Exploring Dresden

Last weekend we traveled to Dresden for a long weekend. Dresden was one of the most heavily bombed cities during WWII. Since then, all of the important architecture has been rebuilt; the buildings here are some of the most beautiful ones we've seen so far in Europe.

The first thing we came across was a little French market set up in a market square. They were selling soaps, crepes and macaroons!

We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring many of the historic buildings in the altstadt (old town).

Kreuzkirche

Apparently in Germany the 4th Ninja Turtle is not Donatello, but actually Erwin von Steinbach!

Putting my toes in the Elbe River

Courtyard of the Zwinger

The Zwinger

Semperoper (Opera House) The birthplace of German opera

We finished our evening by attending the concert of the Dresdner Kreuzchor boys' choir. They are a world famous choir that performs at the Kreuzkirche. The acoustics of the church were phenomenal, which created a very powerful performance.

The next day we had beautiful weather, so I made sure to capture many pictures of all the gorgeous buildings.

Frauenkirche

A piece of the original church (before the bombing of 1945)

Procession of Princes (rulers of Saxony)

Hofkirche (the Catholic church)

We took a 90 minute cruise on the Elbe River. The Elbe is one of Europe's major rivers.

Vineyard on the banks of the Elbe

The "Blue Wonder" is the name the locals call the Loschwitz Bridge. The bridge was built in 1893; at the time, it was a wonder that a bridge this long could be supported without river piers. The "blue" in the name comes from the urban legend that the bridge was originally painted green but that the sun turned it blue over time. The bridge wasn't blown up during WWII because two locals cut the detonator wires to the explosives.

Blue Wonder

View of the city from the river

We enjoyed bratwurst sandwiches after the cruise with a fantastic view of the Elbe.

After lunch, we visited the Residenzschloss, which houses several museums. The most spectacular museum we saw was the Neues Grunes Gewolbe (New Green Vault) which contains the unique goldsmithery items made by court jeweller Dinglinger. Dinglinger created some of the finest Baroque jewelry art. The museum doesn't allow photography, but I found some pictures online of the most beautiful pieces.

We climbed the tower in the Residenzschloss to get a great view of the city.

Part of the clock mechanisms 

Chris enjoying the view

We spotted several hot air balloons taking off on the banks of the Elbe.

We finished our trip by visiting the Natural History Museum. It was a different perspective to see history from the German perspective. Most of the artifacts that were displayed originated in Europe.

Chris compared to a woolly mammoth 

Oktoberfest in Munich

This past weekend we decided to take a spur-of-the-moment trip down to Munich for Germany's most famous festival....Oktoberfest!

We left at 6:30 a.m. Saturday morning with MWR's bus trip to Munich. The weather was much chillier and gloomier than we would have liked, but we were determined to make the most of our experience.

Oktoberfest attracts more than 6 million people from all over the world for its 16 day festivities. There are 14 large tents, as well as many more "small" tents. The large tents are really more like buildings...some of them can hold 6-8,000 people! This year, visitors consumed 6.4 million liters of beer.

We arrived at the Oktoberfest grounds around 9:30 a.m., and the tents were already full! We did manage to find a seat at the outside courtyard of the Lowenbrau tent, We were lucky to sit down when we did, because shortly after there was a crowd that formed trying to get in to our courtyard.

The crowd trying to get in our courtyard

We sat next to a group of German high school boys, who provided much entertainment for us! They were very proud to teach us some traditional German drinking songs. Once a group starts singing a German folk song, the entire crowd joins in!

Chris with some of our new German friends!

We spent the entire morning and afternoon at the table in the courtyard....we knew if we got up it would be almost impossible to get a seat again. We ate one of our favorite German meals for lunch, pork shoulder and knodel.

We love the fact that we live in Bavaria, and we can make a day trip to one of the world's largest parties! Oktoberfest is now checked off of our European bucket list!

Family Trip to Eagle's Nest and Salzburg

This past weekend we drove down to Berchtesgaden and Salzburg for a mini vacation with Chris' parents and brother. It was a packed car ride, but we made it! After a typical German lunch at a Biergarten, we met up with our tour guide for an in-depth look at Hitler's Eagle's Nest and underground bunker.

