Days 8 through 11

I believe when we last left you we were ready to move from the Berchtesgaden area of Germany over into Switzerland. We spent much of Day 8 stuck in the car due to very long traffic jams in Germany. Thankfully, the roads finally opened up after lunch, and we were able to test the capabilities of the new car. I managed to hit 135 mph on one unlimited speed section of the autobahn. It was quite fun, and a little scary, but I got my fix. It's something I'll never be able to try legally at home, so I'm glad we had the opportunity to do it here.

We meandered our way to Luzern via a town called St. Gallen, which is famous for its abbey and library. We made it to the abbey about half an hour before the library closed so we made a quick tour of the room to see some very old texts and to check out the nifty architecture in the library. They don't allow photos inside, but you can see a picture of the place here.

We left St. Gallen and continued on to Luzern, and got stuck in yet another traffic jam outside Zurich. It was quite an exhausting day of driving. However, once we finally made it to Luzern, we went straight to dinner at the Mexican restaurant that I'd been looking forward to trying ever since we started planning our trip. It was pretty good, and stupid expensive. 15 Francs for a tiny (maybe 6-8 ounces?) frozen margarita. Hmmph. We had them anyway. :)

The next day was rainy and cloudy, so we decided to go to the Swiss Transport Museum in Luzern, along with what must have been the entire school-aged population of the city. They had some neat displays of trains, cable cars, and ships, along with a couple of interesting airplanes. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the old town area of Luzern, and napping back in our hotel room, because we were both quite exhausted, and because I started getting the symptoms of a cold around then. We eventually went out for what turned out to be an excellent dinner. Jeff found a place with a good wine list, so we decided to try it. We found a great bottle of Bordeaux and both had lamb dishes to go with it.


The next morning, we walked up to the old city wall overlooking Luzern. We climbed up to the top and walked along the wall for a while, then climbed one of the towers for a good view of the city.



After that, we wandered back through some more of the old town area, then perused the wares at Bucherer for a while before getting back in the car to move to our next destination, Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland.

We've been blessed with great weather in Lauterbrunnen so far. When we arrived last night, the tops of the mountains surrounding us were in view, and several waterfalls are currently active. We are renting an apartment here, so we hit the little grocery shop in town for some supplies, then made dinner before taking a short walk up the valley towards Stechelberg before calling it a night. Here's the view from our apartment:


This morning we awoke to another mostly clear day, so we decided to take the cable cars from Stechelberg to the top of the Schilthorn to see the views. We were up in the clouds for part of the time, but other times things cleared up and we could see over the Alps. We meandered our way back down with strolls through Murren and Gimmelwald before coming back to our apartment, then we drove down into Interlaken to stock up on supplies at the supermarket for the rest of our stay here.






It's hard to believe that we only have six more full days here before we fly back home, but I suppose all good vacations must eventually come to an end, and we definitely miss our little pups. I suspect they are quite used to being spoiled and won't want to come back home with us, but they're going to have to. :)

Days 5 through 7

We have had quite the busy last three days and we need to catch up on our blogging!

On Friday, we drove to Hallstatt, Austria, to see the picturesque town and to tour the salt mine in the mountains above the town. We began our visit with a funicular ride to the top of the mountain, and then we climbed the rest of the way to the salt mine on foot. They gave us funny overclothes with padded hineys to wear on our tour, and they gave us a shot of schnapps to warm us up for the underground tour. We walked into the mountain, then visited a few caverns inside where they used to leach the salt out of the rock with water. We also rode a couple of long wooden slides inside the mountain (hence the need for the padded pants). It was an interesting tour. It was one of the few mines we've been in that actually contained copious examples of the substance being mined - the walls were covered in salt crystals. The tour ended with a train ride through a tiny tunnel out to the side of the mountain.




From there, we walked back down to the funicular, and then rode it back down into Hallstatt. We wandered around Hallstatt for a while and ate a very late lunch there before heading back to our hotel for the night.




