A Picturesque Weekend

May 28, 2021

A Picturesque Weekend

I had to keep picking my jaw up off of the ground this last weekend over and over again. We had tried to book the military resort, Edelweiss, that is located in Garmisch, Germany several times. We would schedule out in the future in hopes that we would be out of lockdown and hotels would be allowed to open. This happened at Christmas, Martin Luther King Jr. 3-day weekend, and Spring Break. Lockdown continued. The next date was the weekend of May 21st that had availability and I booked it. To our surprise, the May 21st weekend was the first weekend it could finally open! We were excited for the weekend getaway and we had no idea of the beauty we were going to encounter. After driving a couple of hours we realized almost too late that we were crossing over into Austria. I didn't realize that the path through Austria was the quicker route and the one that Waze would pick. We hadn't prepared for this (due to COVID, borders have been closed, you need a vignette to drive through Austria, Danny didn't have his international driver's license on him, and the kids would still have to quarantine if going into a risk or high risk area) and we panicked at what we may be asked as we crossed by border patrol. Thankfully the border had just opened a day before, and after I switched to the driver's seat we entered with no problem. It ended up being the best mistake of the weekend. We never stopped or left the vehicle, but drove gasping at the amazing views around us. Austria was simply amazing. Danny could only take some grainy blurry photos through the window, so they don't do it justice, but the next 6 pictures were our attempt of capturing it.

There was a castle in the distance and a bridge going to it (if you look closely).

We drove under the terrifying-looking walking bridge!!!

That evening, we crossed back into Germany, arrived at the resort, had a bite to eat (first time in a restaurant in months!) and the kids took a dip in the pool.

Because we had arrived in the evening, we couldn't fully see and appreciate the views. The next morning, we ate breakfast and stepped outside to this!!!

I couldn't stop staring and taking pictures!

We then rented bikes and rode into the adorable town of Garmisch.

I apologize for picture overload...but do you blame me?

We rode by this pretty waterfall.

We had heard of these, but hadn't seen one yet. It's a vending machine with things like cheese and meat!

We loved walking around and checking out the restaurants and shops.

We ate in a restaurant again!

We then went and checked out where they had the Winter Olympics in 1936. It was neat to see the stadium everyone would have sat for the Ski jump. They also did bobsledding there in Garmisch.

We then hiked to the Partnach Gorge. It was well worth the tired legs after the hike.

We decided to cheat on the way down and take a gondola.

The next morning we got up and headed out. Goodbye, Edelweiss! We will be back!

We headed towards Neuschwanstein castle (this castle was the one that inspired Disney, is the most well-known in Germany, and is put on puzzles). It was the first weekend open as well. It is the most beautiful castle we have seen so far! They even opened half of the bridge (it has been closed due to covid) so we could get some amazing views. Evan and Danny got to tour the inside of the castle (everything was booked because it was the first weekend open, but I lucked out and found 2 single tickets 15 minutes apart from each other) while Eli, Embry and I enjoyed a snack and hung around outside. The other castle (the one that is yellowish in the pictures), Hohenschwangau, was fully booked so we just snapped some photos. The little town had a couple of biergartens open along with some touristy shops. We enjoyed our afternoon there before heading out. This first picture was our first sighting of the castle.