3 castle adventure

We really enjoy visiting different castle and the kids enjoy it also. We decided to spend one Saturday visiting three different castles all within a couple hours of us. We aren't really into paying to go into the castles as the kids don't care and want to touch everything. We have been in one so far and we feel that is good enough for know. Mostly I'm going to post pictures as I don't know much about each castle.

The first castle we went to was Hohenzollern. We went there first because it was the farthest away There was a nice hike up to the castle but you couldn't really see much from the outside and there wasn't even a really good place to get a nice picture of the castle. It was a little disappointing.

The second castle we went to was the Lichtenstein Castle. Some people get confused thinking this castle should be in the country of Lichtenstein but it is in the middle of Germany.













I have seen the pictures of Lichtenstein castle on Pinterest and wanted to go for a while. You do have to pay a little fee to go to the castle and more if you want to go inside the castle. It is a short walk from the parking area that also has a restaurant to the castle. It also appeared the had a ropes course right there too. We decided to have lunch here before moving on the last castle of the day.




The last castle we went to was actually a castle ruin, our favorite type of castle. Burg Hohenneuffen is different then other castle ruins we have been too. This one hosts parties and has a restaurant. The other huge different between this castle and others is they had resident goats. The goats seemed friendly at first but then they seemed to turn on us. They were fun at first but after a while I wish they would of just gone away instead of falling us everywhere.

Ulm

We visited Ulm way back at the end of August. It quickly became one of our favorite cities in Germany. Being only an hour and half from Ansbach it is an easy day trip. I found the suggestion for Ulm on one of my travel Facebook groups and then did a lot of looking on Pinterest for ideas of where to go. There were several of these painted bird around the city and we had no idea why. They also seemed to sell a lot of bird items almost as a city mascot. I found out that the city sold them to raise money and then people painted or decorated them how they wanted. We thought it was very random but also a very cool activity while in Ulm, looking for the different birds.


One of the attraction to Ulm is the crooked house. The house is in the old fisherman's quarters and sits right along a little stream/ river. Since it is right next to the water it caused the foundation to sink. The house is still currently in use as a hotel and you can stay there. Maybe before we leave Germany, we will have a chance to stay in the crooked house.




The main draw to Ulm, in my opinion is the Ulm Minster. Many people call it a cathedral but it is technically not one. It is however, the tallest church in the world. The steeple is 530ft. For a small fee you can climb to the top of the speer for an amazing view of the city and on a rare clear day in Germany you can see all the way to the Alps but you have to know what you are looking for. We decided to make the climb to the top. We are very adventurous so are the kids so we will do things that other wouldn't because they don't seem kid friendly. Our kids are young enough that they were free. We set off on the roughly 768 steps to the top and the kids were troopers. Waylon, who was only 2 1/2, climb almost half the way up in the end. The climb wasn't too bad since there is a different way up and down so you didn't have to worry about passing people on the stairs. There were lots of spiral stair cases. When you get to what you think is the top you have a really nice view and then you realize there is another staircase up the final speer. This staircase is a very narrow spiral staircase and when you are carrying a child it makes it hard to pass people coming back down but we made it. It was windy and starting to rain when we made it up so the view wasn't of the Alps but still really nice. Going back down was almost more interesting to me then going up. The spiral stairs make going down a challenge when you have a child strapped to you as I was carrying Waylon in the Ergo at this point.

Once we were done with the steeple we went into the church and just admired the beauty that is the chapel. They had one of the most beautiful stain glass displays I have seen. After the adventure in the church, it was raining outside so we decided to head home. We spent a couple hours in Ulm and if the weather was a little better we would of stayed longer. They also have one of the most beautiful libraries in the world that we were unable to get to. Next time.

German American Volksfest

This post is going to be mostly pictures because my children are too adorable to not share, I may be a little biased though! Since moving to Germany I have wanted to get them traditional German clothes so for the fest (and many more times) we got Harper a dirndl and Waylon some lederhosen. Oh boy did they look amazing in them too.

The German American fest is held in Grafenwohr on the Army base there. Colby's buddy from AIT is stationed there so he met us at the fest. They had all sorts of American things at the fest along with traditional German things too. We rode several of the amusement park style rides with the kids and found out at least Harper, and Waylon a little, are total thrill seekers already. I love it! I got to go on the rides with them. Harper's favorite were the octopus, yes they still have that one, and the giant "swings". They were more of a porch swing style seat but you were tilted so you went up really high and then back down while going round and round.

