The girls had fund burying Ian in the sand on the Lida beach.

The water and sand were both great.

We found a park to let the kids play in on Venice.

Brad loved the springy things that he'd tip almost to the ground.

Brad and Ian were pretty good troopers while the girls shopped.
6-13-10 Sunday
Everyone was a little tired, so we slept in, then I went to the beach with everyone except Brad, Kindra, and Mitzi. As it was Sunday, the beach was extremely crowded. The girls buried Ian in the sand. I got burned a little on my back, as I was laying on my stomach reading my book.
We all went over to Venice proper late in the evening, not leaving to go over there until about 6-7pm. As we were going over there, I think 3 different cruise ships went past as they were leaving Venice. Most people get 1-2 days to visit Venice, similar to what Kindra and I did when we came here about 12 years ago. It will be nice to spend almost a whole week and be able to take some more of the vaporettos out to some of the outlying islands and wander around a little more. We got off at one of the first stops and started walking towards St. Mark’s Square. We got caught in a micro-burst wind storm that was blowing sand in our eyes, so we huddled around a corner in an alley for a few minutes. We decided to head back, but then it started dying down, so the kids played in a park. Brad got on one of those animal like things on top of springs that little kids rock back and forth on. He tilted it back and forth and side to side almost to the ground. It was pretty funny. We decided to head to the Rialto Bridge and then walk back to St. Mark’s Square. The girls especially loved all the mask shops. They stopped and bought several masks for themselves and some friends. Brad had to exercise patience while the girls stop in shops and look around. I think he’s also though enjoying seeing a lot of the sites. He keeps borrowing my camera and taking lots of pictures of things.

Lake Bled in Slovenia was beautiful, with the church on the island in the lake.

You ride across to the island on these boats rowed over by a guy stanind up in the back, kind of like a gondola in Venice.

Everyone at Lake Bled.

Finally made it to Venice.

Although Ian didn't seem too impressed on the ferry ride over to the Venice Lido where we were staying.
6-12-10 Saturday
Woke up early as we’ll have to hit the road today going to Venice. Got in 1 good hour at recovery/tempo pace, riding to/and around Filzmoos. I think I’ll miss riding in Germany and Austria, it’s been great.
Drove to Lake Bled, then to Venice. On the way down through Austria, we encountered a ton of traffic, and my GPS recommended I get off and take a side road to avoid the traffic. The GPS unit is updated with slow traffic and other reports and tries to find you the quickest way to your destination. It really took us off the beaten path. We were going up and down this one lane road in the middle of no where, and I was starting to get a little worried. The traffic and taking the detour added about 1 hour to our drive time. Lake Bled is in Slovenia, and you can tell when you cross the border. The architecture is much more bland. They don’t have as many nice chalets, and it’s more industrial looking. Slovenia was part of the old Soviet block. Lake Bled was pretty cool though and very beautiful. There is an island in the middle of the lake with a church on it. Right from the water there at about 90 stairs that lead up to the church. I had heard it’s traditional for new brides and grooms to go the island, and for the grooms to carry their brides up the stairs. They say that about 2/3 make it all the way up the stairs. I was hoping to see some new bridal parties, but we didn’t. We took a boat over to the island and then spent about a ½ hour walking around. On the shore there were lots of people swimming and laying out. The kids wanted to stay and swim, but it was about 4pm, and we had to drive the rest of the way to Venice, which I estimated at about 3 hours, then catch the ferry across to the Lido, then try and find where we are staying. We made it to the ferry and it was a little more expensive than I thought, at about $100 just to take us and the car across to the Lido. I was thinking of maybe taking the ferry back to the main-land to go to church on Sunday, and/or maybe a day trip to Verona, but at an estimated $200 round trip just to the main-land and back, I don’t think we’ll do that. We made it to the Lido. We found the place where we will be staying, and we were going to meet the guy who’s place we are staying at the home, but he wasn’t there. I was able to switch sim cards and contact him via phone and he came over in about 5-10 minutes. The place we’ll be staying at only has 1 bathroom, so it will be a little tougher. After we got the car all unpacked, we walked to the beach and took a little walk on the beach. It will be nice being that close to the beach.

