Trip 2010

We got to go on our trip and have finally made it back! What a great trip! We are grateful to our family for taking care of our sweet girls while we were gone. We missed them terribly, but know that they had a wonderful time being with family. Livi has been asking all week to come back to Cole Camp and Josie has told us all about the fun times she had. Thanks again!

We took about 1000 picture on our trip, so there is clearly no way they will all fit on here. That being said, I'm going to try to do a small slide show on here for each portion of our trip, but it takes forever to load large numbers of photos on our computer. To start though, I'm including an itinerary of our trip (mostly for my own memory!) before I forget the details:

Friday, March 26th
The girls went to Cole Camp with Jason's mom and dad and Jason and I drove to Brandon and Lezlie's house in St. Louis. This let us sleep in about 2 hours later than we would have otherwise which was a pretty big deal since the flight left a little after 7am. Thanks, Brandon & Lezlie!!!

Saturday, March 27th
Our first flight was to Philadelphia. We had a six hour layover in PHL which was quite long. Our evening flight left for Munich. It was 8.5 hours long and with the time change, we arrived in Munich around 8:30am on Sunday.

Sunday, March 28th
Technically, check in for our hotel was not until 2pm, but they had our room ready for us by 11:00 which was fantastic! Jason and I took a much needed nap and then navigated our way on the train system to visit the Schloss Nymphenburg. This was a really lovely palace. We had hoped to visit the Alte Pinothek museum that day as well, but due to the long walk, us dragging a bit, and getting used to the town, this was all we managed in the afternoon. We went to the Hofbrauhaus for dinner and got a taste of the fabulous German beer. Navigating our way to the Hofbrauhaus, we happened upon the Marienplatz and were amazed with how beautiful it was. We managed to be there right as the Glockenspiel was playing it's scheduled show which was also a treat.

I think what I was most surprised by in Munich is that for such a large city, it is probably the most friendly city we have been to. It is also, by far, the most family friendly. There were children EVERYWHERE--riding bikes, riding the subway, etc. There was no way to feel unsafe when there were so many families everywhere you looked. It was also VERY bike friendly and I liked how the bikes obey pedestrian laws instead of traffic laws. It was a lot safer (in my opinion). Another thing that we did not know and took us a bit off guard is that you seat yourself in all the restaurants we went to. There is no one there to greet you at the door--you just wander in and find a table. Our waitress at the Hofbrauhaus was incredibly friendly. She took time to show me how to cut my sausage the 'German way' and was attentive. Finally, there are no leash laws (apparently) in Munich or Venice. It was strange to see all the dogs just wandering freely.

On all of our trips, we write down a 'favorite' for the day. Sometimes we can't pick just one:

Jason: Marienplatz with the beer being a close 2nd.
Susan: I agree with Jason :)

Monday, March 29th
We took a guided tour to see Neuschwanstein Castle. The guide took us on two trains and a bus to get there. Then, it was a pretty strenuous uphill walk to see the castle itself. The castle was actually much more impressive and fantastic than I had expected. I'm quite glad we went to see it. We made it back to Munich around supper time and J & I just stopped in a tiny place across from the train station for a quick bite to eat.

Jason's Favorite: Castle and the Alps
Susan's Favorite: Castle and the Doner sandwich (yummy).

Tuesday, March 30th
Today, we wandered to the Marienplatz and looked at the marketplace. We had brats for breakfast and got to see quite a bit of the old town scenery. We made our way to some churches in the morning and then met up for a guided tour: the Third Reich Walking Tour. This was another great tour and we saw a lot of sights we hadn't seen in Germany and got a better feel for the history of Munich. There was a lot of walking, but it was interesting. In the afternoon we visited the Alte Pinothek museum. In the evening, we went on another tour--a Beer Tour! This was one of my favorites. We went to the Munich Beer Museum and tried several beers there, then went to the Haufbraukeller for food and beer, then ended at the Hofbrauhaus.

