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Matt & Erin Lyle Joined: January 29th 2006
Logged in: January 13th 2012
Logged in: January 13th 2012
¨Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.¨ -Mark Twain
Travel Blog Posts
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We sadly had to leave Rothenburg this morning and drive to Munich where we will spend our final hours before heading to the airport for our 11:20pm flight to Moscow. Once we arrived in Munich, we went straight for lunch at Munich’s famous Hofbrauhaus, which was founded in 1589 by the Duke of Bavaria, and is one of Munich’s oldest beer halls. It was the perfect way to end our trip as it was totally classic. Huge wooden tables that you share, years of people carving their names in the tables, liter beers, pretzels the size of your head, and best of all a band playing traditional music! We enjoyed our final sausages and kraut and just sat there enjoying, swaying and bobbing our heads to the music. We walked the old town of Munich afterwards ... read more
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We were on the road by 8:30am this morning on our way to Rothenburg ob de Tauber, which is 4hrs away from Berchtesgaden. There was another drop in temperature and for most of the drive we were in the middle of heavy wet snow/rain mix. It’s still hard to believe 2 days ago we were saying we thought we had packed too warm for the trip with our long sleeve tops. Thank goodness we brought layers! It was a pretty slow drive with the weather and having to drive through tons of road construction and Munich, so we arrived around 1:30pm and got checked into our hotel which is perfectly situated across from the main square. Within 20 minutes of being outside and beginning to walk around we both knew that we wanted to cancel ... read more
could you get any better than that
Well as they had predicted, we woke up this morning to snow on the mountain tops and a good 25 degree drop in temperature….brrrr. We are so grateful that we had visited the Eagle’s Nest the day prior because it was indeed closed. Snow in the mountains meant rain down below and our streak of excellent weather has ended. It poured rain most of the morning with intermittent showers the rest of the day. We spent the day driving and exploring the Berchtesgaden National park and stopped at a few very cute towns. The drive was picturesque with snow now capping the mountains and Matt forced me to do my Sound of Music twirl, which OK was fun, yet cold. The highlight of the day was a short boat cruise up the Konigsee Lake. It was ... read more
Hotel Zum Turken
We slept in a bit this morning so that we could hit the Steigl brewery on the way out of Salzburg. They opened at 10am, and we were there eager and waiting. It was a very nice place with outdoor seating, a museum (which we didn’t go through) and a gift shop which we dropped $100 at in souvenirs (what can we say…we love zee beer!). You know the saying ‘When in Rome?’ well…when in Germany, do as the Germans do and drink beer at 10:30am!! Hahaha! After we purchased our souvenirs, we had to sit and enjoy their outside area and partake. Matt of course had the Weisse (wheat beer), and I tried their grapefruit radler which was oh so yummy! Berchtesgaden, Germany is only 30 min from Salzburg, but within 10 min of leaving ... read more
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“with the Sound of Music!” that’s right, we studied up by watching the movie before we left again to brush up, and this morning climbed on a big bus to take the Sound of Music tour. It was a totally great time! Our tour guide was fantastic; he was an older gentlemen with such perfect English. He had this radio broadcaster type of voice to him, and a laugh that makes you laugh every time he does. He actually lived in Boston for 10 years, so this is why his English was probably so great. He was witty and funny, and made sure that we all had a good time. Within Salzburg we got to see the mansion that was used as the back of the house adjacent to the lake (the house was actually ... read more
Salzburg
So sadly I lost the battle with fighting off the cold I felt like I could get the day before we left. I took my trusty Zicam’s and thought I had won Saturday/Sunday, but I knew last night that the battle was won. So I am very sniffley and sneezing like crazy, but I am not going to let it slow me down. We slept in a little bit (7:30) as we were originally going to go up the Zugpitze, which is the highest peak in the German Alps. We drove to where you catch the cable car up last night on the way to the hotel to check it out. Ultimately we decided not to do it. It would’ve been almost $150 to go up which takes 45 min each way, and the mountains do ... read more
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We woke up bright and early to begin our castle tours, starting with Hohenschwangau which was where King Ludwig II grew up and watched the construction of his new home, Neuschwanstein. Hohenschwangau was really neat, lots of great murals/paintings. Next was Neuschwanstein, which is the castle that Disney’s Sleeping Beauty’s castle is modeled after. King Ludwig II unfortunately only lived in the castle for 172 days. He was arrested in the castle, and declared “unfit to rule” (insane) and 1 day later was found dead next to a lake outside of Munich. To this day the circumstances of his death remain a mystery. The interior was only 30% completed, and construction stopped immediately upon his death. Within 6 weeks, people were already paying to tour it. Our Rick Steve’s book made this tour seem lackluster in ... read more
Work sets you free
Outside of bathroom lights that would automatically shut off for no apparent reason (resulting in me being in the dark for the latter part of my shower), the bed at the Movenpick was glorious and we started our morning with their breakfast buffet that they feature on weekends. Matt loaded up on his usual Euro favorite yogurt and fruit, while I went straight for the moment I always wait for….that first sip of coffee. I don’t care what country you are visiting in the EU, there is a distinct and wonderful taste to their coffee and I love how familiar it always seems to taste, like I had it yesterday. I also had to have one of my favorites – a baguette with butter, ham, and havarti cheese (it just tastes like Paris). We hit ... read more
St. Basil's
We began our latest adventure by flying a Russian airline called Aeroflot out of JFK. If any of you have seen the recent PanAM TV show commercials, the flight attendants wore outfits just like that except bright orange. Their uniforms featured matching high heels, scarves, and cute little hats bobby pinned to their heads. Very 1960’s! We arrived in Moscow around 1pm their time, which was about 30mins later than planned as we ended up sitting on the tarmac in JFK for 1.5hrs waiting to take off. We made it through Passport Control with no problems at all and met up with our guide for the day, Irina. She & I had an instant bond as she pronounced her name just like mine, but just with an “a” tagged on the end of it. Irina is ... read more
Photo 3
Day 7 - Saturday Estoy Enferma…meaning I am sick. Guess I get a little too worried about Matt’s hydration levels that I sort of forgot about myself. I woke up this morning around 5:30am with the worst headache I’ve ever had and the most dehydrated I’ve ever been. I downed some aspirin, drank an entire bottle of water, and went back to sleep. But to no avail….My headache didn’t go away, I was sure I had a fever as I’ve been freezing all day, even in the blaring sun. I literally feel like the life has been sucked out of me, I have zero energy, zero appetite, and I am achy all over. I put my best foot forward to make the hike up to some local ruins called Sacsayhuman (or “sexy woman” as people like ... read more
