~Germany~

May 15

On the 9th day of our trip Jeff gave to me... Nine lovely leaps in the field!

We stopped and spent the night in an Austrian hotel that was beautiful, but sinister. They closed right after we checked in. To our surprise, the innkeeper LOCKED and BOLTED the front door. There was no going in, and no going out. Um, fire hazard anyone???Thankfully we survived and were able to enjoy views like this one. If you look closely you can see some Austrian swans swimming around. They were stunning. The Alps are HUGE, and it reminded me somewhat of Glacier Park in Montana. Right before we found the road to the Neuschwanstein castle in Germany we stopped in this field to capture our Christmas card photo. Somehow I even got Jeff to frolic through the fields on video for me. That, my friends, is true love.And I just love this clever little shot. I just wanted to eat all the fields full of flowers, or at least lay in them and make flower angels. They were so awesome. We couldn't decide if we had time to see the castle, or if we had to get to Switzerland by a certain time to stay in the temple hostel. By the time we figured it out, we didn't have much time. So we have a lot of pictures of the outside. We didn't even have time to run to the bridge behind the castle and get a better view. I was consoled by another tourist saying it was covered in scaffolding and wasn't a great view, anyway. However, there were tons of beautiful views. The king who built this castle almost bankrupt the country. Oddly enough he was found dead in the pond at the ripe age of forty. Murder?

This is the castle that Disney Land's palace is modeled after. Apparently the guy had a landscape artist design it-not an architect.

Someday I'll find a fellow tourist who can get my feet, head and the backdrop in the photo. Someday....