Blogs from Bavaria, Germany, Europe - page 248

Phuong and I took an incredible bike tour of Munich that included a glimpse of the Englischer Garten, complete with a stop at the Chinese Beer Garden (which Phuong loved to see!). The English Garden was beautiful. There were bikers, walkers, roller bladers, and lots of people had their dogs with them. Actually, there are dogs all over the city, and, often, people have their dogs "stay" outside of buildings while they run in for errands. So as you walk along the city streets, lots of dogs will be hanging out outside of grocery stores and such, waiting for their masters to come back. Phuong is now determined to teach Bebe such tricks. Anyway, back to the English Garden! We biked along the Isar River, and flower petals from the trees rained down on us. ... read more

It was with much sadness that I woke up at 7:00 this morning. I really didn’t want to leave this part of Germany. The Berchtesgaden area has always been my favorite area but after our brief two day stay this year, the Oberammergau area really climbed in my estimation. There was so much I really wanted to see and there was no way we were going to be able to do it all. I wanted to spend time in Downtown Oberammergau, tour Linderhof and Neuschwanstein, shop around in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, go inside the Wieskirche (yes, visit another church), stand in front of the webcam in Füssen and visit Bavaria Ben’s favorite candy shop somewhere in downtown Füssen, check out the historic town of Kempten, drive up the Romantic Road, and go inside the Abbey in Ettal which ... read more

Hi everybody. I’m in a peaceful little corner of Bavaria near Augsburg, enjoying the hospitality of Herr Biggs and Frau Eva, typing here on a keyboard with the Y and Z in the right place while Jonny peruses a former GDR property magazine, wondering which 12,000 euro castle would make the better investment. True to recent travel form my last couple of weeks has been an enjoyable high-speed blur, but I’ll attempt to recap. The random turn in the trip had me arriving in a cold, grey Munich with a fresh suntan. I’d had some second thoughts about my hasty decision to fast-track to central Europe, but have not regretted the move at all. The two nights in Munich was a great introduction. I joined up with an American from the hostel and stumbled across a ... read more

Happy Birthday Gail! Getting out of bed we found it a bit nippy in the room. Steaming hot showers and donning our warmest clothes took the chill off. We trotted down to Frühstück at 8:15. Once again we were treated to an awesome German breakfast buffet. I was a bit disappointed in not getting soft-boiled eggs, but I filled up quite nicely with hard rolls topped with salami, ham, and cheese. The girls concentrated on the cereal, yogurt and bread with jelly or honey. We washed it all down with orange juice and farm fresh milk. With it being Gail’s birthday she was in charge of our itinerary for the day. We had already booked the sleigh ride so as soon as we finished eating we found Herr Schmid. He hopped in the hotel van and ... read more

Our kind tour group leader, me, let us sleep in a bit today. We went down for breakfast at 8:00. I still wondered if breakfast was indeed included. This hotel seemed too plush to throw in a free breakfast. On a trip to Ireland a few years back, the kids and I assumed breakfast was included but after having our fill off bacon, sausage, omelettes and orange juice, we were given a hefty bill. But Gail checked one more time with the front desk and Frühstück was indeed included. In the huge breakfast area we were greeted by a young hostess who asked in perfect English if we wanted coffee. My traveling mates seemed stumped by the question so I asked if they had hot chocolate. The girl said they did and suddenly the rest of ... read more