Day 11 - A few last stops on our way home...

We left our cute little chalet in Austria and our dear friends to head home on day 11. Here is a view from our chalet, not bad heh?! I will miss it here. I hope to share it with our children someday, it truly is beautiful and pictures really do not do it justice!



Nathan and I standing in front of the chalet. It is over 100 years old! They do not build them like this in the States!



We had to get back to Amsterdam to drop off the rental car and get some sleep before our flight the next morning, so it was a pretty rushed road trip. But we did manage to make a couple pit stops to stretch our legs.



One stop was at the Gollinger Wasserfalle (waterfall). It was a short, easy hike and absolutely breathtaking! The mist coming off the waterfall was really cold and made it hard to take pictures because there was so much mist on the lens! But Nathan manages to get a few really nice pictures of this natural beauty!

Here is my handsome hubby taking his pictures.

He needs to be in them too...smile Honey!

We also made a pit stop in a cute little Austrian village called Ramsau. It had this pretty church to take a picture of and we got one more dose (or should I say "fix") of Austria's apple strudel! Yum!!! It is a good thing we are leaving strudel country, I heard addictions are bad for you!

Once we arrived in Amsterdam and returned our rental car we checked into our hotel. It is called "Citizen M" and it is VERY modern. It was a weird, yet cool, experience to stay there. It felt kinda like sleeping in one of those IKEA show rooms, but even trendier!

This is our room, sitting on the bed looking at the door. You see the white door? To the right is the toilet inside that little glass door area, you slide the door closed around you and you feel like you are in a space-age glass toilet tube! Then in front of the toilet is the tiny sink area (that little round white canister thing is the sink.) Across from the sink is the shower. It is a "rain shower" which was pretty cool. Once again, you slide the glass doors closed around you and you feel like you are now in the space-age glass shower tube..."beam me up Scottie, no wait! I'm naked!!!" LOL! The white curtain hanging in front of the shower can be pulled all the way across the room to separate it for privacy if needed. See the lamp on the lower right corner?

Well, it's the same lamp on the left in this picture. Everything in the room is super small, super compact to save space and then there is this huge, very comfortable, king size bed that takes up half the room! You can also change the lighting from white (regular) lights to colored lights, like purple, blue, etc. It was interesting. The window behind Nathan had a view of the Amsterdam airport.

In the morning we checked out and walked to the airport, it was that close. Then we departed Amsterdam airport at 10:10AM and arrived at the Portland airport at 11:50AM! We time traveled again, but this time it was in our favor. It is so weird to do that.

The time change was interesting. Once we got use to it finally we headed home, then it took us a week to get back on track here. I would love talking to the kids on the phone and saying "Good morning" to them as they are saying "good night" to us. Or talking to them on Skype and showing them "tomorrow's sunrise". It was pretty cool.

We LOVED our trip to Europe and our time together! We LOVED all that we were able to see and do and we LOVE the Parkers for being such great friends and all their hospitality! Thank you all so much!

Day 10 - Hallstatt, Austria

The Parkers and we spent the day in Hallstatt, Austria (yes, I know we keep hopping back over that border, but we were literally right on the border!) The day started out pretty drizzly so we thought we could start out in the ice caves and maybe it would clear up by the time we were out. Sounded like a good idea???

Here is the cute Parker family trudging up the mountain to the ice caves in their matching rain ponchos. Those kids were troopers!

We traded wet (outside) for wet and REALLY cold (inside the caves)!

It was magnificent though! This is ice age ice!

Nathan smiling through chattering teeth, Just kidding! (sort of)

A view from the top when we got out of the caves. It did clear up a little and it did stop raining for a while.

We enjoyed some time browsing around Hallstatt. It is the "oldest still-inhabited village in Europe" It dates back to 800B.C. and there have been pre-Celtic artifacts found in the area from 1000B.C.! It is a beautiful little village nestled on the bank of a gorgeous mountain lake!

It is also home to the famous "Karner" or "Bone House". It has been used as a burial site since the 17th century. Yes, it was creepy!

But the town was anything but creepy, I would use the word "magical"!

It was neat to be in a place where people have lived for so long!

In the evenings Nathan and I had to drive down the mountain to a little payphone on the side of the road to use out calling card to call home and talk to the kids. Very dark and usually pouring rain, but we would never miss an opportunity to call home!

