Skipper and Meghan do Bavaria, Part 1

So, in early May my friend Gabrielle from Charleston came to visit me on her first whirlwind European tour. She started out in London, then to Ireland, then back to London, and finally to Germany. She stayed with me for about a week, and we took a trip to Bavaria. It was quite the boondoggle!

We left the Kaiserslautern area for the 7 hour drive to Garmisch, and the ride was uneventful. Despite the fact that Skipper (G's nickname) has an innate distrust of satellite navigation and insisted on using her AAA maps to follow along with the GPS for the entire ride, we still made it in one piece.

The first order of business was to find someplace to stay. It was the off season in Garmisch, so we didn't make any reservations. If you know either of us you realize just how out of character this is! We wandered around until we found a good spot, the Gasthaus Maurer. Maurer is the family name, and it means stone mason in German. I dazzled Skipper with my command of "We need a room" - level German and managed to negotiate the room rate and arrangements. As you can see from the picture, the houses in this area all have detailed paintings that depict a story. This one is about three saints whose names I've forgotten.

Next came a day trip to another part of Bavaria to see Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein, two of King Ludwig's fairy tale castles. Neuschwanstein is really impressive, and Walt Disney modeled Cinderella Castle after it. I'm having trouble posting that picture, so look for it in another post.

Anyhow, these castle are really up in the mountains. Skipper and I, being the cheapskates and adventurous outdoor types that we are, decided to forego the horse-drawn carriage and bus options and walk the entire tour. T

So let me explain the pictures. Above is a pic of Skipper and myself at an observation point, taken by a nice bystander. You can see Hohenschwangau in the background; it's kind of an orange-ish color.

To the left is a picture of the gorge bridge, taken from Neuschwanstein. We hiked up to that bridge and took some pictures of the castle. You'll see those in the next post if Blogger cooperates with me.

It rained on and off all day, but we braved the weather and were rewarded with some amazing sights!

The next day we went to Munich for a day trip. We took Deutsche Bahn, which was fun for both of us :) Skipper set an ambitious walking pace (the girl is a sightseeing PRO) but I managed to keep up and we say many of the city's major sights in just one day. We saw the Residenz, the Frauenkirche, and the English Gardens. We drank coffee in the Biergarten, and even saw the Glockenspiel. I am obsessed with taking public transportation in major cities, so I made Gabrielle ride the U-Bahn back to the train station to catch the last train back to Garmisch. We were pretty exhausted on the ride back! The highlight of our day was seeing Munich's Urban Surfers (see below). The snow melt was causing the rivers to run high, and by this bridge there was an underground weir, which caused interesting hydraulic activity. In layman's terms, it created a permanent wave! These guys were actually surfing, taking turns when one fell off. It was crazy!