June 18th - a little more

Our trip to Konigsee is special for several reasons. One, it was part of our trip but more important it was a gift from a friend. Without saying too much, a friend gave us a gift of money for our trip to do something special on the trip in honor of her dad who died last year. We used the money she gave us to buy the tickets to go up to the top of the mountain. Her dad like to do things and go places and this is what we did in his honor. We spoke of him and his family, prayed for them and enjoyed our time in his honor and for his sweet daughter.

June 18th

June 17

After a wonderful night’s rest and a nice breakfast we headed to Garmish on our way into the Southern part of Germany. We stopped in Garmish and had a nice lunch. Again we were traveling on a small German road that took us through many villages. We loved it! Our goal was to get to Salzburg, Austria for the night. This was a day of driving. After a long day we found our way into a little village right outside of Burchesgarten called Koginese. What a find. We stayed in a nice little hotel. This little area is known for Germans coming in the Spring and Summer to hike as well as ski in the Winter. We decided that instead of going onto Salzburg early the next morning we would spend almost the whole day in this village. They had a lift up to the top of this mountain. For some of you reading this, you will be surprised that I made this trip but I did. There were times I couldn’t look out but I made it and was glad I did! The view was amazing. The boys had been saying that they wanted to climb a mountain and this gave them a chance to do some climbing because even after we got off the lift, there was still farther to go to get to the top. As you can see from the pictures we were high up. After coming down we got bread, cheese and meat from a small bakery and had lunch on the go. Again, not knowing where we were going to stay we headed into Salzburg. One regret, we had forgotten where the salt mine was located and missed seeing that. We found a place to stay, walked around town some, had dinner and then headed back to our hotel. We had packed light on this trip and now was the time to find a place to wash our clothes. We had washed in South Carolina, Spain and now we needed to find a place in Salzburg. Win and I took the kids back to the hotel and we set off looking for a place. The people at our hotel had told us where to find one. Finally, after many turns and turn arounds we found one. Win and I spent a nice hour there washing and catching up on life, after all this is what this trip is about!

June 16 - More Munich and Dachau

We got up and had another traditional German breakfast at the guesthouse we stayed in. We were not even sure where we were but we were rested and clean and ready to hit the road on our adventure. Win wanted us to go back to Munich because there were several things there to see. This time on our way back into Munich we found a wonderful road, like a highway road, that took us through all the small villages. The kids got a chance to see how the Germans live in Bavaria. We wanted to come back to one these villages for the night because we would be traveling back this way after our day in Munich. To Munich we went! Parking is a problem in Munich. We found the city center that we wanted to walk around in but couldn’t find a parking spot or garage. Finally we found one but it was very far way from where we wanted to be but we are adventurous and thought we could walk to where we wanted to go. My bet is we walked about 10 miles that day. It took us 1 ½ hour to walk back to the city center. We wanted the kids to see the Marionettes that play on top of the certain buildings but they don’t play as much as they used to so we missed seeing them in action but did see them. We visited several churches and enjoyed the city. We ate German sausage and bread for lunch. Then we headed for the train station and took about a 15-20 minute train ride to Dachau, a large German concentration camp. What a site to see! Makes you think-a lot. The day was drawing to close and we headed back by train right where our car was parked and then head down highway B11 looking for a village to spend the night. The place we found was sort of the center of this small village. In front was a restaurant. The second floor was a hall where people could rent for parties and the top floors were rooms for rent. They rented us one large room and we all slept in there together. On the side of this building was a barn with cows waiting to go to the slaughter and the back was another bar/space people could rent out for parties. That night, there was a band playing for a private party. At midnight they sang “happy birthday” to someone. The place was run by the same family for 5 or 6 generations and the part of the family running it now only has one child and she is 25-30 year who wasn’t sure what her future was going to be with the place. Her name was Katherine and we enjoyed talking to her.