Herrenchiemsee Palace

 One of our favorite places is Herrenchiemsee. It was fun to take the train, then a bus, then a boat, all to see a beautiful Palace. Not only is the palace lovely, but everything around it is as well. We had beautiful weather for most of the day and just got a little bit of rain at the end.

 Hailee was thrilled to show Aunt Ruthann around. James was exhausted from the fun morning on the train then a bus, and to top it all off a boat ride. Transportation is always his favorite favorite part of the vacation.

 While James slept Ruthann and Hailee walked around the gardens and took a tour of the palace. He woke up just as they were getting back and it was time to catch the boat back.

 You may have noticed that he is wearing a different "soccer" shirt. It was no small task to convince him after a month of only wearing one shirt that it was time to try a different soccer shirt. On the boat ride back he saw a little boy around Hailee's age with a soccer shirt just like he had on (it's a Munich Club) and he was so excited. He was so pleased to be wearing a "soccer" shirt like the bigger boy.

The train ride home was a little warm, but once we got the window down it was lovely. As you can see, James loved having the window down on the train as well.

After yesterday's fiasco we decided to get information about the trains going and coming back and were quite proud of ourselves when we made it back to Munich without incident. We made it back to Ostbahnhof and then we just needed one stop on the S-bahn and a tram home. Right as we got on a S-bahn train with a lot of other commuters there was an announcement made in Germany. After asking around we found out that the S-bahn main line was closed because of a fire. So Todd had to come to our rescue again.

Salzburg

We were forcasted to have rain, so I figured we might as well go to Salzburg, since it was on the list of things Ruthann wanted to do and at this point why should we ruin a good streak. It did rain on us, but we were really lucky that it wasn't too bad and mostly while we were on the bus.

We didn't have as much time as we would have liked so we did the quick tour of Salzburg, hitting as many Sound of Music sites as we could. 

 We went to the Palace where the gazebo is...."I am sixteen going on seventeen..."

 Hailee was more excited about the unicorn statue.

 "I have confidence..." water fountain.

 St. Peter's Graveyard. Although it's not in the movie, they tried to recreate the set in hollywood to look like this one.

"Do-Re-Mi" tree tunnel.

 James did great on the trip. He stayed awake for his favorite parts (i.e, train and bus rides) and slept during the boring parts (ie, sightseeing).

 And this is why I am absolutely in love with my new camera we just got got. It takes amazing pictures in low-light without a flash. Heavenly.

We also discovered a very important thing when it comes to trains. We haven't taken a lot of trains since being here, so unfortunately for Ruthann she was learning right along with me. We checked the times of the trains coming home when we got to Salzburg. We debated on the five or six o'clock train. Since the five o'clock train was the faster of the two we decided to try and get back for that one. We made it back just in time and then we discovered that our tickets didn't work for that train. They told us that we needed to get the train on platform 23. We saw it was leaving at 5:30 but we couldn't find it on the schedule. After checking with a man that worked at the train station that didn't speak english I figured it would get us back to Munich. After about an hour on the train it stopped at a station and everyone in our car got off. We assumed that the train would start going again. When it didn't and I looked out the window and sign said the train was going to Salzburg we decided to get off and investigate. What we found out was that we were suppose to get a bus to a different town and then get on a  different train to get to Munich. But we had missed the bus and the next Munich train wasn't for another hour and a half. We called Todd and he was nice enough to come and rescue us.

The moral of the story. Just because the sign says "Munich Hbf" it doesn't really mean that it's going to Munich Hbf. Makes perfect sense.

Best €7 I ever spent

Ruthann spent Monday and Tuesday with us as well. Since I can't drive our new car that meant we were on trains if we wanted to go anywhere. We planned out our days and made it to the train station. We had a while to wait our first morning so we wandered around Ostbahnhof looking at shops. We went into a bookstore at one point. Hailee and James found the kid section. In Germany there are tons of kid magazines, Hailee found one in English and since I was going to get one for Hailee we got one for James as well.

I wasn't surprised that Hailee sat and read her magazine the whole time we were on the trains, but I was surprised that James did as well. He loved his Bob the Builder magazine. I'm going to have to get a new magazine every time we travel. We also learned a lot of interesting animal facts from Hailee. Did you know that a human and a chimpanzee have the same amount of hair follicles. That little fact even got a laugh from the guy sitting next to us.

Aunt Ruthann

We were so excited to go pick Aunt Ruthann up from the airport. We were lucky enough to get to see her on her fun backpacking around Europe trip. We were spoiled to have 4 days with her at the beginning and one in the middle of her fun trip.

 After picking her up at the airport and determining that she wasn't too exhausted from the flight we took her downtown. Marienplatz where the Rathaus is has a fun little restaurant in the basement of the Rathaus called the Ratskeller. Todd had eaten there before, but it was the first time for the rest of us. So far it's my favorite "Bavarian" restaurant. The food was amazing and the atmosphere was really nice. I hope we get to go back again.

 We also walked around the square before Ruthann was too exhausted. She was actually doing pretty good with the long flight schedule and time change.

 Hailee also really wanted to show Aunt Ruthann the Residence in Munich. The girls got to sneak away one afternoon while James was sleeping and had a great time downtown. Hailee is very serious about going to the Residence. She loves the audio tour and will refuse to leave until she has heard everything about the room in the audio tour.

 She gets quite annoyed if I try to hurry her along. I'm pretty sure we'll need to go a few more times for her to be happy.

