Romania!

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We made it to Romania! It took us 28 hours to get here, although we took a "slight" detour to Bavaria in southern Germany to visit Neuschwanstein, the legendary castle of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", built by Ludwig II, King of Bavaria. It was an amazing building, inside and out, although we could not take pictures of the inside. The whole thing cost 3.7 million marks, which was back in 1860! The mark used to be higher currency than the dollar, but I don't know about now. The castle on the inside is only one third finished as the king went bankrupt, and died under mysterious circumstances.

From there we drove into Austria and camped along the freeway close to Vienna. It was a very noisy night. The next day we started driving at 6:30 in the morning and went till 8 at night with about an hour break. We made it through Hungary and into Romania. We had a fantastic campground, a great meal of German meat and potatoes and then slept in on Saturday morning, although that meant 8 o clock. 7-o-clock, really, as we'd moved the clock ahead an hour. So then we drove through the Romanian countryside for another three hours and made it here. The houses are very varied; from very poor to beautiful. A huge gap between rich and poor. Most of the farm equipment we saw was horse and wagons; one farmer was spreading manure with a pitch fork from a horse drawn cart as a nuclear reactor loomed in the background. Anyway, I'll write more soon; it's late and we're heading to bed! Love you all!

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Photos

Schloss Hohenschwanstein
The little castle of Ludwig's parents.

By the castle
This castle cost $3.7 million marks, in the eighteen hundreds. No wonder the king went broke!

Beautiful Bavaria
One of the most gorgeous places I've ever been! Every blade of grass is mowed and manicured to perfection. Definitely worth a visit!

Schloss Neuschwanstein
The amazing castle built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria in the 1800's.

The Fountain
The kids posing by the fountain at the castle.

Buying Shoes
Bethany forgot her good shoes at school, so she came to Europe in raggedy-ann shoes with a huge hole. We finally found some (affordable) shoes, not $120 or up, in Bavaria on this little street. The bread in Germany is amazing!