Everyone laying out in front of our chalet we are staying at. We had a Sunday "devotional" as we weren't up in time to go to church. The weather was perfect and was sunny and warm, but not too hot.

All loaded up in the car ready to go see some sites for the day.

We went to Hohewerfen Castle and they had a birds of prey demonstration which the kids and myself really liked.

Hohenwerfen Castle was pretty neat. Especially the arms display and the birds of prey demonstrations. The castle was used in the old film "Where Eagles Dare" which we watched before we came.

Ashley wasn't feeling too well, so only Brad, Megan, Ian, and Brecken went with me up to the castle, and Kindra, Ashley and Mitzi slept in the car in the shade in the parking lot. The kids really liked Hohenwerfern Castle.
6-6-10 Sunday
Late start. We were going to go to church, but got a pretty late start as I think everyone was pretty tired. While we were waiting, I laid out in the sun in one of the deck chairs they had. As we missed church we had a little devotional on the deck at the chalet. As it was almost 3pm by the time everyone was up, showered, had lunch, and ready to go, we decided to just go see something close by. We went to Hohewerfen Castle which is only about 10 minutes up the road. This is where the older WWII movie Where Eagles Dare was filmed. We had seen the movie before we went, and so it was neat to see where some of the scenes from the movie were filmed. When we got there Mitzi and Ashley weren’t feeling too good, so Kindra stayed in the car with them. I figured they’d all probably just have a good nap. When we first got to the castle, they had a falconry show and it was pretty cool. They brought out an owl, several falcons, a couple hawks, a couple eagles, and a couple vultures. One of the giant vultures landed right next to Ian and think scared him half to death. After the falconry show we went up to the main part of the castle and toured a display of old weapons. Brad especially loved this as he has a thing with swords, crossbows, and things like that. He asked to borrow my camera and I think took a picture of every sword, knife, and halberd in the display. As we got out, they were having a sword fight in the castle court. They had some stalls set up around the castle court, and in one of them they had a bow you could shoot. Ian hit the target (which was quite small) 2 out of the 3 shots he took. We had a bit to eat at the castle, then rode the lift back down to the parking lot and went back to the chalet for the night.

The kids before we left our place in Germany playing with the baby ducks and the kids in Germany.

All of us on top of the Zugspitz on the border between Germany and Austria.

At the bottom of the Zugspitz they had a playground and a trrack with these fun "cars" that you pedalled. The kids had fun racing on the track.

On our way to the place we were staying in Austria we found a place with an alpine slide and the kids wanted to go for a ride.

6-5-10 Saturday
Early easy ride, then drive to Zugspitz, then on to Austria. Woke up to again perfect weather with clear skies and went on a great easy ride. Got everything cleaned up and packed into the car and ready to move on to Austria. The people who’s farmhouse we were staying at, their kids brought out some baby ducks and Mitzi had a great time with the baby ducks. Finally with the weather good and heading to Austria we decided to do the Zugspitz on our way. The Zugspits is the highest mountain in Germany and is right on the German/Austrian border. You can go up one way from Germany or the other way from Austria. Although I was planning on going up the German way, we ended up on the Austrian side, so we took the tram up to the top. It wisks you from the valley floor up to the top of the mountain in about 10 minutes. It’s pretty vertical and an amazing ride. When we got to the top everyone was hungry so we had lunch at their panoramic restaurant at the top. It looks out over a glacier that looks like they were still skiing on. The observation deck looks down on the valleys in Germany and Austria, has an amazing view of a lake, and then is surrounded by the Alps. It really wasn’t as cold as I thought it would be at the top, although there was still tons of snow. The Austrian side at the top seemed very organized and formal, then as I went over to where the German side was, there were a bunch of tables, and everyone was drinking beer, and eating pretzels and sausages. Brecken I guess is a little scared of heights and the ride up and on top she was a little freaked out. There were some gliders flying around and the views of the Alps were amazing. After the ride back down there was a little playground with a track with little pedal cars and trikes. The kids had fun racing around the track. Then it was on to Austria to try and find where we were staying. So far things have gone very smoothly except for the technology end of things, and I thought I was pretty prepared for that. My phone hasn’t worked, and we haven’t had any internet. I’ve been able to hit 2 internet cafes to check my emails. The place we were staying at in Austria had sent a couple emails. One with a map, and the other with her phone number and asked us to call when we were getting close and they’d meet us in town and take us up to the chalet we were staying at. I hadn’t written her number down, and as we were coming into Salzburg I decided to try and find an internet café to try and get her number to call her. I couldn’t find one, we grabbed a bite a McDonald’s and decided to just try and find the place thinking they might be there waiting for us. Surprisingly we found the place just from my memory of the map, and the pictures we had of the place from the internet. I say surprisingly, because it is actually about a ¼ mile up a very steep dirt road off the main road. I think we had a little help from upstairs finding the place, as it was getting later. The keys were under the front mat. The chalet we are staying at is pretty amazing. It has some old doors on the inside that are from the middle ages with hand formed hinges. One of them is painted, you can tell it’s extremely old, and has the date 1627 painted on it. Although the chalet itself is probably fairly old, it’s had a lot of updating and the insides are very nicely updated and comfortable.
Hello, or Hallo in german from Kindra, I have done better here than I thought I would. In fact people must think I am german because I have had 2 people come up to me and ask me directions – in german! I had to say “I sprechen sie English” and then they smiled and said something in german and walked off. I think these people have never seen one couple with so many kids! We get a lot of looks and counting- J. I have thoroughly enjoyed this trip , even the teenagers,

Beautiful ride. It was actually very sunny most of the ride. The roads were fantastic. I rode to Austria and back. Great ride.

