The Castles

From Munich we took a day trip to Fussen where the royal Maxamillion family have two castles. 

The more famous of the two, was built by "Mad" King Ludwig II. But let's start with his King Ludwig I.  

His father's castle (the orangish one) was used as a summer get away for the royal family.  His mother loved mountaineering (pretty original for her day for a woman to love hiking and the outdoors) and so she took the family there every chance she got.  And I would too!  Isn't it gorgeous? The inside of this castle was had servants quarters, hidden staircases and rooms, wardrobe rooms, dressing rooms, bedrooms, guest rooms, a large dining hall, a chapel, and tons of elaborate wedding presents, birthday presents and hostess gifts.  They were obsessesed with the coat of arms back then and so we saw many gold-plated displays of coat of arms of Maxamillion as well as other prominent families during their time. No photos were allowed inside this castle..bummer! Guess you'll have to go yourself to see it!

King Ludwig II started building the castle (seen below), but he was found drowned in a lake before it was completed.  Nobody knows if it was a susicide or murder...very strange!!  But the caslte was out of this world. Again, no photos inside the castle allowed.  But, one thing I found pretty interesting, is all of the jewels in this castle were actually fake!  Ludwig II had a strange obsession with Wagner and so had many of his operas painted on the walls and ceilings.  He had a guest room built for Wagner (which he never stayed in) and a mini chamber hall for Wagner to perform.  The outside of the castle is pretty recognizable--mostly because Disney used it to create their castle....look familiar?

We ended our long fun SUNNY day with some Wener Sniztel and Fanta. Then after learning about europeans' disregard for waiting in line, we finally got the last train ride back to Munich.

Three most memorable things about Munich...

Hafbrahaus.  This is the most famous beer house in Munich and I can see why.  Full grown men in leiderhosen, and all the beer and pretzels you can eat.  There was a brass band and locals singing, and of course lots of drunk people and people pretending to be drunk.  One of my favorite moments was when a waitress was trying to carry 12 beer glasses from her table back to the kitchen--I somehow got in her way, and it was probably the scariest thing that happened to me my whole time in Europe.  Luckily I got out of her way before she ran me over--or dropped the beer glasses. 

St. Peter's Tower. We climbed 12 or more flights of stairs to get to the top. And it was worth every step.  The view was amazing and we got to see the red roofs of Munich--something that we decided was very European--if we did that here, people would tell us to move back to Mesa--but in Europe it's all artsy and quaint.  

The Glokenspiel.  This is famous for 

it's puppet-like adornments that "dance" when the clock bells ring.  There are two times a day when the song and dance lasts for 10 minutes--at least it felt like 10 minutes.  Crowds stop moving and people stop shopping and everyone just looks up at the clock tower--at least for the first minute...then everyone remembers if they want to be entertained they can just pull our their iPhone.  C1 and I watched the entire, thing, though.  We didn't have an iPhone anyway (just an iTouch--aren't we lucky?).  Around the clock are tons of shops and a few fun cafes.  But the best thing in the square was a professional accordian player--of course--why wouldn't there be?  This guy was part of the instrument.

Disclaimer: I don't know how to spell in German.

contrary to popular belief...

I am not actually in Europe now...C1 and I went the last part of April/beginning of May and I'm just now getting around to blogging about it.  Sorry if there was any confusion!

We took a night train from Paris to Munich, Germany.  I was able to catch this photo before we devoured some most-delicious chocolate macaroons from Laduree bakery.  On a full stomach of cookies, the lull of the train put us right to sleep.

Our favorite place we stayed happened to be in Munich.  It is called Hotel Cocoon and was totally rad with a very helpful staff.  Complete with hanging bubble chairs and a fountain in the lobby, not to mention the orange and green motif, and in our room, an  iPod doc (which we loved) and a flat screen tv (that we didn't touch...german TV is so tempting...but we didn't have time for that).

Of course I loved the cobble stone found all over Europe.  I don't know how all those fashion ladies walk around on it in their heels, though! The above photo is from our walk from the train station to the hotel.

More of Munich soon to come!

Normandy

There are nearly 10 thousand american soldiers buried in the cemetery there--that represents only 1/3 of the Americans that died in Europe during the battle (or maybe it was WWII...can't remember).

It was raining again, but this time it fit the day perfectly.  C1 did a great job with photos, hu? This is another view of the cemetery.

We had a delightful local showing us the battle sites and monuments in a 12-passenger van.  He new the Battle of Normandy history like he was there when it happened.

This is a photo of some remains from a bunker.  It's pretty sobering to be standing in the middle of  a gorgeous country side and see pieces of concrete everywhere and huge craters from bombs.  I have to say Normandy was the most serious and emotional part of the trip...and so in some ways most memorable.

The yellow is "canolia" the blossom of the plant that canola oil is made from.  Isn't it amazing?  I loved flying into France because I saw patches of this yellow interspersed with patches of the different shades of green.  No particular pattern or grid...just patches sewn together like a quilt...and so I've decided that one day I'll make one.