The American food I really wanted was a blooming onion. When I say someone else eating on it brought me back to the South Dakota State Fair. It also made me a little sad knowing that I have no clue when I will be able to attend the fair again. I am 27 years old and I don't remember ever missing it. This will be my first, of many, that I will have to miss the fair. Anyways we walked around to find where they were selling the blooming onions and the line was ridiculous! It was hot and the kids seem cranky because all they wanted to do was ride the rides. So I passed up the onion, which was probably better for my diet anyway.

They also had Stars Wars characters walking around taking pictures with people. We were able to get a picture with Darth Vader. It was fun to get a little taste of home even though we didn't even eat any of the American food. We will be stateside soon enough.

Birthday Fun: Sea Life Munich & Colmburg Castle

Our little girl turned 4 at the end of July and this was here first birthday here in Germany. We gave her a couple options for what she wanted to do on her birthday weekend. She choose to go to Sea Life in Munich. The aquarium was nice and the kids really had a good time seeing the fish and sharks but we all thought it was small. The kids wanted to see more when we were done. It is also set up so you go in and walk around in the same direction as everyone else and then your just done, no warning nothing your just in the gift shop. I had looked on the website and knew there were sharks which yes there were plenty small to medium one but it also showed there would be sea turtles and octopi. Well there was one sea turtle and he didn't care much for the view spots and I completely missed the octopus. My husband saw it I guess and said it was a small one. That was disappointing.

The really cool part of Sea Life was the tank with the rays and some fish. It was an open tank so you could look in the top and touch the water even though I don't think you were suppose to. There was a lady talking about them but it was in German so we didn't pay attention. One of the rays really loved all the attention though. It was sticking its "head" out of the water and swimming up to people. It swam right up but Harper and looked at her. I thought that was very cool.


For her birthday supper we took her to Colmburg Castle which is only about 20-30 minutes outside of Ansbach. Harper is very much into princesses so we thought it was only fitting for her to celebrate her birthday at a castle. She loved it! We all got dressed up to go even though it isn't a fancy place and most people were dresses casually. Harper chose to wear one of her princess dresses and picked out my "princess" dress and daddy's prince shirt. I know that it made her feel special to get all dressed up and go out for her birthday. The food there is traditional German. The menu is more specialized with a few appetizers, a couple soups and handful of entrees and a couple desserts. Prices were little above average I would say. Even with a smaller menu the food was very good.

The castle is also a hotel along with the restaurant. We are thinking it may be cool to stay there for a little staycation sometime. Maybe for Harper's birthday next year or something. It is definitely something she would remember and not something you get the opportunity to do very often.

Overall, I would say she had a great birthday weekend with her adventures.

Wertheim

This was a spontaneous trip. It was a nice Saturday, maybe a little hot, and we were doing nothing. We had planned to just sit at home but after breakfast I looked at Colby and said "I want to do something today" So we decided it would be cool to find a castle ruin. I hoped on Facebook and found the suggestion of Wertheim. I then googled it and realized it was pretty close to us. So we loaded up the kids and headed out.

We found a parking garage and then headed first to the castle ruins. The castle is of course on the top of a hill over looking the old city and the river. The ruins are very well preserved and there is a restaurant within the ruins. We skipped the restaurant and went on to explore the ruins. The palace face is completely there along with a two towers. One had a couple steps left of the spiral staircase and the other you could go up in. There was a whole part of the ruins that we couldn't get to and there was also a theater type area with chairs set up that was shut off to us that day. We love visiting castle ruins as the kids can basically run around and no one cares. We don't have to tell them to be quiet or don't touch something. Germany is full of them too which is amazing.


From the top of the castle we could see everything in the city and they had amazing maps pointing out what different points were. After a little snack break at the castle we took a stair case down to the two churches right below the castle. The first is more of a chapel. Inside was some pieces from the original church I would assume. Most everything is in German so I can't know for sure. There was also a huge painting.

Across the street from the chapel was the big church that is still in use today. They were doing some renovation and restoration at the alter while we were there but it was still beautiful. The had a metal globe with the continents welded on which I thought was very unique. We were able to just sit inside the church for a little bit as we listened to the huge organ the had in the back of church play. Even the kids just sat quietly in awe of the church and the music. The atmosphere was just amazing.

This was the first church we have visited that was playing music while we were inside and it just seemed magically. This church also had a guest book. I enjoy signing guest books now since we are so far from our "home of record" as the Army likes to call it. Even though our current home is here in Ansbach I always like to sign that we are from South Dakota, USA. I would guess a lot of these places don't get a lot of visitors from South Dakota and many Europeans probably don't even know where it is. Which I completely understand. I didn't know much about where european countries were until we moved here.

