Once Upon a Time..

Well folks, this is going to be a long one.  So go get a snack and a tall drink, then sit back and take your time reading, drooling, and being swept away to a time and place far, far away and long, long ago....

Our busy busy itinerary continued this week.  We are having a blast with Pat, Natasha and London here and trying to do something fun everyday.  
We got home from Amsterdam on Sunday evening and then first thing on Monday, we were up and going to Strasbourg, France.
Strasbourg is in the Alsace region of France along the border of Germany.  We decided to take the slower route on the backroads and it was such a pretty drive.
The city of Strasbourg is a big city with different areas that each have a small city feel to them.  

 I drove right inoto the heart of the Petit France area and found myself on some very narrow winding lanes trying to find parking.  It was quite a maze. Thank goodness we were in the Mini!!
*Note to self:  You should always put a parking platz into the Nav system, not the most famous landmark located in the oldest part of a very old European city.  
After attempting to parallel park on the left side of one street and finding out the spot wasn't quite big enough for the MIni, we drove around the block again and this time found a very small spot.  I got as close as I could and then Pat jumped in and finished the job for me.  Whew! 


We were all starving and had to go to the bathroom, so we went looking for a little restaurant and Tasha found an ice cream shop (a Glacier) that also served some yummy panini sandwiches.  It was so helpful to have Natasha speak French so well.  She was able to order for us and we had a very nice lunch and potty stop.

My lunch: A tomato mozorella and pesto panini.  Mmmmm!

After lunch, we walked out and right in front of us was a nice French Patiserie...french pastry shop!   I chose a chocolate dipped almond cookie but we all decided that Natasha choice was the best....a beautiful raspberry tart.   It tasted even better than it looked!

Then it started to rain...and rain even harder.  We had to take cover under some awnings as we walked to the cathedral.  
It was a huge, beautiful church with amazing paintings, and stained glass windows.

After exploring the church, we went outside to find the rain had stopped so we could walk around the quaint streets and really appreciate the architecture.

The next day we were going to go to Idar Oberstein, but it was rainy and cold again, so instead we went shopping on the walkplatz in Kaiserslautern, then we stopped at Globus and did a little grocery shopping.

Pat and Natasha took the ICE train to Paris for a couple of days and we kept London.  She had fun running errands and going to the food court playground with Papa and spending a whole afternoon at one of my friends houses.  The kids all played and us ladies modge podged birdhouses for some centerpieces for a Stake Relief Society Activity.  

On Friday, we drove up to Burg Eltz.  This is the same castle that Casey, Travis and I went to a couple of weeks ago.  

We ate lunch at the hotel at the base of the trail.  Natasha had a Quiche with fish and mike had some wonderful looking Jägerschnitzel with Bratkartoffeln.  London entertained us all with her twirling and dancing.

We wondered if London could make the 45 minute walk, but she made it all the way to the very last bend in the trail before she pooped out.  I think all that dancing wore her out!

That's okay...Daddy and Mommy carried her when she got too tired to take another step.

London LOVES her ice cream!!

We sure had a fun day and London did an awesome job of hiking through the magical forest to "the princess' castle".

On Saturday, it was time for another road trip.  This weekend, we headed for Munich to visit the BMW museum.  This is a stop that Mike, Patrick and Travis really wanted to make.  We got a late start and our 4 hour drive turned in to about a 6 hour drive though due to many, many Staus ( traffic jams) due to road construction.  We finally made it there around 2 p.m. and spent a couple of hours looking at the cars in the museum.

After the museum, we hit the road again, this time we headed for Rothenburg.

Rothenburg is a small medieval city still surrounded by it's protective wall.  At one time there was a castle, built in 1142 but it was destroyed in 1356. 

 Most of the buildings within the wall were built by 1400.  It was a strategic stop on the trade routes between northern and southern Europe.   We were excited to go visit this weekend because they were having the Reichsstadt  festival.  A fest that celebrates the period of time that Rothenburg was designated as an Imperial City in it's heyday from 1150-1400.  For the festival, the whole city dresses in middle ages costumes and recreates the life and times of the knights, peasants, shop owners etc...

Our hotel

They also had fireworks on Saturday night. 

 We checked in to our hotel that was located 2 kil. from Rothenburg and then drove over to the city and walked around through the Knight's Camp just outside the walls.  Then we watched the fireworks.   

The next day we went to the city and it was so much fun...lot's of music and dancing and so many people dressed and playing their parts.  Please click on these pics because they are so fun, but I had to make them all small because there are so many.

Mike and T..J. at one of the gates to the city.

There are so many more pictures and I may go back and add a few more.  It was a memorable day for sure!   

We have really enjoyed our time with Pat, Tasha and London.  I will blog about our last day in next week's blog since this one was such a long one.  They leave here tomorrow morning and then Mike leaves on Thursday.  It will be way too quiet around here then.  

love and miss you all,

-corri