Winter

This was the view out my kitchen window on the first official day of spring.

 

 

My friends to the south are watching their tulips and daffodills bloom.

We will just be happy to see some bare dirt.

I think it's going to be a few months yet.

 

We have been doing our best to embrace winter ('cuz really, what choice do we have?) For all the snow and freezing temps, it has generally been quite bright and sunny. My Vermonsters are immune to the cold so they've been having a ball in the snow.

Snow friends.

 

 

Yes, she's eating a popsicle.
Yes, she needed a hammer to carve out the frozen snow.

 

The upside to all the snow and cold is that the skiing has been fantastic. Austin organized an elementary / middle school ski program at Bolton Valley, so our kids and their pals ride up on a bus after school on Thursdays and ski all afternoon and evening. It's amazing what a different attitude they have when they're skiing with their friends and somebody ELSE's parents. 

 

We've had some fun at Sugarbush this year too. We went up last weekend to take advantage of some fresh snow. I loved it: the snow was sticky and slow so I could just swoosh happily down my favorite little green trail while Austin and the kids tackled the high mountain or (their new favorite) the jumps and rails of the terrain park. I think I'm going to have to find myself a ski pal so I'm not always skiing all alone.

Ski goggles make awesome bug eyes
thanks to PhotoBooth.

Augsburg

If there weren't so many gorgeous historical cities in Bavaria, Augsburg might get a bit more attention. The city was settled by the Romans and is more than 2,000 years old. The architecture is great: a unique take on the Renaissance styles filtering north along early modern trade routes from Italy. The Fuggers -- the richest family in Europe -- lived in Augsburg and left their stamp on it. The history is incredibly rich. Many tourists overlook it, but there was plenty to do and see to keep Austin, Lucy and Gavin busy while I worked at the city library. They checked out all the museums, palaces, churches, archaeological sites, and shops. Austin was the kids' tour guide for most of it, so I don't have many pictures.

 

Dramatic City Hall built by Elias Holl.

Flowers and fruits in the city market.
The old city archive is the yellow building just visible in the back.

 

Communing with Jakob Fugger outside the Maximilianmuseum.

 

Holy Cross churches! Must see!

One of my favorite places in Augsburg is the Fuggerei, a complex of houses built in the sixteenth century by Jakob Fugger to provide inexpensive housing for the poor, and a steady stream of grateful tenants to pray for his soul. It is so peaceful in this little enclave, especially now that non-residents have to pay a fee to enter and wander its streets. (Too bad, really.) The apartments have all been modernized, but one remains in its original state as part of a Fuggerei museum. There is also a very interesting (if a bit random) WWII-era bunker to visit.

 

Quiet afternoon streets.

Leafless trees make cool designs against the walls.

Gavin in the doorway:
people must have been short back then!

Love the bright shutters.

The Augsburg Zoo probably shouldn't make any list of must-do tourist sites, because it's a nice but pretty standard zoo. But the day we went it was 60 degrees and felt almost like summertime, and it's been a couple of years since we took the kids to the zoo so it felt like a special event. Really, it might have been the kids' favorite day in Augsburg. 

Communing with the cranes.

"Free Goats" in captivity.

Happy Alpacas.

The Zoo Biergarten.

 Our very last night in Germany we took the kids to the Augsburger Puppenkiste, a marionette show that has played for decades on German TV so every German kid knows all about it. The theater was a block from our house. We saw Hansel and Gretel -- a story the kids know very well so they weren't fazed that it was all in German. They thought it was interesting, if strangely low-tech. I liked people-watching best. The German crowd was totally into it, adults as well as kids!

Theater seats in the nave of an old hospital chapel.

Lucy and the Marionettes.

Rothenburg

Rothenburg ob der Tauber is one of those German tourist towns where there are more Americans and Japanese wandering tourist-shop-lined streets than Germans. But I love it anyway. Austin and I took a "Romantic Road" bus trip as part of our honeymoon, and when the bus stopped for a few hours in Rothenburg, we nearly decided to just ditch the bus and just stay. It's that beautiful.

