Holidays With The 'Rents

My parents came over to Europe to spend the holidays with their favorite daughter… okay, their only daughter, but that still makes me their favorite, right? They took a few days traveling alone to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary first. The spent a few days in London, then crossed over the channel via the Dover Ferry to Calais. They spent a day in Paris, spent the night in a castle in Belgium, and even hit up Amsterdam before dropping down to Dusseldorf to spend Christmas with me and my host family. We had a great time exchanging presents with the kids, and they cooked me and my “German Parents” a (belated) Thanksgiving dinner. You can view their blog too at: http://www.vintervunderland.blogspot.com/

Two days after Christmas, my parents and I were on the move with our first stop being Munich in the southern German state of Bavaria. I lived just about an hour away from there the last time I was in Germany, 7 years ago, and I wanted to show them the town. Unfortunately it was night by the time we arrived, and we left our camera in the car, so I don’t have any pictures of us drinking beer, and eating bratwurst and bretzeln (pretzels) at the Hofbrauhaus. We then drove out of Munich and spent the night in a small town between there and the Neuschwanstein castle. In the morning we woke up, hit a quaint B&B for brunch, and headed for the castle.

I have personally been on MANY castle tours during my last two trips to Germany, and my parents were getting a little sick them too, so we just did a quick drive by and made a run for the Austrian boarder. I think we were all a little antsy to get to the Alps for the skiing part of our trip. We got into Innsbruck that day with much more time to spare than we anticipated, so we drove around and tried to get a lay of the land. If you’ve never been there before, and you don’t have a detailed map, Innsbruck can be a very difficult city to navigate. Also, no one warned us of this, so I think it’s worth mentioning; when you cross any boarder into Austria, stop at the first gas station you see and purchase the sticker for their Autobahns… You’ll have to pay a hefty fine if you don’t.

Our reservations were at a “guesthouse” appropriately named the Gasthof Dollinger. It was a fairly nice room, but my bed was, well, let’s just say you couldn’t even call it a cot. I’m a pretty small person, but that bed was too small for even little old me!! Other than that though, we had an AMAZING time in Innsbruck. They’ve twice had the honor of hosting the Winter Olympics, so I was in heaven. We saw the Olympic Ice Rink, Ski Jump, Bob Sled Track, and I even got to ski Olympic Ski runs on our first day of skiing at the Stubaier Gletscher. However, to be honest, the best day of skiing was the second one. It was cloudy and snowed the whole day, but I could have cared less because the snow conditions were out of this world!

The second day of skiing we went to a place called Ski Welt that I HIGHLY recommend to any intermediate to advanced skier. It was about an hours drive away from Innsbruck in a town called Hopfgarten. I started my day at the base of the mountain there, and when I got off the Gondola, at what I assumed was the top, I found out there were between 5-10 mountains that I could ski! I ended up having to call my parents to pick me up about a 20 minute drive away from where they left me because I couldn’t find my way back. It was THE best ski day of my life!! We headed back to Innsbruck and waltzed our way into the New Year during the night-long firework display, tucked ourselves into bed, and got up the next day to head south for Italy.

Upon our arrival in Venice, we soon realized that no motor vehicles are allowed to drive around the island at all! I don’t know how all three of us missed that one, but luckily the island our B&B was on, Lido, did allow them. So, we hopped on the ferry, and took our trip to the little barrier island of Lido. We spent the next day sight seeing in Venice, the glass factory, the gondolas, Piazza San Marco, etc. It was all very nice, but the Italians don’t seem to welcome tourists the way Germany and Austria do. Maybe it was just the time of year, who knows. After our day in Venice, we were basically headed back to Dusseldorf, but we don’t like to go the same way twice, so we detoured west through Milan, then north through Switzerland and spent the night on the boarder of Germany and saw the Rhinefall. I’ve never been to Niagra Falls, so this was the biggest water fall I’d ever seen with my own eyes. It was beautiful, and I’m glad it ended up on our random trek “home”.

The next day was just a typical drive through Germany, although we did get to go through the Black Forrest (Schwartzwald), and stop in Baden Baden for lunch. My parents were happy to be back at my German home, but sad to be leaving the next day. To be honest, I was too. Even though we haven’t lived together in a long time, it’s been harder than I expected to be this far away from them for so long. I don’t know when I’ll get to see them again, but I do know I’ll get to see a lot more of Europe first! Sorry to drag on so long, that was a lot to see, and I didn’t want to leave to much out…

Happy Travels!
Amanda