Sea Life & Nymphenburg Palace

We woke up to our freezing airbnb to a TON of snow on the ground.  We decided to cut our trip short & go home, but first we stopped at the Sea Life aquarium on our way out.  We had reservations for early that morning & the kids were excited to see the fish.  We love aquariums, but this one was TINY.  Holy moly!  We were in & out of the entire thing in 30 minutes (which was a blessing in disguise because here is where Trek started having coughing fits. . . Something was definitely wrong.). We enjoyed seeing the sharks, jellyfish, & other fish, but once Trek started coughing we got out of there as fast as we could.

We stopped by a little Mexican food restaurant on our way out to pick up some tacos/burritos to go & then started home.

We had tickets for a tour of Nymphenburg Palace (King Maximillian’s main residence in Munich), but with Trek coughing, we didn’t want to put anyone in danger of getting sick so we decided to scrap the tour.  However, we did stop by the palace just to see it from the outside & took a quick 10 minute walk in the palace gardens since we were the only people there.  It was GORGEOUS.  I wish we could have stayed to see it all, but Trek’s health was my top priority at this point.  We took a few pictures in the beautiful snow landscapes of the garden, hopped back in the van, & headed home.

The first thing we did when we arrived back in town was get COVID tests done.  Yup, Trek tested positive.  Poor guy.  It came on SO fast!  I’m so glad we decided to cut the trip short & just go straight home.  The rest of us tested negative so we locked him into the guest room at home for his week long quarantine.  Poor guy . . . & then yesterday, Craiger & I both started feeling sick.  We took tests & tested positive so now the 3 of us are all quarantined together (which isn’t bad when I have people I love with me).  I’m pretty tired & sick, but we’ll survive.

And that was our adventurous spring break.  We’ll definitely be talking about that one for years to come!  Always an adventure right?

 

Neuschwanstein & Hohenschwangau Castles

Day 3 is when things started to get interesting.  First off, we woke up shivering because our hotel literally felt like we were stuck inside an actual freezer.  We looked out the window & there was SNOW EVERYWHERE!  Like several inches of it.  The temperature inside the house was in the low 20’s.  Trek frantically made a fire in the stove & the smoke set him off into the biggest sneezing fit I’ve ever seen.  It was insane.  From that point on for the rest of the day, the poor guy was either sneezing or hiccuping violently.  We couldn’t figure out why.

We quickly ate breakfast & drove about an hour down to Schwangau where Neuschwanstein & Hohenschwangau castles are located.  These are two of the most famous castles in Germany.  The entire drive down we experienced a major snowstorm.  We were sliding on the road, & couldn’t see due to fog & falling snow.  Once we arrived, we parked & sought out the trams/busses that lead to Neuschwanstein.  The hike up the mountain was supposed to take 40 minutes & it was 20 degrees & snowing outside so we definitely wanted buses.  Well, I guess it’s too dangerous for buses to go up that mountain when it was snowing, so hiking we went.  And it was STEEP.  I was out of breath, but didn’t want to stop because it was so cold.  Amazingly, my kids are rock stars & climbed that mountain in 20 minutes flat (mostly because we were SO cold that moving & sweating made it bearable).  We had a castle tour at 9:50 & arrived at 9:30 so we had 20 minutes to wait in the snow before they’d let us go inside.  The kids weren’t too thrilled about that, but once we got inside, they were much happier.  The tour was amazing

This castle belonged to King Ludwig in the late 1800’s so it’s a newer castle, but it’s one of the prettiest for sure.  The throne room was spectacular & the dance hall was stunning.  It’s sad that Ludwig died long before the castle was ever finished.

After Neuschwanstein we made our way down the mountain & actually found a horse & carriage going down part of the mountain so we hopped on.  Once at the bottom we hopped in the van to get some lunch. We found a McDonalds & literally thawed ourselves out for 2 full hours inside.  It was amazing just to feel warmth (& have free internet to catch up on emails.). On our drive back to visit Hohenschwangau Castle, we found a beautiful lake & river with a waterfall & enjoyed that for a few minutes before hopping back in the van.

Hohenschwangau is one of my all time favorite castles.  Everybody loves Neuschwanstein (because it’s like the castle at Disneyland), but there’s just something special about it.  It was originally built in the 1200’s, but was bought by King Maximillian in the early 1800’s.  He built it up from a ruin state to what it is today.  It’s simple, but beautiful & I absolutely love it.  (& I love the 2 absolutely gorgeous pianos inside.). We again, hiked our way to the top, but this time it wasn’t nearly as hard of a hike (that you King Maximillian).  The kids enjoyed this tour as well.  Our tour guide was hilarious & made the tour so much fun.

After hiking down the mountain, Trek continued with his sneezing & hiccup attacks & I started to get worried.  We got into the van & one of his fingers was green & frostbitten so we quickly tried to warm him up.  He was shaking pretty hard so I started to wonder if he was coming down with something.  We drove straight back to the hotel & got him in bed . . . After making a fire.  We decided that we would end our trip early & go home the next morning after the aquarium because 

#1: we couldn’t survive in that house any longer, &

#2: I really started to think something was wrong with Trek.