Day 9 - Bertchesgaden, Germany

We FINALLY met back up with our good friends, the Parkers. We stayed with them in an adorable little villa nestled in the Alps, GORGEOUS view!

On day 9 of our trip we spent it mostly with Kevin, Marnie and their three adorable kids. First we went to the salt mines. First we all had to put on these oompa-loompa suits (very flattering!) and then we road a kind of train into the mines. The train was on track, but you straddled it and it had no sides or anything. It was fun. In the mine we slide down two wooden slides that were long and left your stomach at the top. Nathan, of course, loved them.

My favorite part of the mine was riding the boat across this huge underground brine lake! It looked like black glass, you can see the reflection of the cave ceiling in the brine! Then when we were in the middle of the lake, they turned out all the lights and a really cool light show started and the light show also reflected in the lake, making it that much cooler!

Here is Nathan standing next to a huge piece of salt...yes, that is salt!

Then we went to to see the "Chapel of St. Bartholomew" which is a famous little church on the Konigsee Lake and a great photo spot for our two photographers, Nathan and Kevin. The only way to reach it is by boat, so here we are!

When we got there we saw a German wedding party! Yes, we are back in Germany again. We were just hopping back and forth over the border. There is NO border control throughout Europe! Isn't this couple cute! I love their traditional dress!

Here is the chapel...

My handsome man!

Posing with the Watzman Mountains behind us. Legend says that the peaks were once a royal family who were so evil that God punished them by turning them into rocks!

A mountain meadow. So pretty here!

This lake is called "Lake Obersee" and was part of Lake Konigsee (the one we road the boat across to get to the chapel) until an avalanche separated them 8 centuries ago! That must have been some avalanche because it took us about 15 minutes to briskly walk to it! The waterfall in the background is the tallest in Germany, Rothbachfalle!

Day 8 - Salzburg, Austria - Sound of Music!

Salzburg was amazing! I was really excited about this day because "The Sound of Music" is my all time favorite movie and we were doing a self guided tour. I am so glad we did this! It turned out to be one of my favorite days! There is so much to show you that there are two slide shows! I hope you enjoy!

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Day 7 - Lots of Castles!

You see many castles as you drive through Europe. Many of them are still privately owned and lived in, but some are historic and open for tours.

We went to see three castles all belonging to "Mad King Ludwig". The first one was his childhood home called "Hohenschwangau Castle". We toured the inside of this one, its very big and very beautiful...

When "Mad King Ludwig" became king he started to build his dream castle, the "Neuschwanstien Castle". You can actually see this one from the first one, he had it built just up the mountain a little ways. This was so elaborate and frivolous that it is one of the reasons he got the "Mad" added to the front of his name. It is so amazingly beautiful that when Walt Disney saw it he modeled Sleeping Beauty's castle after it! So now it is nicknamed, "The Sleeping Beauty castle" or "the Disney castle" since it is the castle that is on the Disney symbol. Cool, heh! We toured the inside of this one too, neither place would allow us to take pictures inside, so we don't have any to show you, sorry!

After our tours we hiked through the Pollat Gorge just below these towering castles. Very beautiful! There were so many people at the castles, but just a few minutes walk and we were all by ourselves in natures serenity!

Then we took a tram ride up to the top of the nearby "Tegelberg Mountain" for an amazing view of the Alps mountains and the valley below.

(Beautiful view, worth the little hike, but my leg was throbbing!)


After coming down off of Tegelberg we drove a little ways over to "Linderhof Caslte" this was actually originally the Ludwig "hunting cabin"! Ha! After his father died Mad King Ludwig spruced up the place a little, just validating the "Mad" title. Here we only toured the outside because it was after hours, but we got a lot of great pictures without a bunch of pesky tourist in them! LOL!

THIS is the front yard! We are standing on the front steps looking out...

Here we are standing at the little pavilion you see at the top of the above picture looking out over the "hunting cabin" and into the back yard... yeah, I sure would have hated it to rough it in this pitiful hunting cabin!

Here we are at the very top of the back yard looking down over the property getting the backside view of the "cabin".

The royal Swan coming in for a closer look.

Very pretty hunting grounds!

After our day of "mingling with royalty" (well, so there were no actually royal people around, but we stood where they have stood so close enough okay!) Anyway we went back to our hotel and had dinner in the first floor restaurant again, listened to the great accordion music and saw some more dancing. The best part of the day...this apple strudel!!! Oh YUM!

And you do not have to be royalty to enjoy a view like this out your hotel window!