On Monday, Grandma and Grandpa Cahoon finished their Paris, Brugges, London trip by hitting Verdun on the way home. They got to our place early afternoon. I went into work early so that I could leave early to drive out to Vianden and the Diekirch WWII museum with them.
All of a sudden he drifted right into the oncoming traffic and cars started flying everywhere trying to avoid him. He just kept going. It was a miracle that he didn’t hit anyone. He finally stopped in front of a sign. I pulled up next to him and told him to get out of the car and stop driving in French. He just looked at us with these big blank eyes. He had no idea where he was or what he was doing.
I wanted to get out and take his keys away, but all of the cars behind us started honking so we just left. It shook up the kids to think that a drunk driver could inflict so much pain and suffering and not even know it. Sad to see on the news this weekend that a drunk driver hit a car in West Jordan. The lady got on the freeway going the wrong way.
The next morning we got up early and headed for Neuschwanstein castle south of Munich Germany. It was a long stretch that got longer with traffic. We got to the castle about 12:30 as we had to be there an hour before our prepaid tickets were good. It was a good thing I bought tickets beforehand because there was a super long line to get in. We wouldn’t have made it!
There are actually two castles to see. The first one was King Ludwig’s II actual childhood castle. It was fun to see as they’d kept a lot of the original furniture, pianos, china, paintings, etc. This was a summer home for royalty and was very impressive. The tour guide wasn’t all that excited about the tour. He’d probably given it a few too many times over the years.
The second castle is the castle that he built further up on the hill. He basically spent all of his money to build this thing and he never really finished it. They declared him insane and he died with his psychiatrist in the lake nearby. Weird. The castle was built in the late 1800s so it wasn’t a medieval castle. But it is impressive. It is the castle that inspired Disneyland’s castle. The setting is beautiful and the castle is large and ornate. It is definitely the prettiest setting for a castle that we’ve been to.
In front of the castle there was a huge grate with one and two euros coins that had fallen through. The kids found sticks, chewed some gum, put gum on the end and fished the coins out of the grate. I think they made about 3 euros!
Southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria are beautiful places. As we drove to Munich we couldn’t believe how green and beautiful it was. We got to Munich late, but needed to eat and see the Hofbräuhaus. It is the famous beer drinking hall in Munich. Octoberfest is going on so the hall was totally full. The kids couldn’t believe how big the beer steins were. We were a little disappointed that the band wouldn’t play the chicken dance, but I was impressed that Kim would even ask them!
I saw the chicken dance at the Hofbräuhaus over 15 years ago on a trip for Intel. Very entertaining!
From there we drove to the worst part of the trip. Because of Octoberfest the hotels in Munich were all full and really, really expensive. Airbnb has been working out pretty good, so we rented a place that had good reviews. Turns out it was terrible. It was basically a stinky, one room, college dorm room that a Chinese student is renting out to help pay for school. We’ve nicknamed it Dachau Downs. The body odor as horrible and we quickly found out that none of the bedding was clean. It was Grandma’s worst nightmare. All we could do was laugh and make the best of it. We didn’t use the covers as they stunk so bad. So we covered ourselves with our coats and tried to sleep.
It was pretty bad when you woke up and could still smell the B.O. We were so glad to get out of there. On the wall his house rules were classic. Don’t let the cops in as they overstep their bounds and if anyone asks you’re his “friends”. Classic.
I felt extra bad for Grandma because she is still really hurting from her fight with Shingles. If you’re approaching your 50s I’d for sure ask your doctor about the Shingles vaccination. This was really difficult for my Mom as it comes with tons of pain.
After the stay at “Dachau Downs” we hit a McDonalds in Dachau and headed to the most sobering part of the trip. The Dachau concentration camp was the model camp for future concentration camps in Germany. It started off as a work camp for Hitler’s political prisoners and went down hill from there. The camp was presented in a very impactful and complete way. Basically you see the whole history, how they were tortured, what they ate, how it deteriorated, the medical experiments, everything. It is absolutely shocking to think humans would do this to other humans. We watched a movie and then walked through the main museum.
It was horrifying to see pictures where you were standing of men, women and children being tortured. One of the worst was seeing a picture of a man that tried to escape. His dead body was lying near a gate on some barbed wire. Just outside the museum you can see that exact spot. Horrific.
