Planet Wilder

The new addition to our family and mostly my dog. He was a rescue pup and I adopted him from Furry Kids Refuge. [thumb:1438:r]

I’ve been looking for a dog after Kato left. It’s been a while since I obtained a dog so I had to do some research on which type I like and would be good for our family (with a young child and a dog). Before I left for our vacation, I was very interested in a Maltese or a mix of it (I was only going to adopt, so really whatever that I like that I find) because of it’s nature and I must just like hair dogs. They’re super cute too. But after emailing different rescues, none wanted to let me adopt one because of Emma’s age. Which is understandable but wish that it was more on a family basis… check out the kid first before deciding. So, I still didn’t want to buy a pup, just didn’t seem right. So last weekend, I told Drew that we’d just go to the city, visit a Petco or two, maybe a few shelters and see what they had.
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This was our first experience driving in Germany and we were a bit overwhelmed. First of all, we we book our car rental, we booked an economy car. Just like we would here. Usually that’d get us a four door, enough luggage space, bla bla. Well, if you rent a car in Germany, make sure that you have a big enough engine to feel comfortable going with the flow of traffic.

[thumb:1571:l][thumb:1570:l] Our car was a little four door Opel Corsa. Cute little car but it’s only got a 1.2 cc engine. SMALL! Driving around the city, it was great. Parking was awesome but take it to the Autobahn or uphill, man, you’re in for a treat but thank goodness we didn’t experience a lot of the above.

Here’s our mistake before going to Germany. We didn’t really learn enough German and to familiarize ourselves with the road signs. The basics signs are quite easy to follow but there are signs that just has words on them and you just have to guess it and hope you’re right. Also, we weren’t sure if there’s a German version of a 4-way stop since there were many 3 or 4 cross-sections where we weren’t sure who needed to go first.
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Traveling with Emma wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be. I was quite stressed out about this. Imagining hours of little girl tantrums and boredom. But Emma was just an angel and we both are so proud of her and having super light toddler travel gears really helped us out a lot.
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[thumb:1417:l] Had a lovely breakfast at our zimmer today. It was the usual bread, cheese, meat, coffee, and such but we had some nice company, Dennis and his wife from Pennsylvania and a German gentleman who was there to hang-glide but just was not in the mood on this fine day. He works for Mercedes and drives a Grand Cherokee. Anyway, we had a nice conversation and breakfast, and after that we were off to the castles: Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau.

Since our zimmer was very close, about 1-2 km, to the castles, it didn’t take us long to get there. It was about 10 a.m. by the time we got to the ticket booth and the line wasn’t too bad, it was at the end of the ticket office, inside the building and probably took 10 minutes to get through. I met up with Dennis again in the line and with the little chit-chats, the line seemed to have gone quicker. Ticket price: €15/pp for the Royal Ticket… aka two castles… and free for Emma (or anybody under 18). At the ticket office, there are LCD screens that tells you what time your tour will start and a map that tells you how far each castles are if you are to hike up to it. The tours (required) are about 35 minutes, so you really have plenty of time after you get your ticket to walk up to Hohenschwangau (it took us less than 10 minutes to walk up there from the ticket office), take some scenic pictures around the castle and of the outside, go to the bathroom, and sit down for a few minutes before your tour starts.
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[thumb:1427:l] Sonnenhof is a big, woody, old house with four spacious, traditionally decorated rooms and a cheery garden. It’s a 15-minute walk through the fields to the castles. That’s per Rick Steve. We actually don’t have a Rick Steve book or have been looking at his website. We just accidentally stumbled upon it when we were looking for a hotel in the Schwangau – Fussen area.

Here’s a tip: on weekends, when you’re traveling to a very touristy place, book your hotel in advance. Winging it can cause a lot of grieve.

[thumb:1409:r] So we left Landsberg am Lech and traveling down to Fussen or really to the two well known Ludwig’s castles. This was Saturday. We left Landsberg at about 10 a.m., so really, earlier than usual. We stopped (of course) at a few different places, Shongau, Peiting, and Rottenbuch. We some magnificent churches and some nice views along the way. Really good ride.
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