Netherlands Day 6 - New Beaches, Old Streetses

Today we went out with some more wonderful family members to see what the Schagen area has to offer. We started at a new beach, and when I say 'new beach' I mean that this piece of land didn't exist a couple years ago.  The Dutch are experts at moving dirt from underwater to make land. In the course of one year they dug up enough sand from under the sea to create an entirely new beach equipped with dunes and a dike that is miles long. For you Michigan people, imagine if only the campground part of Holland Beach existed and the rest was water. Then one year the government decided to dig sand out of Lake Michigan to create the entire beach. It's like that. Of course, there's also parking for about a billion bikes and a three lane biking highway.

After the hard work of looking at a beach we had to take a break to sip some tea and coffee. All my family members are amazing hosts/hostesses so this week we've always had a full cup and a fuller belly.  They even served us delicious smoked horse lunchmeat.
Klaas was nice enough to drive us around all afternoon to see the Medenblik and Heerhugowaard areas. We stopped by a different type of windmill and met a goat named Arthur who cheerfully mows the lawn.

Then we went to the cute downtown part of Medenblik since it was clearly coffee time. In town everybody and their brother owns a sailboat and a bicycle. About once a minute the drawbridge would go up for a sailboat and a bunch of bikers would stack up on both sides waiting for the bridge to lower. Just as they cleared out another sailboat would drift up to start the process again.

We found some Genever which was on our list of things to try but nobody here has ever heard of the Dutch delicacy called 'creamed herring'. We ended the night with an amazing home-cooked dutch meal.  Mmm meatballs. 

Dutch word of the day: Doe-doey which just means bye-bye but sounds goofier.

Netherlands Day 5 - Finally, Shoes that Fit and a Town of Cheese

We woke up on Day 5 to a delightful breakfast of amazing coffee, fresh fruit, and rolls with delicious cheese. Yum. Then we left to visit on of Pauls' mom's aunts: Tante Rie. She is over 90 and still really active and cool. She also had an amazing garden for Cris to drool over. There was lunch of bread and amazing cheese, and several servings of delicious coffee (or beer or wine) all day long.
Tante Rie then rested and we went to visit the town of Gouda with Jan as our tour guide.

There was a bit of tacky touristy stuff but the rest of the town was pretty cool. The town center was super old, charming, quaint, and all those other awesome words.

Of course, we bought more cheese. Also, of course, we stopped for some beer. Then we headed back to Tanta Rie to meet another cousin (Betty) and have more coffee and then dinner and more coffee. Dinner had a topping of amazing cheese.
Cris is in heaven, and Paul will have a difficult time getting her to leave.

Paul ended the day by fly fishing. Jan said that he had never caught a fish and that he had tried in the river down the road and nothing would bite. Paul got out his fly gear and caught 4 dace in about 30 minutes to Jan's chagrin.

Netherlands Day 4 - Healthy Herring and Winding Windmills

We left Germany behind for The Netherlands and to see family.
We just happened to be driving near the town of Oss which is Cris' motherland so we stopped by for a kip. It took us a while to find anything in the town that said 'Oss' but eventually we came upon this beautiful murinal.

Just beyond that was a stall in the street containing a dutch couple and a ton of herring. The guy deboned a couple herring for us, added onion, and taught us the proper way to shove raw herring down our gullet. It was delicious and stinky. The lady who sold the fish to us insisted that herring is a super food that we should eat every day. I do feel stronger and smellier so it must be working.

After meeting our hosts (and distant relatives) Jan/Corine, we set off with them to an old ancient type Netherlands town called Heusden.  It was really neat, with old buildings, an old defensive steep wall and canal system all the way around the town, and super old (still functional) windmills.

 An old man unchained the windmill and asked the people around to help so Paul went and helped push the bottom of the windmill to rotate the entire building.

Paul and his parents braved the steep steps to climb to the top of one of the windmills where a guide told them about how they worked.
After that, we headed to a old cheese farm where Cris was in heaven and also drooled all over all of the cheese. It was difficult not to buy it all.

Then we headed to another quaint town (Frieswijk) to visit a coffee/beer shop with Jan/wife. There just so happened to be a live singing event going on while we drank coffee or beer outside. It was about as Dutch as it gets: people dressed as old-fashioned sailors singing on an old boat on the canal, with bikes and flowers everywhere and everyone in the town was swaying and singing along to old Dutch classics about lost loves while sailing and such.

Then it was off to a slightly awkward but also interesting retirement party for one of Paul's mom's relatives. There, we met a bajillion other relatives, and everyone tried to garble a few English words at us occasionally while we tried to fit in. Fortunately, there was beer and coffee available because that's what Dutch seem to love (and I like this custom!).