The kids really enjoyed the swings, teeter-totter, and goats at the place we were staying in Southern Germany.

We really enjoyed staying at the place we did in Southern Germany.

Brecken, Ian, and I ate at the famous Hoffbrauhaus, while the rest ate at the Hard Rock Cafe across the street. I'm glad we choose the Hoffbauhaus. The food was great, and the atmosphere was all Germany.

The stein in this window was almost as tall as Ian.

6-4-10 Friday
Great Ride, finally sunny & Munich. Went on a great ride this morning. It was finally sunny. I rode to Austria and back. It was only just under 40 miles total and took a little more than 2 hours. There isn’t much flat road around here, and it’s hard starting the ride, as you coast down the hill, don’t get a chance to warm up at all, and have to climb up about a 10% grade for about ¼ mile. I had to stop and keep taking pictures as it was so beautiful. I feel like I’ve died and gone to cycling heaven. No stop lights, very little traffic, beautiful scenery, and no big trucks that red-necks gun as they blow past you with 6” to spare. Every day I try and take a different route, and stumble across some little village a cluster of chalets, or a farmer taking his cows across the street.
The farmhouse we are staying at has a swing set, and teeter toter in front and the kids were playing as we waiting to leave. We’ve kind of settled into a bit of a routine. Typically I got for a ride in the morning, when I get back, hopefully some of the kids have had showers and are getting ready. We finally leave the house about noon if we are lucky. But I find that after going out for a few hours to see things they kids have had about all they can take for the day, so we head home for dinner. Today we went to Munich. It was a little over an hour’s drive, but then took a little while to find a place to park. It was pretty busy and felt like there were a ton of people there. I found this company that does free city tours in Munich, London, 3 different tours in Rome, Paris, and Amsterdam. We decided to give it a try. They make their money primarily on tips and then selling the other tours that they do. For instance they do a tour to Neuschwanstein castle. The tour we did had about 50 people total on it, although we made up 8 of that group. We told them we might not make it the full 3 hour tour. It was very interesting, and taking the tour gave us a lot of insight into the sights we were seeing and made them much more exciting. He told about how Hitler started his “revolution” in Munich, but then was arrested and sent to prison for treason. Seeing the sights and being told a lot more of the storey brought out a lot of the history. Towards the end of the tour the kids were getting really hungry, so at the Hofbrauhaus we decided to ditch the tour. Kindra didn’t like the idea of eating at the Hofbrauhaus as she thought it would just be a rowdy drinking hall with a bunch of drunks. Munich is kind of known for it’s drinking and partying. This wasn’t helped by the fact that a group of very drunk guys probably in their 20’s staggered in front of us and 2 of them basically passed out in front of us, and the rest of the group were just making fun of them. Kindra decided to go eat at the Hard Rock café across the street from the Hofbauhaus, and everyone decided to join her except for Brecken, Ian, and me. We went to the Hofbrauhaus, and I’m glad we did. True a lot of the people there were drinking, but there were also a lot of families, it was pretty noisy with lots of atmosphere, and the food we had was great. I had a pork knuckle with dumplings, Brecken had a kind of mushroom soup with mushroom dumplings, and Ian had a plate with different sausages on it, then we all had apple studel for dessert. There was a band playing, the food was great, and the atmosphere seemed very authentic. Lots of fun.

Although Mitzi's small, she's still pretty heavy to carry around when she falls asleep or wants to be held. Here Brecken's helping out by carrying her for a minute.

Neuschwanstein is the famous castle of southern Germany, but Fussen, only about 5 miles from Neuschwansein has a castle as well that has great views of the city, and an art collection. It's pretty interesting seeing some of the art from the middle ages.

On the outside of Fussen castle, it was painted with some pretty cool designs and pictures, as well as this clock.

In Fussen, they had these fountains that were on top of the large rock columns, then the tops would spin as the water came out. The kids really liked it.

Although I'm not in very many pictures, as I'm usually the one taking the pictures, Brad took one of me on the bridge overlooking Neuschwanstein Castle.

6-3-10
Neuschwanstein Castle & Fussen. I went for about a two hour ride this morning in the rain, despite what I said yesterday about riding in the rain. I wanted to get my ride in, as I hadn’t the last couple of mornings. It was really coming down at times. I was totally soaked. I felt like I was riding my bike through a cold a lake.
We went and saw the town of Fussen first. It has it’s own castle and a lot of the rooms had been furnished with art work from the middle ages. Some of it was really cool, some was a bit odd, and some was downright weird. There was one picture that was supposed to depict when King Herod had the babies killed, trying to kill off the new “king”. It had a bunch of plump, very alive looking babies on the end of swords with blood gushing out. Pretty gory. We then walked along the castle walls overlooking the city. Everyone was pretty hungry and most of the stores weren’t open. Apparently today was some type of holiday. There was a store open that sold these ball type things that were like strands of dough formed into a ball, then fried. Some of them had coatings like chocolate or powdered sugar, and some of them had some filling as well. They were OK, but not great. Different than anything I had tried before. We then hiked up to Neuschwanstein Castle. It’s about a ½ hour hike. The stroller we bought for Mitzi was perfect, and has been great going over coble stones and hiking around towns with her in it. The hike was beautiful and the forests look fantastic with tall trees, ferns, very green and mossy. The hard part is taking Mitzi into castles like Neuschwanstein. Her attention doesn’t hold too long, and she has to be held almost the whole time. Neuschwanstein was pretty amazing. I find a lot of things they did back then amazing in that they didn’t have the power tools, computers, and other equipment we have today, yet they build these massive amazing castles up on the top of a hill. It probably had 4-6 floors. After the castle tour, Brad and I hiked up to the bridge that overlooks the castle while the others grabbed a bite to eat in the castle café.