Day 10? Stockholm 2

WOW!!! What fun we are having in Stockholm with the Ahs Family..... Not a lot of time to talk but...the Vasa Museum was geat ...the giant war ship of the 1600 that sank in the Stockholm harbor after 20 minutes of sailing.......Skansen was great, we learned about Sweden early and now..also the native people the Sami.... we went to a live TV show..we were in the audience...and were on TV....we did not participate, the camera just kept going to us...very vey strange humor here!
Some of the most interesting highlights.....is going to the bathoom with the opposite sex in the stall next to you!!!!!!! Still getting used to that one....
Now off for another big day in the Nothern City.....

Stockholm 1

Look at the pics moe later......

Day Seven Trier

Gotten tag eveyone...Frau Lundstom back at it again...the Prince is busy! Germany beat Turkey and boy oh boy are the Germans excited!!!!!!
Today we traveled to Tier Gemany....remember the Roman town...the oldest city in Germany which was at one time a Roman capital?!? We saw Porta Nigra..which was not used as the oiginal point of entry...cause Napolean destroyed the original.. We saw the house of the three Magi...which is now a Mooccan restauant....we took a picture with the floating door. We saw the Maket square with the cross fom 958 we saw Franco's Tower...the cathedrial...wow pics of that too.... The earliest Gothic church in Germany...the Roman Imperial throne room...which is now a Luthern Chuch... The Imperial baths...to bad it never worked correctly or was totally finished...but again Napolian took care of that. The Amphitheatre...which had weird things going on inside...weird..pics too....and lastly Kal Marx home/birthplace museum...but the museum was not open...... a big day had by all!!!!!!!!! We will get up at 4:00 am tomorrow to catch our flight to Sweden!!!
Check the side to you left for the slide show of Trier....
Gooten tag from Fau Lundstrom

Day Six: Rheinfels Castle and a Rhein(Rine) River Cruise
Up early for yet another hearty German breakfast…… Lunch meat for breakfast.
Oh… Frau Lundstrom here again..his highness the Prince is busy….His allergies were really bad today…we have even switched medicine……
The Rheinfels Castle was the morning destination. We hiked straight up the hill?? mountain???? What ever it was it gave our calve muscles a real work out….the castle is a ruins that was built in1245…several wealthy kings and families owned the castle and much of the land along the Rhine River. This castle was the mightiest castle along the Rhine and believe me…there are a lot of castles along this river! It has been added onto (structurally) several times. In 1797 the French Revolutionary Army destroyed it!
We took our own self guided tour with a poorly written in English map with explanations…. I later bought a little book in English that gave the history ect….. Justin bought a really cool Mid-Evil castle shirt as well……..the castle was neat with all of it’s secret tunnels….Justin would disappear for a long time and reappear in another part of the castle……….:
The Rhine River boat ride was great…..even in the rain……. To Bacharach.
Did I mention how the Germans love their dogs? Dogs are EVERYWHERE! Even on boats and trains!

frau Lundstrom signing off! XXOO

Day Five

Day Five: Travel Day to the Rhein (Rine)
This is Frau Lundstrom, the Prince has had a time with allergies and besides…he is watching Footbal, Germany against Turkey. Since we have the Germany team shirt and a Germany team hat…guess who we are cheering for? Also today is not really the travel day it is the next day….we have been having trouble with internet.
Up for an early HEARTY German Breakfast to the train station by 9:00 for a 10:00 train ride on the ICE train. Destination St. Goar on the lovely Rhine River
The Lundstrom’s are getting very adept at German trains and which gleis (track) to run to, because German trains are precisely on time! To get to St. Goar it takes three trains. Our hotel here in St Goar is the very hotel that Rick Steves takes his tours to every two weeks!! Isn’t that exciting?
Our Hotel: has really cool windows…the engineer (Carl) is very excited and couldn’t wait to demonstrate how they work!
Justin and I had to pull Carl out of the CooCoo Clock store……Oh brother!
Dinner at our hotel was great…..WoW these Germans really like pork! We hope that you have been following our slide shows even though we have not been prompt with our written adventures. The weather is warm in this land…and I don’t remember when I have sweated soooooo much! It is ok though cause I’m with the stinky boys!
Frau Lundstrom signing off!

