Oktober 8 - Alps

We are alive! I know we didnt get an update in yesterday but we werent able to get to an internet cafe. After a beautiful day in München (we toured the Residenz...a huge palace of the Würtemburgs, the ruling party up until 1918, did a bunch of shopping at great places like Dallmyer, purveyors of fine coffee and this fantastic lemon liquor that we sampled one morning) we decided to push the limits and try to find a place to stay outside of München.

Grandpa Van Horn had told me about Freising, a town that is next to the Weihenstephaner Univeristät and brewery, and said he took some classes there. We found a hotel, checked in, and boom we had done another first! Shown up in a town without a reservation and found a hotel! It was really neat. Had a nice night hanging out at a local cafe and then hit the sack.

The drive up was wonderful...the first time on the Autobahn and Ryan was at the helm. All those stories about traffic, mean drivers, etc. are false. Absolutely false. He got the car up to about 100 that day and still people were passing us!

This morning we woke to bells ringing, as it was Sunday (Somstag) and there is a church right next to the hotel. Had breakfast and took a great walk through the quaint city. Beautiful. There is a Dom (cathedral) overlooking the whole town and we walked up to it and took a tour. The main part is under renovation, probably after the pope visited a month ago, but we saw the old cloisters where the bishops and priests live...there were 1000 years of history preserved in carved marble plaques that show the history of bishops at that church.

After that we drove to Dachau, which was about 30 km away, and toured the concentration camp. Awfully sad, inhumane, and tragic. Makes one think of what we are doing with our 'terrorist camps' and the types of reasoning we use to justify it today. Anyways....

At about 13:00 we took to the road again and drove down the Autobahn to Garmisch-Partenkirchen which is in the Alps...WOW!!!! These mountains are huge!!! And WOW...Ryan got it up to 110 MPH!!!!!!!! Sehr Schöne! (Very good!)

Came to the tram that takes you 2000 feet to the Zugspitze, the tallest mountain in Germany, but it was almost closed so we decided to just take a picture and maybe come back tomorrow....so we backtracked to a beautiful town called Oberammergau...its very small and in a gorgeous valley. The buildings have religious frescos on the outside that date back to the 18th century...the rule was the more decorative and beautiful the fresco, the more wealthy the owner. Ironic, eh?

We are staying at Der Alten Post hotel which has been an inn for 350 years! We love it and are about to go eat and enjoy the freeeezing alp weather.

The weather in general has been wonderful...mostly sunny and in the 60s...here in the alps its in the 50s. Brr! But clear skies nonetheless.