Fall Break Adventures: Innsbruck, Austria

As I had mentioned, when driving back from Switzerland, precipitation was coming down and temperatures were dropping to freezing....so we were not completely surprised the next morning when we saw this on our drive to Innsbruck (or as Clarissa said, "Queen Elsa was here").

When we first arrived, we I was on a mission to find the super sparkly store (selling it to Clarissa), otherwise known as the Swarovski Crystal shop.....Unfortunately, their crystal world museum is undergoing renovations....so are only choice was to visit one of the largest Swarovski boutiques in the world.

There were crystals in the stairs.....

A multi-floor chandelier (here is just a portion of it)

I can only imagine how pretty (and sparkly) the crystal world is. I got a nice sapphire crystal earrings and pendant set. Richard was super sweet and bought Clarissa her first crystal jewelry set (lady bugs with crystal spots). Mason wanting everything to be fair and got an emerald crystal keychain.

With our my mission complete, we walked around Old Town. We found the "Goldenes Dachl” (Golden Roof). I would call it more of a golden awning.....

Mason met his favorite monster movie character......the Invisible Man!

We stopped in and got the kids a snack at McDonald's

and Mason made giant bubbles with the street entertainer.

We bought some souvenirs (must add to shot glass collection.....) and then headed up to the zoo.

The AlpenZoo Innsbruck is up a hill from the city center, it is actually in a somewhat residential area. We really enjoyed the zoo and how up close you could get to the animals. The zoo also had lots of peek out points where you could see the animals from a different point of the exhibit and remain hidden from the animals (which worked well with the zoo being on a hillside).

Here's a happy mountain goat of some sort.

Peeking in on a falcon.

Some cats.

I'm not really sure how the little rope "fence" keeps the animals contained, but the kids had no fear getting up as close as possible!

Moose! (We also viewed the moose from the porch directly above him).

There was a lookout point with a wonderful view. I can imagine how breathe taking it would be on a clear day to see the Alps overlooking Innsbruck.

There is a piece of glass between Clarissa and the brown bear....but it was great to see such an active bear!

The kids really enjoyed the two hours we spent climbing the hill in the zoo. Afterwards, we headed back to the resort to partake in the hot pool tub again! On the way, we stopped in an adorable ski village called Mittenwald.  They have a Bavarian totem pole.

We had some ice cream.

Wandering around the village we saw the church of Saints Peter and Paul.

It was pretty sleepy the day we visited, but I can imagine in another month or two it will be a bustling town!

Mittenwald definitely had the classic German village feel.  Another fun day....check!

Fall Break Adventures: Vaduz, Lichentenstein and St. Gallen, Switzerland

Crossing borders in EU countries is relatively simple. You need a vignette (window sticker) for most countries that you can buy at gas stations. It is a bit of a honor system, no one stops to check you, but if spotted without one you can be pulled over and it would be a very pricey ticket. Other than that you just carry your passport with you. It was quite similar to crossing a state border in the US, you just pass a sign on the side of the road. (There were remnants of old buildings from pre-EU days but they were typically empty pull offs to the side of the road). Here are the borders to Austria and Germany.

Lichentenstein is on a list of smallest countries in the world and it comes in 6th (only being 62 square miles big). So being only a couple hours away and given the ease of visiting other countries, it was a no brainer to go visit the capital and get our passports stamped.

To get the passport stamp, you just visit the Liechtenstein Center. I had downloaded a map of the capital city Vaduz off their website. We weren't (still aren't) sure where we came into the city at. We tried to orient ourselves using the Vaduz Castle overlooking the city.

Finally, I ran into a gas station for help. We found a parking garage in the area we were directed to. A helpful tidbit of information....the main drag with the Center, as well as, shops and dining is a brick pedestrian road (details.....).

So one of the dining halls at my college was the called the Ratskeller.....so with not much else to go on we decided to eat at the Engel Ratskeller for lunch. They had delicious smelling fondue inside (Lichentenstein does border the home of Swiss Cheese), unfortunately Clarissa thought it was too stinky inside so we dined outside on chilly day. While the food was quite tasty, it was also quite expensive....for the four of us to eat lunch was close to $100usd.....eek (and Mason wanted a second serving.....we said no to that)!

Happy before getting the check...hee hee.

Following lunch we stocked up on our Lichentenstein souvenirs and gifts at several of the shops. Richard chatted with girl at a shop called Hoi (they had really cute, untraditional souvenirs) while checking out. She asked if we were just visiting for a couple hours, he said yes....apparently that is the norm.

