Ok, so I know it's like a full month late, but I've had a busy and somewhat hectic last few weeks. I have been having a few medical issues that may end up popping up in later posts, but the doctors are thinking it's my gallbladder. I still have more tests to do...I will try to be somewhat censored, I can be too honest sometimes hee hee.
So last week our castle hopping got off to a late start. I was having some serious stomach issues the day and morning before we got off to our start. I was really worried we going to be having to cancel the trip. But finally we left little Gaiberg and headed off to the first castle called Scloss Lichtenstein. I saw this castle in my tour guide for Germany and it is still in the state of Baden-Wurtemberg (where we live). After two hours of driving, (and up a mountain through windy roads of course) we finally parked! We arrived at lunch time and thankfully there was a cute little area with picnic tables to sit and eat at. So we had our bratwurst and pomme frittes-pronounce pomice- (french fries) under our umbrella. While waiting for our food to cook we saw our first German snake!
At this castle you have to hike a little way up to it. On the walk up they had this really cool obstacle course that Nick and I wanted to go on!
And we also saw this cute little mouse/mole creature.
And a cute lil barn.
Castle Lichtenstein was amazing, and I took a million pictures! This castle literally is on a mountain on a ledge! I'm not scared of heights, but it made me feel a little tingly being so high up. We went on a tour of the castle as well, but it was in German. We did have a small paper to read though with some english history. The castle had beautiful art, armory, and weapons. They even had a champagne glass so large that it takes 3 people to drink out of it! One of the rooms had some small damage from world war 2. A bullet had gone through the floor and into a mirror, they fixed the floor, but left the beautiful ornate gilded mirror with the small hole. Unfortunately you weren't allowed to take pictures inside the castle. Below are just a few pictures I took of the outside of the castle and grounds.
(I still wasn't feeling that well if you can't tell by the goofy face)
(cute lil dragon guy)
(bout to go on our tour)
(the ledge)
(stairs to see over the gate to the castle)
(the amazing view)
(the outside chapel)
(a postcard perfect castle!)
(not sure what this post was supossed to be, but to us it looked like a face)
(a different view of the castle)
(another goofy picture, Nick said he was trying to get a romatic pic too!)
I tried to get royce to get in the middle cubby to take a picture with these dudes, but ther was no way! I would have tried to squeeze myself in it if I wasn't feeling crummy!
After seeing the beautiful Lichtenstein we were off to Burg Hohenzollern, which was just a mountain away. So down down down one mountain and up up up another we went!
our first view of Berg Hohenzollern!
(looking back at the enterance)
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| (the amazing staircase that I love) |
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| what a view! |
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| I love this picture! |
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(inside one of the beautiful ornate chapels)
(pretending to shoot the cannon)
(the enterance to the other chapel)
For some reason now I can't get my alighnment to go back to the left after inserting these pictures no matter how many time I click the damn thing, so excuse the interuption in my format! Anyways, this castle was a lot of fun because it was bigger than Lichtenstein and they had a lot of areas you could go and explore without taking the tour. There was an underground area that housed the silver and plates, an torture cell thing. It was really cool because the underneath were these were was so old and rough looking. The picture above is in the under part of the castle. The tour was also in German at this castle, but there were posters in the room with english explanations. We all had to put on these oversized looking slippers over our shoes to protect the floors which were mostly inlaid marble. Royce also got to wear a cape like the king in one of the paintings, which he thought was kinda cool. The art within this castle was amazing. They painted on the dry plaster, I can't remember what they call it, but they said it was like fresco painting except that fresco is on wet plaster and these are on dry. After exploring the two castles we headed to our hotel which was situated halfway between Burg Hohenzollern and the next days castle Schloss Neuschwenstein.
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(beautiful fields of wild flowers on the drive)
(some of the beautiful German houses on our drive)
(Mine and Nick's bed in our hotel room)
(Royce's pull out bed)
Once we got to our hotel we checked in and decided to explore the little square below our window and find some food. Because of the late hour we stopped at a little kebab place and got some gyro kebab which is a common thing here in Germany. We tried eating outside but the rain drove us inside. After eating out dinner we walked down the square to a backerai (that is how they spell it) and the boys got some gelato. We walked back to our room an tucked ourselves in for the night. Because of the summer and heat and no airconditioning we left all our windows open to let in the breeze. The next monring we were awoken at 6am sharp from the deisel sewage truck outside our window sucking the sewage up from the man holes in the street. After much trying on my part to get the boy to go back to sleep we went down to our delicious continental breakfast. Keep in mind this is no Days Inn spread. We had lots of fruit, yogurt, meats, cereals, cheeses and breads to choose from. All fresh and European mind you, there was no yoplay and Kraft American cheese. We're talking brie, prosciutto, fresh baked goods, the works. Even after this delicious spread I was worried about the ominous start to our day due to the earliness with a preschooler and the possibility of no nap. So off we headed to the alps, and even though I tried to get the little man to take a nap, it did not happen!
our first view of the alps!
Our first view of schloss Hohenschwangua (the King's castle)
Once we got to where we could see the castles we relized the schloss Neuschwenstein was under construction and the whole outside of the castle looked like it had been bubble wrapped. Now keep in mind that this is one of the most famous castles in Germany. It is reknowned because it is said to have inspired the Disney Cinderella castle. So to say that I was dissapointed was an understatement. This is probably one of the things I had wanted to see most in all of Germany.
(bubble wrapped Neuschwanstein)
(what it is supposed to look like!)