Germany Day 3 - Driving and Ridiculous Architecture

After crashing at a farm for the night, Paul and I woke up with sore throats and off and on fevers for Day 3. Thanks a lot, some jerk on the airplane. We were determined to still stick to our plans, though, which included the longest drive for the whole trip (I think), which was over five hours on the road. We took a break to see Drachenburg Castle, which was super beautiful, and for some reason, never lived in by nobility. 

The dude who made it just wanted to make a castle near his home town. It was cool to tour the place and it had incredible views. Paul and his parents braved steep rickety stairs to go to the very top North tower for even better views.

Then it was off to Cologne Cathedral. It was really interesting to compare/contrast the almost-gaudy atmosphere of Ottobeuren Abbey to the more simplistic but equally awe-inspiring Cologne Cathedral. Cologne was REALLY old, and it was super tall. The tallness of the interior and the huge columns and amazing architectural feats for the Middle Ages made this building really cool. That's all I can say though because by then I was super tired and feverish and ready to sleep.

The only way to take a picture of the insanely tall front was a panorama that distorts it somewhat.

We drove to our airbnb in Krefeld, which was an anxiety-filled adventure of trying to find parking for a mini-van in tiny, narrow streets, followed by walking a long ways with our suitcases. And then glorious sleep before starting another day of awesomeness (and hopefully better health).

Germany Day 2 - Hohenschwangau or as Mom would call it: 'Hogenburgerflurgen'.

We started out our first official day in Germany by checking out one of its' most famous castles: Neuschwanstein. This particular castle is so famous that it is always overrun with tourists. As a crowd-hater, I did some heavy duty research and learned that it's best to have an early tour.

So we left our hotel at the ugly hour of 7:20am to get there in time for our early reservation. The road got prettier and prettier as we entered Alps-land, with gorgeous quaint German villages and rolling green hills and stark snow-capped mountains all over the place. SO pretty!

We got a reservation package for seeing two castles next to each other: Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau. Our English tour guide for Hohenschwangau was first. We had a bit of spare time, so we wandered the outside of Hohenschwangau Castle, which had ramparts with amazing views and really pretty garden areas.

The tour of Hohenschwangau was really interesting and the castle was super pretty. Those royals loved their painted wall murals, and every room was covered in them. There was also ridiculous amounts of ivory, gold, silver, etc. all over the place. What was really interesting was that even though it looked gigantic on the outside, it really was kinda small and impractical: the queen's floor and king's floor each contained one bedroom for each of them and some other rooms that were all interconnected. No privacy in that world! Of course, it WAS only their summer "cottage", but it was still kinda cramped living quarters.

We took a horse carriage ride up the steep mile long road to the next door Neuschwanstein castle. Mad king Ludwig never got to finish Neuschwanstein castle before his mysterious death (most likely murder by pissed off politicians who hated how much money he was spending on building pretty castles). However, the rooms that WERE finished in this castle were incredible. Jaw-droppingly insanely ornate and gorgeous. Sadly, we couldn't take pictures of the inside. 

The outside of the castle was also incredible, though, so here's a photo of that. After we toured the castle, Paul wanted to walk on the insane bridge because he is insane. It's super high up and over-loaded with tourists. He says the views were worth it. I shall take him on his word.

After all that fun, it was late afternoon, so we drove to the town we were staying in for the night. Paul casually suggested we stop at a "small local abbey" before crashing for the night. Apparently, when you are as tall as Paul, perception of small and large is different. This "abbey" was gigantic and super ornate and overflowing *just* to the point of being tacky with sculptures, paintings, relics, and more. For some reason, no one goes to this building, because we mainly had it to ourselves. For free. If you can see Ottobeuren Abbey, you should see it. It is worth the trip!

Germany Day 1 - Airport Chaos and a Big Old Schloss

Day 1 was mostly travel. Cris and I got to Munich in the morning but it took forever to get our rental car so we only had just enough time before the 'rents were supposed to arrive to eat some weissewurst and pretzels, drive around some airport Roundabouts and finish this Oxford commaless run-on sentence. We still had time for a nice long walk around Schloss Nymphenburg. 

Word of the day: ausfahrt - definitely literally translates to 'out fart'. The only way off a highway. 

The palace itself was closed but the park and gardens were open. Apparently the rich dude who owned the place got bored with his gigantic castle and just built random other buildings (above) all over his yard. 

 This picture is maybe one tenth of the building that rings the beautiful goosefilled grounds, but it is ten tenths of the most beautiful girls in the world (and a dad). Seriously though, this thing is massive (not my dad).

 The backside of the building was just as impressive and mom joined in on the photo fun. Fishing was mentioned for the first and probably last time when some ugly carp surfaced in the fountain.

