We arrived last night in our last European city, Amsterdam. We decided to stay in a nice hotel for our last couple of nights so that was a definate plus. We woke up this morning after a good nights rest and decided to get an early start on our day. We started off in the town square, the Dom, and explored an old Dutch quarter the Bejinghof. It is this little piece of the country smack dab in the center of town. We then toured the flower markets lining the canals in the city. It is pretty interesting, Amsterdam actually has more canals than Venice! We made our way over to a Jewish market that was full of random stuff (my favorite) and made sure to try the delicious homemade fries they had. One crazy thing over here in the Netherlands is that marijuana is completely legal, thier coffee shops are just code for weed shops! So we have constantly had a headache since we have arrived from the constant smell of weed on everyone around us…I am not kidding they are sucking on weed lollypops, cigarettes laced with the stuff, kits for growing it at home…everywhere! Thank goodness for America! Anyways, we spent the afternoon exploring all that Amsterdam has to offer. They are one of the largest importers of diamonds in the world so we toured one of thier dimond factories which was cool. We also had to eat a fresh stroop waffel at a local market…and do some neccesary shopping. We ended the day with the Anne Frank hide out. They have preserved the annex where Anne Frank’s family hid during WWII, and where she wrote her diary. It was so interesting to actually see the place where jews were kept in hiding, I can not even imagine what they went through. We had an incredible day and cannot believe our adventure is over. We did it, we backpacked Europe without any major problems or holdups (thats a little more then Scott and his bros can say:) We had the time of our life and will hold the memories we have made close forever!

Yes…grow your own weed!

Forget the minivan!!!

We took a night train out of Prague and woke up in Germany. We immediately hopped on another train for a short ride into Heidelberg. We needed a good breakfast and to stretch our legs. We breifly explored town which included a beautiful castle atop a nearby hill and had breakfast at a local bäckerie. We then made a small trek of four different trains to Rothenburg, the most charming German town ever! It was exactly what you imagine when you think of Germany! It has actually been around since medieval times and has many buildings which are still standing from the 13th century. It also is one of the few towns that still has its original city walls. We were able to climb one of the watch towers up to the wall and walk around the city, the wall stretches for about a mile. It was so cool to imagine what had happened on and within the city walls over thousands of years. We ate dinner at a local market and explored the little town square and church. I talked Scott into going to the one museum in town, the medievil crime and punishment museum, yes it sounds gruesome and yes it was. It had hundreds of actual torture tools and punishment instruments used in Rothenburg. The violin is basically a piece of wood that would lock around a person’s head and wrists (like mobile stocks,) my favorite was the double violin that was used to lock two quarreling women together until they learned to get along! I am sure my parents could have used that a time or two!

Also very creepy…this iron tie. It is used for simulaneously bonding the neck, hand, and ankles. The prisoner had to stay in this postion for a specified period of time. Imagine the cramping you would get from this thing!

P.S. we forgot to take pictures in the musuem so this is definitely from some other dude’s blog!

One of the funnest things we did was this nightwatchmen’s night tour. This German guy has been doing these tours for 17 years, he walked us around town by lantern and explained how life would have been for people in the city during the middle ages, it was really interesting. We stayed at this cute little b&b which was the oldest in town, thank goodness for Scott’s german because the guy did not speak any English (along with most people we have come in contact with on this trip!) We slept great except for I am pretty sure we both had nightmares from that crazy museum, we are very grateful for modern day punishment!

View of Rothenburg and its wall

Yes It was very difficult fitting my head through this hole!

We left the next morning and spent the majority of the day traveling to the Rhine Valley. We arrived to the Rhine area that evening just in time to take a train along the river and admire it’s beauty. We spent the night in Bacarach, a small town right on the river.

Yesterday morning we woke up in Bacarach  and could see miles of vineyards and autumn colored trees from our window. We decided to take a riverboat down the Rhine to fully enjoy  everything around us. Our surroundings were undescribable, so beautiful. All of the leaves are changing thier color and there are castles about every mile of the river. We made a stop in St. Goar to tour the largest castle on the Rhine. During the time of Napolean, the French came in and destroyed a lot of the castles, they did get to this specific one but much of it was left behind. We spent the afternoon enjoying the Rhine and then set off for Amsterdam last night.