After parking at the bottom of the two castle schloss Hohenschwangua and schloss Neuschwenstein we bought tickets for both of the castles and headed up to schloss Hohenschwangua which was walking distance. The walk started off nicely with us stopping to view a few slugs making there way across the sidewalk towards the shade...
Things started to turn south at a fast rate when Royce started complaining about his legs hurting and that he could not walk up the hill to the castle, that he needed to be carried. Mind you we had just gotten out of the car and started walking.
In the time it took me to take a pretty picture daddy had said that no he would not carry him, and Royce proceeded to throw himself on the ground! This behavior I thought was extinct since I had not seen it in about 3 years. I stood there a little shell shocked while daddy went to gather him up so that we could have a good parent to son discussion after his screaming had stopped.
(yes I took picture of the not so cheery moments too!)
Once we had our discussion we were back on our way up the hill with a much improved mood on Royce's part.
(In the courtyard/garden at Hohenschwagua)
(the hotel, shops and other assorted buildings below)
This time we got to take an English tour. This castle had amazing things inside! The history behind the castle and objects inside was so rich. There was beautiful art, jewels, paintings, scultptures, etc. And once again there was no taking pictures. The castle is actually still privately owned by descendants who chose to kep it open to the public.
After getting done with our tour we knew we had to hurry down the hill to catch our next tour (of Neuschwenstein) that starting in one hour. We decided that after we walked down the hill we would grab a bite to eat to have on the ride in the horse drawn carriage that would take us the closest to the castle with only about 15 minutes worth of walking. Other wise to walk all the way up is 45 minutes not counting the walk down from hohenschwagau.
Once we got to the bottom of the hill from hohenschwagua we got a good view of the beautiful clear lake and there was swans and babies!
We found some sandwiches and water in a small bakery where the horse drawn carriages pick people up and we waited outside to catch a ride. The first carriage came up right away and we got pushed out of the way and couldn't get on. After it drove away a large crowd gathered for the next one, but we stayed in the front. Then Royce erupted. He was hungry and tired and he wanted to sit down and eat. So he proceeded to throw himself down on the ground once again in the middle of the crowd and was very loudly saying "I want to sit and eat!!!!" We waited and waited for another carriage. There were tons of them when we first got there, but now there were none to be seen and the kid was completely lossing it. In retrospect I laugh, but at the time it was so not funny. After waiting for 15 minutes with a tired, hungry, complaining child I turned to Nick and said, forget it, let's just go eat and leave. I was done for. So I carried the crying child while some annoying European guy made fun of my crying child, mocking his crying and making a face. Yes, that really happened. We eventually found a bench near where we parked and ate our food. Royce was in the worst mood and wouldn't eat the sandwich at first even though he was so hungry. We ended up having another lovely parent kid talk about how we are supossed to act and how not to, and how it's not nice to ruin the adventure for everyone else, yada yada yada. (The whole time before going on our adventure we explained to him that there would be a mommy day, a daddy day and a Royce day)
(the horse carriage we were supossed to use)
After eating we decided to make our way to our next hotel. Before we had even made it out of the parking lot Royce had fallen asleep!
(our hotel)
Our hotel was very nice and our room was very big and more like 2 rooms. There was a restaurant on the first floor which is what the umbrellas are for. There was also a beautiful garden/park area behind the hotel with lots of pretty flowers, water fountains, a wading pool for your feet, and lots of places to sit. Royce thought it was very cool that he had his own room, but then ended up sleeping in our bed because his room was so far away.
In the beautiful gardens:
cool off!
Please excuse the variations in the sizing and format. My computer hates me and the internet is constantly going out which means that is messes up whatever have going on and I'm just too lazy to go back and delete what I have and start over! Please continue on :)
These beautiful wild roses were growing around all of the light posts around the park and smelled divine. The reminded me of my equally beautiful grandma Goad and now I sniff flowers for her.
I love this pic!
Royce caught a fluff seed.
When we awoke the next morning on "Royce's day" he still was completely unaware of what his day was going to be. We kept it a surprise from him the whole time, up until he saw the giant LEGO on the hill, then he completely freaked out in sheer joy. He has been wanting to go to LEGOland for quite awhile now.
The very first thing he wanted to do was to ride the cars. All the kids are running out the gate! He was a big boy and waited in line without mommy and daddy.
He wanted to be sure to get the blue car!
Checking out the mini factory they had. They actually were making special LEGOland deutchland lego blocks that they handed out with a LEGOland stamp on it.
I got to see LEGO Neuswenstein hee hee hee.
Entire LEGO cities!
It's hard work fighting LEGO darth
This was the neatest idea! they had all these "mining" stations set up and the kids could mine fools gold, then they would weigh it and depending on how much you panned you could get a medal or a hunk of fools gold! It was so cute! Royce being the rock man wanted to do it.
I think he got 500 grams, with help from us.
picking out his gold.
The next few pictures are from the Atlantis part of the park where there is an aquarium and several tanks with assorted creatures, as well as a small hands on area:
I told him to take a picture with the lego lizard and this is what the goof did.
lego safari
he was so excited to ride the boats!
rowr!
We had a lot of fun at LEGOland and Royce was a very good boy. They had a really cool store that had all parts and pieces in bins so that you could pick out and then pay by weight. So Royce picked out a bag of assorted goodies. He was also sure to point out all of the lego sets he wanted. He has already said he wants to back. I hope you enjoy the multitudes of pictures, these were the best out of like 439 :D
I will probably be posting another post here pretty soon with some general updates on what's going on with us. Please excuse any grammatical errors, I was just so ready to publish the post as it has been half finished for a few weeks!
