at the beautiful medieval structures anymore. I told Paul that instead of Paris, if he ever wanted to take me on a romantic getaway, he could just take me to Rothenburg again. There was so much more I wanted to see, but I was too overwhelmed by it all!

At some point, it started pouring rain, which emptied out the streets even more. We wandered a little bit more, until we got soaked and chilled, then it was pizza and time to find our next airbnb.

Paul Edit: I was also totally overwhelmed by the cuteness. I just kept gasping and almost fainting. One time I saw a doorknob from the 13th century and nearly passed out. The local plague doctor donned his bird mask and waved some smelling salts under my nose until I gained my composure. In reality, the coolest part of Rothenburg was the tower above the city (see the two above pics). there was a gate right below the tower where there was a perpetually awkward traffic jam.

Oh, one negative about Rothenburg: do NOT get the local delicacy called Schneeball pastries. Unless you like awkward-to-eat balls of super dry pastry that tastes like cardboard dipped in melts-in-your-hands chocolate. ;)

Germany Day 10: A Bajillion Glorious Castle Ruins

Today's theme was castle ruins. Thankfully, none of them were tourist traps, and, in fact, we hardly saw anyone else at any of the castle ruins. It was SOOOOOOO nice.

We started the day by checking out a string of castle ruins on the other side of the river from yesterday's Dilsberg castle. Back in the day, German nobility liked to brag about their wealth by having a castle right on the river...and kinda feuding/bragging/etc. with other nobility by having the castles smooshed up next to each other. They would also all try to control the river below the castles with tolls and such. Our modern society doesn't do any of these types of things anymore, because we learned valuable lessons from history. Cough. Sorry, still sick....laugh.

Anywho, we parked and went to see 2 of 4 castle ruins (the other two are privately owned still and/or not worth seeing). We hiked through some forest paths and stopped first at Hinterburg Castle. Not only were we there all alone, but you were allowed to climb up the still-functional tower to get an amazing view. I loved looking at the ruins and using my imagination to figure out what it used to be like. It was also beautiful views.

Then we kept hiking on the forest path to the ruins of Schadeck castle. That was also a cool castle ruins with some tower ruins that you could climb. The view from that castle showed all the other castles in the area really well, so it was really pretty. After that, we had lunch at the parking lot while staring at all the castle ruins. It was lovely.

Next up was the Eberach Castle ruins. Actually, it was the ruins of 3 different castles in one location. Sigh...I am in heaven over here. The castles originated from 1200 A.D. and onward. We had to walk up a mountain again, through the forest. It was, of course, delightful, and we didn't see anyone until the very end. We thoroughly explored all of the castle ruins and the beautiful scene of the river valley below us for as long as we wanted. It was very relaxing and super chill.

On our hike back to the car, we realized that we weren't going down but instead we were going up. It was one of those moments in the middle of the woods when you try not to panic about being lost. Anyway, we turned around, went back to the castle ruins and figured out where we turned wrong. Thank goodness we noticed before we ended up even farther away!

We still had a bit of energy, so we went off to see one more castle ruin for the day. This time, it was off to Castle Steinsburg. This lovely castle ruin was on top of a hill, instead of a steep mountain. The whole hill, all the way up to the castle ruins, is covered in grape vine farms. It was super beautiful. In the ruins, you could go up the tower. I thought I was braver than usual, because I went all the way up, and it was WAY up there! Those stairs are steep, too! The views from the top were amazing, so we stayed up there for quite a while, just soaking up the views. Then we headed to the courtyard, where a restaurant has been built, where they serve local wine made from all those grapes on the hill. The wine was delicious. We sat and drank and just relaxed. It was lovely.

Then we were tired of German cuisine and ate at their version of an American restaurant for burgers. They actually served the fries with sauce! I wouldn't say it was ketchup, but any sauce is better than more dry fries! It was a delightful day of forest walks, castle imagining, and hardly any people. While holding my hubby's hand. :)

Cris asked me to edit this post and add the pictures so here's my contribution: I went to a bathroom a couple days ago and the urinal had a little soccer goal with a ball hanging from it. I won.