There were miles of buildings and more miles of winding pathways through green forests. We'd occasionally bump into one of the random buildings (above) tucked away in the forest guarded by a moat.
Eventually, hungry and jetlagged, we made our way to a beergarden that had its own football pitch, but nobody eating there. It was an adequate end to an adequate day.

Side note: The less cute one on this adventure grabbed the wrong laptop cord so he is making up for it by spraining his phone-typing finger and complimenting his wife.

The Dainings are going to Germany (and The Netherlands....and a little bit of Austria)!!!!

In just a week (EEEEK!!!!), Paul and I are heading to Europe for another awesome adventure. This time, we are headed to Germany (and The Netherlands and a bit in Austria). We shall explore these parts of Europe for 3 weeks, and we are super excited.

It's our second time to Europe (we went to Ireland 2 years ago), and hopefully, we can continue going on 3 week long adventures to Europe every 2 years for a very long time.

Why are we going to these particular countries this time? 

It was a windy road of thoughts that led us to going to these particular places. Here's how it worked:

1. We wanted to see The Netherlands with Paul's parents.
Originally, we were hoping to have his whole family join us there, but it ended up only working out with his parents, which is still going to be fun. Paul's mom has aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. that live in The Netherlands, so we are going to get to meet distant family and have actual family/locals be able to show us the best parts of their country.

Both Paul and I are of Dutch descent, so it will be fun going back to the Old Country and see places that were special to our ancestors. I can't think of a better way to see ancestral spots than with family that still lives there! We will be in The Netherlands for about 6-ish days, and we are travelling with Paul's folks for 9 days. After that, Paul and I will explore Germany and some of Austria for the rest of the trip.

We knew we wanted to see The Netherlands for a week, and then do other stuff for 2 weeks. We looked at airplane ticket deals to figure out where to go from here. It ended up being a one-flight option for a better price to fly in to/from Munich, Germany, so Germany was the additional country we decided to see this time.

2. I've always wanted to see the Neuschwanstein Castle.
I've been fascinated with castles since I was a little girl. There are more than 20,000 castles in Germany, so we will be seeing TONS of castles on our trip.

When I started college, I bought a poster of the Neuschwanstein castle (picture above). It hung in my dorm room for all 5 years of undergrad (and I think after that, I hung it in our Milwaukee apartment and house, too). Every day, I would wake up, look at that poster, and tell myself someday, I am going to Europe to see castles.

It seemed appropriate to start our trip visiting the castle that I stared at every day in college (Neuschwanstein castle is an hour-ish south of Munich where we start). It's the castle that had me dreaming of travelling in Europe and pushed us towards saving money for European adventures. 

Honestly, though, I will probably like visiting Neuschwanstein castle the least of all the castles we will be seeing. Everything I read says it's FULL of crowds and it is a bit of a tourist trap. I hate crowds and tourist traps, but I still want to see this castle. It should still be fun!

3. I've always wanted to see the Schwarzwald (Black Forest) in southwest Germany.
I LOVE fairy tales and mythology (one of the reasons I got a Classics degree), and so I've always wanted to visit the Schwarzwald (Black Forest) in Germany. That is where the Grimm Brothers wrote the Grimm Fairy Tales. They visited villages throughout this ancient forest and gathered up the villagers' stories.

Both Paul and I LOVE forests, mountains, and hiking, and the Black Forest will be perfect for exploring these things. There will be fishing, hiking, waterfalls, etc. that we will be seeing in this region of Germany. We are also going to Baden Baden for a spa day. It's a village made on top of an ancient salt spring or something, and the waters are supposed to be good for your skin.

4. The southeast Bavaria Region of Germany is gorgeous and contains the amazing Alps.
After swinging through the southwest Germany region, we'll continue travelling through the southeast areas of Germany. Along the way, there will be the Castle Road and we will be driving through and alongside the Alps.

We have plans for not only more castles, but also more hikes, and Paul hopes to flyfish AND go paragliding over Lake Konigssee(!!!!). I will be spending that day reading by the shore of Lake Konigssee, watching for my hubby gliding above me.

Lake Konigssee

5. While in the Alps, we end up going into Austria for a little bit.

While searching for an Airbnb for the last 4 days, we found it cheaper to stay in a place in Austria, just across the border, than in southeast Germany. So we figured we may as well see a little bit in Austria, too!

We will be doing a beautiful drive along the border in the Alps at one point, and we will be checking out Austria's Hallstaat salt mine and a nearby ice cave and normal cave. I have been obsessed with the history of salt for a LONG time, so I'm really excited that we could add this bit to our adventure!!!!

Someday, we will have to do the northern parts of Germany, but for now, there is so much beauty in the southern regions, we have TONS of things to see.

We are super excited to travel in Germany soon! We will be posting updates on this blog, just like we did for Ireland, so stay tuned! 

A very vague estimation of our trip plans