German Toys

Grandma helped Will keep track of where we were by naming the cities we were in - there was the "Toy City" which was Munich, the "Mountains" in Interlaken and the "Chocolate City" meaning Zurich.

Since he knew we were in the toy city and the chocolate city we felt the pressure to bring home some good loot. Luckily, we found this cool toy in Munich on our last day. We figured it would be good for Will now to play with and later he'd be able to put the pieces in for the baby to watch and eventually she'll get to do it herself. So far it's been a hit!

Bavarian Road Trip: Day Six

Subtitle: Going Home!
Our last day we didn't have to leave for the airport until one, so we had a relaxing morning. First we got coffee with really special cream:


Then we wandered around and did some last minute shopping. Before we left I wanted to see the Glockenspiel (the clock tower) one last time, so after shopping we went there for the noontime show:


After that we picked up our bags from the hotel and headed to the airport. The ride home was uneventful and relaxing - and comforting knowing we were going to get our little boy back!

Thanks for joining us on this trip. We have just a few things to catch up on (like Val's wedding!) and then we'll get back to our regular posts. No new news on the baby front, baby's still inside and still uncomfortable!

Bavarian Road Trip: Day Five

Subtitle: Back to Munich!
On day five we slept in and made our way back up to Munich. It was just an hour drive from Mittenwald, so the ride wasn't bad at all. By the time we had dropped off the car it had even gotten sunny! By this point in the trip my body had basically given out, so I couldn't do much other than shuffle around. We had a low key day with a late lunch at the Hofbräuhaus the most famous of Munich's beer halls. We both enjoyed pretzels and Ryan tried out some sausages and a local beer. I had some water, but it served in a beer mug!:


Luckily we were staying right in the Marienplatz (the medieval center of the city) which was close to the Hofbräuhaus. Ryan helped me shuffle back to the room and I decided to stay there for to rest while he went to the Viktualienmarkt (a local food market) to try out a few German foods that were missing from his "got to try it" list.

We went to bed early that night to catch up on sleep before heading home the next day. Ryan did take this picture from our window of the 'New Town Hall':

Bavarian Road Trip: Day Four (Part Four)

Around noon we departed from Zurich and headed towards our next destination, the little Bavarian town of Mittenwald. The drive out was through the Austrian Alps, but it rained most of the way. The only time it wasn't raining was when we were in the tunnels - one was 20km long!

We only took this one picture for our entire stay in Mittenwald. If you can believe it, we found a Cheers bar in this little German town!


Even though we didn't take a lot of pictures, we did like seeing all of the frescoes painted on the buildings throughout town. In the above picture you can see the fancy painting around the window; this style was all over all the buildings in town and it was really fun to walk through. Being in Bavaria there is no doubt where Walt Disney took his inspiration from - from the Cinderella castle we visited on our first day to this Fantasyland town, every once in a while I had to remind myself that this was the real thing and not some made up world!

Bavarian Road Trip: Day Four (Part Three)

The last stop we had on our checklist for Zurich was this shop below that sells homemade balsamic vinegars, liqueurs and oils. They sell containers of all different sizes which you choose and then they fill them up and you then pay for the container and the liquid inside.


We each chose a vinegar and Ryan got an apple liqueur. The apple liqueurs jug is below:


And here is the vanilla liqueur I brought back for my parents:

Meanwhile...

...back at Grandma and Papa's...


Will was put to work! Will's a pretty busy boy, and it looks like my parents put his energy to good use. First they had him vacuuming with his very own Dustbuster (which is a good trick, just the other day I was saying that I wished his toy vacuum actually worked!).




Next they sent him out to the yard to do some gardening. He watered the bushes and he watered the wheel barrel.



After everything was watered he helped Papa unload the mulch!


It wasn't all work and no play though - apparently Papa taught Will about throwing rocks into the lake... I think he may have regretted that decision after several trips down to the lake, but Will certainly enjoyed it!


Marie even came to visit and join in the throwing of the rocks:

Bavarian Road Trip: Day Four (Part Two)

Subtitle: Zuriconians have cool trash!


While these trash cans look inconspicuous enough, they are anything but ordinary...