Here's the girls at the Sound of Music gazebo, and to think, Brecken is 16 going on 17.

The kids really liked the fountains at Hellbrunn Palace.

The trick fountains got you wet if you weren't careful, but that was 1/2 the fun.

After the tour of the fountains, the kids played in the park.

One of Mitzi's favorite parts of the trip has been the parks.
6-11-10 Friday
Didn’t wake up until a little later, so didn’t have time to do full bike workout. Did hill intervals and was going to do 5 X 6 minutes, but only did 3 X 6 min at 327W, 328W, and 331W. Felt fairly easy and felt like I could have easily done 2-3 more.
Haven’t made it to Salzburg yet, so we went to Salzburg. We went to Hellbrun Palace that has the glass gazebo from the Sound of Music. Then we took the tour of the water fountains. The archbishop/duke who built the place put in all these water fountains that were hidden in his gardens. They would squirt the people he took there,when he would push various buttons and such throughout his garden. He loved to surprise his guests (and to think that this was all done way before electricity! ) We got a little wet and the kids had a great time with all the “trick” fountains. We drove through Salzburg and saw the castle on the hill, but didn’t really have time to stop and visit much more. Kindra and the kids were getting tired.
Went into town later in the evening with Kindra and walked through Bishopshoffen. Went to the internet café and was able to make a couple phone calls as well as check up on emails.

This was the view from the swimming pool we went to today. Pretty amazing.

The kids had so much fun yesterday they wanted to go swim again.
6-10-10 Thursday
Recovery Ride. Weather was perfect. Rode to Filzmoos and back twice. Filzmoos is a cute little ski resort town. They have a bakery there and riding by the bakery while I was hungry with the smell of fresh cooked bread was tormenting me.
I went to the internet café near the train station to update emails. They had Skype, but it is 4am or so back home, so I decided to come back tonight to follow up on emails and try and make a couple calls. Kids once again weren’t ready to go until about 2pm, and I didn’t get back from the internet café until about 1pm. The kids had so much fun yesterday swimming that they wanted to go swimming again today. We went back to where we rode the alpine slide that goes on rails and they swam there. The weather once again was great, but a little warm.
Went back to the internet café in the evening, which is also a Kebap shop. I had a Doner Kebap and went onto the internet. I tried to call my mom using Skype, and I could hear her, but she obviously couldn’t hear me. Again frustration.

Although very difficult, the climb up the Grossglockner was great.

Me on top of the Grossglockner Pass.

Still alot of snow for being in June. It would have been awsome to ride this about the first of May. I'll bet the snow banks would be 50' high.

I took the 5 oldest kids for the afternoon, while Kindra stayed at the chalet with Mitzi. We rode an alpine slide ride that runs on a rail. It was like 1.2 miles long. A lot of fun.

Then me and the kids stopped by this deep gorge.