We walked down past the barracks to the gas chambers and cremation furnaces. In the movie you see piles of dead bodies in the front and in the rooms of the building holding the furnaces. It was humbling to stand there and think of the tens of thousands that had died there. Walking through the gas chambers with your family gave you a small, small glimpse of the terror they must have felt.
I hope my kids got a small feeling of the horrors of war and will make good decisions in the future on who to support politically. There is such a high cost to wars. It is unbelievable that 70 million people lost their lives in WWII. Simply unbelievable.
To keep Ashton from seeing the horrors at Dachau we rented some new movies, put some headphones on him and led him around by an iPad. He didn’t see a thing except his iPad! It was actually pretty funny to see him following us around holding the iPad.
After Dachau we headed across southern Germany and into Austria. Austria was beautiful! We stopped in Salzburg and didn’t really know what to expect. It turned out to be one of our favorite cities. Lots of ornate churches, relics, catacombs and the house where Mozart was born. We also met a guy from Slovenia who played the chicken dance for us on an accordion. The best part was an old guy who immediately jumped up and started doing the chicken dance! We also checked something off the bucket list. Jacob had always wanted to try chestnuts roasting on an open fire. So we bought some from a street vendor in front of Mozart’s house. Turns out the song is better than reality. They actually weren’t that good.
After Salzburg we drove a few hours and had a delightful dinner at a rest stop. It was a super fancy buffet. Definitely the nicest rest stop meal we’ve ever had.
When we got to Vienna, much to everyone’s delight the rooms were great. Jufa is a hotel chain that is much like IBIS. No frills, but nice and clean. The big problem turned out to be the parking. We literally spent 20 minutes that evening trying to find a parking place and I sort of squeezed in in front of a car near a construction site.
The next morning Grandpa was nervous about it and went to go check on the cars. Turns out he totally saved us. They were 10 minutes from towing our car. He ran back, got me and I ran back to get the car just before they towed it. I got a lecture in broken German, but I don’t think we got a ticket and the car didn’t get towed. Grandpa totally saved us as that would have completely destroyed the trip to Vienna.
In Vienna we had breakfast at McDonalds again. Grandpa left his Mcmuffin on the table for a few minutes and a guy came in and tried to steal it. Luckily I was watching him and pushed it away from him. He wasn’t all there mentally and just sort of stared at us!
From there we walked to the main cathedral and climbed to the top of the tower. It turns out their main cathedral was almost completely destroyed in the war. They showed pictures of it basically in burned out heaps of rubble. The only thing standing was the main tower that we climbed. 343 steps to the top! We were treated to a great view of the city and met a lady whose daughter is going to marry a missionary from Idaho. They were from the Isle of Man.
Probably the coolest thing we saw in Vienna was a relic in St. Peters basilica. It was a full skeleton, posed on its side, wearing fancy clothes and totally covered in jewelry. Every rib bone was wrapped in jewels. Pretty impressive! It turns out that is the main church and center for Opus Dei. Grandma and Grandpa were in Rome when one of the guys buried there was made a saint.
We took the Metro back to the Marriot where we had parked. It was super expensive at 22 euros for a few hours. The press was all over the place as Mr. Kerry and the Iranians were negotiating over something important. Vienna was big and impressive. I didn’t realize it was such a big and important city.
Vienna is just an hour from Bratislava and Hungary, so we packed up and headed towards our first true eastern European country.
We drove to Rajka Hungary and paid €12 to get a vignette. Basically we drove across the boarder, took a few pictures of Jake solving his Rubik’s cube in Hungary. Rubik was from Bhudapest. We bought some Fanta in a gas station and then drove back towards Bratislava.
Lenovo has a big installation in Bratislava. We saw that and drove in to the main city. There wasn’t a lot to see there besides a big castle on the hill and the space ship bridge over the Danube, so we immediately set out for Prague or Praha.
The Czechs don’t make great roads compared to the Germans, so we had a bumpy ride with tons of construction sites on the way to Prague. Prague was a much bigger city than I was expecting. We were a little nervous to order food, etc. so we hit a KFC and to our delight they all spoke English. It is crazy how universal English is… Grandpa ate some pickled herring that he purchased at one of the grocery stores. He grossed us all out as he ate several large fish straight out of the jar. It turned out to come back and bite as he was up all night with a very sore gut. It was pretty bad and really wiped him out the next day.
