Anyway, back at the beginning of April, we took a vacation to Bavaria! It was beautiful! We left on Easter Sunday and drove a couple of hours to the city of Stuttgart. We spent the afternoon at the Wilhelma Zoo, and, believe it or not, it was Natalie's (and Aidan's) first time at the zoo! We really enjoyed our day! We got to see a lot of animals up close. It was dinner time for the elephants and hippos, so we got to see them really up close and personal. I have never seen a cheetah so close, and it was awesome! (Trivia for you, cheetahs are my favorite wild animal.) Wilhelma used to be a palace, so the grounds were very pretty, and even had a botanical garden in the zoo. After the zoo, we checked into our hotel for the night.
The next day we drove a couple more hours to the city of Füssen. Driving into the Alps was just beautiful! There is no other word for it. It was frigid and snowing that day. We didn't have anything planned, except to check into our hotel apartment and buy some groceries, but even those plans were foiled. Did you know that Easter Monday is a holiday in Germany? We didn't. Ha! All the stores were closed... oops. So we checked into our hotel and went hunting for some dinner.
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| {Outside our apartment ... The hotel's front door ... The snowy streets of Füssen} |
Luckily, the snow was on its way out. The rest of our trip was cold, but sunny and clear!
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| {The view from our hotel apartment.} {5 p.m. ... 7 p.m. ... 8 a.m.} |
We spent our first full day walking around the town of Füssen (and buying groceries). The view was amazing! We saw more of the Alps, ate schneeballen (which means "snowballs" - delicious!), found the end of the Romantic Road, walked along the river, and enjoyed the city that we chose as a home base.
The next day was by far my most favorite day of our trip! It was the day we got to see Schloss Neuschwanstein! We had been wanting to see this particular castle for a very long time. It's the castle that Walt Disney used as a model for Cinderella's castle at Walt Disney World. Neuschwanstein is right next to Schloss Hohenschwangau, which I thought had a really cool and historic interior. (Our guide for Hohenschwangau was awesome!) We weren't allowed to take pictures inside either castle.
For our last full day, we drove about an hour away to see Schloss Linderhof. It was set in a gorgeous location. Thanks to the snow, though, we didn't get to see the grounds in all their glory. They had boxes covering most of the statues and plants. I would like to go back sometime in the summer, I think. Still, it was a neat palace to visit, and nothing can beat that view! Poor Natalie got car sick on our drive out there, so she had to wear my jacket and Travis' hat to keep warm. On the drive back to Füssen, we stopped to see the Wieskirche. It was (is?) a pilgrimage church, because supposedly the wooden statue of Jesus inside actually cried once... or something. (I don't believe it, but the inside of the church was beautiful!)
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| {The 3 pictures in the bottom right corner are at the Wieskirche, the rest are from Schloss Linderhof.} |
Our last day was just a day in the car. We wanted to ride the summer luge, but it didn't open until 1 p.m., so we didn't have time to stay and ride it. Instead, we spent a little bit of time playing at a playground, ate lunch, then hit the road. The 4 hour trip took us 7 hours, thanks to traffic. Our poor babies were hating the car, and the ride was just miserable... but we survived.
What fun we had! Natalie now has a true love of castles, and gets very excited at the thought of seeing one. We have learned to never attempt a 4 hour car ride with the kiddos again. (At least not out here...) Can I just say that I love the Alps? Gorgeous. God is so awesome.
