Pictures at last!

Finally, I am posting some of the photos from my trip! It took me forever to sort through them and when I was finally finished, I just didn't want to look at them any more! But I'm over that now, so here are some pics from my first two days...

Day One: Black Forest

Best Friend and I landed in Munich at 7:30 a.m. and immediately began exploring. (Even though we hardly slept at all on the plane. Who's got time for sleep?) We grabbed up our rental car, which happened to be a manual shift vehicle despite the fact that I had reserved an automatic. I still drove a few minutes on the autobahn despite being virginal to manual shift driving. Come on! It was the autobahn, wouldn't you? The only other gripe I have about the car and the ridiculous cost of gas is that we were given a Citroen, a tiny bubble of car. I mean, I am in Bavaria for petesake so where was my Bavaria Motor Works car or at least a Mercedes?!?

So we took our bubble car and headed down to the Black Forest (Schwarzwald) in a little town called Triberg. Triberg is not only home to the world's largest cuckoo clock but also Germany's highest waterfall.







This sign here to the left is welcoming us to Triberg and to this nature park in the southern Black Forest. (Or at least that is what I, who cannot speak or read any German thinks it says.)

I thought that the Black Forest was beautiful and not quite as Hansel and Gretel-ish as I had expected, though they did have some evil looking squirrels with very pointy ears. Actually, they were black or reddish colored and very cute.

See how pretty the hike through the forest was? It actually looked very much like the same forests in the Blue Ridge Mountians here at home. The biggest difference was that there were way more Spruce and evergreens than here. Not very scary at all...







Except for the evil tree stump that tried to eat me!











One of the cascades of the Triberg Falls.

And here's the big cuckoo clock. As you can see, we still had 10 minutes before the big cuckoo made his appearance and we just had too much to do to wait for him.





Day Two: Munich in the rain!

After a restful night in a hotel in Ulm, we got up early and headed back to the Munich airport to return our micro machine....I mean...car. We caught the train into Munich and checked into our hostel. Yes, I said hostel, not hotel. We really wanted to have a true European travel experience, despite the movie by the same title. In the end, it was cheaper, we made good friends, and no one chopped our fingers off. I was really glad that we chose this route. It was fun!

After checking in, we headed out to the Marienplatz downtown for some sight seeing. I was disappointed in the icky, cool drizzle we had for weather that day, but it didn't ruin our fun. (Bet you thought I was going to say, "It didn't rain on our parade", didn't you?)

Here's the gothic Rathaus (Old Town Hall), home of the famous Glockenspiel. As I stepped off the train, I could hear the bells ringing above as I ran up the stairs and out into the Marienplatz. I had perfect timing to to join the rest of the very large crowd to watch the Glockenspiel's display. Can you believe that they were actually doing construction on the tower that houses the glockenspiel? The wasn't good timing for my phototaking but at least I saw it!
Here's a shot I took while watching the show. It was actually very overrated but, as I said, at least I got to see it.

I loved the architecture of the old buildings. The dragon climbing the spire was just one of the millions of detail on the Rathaus. There were hundreds of statues of knights and important men and horses adorning the building. I liked the dragon the best, though. And let's just admit it...fire-breathing dragons climbing buildings are just way cooler than King Kong!

We also visited the cathedrals and other sites.

After climbing the steeple of Alter Peter, (Old Peter Cathedral), we had a good view of Munich.

If I look cold, it's because I am. In the background you can see the two-towered Frauenkirche. It was built in the 1400s and still stands despite the damage it suffered in WWII.

There are a couple of creepy, cool sites within this cathedral...like the "devil's footprint" at the entrance and the Emperor's Tomb (resting place of Ludwig the Bavarian, who died way back in the 1300's, I think!)

But I found the skeletal remains of St. Munditia in Alter Peter (Old St. Peter's Cathedral) to be the creepiest of all, so that's the pic I posted.

Perhaps the greatest discovery of the day was the world famous beer hall, the Hofbrauhaus. We loved this place so much that it became the new Vortex (as you all know, that's my favorite restaurant!). We ate here 3 nights in a row. It was such a fun atmosphere. You just walk right in and sit with people you don't even know and have a ball listening to the band and drinking beer.

These mugs were so huge, I could hardly hold mine up! I corrected this problem by drinking its contents. It was much lighter then.

It was here that I also enjoyed my first real German meal.

And finished it off with a pretzel. This is to scale. Keeping in mind the size of the mug, notice how the pretzel dwarfs the mug.

Germany made me very fat, by the way.



I still have many more tales and pics to share, so stay tuned...