Y3W17 - Birthday Trip Weekend

We started the week by celebrating Lleyton's 1st birthday. Being our "Little Prince," we went with a knight theme for him. I can't believe it has already been a year since Lleyton joined our family. What a ride. He is walking fairly steadily now but I have not been able to get a video clip of him yet.

We made good on our promise to forego birthday parties with friends this year and have a family trip instead. We left Wednesday evening and drove to Günzberg so that we could be at Legoland bright and early the next morning. While we ended up getting there bright and early, it was a little like Clark W. Griswald in Vacation when they get to Wally World and there are no cars in the parking lot and Clark says, "First ones here!" It was a drizzly day, which kept most people from going. But, not us. We endured the rain the entire day and actually had more fun than we thought possible. The best thing about being at an amusement park in the rain is, the workers let you go on all the rides as many times as you want, and there are NO lines. We were fairly wet when we left but the kids were troopers. We drove to Füssen that night and stayed at a really nice apartment like hotel.

Of course we had to go to Neuschwanstein the next morning. We took the tour in Deutsch because it was the next available tour. I'm not sure the children appreciated this very much. But, we didn't want to wait another hour for the English speaking tour. Places to go, people to see you know. Well, at least places to go.

We took the Deutsche Alpenstraβe, lined with beautiful mountains, onion domed churches, and Bavarian architecture to get to the highest peak in the German Alps, called Zugspitze. We took a gondola up 2,900 meters or 9720 feet above sea level to the top and caught some amazing views. It was an extremely clear day which was such a nice little blessing. Especially since the day before had rained the entire day. While the view from up there is amazing, I find it is an anxious time for me. While Greg takes postcard like pictures, I try to reign in the need for four children to be adventurous. I am always relieved when we are safely down on the ground.

We had a bit of a drive to our next destination...Berchtesgaden. Our hotel was actually in Bayerisch Gmain and close to a little town called Bad Reichenhall which had some nice Eis Cafes.

On the way to the Kehlsteinhaus (Hitler's Eagles Nest) we stopped in Ramsau to see one of the onion dome churches.

The whole experience at the Kehlstein Haus was quite the process. We decided in the end that we would not tour the inside of the house but take in the beautiful sites surrounding the house. It was a gift from the Nazi party to Adolf Hitler for his fiftieth birthday. I'm just going to put in a little plug here to let Greg know that I would not be disappointed if that is what he got me for a fiftieth birthday present. Wow.

With a full agenda planned, we zipped to Almbachklamm. A gorge nested in the Southern Germany Alps, it was the surprise of the trip. The girls led the way the entire hike as we spent a few hours going up the river, have a quick lunch, and coming back down.

With time getting tight, we then drove to the Königsee. We debated whether or not it would be too much to do the boat tour, but decided to try it. It was soooo worth it! Probably the highlight of the trip for me personally. There are no motorsports allowed on this lake and it is so quiet. At one point our boat stopped, our tour guide pulled out his trumpet and played outside the window. The echo was amazing. I think we got the best tour guide! It would have been a shame to have missed it. We went back into Bad Reichenhall for dinner and ice cream of course.

The next morning pretty early we started our 6 1/2 hour trek home. We took a small detour to Playmobil Land which is a huge playscape land kind of thing based on the playmobil toys. Everyone loved it and it got us out of the car for a couple hours. 3 hours to playmobil land, 2 hours to play, and 3 1/2 more hours home, so we thought. Stau (traffic jam) after stau after stau landed us back home around 2 hours later than we expected. We had to do some navigational tricks along the way to avoid just sitting on the freeway. The kids were remarkably good.

Was it worth it, you ask? So worth it. Props to the German Alps that no one ever talks about. You always hear about the French Alps and the Swiss Alps, but no one ever talks about the German Alps. Hopefully some of these pics will get people talking!