Our Trip

I posted my pictures of this trip on facebook, so I'm not going to repost them here. This was our spring break trip to Europe.

Day 1

Sunday. After church we came home, frantically finished packing, and then took a late afternoon flight to Munich. Ethan and Noah and I sat together, and Scott sat with Meredith. She was the best traveler of us all - - not a peep out of her. She is such a happy little girl! We slept pretty well on the flight and arrived the following morning. Somehow all her diapers got packed with

Day 2

Monday. Usually after a long flight we like to head straight for a hotel, but today was a little different. The flight was the last one we took as non-revenue passengers, because our benefits expired April 1st. We wanted to leave earlier, but the flights were too full. So we had to shorten our trip just a bit. It worked out fine, but we were pretty tired and gross feeling by the end of the day! We got our luggage and picked up our rental car and then headed to Neueschwanstein Castle, about a 2 hour drive. The weather was great, sunny and cool (I don’t like it too hot, especially when we’re hiking around). Scott got a great little mini-van for us and we were able to fit everything in (amazing!) Noah sat in the far back with his backpack full of random toys. Ethan and Meredith sat in the middle row, and Ethan did a great job of looking after his baby sister. He was so helpful throughout the trip, I don’t know what we would have done without him. Scott and I sat in the front and used his Garmin (GPS) and the car’s navigation system and did a pretty good job of not getting lost. Even with the GPS I would have been terrified of driving all over (7 countries!) but Scott did great. Even on the autobahn, where cars were passing at incredible speeds. I did pound the imaginary brake a little bit, but Scott was patient with my back-seat driving, and I did help out a little bit looking for signs and things.

What a beautiful drive we had! In some ways I wish it had been later in spring, the grass was green and a few flowers were up, but not many. On the other hand there were much fewer tourists and the weather didn’t get too hot. I would love to go back sometime in late spring, though, to see the blossoms.

We parked at the bottom of a steep hill and then hiked up to see the castle. Our incentive for Noah was the possibility of seeing “the Beast” - - he just saw the Broadway show and was very excited about the enchanted castle. The views from the top were beautiful, and it felt great to stretch our legs after so many hours of sitting. We did a guided tour of the castle, which was built by “Mad” King Ludwig in the late 1800s. I was amazed at what great shape it was in. The murals on the walls were gorgeous. Ludwig was obsessed with Wagner and had several of the rooms painted to represent different operas, like Tristan and Isolde, Lohengrin, and Parsifal. Everything was quite ornate. King Ludwig may have been crazy, but he did build a very beautiful castle - - it was one of 3 he had built, and I would have liked to see the others. I was interested in learning about his life!

We got back in the car and drove on to Dornbirn, Austria.

Day 3

Tuesday. We got up, ate at the hote,l and drove to Appenzel, Switzerland. We were hoping to be able to see Sonja Elkuch, but she didn’t respond to our email. We loved the town though. We went to a couple of the most amazing florist shops I’ve ever seen (and you all know how much I’ve always wanted to be a florist). Easter is really big in Europe and the decorations were wonderful. In Switzerland, especially, the displays were so elegant and beautiful. We had a mediocre lunch (the Swiss aren’t known for their food, except for specialty items like chocolate and cheese, and everything is so expensive!) But we finished up with delicious gelato, a family favorite. And then Scott discovered a shop devoted entirely to cheese. It smelled so bad inside! Just like an old, forgotten baby bottle. But the cheese was very good and we all enjoyed our little snack, especially the boys.

We drove through Liechtenstein and took a few pictures, but really didn’t have time to stop and see much. I wish we could have seen the Elkuchs or Rudisuhlis, but maybe another time.

Day 4

Wednesday. Got up and checked out after breakfast. We first drove to Innsbruck, Austria, specifically to see the alpine zoo. Again, we had a lovely day. It rained just a little bit, but not enough to spoil our fun. Thanks to our portable DVD players, the kids were awesome in the car. Scott made some fun CDs to listen to as well. Anyway, the alpine zoo was pretty neat. It probably qualifies as the world’s steepest zoo, since it is basically built right into the mountainside. The specialty, of course, was alpine animals. They did have some farm animals too, and I took pictures of the goats, and a really ratty looking sheep. While I was doing that a cow mooed very loudly and scared Noah. He screamed and ran down the hill hollering and waving his arms. It was pretty funny. He has ridden elephants and a camel and not been fazed, but the cow freaked him out.

We saw some other fun animals, including a lovely brown bear. Noah just loves zoos, and it was a big bribe to keep him happy on the plane. We had lunch there in Innsbruck, and would have liked to spend more time there, it’s a cute little town. Our pizza was wonderful, best I’ve had in a long time. And of course we had to have some more gelato. A day without gelato in Europe is a wasted day, in my opinion.

We had to leave quickly in order to get to Balzano, Italy, before it’s natural history museum closed. There they have an exhibit of the world’s oldest man, Otzi. Ethan had learned all about him in school last year so it was very interesting to see him in real life (so to speak). He was found on the border of Italy and Austria (just barely on the Italy side). Extensive scientific tests have been done on him to show how he lived, what he ate, and what his life and death were like. Along with the mummy itself they have all of the clothing and tools found with him, as well as a fount of information about him. It was very well done, and only a little creepy.

We drove on into Italy and stayed in Padua (Padova). It took us longer than we expected to get there. We drove through miles and miles of tunnels, right through the mountains (the Dolomites). It was beautiful watching the sun set, but we were pretty tired by the time we finally got to our hotel!

The next day we went to Venice. Scott and I went 6 years ago and it was so romantic. Not so much with kids. It took forever to find the train station and park, and we’d decided to take the stroller, which was probably a mistake, since the streets are all cobblestone and there are a million stairs. It did help with Noah though, he got pretty tired of all the walking. Scott carried Meredith in our little baby bjorn and she did well. It wasn’t that fun though, because it was very crowded and I’d forgotten how much Italians smoke. And then it started to rain pretty hard. So it wasn’t the most fun day of the trip, but at least Ethan got to see Venice, and we did get some pretty great pictures. And of course we had gelato again.

more tomorrow . . .