Golden Halls and Ivy Walls

Last weekend (May 10-11) we traveled down to Augsburg Germany, which is the 3rd largest city in Bavaria. We checked into our hotel and ventured out to meet up with friends at the Volksfest. We discovered that Augsburg is a much more modern city than most of the other ones we've visited so far. The weather was a little dreary to be at a festival, but we made the most of it by drinking on the carousel bar and riding the rides.

One of the entrances to the Volksfest

Sunday morning we woke up and walked around the city. We took a tour of City Hall and the restored Golden Hall. The town hall was built between 1615 and 1620 and is the landmark of the city.

We then walked to The Fuggerei, which is the oldest social settlement in the world. Jakob Fugger founded the Fuggerei in 1521 as a social settlement for needy Catholic citizens of Augsburg. The Fuggerei is a city within a city, having its own church, city walls and city gates.The most prominent resident was the master builder Franz Mozart, the great-grandfather of the composer Wolfgang Mozart.

Residents still live in the Fuggerei; a committee decides what new residents to admit. Residents still pay the nominal annual rent of one Rhine guilder (currently 0.88 euros) plus their utilities. Talk about rent control!

Shortly after World War II began, an air-raid shelter was built in the Fuggerei. We were able to tour the bunker and view pictures and artifacts from the war.

Entrance to the air-raid bunker

Fun fact about the Fuggerei: Each apartment has its own unique doorbell shape because before the installation of streetlights, it allowed the residents to "feel" their way home.

Our GPS took us home on the Romantic Road, so as we drove along the winding roads, we had gorgeous views of picturesque German towns and farmland.

Our Adventure in Rothenburg

This past weekend we traveled 2 hours down the Autobahn to the medieval town of Rothenburg. Rothenburg was mostly unharmed during WWII, and because of the Black Death and poverty, the city never modernized and thus is still a "medieval" city.

Once we arrived, we checked into our cozy hotel.....what a view we had!

Because of the Easter season, the town was still decorated beautifully!

We took a tour of the German Christmas Museum. We learned a lot about the history of Christmas. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take any pictures, but we saw a lot of Christmas artifacts! Here are a few of the interesting facts we learned:

• Christmas trees had gold apples as decorations to symbolize the tree of life with Adam and Eve. They later were reduced to the simple form of a ball (ornament). 
• Mini trees made of wire with green paper or feathers dyed green were sent to German soldiers on the front line of the First World War.
• The appearance of Father Christmas was decisively influenced by Moritz von Schwind's drawing of "Mr. Winter" from the "Marriage of Figaro" cycle in 1825.

At dusk, we took the Night Watchman Tour. A costumed man shared the history of Rothenburg with us while walking us around the city. We learned that some of the descendants of people who lived in the city several hundred years ago still live in the same houses they lived in!

The next day we went to the Crime Museum. We learned all about life in medieval times, including crimes and punishment. People were punished for all types of crime: theft, adultery, witchcraft.....even baking bad bread. That's right, because bread was such an important food back then, the baker would be tortured for making the bread too small by being repeatedly dunked in the river!

Shame Flute: Worn around the neck by musicians who played bad music

Shame Mask: Worn by gossipers who had big ears and big mouths

Medieval Drunk Tank: Worn by the local drunks after a night of partying

Before we left, we made sure we tried some Schneeball (snowball), which is a popular Rothenburg pastry that comes in a variety of flavors.

From Deployment to Deutschland

After 231 days in Afghanistan, Chris is finally home in Germany! On Monday, April 7, Chris flew home, and after a brief redeployment ceremony, we were reunited. Chris deployed after only 2 months of marriage, so we are very happy to go back to being newlyweds!

After the ceremony, we drove home, and Chris got to see all of our furniture and household items. The movers came and picked up all of our household goods in Louisiana before Chris got a chance to see all of our wedding gifts. So he was definitely excited to see all of the wonderful gifts we received.

After a few days of getting settled in, we went out to dinner with friends of ours and celebrated Chris' return. Nothing says "Welcome Home" like a nice, cold German beer.

We look forward to traveling a lot this summer. Germany (and the rest of Europe) is so beautiful in the summertime! We plan on going to many beer fests, as well as, visiting Prague, Berlin, Munich and many more cities. We will keep everyone posted on all of our European adventures!

Castles and Campfires

Chris had 4 days off this past weekend, so we decided to travel to Schwangau and tour Neuschwanstein Castle as well as travel to Garmisch for a few nights of camping with friends.

So we drove for the first time on the Autobahn. And by drive, I mean I was clutching the handlebar in the car so hard my knuckles were turning white! Driving at 150 kph on winding roads made me a little anxious. I felt like we were playing Mario Kart....I was just waiting for the bananas to appear in the road!

Eventually we made it to our hotel, the Villa Ludwig Suite Hotel. The hotel was phenomenal. Our balcony looked out to Neuschwanstein Castle. Now that's a view to wake up to!

We had a very romantic room, that not only had a view of the castle but of the stars too!

Thursday night we had dinner in the nearby town of Fussen. We ate at Gastof Krone, which was a medieval restaurant. They even gave us fancy "napkins" to wear around our necks.

Friday, we visited Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau castles. It rained all day and the fog was covering all of the spectacular views, but that didn't stop the thousands of tourists from around the world. Both castles were owned by Ludwig II's family. The castles were just used as summer homes for the family. Despite the rain, we really enjoyed exploring such an iconic castle.

The next day we woke up to gorgeous weather. So we quickly retraced all of our steps before we had to leave. We went back to both castles to see the sights.

We hiked down a path to see the Pollatschlucht (the Pollat Gorge).

Then we hiked up to see the view of Neuschwanstein Castle from Marienbrucke (Mary's Bridge). This was the most amazing view of the castle!

We then drove to Garmisch (which is about an hour away) to camp with some friends of ours. Garmisch is at the base of the Bavarian Alps and only a few miles from the Austrian border. We camped on the grounds of the Edelweiss Lodge and Resort. Edelweiss is a resort available exclusively for military families.

We traveled to the site of the 1936 Winter Olympics. We then hiked to the nearby Partnach Gorge. We had some amazing views!

On Sunday, we started the day with a champagne brunch at the resort. We may have been "camping", but you wouldn't know it from our meal. We had bananas foster french toast, prime rib, strawberry shortcake parfait, unlimited mimosas and much more! After brunch, we visited the Eibsee, which is a beautiful lake located at the base of the Zugspitze (the highest mountain in Germany). We rented a paddleboat with a slide on top and paddled around the lake. The water was really cold, but we had to go swimming!

Regensburg Adventure

Last Saturday, we traveled to Regensburg. We heard that this town has the "best" bratwurst, according to locals. The restaurant served just bratwurst. The waitress literally asked us when she walked up "6, 8, 10 or 12?" The restaurant is located right next to the Steinerne Brucke (Stone Bridge). The restaurant was originally used for bookkeeping when the bridge was being built and all the day laborers had to be paid. The stone bridge was built in the 12th century and amazed citizens because they didn't believe a bridge could be made of stone.

It was so hot outside (which is unusual for Germany), so we did a little shopping in the air-conditioned store....which is rare for a German store to have. We can be half-way around the world, but look what we found!

We took a guided tour of the Old Town Hall. The most interesting part of the tour was when they took us down to the dungeon where the torture chambers are held. When citizens were accused of crimes in those days, they must admit their guilt. So to do so, they would torture the criminal until they admitted that they committed the crime. They told us that the pain was so great, even an innocent man would eventually admit his "guilt."