Friends, Fest and France

Our good friends, Kim and Brian, came out to visit us last September for some German fun at Volksfest: Stuttgart's Oktoberfest.  We not only had a great time at fest, but we enjoyed plenty of beautiful sights in Germany, as well as in France!

Their trip started off a bit rocky...we got locked out of the house within 5 minutes of their arrival!  It was all uphill from there after some MacGyver maneuvers to get back in.  We spent the day strolling the streets and chowing down on some excellent German food in my favorite local town of Tübingen. The next day we headed to Volksfest for some beer and chicken to start off their Germany trip in just the right way!

Fest bound! (Kim's pic)

We slept in the next day before heading out to check out some abbey ruins in the Black Forest.  The ruins in the town of Hirsau date back to the 11th century.  After taking plenty of pictures in the ruins, we headed to the nearby quaint little town of Calw.  It's exactly what you think a German town should look like!

Calw

Of course you can't visit Germany and not see a castle, so we went to see the impressive Hohenzollern castle.  It looks so perfect from the distance perched up on top of it's hill.

We also did a nice hike to the waterfall at Bad Urach.  It's a pretty easy, flat, path, but we made it much more difficult by deciding to climb the waterfall.

On our way home from hiking, we stumbled upon a magical Italian place for dinner, just about 5 minutes from our house!  We ended up going back just a few nights later!  Their pasta is just divine!

Kim's pics

We drove a couple of hours to cross the Rhine river for an overnight trip to the Alsace region of France, one of our favorite places!  We started off in the northern part of the Alsace in the gorgeous city of Strasbourg.  We ate crepes for lunch, followed by gelato and a look at the beautiful cathedral.  From there, we headed south along the wine route through picturesque villages and vineyards.  We stopped and stayed the night in the picture perfect town of Ribeauville.  We did some wine tasting and found out that we are not big fans of stinky cheese, which is very popular in the region!

Beautiful gelato!

The next day we checked out two more beautiful Alsatian towns; Riquewihr and Kayserberg.  I don't think a town could be any cuter than Riquewihr!  I also love their free samples of delicious coconut macaroons!

These coconut macaroons make Riquewihr smell like heaven!

We took the scenic route through the Black Forest on the way home, stopping in Triberg for a hike up Germany's tallest waterfall.  It doesn't look that tall from the bottom, but the higher you climb you can see that it just keeps going and going.

I think this is the only pic of the four of us! (Kim's pic)

We entertained ourselves for a few days while Kyle had to work.  A cold rainy day was the perfect time to take Brian for a drool fest at the Porsche museum.  We also made a stop at the Motorworld in Böblingen, a car lover's paradise.  We even had time and a break in the rain for a hike up to the Birkenkopf, (aka Rubble Hill).  Rubble Hill is the highest point in Stuttgart with great views over the city.  It was created by piled up rubble from damage done during the war.  Most of the hill is wooded, but the rubble is visible at the top.

Brian and his dream machine (Kim's pic)

Motorworld

Rubble Hill (Kim's pic)

We lucked out with a beautiful sunny day to head to Dachau, a very somber destination.  Dachau was one of the first concentration camps opened in Germany, located just outside of Munich.

You can't be 20 minutes from Munch and not stop for a beer, so we did just that.  We also happened to be there the same day an old dance class friend was visiting!  Never would have guessed that we would be meeting up in Munich!

Dance buddies!

We had so much fun travelling and seeing the sights with Kim and Brian!  We're already looking forward to their next visit in fall 2017!!

German Fun with the Kruse's: Part 1

Our great friends from Indy, Jason and Lydia, recently came over for an epic two week European vacation.  We pretty much hit it all, from the Alps to big cities, a serene lake and everything in between.  The first few days of their time here we spent showing them quintessential Germany, so this post is just about that.  I couldn't fit all of the awesomeness into only one post!