Then we went swimming.
6-9-10 Wednesday
Great ride up the Grossglockner pass. Weather was perfect. Sunny and cool climbing. That was one epic ride. It was very steep right from the start and never leveled out much. The upper section had a little respite in the curves, but for a 1:45 climb that gained about 5500’ in about 11 miles, my average rpms were only 65, and that is with a granny gear of 39 X 31. I wished a lot of the climb that I either had a compact crank or a triple, as a lot of the time my rpm’s were under 60. It felt like the longest tension interval I had ever done. The descent was fun, except that it was so steep and had so many curves my arms were starting to ache from squeezing by my brakes so much. I was starting to get worried I’d totally melt my brakes and not be able to stop.
Mitzi has had a bit of a fever and hasn’t been feeling too well, so she stayed at the chalet with Kindra, and I took the other kids up to a place to ride an alpine slide type ride, but it rides on a rail. It was quite long as it was about 2km (1.2 miles) long. The kids really liked it. We did the ride a couple of times, and had ice cream up at the top and a little terraced restaurant that overlooked the valley. Then we stopped by this really cool gorge. It is extremely narrow with this river at the bottom and you walk along these stairs and wooden walkways. The water is this cool aqua green color. At points the gorge was only a few feet wide, by probably 50’-80’ deep with the river swirling at the bottom. Then we went swimming. It was very sunny and warm. It’s hard to imagine that only about a week ago I was riding my bike in the morning and the temperature was only 41 degrees. Today it felt like it was about 90, although it was probably a little cooler than that, but the humidity makes it feel pretty hot.
Went into a nearby town to try and get internet hookup or use an internet café. Connected my Wi-Fi card and briefly connected to a network and got internet but it was extremely slow. Tried to get a better hookup and lost it. Drove around trying to find another network I could hook into. Finally stopped at a sports café and asked if they knew where an internet café was. He showed me where one was near the train station, but when I got there, they were just closing. I’ll have to come back tomorrow morning. It’s extremely frustrating not having immediate internet.

This morning's bike ride was awsome. Pretty steep in places though for me trying to do a recovery ride.

This was the view at the top of the climb on my bike.

Today we went to Hallstatt, Austria which was one of the high points of the trip so far. It's a beautiful little old town right on the lake.

Mitzi has liked paying at the parks we find.

We rented a boat and rowed around the town. The views change out on the water and you can see even more of the town.

At the town church is a cemetary, and when they ran out of room, they would dig up the remains after a certain number of years, gather the bones together, then paint the skulls with the names and dates on the skulls. Pretty interesting.

6-8-10 Tuesday
I was going to do a recovery ride today, but it’s kind of difficult doing a true recovery ride here, as there are no flat areas to ride. I picked a canyon to ride up from a little town. It felt like riding up the upper part of Bald Mountain Pass and ended at a ski resort. I think I got passed by 2 cars the whole ride. At one part towards the very top I passed a sign that said 12% grade, and I was trying to keep my heart rate and power low as I was supposed to be doing an easier ride. I was doing 275W, and going 5.0 mph, and my cadence was 50 rpms. Pretty steep stuff to try and do a recovery ride on, but the ride was fantastic, the temperature was perfect (about 60 degrees), and as usual the scenery was great.
After threatening them with their lives yesterday if they didn’t get ready sooner, we actually left the chalet today by 11am. Pretty impressive as we only have 2 showers, nobody really does much until I get back from my ride, and every has breakfast/lunch before we go. Today we went to Hallstatt. I had seen pictures of Hallstatt and it looked pretty amazing. In fact, I have a picture of Hallstatt as my desktop on my computer at my office I thought it was so pretty. We had also got a picture/puzzle of Hallstatt and put it together a few months ago. It didn’t disappoint. It’s a pretty enchanting/amazing place. It’s build right onto the lake and very steep with the village going almost straight up. There are 2 churches and a couple dozen homes/gausthauses. We found a sign at a hotel that said internet so we went in and they let me use their internet to again catch up on emails. I’m really disappointed that we don’t have internet here where we are staying. There is an internet connection, but I can’t pull up the internet when I plug in. I also bought a wireless card to be used around WiFi zones, but can’t pull up a wifi connection either. I was hoping to check and respond to emails each night, use Skype to call the office and others at home, check the weather each day as well as the sites we were planning on visiting the next day, etc. That’s probably been the biggest frustration of the trip so far, especially because I thought I had it all covered ahead of time. After the kids going for ice-cream cones while I caught up on emails, we walked around the town a little bit, and got doner kebaps and sausage sandwiches for lunch. Then as they we family was sitting near the lake and playing, I went and rented a row boat. They didn’t have any of the pedal boats, or I probably would have got one of those. I surprised them as I rowed into view. I took everyone out in turns on the row boat. I’m glad we got the boat, as the views from the lake are even better as you can view the town from a bit of a distance. After the boat Mitzi wasn’t feeling well (she had a bit of a fever), so Kindra and a couple of the kids went up to the car, while Megan, Bradley and I went to check out the old church up on the hill. They had a really cool cemetery around the church and a church-house where they stored bones and skulls that had been dug up, dried out, and painted. A little flyer they had indicated that due to limitation of size in the small grave-yard, that after about 10-20 years the skeletons were dug up, and because flowers and other pretty things were used to decorate the graves, flowers and other things were painted on the skulls along with the names and dates. We drove home and had a great dinner of caprese salad (tomatoes with mozzarella cheese and basil and olive oil), soup, and rolls. After that I’ve spent about an hour catching up this journal/blog for the last couple of days. I’m now 100% caught up. Whew!

