Germany

Fair warning: There are about 100 photos in this post. On the bright side, these were culled from about 1700 photos, so there could have been a lot more. You're welcome.

We spent the past 3 weeks in Germany.  Christina & Eric were so nice to let us stay with them... did I mention we stayed 3 weeks?  That's a good sister and brother-in-law. Logan loved every second of his cousin time.  They live in a great neighborhood where there are a million kids and most nights it seems like all the kids play together in the street while the parents hang out and chat.  Logan learned to ride a 2-wheeler while he was there.  Christina had a good trick for getting going and now he's a pro.
 
We climbed every other day, and usually visited 2 crags per day... I think we hit about 20 in all.  They were spread all through mossy forests with towering leafy trees.  It reminded me a lot of CT woods. You could drive right up to a lot of the crags, and the furthest were only a 5 minute walk-- sometimes the kids could nap in the car while we climbed. It was fun climbing and we usually had the crag to ourselves. We ended most days with a visit to the bakery in the nearest town where we loaded up on chocolate croissants, apple strudel, and other goodies.  I think we single-handedly supported the German backerei industry for the few weeks we were there.

We rode a few trains and saw many more, which was the highlight of Logan's trip.  We went to the grocery store just about every day, because nothing's more interesting than a foreign grocery store, and it was walking distance from Christina's house. On our rest days, we walked around medieval villages, took a trip to the Alps, spent a couple days in the Elbenstein climbing/hiking area, and went to Oktoberfest in Munich.  We had a great time.  I had pretty low expectations for Europe with kids... I thought it was going to be kind of awful... but I was pleasantly surprised.

So here goes the pictures... first, the cousins!

Cousins!  Logan's favorite thing about Europe.

The boys helping Christina make Marcus' Iron man birthday cake.  Lucky for me Logan requests the same simple cake every year that I made when he was 1-- round cake with white frosting and sprinkles-- I'm not sure I have the skills for much more.

Lauren & Amelie in the stroller on the walk to downtown Weiden

Logan & Dominic rode their bikes downtown and found some hens to rest on

Doughnuts from the bakery around the corner.

Lauren pulling Amelie around the neighborhood

Family walk to downtown Weiden

Amelie on the courtyard in Weiden

Rafting down the river at Playmobil Park... Logan had a blast!

Logan learning to ride a bike

Next, the climbing:

Big rock towers hiding in the woods near Action Directe.  Can you find Logan?

Mark & Logan scoping out Action Directe, the world's first 5.14d, put up by Mark's climbing idol Wolfgang Gullich.  We figure they'll be back in 10 years so Mark can belay Logan as he on-sites it.

One of the crags, El Dorado, was next to a playground.  Logan had fun climbing through the spider web, and Amelie had fun eating the rocks underneath the web.

The woods were full of mossy towering leafy trees-- it looked a lot like the woods in CT or OR.

Our second climbing day.  We had good weather for the most part, but it poured this day.  The rock overhung enough that it was dry at the bottom.

Mark climbing the world's first redpoint. 

We found an alpine slide near the climbing... and became regulars

Me & Logan on the alpine slide... he kept telling me to go faster, I don't think I was as speedy as Mark

A's perch at Richard Wagnerfels crag

Logan stayed home with his cousin's this day and A had us all to herself, she was pretty psyched

Pretty tree at Weissenstein

Our hangout at Maxamilianswand

Third, the villages:

Nuremberg.  We came here straight from the airport when we arrived in Germany and were a little delirious for lack of sleep. Logan couldn't even talk and was just sort of moaning unintelligibly the whole time, so we didn't enjoy it as much as we might have on a different day. 

Logan found a carousel in Nordlingen, first stop on our Medieval village tour day.

Amelie found a bakery in Dinkelsbuhl, Medieval village #2.

Dinkelsbuhl. We spent lots of time wandering around villages like this.

One of the towers in the wall surrounding Dinkelsbuhl.  Logan, me, & Amelie are in the window

A closer look

Rothenberg ob der Tauber was our favorite medieval village. 

