Monday, November 14, 2011

Germany

Oh, so big deal this post is 4 months late. lol. I was waiting to blog about our trip to Germany when I finished our photbook with all our pictures. I took entirely too many to upload them all onto here. I'm finally now sitting and getting caught up on photobooks so be ready for some NEW entries!

We started out on a Monday morning. We had to drop the dog off at the dog sitter's house around 7:30. After we did that, we hit the open road. Our first destination was Neuschwanstein Castle. After driving through Italy and passing through Austria, we arrived in at the castle in Germany around 1. Neuschwanstein sits way up on a hill and rather than try to walk it with Rosalie, we paid and took a carriage ride to the top. The view was absolutely breathtaking. I think we enjoyed the view overlooking Germany more so than the castle! After we spent some time at the castle, we took a carriage back down to the village and did some shopping. Around dinner time we headed to our resort in Garmisch. The ride there was crazy. We went up one mountain and down another. We passed back and forth between Germany and Austria. One minute we'd see signs for Republik Österreich (Republic of Austria), the next we'd see signs for the Deutschland (Germany). We arrived at the resort an hour later and were just blown away. We stayed at Edelweiss, which is a military resort. We stayed in a military hotel when we went to Pisa and it was a dive. This place was.. AMAZING. We checked in and went downstairs to the "bar" for dinner. It was more of a classier bar/restaurant. The food was amazing! We checked out the gift shop and then headed back to the room and put on our swimming stuff and hit the pool. We all crashed pretty early that night!

The next morning after we got moving we headed downstairs to a different restaurant for breakfast. After breakfast we headed out past Munich to Dachau Concentration Camp. I've always wanted to see a concentration camp. When you walk through the doors that read "Work Shall Set You Free", emotions just run deep. There are pictures everywhere dictating the harsh conditions of the camp. We walked through the barracks where they were kept and the holding chambers for where they registered the prisoners when they arrived at the camp. Seeing the camp with your own eyes, reality sets in that this wasn't just something in a history book... but it was real. These people suffered.. were tortured.. were used for medical experiments. they were fed every 4 days. Over thousands of people were housed in barracks that were built to hold only a few hundred. Over 230,000 people were imprisoned at Dachau and over 30,000 died in the camp. We left Dachau feeling a feeling that we had never felt before. It was gut-wrenching. We spent the rest of the evening lounging around the pool and went for a German dinner. It was sooo good. Rosalie ate like I had never seen her eat before.

Wednesday was our last full day in Germany. We woke up to rain. Since we couldn't do much, we decided to go for breakfast again. After breakfast we went upstairs to a lounging area and just watched the rain and enjoyed the view. Finally, around 10 the rain started to subside. We went and bought tickets to go to the AlpspiX viewing platform. It's a platform that is in the shape of an X that literally protrudes off the very top of the Bavarian alps. We rode a cable car up the side of the alps. AH I always dreamed of taking a cable car into the alps! The view going up was just BREATHTAKING! When we got to the top we walked around the viewing platform, took some pics, and enjoyed the view. Instead of jumping back on cable car and riding back down, we decided to get our monies worth and hike a ways down and catch a cable car further down the mountain. YES, we did this with a stroller! LOL! It was def an experience. It sprinkled off and on and the clouds kept rolling in so thick that we couldn't see a foot in front of us. We hiked for about 2 hours and then hopped on a cable car and rode back down the mountain. We spent the rest of the evening at the resort. Kevin bought me a German made cuckoo clock and I can't even begin to describe how happy that made me! I've alway wanted one! It's beautiful! It's still in the box though because we were afraid the movers would mess up the chains so we decided to just keep it wrapped up until we move.

We headed out Thursday morning. We wish we would have stayed longer. It was by far one of the best trips we took during our time here in Italy!

And for your viewing pleasures.....


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