Blast from the Past

Since my parents accused me of not showing them any of the pictures from when Nate's family came out I decided to post some more pictures from their trip. The first weekend that they were out we headed down south to see Munich and Austria.
Our first stop was in Ulm, Germany to see the Ulm cathedral which has the tallest church steeple in the world. We started up the 768 steps and it was quite a hike to the top. The steps were uneven and wound up in a tight circle; I got quite dizzy climbing up the different sets of steps, but it was worth it when we got to the top. At the very top of the steeple there was a lookout area where you could look down on the town and out towards wherever.

After we left Ulm we headed on to Dachau, Germany where we did a tour of the Dachau Concentration Camp. We saw where the barracks stood and went through one of the barracks that was still standing and was furnished to appear as the barracks did at different points during the war. We also went through the crematorium which included the places where the prisoners were stripped, gassed and burned. It was an eerie place to say the least. After touring the grounds we went inside the museum which was also the in processing location for the prisoners. Dachau was one of the highlights on the trip for me.

Our final stop of the day was in Munich where we stayed for the night. When we arrived in Munich we wandered around the city center and got to see a few of the beer gardens that Munich is famous for. We would have seen more, but after a long day of seeing other attractions we all decided to get some dinner and head back to our hotel rooms.

The next day we drove to Salzburg and went on the Sound of Music Tour. We got to see a lot of places that were cool but didn't mean that much to me because I can't recall every having seen the Sound of Music. Luckily the tour also included all of the other main sights of Salzburg so we were able to hit them all in one day. The picture below is of Nate, Molly and I on a hill with Salzburg in the background.

The final stop on this trip was Neuschwanstein Castle which was Mad King Ludwig's castle and is known as the model for the Disneyland castle. Unfortunately the day we went it was rainy and cold which made the short hike up to the castle a bit less entertaining, but we made the best of it. When we got up to the castle we went on a short tour and then made our way back down the hill. Even though the weather was against us it was still one of the best castles I've seen in Germany yet.