Drum roll please…Prague…best European city ever! No not really, but seriously! It made it to the top of my list very quickly, I was very impressed.  Our arrival to our hotel was not so great, but we should have been tipped off when our confirmation email said to pick our key up from the bar next door when we arrived. Are you kidding, a bar? So when we got there and the bar was closed with a note written in Czech on the door we were not very surprised! We ended up finding a pretty nice hotel a couple streets over that did the job. It was pretty chilly in the Czech Republic, the later into the season we travel the cooler the weather gets. It is still comfortable though especially with all the walking we are always doing.
We started off our day with old town Prague which has the old town square that houses the famous astronaumical clock and the city hall.

This clock shows the time 3 different ways!

Everywhere we go, whatever we are seeing, we somehow manage to always be eating! We had a genius idea to bring our camelback so we always have liquid with us, we got even smarter when we started to fill it with juice and soda! So when we thought we would be in the best shape of our lives after this trip…we thought wrong. We are worse off than we were to start with! But it hasn’t changed our mindset to try everything. In Prague they had these hollow pastries that are basically sweet dough rolled in cinnimon and sugar and then roasted, delicious!
We made our way across the Charles Bridge and had a bratwurst lunch before heading up to the castle quarter for a view of the city. We have hiked to an overlook of almost every city we have been in, we have really loved that. Prague was equally as breathtaking as the rest have been. I really don’t know why I found the city so facinating, it must have just been it’s distinct difference from everything else we have seen. We spent that evening people watching, eating dinner, exploring the Jewish district, and checking out a few last monuments.

The Town Hall

St. Charles Bridge

The farther East we travel the cities are starting to feel a little less European and a bit more Russian. The onion domed cathedrals and gothic steeples dotting the skyline have a very different feel than anything we have seen so far, I love it! There is just some mystery that lies in the renesaince influenced architechture that really interests me. Budapest was an adventure in and of itself. We found an apartment online that this guy rents out for just 19 euro a night so that was awesome, and because Hungary is not part of the eu they have their own money which meant everything was cheaper. It was interesting though because 200 fts is equal to 1 dollar, so when we got money out of the ATM we got back bills worth 10,000 and 5,000 fts. We woke up to beautiful weather the first day and spent the morning eating Hungarian pastries, crossing the famous Chain Bridge, shopping in the largest indoor market in Europe, and taking in the not so pleasant smells that Eastern Europe has to offer! That evening we took a cable car up the mountain side to the Buda Castle. By this time the sun had set and lights of the city were beginning to glow. Budapest is a pretty city, but it’s true beauty comes out at night. It was such a sight, the parliment building with it’s gothic roof line and the monument, Fishermans Bastian, stood out like beacons against the night sky. We spent the next day exploring old town Budapest and caught an afternoon train to Prague.

The Chain Bridge

Fisherman’s Bastian

Originally we had thought we would make a day trip from munich out to Salzburg but to save some travel time we decided to make it more of a layover instead. So it was hello to Austria! Unfortunately we only got one picture in of Salzburg before the camera died on us so…no pictures (well one.) But it was beautiful. There was a large fortress up on a hill overlooking the city that we hiked up to and spent most of the afternoon. We found a good little bench to kick back on and relax. The sound of music was filmed in Salzburg so that’s kinda cool, Mozart was also born there so we saw his birthhome and his place of residence for his adult life. We wanted to make it to Vienna at a good time so we hopped on a train for 3 hours and were in Vienna that evening.
We stayed in our first hostel that evening, “The Happy Hostel” that happened to be across the street from a Chinese restaurant, “The Happy Budda.” So we were happy people in happy Vienna sleeping in a happy hostel and eating happy food…We’re Happy! Vienna was awesome. This time our cameras were charged but after after a full day of taking pictures in Vienna something happened with the memory card so…no pictures once again! (At least they are on a card.) Everything from the palace Schönnenbrünn that had a labrynth and a zoo on it’s grounds to one of the most famous opera houses in the world. We enjoyed a delicious lunch overlooking Vienna’s St. Stephen’s Cathedral and spent the rest of the day wondering about the city and marveling at it’s beauty.

Our one picture of Salzburg!

If you have tried to leave a comment before, it didn’t work, but Scott got it working! So please everyone who is reading please leave a comment, we want to know! Love you all.

