Hohenzollern Castle, Hechingen, Germany

We headed to Hechingen, Germany yesterday, in search of Burg Hohenzollern. It was hard to miss!

 It is considered the ancestral seat of the Hohenzollern family, which emerged in the Middle Ages and eventually became German Emperors. 2,800 ft elevation! Wait till you see the view from up there!

This was the third castle built on this site.
 The first castle was destroyed in 1423 after a 10 month siege by the imperial cities of Swabia!  

A second and more sturdy castle was built in 1454 - 1461 and served as a refuge for the Catholic Swabian Hohenzollerns during the Thirty Years war. Later, the castle was abandoned and fell into disrepair. Only the chapel remains of this medievel castle.



The third version of the castle, which stands today, was constructed for Frederick William IV of Prussia between 1846 and 1867. Apparently, this is an English Neo-Gothic style. He also based it on castles in Loire, France. Because the castle was built as a family memorial, no member of the Hohenzollern family took residence in this third castle until 1945, when it became home to the last Prussian Crown Prince. 



The Germans love their Hundes!



View of the valley below! Beautiful!




They only let us take pictures in one room, which was covered with the family tree. The top shield says "Lundburg" - I think that's close enough! We will be taking up residence after the trip - I always wanted to live in a castle



Well, we are leaving Germany tomorrow morning and heading to Milan, Italy via Switzerland. We are planning to meet an Italian homeschooling family there and will spend the night in a hotel. Saturday morning, we drive onto our first Italian rental, about an hour outside of Rome. I am not sure of internet access there, so this may be our last post for a while! Lord willing, we will be at the Vatican for Easter mass.

Keep praying for us! I hear Italian drivers are nuts!

Domestic Bliss

 Thought I would write a bit about the domestic side of living in Germany this week. You really do shop everyday for your bread, and you find all sorts of goodies like this buttery sweet cake!

The living room of our apartment

The kitchen...

and eat-in dining

Entry - bath is to the left, bedroom to the right and another down the hall

I love my little car! It is a Peugot

That is Daisy under the blankets. We draw lots to see who has to share a bed with her - just kidding! (notice that she is sprawled across the bed with her foot on someones pillow!)

 
The Other Side of the Colmar Trip 

We spent our first three days in cities and using public transportation, so when we arrived in Germany our clothes were filthy. Don't forget, we only brought three bottom items of clothing and five tops and one jacket each. We felt that laundry needed to get done asap. Ms. Monika told me that there were only public laundries in cities, so Sunday we headed to Freiburg - silly - everything is closed!

A welcoming sight!

Thank goodness for my trusty Rick Steve's France guidebook. He had plenty of information on why we needed to head to Colmar, France, PLUS the address for a laundramat! Monday we punch the address into our GPS and off we go!   



It took a while to figure out how to use the machines



Yeah!

Well, our story doesn't end there! Clothes are washed and then we figure out that the dryers aren't working. Just as we are realizing this, an angry and possibly intoxicated German man comes into the small shop and proceeds to get even angrier and frustrated when we can't communicate with him! Run Away! Run Away!
Through a clenched smile, I tell the kids, "Pack up our stuff, Get into the car" as the fellow is ranting away. We make a quick escape. Phew! But the laundry is wet!
Thanks again, Rick Steves. We follow his instructions to a free parking lot, drop off our laundry to be dried and folded by professionals and off we go to explore the beautiful city of Colmar. As Ma would say, "All's well that ends well!"

The War Museum......

Our trip to the War Museum was pretty cool. there was everything from stoneage axes to the atom bomb. the WWI part of the musem was my favorite because of all the photographs and relief maps.

THIS ONE WAS MY FAVORITE

A POOR GERMAN SOLDIERS GRAVE. (LOOK AT THE FEET)

They also have lots and lots of weaponry and uniforms. they had an entire exibit devoted to WWI machine guns

 THIS UNIFORM WAS REALLY COOL!

THIS IS AN OFFICER OF "THE THIRD REICH'S" UNIFORM.

The WWII exibit was really cool too. they had a huge exibit of glass cases full to the brim of WWII weaponry.

 THIS EXIBIT FEATURES THE FAMILIAR M1-A1 THOMPSON & M1-CARBINE!

The photographs and film reels were amazing. some of the photos however where to grotesque to show on the blog. so here are just a few.

THATS ALL THERE IS TO SHOW. IF YOU WANT TO SEE THE REST, GO THERE!

AFTER THE WAR MUSEUM WE HAD A FEW CASUALITIES OF OUR OWN

A week in Europe!

Today marks our first week in Europe, four more weeks to go! Everyone is alittle homesick and longing for the familiar. Tonight we will make Daisy a chicken pot pie for dinner - alittle comfort food. Museums are very dull when you are 9!



Daisy in front of one of Colmar's canals



We spent Sunday in Frieburg, Germany, trying to find a waschsalon (laundramat). Most of the town was closed though. Lovely little city with several medievel buildings. We have all noticed how much more fit and  active the Germans are. Biking, rollar blading, walking. So many natural places to enjoy, and they are filled with German families. Lots of campers too! You can't imagine the size of these mountians that folks are biking (!) up! 

On the way home from Freiburg we stopped at "Steinwasen Park", a fun little outdoor play-park. Elaborate playground and obstacles courses, a huge rope bridge, lots of animals to see, a chairlift and luge ride and some exhibits on the local history. We stayed for a few hours of fun, Black Forest-style!

view from the rope bridge at Steinwasen Park

Monday we headed into Colmar, France via the autobahn (German highway system). Not so bad!
Colmar did not disappoint! They call it "Little Venice" due to canals that wind through the city. It has a large pedestrian area we enjoyed wandering through, fancy shops, vendors selling crepes, local crafts, cheese, wine, pastries and chocolate.  I hope our pictures do it justice - such a beautiful city. FYI, Colmar was the birthplace of Auguste Bartholdi, creator of the Statue of Liberty.