Saturday was spent touring the Konigssee, which is the lake right by our hotel here in Germany. It's been very well preserved from pollution over the last 100 years or so, and is quite pristine. We took a boat cruise across the lake to the far side, and from there we hiked to another lake and on around it to see a waterfall. We knew the waterfall was there, as we had seen it through a break in the clouds from the boat, but it wasn't until we reached the other side of the little lake that it appeared to us again. We were glad it finally did. We hiked back to the boat and rode back across the Konigssee to Schoenau. We made a quick stop at the hotel for afternoon tea (ok, no tea, but definitely cheesecake and strawberry shortcake, and doughnuts) for another late lunch. Then we moved ourselves and all our dirty laundry into Berchtesgaden to visit the waschsalon, or laundromat, as we call them here. After that, we went out for dinner at a little local restaurant, and then called it a night.





Today (Sunday), we visited some attractions near the town of Werfen, Austria. Our first stop was the Eisriesenwelt, which is an ice cave. It was a fantastic experience; one that would probably never be allowed in the US due to its total non-ADA accessible-ness. We drove up the side of a mountain to a parking lot. From there, we hiked about 20 minutes farther up the mountain to a cable car, which took us up another very steep and very high amount, and from there we hiked another 20 minutes up to the entrance of the ice cave. Once inside, we climbed another 700 or so steps UP into the ice cave, for a total of about a 1 km trek into the cave, the entirety of which was coated in amazing ice formations (sorry, no photos allowed inside, so check it out on their website). I have no idea how anyone ever decided to try and explore this mountain enough to find this place, but I'm glad they did. It was amazing.





On our way back down, we stopped for a quick bite to eat at a snack stand, then continued over to another attraction in Werfen: Berg Hohenwerfen. The castle itself was cool to look at, but the main feature of this visit was the falconry exhibition. We watched eagles and falcons and vultures and owls swoop over our heads while a four man brass ensemble played accompanying music. It was pretty cool. The birds were allowed to fly all over the place, right over the crowd. The handlers tossed dead mice up into the air for the birds to catch (sometimes they missed and they fell on the crowd, which was hilarious). It was a pretty good show.






After the castle, we headed back to our hotel for dinner. Tomorrow we drive to Luzern, Switzerland, with a stopover in St. Gallen, Switzerland, to see the library.

Day 4 of the trip: BMW in Munich

We successfully acquired our new car in Munich yesterday. We left Schoenau am Konigssee at about 8:30 am for the drive to Munich and went straight to the BMW Welt near the Olympic Stadium. We parked our rental car in the garage, and proceeded inside to check-in for our delivery.



From the moment we stepped inside, we were amazed by the professional courtesy and kindness extended by the staff of the Welt. We were treated exceptionally well, even though they do this for about 90 customers, on average, every day. We were shown to the private elevator for ED customers, which took us up to the premium lounge, where we signed some papers for our insurance and were given times for our museum tour and factory tour, all included.

We took the museum tour first, then went back to the delivery center where we ate lunch in the premium lounge prior to taking delivery of the car. We met our delivery coordinator, Britta, after that, and she took us down to the delivery floor where she introduced us to our new car. She showed us everything we needed to know about how to operate the car, then turned us loose.



We took the car out of the building, and handed it straight to a valet for parking underground while we returned our rental car (which they repeatedly offered to do for us, but we politely refused because we knew there could be potential issues with the turn-in after what happened in Innsbruck... there were none, thankfully). We then returned to the delivery center to meet our tour guide for the factory tour.

When asking directions for the tour, we also asked if there were lockers in which we could place our bags during the tour, knowing we couldn't take the camera in with us, and the lady at the desk said she would just take them and put them in our car for us. So we let her. And they were there when we picked up the car from the valet after the factory tour. Truly amazing customer service!

We ended the day with the drive back to our hotel in Schoenau am Konigssee. We managed to resist the temptation to exceed the recommended break-in period limits of the car (100 mph and 4500 rpm), but just barely. ;)

Day Three: Salzburg

We spent our day today in Salzburg, Austria. We began with a stroll through Mirabell Gardens, home of many of the scenes from the Sound of Music movie. We visited the dwarf garden, the little covered alley, and the stairs the kids and Maria hop up and down. We refrained from singing.

