Landgasthof Zur Post- Schwangau

... free camping ahead :) We drove towards Munich and parked once again on the street in a small town, which has by far been our most common theme for free camping but is usually the safest choice for us. The best part about Fred is that he is small enough to park on the street and does not look like a campervan, so anyone who sees him most likely would think it was a mail truck or something…at least that is what we tell ourselves :)

... have left. We go to enter the church and find ourselves in the middle of a German tour group. We listen to what the guide is talking about for a few minutes and then make our way into the Church. It is most beautiful; the paintings on the walls and ceiling are incredible as well as the rococo or stucco.

The former abbey church, the Welfenmünster, dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, is a Romanesque building of the 1170s ...

... too.
The rest of the tour took us to Linderhof castle and Neuschwanstein castle. What magical looking places they were. Neuschwanstein is the castle Walt Disney uses the sillohette of at the start of his movies. Anyway, after the trip it was back to Munich for a day or so and then on the plane home.

Saturday we took a two hour train ride though beautiful Bavaria! The German landscape was absolutely breathtaking, I didn't even notice that we were going up into the mountains. Through the trees we caught a glimpse of Neuschwanstein Castle, the same castle that Walt Disney modeled his castle after!! We enjoyed traditional German bratwurst with the tour ...

... because from the ground, you'd never imagine it would look like that. Darin took off first and I followed a few minutes later. I wasn't at all nervous, just excited to finally get my chance to try it. My guide, Craig, was pretty cool. He's lived all over the world and been flying for years. We kept going up and up and flew over the mountains - again, amazing. After we had been up for a while, we headed out towards the lake ...

Disney stole his sleeping beauty castle from this one. Neuschwanstein castle -- we took a carriage ride up to the castle for a tour. Link to the Neuschwanstein castle history and photos.

... room, dressing room, and bedroom. The king's bedroom was immediately above the queen's bedroom and connected by a hidden spiral staircase. On the queen's level the door could be opened only from inside the queen's bedroom. When Max II died and Ludwig II took over, he had the ceiling of his bedroom painted with a nighttime sky because he loved the night. A lot of Ludwig's and his brother Otto's childhood was spent at Hohenschwangau, and it has a much homier and lived-in feel ...

Another work conference for my parents brought us to Oberammergau for a week. We stayed in the cutest little wooden cottage - like the whole thing ceiling to floor and including flowering window boxes was made out of wood! Totally picturesque like you've read about in Brothers Grimm fairy tales. Aromatic town bakery. Absolutely enchanting.

... gorgeous and the views of it and from it are breathtaking.



After our tour we drove to Kempten and stayed at the Peterhof downtown. This was our first room with a tv...all German stations, of course!

... napkins.


We toured Linderhof, one of crazy King Ludwig's castles. It's the only one that was finished before he died. Even though it wasn't sunny, Rick made some gorgeous pictures.