After almost three years living in Germany, we finally visited an area that many people that we work/live around visit early on in their time in Germany. Garmisch-Partenkirchen is a beautiful area in the Bavarian alps. I had never really felt drawn to the area, I saw it as somewhere to go if we were to end up having kids while in Germany – the place to go when you can’t really go anywhere else. After plans fell through to go to Poland, we ended up deciding to go for a road trip south.
This is probably going to be the shortest blog post I have ever written, but my blog wouldn’t be complete without mentioning every trip we have been on while here. Our long weekend consisted of lounging around in the hotel’s hot tub, drinking margaritas (the hotel bar let us take them into the hot tub – win!) and wishing away the almost constant fog. It kind of goes without saying that the weather was pretty bad for our time there – not bad in a stormy way, but bad in a ‘the fog will never lift’ way which meant we never really saw the beautiful German alps that we were there for.
We did end up visiting Neuschwanstein castle. While Nick had visited several times before, this was a first for me and I was quite excited about it. The Disney castle is basically a small rip-off of this castle. We did a tour through it that was run by a very awkward German teenager. When anyone spoke to each other he would do dramatic pauses and stare at them and then make a loud clearing of his voice. “Ah-hem”. I think that the tour was made most memorable because of him.
Fun fact: King Ludwig only slept in his castle for 11 days. It wasn’t even completed before the King died. The king’s room was really interesting – no photos were allowed but his bed was an intricate woodwork. And tiny.
Another fun fact: The Castle played a large part in World War II – mainly due to its seclusion. Many pieces of loot were found in the castle, such as artwork. Gold was stored in the castle until just before the end of the war by the Germans.
To get home from Garmisch we had to drive through Austria. It was crazy because as we popped out of Germany, Austria had beautiful sun shine and clear blue skies.
And that, my friends, was our long weekend in Garmisch. We will be returning for more rest and relaxation sometime soon.
Until next time,
Emma
theroamingkiwi.com 