Playing Catch Up-Bavaria
We've been without wifi the last week so here is a lot of catch up of what we've been doing.
Ljubljana, Slovenia. Drove in and explored the old town. There is a large pedestrian only section and we challenged the kids to find all five bridges and learn their names. They liked pretending they were in the amazing race and having to ask locals questions. We trailed them from a safe distance so they felt like they had some independence. Afterward we sat down for a rare restaurant lunch along the river at an outdoor pizza place. Shockingly the bill was only $20! A sign, I think, of how Slovenia is still catching up in the tourism game. We hiked up to the castle and meandered through the streets. It is a pretty and old city. We wrapped up the day with a long 18 holes of mini golf in the park.
Velika Planina is a herdsman settlement up in a high plain in the Slovenian Alps. I learned about it when we were researching the trip and really wanted to check it out. It wasn't far from where we were staying so we went to check it out. We took the 9:00 cable car and chair lift to the top. There was no real maps or guidance besides what we’d read on the internet. We headed towards the herdsman settlement and wandered all through the property- we saw the oldest hut, the chapel, and stopped for a treat at one hut. The kids had fresh apple juice and sweet pastries which were like fried dough. James tried the barley mush with cracklings, apparently a regional favorite. We headed back down after 2 hours up top and drove to lake Bled. We knew this would be very touristy but didn’t want to leave the country without seeing its most touted site. We parked at the hockey rink and walked to the lake. It was a pretty color and very clear. We just lounged by the lake and had a picnic lunch. This was just a pit stop for us so we didn’t not stay too long. After 90 minutes we set off towards Germany where we are staying in Hausham. Hausham is the town next to Miesbach, where James played hockey for the 2002-2003 hockey season.
Hausham Day 1 & 2: the weather was cold and rainy and we were a little travel weary so we did not do much. Laundry, we biked to the next town to a playground, walked around James’s old town of Miesbach to see his apartment, the rink, and his old haunts. One night we went to a family bbq for one of his old teammates 40th Birthday. As always our kids were hesitant to join in with the German kids at first. The shyness subsided and eventually they were all playing together nicely. We ate a lot of wurst and ended the night with a fun fire pit where the kids put pizza dough on a stick and cooked it for a treat. It was delish!
Day 3: we drove an hour to Dachau in the morning to visit the site of the concentration camp. It's hard to write about a visit like this. Part of you wants to take pictures but I refrained more often than not. It just too powerful of a place and so horrible to let it all soak in. It was fine having the kids there. We curtailed the message for them somewhat and I shielded Molly from some of the most graphic photos in the museum.
In the afternoon we went into Schliersee and James and the girls did two runs down the Alpine slide. They loved it! We had some dinner at home then went back to that town. We stopped to watch a men’s soccer game and then went to this traditional German dance. The young boys and girls were all dressed in traditional leiderhosen and durndles. There was music by a live orchestra, men’s standing on tables cracking whips to the rhythm of an accordion, dances where they slammed on benches and some where pairs were spinning the women while the men jumped and slapped their knees and feet. James and I had a good chuckle thinking of the scene on European vacation where Chevy Chase tried to join in this dance.
Monday we rode the train back into Munich. James and I set up a small scavenger hunt for the kids. We gave them challenges of things to find and things to do as well as clues to find certain places in the city. It helped to make it more fun for them. We ended with one last swim in the moving river through the English Garden and then went to Andy and Caro’s to have pizza dinner in a beer garden and say our goodbyes to them.
Tuesday we had a calm but fun day. The weather was nice and we went on a different alpine slide. The T bar pulls you up in the little sled and then automatically starts down the track once you reach the top. No matter how fast you go you cannot fly off the track on this one. It was hilarious and the kids went 4 times each. In the afternoon we borrowed our hosts paddle board and took it to Schliersee to play in the water. Everyone paddled and swam and soaked in the warm sun. We ate dinner outside and cleared out the fridge of all of our food.
Today James picked up Jon from the airport in the morning and we drove to Innsbruck. We got settled in our apartment and explored the town a little bit. Tomorrow we will set out for our first day of rock climbing.