We went to the Nazi Documentation that told all about Hitler's rise to power, what the Nazi's did, the key figures in the Nazi party, and saw the bunkers they had built at Hitler's "Eagles Nest" at Burchtesgaden. It was pretty sad.

After the Nazi Documentation we went on a walk through the pretty forests of the area.

Then we had a treat on at a restaurant that overlooked the whole area. Brecken's was huge.

We had a great family dinner.

6-7-10 Monday
Hill intervals, went to go to Eagle’s Nest, but ended up just doing the documentation tour on Berchtesgaden, Hitler, and WWII. This morning I did hill intervals. One nice thing is that although we are about 12 days into our trip, I’ve actually been able to lose a little bit of weight. Not much, but I’m down around 178, which is about 8 pounds less than I was about 3 weeks ago. I’d like to get down under 170 by the time we hit the French Alps in about 4 weeks, and then stay there the rest of the trip. One of my cycling goals for the year is to have a descent time up Alp d’Huez, and I can’t do that if I’m too heavy. The other key is to get in some good workouts and build up my climbing strength. Part of that is done by doing hill intervals which aren’t particularly fun, but do make you stronger. I rode to Filzmoos which is a small ski town about 8 miles from here, then did intervals up the hill just past the town. The grade and scenery are kind of like the upper part of Big Cottonwood canyon.
We still didn’t do a great job being ready and leaving any earlier, and didn’t leave the house until almost 2pm, despite me telling everyone they needed to be ready to go by about noon. I threatened them that they better be ready earlier tomorrow. We went up to Berchtesgaden which is where Hitler had his Eagle’s Nest. We took the Documentation tour which tells all about Hitler’s rise to power, the history of the area, a lot of the Nazi history including the atrocities committed, and ends with a tour of the bunker complex there. It was pretty complex with lots of shafts and rooms. It was pretty sad hearing about all the atrocities of the war that were committed and kind of amazes me that there were so many “smart” people that went along with Hitler and were exterminating the Jew, gypsies, and anyone that got in their way. It was too late after our tour to take the bus up to the Eagle’s Nest, and they said that it wouldn’t be real great anyway as there were too many clouds, so after the tour we went on a little hike, then I took them to a gausthaus to have a treat. They had a flyer for this place advertising their desserts at the ticket place to the documentation tour. They were these huge puff pastries filled with ice-cream and whipped cream, and covered with cherries and sauce. They were pretty dang good, and the view over the valley was fantastic. We came back to the chalet and made linguini and salad for dinner.
This is kindra. It has been pretty fun with the kids, they have been better than I thought they would be and have been helping with making dinners, cleaning up and doing chores. The “chalet” is beautiful and it is on a very steep hill with forests surrounding us. It has 4 floors and tons of room. The doors in the chalet are all very old salvaged doors. One has a date painted with toll painting which is dated 1627. I love the doors here, they are all very unique. We are watching “spongebob” in german. Ha! It is pretty funny that they have a lot of the same things that we have at home.

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.