Day 4

Castles, Towns, and Kings Oh My! That’s right ladies and Gentlemen; today’s journey is all about the Royal Castle tour with the “Grey Line” tour company. We started our day waking up bright and early to meet our tour group that was going to be taking us on a guided tour of a couple of the more extravagant German Castles. The two castles we visited were Neuschwanstein and Linderhof, with a stop at a small Bavarian town (Oberamagau – spelling probably wrong) in between. Well as we stood on the street corner waiting to board our tour bus along with all the other English Speakers (for this was a tour for German/English speakers) our guide appeared and was all smiles. “Hello ladies and gentlemen. My name is Clark, Kent or Griswold, whichever you prefer.” He said jokingly. Well everyone loaded into the bus and off we were. Our first stop was Castle Neuschwanstein. Our bus trundled down twisting mountain roads till we finally reached the fairy tale castled tucked away in the Alps. This castle was built by Mad King Luidwig the II of Bavaria. He never actually finished building this 4th of 16 planned castles. The other royal Bavarian family members ended up arresting Luidwig (spelling probably wrong) on grounds of him being mentally mad, in other words he was needlessly squandering the 600 year old Family fortune. Well back to our journey, we were able to go in and around the castle, or at least all the parts that were completed before the king was arrested. Well after we toured the mad king’s fantasy castle we traveled down a ways to a small Bavarian town, Oberamagau. This town is famous for putting on “The Passion Play”, a world famous play of the story of Christ. The true legend behind why this tiny town has put on this play for hundreds of years every 10 years, all starts with death and the plague. When the black plague had been sweeping through Europe killing 1/3 of its total population, a certain tiny town was severely affected. A lone Swedish soldier came limping into Oberamagau one day and within the week, 80 towns people died of the plague. The town was shocked and afraid, so they reached out to god with a promise and a plea. They plea was to protect the survivors of the town from the plague, and the promise was that they would put on a play of the life of Christ every 10 years. No one from then forth has ever died of the plague in Oberamagau, and to this day ever since the many hundreds of years ago the town has put on the play of Christ’s story every 10 years. Well after getting our fill of the beautiful tiny town and its many homey little shops and handmade icecream goodness, we took off for our final destination. Our last stop was at the castle Linderhof, which was as opulent as they come. I personally wouldn’t really consider Linderhof a castle; it was really more of a palace. Castle or not, the amount of wealth displayed inside was stunning. Gilded wood carvings gleaned from every corner, and valuable’s valuables were displayed on every shelf. I’m pretty sure the royal family made quite the logical economic decision in ridding themselves of this extravagant king when they did. Well our tour bus finally trundled its way back to the central train station in Munich where we had first boarded. We said our goodbyes to Clark, our tour guide, and started to think about what we were going to have for dinner. Eventually, we ended up choosing to eat at the Hard Rock Café in Munich for some good ole’ American comfort food, after eating sausage after sausage in other German restaurants. We ended our day with a wild taxicab ride back to our hotel in which I was in fear for my life right up until we stopped at the hotel entrance. We stumbled into the hotel room and promptly passed out once again from another day packed with Germany at its finest.

Day 3

Well now here we are folks, Germany. Our first real day of being tourists in Munich started with us taking the S-bahn (We became ultimate masters of the underground train system) to the Dachau Memorial. Dachau was both interesting and morbid, for we learned of how the Bavarian prison camp slowly turned into a death camp for the Nazis. We left around mid-day back to the city to try and see the best of what Munich had to offer. The unanimous decision was to take a stroll in and around the “English Gardens” in Munich. Yes, don’t worry you’re not the only ones confused about why the park is named The “English Gardens”. The only piece of history I could dig up on this phenomenon was that an American had originally planned out the Gardens in the English style and whatnot, but then the park space just expanded exponentially to eventually become the huge park it is today. Even though clothing is required by law while riding the train to the park, once in the park some people tend to sunbathe in what ever clothing they feel is appropriate. The Gardens, all nude people aside, was a beautiful place in which a leisurely stroll through ended up being an excellent decision. We finally wrapped our day up by visiting the infamous, infallible, and intensely touristy Hofbrau-haus. The world famous beer garden was as good as place as any of the many beer gardens in Munich, with a live Oompa band and everything. By the time we got back to the Hotel, we all pretty much passed out tired from all the things we had done that day. What a day we had, and the best part is that its just the beginning of a great journey to unfold.