On the Road Again...

Eight countries in four days!  I should probably change the title of this post to what were we thinking...ha!  Actually it was a great weekend and although it was LOTS of time in the car, it was such a beautiful landscape we really didn't mind.  So here is the list of countries we traveled through...

Belgium
The Netherlands
Germany
Austria
Liechtenstein
Switzerland
France
Luxembourg

We started out super early Saturday morning en route to Stuttgart, Germany.  Jacob's cousin Brandt and his wife Anna and their adorable newborn daughter Solfried live there and we were due to pay them a visit.  They were so nice to feed us a delicious lunch and give us a great break from the car before we continued on our journey down to Hohenschwangau, Germany to visit the Neuschwanstein Castle...better known as Sleeping Beauty's castle.  I absolutely LOVED this part of Germany.  We were down in the Alps and the scenery was just breathtaking!  Seriously there is something magical about water and mountains next to each other...it just makes you want to fall to your knees and thank the Lord for creating such an amazing backdrop for us to live in.  I am so thankful we get to visit all these amazing places!

Neuschwanstein Castle (view from Marienbruecke...Mary's bridge)

Hohenschwangau Castle (we could see this one out our hotel window)

Autumn trying out a new hairstyle :o) 

After checking out the castles (from the outside as we did not take the time to tour them) we packed back in the car and headed to Innsbruck, Austria.  Turns out we were only about a mile or two from Austria...we had no idea we were so close.  It was about an hour and a half drive to Innsbruck and we enjoyed every second of our drive through the mountains!  We arrived in Innsbruck just before lunch and found some yummy sausages to snack on while taking in this view!

Seriously...isn't Innsbruck gorgeous!  I just couldn't get over how lovely and charming this town is. No wonder it's been the host of two separate winter olympic games.  Our hotel was the peach colored one towards the middle.  Not too shabby :o)  After our lunch we decided to head UP the mountain.  That's right...see all those white snow covered peaks up there...that is where we were headed!  We bought an Innsbruck day pass that paid for the trip up on the Nordpark Cable Railways (and even gave us free admission to the Alpine Zoo...among other things).  There are three different tracks that take you to the top and the views are well worth the trip!

Slightly hazy, but gorgeous!  After our trip up the mountain we wandered around town a bit and then had dinner outside right on the river.  The sunshine and warm weather made this trip so much better.  We've really been missing it in Brussels.

The next morning we had to bid adieu to Innsbruck and were back on the road...today we were off to Switzerland.  We made a quick detour through the teeny tiny country of Liechtenstein.  There wasn't much to see in this tiny country of only about 35,000 people.  Liechtenstein is the smallest yet richest German-speaking country in the world and the only country to lie entirely within the Alps.  The drive to and through Switzerland was beautiful...like this beautiful Alpsee (I stuck my toes in it just to see how freezing it was since it was fed by the melting snow...and it was quite chilly)

Once we arrived at our final destination we were kinda bummed we chose the big city of Basel to stay in and wished we had stopped at one of the small towns along the way.  It worked for our last night though and it was still charming enough.

The next morning it was time to head home.  We packed up the car one last time and headed out. We stopped for lunch in a small town in France and ate possibly the best burger I have ever had (ok, maybe it was just nice to not be eating McDonalds finally, but it was so delicious).  There was no bun, it was on top of like a large hash brown type thing...and had crunchy little onion sprinkles on top.  Seriously, I never would have thought of this combination, but yum!  And this was maybe the most "Americanized" restaurant we have seen here yet...it was similar to like a texas roadhouse or something.  If we ever come across another "La Ferme" restaurant, we will definitely be stopping.

And now we're home safe and sound from our whirlwind trip.  It was another great adventure with my two favorite people and I can't wait for our next one!

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