The “hotel” in Prague was in a neighborhood, so we were a little nervous. But it turned out to be great! Very clean, big and cheap. Only 80 euros for 2 rooms and two bathrooms. Until this point we’d really lucked out in terms of weather, but we woke up to a pretty decent rain storm on Friday. We were prepared and used our umbrellas. We parked near the castle complex where their president lives. Prague has lots of hills that we had to walk up to get to the castle. Prague wasn’t bombed during the war so it is quaint and looks old. The road system is crazy with one way streets and street cars everywhere.
We exchanged some money, walked up the hill and walked through their castle, cathedral, basilica and shopping alley. We even made it back to see the changing of the guard. The rain stopped so we could see that event happen without umbrellas. One benefit of the rain was the spitting gargoyls. The kids loved getting underneath the water with their umbrellas. On the way down the hill we had some trdelni’k bread. It was sweat bread that they wrap around a wood cylinder. It was super yummy and our favorite part of Prague!
We made it to our car and were headed to the city center when things got a little crazy. Parking in the old city of Prague was ridiculous. We kept driving and the streets kept getting smaller and smaller and smaller. Eventually we hit a dead end and could barely turn around. On the way out we got stopped by some Czech police. It turns out we were in a special permit zone that we weren’t supposed to be in. At first they went hard core eastern European on me telling me that you must always have your lights on and that I had a “big problem”. 2000 crown fine per car. I basically kept saying I was sorry as they led us down a street. They took my passport, drivers license and inspected the outside of the car.
Here is our 50 euro souvenir!
It was pretty obvious that they wanted some money, so we eventually got it down to 500 crowns per car. Luckily he took euros and I had exactly 50 euros. Once he got his money, he was very friendly and tried to show us where the free parking was at. We tried to find it, but were done with Prague. Unfortunately we missed out on the Mucha museum and astronomical clock. I felt bad for Grandpa to miss Mucha, but we were all excited to get out of the Czech Republic!
On the way to Frankfurt we hit some more traffic, which was par for the trip. Just past Nürnberg we ate Greek, German and Italian food. It was delicious! In Frankfurt we stayed at a Holiday Inn Express and had a great breakfast. Grandma and Grandpa Saunders met us there to join us in exploring castles on the Rhine.
Our first stop was Bingen. My dad served his mission there 50 years ago. We tried to find the place where he lived, but it had changed too much. We did have some yummy raspberries and apple strudel in a small bakery in Bingen. We drove down the Rhine gawking at all of the castles. There are over 30 castles from Bingen to Koblenz. We stopped at the Loreley rock and castle that had some cool underground caverns that we explored.
We ended the tour at the Burg Eltz castle. Rick Steve’s said it was the best castle in Europe and he was right! About 1047 the Eltz’s created a toll booth fort on a small river in a valley that connected Trier with Frankfurt. That toll road basically made them rich to this day. They created a huge 100 room castle that has stayed in the family for 33 generations. One painting on the wall is worth 11-15 million euros and a restoration on one room was 10 million euros. Talk about old school European money!
This castle was the best we’ve seen in Europe because it is in a cute little valley, it is tall, unique and has a lot of original furniture, guns, china, paintings, etc. If you’re in Luxembourg or Western Germany it is worth a stop. We totally agree with Rick Steve’s. After a nice dinner on the patio of the castle with the Saunders and the Cahoons we left for home.
This trip was a ton of driving, but we saw a lot of things we thought we’d never see. We’re sure thankful that my Mom and Dad were able to visit us out here. It has been something we’ve been looking forward to all year! The kids were real troopers on this trip. Especially Ashton. It is amazing how motivating a euro is to him and how an iPad will keep his attention. He’s probably too familiar with Harry Potter as a 6 year old, but it has sure helped him survive getting dragged all over Europe! We helped Ashton find 203 smart cars on the whole trip!
Sunday we went to church, took the car back to Trier, ate some lunch and fell asleep. We took Grandma and Grandpa to the airport about 4:00. On the way we stopped to see Patton’s grave at the American Military cemetery. It was interesting to look at the war map they have there now that we’ve gone to most of the places on the map.
We’re planning our last 8 weeks here before we head home. We’ve got activities every weekend, but two, which we’ll leave open to rest! I’m sure it will go by quickly, but it still seems like a long time. We’re ready to be home!
Pictures from week 43a
We took more than 2000 photos which is the limit for a Google+ album!
Until next week…
Until next week…
No comments:
Post a Comment