Adventures in the German Alps!

Let me just say how NICE the roads are over there – and they DO drive REALLY fast too.

This is the closest I got to the Franz Marc Museum. I had no idea this was the area he was from and stunned when we first passed the sign. The ONLY reason why we did not go to the museum is because it closed Oct 1 until 2008 when they open a new modern gallery for his works. So bummed, but that just gives us one more excuse to come back.

Our resort, Edelweiss

The lobby: They had fires going each day and night
plus little rocking chairs for special Iain sized folks!

This was our view from our room. This is the Zugspitze, the highest peak in Germany
and very characteristic of the Alps.
OH, and if that isn’t cool enough there was a field with cows out there too!!

Got to love that, they even had their bells on too.

Little man enjoying the view…



Neuschwanstein Castle !!


This castle was the original inspiration for the Disney castle, Ludwig II’s ambitious
and incomplete project has since turned out to be a top tourist destination.

Only 1/3 of the palace was competed and he lived in it for LESS than 6 months.


This is his father’s castle, located on the next hill over...apple doesn't fall far from the tree...

The perfect view of Neuschwanstein….

Taken from this bridge, Marienbrucke (Mary’s Bridge) – and that was all Donnie

This waterfall is directly below the bridge

I was here, where Iain was the top tourist attraction for a group of Japanese people who all wanted their photo with the little man.

View of the countryside – looking out of the castle

...More countryside

The beautiful lake below the castle

It’s a real German!! –
no not really, just Donnie

Little man discovered ketchup and decided he really liked it with his lunch.

We had some tastey German beer and some brats for lunch!

Then we got on the bus….(and some of us got snuggly)

Then we stopped in the middle of the countryside to see this Rococo style church. The carving of "Jesus in Chains" was originally built by two priests for the local Passion parade, but never used because it was not deemed beautiful enough. Years later, while in storage at a local woman's house it was observed weeping, and later deemed a miracle after an investigation by the Catholic Church. We didn't see it cry but Iain kept yelling and laughing, breaking up the silent sanctity of the place....
The ceiling

The pulpit

Like I said, we were in the sticks....


On our way to the Partnach Gorge for a hike!

Little man and Dad suited up ready to go!

Olympischen Winterspiele (Winter Olympic Ski-Jump Stadium) 1936

Olympia – Skistadion , three different sizes of Ski Jumps

Lumber was once the main industry in this area. You still see lot of lumberyards but tourists (mainly German, Russians and Norwegian) are what pay the bills now.

But this is the reason how the Gorge got to be hike-able. They blasted parts of it out to get the lumber downstream.

Cute barn and a bit of color

Oh, and it was raining too…

Like most beautiful things these photos don’t do it justice. Although it was raining, it was probably the day we had the most fun.

1^st part of the hike we went through the gorge. The 2^nd we hike above it.

This is the bridge in the photo above…

You can see our footpath carved into the rock on the left.

...and they weren't cut out for 6' 3" guys with a child on their back. Donnie got a great thigh workout!

Because I am so fluent in German, I not only ordered a sort of cappuccino after the hike but also this Bavarian style cream puff – It had three different types of ice cream in the middle and it was so good. After the shock of seeing how huge this thing really was, we passed it around so everyone could indulge. Once they got their whistles wet, another couple order one of their own!

Like I said, it was good!

My men after the hike and some hot cocco

Yeah, this was a local's place to say the least…

This guy had two beautiful German Shepherd dogs follow him around everywhere. He was a large bearded man who loved his white Bavarian sausages.

The woodpiles really impressed me. I am just glad I didn’t have to help stack these!
The Bavarians take great pride in an orderly woodpile.

Now on a completely different note -

This is your warning these photos and following text will not be happy

Dachau Concentration Camp

“Arbeit Macht Frei” = Work Will Set You Free

Constructed and completed in 1933. Although Dachau was not the first Nazi prisoner camp, it was the first concentration-style camp after which all subsequent concentration camps were modeled.

During its 12-year history, over 200,000 prisoners from more than 30 countries were housed in Dachau. Camp records list 130,000 persons killed in the camp, with thousands more who died due to the conditions in the camp.

There are 2 reconstructed barracks and their concrete foundations indicate the 32 other barracks.

One of many guard towers throughout the camp

Dachau was not a strict Jewish extermination camp like those of Auschwitz, although it did have Jewish prisoners - Dachau did have writers, artists, political threats, Social Democrats, trade union leaders, spies, clergy, resistance fighters, common criminals, Gypsys, communist, homosexuals and other "enemies of the state."

There were also 137 ‘VIP’ prisoners including, Princesses, Princes, the former Chancellor of Austria, the children of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and the former Chief of Army General Staff prior Hitler among others.

Gas chamber disguised as showers and the ‘new’ crematorium
(there is an older one not this photo)

the showers
Out of all the places in the camp this particular area’s atmosphere was the most eerie, significantly different that any other feeling I have ever had - ever. It is hard to explain. Donnie could have left the moment he walked thru the first gate; the whole experience really affected him. So much that he hasn’t even looked at the photos we took while we were there.


there were a total of six ovens - in the old crematorium there are two

Most visitors associate Dachau with the death of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust, although the majority of the inmates who died at Dachau were Catholics.

The camp was freed by the42nd Infantry Division of the US Seventh Army on April 29, 1945 after coming across this camp, not knowing its location nor its existence.

On the orders of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, all available American soldiers were brought to Dachau so that they could be eye-witnesses to the existence of the homicidal gas chamber, disguised as a shower room.

The bodies were left for two weeks after the liberation, so that American Congressmen, newspaper reporters and as many American soldiers as possible could view the horror. In the first few days after the liberation, the town's people were forced to scrounge for food and deliver it to the camp inmates. They were brought to the camp and forced to view the corpses, even though a typhus epidemic was still raging in the camp, and the Germans had not been vaccinated.

German students over the age of 12 are required to tour a concentration camp as part of the on-going education of the present generation of German citizens in the evil perpetrated by the Nazi regime over 60 years ago. German soldiers are also required to tour the former concentration camps.