We learned so many interesting Hitler facts on our tour. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Berchtesgaden was actually famous before Hitler made it infamous. It was a luxury destination for the rich and famous.
• Hitler wanted to be more German than the Germans (even though he was Austrian).
• Hitler built the German Army from 100,000 soldiers to 13 million soldiers.
• The Eagle's Nest was never mentioned in the German media, even though it was built using taxpayer money. If it had been built today, the Eagle's Nest would have cost $140 million to create.
• The Eagle's Nest was a 50th birthday present for Hitler. Hitler loved to drink tea, so they built him a tea room with a fantastic view.

Map of the extensive bunker

Graffiti from the day the French soldiers entered the bunker

An unfinished portion of the bunker

After the bunker, we took another bus up a very narrow and winding road leading up to the Eagle's Nest. The views were incredible!

The Eagle's nest sits at 6,017 feet above sea level, so the final ascent had us riding the original elevator up the last 106 feet. The elevator itself is pretty impressive. It's made of brass and can hold up to 46 people.

After the tour, we drove to Salzburg, Austria and checked into our hotel. After walking around looking for a good restaurant for dinner, we chose Istra Konoba. We were seated in the cellar and our waitress told us that they didn't have menus, we just had to pick how many courses we wanted. We ended up picking the mushroom pasta course and the main course (which was fish). We were all very surprised when the main course came out, and it was the entire bodies of the fish, head to tail!

Sunday morning we woke up and went out searching for locations used in the Sound of Music. Our first stop was Mirabell Gardens, where the final verse of "Do Re Mi" was filmed.

Next we wandered around the old town. It was such a beautiful day....the weather was perfect for sightseeing and picture taking.

I found a giant "pretzel" pastry at a market stand, so of course we had to try one!

We visited the cemetery that inspired the Sound of Music scene, when they are hiding from the Nazis.

It was a short, whirl-wind of a trip, but we all had a fantastic weekend!

Our Weekend Getaway to Berlin

This past weekend Chris and I traveled to Berlin for a little getaway trip. As the capital of Germany, Berlin is a perfect mix of history and modern, urban life. Upon arriving, we checked into our hotel and ventured out into the city. We took the U-bahn to the Jewish Museum, which was an extensive exhibit about the history of the Jewish people.

Jewish kippahs come in all kinds of designs...even Superman!

BIOS [torah] exhibit-  An industrial robot writes the torah

The robot imitates handwriting and writes at human speed

Fallen Leaves exhibit - 10,000 screaming metal faces. The clanking noise is startling when you walk on them

We spent the rest of the day wandering around the city. We saw several sections of the Berlin Wall, visited the Sony Center in the Potsdamer Platz (Berlin's mini Manhattan) and the Brandenburg Gate, and drank the Berliner Weisse (beer with a splash of flavored syrup).

We woke up early on Saturday morning and headed out for our free tour of Berlin. New Berlin Tours offers a free 2 1/2 hour tour of the city, which is a lot of history packed into a short amount of time! Above Hitler's bunker where he ended up committing suicide is now a parking lot. Besides a small sign, there is no other indication of this history-changing location.

Our tour guide told us about Johann Elser, who was one of many attempting to assassinate Hitler. Because of many bizarre circumstances, Hitler was able to avoid all of the attempts on his life. Elser planted a bomb in the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, where Hitler gave an annual speech. Unfortunately because of bad weather, Hitler unknowingly moved up his speech earlier in the day, which meant the bomb's timer went off 13 minutes too late.

Above Hitler's bunker

Memorial to Johann Elser

Bricks all around the city indicating where the Berlin Wall once stood

Gendarmenmarkt

We couldn't resist exploring a chocolate shop with enormous chocolate sculptures of Berlin's famous attractions.

Reichstag

Brandenburg Gate

There is a controversial Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe that is quite ambiguous and left up to the viewer to determine the meaning. Underneath the memorial, is a museum that tells a lot of personal stories about Jews during the Holocaust. One room is dedicated to each individual victim of the Holocaust. One name is projected onto the wall for a minute while a narrator tells their story. Our tour guide told us earlier in the day that each person's name only reappears on the wall once every 6 years. Ironically, Joseph Stalin is quoted with saying "one death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic."

One name of the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust

After dinner, we stumbled upon a mini fest. Germans find any excuse to drink, eat and party late into the night!

A few of the booths selling delicious treats!

On Sunday we explored the Deutsches Historisches Museum. The museum covers the beginning of German history through the 1990s, and everything in between. We spent a good portion of the day on World War I and World War II. We could have easily spent all day in the museum!

The "de-Germanizing"of American last names

The model of the Volkshalle (People's hall) Hitler planned to build