Bavaria

We took a trip last week to Bavaria and Austria, and we were amazed at the beauty of the Alps in the summertime.

I mentioned in an earlier post, when we first visited Neuschwanstein castle, that I had wanted to see the castle since childhood. Since it was so snowy/cloudy when we were there before, I had to delay my dream of seeing the best views of the castle--from the famous Marienbrücke (Mary's bridge). So we made the steep hike up to the bridge, and at the climactic moment I walked onto the bridge to see the view I've been waiting for, this is what I saw:

Yep, that's the entire façade of the castle in scaffolding. At least it was a breathtakingly-beautiful day, and the rest of the (scaffolding-free) scenery was GORGEOUS!

While in Bavaria we also stayed at a super-cute Gasthof near the Austrian border.

The other Bavarian highlight was going to Munich and seeing the performance of the famous Rathaus-Glockenspiel in Marienplatz. The action lasted almost 15 minutes!