Beer, castles and getting lost :)

Hey Everyone -

Please excuse the typos - Im on a German keyboard, and this is difficult!

We have had a fun last few days! We really liked Wurzburg (the first city we stayed in). We drank a beer the first night, got our bearings and then went ou to explore the town once the rain stopped. We were looking for one of the region's traditional wine bars, and accidentally stumbled into a open-air wine and music festival.

After paying our €6 per glass, we sat with all the locals and listened to jazz and drank some awesome wine in the garden of a picturesque courtyard. Once it started raining again we decided to find food and had a traditional meal at the wine bar/restaurant we were originally looking for. We had a great meal (of schnitzel and potato dumplings) and headed off to bed, exhausted from the 19+ hours of plane rides.

I guess I was jetlagged, because after passing out at 10 pm I woke up a few times before I made us get up and out before 7am! We wandered the streets, got breakfast, and took a stroll through the historic parts of town before heading over to the "Residenz" (or the Kings house). It had a beautiful garden surrounding 3 sides with tons of spring flowers and sculpted trees. We took the tour and were surprised how short it was... but most of the building had been leveled in WWII and only a few of the rooms of the palace like building have been restored. They had an interesting display all about the city and what happened during the war, and all about the restoration efforts to return the city to "normal."

After our tour, we packed the car and headed out to the "Romantic Road" which winds through all the quaint Bavarian towns....the only problem was the road was closed for construction, and since our German is decidedly lacking, we could NOT follow the "detour" (which I still think didn't even exist!). After driving in circles for a few minutes, we decided to just give up on that part ot the Road and try to find our next city via the highway. We easily found Rothenberg and wandered around the medieval town after a great lunch of brats and sauerkraut.

It was really neat walking trough the tiny little streets - the whole town is surrounded by a 3.5 km long wall, and you can walk along the top of the wall around most of the town! Its basically one big castle-y looking fortress on a hill. There are even vineyards surrounding the walls near the river that winds around the enclosed city. We took a little too much time relaxing and meandering, and I realised it was getting way too late to take the one lane "Romantic Road" for the rest of the 200km drive we had.

So we changed plans (Taylor's motto for the trip is "Adapt and overcome" :)... We hopped back on the autobahn, and after only one more episode of driving around in circles, we made it to our hostel in Fussen. It sits on the border of Austria in the foothills of the Alps and is very close to 2 breath-taking castles! We explored the town and found an Alpine waterfall (all these pictures to come soon, I promise!) and hiked around before having a quick dinner at a pizza shop and heading back to rest.

We woke up early today and went straight to the castles. It was foggy when we arrived, but all of a sudden the sun broke through the mist and we saw the huge castle looming on a hill over our heads - it is the castle Disney modeled his castles after and it is pretty ridiculous looking! It definitely looks like something out of Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty! We toured both of the castles and heard all about the "crazy" king who had the Disney-like castle built. The plan he had was so immense that even after something like 16 years of construction only 1/3 of the castle was complete when he died and they stopped construction. Those castles are definitely one of the coolest things I have ever seen!

After the castle hopping, we headed to Tegelberg - I wanted to go here becuase they have a giant luge!! You sit in a little cart (something like a sled with brakes) and get pulled for about 5 minutes by cable up a huge metal slide. Once you get to the top, the cable disappears and you careen down a HUGE slide (that looks alot like a bobsled track, but made out of metal). It was super fun and only €2 :)




I wanted to ride a few more times, but we had to get on the road to Munich. After a few more amazing glimpses of the castles, we turned towards Munich. We arrived (without getting lost!!), and have now returned our rental car and checked into the 5-bed hostel room we will call home for the next 3 nights. Up until now we have been in private rooms (or bigger rooms that nobody checked in to) but this time we have other people in our bunk-bed filled room.

We are about to head out of the hostel and find the most famous bar in the world, the Hopfbrauhaus! I can't wait to have a giant Bavarin beer out of a huge stein or boot!! Tomorrow we are taking a walking tour of the city and then touring the Munich Residenz.

I'm not going to lie and say I miss the US yet (we are having too much fun!)...but I hope all is well back in the states...

Will write/post pics soon,
Kristyn