South of the Border

Wow! Something Practical

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Seriously; who buys this crap? 650 Euro for these telephone handset covers? Who even uses that kind of telephone anymore? The Blackberry and IPhone cases were more reasonably priced at €328.

Where's Gail?

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When I returned from one of my timekilling walks I found the women down on the ground floor gathered around another display of sales items. Gail looked a bit green and hurriedly handed me her basket of goods and the credit card. She told me to pay for the stuff while she ran outside. She was about to get sick.

Somebody Else Isn't Feeling Too Good

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After paying for her precious gems I found Gail outside the store. She told me she still felt lousy. I showed her the way to the Toilette and went with the Moms to wait for her outside Swarovski's. While we stood around on the pedestrian street a street performer statue person prepared to start her gig. Part of the act was humiliating her poor little dog.

Don't Ask Me What It Says

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Like I said, I had to repeat German III and barely squeaked by. Something about "Bottle and Pipes for farmers and gentlemen, somebody likes them and everybody has pleasure". It loses something in my translation. Anyway, after entertaining ourselves for about 15 minutes watching the Korean delegation invade Swarovski's, Gail reappeared a little worse for wear. She felt better but still not great. She seemed to improve as the afternoon went on.

In My Special World

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Gail has her Swarovski's here in Innsbruck. I have The Drinks Factory. After every trip to the jewelry giant we make a much quicker stop here to sample the scores of Schnapps available. I always end up buying the same thing - milk chocolate liquer. But now the store is under new management and with many new flavors. I picked out a medium sized glass bottle and this nice lady filled it with Tiroler Schokolade.

Just a Memory Now

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Beer and Schnapps; I was ready to go home happy. No, I did not get the naked lady bottle. Unfortunately, we lost track of this purchase and when we left Munich security found the bottle in our carrier-on bag. €10 down the Toilette. Just like Gail's breakfast.

One for the Road?

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This giant strudel was tempting but I had plans for a big dinner at the kitschy Werdenfelsner Hof in Garmisch. We might even meet up with our new British-Spanish friends there. First we had to make our way to the Royal Castles near Fussen for the obligatory new car under Neuschwanstein photos.

Yay! More Shopping

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Gail must've been feeling a lot better because she spotted this tacky hippie shop where she felt a need to go in to explore. We got out without suffering too much damage and before long we were back in the car headed for the Fernpass. The garage lot was a bit of a challenge because we had to look all over to find a machine that scanned our parking ticket than validated it after we plunked in a few coins.

Clearing Skies Over the Alps

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Just in case the folks shipping our car home or our dealership decides to "do us a favor" and clean up our car's windshield, we decided to get a photo of our Munich driving sticker and the Austrian highway vignette while they're still there. As we headed West on the A12 I finally got a chance to wind the car up to 100 while the womenfolk dozed. I still got passed repeatedly.

Beautiful Weekend Weather is Coming

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As we started to wind our way through the B189/B179 two laned road toward the Fernpass and then Fussen, blue skies appeared and car after car after car with rooftop ski carriers came from the opposite direction as half of Holland and Northern Germany seemed to be on their way to ski resorts in the area. No wonder. Look at the depth of the snow here in the valley.

Back in Germany

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Even though the sun was shining we could see daylight was waning. I would've liked to stop a number of times along our route toward Fussen just to take pictures, but I needed to get to Neuschwanstein before dark. It was right about this time that the GPS started getting squirelly. From this point forward we started to get some wacky directions: telling us to turn after we passed a street or telling us to turn where there was no road. Maybe there were sunspots effecting the satellites.

Sankt Kolman Church

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We reached the big meadow that spreads out beneath Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau with some sun still on the horizon. We pulled into the deserted parking lot of this tiny church just as we had many other times before.

Just a Tad Too Far Away

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The following photos were taken from this vantage point, but it turns out that the "official" spot for taking pictures of one's Beemer and Neuschwanstein was farther up the road. This and the fact that I didn't follow the 12 Hour Compliance Rule of posting our Welt delivery photo the night before means I'm a pariah at Bimmerfest forums.

That's It. That Little Speck in the Distance

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I would've sworn the castles were a lot closer than they appear in these pictures. To the naked eye they're at least visible.

Maybe Zooming In Isn't Such a Great Idea

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What are they doing to our favorite castle? Better that they do this during the off-season than in the peak tourist days of Summer but it certainly doesn't make for a pretty picture. Most everywhere we've visited in Europe the churches seem to be in a continual state of repair. There isn't a cathedral that doesn't have scaffolding on at least one side. What was happening here was not a shock and probably very necessary.

A Far Different Scene in the Summer

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Under that snow there's a summer Rodelbahn, or dryland toboggan run. In the warmer moths there's usually a couple of hang gliders and hot air balloons overhead, but I like this scene better. We stayed in that parking lot for at least 15 minutes snapping away with our cameras and nobody bothered us.

The Money Shot

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I tramped through 2 feet of snow to get this perspective lined-up for my BMW European Delivery shot only to find out now that I was in the wrong spot. It's still a keeper as far as I'm concerned.

No Wonder You're Sick Young Lady

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It really wasn't too cold when we first pulled off the road for our prolonged photo shoot. But as the sun set over the mountains there was a decided chill in the air. By nightfall the temperatures had plummeted below 20 degrees.