Apr 2009

The Society of European Physician Assistant’s held their annual conference in Garmisch and gave us all a half day off on Thursday. Curt and I decided to make the hour drive to the Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein castles.

Neuschwanstein in the clouds!

Hohenschwangau from below.
If you want to tour both castles you must do Hohenschwangau first which was the summer and hunting home of Mad King Ludwigs father. King Ludwig spent the summers here and lived here while they were building his fairy tail castle – Neuschwanstein. The day was cloudy and sprinkled rain but it made the castle look even more mysterious.

Hohenschwangau has beautiful flowers and fountains surrounding it.
Hohenschwangau is a 10-20 minute walk uphill but in our opinion has a more beautiful inside. The first room has a huge pool table made specifically for the castle.

Both castles give a 35 minute tour thru the rooms. This castle had spectacular paintings right on the walls but of course we couldn’t take photos.

View of Hohenschwangau on the way to Neuschwanstein
Neuschwanstein is a 40 minute hike uphill but certainly worth it. The castle has marvelous views over the lakes.

Only 1/3 of the castle was actually finished so it doesn’t take long to cycle thru the completed rooms. The most disappointing part was going out of the bridge near the castle where all the beautiful photos are taken. That side of the castle was covered in scaffolding!!! You can see it in this photo.

Today, unlike yesterday, is gorgeous and we are headed to a soccer game!!! The FC (Football Club) Nurnberg was playing St. Pauli at the soccer stadium in Nurnberg. We were two of 46,000+ people in attendance at the game – yes, Germans love their soccer. The seats were pretty good near the center of the field and the home team won 2-0! We waved our red and black scarves around at the goals like we were regular germans! We had a blast and the great thing about the soccer and other hockey game we went to is the system for getting out of the parking lot – it is remarkable easy and organized with no lines and no waiting.

The post here in Katterbach has a large craft shop which was sponsoring a trip this Saturday to Dinklesbuhl. Dinklesbuhl is a very quaint town about 40 minutes from us that used to be as big as berlin!!!
The idea was to make our own lanterns in a German’s workshop and then go on an underground tour with them lighting the way. When we arrived the lantern was a pile of wooden pieces and over the next hour and a half we sanded, widdled and hammered until we had a working light.

The next step was to go across the street to a beer cellar. We saw where the schnapps are stored in barrels until ready to drink. Mostly the underground is like a cave but was once used to house kegs or beer, barrels of wine, schnapps and paint. It was a rainy day so quite right for walking underground with nothing but a lantern

At the end of the tour we were back in the shop where the wine tasting began. Curt and I actually found a sweet red we liked and some raspberry liquor that is made on site. After the tastings we went next door to a restaurant where we actually had a delicious steak with pommes (fries).

Today we rented a van and drove back to Belgium to pick up the furniture we ordered 10 weeks ago. For those of you who have been wanting to see the inside of our German house here are a few snapshots of the living room.

Yeah, we know - we still need some lampshades!

Happy Easter!

So here’s the funny thing, the weather in Germany has just turned gorgeous and we leave for a beach town in the Netherlands where it is freezing cold. Today was only slightly warmer than yesterday. However I am determined to see the tulip fields and park, Koenkof.
After breakfast we strike out on our bikes again. We are armed with some pretty crappy directions from the tourist office that will get us to this park. The route is listed as 25 km but we are unsure if this is the round trip or only half way.
After about an hour and a few miracles we arrive and save 6 euros on parking We bypass the lines at the ticket office because we printed ours online. Soon we are engulfed in beautiful displays of flowers and plants. Our first stop was a huge greenhouse that had hundreds of different types of flowers. The tulips were so open they didn’t even really look like tulips anymore. Some had funny names like honky tonk, traveler, backpacker and Elisabeth. Of course I got photos of nearly every plant as you can see

Orange tulips in the park

Flaming Parrot flower

Sunburst design in flower

Orange tulips with frayed edges

The traveller flower

more tulips

Close up tulips

Easter tulips

Open Purple flower

There was a room full of lillies.

a blow up couch was out for people rest....or take photos.
The entire day was spent strolling the park and checking out flowers, swans and a windmill.

Apparently the theme for the year was the connection with the United States so they had a display of the statue of liberty. It was an outline of her head so you couldn’t really tell what it was – kind of disappointing.

Along with flowers they had a few birds of prey that were close enough to get great photos of. Not sure how that connected with the park but they were beautiful anyway.

On the way out we hit some of the flower fields for more photos before riding home.

After burning all those calories we were starved and ended up again at an Italian restaurant. It had many fireplaces and a piano karaoke guy so it was a fun dinner.
Tomorrow will be the ride home which I’m sure will be a warm and sunshining day