Amat victoria curam!

A lego store: where else then in Toy Capital of the world: Nurmberg?

Everyone knows Nurmberg of the WWII trials, unfortunately the court room was closed when we were there, but there is more to Nurmberg then that. It has a old inner city and the German Railway museum.

Actually not a lot has changed since this W32 to the GS1200R

A couple of days in Munich without (very) old stuff, but with some technical stuff - like in the Deutsche Museum and in the BMW museum.

Nice setting

Opera in a cave, with the king's boat as his seat

Ludwig II memorial in the lake where he drowned / was killed / killed himself

Via a little detour through Austria we ended up in The southern tip of the German alps and found Linderhof Castle, a sort summer house of Ludwig II. It is a small replica of Versailles. It also has it's own opera house (set in a -man made- cave).

It was a great trip - that everyone should do once in their lifetime. We are returning our trip back home: up north and west!

Well when I mentioned earlier this week that Rothenburg ob den Tauber looked a bit like Disney World to me, I got a tweet from the Rothenburg guys mentioning that everything was for real :-)

I know, I know - but now here in Neuschwanstein I think that everybody must agree that this is the original Disney World Cinderella castle. Well... original? This to was always mend as a make believe. It is full of replica and even has a grotto chamber. What impressed me most was the very colorful interior. A pity that Ludwig II couldn't finish this Wagner dreamworld.

What is Jar Jar Binks doing in this church? (and why does he have wings all of a sudden?)

We reached the most southern part of our trip here in Fussen on the German / Austrian border. We saw a lot of Barock churches today and here in Fussen things are very nice as well. Nobody is actually interested in Fussen itself, everyone who is here, is here for Neuschwanstein, which we will see tomorrow.

Some castles and very tall church towers (which we cannot resist to climb it seems) further we ended up in Augsburg, founded by - uh... - Augustus back in the beginning of time. It was badly damaged during WO II of course, but nicely restored. The townhall has an amazing golden hall - where you need your sunglasses inside.

Falcon hunting

Owl hunting

What the F**k!??

And further south we go, through rolling landscapes and ancient towns. On our way we met a hunter who taught us some falconry. Something which was awesome to see. Later that night in Dinkelsbühl I order something in my best German, not knowing it was pork knuckle with a huge potato dumpling... Oops: it seems that my German needs some revision...

This time we found someone taller then Eddie ;-)

Rothenburg is a sort Disney world village - it seems rather unreal with everything from the middle ages still in tact. No wonder we found ourselves suddenly surrounded with lots of (Asian) tourists. But there is also much to see, like the fortified town walls, the churches and the pretty little houses on cobble streets.