Jason's Favorite: History of the Third Reich
Susan's Favorite: Beer Tour

Wednesday, March 31
This morning we went to the large grocery store that was near our hotel and picked up some candy for the kiddos to try. We slept in and took the morning easy since we would be taking the train to Innsbruck. There was some confusion over which trains we were supposed to take--we only had a seat reservation on the train for part of the journey. The travel agent told us we were supposed to change trains for the final 20 minute leg of the journey, but the train we were on would go straight to Innsbruck so we hoped we could just stay on the train. Since it was only 20 minutes, we were prepared to stand if we needed to. In the end, it worked just fine for us to stay on the train, in our seats. I'm not sure why the travel agent gave the advice she did (we would have gotten there either way). It doesn't seem like it should be a big deal and it probably wasn't but when you don't know the rules and are in a country where English is not the first language, it makes small things like this a little stressful for me. Luckily, it worked out fine :)

We arrived in Innsbruck this day. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful city. There are only 130,000 people in Innsbruck and the primary things to do are skiing and shopping. Because we weren't really interested in doing either of these, we could've just stayed here one night and it would've been enough. It was a very friendly city, however, and beautiful. here we saw one of the most beautiful churches I have ever been in (St. Jame's Cathedral).

Jason's Favorite: St Jame's Cathedral
Susan's Favorite: St Jame's Cathedral, lunch in Munich, Old Town in Innsbruck

Thursday, April 1
This was our full day in Innsbruck and it was COLD. It alternated between snowing and raining all day. We took the opportunity to nap in the room. The bed was VERY hard and not very comfortable so needless to say, we were tired. Location was fantastic though and the hotel was very interesting. It was built in the 1400's. This was a rough day. I wasn't feeling very well and my arms, face, and neck broke out into a rash the evening before. It resolved once we hit Venice so we think I was allergic to the soap in the bedding.

Jason's Favorite: Nap
Susan's Favorite: Nap

Friday, April 2
This was a long day of traveling on the train from Innsbruck to Venice. By the time we got to Venice, we had time to find our hotel and get some dinner. It was beautiful just to walk around and look at Venice. We were very lucky and we managed to score the only hotel room with its own balcony! We spent quite a bit of time up there and enjoyed eating meals and drinking wine while relaxing.

Jason's Favorite: "arriving" at Venice
Susan's Favorite: first glimpse of Venice, dinner was fantastic, dessert was cream with caramel

Saturday, April 3
We started the day by joining the line to see the Doge's Palace. This, also, was more impressive than I had expected it to be. After that, we went to see the Basilica San Marco and the Santi Giovanni e Paolo. We took our time getting lost in the streets and navigating our way around Venice. A beautiful picture could be taken on every street and it felt like we were walking in a human labyrinth of buildings. Some of the streets were so narrow that it was hard for two people to pass. Others were wider but crowded with tourists and people wandering. In the evening, we joined a tour of the Grand Canal and got to hear the history of Venice and the buildings. The tour was by boat as there are no streets to walk along the grand canal. It was very beautiful and very interesting.

Jason's Favorite: Doge's Palace, Grand Canal Tour
Susan's Favorite: boat tour and Doge's Palace

Sunday, April 4th
Sunday we bought a 12-hour boat ticket. Transportation is quite expensive for tourists in Venice. It is 6,50Euro just for 1 hour--like one trip somewhere--per person. There were a few things we wanted to see that day, so we bought a 12-hour ticket for each of us. This ended up being 18Euro per person. With the ticket, however, we were able to go across the water to another island, the Lido, and see the beach. We were also able to see some additional churches and go up into a tower that was much cheaper than the Campanille and see Venice from above which was worth it. We visited several churches on Easter Sunday and while we did not attend a service, we did light a prayer candle to thank God for each of our special girls and thought of family and the true meaning of Easter often on this day.

Jason's Favorite: churches, walking on the alleyways--streets are narrow and all of them look different
Susan's Favorite: View from the tower of San Giorgio Maggiore

Monday, April 5th
The long way home. We had to wake up at 3:30am in order to meet our 4:15 boat taxi ride. It was raining. It was cold and it is about 7 minute walk from our hotel to the taxi stop. Then, we waited for the other couple we shared a taxi with and finally made it to the airport at 5am. After another 7 minute walk in the cold rainy weather from the taxi stop to the airport, we checked in and then waited for our 7am flight to Frankfurt. We arrived in Frankfurt around 0830. Frankfurt is a very big airport and we had to go through security checks multiple times. Our next flight left around 11am but we spent much of the time in security during this stop. We boarded our flight, which was 9hours this time to get to PHL. With the time changes, we arrived in PHL around 3pm. The flight from PHL to St Louis was delayed by 50 minutes. by this time, I was getting really tired of traveling. I mean REALLY tired. I was in a bad mood and the plane we had to take from PHL to STL was a small plane (poor Jason). We finally arrived in STL and made the 1.5 hour drive home. We arrived home around 9pm and loved seeing the girls again.