(In no particular order, and hold onto your alpine hats, because it’s a looooong one)

1. Eat tons of brats, sausages, pretzels, sauerkraut, spaetzle. 2. Drink 1L beers. 3. Placate your kids with shameful amounts of Fanta, because God forbid a restaurant have a glass of milk. 4. Let your kids be kids and play in a park to their <3’s delight with no agenda or place to be and learn from an Anderson trip of yesteryear to “have a ball” on hand! 5. Enjoy a day in your PJs and watch the rain trickle down the windows of your cozy hotel as you see the city fly by

6. When the clouds break, go watch the amazing-ness that is the Eisbach, a little river flowing down the middle of the English Garden (the largest park on the European Continent) where locals SURF, yep I said it, surf! It was fascinating to watch.

7. Walk along trails amidst shades of green your eyes have never seen and stumble upon a Chinese Tower, inside an English Garden, where you drink a beer and eat, yet another sausage, as well as an apple cake at a German Hofbrauhaus. Go figure. Only in Europe.

8. And last but certainly not least, when in Deutschland . . .

Rent a German Car, Speed Down the Autobahn and Get Off the Grid!

***Our ride for the day and yes, Brett, it’s a BMW and not a Benz, but German born and raised and built for speed too 😉

We headed out of town and onto the Autobahn bound for the southern most parts of the German countryside, home to King Ludwig II of Bavaria’s world famous castles. You likely are very familiar with Neuschwanstein Castle as it was the inspiration for Sleeping Beauty’s castle at Disneyland. Ludwig was an innovator and creative genius, utilizing the French as inspiration when designing it along with his own private residence, Linderhof Castle, also referred to as “Petit Versailles.”

Here’s Joe starting us off on our journey, going a mere 80km, however, in an open stretch of road he pushed it to 140km. He felt the need, the need for speed, ahaha, and we all loved it!

Linderhof Castle

After passing fields upon fields of rolling hills of green, and “1 million cows” according to Tessa, we arrived at Linderhof Castle. We could not have imagined the sheer beauty, awe and breathtaking scenery that we would see. “Petit Versailles” indeed, rooms dripping in gold and velvet, with a bedchamber and miniature Hall of Mirrors taboot! Bohemian glass chandeliers from Prague and original French tapestries covering the walls. Gus was blown away by the opulence and loved the velvet blue bed the best along with the rare Aeolodicon pianino (of which only 70 were made in the entire world) and the original recording we got to hear from it while in the Music Room. Wyatt loved all of the gold and Tessa, ever the Wyatt fan, echoed she loved all the gold too!

Gus observed that the castle was about as big as our house. A keen observation since Ludwig built the house to be lived in by one person alone, himself. Last I checked, we are 5 in total 😉 The servants and his guests stayed at other homes on the grounds (pictured below) and he only occupied the second floor of the house. Gus deduced that our house had much more habitable space (we lived on both floors) and because it didn’t have a basketball court our house was just right for us!!! Haahahaha!

Despite being under construction, the gardens, fountains, Venus’ grotto, the Turkish Grotto (the dark green structure above the castle) and the greater grounds were phenomenal. I could not stop snapping pictures so that I could commit the beauty and sheer joy I experienced while walking around to my memory and to share it with all of you!

Watch out, massive photo overload incoming! I should also note that a number of these photos were taken by Gus, our budding photographer, who just happened to mention that,

I might be getting to be as good as Mrs. Alison on this trip!

Hey V, check out Tessa and her lion below!

The Lake Tahoe of Austria

Since we couldn’t take our annual summer trip to Lake Tahoe, it decided to come to us, on a road less traveled from Linderhof to Neuschwanstein! It is called Lake Plansee, located in Breitenwang, Austria, and it had some of the clearest blue waters I’ve ever seen outside of Hawaii and Fiji, and ever in a lake!

We pulled our car over to the side of the road and some of us saw beauty beyond our wildest dreams . . . And some of us, didn’t. Can you guess who? I love that Joe was transported momentarily back to his “happiest place on Earth,” Lake Tahoe, amidst our extended European adventures.

Neuschwanstein Castle

I’ve got to say the Lake and the drive to it were better than the castle itself, but when in the Bavarian countryside you don’t miss the chance to show your daughter, and your whole family honestly, Sleeping Beauty’s castle. Breaking the news to Tessa that Aurora was actually not inside the castle made it much easier to convince us all that making the steep 45-minute climb to the castle to only see 4 of 100 rooms not worth it. Linderhof was the prize pig of the day . . . Oh wait, the tied prize pig of the day, only matched by the off the grid drive through village upon village in the Bavarian countryside en route back to Munich. Here she is, however, in all her glory, snapped from down below.

Check out the paragliders in the second shot!

The drive home, off the Autobahn and the beaten path was quite possibly my favorite memory in European travel history. I know that’s a huge statement but it’s true. It was downright magical . . . Picture this:

We were listening to Amazon Music Top Hits Playlist, singing, and cruising through village after village, comparing may poles, cows, observing how each one stacked their wood and kindling, more cows, people eating together in small town squares, overflowing flower boxes hung below windows framed in dark wood, rolling fields of green, more cows, farmers at work and the smell of nature, the sound of calm and the beauty of the slower pace of life in the Bavarian countryside.

It was an absolutely blessed and one in a million kind of day, one that won’t be forgotten any time soon and one that I’ll wager will be talked about for years to come. We were pinching ourselves throughout the day in sheer and utter disbelief that we could be in this place and experience all that we did together. ❤

Next up: Salzburg, rain, and more Ramblings from @bigjoe52