Europe Trip - DAY NINE

More Romantic Road
{Harsburg, Germany}
Harsburg Castle
{Nordlingen, Germany}Remember the scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory where they are flying above the town after bursting through the glass elevator? Well, this is the town that's in the movie!
this is how you drive in to these little towns
{Dinkelsbuhl, Germany}very cute little town!
{Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany}This is another small town that still has all of its walls up that are surrounding it. It was kind of neat to see how they probably would have protected themselves from attacks and such. This town has a lot of charm and is very touristy....reminded us of Brugge in Belgium a little bit.
one of the walls
you can climb up and walk around the outer boundaries of the wall
view from up in the wall
this pic cracks me up....a bratwurst lunch!
prisoner area

{Wurzburg, Germany}Last stop on the romantic road!
Fortress Marienburg
{Ramstein Air Base, Germany}Our resting place for the evening. So nice to be able to park for FREE and get on the internet for FREE and only pay $37 for a room!

Europe Trip - DAY EIGHT

GERMANY
Most of our stops in Germany are along the Romantic Road. We chose this route because it takes us along the countryside of Germany. Being a country guy and gal at heart, we thought this would be ideal for us. We were sooo right! It's so beautiful out here with the winding roads and grassy hills and mountainsides of the Alps. A lot of the towns we go through along the route still have their gated and walled entrances that were used for protection back in the medieval times. Pretty neat stuff!

{Schwangua, Germany}
We spent a good amount of time here. This is where Mad King Ludwig II lived during his childhood and later he built a castle of his own here, the famous fairytale like castle, Neuschwanstein.

Hohenschwangau ~ childhood castle




Neuschwanstein castle





views from the castle
Mary's Bridge - where we were standing when we got our picture taken in front of the castle


After this we decided to divert from the romantic road and head up to Dachau, Germany where the first Nazi Concentration camp was.

{Dachau, Germany}
We got to the concentration camp with about 40 minutes until closing time. I know Derek would have loved to have spent more time there, but I also know he's grateful for the opportunity and time we did have to be there. Derek's grandfather was part of the brigade that was there to free the prisoners.
Freedom Through Work
gate into the camp

{Munich, Germany}
This was our resting place for the night. We actually had to drive back down south a little bit from Dachau. It was worth it to get Dachau in that night though....and allowed more time for us on the next days travels. Our hotel here used to be an apartment complex so our room was HUGE. Very nice!

Europe Trip - DAY SEVEN

{Interlaken, Switzerland}
Our Hotel

{Gimmelwald, Switzerland}
We had to take the gondola up to this quiet little farming town. Awesome views! We made the mistake of buying our tickets to Gimmelwald instead of Murren. We should have done it the other way around...Murren was a 50 minute walk UP the mountain
(on our map it looked like it was below). We gave it a go and I gave up when we were "just about there". That's Derek's opinion, anyway! Two long switchbacks was still a long ways away to me! It was just nice to stop and take in the fresh farm air and the unforgetable views.







{random Switzerland countryside}
These views are what made Switzerland our favorite country of all the places we've been so far!!
okay, maybe not this one

Europe Trip - DAY SIX

{Paris, France}
Paris definitely isn't as pretty during the day, in our opinion. It was still great to experience it and see all of the famous sights that are just about everywhere that you look! We were kind of rushed because we wanted to get to Switzerland so we didn't get to see everything that we wanted......but we saw enough to satisfy us (both good and bad, but I won't go in to any details!)

Notre Dame Cathedral

Louvre

Jardin de Luxembourg

{Interlaken, Switzerland}
What a drive! It took about 6.5 hours to get here from Paris and we drove through parts of the Alps with steep winding roads...at night. The hotel we stayed in, well, let's just say we slept with one eye open! It looked great from the pictures when we booked it, but it was super scary with sketchy people and connected to a hostel (good thing I never saw that movie!) It was really close to the city center, though, so we went out and enjoyed the city for our Thanksgiving evening with a feast of wiener schnitzel and pork burgers. We're so thankful to be alive :)
One of the MANY tunnels we've driven through all throughout Europe
City Center area of Interlaken
Our super scary hallway of the hotel