Monday, July 23, 2012





 3 Country Tour
Austria, Switzerland and Lichtenstein


Austria

Every trip that we took went through Austria and it is beautiful.  Next time we head south we plan on staying here.  And just for fun we might stop by the bath where you get to swim in beer.  I'm not a beer fan but it's great for your hair and skin.  And then I can say that I did it and that's whats most important.

Hay Sheds.  There are hundreds of these tiny little sheds in their fields.  It rains daily during harvest and so they cut for a day and haul it into the sheds to dry.
We love slugs!
The first of many backwards pictures.
A vacation home/Bath that some king built.




Switzerland
Driving up the alps in a bus in interesting. There is a huge tunnel that we could have taken but it defeats the purpose of a sight seeing tour if you can't see the sights. So we were on two lane roads the entire time with gobs of other cars.  The thing that really got me was that there were an amazing amount of cyclists on the road too.  Our tour guide called them suicide bikers because there was no shoulder, it was insane to be sure.  Also I never found the Swiss Miss, I was hoping for some hot chocolate.      
 
Swiss Kiss
Heading up the Alps there were dozens of tiny and sometimes not so tiny runoff rivers and waterfalls.
Pit stop for some excellent scenery and pictures.
We didn't go up there and I'm glad for it.  It was steep enough to get Aurelia weeing like a Guinea Pig the way that we went up.
Two people happy to be off the bus for a minute.
Zoomed out




           Zoomed in.  This is a shepherds summer house.  This one guy
            looks after tons of cows all over the Alps all summer long.


A pit stop on the top of our Alpine journey.  This is our super duper double decker bus.  And we with the car sick prone children sat at the top in the very back.

Lincoln the mountain man.
Enjoying the snow and the excellent weather at the same time.

Another backwards photo op
Loving the fresh air.
Giants foot prints, proof they exits.
Past the summit there wasn't much in the way of growth.  It was very rocky with marshy areas and flowers.  It was pretty but definitely not what I expected
Should I get the Swiss national food, potato pancakes?
mmmm, don't know.
I have bunny ears.
I should have got them
I got them and they were AMAZING!
The hills are alive with the sound of kids moaning because their parents made them go play in the field.
The town where we had lunch was very pretty.  A ritzy ski area in the winter but not so ritzy in the summer, just expensive.
A traditional house with writing on it, I think our tour guide said it  referenced a story or poem.  It might also say quit taking pictures of my damn house, it's hard to tell.


 Lichtenstein

It's a tiny country with a big financial industry.  It's kind of Switzerlan extended.  You want to hide money, think Lichtenstein!

The Castle in Vaduz, the capital.
Big butt horse with melting children.
We got a flag but not this one, arrest was not on our itinerary.
I never really though about what Master Card was in other countries.  It sounds much fancier this way.
Their signs were cracking me up.  I would have been so happy if there had been a guy shoveling a large pile of dirt into a smaller pile of dirt.
Gentlemen with hats may not cross here.
Gentleman and little girls with dresses may cross here.


Back In Austria

A very old tower that used to be part of a wall but is now just beside a river.
Zip Line!
Link loves the trampolines
Getting a lot of extra speed from Daddy.
Strangest teeter totter I've ever seen.
Proving that he'll never be too old for fun.


Sunday, July 22, 2012

Zugspitze
The highest point in Germany.  There are 3 ways up, Gondola, Cog Train and Walking.  Walking takes 2 days so we used the other two.  It was a beautiful day, we all had jackets and didn't need them.  Once again we over packed.

Looking up
Here we go!
Helping our shorter family members see what was going on.


Eibsee Lake


Higher and Higher
In the clouds


Finally above the clouds.




How High were we?  Well now you know.


Just a pinch windy at the top.


The birds up here don't have to fly they glide on the air that is shooting up the side of the mountain.


Highest Biergarten in Germany.


Loving the top.


Looking off the top of the world.


Proof that I was here too.


Graffiti on the mountain on our way over to Austria.


Link trying to fit right in.


The Austrian side of the Zugspitze.  Not their highest point by the way.


A great snow pile in Austria on top of the mountain.


Bob doing what he does.  His souvenir of choice is a flattened coin.


Tirol is basically Bavarian Austria.  I'm sure they wouldn't like to hear you say that but from what little I know it's completely true!


Back in Bavaria, German Bavaria.




Aurelia had a great time feeding the birds.  They'd glide down from behind, grab the bread and glide off.  It was a lot of fun to watch.  Better than you average bird feeding.


Our second gondola down to a ski area.


Turns out some people don't like heights.



A chapel on the ski mountain.


My manly models.


They had sleds out for people to use.


All the kids had a go.
This guy went more than the rest.


Told you all the kids went.  Patrick was funny, he ate s***t at the bottom every time.
Proof that there is a Yeti and yes they did have a BMW on display at the top of the ski slope.


It was a beautiful day.  There were chairs set out and Link took the time to sleep in one of them.


We took the cog train on the way down.
The kids slept the whole way.  Cog trains are slow.
And this one was in a tunnel under the mountain so there was nothing to see and it was sleep inducing.