May 2016

Rhine, Bern, Garmish, Landshut, Prague, and Dresden!

May was a busy and very fun month! We started out by doing a day trip early in the month to the Rhine river.  The Rhine is an amazing place! Once we actually hit the Rhine river, we were able to drive right on the riverbed where we spotted castles every mile or so! Seriously, it was insane.  Here are just a few of the pictures we got of the Rhine.

Rhine River

Rheinstein Castle

Hiking up to a lookout spot on the Rhine

On top of a tower from the lookout spot

From this view, I believe we could see 8 castles

Rheinfels Castle

Funny sign.  It basically says that this rock can tell you the weather.  

 As I cannot read german, I found this off of the internet that basically depicts what this picture says.

• If the rock is wet, it's raining.
• If the rock is swinging, the wind is blowing.
• If the rock casts a shadow, the sun is shining.
• If the rock is not visible, it is foggy.
• If the rock is white, it is snowing.
• If the rock is bouncing, there is an earthquake.

Buahaha! So dang funny

The next weekend, we went to Bern Switzerland with our ward to the temple. All the temples in Germany are closed, or not completed yet. It was really fun to carpool with Malee and her 5 kids.  They are really well behaved!!

Blooming tree on the temple grounds

Woods behind the temple

I love this man, and I truly truly love visiting the temple!

The next weekend, we did a day trip to another castle near the Rhine. It is the Eltz castle! It was an absolutely beautiful day.  This was probably the last weekend we had that was dry.  It has been raining for a full month, straight.

He is so adventurous 

Burg Eltz will be one of the many castles I will revisit multiple times.

Brian was able to go on a work trip on the other side of Germany.  It is a little town on the very South Eastern tip of Germany, and about 5 minutes north of the Austrian border.  We decided to take advantage of this opportunity to go on a trip together. I met up with him Wednesday night after his conference ended, and we went out to eat with some of his co-workers. It was really fun, and delicious food!  The next morning, Brian had conference for another few hours, so I slept in, and packed our car so we could leave right away to explore the beautiful town of Garmish.

Zugspitze man from Brian's hotel window.

Brian on a bike ride before I got there

I caught the cute boy getting back from his bike ride!

Our first activity in the Garmish area was to see the Partnachklamm Gorge, and it did not disappoint!

The end of the Gorge with an amazing view! The mountains weren't bad either ;)

We couldn't get a good picture together. Locals suck at it.

The beginning of the Gorge from a pretty bridge!

From there, we decided to go see the Ehrenberg Castle that was about 40 minutes away in Austria.

This is actually probably a favorite castle ruin for both me and Brian. There is something about these castles that is super exciting. You really have to use your imagination to see exactly how the castle was built, and what it looked like.. Also, the view from on top was breathtaking! We took a ton of Panoramas!

Beautiful Austria

Same picture, but in a different light.

Hey! I am in this picture! Thats pretty sweet.

Coming up to the castle

The view. Amazing.

Brian got stung by some sort of grass for this picture..but it is awesome

This part of the ruin made me think of the fight scene in princess bride.

D. A. N. G. He is cute

LOL random sword in the stone

Oh the view

We didn't realize that this castle ruin was going to be free, what a wonderful surprise! Right next to this ruin, however, was a highline! We decided since we didn't pay for the castle tour, we would pay to go across the bridge to get to see the ruin from the other mountain. 8 Euro each. 

On the Highline

Across the Highline and an amazing view!

The cars below. We were really high up

It was such a nice day!

Just a few more...

Look at the height!!

That night, we had delicious and well deserved Italian food! 

Yah, this was just my food...I don't remember what Brian had. mmmm

The next day, we woke up and headed to Landshut. This was super fun because we have been here 2 other times (Brian lived here for 6 months on his Mission).  We were able to walk around the city and also see 2 families from the Landshut branch. They all love Brian. It makes me have a deeper love to see the people that he served and worked with for part of his 2 years on his mission.

One of the members we visited. He fed us delicious food.

Brian used to study the scriptures on this wall when he served here almost 10 years ago.

(No one is of importance in this pic. Just the buildings!)

Glad we could go back! And I am sure we will go again in the 3 years we live here.

Prague! Prague was an adventure.  It was super stressful because our phone plan did not work in the Czech Republic.  We didn't have a place to stay until we were 30 minutes outside of prague. It just was crazy and not very well planned...  But OH did we enjoy the beauty that Prague had to offer the next morning!!

We went on a guided walking tour for about 3 hours. It was seriously the best! They cut it about 30 minutes short, which was probably my favorite part. It made it just long enough that I didn't get bored or fall over from hunger.

Our BnB had these awesome directions to get to the Praha Centre

Prague pastry

St. Nicholas Church

Inside St. Salvator's church is this awesome Chandelier

We decided to be spontaneous and...

We went to a concert! It was awesome

St. Nicholas Church after the concert.

The Prague Dessert! We can't remember what its called.

St. Salvator's church!

Charles Bridge and Prague Castle

Prague's Astronomical clock

Charles Bridge and the castle in the background

Our view of Prague from the castle

Out of breath from climbing onto the Castle wall to get a good pic.

Hayes on the wall!

The castle had a giant church inside the walls! We actually got there about 10 minutes too late and couldn't go see the inside.  

The Orchestra!

My pictures were insanely out of order. Sorry about that.

The next morning, we got up and headed to Dresden Germany for 11 o'clock church.  We made it, but had problems parking, so we walked in late.  Unfortunately, that meant I couldn't understand the speakers. Brian was loving it though! After church, we headed to the Frauenkirche that President Uchtdorf spoke about in his April 2016 address, which you can read here.

Our first view of the Frauenkirche

How adorable is this carriage?!

The Frauenkirche on the inside is absolutely stunning

This is an awesome view of the Frauenkirche

Best photo out of the 30 photos we had locals take of us. I had to tell them that I don't like my feet or legs so we could get the top of the church in the photo.. Do you wonder if they think we take awful photos with only half their bodies in the picture? Probably.