After we visited the church, the kids were getting hungry. It was pretty hot but that wouldn't of made of difference, they of course wanted ice cream. There just happened to be an ice cream shop right across the street from the church. So we got ice cream and then found a bench and a kids train to sit and enjoy are ice cream and just relax a little. We then just wondered around the town taking in the site and looking for someplace to get a postcard. Of course everything closes pretty early in Germany so by 3 or 4 everything was closing down. By the time we wondered around enough to find the tourist information center they were closed. We could see inside that they had post cards so I was a little frustrated but oh well it happens I guess. At least I have my own pictures to remember the place. The cousins just didn't get a postcard from there. It ended up being a really cool day trip for us.

Dinkelsbühl

We made a day trip to Dinkelsbühl on a Sunday. Typically on Sundays most of Germany is closed however, tourist places usually still have some stuff open and restaurants are open too. This is fine with us since we are more into looking and wondering around, the kids seem to enjoy that more too. This also keep the cost down for us.

Dinkelsbühl is a walled city that people compare to Rothenburg but less touristy. I thought it was smaller then Rothenburg and definitely had less shops there for tourist things. We enjoyed just walking around taking in the sights. I love the look of the German building and houses. I was never really into architecture until we moved here and I find the building in Germany fascinating.  They had several of towers around the edges of the town along the wall and also had water around the outside with fish and ducks which the kids enjoyed watching. We stopped at a little bakery for a snack. They kids enjoyed donuts and Colby and I got Schneballs for the first time. They were covered in chocolate and one had coconut on it also. They were pretty good but not something I would want all the time. I like more chewy and soft things then the crunchy pastries. 

                     

In order to get my postcards we stopped in a grocery store. They had a very extensive beer and wine section so of course we had to check it out. Colby picked up a little wooden box of 3 different beers which actually ended up being horrible, according to Colby. As we wondered some more we happened upon the tourist information by chance. Right there was an interesting underground exhibit. We aren't 100% sure what it was since the signs were all in German but Colby thought it was a dungeon type of thing. One side had signs and an actually museum type thing but the other side was just rooms. The one room was definitely a dungeon with shackles still there. The kids of course had to put there feet in it. It was too heavy for them to have around their wrists.

We had a lovely Sunday morning and afternoon exploring a small city close to us. The drive from Ansbach was beautiful too since we stayed off the autobahn in order to enjoy a lovely sunday drive around the countryside.

3 Country Adventure: Austria and Lichtenstein

Our next stop on our adventure was Lichtenstein. In order to get there from Germany we had to drive through Austria. The drive through Austria was beautiful driving through the mountains. It was a very nice scenic drive. We ended up on the Autobahn for a little bit and there were several tunnels. One tunnel we went through was close to 10 miles I believe. We ended up getting off the autobahn and taking more back roads through the small towns to get to Lichtenstein.

Lichtenstein is the 6th smallest country in the world and you can tell. Our first stop was in Vaduz the capital. For being the the capital it still isn't very large. We first stopped at the visitor center which was open even with it being Sunday. We got our passports stamped there and picked up a map. 

We just wondered around the downtown area and found the city train and bought tickets for the next train. The train took us all around the city to see the sight which included the castle, which is still occupied, the famous red house, and some vineyards. 

Lichtenstein is know for their postage stamps. They even have a postage stamp museum and can buy stamps at the visitor center. The downtown sidewalks are lined with painting of different stamps they have had. It was very interesting to see without having to go in the museum which is free I believe. 

After leaving Vaduz we headed to Schellenburg to check out the castle ruins. Even though on the map Vaduz is in the lower half and Schellenburg is in the very top of the country it only took us 15 minutes to go from one to the other. We also ended up crossing into Switzerland for a little bit. We crossed a bridge drove a mile and crossed another bridge back into Lichtenstein so I guess technically we were in 4 different countries in 3 days. 

The castle ruins were kind of hard to find and we almost gave up hope but ended up finding them by luck. They were just cleaning up from a little festival type thing I think at the ruins when we got there. We were still able to just wonder around and check it out. We have really gotten into checking out castle ruins since we have been here. 

We will definitely be going back to Austria as it is beautiful and we didn't really do much other then drive through. Lichtenstein was a nice visit for a day trip. Its not a place you would need to spend all weekend in. It is kind of cool to say we were there as most people don't even know about the country. It is pretty expensive there just like Switzerland since Lichtenstein does a lot of the same stuff as Switzerland. It is a good stop on a trip to somewhere else.