Due to the fact that we were staying at the COOLEST hotel of all time we were able to avoid waiting in hours of lines to get tickets to the castle. We had breakfast around 7:30 and had a 9:25am tour time which meant we needed to be making our way up the hill around 8:25. After much debate we decided to take the bus up rather than hike (my hiking shoes were RETIRED for this trip). I'm fairly certain we were the only Americans on a bus full of Asian tourists. Once up the hill we made our way to Marien's bridge - a very narrow suspension bridge that hold the very best pictures of the castle. We were all getting a little on edge about being up close and personal with other tourists. So this was a bit of a test on our patience on the narrow bridge. We made it though, pictures in hand.
The castle tour was great - it was about 1/3 finished with Ludwig died and was never fully finished like he had planned. We were surprised at how modern it was for the times. After the tour we made our way back to the town, got some pretzels to go (bc....of course and you never know when you are going to be stranded on a goat path in Germany) and we headed on our way to our very last stop of the trip - Waldeck.
The drive to Waldeck was fairly uneventful. We passed through some heavy traffic early on (traffic into Hohenschwangau was CRAZY) but that was pretty much it. We stopped at a rest stop for lunch, paid for toillets, did hand signals to order our food and were then back on our way. JD drove pretty much the rest of the way. We were all looking forward to two relaxing nights at our castle in Waldeck - and our spa day of course :)
Upon arriving at our castle in Waldeck we quickly found a place that we could have beer, sit on the terrace and take in the view. This was also the location of dinner - and was quite a fancy dinner at that. There was "free cucumber soup" that Bryce had to hold his nose to drink, a waitress who tried very hard to be a serious tough waitress but we knew she secretly loved us, a delicious 3 course meal of Pistachio Soup, beef, potato dumplings and chocolate mousse. We had more wine/scotch to close out our night. Late that night there was a very impressive storm that woke us all up but we all loved the location and had a great relaxing couple of days.
On our last day we had big plans of massages and exploring the castle. We had a slow start, late breakfast followed by each of us taking a turn for a massage. We spent time out on the patio with beers and bratwurst and after everyone had gotten their massage we made our way to the castle museum to learn all about the torture techniques used onsite. yikes! To name just a few that we learned about....there was a public shaming cage that you could spin around to make the prisoner sick, whipping tools, some kind of a wheel and an actual beheading sword from the 1700s - yikes! After our tour of the museum we went to find the cable car that took you down to the beach - because....no stone left unturned on this trip! This cable car was 50 years old and held 2 people per car - I'm fairly certain nothing has changed about this excursion in all of those 50 years! We walked down to the Erdsee which was the largest manmade lake in Germany. It was a Resevoir and dam that was made in the early 1900s.
Upon coming back we (of course) found a place to have a few drinks and dinner. During our last dinner we made a list of hashtags, or memories of the trip. Not the things we saw....but the memories that the 4 of us created over the last two weeks. We laughed so hard and reading over that list again I laughed all over again. You won't find that list here.....come find our photobook and you can see it there and here all the stories behind those hashtags. In the end, there are no 4 people better suited to 2 weeks of travel through Europe than the Woolards and Burkes. YOu might think that you would get tired of being with someone for so long - we can truly and honestly say we had an absolute wonderful time with our dear dear friends. To spend such a wonderful trip with two people that we don't see often enough was such a blessing. Thank you Anne and JD for including us - we can't wait for our next adventure! Love you!
No comments:
Post a Comment