 

 

In my defense, I can say that Rothenburg is a legitimately-historic city. It used to be important, then the Thirty-Years War happened, trade routes shifted away, and Rothenburg became a backwater seventeenth-century village frozen in time. The city walls remained almost completely intact and defensive towers still dominate the narrow cobblestone lanes. Clay roof tiles are one of the only visible concessions to modernity.

 

Half-timbered loveliness.

 

Climbing the city walls.

The wall walkway circles the whole city.

 

A limewood altar by Tilman Riemenschneider.
This alone is worth the visit.

Contemplating Renaissance woodcarvings.

Still officially winter -- so fountains were still covered.

Sixteen years post-honeymoon!

 

Yes, we visited the Kathe Wohlfahrt Christmas emporium(s), and yes, we spent a lot of money. We are tourists, after all. But we love our new nativity puzzle. And Gavin loves the lederhosen we found him at the perfect little trachten shop across from the triangular house at the bottom of the high street.

Neuschwanstein

We took our trip to the Alps on a day when the kids simply could not stand to be cooped up in a city any longer and needed to be able to run and play and climb trees and be "free goats." Luckily, Neuschwanstein Castle requires a good hike up the mountain, and because it was a beautiful day, we took the longer off-road path. It did not take long for the kids to shed their jackets and scarves, which their parents steadfastly refused to carry for them, so they had to get creative.



So happy to be out in nature.

Our hiking route took us to the Marienbruecke, a narrow iron and wood-slat bridge that spans a terrifying gorge. I am not a fan of heights and do not love this bridge. But the views of the castle are amazing and -- dare I admit it -- worth the anxiety. Just look straight out, not down.

 

Crossing and re-crossing the bridge of terror.

Castle views.

Family photo.

Austin kept me from falling off.

 

The historian in me has to acknowledge that Neuschwanstein is not a really historic castle. It is barely over a century old, never finished, hardly lived in, and built by someone who wasn't even really a king (Bavaria was incorporated into the nation of Germany in 1871). But really, it is SO romantic! A perfectly bizarre fantasy castle built by a crazy pseudo-king enamoured of the Richard Wagner operas that constituted the popular culture of his day. King Ludwig was a narcissistic version of Walt Disney. And that makes it worth a visit -- historicity notwithstanding.

Lucy gets into the Wagnerian spirit.

Muenchen

 We made lots of daytrips to Muenchen (Gavin insisted we call it the city by its German name, not Munich). It was only 45 minutes away from Augsburg on the commuter train. We visited as a family a couple of times, and Austin took the kids without me while I worked. We spent a lot of time just wandering around, but always seemed to end up at the Hofbrauhaus, listening to the Oompah bands, eating Wurst and drinking gallons of Apfelschoele.

 

Apple juice mixed with mineral water:
Gavin's beverage of choice.

 

Glockenspiel on City Hall.

Who would cast a giant bronze catfish?

Muenchen has wonderful museums, and we visited as many as we could. The kids loved the Deutsches Museum, a science museum with a realistic underground mine exhibit as well as full-sized boats, planes, and rocketships. Their parents loved the Alte- and Neue-Pinakothek, Muenchen's world-class art museums. We also paid a visit to the Book of the Dead in the new Egyptian Museum. Austin was very patient while the kids explored the mines. They have been playing the Minecraft video game, and were amazed to see the real thing. And Lucy and Gavin were patient at the art museums. I love Renaissance and Baroque art, but the kids found it boring -- until I told them to look for doggies in all the paintings. That trick worked great when Lucy was a toddler, and hey! It still works on her!

 

A real mine cart!

Austin goes to the salt mine.

 

Weird to see WWI - II German aircraft on display.
They tend to be subtle about the world wars.

Too pretty a day to stay inside!

No dogs in this painting.

 

Every art museum should have a playground outside.