The garden at Unterlinden



He is Risen! A panel of the altarpiece - so awesome!

 We visited the Unterlinden Museum. It is housed in a former convent for noblewomen (under the linden trees), the nuns apparently had some of the best vineyards around. They made wine and used the proceeds to feed the poor and sick. 





The Unterlinden contains the prestigious Issenheim Altarpiece, painted by Mathias Grunewald between 1512 and 1516.  It was painted for a monastery that housed a hospice for victims of St. Anthony's Fire, a horrible, disfiguring disease caused by ingesting rye infected by pasasites. Gazing on this altarpiece was to help them accept their sufferings...

Either way, it looked like it could have been painted yesterday, the colors were so bright and clear. Lovely. 

Cloister at Unterlinden - can't you imagine the nuns walking these halls?



Sharing a nutella crepe - yum!



St. Martin's Cathedral - kids and I need to brush up on our Catholic saints! We keep seeing St. Sebastian, tied up and pierced all over with arrows.

one of the vendors in the pedestrian area



all the shops are decorated for Easter




inside a little courtyard we found





Colmar, France



Guten tag from the beautiful Black Forest in Germany!



 



We picked up the car in Paris and headed to Belguim on Friday, but got horribly lost and ended up heading to Germany without seeing Bastogne. We are trying to figure out how to get there before the end of the trip. We have a couple of options, so it could still happen.

 

Arrived in Todtmoos last night and slept in this morning. My trip to the grocery store was an amazing education in German innovation. Imagine going to get your grocery cart to find it locked up? I kinda hung around until a little old lady strolled up, slipped a coin into the handle and viola! it unlocked! Then ya know what? when you return to the locked carts and relock, you get your money back! Brilliant!



 

 



The rest of my "quick" trip was the same, watching others do their shopping and then copy-catting. They must have thought I was crazy!

Not many people speak English here, which has been another challenge. We managed through today though and have a surprising number of key phrases under our belts! Plus, the kids discovered that Germans watch the same tv shows as we do and have been watching a Disney movie tonight in German. They keep saying "oh! that means ____!"  



We are in a very mountainous area, surrounded by the Black Forest. Winding roads are full of dare-devil motor cyclist in full leather gear flying on the hairpin turns like they are on a race course! Villages are tucked in to the valleys, built into the hillsides and surrounded by postcard-perfect scenery. Cobbled streets, fancy boutiques, hiking trails, sidewalk cafes... lovely!

We visited Todtmoos, St. Blasien and Wehr today. Each village has a beautiful, ornate church. St. Blasien was the most impressive, but locked up so we couldn't go inside. Not being Catholic, it seems rude tromping through the church in Todtmoos , but we weren't chased away. (we did our best to be quiet and turned off the camera's flash). 

We are off to Freiburg tomorrow in hopes of finding a laundramat and to see the town. Colmar, France is also on the list this week. Fortunately, our wonderful hosts, the Luthys, worked hard this morning to get us connected to the internet. I was so worried about getting Bryan a message that we were safe and sound this morning! Looking forward to our Skype call tomorrow!

 Oh! There was frost - thick frost - on the car window this morning! Much chillier here than I expected!











A few more pictures!



Bryanna & Elijah in front of the Arc du Carrousel

  Sightseeing day in Paris! Started out at the Lourve, then a walk and lunch in Tuileries Garden before making our way to The Orangerie Museum to see Monet's water lilies.

Kids are taking a much-needed nap, then we are off to Notre Dame and the Army Museum and Napoleon's Tomb.

Tomorrow we get up early and pick up our car, then onto Bastogne, Belguim for lunch. Afterwards, we drive onto our first rental in Todtmoos, Germany.

Just figured out that the spell check is not working - so pardon my spelling!


Greek statues in the Lourve - I think I was almost as impressed with the building!



In the beautiful Tuileries Garden



Water Lilies



French lunch!



I had to drag him out of the parking garage! His dream car!




The Lourve was amazing!




Venus de Milo



Hey! We are here!

Well, we had a wonderfully uneventful flight, although Daisy was the only one that slept, and arrived in London at 6am their time (1am VA time). Wandered around abit, had breakfast/lunch at St. Martin in the Fields crypt cafe, then walked through the National Gallery until it was time to catch the Eurostar to Paris. Eurostar was totally uneventful - you would think that taking a train through the English Channel would have been more of an attraction!

"Oh my goodness, what have we done" didn't really hit until the kids and I were horribly lost trying to get to our hotel using the Metro in Paris. Finally, after panomiming with the second terminal worker we got good directions (ones we could understand!) and made it to our hotel. Oh Joy of joys! What an accomplishment!

We went to dinner at a Crepe/Greek restuarnt on Rue Cler, a neat pedestrian street around the corner from our hotel, grabbed a few things for tomorrow's breakfast, then back to the hotel to Skype Bryan. Ah, modern technology is amazing! Then we dashed off again for reservation at the Eiffel Tower at 10pm. Would definately recommend getting reservations! We flew through the line and up to the top in 15 minutes! Actually, we only went to the 2nd level - we are all a little weak-kneed when it comes to heights!

Just some quick pictures - can't figure out how to rotate pictures. Plus you can't quite tell that that is Paris in the background or that we are on the Eiffel tower! Will take more pictures tomorrow!