Hey all,
Finally I get to tell you about our Castle Trip. With the really BAD internet here and Blogger doing it's normal weirdness, I haven't had a chance to tell you some of what we did.
It was a great trip and we REALLY enjoyed our time with Jessaca. It went by too quickly and we didn't have nearly enough time to do all we wanted to. But I suppose that's the way it is with vacations. So much to do...so little time.
But this time it wasn't just the journey or seeing the sights, though that was all awesome. It was being able to spend time with our daughter. She's my bestest girlfriend, and I've missed her so much. I love knowing I can see her and it's as if we've never been apart.
We immediately went into kibitz mode and chatted until our voices dried up and called for mercy. It was great!!!
The trip itself was so much fun. We hit several places. Amsterdam, the Romantic Road, Zurich, Fucking Austria (just to say we did), Paris and Cologne. And a dozen places in between. We saw castle ruins, medival towns, castles that had been restored to their original glory, churches, scenic waterways, forests and meadows, and beautiful, snow covered mountains.
We spent the first two days in Amsterdam so she could see all the sites we so much enjoyed. We took her to our favorite castle there, Muiderslot, and on the way back to Dusseldorf, we stopped by a new castle, Het Loo. And that was just the start of our castle touring. Germany is almost as crowded with ruins as Ireland was!
We visited the castle in Mannheim, toured the ruins and fell in love with the town of Heidelberg. We saw the castles in Johannisburg, Wertheim, and Wurzburg. And that was just the first couple days.
We followed the Romantic Road through Germany, dipping in and out of small picturesque towns and wishing we were independently wealthy so we could spend more time in each of them. We went back to Munich, this time to visit several of that cities castles, then we were off again to get our pictures taken with the sign of Fucking, Austria. Just because we could.
We sighed over the beauty of the lake where Saint Bartholomew's Chapel sits and had snowball fights in the Tyrolean Alps. And we spent almost two full days touring the castles of King Ludwig II.
These I have to say were the highlights of the trip. He may have been an odd duck, but Ludwig sure knew his architecture and artwork. Each of the three castles we visited we outstanding. No wonder Walt Disney chose one of them--Neuschwanstein--to be used as his signature castle in Disneyland. And it's beauty also graced the big screen in the movie, Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang.
We spent two days in the Black Forest, showing Jessaca all the cute little towns and picking out our number one souvenir of Germany, a Cuckoo Clock. It's my souvenir and Christmas gift all wrapped up into one. LOL
Then it was on to Paris where we wandered the city, showing Jessaca the sights. She LOVED it there, and I think she'll be planning another trip in her future! We took her to the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame and a dozen other places. I love Paris. It's one of my favorite cities in Europe, and I think now it's Jessaca's too.
Then it was on to our last two stops...Aachen Germany, where we wandered the beautiful little medieval downtown and paid our respects to Charlemagne, who is buried in the Aachen Cathedral. Then, on our way home, we spent a day in Cologne, another picturesque German town with a lovely cathedral, waterway, fort and old town area.
We hated to get back to Dusseldorf, because we knew it was the end of not only our trip, but Jessaca's time with us. It was so hard to say goodbye, and I cried for a whole day after she left. I still tear up thinking about her.
But it's not so long until I'll see her again. We'll be heading to Florida to visit all our kids before we move to San Paulo, Brazil in South America.
And that's a whole 'nother story. LOL
Until Sunday!
Hugs,