Jason and Lydia arrived in Stuttgart in the early afternoon, and we didn't waste any time!  We dropped off their luggage at home, gave Lydia a caffeine boost and headed out.  We headed 20 minutes south to our favorite local town, Tübingen. We love to take our guests there on their first day because it really makes you feel like you're in Germany!  We had a great lunch and great beer at the Neckarmüller Brewery. Sadly, we couldn't get Jason to try a delicious German pretzel, no matter how hard we tried!

 After wandering around Tübingen for a bit, on our way home we stopped at the tiny and quaint monastery town of Bebenhausen for a look around.  We never get tired of seeing these places!  We headed home after that for a great dinner of shredded pork tacos.  (Very non-German, but I've got to get my Mexican fix somehow!  The German Mexican restaurants just don't quite cut it!)

The next day was full of amazing sites!  We headed to the Black Forest for the day.  On our way, we stopped to tour the impressive Hohenzollern Castle.  Seeing the castle spires on top of the hill in the distance as you drive to the castle is always such an incredible site.  The views from the top are just as wonderful.  We walked the castle grounds, took a tour of the gorgeous castle (in German) and then continued on to the Black Forest.

Our first stop in the Black Forest was Triberg to see Germany's most beautiful waterfall.  (When you think of the Black Forest, think cuckoo clocks and gnomes.) We ate a tasty lunch by a cute little pond to fuel up before our hike to the waterfall.  After having so much rain in Germany, the waterfall was extremely impressive!  At the base of the hike, they sell peanuts to feed the little red squirrels.  I told everyone that in the three times I had been to the waterfall, I had never seen a squirrel there, so don't bother with the peanuts.  Well, of course I had to be proved wrong this time.  We saw two cute little pointy eared squirrels on our hike!  I have seen only a handful of squirrels since we've been here, so it was a big deal!

We drove a ways south down the incredibly scenic Schwarzwaldhochstrasse (Black Forest High Road).  The scenery is breathtaking with the dense and dark forested hills along with the bright spring green rolling hills and fields.  We were heading to an awesome pool to relax for the rest of the evening.  We spent most of our time in the tropical Palm Oasis mini-resort, where there's a swim up bar and a revolving door in the pool to get to the outside section.  So cool!  During the last 20 minutes before the pool closed, we checked out the water slides.  There was absolutely nobody else in there, so we did as many slides as possible in the short amount of time.  It was so much fun, we were just like giggling little kids!  We took the autobahn to get home, which Lydia was very excited about!  It was great driving late at night with no traffic!

For our third Germany day we decided to see a major German city, Munich!  It's pretty much the stereotype that everyone thinks of when they think of a German city.  Munich is a two and a half hour drive from our house.  We got there just in time for lunch in a beautiful shaded beer garden next to the awesome Viktualienmarkt where Lydia and I stocked up on some unique spices.

We hit the main city sites and then headed my favorite part of the city, the Englischer Gardens.  It's actually a park rather than a garden. It's at least as big, if not bigger than Central Park!  We enjoyed watching all of the people out sunbathing, playing and enjoying the beautiful sunny day.  We even watched some surfers on the river!   We made our way to the Chinese Pagoda to relax like the locals in the beer garden.

The Marienplatz

One thing all four of us have in common, is that we love to watch the ducks and geese!  Lydia had saved some bread to feed the ducks.  They ate right out of our hands!  So cute!  Duck feeding became a common theme throughout the rest of their time here.  :-)  Before heading home, we ate a delicious, traditional dinner at the Augustiner-Bräu, Munich's oldest brewery, established in 1328.

The next day I dropped Jason and Lydia off at the airport for their four day excursion to London, where it sounds like they had an amazing time and walked their feet off, like we usually do!  While they were in London, Kyle and I welcomed an American family to Stuttgart.  The Anderson's just moved here, so we spent a few days with them and their incredibly adorable kids to help out with their transition to Germany.

Jason and Lydia came back to Stuttgart after their London trip, and our fun continued in Italy and France, with quick stops in Switzerland and Liechtenstein.  Stay tuned for part two of our European fun with the Kruse's!