When we saw this truck pull up to empty the barrels, I turned to Ryan and said, "that's a bit overkill don't you think?" Commenting on the fact they were using a truck to drive around and pick up little barrels of trash. Then, as they raised the trash can the cylinder underneath appeared and grew and grew and got longer and bigger, and finally we understood!

Bavarian Road Trip: Day Three into Day Four

Subtitle: On to Zurich!
Subtitle Two: Perhaps we should have entitled this trip "Alpine Road Trip"

After our adventures in the mountains of Interlaken we packed up the car and headed off to our next port of call - Zurich. We hadn't planned much for Zurich and mostly we picked that city because it got us a few hours closer to Munich so that the next day we wouldn't have as much driving to do.

A few days before our trip we had seen a half hour show on the Travel Channel about Zurich and we decided to basically try and hit the highlights mentioned. We were pleasantly surprised with how nice the city was, especially the old medieval section. Everything was within walking distance of our hotel so we headed out for a nice dinner the evening we pulled into town, although we didn't bring the camera.

We did have it with us the next day as we wandered around. Here we are shopping in the shopping district:


And here I am on the bridge crossing the river:

The river is banked by four or five churches and each one seemed to be trying to outdo the last in terms of size of clock face. Maybe this is why Switzerland is famous for clocks? There was no doubt what time it was no matter where in the city you were!

We had two main goals in Zurich (based on our Travel Channel research) and one of them was getting to the Sprungli chocolate store. It was not a disappointment! We spent the better part of an hour picking out all sorts of chocolates to take home with us. So many options and they all looked good:


After we picked out the chocolates we headed next door to their coffee shop where we treated ourselves to some decadent chocolate beverages and desserts. Yum!!

Bavarian Road Trip: Day Three (Part Five)

Subtitle: Coolest Lunch Ever


After exploring everything that the top had to offer - including the cafe which sold $8 bottles of soda and the gift shop with $120 sweatshirts - we decided to head down to the first place the train stopped for lunch. The trains run every hour, so we had just enough time to grab a table at this outdoor restaurant with amazing views of the mountains. It was a really awesome spot.


That's the North Face behind me.


Here's a picture of the train about to go into the tunnel in Eiger.


See that cloud? That's right where the observation area was! It stayed clouded in for our entire lunch and we could see it the entire way down as we rode the train. I'm so glad we got up early to get to the top, we really lucked out with some amazing views, great weather and one of the coolest experiences of our lives! We highly recommend it and hope to go back again to do some of the hiking!

Meanwhile...

...back at GG and Pa's...


Will helped work on setting up a new swing set for the yard! He worked hard making sure all the bolts were securely fastened:

The results were excellent:

Although the box was just a little more entertaining...


Thanks GG and Pa, can't wait to break it in this summer!

Bavarian Road Trip: Day Three (Part Four)

After the observation deck fogged up we made our way down to the glacier walk; we came out of the door in the mountain in the above picture. There's a forty-five minute hike you can take to a small cabin for coffee and hot chocolate and some lucky people get to stay overnight there. I knew it would be too much for me, especially at such a high altitude, so we just poked around and watched the people getting ready to ski. After being out there for a few minutes everything started to clear and the sky went back to a beautiful blue.


Here's Ryan at the start of the glacier walk. If you look to the right you'll see two little black dots, those are two people out on the path.


We got lucky and had our picture taken just minutes before the fog rolled in again, this time for good.


Here comes the fog!


Picture time is over, we're in a cloud again!

Bavarian Road Trip: Day Three (Part Three)

Subtitle One: At the Top!
Subtitle Two: The Sphinx


Ryan's been playing with Google Earth and the different views of our travels. This map gives a view of the train ride we took and where we ended up. We started at the Hotel Belleview at the yellow tack on the bottom and our destination was the yellow tack on the top. On the way up we headed through the valley on the left, the way down we followed the valley on the right. Click on either map to see the images a little larger.


Here's a closer look at the observation deck location. Eiger is the peak to the left and the North Face is the wall of rock leading up to it. On the right is Jungfrau, a higher peak, but not nearly as famous. Behind the observation deck is the start of the longest glacier in the Alps.


