Part 6: Another spring break post. Schloss Linderhof, Old Olympic Stadium, and downtown Garmisch

Ahh... I can't start blogging about what we are up to now until I catch up.  It will bug me too much if things are out of order or if I leave things out!  Continuing with April... 

I was going to try to keep these spring break posts in the order that they happened, but I just realized a few places were skipped.  Schloss Linderhof being one of them.  It's another palace built by crazy Ludwig, and the only one he lived to see completed.   You have to walk through the grounds a ways to get to it, and the kids had fun playing in the snow and teasing swans along the way. 

Walking up to the castle.  Luke thought hiking off the trail was more fun. 

 

El insisted on bringing Charlie, her little furball.  She begged and pleaded to have this weird little thing when she saw him at Edelweiss lodge gift shop.  We gave in and it was her souvenir for the trip.

Pestering swans.

Finally got to the castle. 

We were a little castled out, so we just saw it from the outside.  The grounds were really pretty.  It's probably even more awesome without all the snow!  Supposedly Versailles was the inspiration for this one. A much smaller Versailles... 

And some pictures of the cute little town of Garmisch that we took the same day.  It was a fun place to walk around for the afternoon.  This town hosted the 1936 games.  Garmisch was a partner with Munich in trying to get the bid for 2018, but the IOC gave the games to Pyeongchang. 

 

A few flowers were out, but it really didn't feel like spring yet. 

The kids had fun just chilling in this ski lift thing on the side of the road.

I love walking around little German towns.  So cute and so much character.  All the calligraphy on the buildings took me back to my calligraphy days at BYU.  Loved that class.  And, the gothic font found all over in Germany was the most challenging to learn.

 

Spring Break Part 5: Our Adventure on Zugspitze!

One thing I was most looking forward to on this Garmisch-Partenkirchen trip is Zugspitze.  It's the highest mountain in Germany, and you can take a cable car up to the peak.  I was a little annoyed when we first got to Edelweiss that it was so foggy outside.  It didn't seem like it would clear up enough to go up the mountain since we couldn't even really see the mountains from the ground the first few days.  Luckily it cleared up though, and going up to the peak is one of my favorite things we have done in Europe so far.  Such cool views!  Sooo, I'm going to post a ton of pictures to remember it.  I was a little nervous being in a cable car... so high off the ground!  I kept imagining the car coming off of the cable.  Ugh.  Creepy ride up ended up being totally worth it though.  Amazing.

 

Just getting started.

I like these two :)

Getting higher...  thought it was cool that the lake was totally frozen.

She was liking the ride.

And higher...

still going up...

And higher!  Pretty much going straight up at this point.

It drops you off on top in a building, and you can look out all around the different sides of the peak through the glass. 

It was pretty much impossible not to have a glare in the pics we took inside the building.  So bright!  View out the back side of the building... you can take another cable car down to the glacier and ski.  They also have sled rentals down there.  We didn't bring snow gear, or that would have been fun! 

More views from the top!

Love all the clouds and mountain peaks in the distance.  They say on a clear day you can see over 400 mountain peaks in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy from up here. 

Taking a break and enjoying the view. 

We took another cable car ride down to the glacier to walk around a bit before catching the cogwheel train to go back down the mountian.  There was a nice lady taking photos with some high-tech-looking photo gear.  She took a few family pictures for us.  Always nice when someone who knows what they are doing is around to take a photo!   It was sOOOOooo bright outside.  We should have thought to bring sun glasses.  We all had to squint so hard to see up there with all the reflection off the snow.  The kids just wanted to go back in the building.

More pics from the glacier..

Big wind gusts kept blowing snow all over the place.

Crazy to me that they can get this kind of equipment to groom the ski runs up the mountain. 

 

If we come back one day, I'm skiing.

 

Rode the super slow cogwheel train through the mountain to get back down.

 

It drops you off at the little Eibsee station where you can hop back in your car. 

 

 

Fun memories!