What can we say but Wow!

We have had the most wonderful Easter holiday break. For those of you that don't know, Delynn's sisters, Deanne and Denise, flew over from Vancouver, Washington to give us a visit. They were staying for 10 days (which is not nearly long enough), so we planned to show them around the Swiss, French, German, Austrian area since it is all so close at hand. We started off slow, taking a quick trip up to Freiburg for their first full day in country. This allowed them to experience the regional train, see a little country side and see the Alt Stadt (Old Town). Oh, yeah, Delynn also wanted to show them the yarn store there... Go figure... In the center of the Alt Stadt stands the Münster (Cathedral) with its daily market on the Münsterplatz. They have probably been holding markets there for the last 500 years, so we joined in. And what does one do at the market? Eat of course! This was the girls first experience with wurst (sausage), leberkäse (can't explain), brotchen (fresh rolls), senf (mustard) and Apfelschorle (Apple juice & mineral water concoction). After explaining all the different options, we settled on various wursts for our lunch. Here we see the happy travelers - makes you kind of hungry, doesn't it?

So, our big excursion was a trip to Salzburg, just across the border in Austria. We chose it primarily, not because it is the birthplace of Morzart, oh no. Not because it has a magnificently complete fortress that has never been taken by force, oh no. (Well, they did surrender it to Nepolean without firing a shot...). Not because it has a wonderfully preserved old city with a Cathedral and churches dating back 1100 years, oh no. We went to Salzburg because it is the backdrop for the Sound of Music!

Even though it was the first days of spring, the weather took a definate winter-like turn for us but we loved it. We agreed that if it is going to precipitate, it is best to come down as snow rather than rain (we can get all the rain we want in the Northwest U.S.). We took the Sound of Music tour to see the various sites in Salzburg and in the surrounding Salzkammergut. Unfortunately, the clouds hung so low in the sky that we were unable to get a view of the Alps, but that was okay because we could ride along and sing the "I am sixteen..." and the "Do rae mi" songs without getting pulled over by the police.

It is very sad, but visiters can no longer go into the Sound of Music (SOM) gazebo. Apparently, there have been a couple of accidents recently; you know - fifty or sixty-something folks thinking they are Liesel or Rolf and that they can jump from bench to bench. So, they had to lock the doors for public safety reasons. Above is a picture of the Salzburg fortress from the Mirabelle gardens (another SOM backdrop). You can see that we had bits of snow hanging around but the city was just as magical as ever. We had the good fortune of being in Salzburg for Easter Sunday. To celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, we attended worship at the Salzburg Cathedral. They were celebrating a Mass in music. It was one of Hyden's with an orchestra, choir and soloists. It was wonderful. The voices and music soared within the cathedral's high ceilings, the praises (much of it in Latin) joined all of our souls together - it was a once in a lifetime experience. One of the really magical things about Salzburg is the number of churches that all toll the time as well as call the faithful to worship. It was exceptional on the Easter weekend. The video below is of St. Sebastian's church which was taken from the window of our hotel. Imagine these bells tolling for 10 minutes! It was sooooo cool.

After Salzburg, we drove down to the "castles". The castles are called Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau and were the homes of King Ludwig II of Bavaria. He was the king of Bayern in the 1870's and nearly bankrupted his kingdom by building elaborate fantasy castles. Neuschwanstein was the inspiration for Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty Castle. We stayed the night in the nearby town of Reutte. We awoke to about 6 inches of fresh snow that had fallen overnight. I was a little stressed because I haven't driven in that much snow since living in Augsburg, but we went ahead with our plans to tour the castles and, as you can see by the pictures, we were not disappointed.

One very interesting item: at the hotel in Salzburg, we met another family visiting the area and found out they were from Beaverton, Oregon. It seemed like a very improbable occurance until we went to Reutte. There we met a family that came from Vancouver, Washington! They live in the Fisher's Landing area - what are the chances of that?

Anyway, here are the pictures.

Neuschwanstein castle in the snow...

Ludwig II lived in the castle slightly less than six months before he died under mysterious circumstances. At the time, only about 10% of the 200 rooms in the castle were complete. Within six weeks of his death, the castle was opened to the public. I think they have made back their money by now...

Plansee - on the road to Reutte. This is the kind of stuff one comes across in the Alps. You are just driving along the road between two towns and then something like this just explodes in front of you. The lake is slightly frozen but I wouldn't venture out upon it.

Hohenschwangau - this is where Ludwig grew up. Nice digs.

Oberammergau, Germany. This is the town that was spared from the Black Death in the 17th century. As a result, they have held the Passion play every 10 years since that time.

Delynn and I are preparing to return to school tomorrow. We are very excited as we race toward the finish of this school year in about 10 weeks. Thank you for your thoughts, prayers and support, they have sustained us and blessed us beyond what we can say. Love to all.