The first week in March, Emily and I joined Jeff for his work trip to Oberammergau, Germany. This was Emily's and my first trip to Germany, or anywhere outside of Italy, since we've been here. Jeff was going to a class Monday through Friday, but we decided to add an extra day to each end, going up Saturday, 28 February and returning Saturday, March 7. We were told that the trip would take about 4-5 hours. However, due to snow and road construction, traffic and road closings, it took about 9 hours for us to get up to Oberammergau. It was a beautiful trip up, through the mountains in Italy, Austria, and Germany, but very long.
There were about 2 feet of snow on the ground in Oberammergau when we arrived. Emily and I built a snowman and had a snowball fight on Sunday afternoon. You can tell that Emily is a Georgia girl, she had no idea how to build a snowman, and couldn't hit me with a snowball more than once in 10 tries. But we still had fun!
Emily played in the snow most every day while we were there. One day we went to the indoor pool facility just up the road, where Emily met a little Turkish girl that she played with. On Tuesday, we went to "Bavarian night" at the NATO club, where they had a buffet of local foods to try, and even an accordion player. Most every night we went out to local restaurants and enjoyed the German food. We had some excellent meals, but I wouldn't want to eat German food every day - it's much too heavy!
On Wednesday, we went to Neuschwanstein Castle for a tour. On the way to the castle, we stopped at the Wieskirchen (the church in the meadow), which is out in the middle of nowhere, but supposedly on the site of a miracle (a wooden Jesus weeping).
The church is very beautiful, but has no heat, so it was freezing inside!
Then, on to the castle, which was built by King Ludwig of Bavaria in the mid-nineteenth century. The outside is spectacular, but only 18 of the 200 rooms inside were finished, so the inside is not as impressive. The rooms that were finished were quite grand, but there were only a few of them. King Ludwig died under mysterious circumstances after his family found that he was spending all of the family money building these huge castles and such.
And, of course, we just walked around town enjoying the beautiful Alpine scenery.
This peak was visible from the back garden of our hotel. It was huge and rough-looking, but someone had climbed to the top and put up a wooden cross.
On Friday, we went sledding in Garmisch. It was the first time Emily had ever been sledding.
Emily had a few wipeouts.
Jeff got up some good speed!
We all got in on the fun!
It started snowing on Friday and snowed all night. It looked like about another 4-6 inches by Saturday morning. It was a very fluffy wet snow that sat beautifully on the trees and everything else. Below are some pictures of what it looked like as we were leaving.
The roads were open for the trip home, but there was still some road construction and traffic. It took about 6 hours to get back. It was neat to watch the snow disappear on the way back. We left Germany covered in snow, and came down through Austria and Italy, watching the snow retreat to the upper reaches of the mountains. By the time we got back to Ferrara, the weather was springlike! Germany and Oberammergau were beautiful, but after a week, we were ready to come home.
The front of Santa Croce. Note the abundance of tourists. Tourist season has definitely started now. There were many American high school and college kids on Spring Break.
The wooden ceiling inside Santa Croce.
The ceiling outside in the cloisters of Santa Croce.
The front of the Duomo and the masses of people milling around in the Piazza.
The back of the Duomo. They are in process of cleaning the outside of the building. Compare this picture with the one above. The front has been cleaned, and the back has not.
The Neptune fountain and other buildings on the Piazza della Signoria.