The Sphinx is the name of the observation deck on top of the "Top of Europe" complex. That was our first stop and we were rewarded with some amazing views. Above is Ryan and I inside the station and below is me on the outside deck. All the promotional materials about the trip recommended bringing winter clothing and sunglasses. I'm glad we listened because it was cold and the sun was so bright and reflective it was hard to see anything without our sunglasses on!


Eiger's North Face (it felt so close, like we could walk to the top if we wanted to!):


A view back towards Interlaken:


Ryan in front of the North Face:


After taking tons of photos and enjoying our time out on the observation deck we decided to take a panorama of photos that we could later stitch together to show exactly what we were looking at. Ryan went ahead and took some, but we realized he had set it up wrong. To avoid confusion, he deleted the pictures he had taken and started over... In those few minutes a huge cloud came and descended on the observation deck and completely blocked everything from all sides. Here are the last images we had that didn't get deleted:


All fogged in:

Bavarian Road Trip: Day Three (Part Two)

Subtitle: Up, up, up!


Here I am on the second train which brought us from Grindelwald to Kleine-Scheidigg, it was a neat passenger car that had skylights so we could really look up at the mountains. It was a fascinating ride and the whole way we kept matching the mountains we were seeing to the map we had. Perfect views of Eiger, Jungfrau and Monch.


Here's Ryan on train number three. This was by far the coolest train, even though for the most part we were in a tunnel. We entered the tunnel shortly after departure and the train actually goes through Eiger. On this ride there were two stops, they actually have windows cut, looking out the North Face! It was pretty amazing. Those views basically look out on the route we had just come up. The next stop of windows were on the other side of the peak which looked out on the largest glacier in Europe. Unfortunately those views were fogged in when we stopped, but we were able to see in that direction when we reached the top later.

So here is the view from the first set of windows, looking out from the North Face and back towards Interlaken:


Me looking out the window:


Here's the map of where we are on the mountain. The little square I'm pointing to is the window we were at:


Here's the second window, a foggy look out on the glacier:

Bavarian Road Trip: Day Three (Part One)

The train we wanted to catch on Sunday morning left at 7:00am so we needed to be at the station at 6:30, which meant an early wake up call. The evening before our conceierge had warned that the weather report wasn't looking too promising so he suggested that we wake up and turn on the Jungfrau channel which just broadcasts the view from the top of the mountain. Of course when we got up, the above image is what we saw...

His other suggestion was to look out the window and if we could see the top of the mountain, then we should be fine to go. When we peaked out we weren't sure if we were seeing the top of the mountain or not, but we did see a flashing light which we assumed was the top, so we decided to go.

Here I am on our way to the station as the sun came out:
We were the only ones out on the street and it was a nice peaceful walk. By the time we got there daylight had arrived and it looked perfect out. We were very excited to get going.

Here's Ryan on train number one:


The view from out the train window:

It was so fun approaching the mountains and watching them as we got closer and closer and then eventually entering into the higher altitudes. This view is one of our first, you can see the front of the train as it rounds the bend on the left.

Bavarian Road Trip: Day Two (Part Three)

After a long day of driving we finally made it to Interlaken, Switzerland, our destination for the night. This picture is from the tiny little balcony on our room, but it had an awesome view and it was right on the river (see picture below for another view). We dined at a nice little local restaurant and went to bed with high hopes that the next day would be as clear as our afternoon and evening was. Our big splurge of the trip was coming up for day three, we had plans to take a train trip up to the 'Top of Europe' and visit the North Face of Eiger, one of the highest peaks in Europe. Our luck held out and pictures from the train ride will be coming soon!

Bavarian Road Trip: Day Two (Part Two)

A great view from the road.


After our castle visits we headed towards our afternoon destination: Liechtenstein. Lucky for us the weather really cleared up and it got sunny, dry and warm. Liechtenstein is this tiny little country between Germany, Austria and Switzerland and is famous for stamps and banks.

We were planning on stopping there to get a late lunch, but found that Liechtenstein was crazy expensive. We actually found a store selling Crocs for the equivalent of $75 US! For foam shoes!! The food was just as expensive, so we snacked on some Bavarian danishes that we had purchased in Munich and headed out shortly after our arrival. On to Switzerland!