We just love Germany. We got to go up to Garmisch again because Kirk had some work stuff to do up there but we made a fantastic trip out of it! We stopped on the way up in Innsbruck, Austria where we spent the night in the heart of the beautiful little city. We stayed in a building that dates back to the 16th century and had a delicious dinner there. The next day we stopped at the Swarovski Crystal world, which is one of the strangest places we've ever been and we don't recommend it bu
t oh well. On to Germany! We drove past Garmisch that first day so that we could visit the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site. It was really interesting getting to see all the places where things happened and there was a huge museum that documented the entire 12 years of the camp's existence. It was such a profound experience. We stayed at the Edelweiss Lodge again at the military base there. Our neighbors, Jake and Kim, stayed at the cabins that the lodge has so we got to hang out with them a bit too. We loooove the food in Germany so we spent most of the week planning for our next meal. We went up to the Partnach Gorge again to walk around and we discove
red a hotel and restaurant up above the gorge that we ate dinner at later in the week with Jake and Kim. Very tasty! We spent some time at a festival that the town was throwing and listening to live music and ate more food. Kirk played a shooting game and won a blue rose on his first shot! On our last day in Germany we went parasailing off one of the huge mountains in the area. It was unbelievable!
Then we headed out for France. We stayed one night in Nice and walked the beach front and ate savory crepes and ice cream. Then we went to a little historic town which we can't remember the name of but we found out about some cool caves while we were there and we just had to see them. We took a 45 minute detour to a little town called St. Cezaire which isn't even in our navigation system. The caves were discovered in the late 1800's by some miners and they're super neat with tons of stalagtites and stalagmites and little passage ways. The guide accidentally turned off all the lights for a split second and Nicole almost passed out, haha.
So from the caves we headed back towards Italy and stayed the night in the port town of Genova. We got to do some exploring the next morning and just fell in love with the place. It
had such grand old palaces and building and the harbor was amazing. We got to check out a ship that was built for a movie made in the 80's but it was a replica of an old ship that sunk in the 1700's. It was nice just walking around the city. We then drove on down the coast and went
through Cinqueterre where there are tons of vineyards on the terraced hill sides and beautiful views of the ocean. We went on to Pisa and hung out with the leaning tower for a bit. And then it was time to head home.
We really had a great time the entire trip and could not praise Germany enough. But as always, it's nice to be home. Oh, and Nicole had her first day as a substitute teacher for a very rowdy 3rd grade class at the NATO school. But she survived and is looking forward to her next shot at it!
