Valentines Day.

Auf wiedersehen, Deutschland-Buon Giorno, Italia-

So you wouldn't think that my Valentines Day was great.  We had to leave Fussen and the magical views of castles and the Alps.  We traveled for over 12 hours on 1 bus and 6 trains with 2 children. Whew!
But.....
Really it was an amazing Valentines Day!  We traveled through the Alps of Germany and Austria, and saw many vineyards in Italy.  The Alps were snow covered and awe striking!!  The vineyards were endless, of course they were just brown because of the winter, but there were a lot of them!!  I got to spend the entire day observing the wonder and beauty which God created! Really there is nothing I can say to do justice to what we saw!  So I will saw the best I can.  Here are some of the 100's of pictures we took that day. 

We not only got to enjoy this travel but we were on our way to see our friends that live in Reno Centese, Italy.  That is in northern Italy between Ferrara and Bologna if you are curious.  If you still don't have a clue it is near Venice and Florence too; within 2 hours by train.   We left the hotel at 9:20 in the morning and arrived at our friends house at 10:30 at night.  (and yes they are in the same time zone.)

This was the beginning of Italy. We had to get a picture of this and wonder...is this what they drive in a high speed chase? No one will ever take Italian police seriously if that is their standard issue squad car. Why not drive a VW Bus or something. Yeah, not a good indicator for us to know we had crossed into Italy!


Then at one of the stops in Verona we realized they travel in packs!

Who knew that Italy had castles too? These aren't the only ones we'd see either.

Castle 3: Neuschwanstein (say what?)

 BE WARNED: IT'S KIND OF A LONG POST...we had to use the access to the blog as much as possible before returning to China :)

So it's the big day! The day Kenya has been looking forward to. Prior to coming to Europe she had been watching a Disney cartoon called Sofia the First. It's about a little girl who started out as poor, village girl and then became a princess through her mom's marriage or something along those lines. Anyway, we showed Kenya pictures of the Neuschwanstein Castle and she thought it looked similar to the one in the cartoon. So she had been wanting to go visit Sofia's castle. Our tour time was at noon so we wanted to eat breakfast get the girls a nap and ride in a horse-drawn carriage up to the castle. The estimated time for the ride was 1 hour.  The girls had seen and heard the horses since Monday morning and wanted to ride in the carriages all the time.

Also it began snowing on Tuesday morning and didn't stop! It was so amazing though. It totally added to the magical feeling of this place. They also did a decent job keeping the snow at a level where people could comfortably walk in it.

So once we had our breakfast we were able put Jasmin down for a nap, but unfortunately not Kenya. She was still acting pretty good and she was very excited so we thought maybe she'll do alright. And this time we put more layers on her so she wouldn't get cold and such.
We set out for the carriages. We got there before the crowd and asked the driver how much it cost and he said it was 6 Euros per person on the way up--they are cheaper coming down. He tried to charge us for Kenya even though she was young enough to be free. Most people think she's 5 or 6 years old. We told the guy to forget it and we chose to walk instead. So began our ascent to the Castle.

Here's an idea of how steep the climb was. It wasn't all that bad except for the snow, which was kinda like sand

I took a short break to stretch and take some pictures and Lois and the girls pressed on because we were told that it would take 55 minutes walking and we were on a tight schedule for our tour. I carried Jasmin on my shoulders most of the way and Kenya walked a good portion, but her mood and enthusiasm deteriorated as we got closer and closer. 

We made some good time because it took us only 20-25 minutes to get to the following view point!

These are pics from a suspended platform for viewing and photos. There was a water fall down there.

Here's a view of the valley going toward Fussen. A little foggy that day, but simply amazing.

 

I mentioned before that it was snowing and we took some pictures of the snowflakes because they weren’t melting very fast at all.

 

The girls storming the castle!

The following were just inside the main gate of the castle in the waiting area for the tour. 

 

These are the last few pics I could while in the castle because of course, once inside, photos and videos weren’t allowed. 

The castle was absolutely amazing. We only toured a third of the castle and there was so much to see and learn about! The castle wasn’t even completed on the count of the King that was having it built died/was possibly murdered before the completion.

King Ludwig II was the one who was having his castle built and he sure knew what he wanted. He had a hallway built to resemble the inside of a cave—stalactites and stalagmites and all!! I later found out the he had an even bigger space resembling a cave under ground that needed a boat to access it and he would only allow special guests there! 

 These pics were after the tour, on our way back down stairs. Photos were allowed then.

    

 The castle was absolutely amazing. We only toured a third of the castle and there was so much to see and learn about! The castle wasn’t even completed on the count of the King that was having it built died/was possibly murdered before the completion.

King Ludwig II was the one who was having his castle built and he sure knew what he wanted. He had a hallway built to resemble the inside of a cave—stalactites and stalagmites and all!! I later found out the he had an even bigger space resembling a cave under ground that needed a boat to access it and he would only allow special guests there!

The following are pics after the tour

 

 We ended up riding in a carriage on the way down, but not without one driver saying he would charge us 30 Euros for us all to sit up front. Thankfully another man let Kenya, whom we really wanted to ride up front, sit next to him...free of charge. (I can't say I was jealous of her view!)

After the castle we had a light lunch tasting schnitzel for the first time. It was pretty good and not what I expected. We also had a few sausages. We went and took naps and went to the Museum of Bavarian Kings for an hour before dinner. It was very informative and interesting we didn't get many photos because we had to try to listen to the audio tour thing and keep an eye on the girls who were tired and getting hungry again. I did take a pic of Alpsee Lake from the museum window.

The book behind Jasmin is huge! She could lay on it and only have her hair and feet hanging over!

Once back at the hotel we had our final 3-course dinner! Lois noticed the napkins were folded like little crowns

 

Jasmin giving Daddy the stink eye!

 

Yeah, it's salmon and potatoes and it was delicious!

 

A "special" dessert from the chef for each of the girls. The ice cream was the best part

 

Dessert was what was served for Lois and I, but it wasn't the best. They are balls of cheese that just weren't dessert worthy. However, the plums underneath were out of this world delicious! We asked for some of the yummy ice cream to go with the plums and as we thought...OUTSTANDING!

We went to bed stuffed and tired!

 The next morning we had our normal breakfast and we waited outside for the taxi and took a few pics of what we thought would be the last time we'd see the Alps. Here's one.

I took one more pic of Neuschwanstein as a good-bye and thus ended the German portion of our European trip.