Amelie in Rothenberg

Eating our snowball, Rothenberg's specialty pastry, in the amphitheater along the city wall

Bamberg

Running through Bamberg. I love these tree tunnels!

Fourth, our trip to southern Germany: Berchtesgaden, the Alps, and the Castles:

We spent a couple days in southern Germany along the Austrian border.  This is Lake Konigsee in Berchtesgaden, the area where the Huber brothers grew up.

Mark & Amelie at Konigsee

Family at Lake Konigsee

Feeding the ducks at Lake Konigsee. 

We spent the night in the town of Berchtesgaden with the Alps as a backdrop

Amelie in Berchtesgaden

We crossed into Austria to visit the Schleierwasserfall, a waterfall and a climbing area the Hubers developed.  It was a long hike up and Logan did most of it himself-- probably his longest ever.I bribed him with peanut butter crackers and we took lots of breaks.

Next stop was Garmisch.  We rolled in just in time to catch the last train and cable car to the top of Zugspitz, the highest mountain in Germany. Here's a view from the top.

Zugspitze

Climbers on the Via Ferrata route to the top of the mountain

More views from Zugspitze

Family pic on top of Zugspitze

Logan does this wierd face/ curled arm pose in all of our pictures now... I think he learned it from someone at school?  He thinks he's so funny.

Cable car that took us down as the clouds rolled in

On the way back down to Garmisch.  It was gorgeous but Amelie screamed the whole way up and part of the way down so it was a relief to get back down.  Maybe her ears were bothering her.  Maybe we forgot to feed her...

The next day we went to Partnach Gorge. This is a slot canyon with a walkway carved into the rock.  There were big waterfalls pouring down the sides of the canyon and raging water in the river below.  We ran most of the way choo-choo'ing through all the tunnels. 

Statue carved in the side of the Gorge

After the Gorge, we drove to the Cinderella castle! It was pouring on our hike up, but eventually cleared. Logan & Mark at Neuschwanstein

Amelie & me

Princess Amelie at Hohenschwangau Castle, the castle next to Neushweinstein

Amelie, Mark & Logan at Hohenschwangau

Playing in the fountain at Hohenschwangau

Cool tunnels at Hohe... however you spell it.

Fifth, Oktoberfest in Munich:

Oktoberfest!  We took the 6am train from Weiden to get there bright and early.  Nothing like a liter of beer at 9am

Mmm... Amelie thinks that looks good too.

Look how many he's carrying! So impressive!

Doing my part

Family pic at Oktoberfest

In addition to all the beer, they had lots of amusement park rides at Oktoberfest too.  This was Logan's first time on bumper cars, he loved it!

View from the ferris wheel.  The white roofs are the beer tents.

Fancy horses pulling kegs of beer

The train ride home, with kids swinging from the rafters

Train!  Logan's other favorite thing about Europe.

Sixth, our trip to East Germany: Elbenstein & Dresden

We went to a big fortress, Festung Konigstein.  Look at this gate!

It was really misty when we were there... kind of added to the mystique

Locked up at Festung Konigstein

Hiking through the Elbenstein.  This area was really beautiful, with lots of narrow mossy canyons.  There is climbing here, but no gear allowed, so climbers tie knots in their ropes and poke them into cracks with sticks.  Crazy!

There were many ladders like this on the hike

View from the lookout at the top of the hike.  There's a guy climbing that skinny tower in the middle of the picture.

On the way back down.

Mark & Logan making his silly face

Dresden.  This was a super beautiful city.  Hard to believe it was totally destroyed during WWII. 

We found a street market with a fun ride

Family pic in Dresden

One more

Walking across a bridge back to our hotel at dusk

Another hike though misty towers in the Elbenstein

Mark just had to do one route here... I was not pleased.  It was so sketchy.

Bastei-- a cool bridge in the Elbenstein

Whew, that's it!  We made it back to Denver after about 20 hours of travelling (we were too cheap to pay for the direct flight).  The kids did fine on the flight, but had totally had it at the end.  We carried them both off screaming... Logan puked on me as we walked through DIA toward the train... but it didn't really matter at that point. All things considered it was a pretty successful trip.