Munich was also celebrating an anniversary so they had a lot of booths set up and dancers. It was fun to see the groups and individuals dancing to traditional music in traditional costume. Hailee loved it.

Königssee

Königssee is quite possibly one of our new favorite places in Germany. A week or so Ruthann came to visit us we were looking up a few new places that would be fun to take her. When we saw the pictures of Königssee we didn't think it could be as pretty as the pictures they were showing. We fully believed that a lot of photoshop liberties had been taken. We were so pleased to find out that it was as pretty as pictures made it out to be. In fact probably prettier in person than the pictures could ever do justice. It was peaceful and absolutely beautiful.

Königssee is the cleanest lake in Germany (which is really saying something because every lake we've been to has been very nice and clean. They have only allowed electric boats on the water since 1909 and it was made a National Park in 1978.

We took a boat tour of the lake. It was all in German, but it was kind of fun to discover the German holiday spot instead of having everything translated for us. At one point the captain of the ship stopped the boat and played his trumpet which in turn had a beautiful echo. It was so pretty. We tried getting it on video, but you couldn't hear the echo.

The weather and time didn't allow us to do everything, but it gave us a good taste of Königssee. Now we just need to go back to do everything.

St. Mark's Square

 We had a few camera issues in Venice. I had lost my camera and after a day of taking so many pictures Louise had a nearly dead battery. On our way to St. Mark's square we decided to stop by a camera store to see if we could buy a new battery or charger for Louise's camera. We were excited to find out that for a small fee they would charge her battery in an hour or so. Since we were on our way to St. Mark's I decided to buy a disposable camera. I knew the pictures wouldn't be phenomenal, but for a cheap disposable camera I was happy with how they turned out. It looks a little retro to me.

 The kids had the best time chasing the pigeons. Too bad they were interrupted with a torrential rain storm.

Venice - Day 3 and a half

The kids bedroom faced the canal. They loved looking out their window, but I can't tell you how many times I had to think "If one falls in...." how deep is it, how much of a drop, and how dirty is that water? Thankfully I never had to find out the answer to any of those questions.

Todd had to get back to work, so the kids and I stayed another day and a half with the Elder family. We love traveling with them. We both have two-year-olds and can both appreciate what it's like to travel with two-year-olds. Thankfully for the most part the meltdowns were kept fairly minimal and I think everyone had a great time. (At least we hope the Elder family will want to travel with us again.)

As we were preparing for our trip I kept a close eye on the weather. As it got closer it looked like we were going to get rained out. It was foretasted to rain every day we were there. Thankfully the rain held out until Monday. In the morning we went to St. Mark's square to chase after the pigeons (pictures coming soon). The kids loved it. Adelaide how to go to the bathroom, so I stayed with my kids and the two strollers while they went to find a bathroom. Not long after the Elder's left the sky got really dark and a sudden downpour started. Thanks to Hailee's help we were able to safely under some cover to watch it rain. The elder's found us and we enjoyed watching sheets of water drop on the now deserted square.

After a few minutes it cleared up a little and we were able to grab some lunch, and head off to Murano. Once we got there though the rain had come to stay. After trying to get around, we figured it was useless since we weren't prepared for rain and everyone was cold and wet. We made our way back to our apartment and dried out. Thankfully the sky decided to dry out as well and in a couple of hours we had sun shine again. We have a lovely time walking around that evening, grabbing some dinner and of course getting some ice cream.

 James, as you can see, really enjoyed his ice cream. He usually wants what his sister gets, but this time he told me he wanted "white" so vanilla it was and he was so pleased.

 Hailee and Biscuit. I had no idea Biscuit would be such a well traveled dog.

The next day the kids and I had to go home. I got up early in the morning to go for a walk before people were awake. It was beautiful. It felt like I had the streets of Venice to myself for a lot of the morning.My plan was to make it to St. Mark's square and then find my way back home. I was so proud of myself because I made it to St. Mark's square without getting lost. After taking a few pictures around the square I started back, with my new found confidence of finding my way around the crazy streets of Venice. It wasn't long however before I was miserably lost. I wandered around for another few minutes before I saw a girl that looked like she was on her way to work, headed in the exact direction I figured our apartment was. We had a shopping area right by our house. I decided to follow her. Sure enough she was headed to work and knew right where she was going....however she worked right by St. Mark's square. I was now back where I started. So after another bit of wandering around and finding all kinds of beautiful places I finally found my way back to the Rialto bridge and from there I knew my way back to our apartment.

After we got packed up we decided to try another time to get to Murano before my train. We made it there without the rain, but when it was time for me to go back the rain started.

Going home we debated taking the sleeper train home, but as it didn't leave until 11:00 at night, I wasn't sure I could do that by myself with two tired and cranky kids. In the end we decided to take the 1:30 pm train that would get us home by 8:30. I was a little worried at how the kids would do, but they were amazing. James and Hailee played happily for the first 2 hours and then James took a two hour nap. The last three hours were great as well, with the exception of the last 30 minutes or so. James got a little stir crazy and wasn't bad, just louder than everyone else on the train (we were the only kids). I'm sure everyone was happy to get there so they didn't have to listen to his silliness. Overall I would totally do it again. It was a beautiful train ride home and the kids were awesome.

It was hard to come home from such a beautiful place with such wonderful friends, but we were excited to see Todd again. So that made it a little easier. Now I just wish we could go back. I think I could go to Venice every year and enjoy it every time. It's just such a fascinating city with a fascinating history.