Sunday morning was a glorious day to wake up to. When we lifted the rolladens, it was a stunning day outside – clear blue skies and not a cloud in sight. It sprang to my mind that it would be an excellent day to visit the botanical gardens and see some beautiful spring flowers. Problem being, although I’d heard about there being a botanical gardens in Kaiserslautern, I couldn’t actually find out where they were!

Nick had business to attend to first at any rate. We have an attic above the garage which we started storing things in. As we were putting things up there, my eyes focused on a huge wasp nest. Anyone who knows me well knows that it is my #1 fear – wasps. I ran down that ladder so fast when we saw that nest, even if it was dormant, that I knew I’d never return up there again. A week passed, and it’s getting warmer. Nick decided that Sunday was the day to deal to the problem, before it heats up too much. Apparently there were around 20 wasps nests up there. I knew when we moved in here that they were going to be a problem, with all the wooden nooks and crannies, but it still scared the living daylights out of me. I think the garage will forever be out of bounds now, especially after Nick’s run in with the queen up in the attic.

Anyhow, I digress. We hopped in the car after Nick’s handyman/pest extermination skills were completed and headed towards K-Town, basically just following signs for ‘gartenschau’. We figured that would be the best bet for finding a botanical gardens.

We found the paid parking, and there were no spaces. Thankfully, with Nick’s driving skills and Petunia’s petite size, we were able to fit into a parking space that was not actually a parking space:

Amazingly, the locals didn’t even block us in. It was hilarious on the way back as someone was stalking us to get our spot, and when they saw where we were parked they cracked up with laughter and moved on. Another tick for Petal!

Admission to the ‘gartenschau’ was 7 euro each, which we thought was a bit steep. After all, it’s a botanical gardens and in my experience they were always free to get into, but we’d come this far and found the parking space so we paid the hefty fee. Nick was excited to use his German skills and got to the ticket man: ‘Zwei, bitte’ (Two, please). The man replied ‘Two tickets? Okay here are your passes’ Disappointing moment for Nick that his German didn’t fool him 😦 haha.

It was after walking through the gates that I started getting second thoughts. Is this ACTUALLY the gardens? Or did we just pay to get into something random? My worst fears were realised as we walked into the buildings:

I was pretty sure we’d paid all that to walk through some random buildings of fake cabbages (which I hate) and cheap looking wooden animals.

We followed the crowd and eventually got to an area which took us over the road. It turns out we’d actually paid to go to a medieval festival. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of watching people walk around in medieval costumes, but I’m all about randomness so we went with it and actually had a good time.

This place was selling beer and cider – which seemed to be Scottish?!

We stood in line for fish and chips and calamari at this fish stand, but the wait took too long so we decided to go to the BX to eat on base and get Nick’s hair cut (see below).

They were smoking salmon right on the spot!

We could have purchased a rooster if we’d wanted. This guy was particularly active with his vocals.

 They randomly had a lot of dinosaurs around. I think they’re permanent fixtures.

Hurrow brachiosaurus. Kind of hard to believe this is where dinosaurs actually were once upon a time.

We continued through the medieval festival and eventually came to what I was looking for – spring flowers and the gardens! It was a bit of a hike up the hill (which granted, I need after gorging myself on American food for 3 months stateside) and was definitely worth it! Spring is in full bloom in Germany:

(You can click all the photos on my blog to see bigger versions, if you wish!)

I absolutely loved this little stream:

At the top of the hill there was beautiful fields just like in France, and it was very serene as not many people seemed to venture up to the top:

There was a place at the top of the hill where you could sit and have a beer, or ice cream. It looked so picturesque with the tulips around it that I just had to take a photo. Isn’t it beautiful?

On the way back down the hill, we found some permanent fixtures of the garden – some musical ‘instruments’. Nick of course found the bass and enjoyed serenading me:

And that my friends, is another post.

Tschuss!