After Mirabell, we swung by two of Mozart's houses, and then took a walk down the Getreidegasse, which is a shopping corridor in the old part of the city. We wandered our way past the Residenz, and into the Dom, where we were met with a surprise after a few minutes: the arrival of the Flint Hills something-or-other Choir, with director Reg, from my grandparent's church in Manhattan, Kansas. It was a bit strange to see so many people from home so far away from home. They marched up to the front of the church, climbed on some risers, and began to sing. We didn't get a chance to say hello to Reg, but I'm sure he'll hear that we saw him there when he gets home.

We continued our touring through a couple of other churches, then stopped for a quick lunch before heading up to Hohensalzburg, the fortress above the city. We met and conversed with a cute old British fellow on our way back down the funicular afterwards. He thought Kansas was part of “the South”. We didn't feel the need to correct him. :)

We finished out the afternoon with a visit to Hellbrunn Palace and Water Garden. This place was pretty fun. We didn't tour the palace, we just took the tour of the Water Garden, which is full of trick fountains and water powered mechanical figurines. Our guide delighted in soaking everyone on the tour, usually by surprise.

On our way out of the garden, we walked past the gazebo that was featured in the Sound of Music. They didn't use this actual gazebo for filming, they recreated it in a little larger scale for the movie.

Tomorrow is car-pick-up day! It seems a bit surreal that we're getting a new car tomorrow, so I'm sure it will be an interesting day.

The first two (three?) days

Well, we managed to survive the first couple of days on our vacation. Three days, if you count the flying, only two if you count the touristing. The flights were on time and relatively pilot error free, which was great. Unfortunately, we were seated in the screaming infant section on our overseas flight, so sleep was really not an option. We managed to get a few minutes here and there and made it through our first day without crashing too early.

We arrived in Zurich, Switzerland, picked up some cash, some train passes for later in the trip, and some Starbucks for breakfast, then hopped in the rental car, a Ford S-Max which is a 7 passenger minivan type thing (why do they always give us such huge cars when we reserve little VW Golf type cars?) and hit the road for Innsbruck, Austria. We side tripped to Vaduz, Liechtenstein, just to say we've been there, and paused for a break in Feldkirch, Austria.

Michelle in Feldkirch

Around this time we noticed that our rental car was behaving oddly, so upon arrival in Innsbruck we went straight to the Europcar rental facility. We will never rent from them again. It took over an hour of nonsense for us to convince them that they needed to give us a car that worked. Long story short, they finally did (a more reasonably sized Golf this time), and we contined down the road a little way to Hall in Tirol and our hotel for the night. We had showers, then dinner, and then we took a little tour of the area around the hotel before calling it a night.

I photographed Jeff

He photographed this

We started our day today with a walking tour of the old town portion of Hall in Tirol. It was pretty cute. Old churches, colorful buildings, narrow alleyways, and a fortress.

Hall in Tirol

After Hall, we proceeded back to Innsbruck to see the Goldenes Dachl (meh), the Helbinghaus (meh), and the Dom, where Maximilian is entombed. We wandered around and found another church, then stopped for a quick lunch and got back on the road.

Goldenes Dachl, Innsbruck

Maximillian's Funeral Procession

Roar!

We drove to Wattens, where we toured the Swarovski Kristallwelt, which was quite possibly the strangest museum ever. I think they let a bunch of semi-known and unknown modern art types run wild in there. Some of the displays were cool, and others were just plain strange and silly.

The Swarovski Giant

Oooh, shiny!

We continued on down the road to our hotel for the next six nights near the Konigssee in Germany. It was a beautiful drive through the Alps and the national park area. We arrived at the hotel just in time for a nice dinner and a relaxing evening. We haven't quite figured out what we're doing tomorrow, but I'm sure it will be fun!

The drive from Innsbruck to Schoenau am Konigssee

We're off!

We're off on our journey starting today! We're both quite excited, though we haven't had much time to think about it this week. Jeff had to go to Connecticut from Tuesday through Thursday for a business trip, and Friday was a bit crazy for Jeff at work, too. He had four or five meetings, he had to pack up his desk for moving to another location during our furlough, and he had to take his recently laid off employees out for their farewell lunch. Needless to say, he got home a bit late last night. :)

Michelle hung around home all week taking care of our long list of things to do before we leave. The list seemed to get longer, not shorter for a while there, but eventually everything got done and we're ready to go. We're hoping to do some blogging about the trip while we're over there, so watch this space for photos and trip notes!