There and Back Again...

On to Austria, with stops at Mormon Church & the Disney Castle!

Since it was a Sunday when we were due to leave Munich, I had the opportunity to attend a Mormon Church (in Germany) with the Eberts. The entire service was in German so we had no idea what was being said, but afterwards we met another family from Utah that was living in Germany and had 6 kids as well! We stopped at a nearby bakery for brunch and continued our road trip through the Bavaria region of Germany on our way to Austria. I think this area of Germany had the most beautiful scenery and I fell in love with Bavaria. 

Our first stop was in a small little German town in Garmisch that Camille had visited with her grandmother years ago. The little ski village was in the Alps and was famous for hosting the Passion Play (5 hours long and all in German!) and for their woodworking. We wandered through the small streets, looked at all the hand carved wood clocks, and ornaments. Deciding that we had seen enough and we anxious to continue moving, we piled back into the van and continued to “Mad” King Ludwig II’s infamous castles!

The highlight (one of them!) of my trip was getting to tour the Neuschwanstein Castle…the one that the Disney Cinderella castle is modeled after!! We were worried that the tours would close before we managed to hike up to the castle, so in Camille’s ever-mischievous and amazing way, we drove all the way up to the front door of the castle…on a route that only tour guides and maintenance workers were supposed to use! Mad King Ludwig II was obsessed with all things Wagner and Swans and the decor inside the castle was ridiculous…but i LOVED every minute of our audio tour! (I was devastated we couldn’t take pictures!) 

Hungry, we drove across the border to Austria and stopped in Innsbrook for dinner. Sitting outside below the Austrian Alps was a gorgeous backdrop for dinner. After a quick dinner, we continued another hour into Salzburg and navigated the road cleaners, construction, and detours in German in the dark and with a broken GPS to find our hotel.

Munich

After a sad goodbye to Prague, we were back in the car on our way to Munich. Several hours, movies, dot-to-dots, coloring pages, and mazes later, we pulled into the Dachau concentration camp, 20mins outside of Munich. The camp closed at 5pm and pulled in at 445. Deciding it wasnt worth it to rush through, we decided to come back in the morning to properly tour the camp. We continued to our hotel and asked for a traditional German dinner recommendation. After a battle with Ezra (I have the scratches to prove it!) We drove to a small German restaurant on the edge of a farm for the second most delicious/favorite meal of the trip. The menu was only in German and the waitress had to explain everything to us. We ended up ordering the house special, breaded/fried white asparagus with salad, a few pot roasts and spetzel noodles, and wiener schnitzel. Everything was so delicious that we had to try a traditional dessert as well, and settled on warm apple strudel and ice cream. Very full and very happy, we returned to the hotel for an early night. 

The next morning, we drove back to the Dachau concentration camp to properly tour. We spent a few hours going through the museum and reading all the memoirs of the former prisoners. It was eerie to be in a concentration camp and to see photos to what it was like during the Holocaust. Survivors had recorded memories on film and some were playing in a cinema portion of the museum. You could continue to walk through the entire facility. I had no idea how enormous the camps were. Dachau was built to originally hold 6,000 people, but during the Holocaust, it held as much as 32,000 people at one time! We could go through the bunkers where the prisoners slept, and each was built to hold 200 people (with 12 toilets and 2 sinks) but at the fullest point, each of the 34 bunk houses held up to 2000 people! If you continued along to the back of the camp, you could see the original electric and barbed wire fence around the outskirts and the plots where the other bunk houses would have been placed. Further back were memorials built to remember those who died during the Holocaust. And finally, in the back corner of the camp, was the crematorium and gas chamber. Going through the rest of the camp, you are saddened and in stunned at the atrocities committed during the Holocaust. But, for Jono and me, we weren’t really affected until we were standing in the crematorium. You enter a long building with a chimney from one end where the prisoners were informed they would be taking a “shower”, the next room was where they discarded their clothes, and followed by the gas chamber. The next room was where the SS officers would have piled the dead bodies before burning them in the crematorium.  It was really sad and depressing to stand inside those rooms and realize that the Nazis were capable of killing millions of people in such a manner. Deciding that we had had enough emotional and philosophical touring for the day, we decided to head into downtown Munich for a more upbeat and fun afternoon. 

We pulled into the city and were shocked at all the crowds! It was the day of the European soccer championships, hosted in Munich, between Munich and Chelsea! Needless to say, the entire city was packed with drunk and avid soccer fans from all over the world! Our first challenge, finding a parking spot! Afterwards we navigated the crowds we made our way to the famous Munich farmers market. We bought some fresh juice and bread and learned that we were not supposed to touch ANY of the produce the hard way (Jono and Emily took some raspberries that they thought were samples…they were NOT! we ended up having to pay for overpriced raspberries to calm the stand owner). We befriended some old men wearing lederhosen and began wandering towards the famous Science museum in Munich. After getting turned around a few times, we managed to find the museum and got in for free! since we arrive an hour before closing. The museum was full of old ships, submarines, trains, planes, and rockets that you could climb into and see what they were like inside. There were optical illusion rooms and rooms full of different mirrors which seemed to be the biggest hit! After getting kicked out for closing, we walked back into town and decided we couldn’t leave Munich without going to the Hofbraurhaus! The famous beer garden was packed with drunk soccer fans, men in traditional German dress, and tourists looking for a good time. We walked into the chaos and the kids were shocked! They didn’t know if they should be terrified of all of the chaos and noise, or if they could be loud too. We had spetzel noodles (tastes like man ‘n cheese) and bratwursts and took pictures with the enormous beer steins! On our way out to beat the match traffic, we drove by the stadium which looked like an absolute mess! Back at our hotel, which we later realized was the base for the Chelsea fans, we stayed up to watch the championship game. After a very close regulation and 2 OTs, Chelsea won on the last penalty kick! 

