More Munich

This morning, we spent at Dachau. Very touching and sad. A great
museum, but we rushed a bit because Joe was bored and Jess's head was
full.

We drove back to downtown, and had lunch on the plaza (Marienplatz,
above). Then we toured The Residenz, the royal palace of the
Wittlesbach family. Interesting, but after the 20th gilded hall, we
were all bored!!! A siesta in our room, now we're out to dinner. I
succumbed to steak, I couldn't handle anymore wurst or pork (Bill says
he can always eat more pork, it's just me .....although we are going
to try to make schweinsbraten at home, yum!).

Tomorrow we leave Munich, headed to Zurich.

More Munich

All day in Munich, we spent the morning just roaming, checking out the
market, then getting a new memory card for the camera, then to the big
bookstore to find english language novels for the kids (they already
plowed through the ones we brought).

Then we went to the massive Deutches Museum, a technology museum. We
spent at least three hours and probably only saw 40% of it. Exhausted
and hungry, we found an empty table at the beautiful biergarten in the
middle of town. All the locals were out, the beer was cheap, and we
got various street food to nosh on.

But, after the sun and beer, we got sleepy, and had a rest at the
hotel. Now we're back out and about. We did some souvenir shopping,
and alas, found ourselves back at the Hofbrauhaus for dinner and
oompaloompa music.

Munich!

This morning we drove through the German countryside to Munich,
detouring to see a way cool monastery that has been making beer since
1455. Once in Munich, we mostly just wandered around the pedestrian
old town. We found and experienced the famous Hofbrauhaus (beers
above are 1 liter each!!). Then we found an art museum and got the
Sunday special, entrance for only a euro each, kids free. Then dinner,
sausages, spaetzle, and saurkraut, of course!

Castles in Bavaria

We started today with "the castles", Hohenschwangau and
Neuschwanstein, both castles lived in by "mad" King Ludwig of Bavaria.
It was pouring this morning, and despite our raingear, we were all
drenched. But the castles were cool and we had a great time. We also
ran into someone I know from Seatlle, a Rick Steves tour guide. It's a
small world. This afternoon it dried off enough that the local louge
run was open. SO FUN!!

Bavaria

We spent most of the day driving from Colmar to the Bavarian Alps, we are now nestled in the little town of Unterpingswang, near King Ludwig's castles that we plan to explore. However, there is absolutely no cell service or wifi here, so no pics to be sent from the iPhone. I know you are all disappointed! Check back on Sunday when we are in Munich.

 

Colmar

A cool merchants house from 1537.

Colmar, France

Today we left the Rhine, and drove south into France. We are in the
incredibly cute town of Colmar. For lunch, we had the local specialty
of Tarte Flambee (a thin pizza like dish), Joe of course had to try
the one with escargot. He "kinda liked it, as long as he didn't think
too much about it."