In the spring I bet this garden is gorgeous!

So about 30 minutes from Vaduz, is the town of St. Gallen, Switzerland. I found a huge abbey we could visit that was located next to a chocolaterie. So off we headed to St. Gallen.  The crest of the city contains a brown bear.

Unfortunately, our rental car GPS somewhat failed us. We had entered the Abbey as our destination and it took us to the train station. Which did have a Starbucks, so we got an unexpected bonus mug for our Starbucks city mug collection.

We wandered around attempting to find the abbey, we saw some pretty architecture and found a pretty fun playground for the kids to burn off some energy at.

Note my head in the edge of the ladder picture....I think her climbing gave me a couple gray hairs....

Rope obstacle course fun.

The trampoline was their favorite!

We kept wandering around (we definitely had a theme that day...go with the flow) and finally asked a police officer where the Abbey was. She directed us there. On the way we came across a family zone (according to the sign cautioning drivers). There were concrete molded couches, tables, chairs, and fountain all painted red.

Even a concrete vase with a tree planted inside.

Cool windows.

Feels like we are getting closer with these beautiful streets.

Finally, after walking through a boutique district we came across the St. Gallen Abbey.

Unfortunately, everything closes at 5 pm on Saturdays.....oh well. We still got to enjoy seeing the different architecture.

This wall painting caught Mason's eye with the grim reaper type image....(typical for my all-classic-monster-movie loving child.... )

Sadly, the chocolaterie closed while we wandering around photographing the Abbey area....so off we headed back to Garmisch in search of some place open for dinner.

While driving back it started raining and temperatures started dropping close to freezing....beautiful morning snow pictures coming soon......

Fall Break Adventures: Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

For fall break, we packed the kids up and hopped on a plane to Germany. I think Clarissa was more excited about the plane ride then the sightseeing in Germany/neighboring countries.

Having caught the pre-dawn flight (pretty much no other options here), Clarissa was a little tuckered out and napped on our drive from Munich to Garmisch-Partenkirchen (about an hour and half from the airport).

We stayed at the Edelweiss Lodge and Resort. It is actually an US Armed Forces recreation center. We've heard it was booked non-stop during the Iraq War, providing a meeting point for soldiers and their families (the nightly rate is graded according to rank). As a State Department family currently posted in Europe, we are allowed to use the facility (though we payed the highest rate). We had a few hoops to jump through since we did not have military IDs but our diplomatic passports.

While Richard was checking in, Mason & Clarissa found the wooden cut-out. The photo turned out surprisingly good with Clarissa's bangs matching perfectly....but I'm a bit disturbed by her voluptuousness at 4.....

The resort had Starbucks coffee, chicken wings, strawberries and other American snacks......to start out (can you tell we've been deprived).

There were some amazing views of the Bavarian Alps from our room/resort grounds.

They had an indoor heated pool and an outdoor hot tub. I think the hot tub was the kids' favorite and we hung out there EVERYDAY......

We took some family portraits one morning around the city of Garmisch (that's another post), as well as, go out to a little cafe for lunch....which pretty much only served ice cream. Clarissa was very happy to indulge and I got the fruit pizza.....vanilla ice cream covered with sliced fresh fruit....yum! Richard got a latte of some sort (and helped eat the fruit pizza) and Mason got their cheesey bread special for the day.

After lunch we walked around the shopping area in downtown Garmisch. I totally scored points by not only getting, but also keeping it a secret till his birthday, Richard a German cuckoo clock. I picked out a cute one with a little girl who swings back and forth.

Garmisch-Partenkirchen was originally two different towns separated by a river. In 1935, Hitler forced the merging of the two cities in order to host the 1936 Winter Olympics. A little leftover from the Olympics is a summer toboggan run (it is located right next to the stadium). You buy tokens for one run or a 6 pack of runs. We opted for the 6 pack. You climbed into the toboggan, it pulled you up the hill and you could control how fast or slow you went down. The first time Clarissa wanted to go real slow.....by the end she wanted to go as fast as possible. At the end they have a display showing your facial expression on a given turn. Unfortunately, it wasn't until the last run I noticed it also showed your speed at that point. On the last run, we clocked speeds between 40 and 48 km/hr (25-30 mph). Here's a little video of the fun.

Garmisch-Partenkirchen was a rather great location for a variety of day trips we took into Austria and  Switzerland (up coming posts).

Monday's Moment: Germany in October