We have been running a few countries behind on our updates so we are doing a little postathon, hope you dont get too sick of listening to me!  We were fortunate enough to stay with Scotts second cousin Jenny and her family while we were in Munich. They had a great place just outside downtown. We are so grateful for the hospitality we have received while we have been out here, we hope that people feel comfortable enough to stay with us down the road and allow us to return the favor.
We made a day trip out to Neuschwanstein Castle our first day. King Ludwig II built two absolutely beautiful castles in the mountains outside Munich in Bayern. The main castle is literally tucked away in a mountain surrounded by dense forest, rivers, and waterfalls. The castle itself is a spectacular sight, we were able to hike up to a bridge that overlooked the castle and the surrounding valley….amazing!

The view from the bridge

One of the main reasons we decided to shoot up to Munich for a few days is because of Oktoberfest, a 16 day beerfest that gathers over 6 million people! I’m turning this over to my more wittier german half, Scott, for a description of the craziness of Oktoberfest!

Southern Germany was famous up north for their laid back attitude and wild parties. As we made our way around town during the famous Oktoberfest, EVERYBODY was dressed up in lederhosen! We couldn’t wait to experience it first hand. It is like a state fair on steroids, times 100. Not only are their beer tents galore, but the rides they set up for this two week festival are unreal! We’re talking temporary rides that trump six flags.  Upon arrival, due to the fact that we don’t drink beer, we consumed massive amounts of food: two six inch bratwurst, roasted almonds, chocolate covered bananas, the entire half side of a chicken, and two half liter jugs of soda!  I had always heard and understood that beer “tents” were a main attraction at Oktoberfest, but little did I know that these were no tents. These are massive buildings (keep in mind that everything for this festival is completly temporary.) Upon entering these tents we were greeted by thousands of germans each with a liter of beer in hand singing along with a brass polka band and eating meat off a a Ox on a spit…wild!

 Mind you this is Monday of a work week at 2 oclock in the afternoon, needless to say this was probably mild compared to what goes on during weekend nights! We had an incredible time exploring fun houses, devouring food, crashing in bumper cars, but mostly people watching. This is one party we’ll never forget.

Inside one of the Beer Tents

Wagons of beer wheeled around by Clysdales

Just a local ready to party

This is Scott. I am so glad I have a wife who happily writes and keeps in contact with everyone. I’ve decided to step in and contribute some. We took another night train from Venice to a magical part of Switzerland called the Berner Oberland. I had figured it out on my mission, and it has again been reconfirmed on this trip, there are a buch of crazies in Europe! We experienced it first hand with this little gem:

I had been to this part of Switzerland before with my brothers and we stayed in Interlaken. This time we stayed a little higher up in the mountains in a place called Lauterbrünnen. We had an incredible time, it is what I like to call a vacation from our vacation. Their are hundreds of miles of beautiful hikes throughout the Swiss Alps, and we experienced just a few. you could spend weeks in this area (at least we could). On one of our hikes we came upon a small family run dairy in the mountains. Let me just tell you, best yogurt ever! We spent a few more hours just wandering, enough time for the sun to come out, and ended up back in the valley. After a traditional dinner of röstl (sort of like a dinner hash brown thing) and wienerschnitzel, we spent the night breathing fresh alpine air, and haven’t slept better. I loved visiting Switzerland especially this time with my wife and enjoying the beautiful outdoors.

Fresh Yogurt

The View from our Window

Some of the local wildlife

The second I stepped out of the train station and into Venice, I fell in love. It is a city on water straight out of a fairytale. Just imagine gondolas, singing rowers with acordians, water taxis, cafes, and bridges. We had a wonderful morning starting out in St. Marks Square, where I happily got attacked by hundreds of hungry pigeons! We saw the bridge of sighs, St. Marks Basilica covered from top to bottom in storytelling mosaics, and got “lost” on the infinite walk ways and bridges on the beautiful island. We enjoyed a canal-side lunch of homemade pizza, and took a nap while watching the boats and gondolas float by. Out of all the cities we have been to this is the one that I would like to revisit again first and be able to stay for a longer period of time. It is just so romantic and picturesque, it is a lovers paradise!

St. Marks Baslica