Prague…I want to go back!

After finally arriving to the airport Marriot, we were all so exhausted that we slept nearly  immediately. We woke up late in the morning, ran to the market for a quick breakfast, and drove into downtown Prague to begin sightseeing. We pulled into the narrow, spider-web streets full of pedestrians attempting to find a parking spot. After nearly getting boxed into an alley way, we successfully parked, loaded everyone into strollers and began navigating our way through Prague. We began our adventure in the Communist Museum which showed the effects of Communism post WWII in the Czech Republic. Since Mia had attached herself to me for the day, we went around talking to all of the statues and the model of the Berlin wall. Jono and I noticed that some UK football players were also in the museum for a summer program and were entertained by American accents once again. We continued out of the museum to the old Wencelas square and saw the famous 15th century clock tower. This clock tower has numerous clock faces which show the time, the zodiac sign, a series of the apostles, and a few other celestial things. There was a European hockey tournament going on and the square had a large outdoor tv playing the games so the square was packed with street food and european hockey fans as well as tourists. We wandered through the Jewish Quarter and over the river to the Prague Cathedral and the largest castle in Europe (Prague Castle). We had to hike up a large flight of stairs…we stopped halfway up for snacks and beverages. The cathedral was absolutely gorgeous and the stained class was amazing! We crossed back to the main part of downtown Prague over the famous Charles Bridge which was full of artists and statues and offered a beautiful panoramic view of the city. Finally hungry, we began our search for dinner. Since Camille, Jenny, and I were in the mood for something traditional, we returned to the Wenceslas square to go through the food vendors selections. We decided on smoked ham, cabbage, and potatoes and picked a spot in front of the big screen tv amongst the European hockey fans. Surprisingly, team USA was playing against Finland while we were eating and we were able to watch the last quarter (US lost…much to the Europeans’ delight!) We also watched the big clock tower chime on the hour and watched the cuckoo-like saints pop out and the live trumpeter announce the time. This was probably the most fun and my favorite atmosphere for dinner that I had on my time abroad. There was delicious traditional food, great company, and sports entertainment…what more could have been better?! 

Wittenberg and Dresden, Germany

After our jam-packed touring day in Berlin, we began our road trip to Prague with our broken GPS and lack of German speaking ability. Equipt with several maps, my laptop, and our Germany touring book, we began our journey. 

Camille had planned stops along the way so the drive to Prague would be broken up. Our first stop was to the book store to buy maze activity books for the kids…which they devoured within the first hour of the road trip. Then we continued onto to Wittennberg, Germany. Wittenberg is the famous home of the religious reformer Martin Luther who caused the Great Schism with his 95 reforms of Catholicism. We arrived in the cute little German town and wandered towards the large church spire in the city center. We went through the church and saw the famous door to which Martin Luther nailed his reforms. We stumbled upon a produce market and managed (with the language barrier) to order fresh fruit and bread for lunch. Then we walked to the home of Martin Luther which had been turned into a museum. It was neat to go through, see where he lived, and to see what a large impact he had on history and religion. Deciding that we had pretty much seen everything we wanted to and we still had a long drive, we continued southeast.

Our next stop was in Dresden, Germany for dinner. Most famous for being one of the cities totally leveled during the fire-bombings in WWII and 20,000 inhabitants died in ONE night, we were surprised to find a redesigned-quiet little city. We drove in along the river and watched all sorts of boats sail by, some with rooftop floating restaurants. It was a quiet night and it made the whole atmosphere seem eerie since this had literally been a ghost town until a few months ago when most of the city was given a much-needed face lift. While all the homes and buildings had been rebuilt, you could still see burn marks and charring on some of the older buildings and paint. This was probably my favorite part of Germany and was the city that felt the most “German”. With its large central plaza, and rococo style antique charred buildings, it was a beautiful city that I wish we had spent more time in to just wander around. But after a delicious but quick dinner of sandwiches, we were back on the road to Prague. 

In Europe, if you are driving across borders you don’t have to go through customs checkpoints, so it was really simple to drive over the Czech Republic border. Our GPS battery had been long run out and was being emergency-charged with my laptop, so with our maps, we managed to get to Prague…but we still needed to get to our hotel which was at the airport. Following the signs to Praha in the dark at midnight after a long day of driving and touring was not too much fun. We began to see signs for an airport…and followed them into the middle of nowhere Czech Republic. Deciding that we were looking for a farmer’s airstrip in the middle of a sketchy town, we somehow magically re-found the highway and continued in the general direction of the capital. Once on the highway, we saw real signs to the international airport and were never as excited as this night to pull into an airport! The Mariott hotel (our home for the Eurotrip) seemed nearly impossible to find until Camille and I noticed its reflection on one of the buildings. Navigating around the terminals and the parking lots while exhausted was an experience, but we were ecstatic to find The Marriott and to crawl into bed before we even thought about exploring Prague.