The weather the first week was beautiful. It was warm and sunny. We greatly enjoyed the sunshine. The second week turned colder (30's and low 40's). However, it stayed dry which was nice. It snowed while we were there, except it snowed in Ingolstadt while we were in Berlin so we missed it.
The first place we visited was Ingolstadt. It is a good sized city north of Munich. The old part of the city is completely surrounded by a wall. This first picture shows one of the entrances to the old city. The second picture shows a clock tower. The old part of the city had a really nice feel to it. People were outside enjoying the weather. The pace of life seemed very slow and relaxed.
The next day we visited Munich. We went to the Olympic Park and went up in the Olympic Tower. We had a great view of the city. Too bad it was a hazy day.
Then we went into the old part of Munich and had a guided tour. We learned a lot about the history of Munich. The first picture below is of the New Rathaus (Town Hall). It looks really old because of the Gothic Style but was built in the early 1900's. The next picture is of a statue inside Pfarrkirche St. Peter (a Catholic church). Whenever the Pope dies they climb up and take this hat off the statue. When a new Pope is elected, the hat is returned to the statues head. The third picture is from the inside of Theatriner Kirche. It was an amazing church with very detailed walls and pictures on the ceiling.
At the end of the tour, our guide told us a story about how people would rub the nose of this lion because it can make you rich. We thought it was a funny story so we took a picture of Heather and I rubbing the nose. We stood in the area for about 10 minutes afterwards and many of the people that passed came up to rub the nose. We were surprised that so many people really did it. The next picture is of Jason and I in the English Gardens. The fall trees were so beautiful.
On Wednesday we went south of Munich to a castle, Neuschwanstein. The castle sits up on a hill and we hiked about 30 minutes to get up to it. It is called the Fairytale Castle because the king who built it had the walls painted to tell the stories of different fairy tales. The funny thing is the King only spent about 170 days in the castle before he died and it is only 1/3 finished.
This is Mary's Bridge. It is behind the castle and is the best spot to get pictures of the castle. It was very high up! The second picture is a view of the Alps from the castle.
After Neuschwanstein, we drove into Austria through part of the Alps and then back into Germany to Linderhof Castle. It was built by the same king as Neuschwanstein. It was much smaller but was beautifully decorated and had pretty scenery.
On Thursday we went to Dachau Concentration Camp. The history of what happened there was so sad. We also went to Rosenburg, where we saw a bird show. There were many birds, such as eagles, hawks, and vultures. They showed the different stages of training them. It was very neat. On Friday we stayed at home to relax and had a nice dinner with Michael's whole family. His mom cooked a goose for us. We also had potatoes and red cabbage. It was a wonderful meal.
Stay tuned for part 2! Hope you are not overwhelmed by the pictures. And this is a very limited selection!
