Traveling Europe - Munich and Southern Germany

This post is a little late, but our final stop on our Europe trip was Munich and southern Germany.  We hopped aboard a bus in Switzerland and took a 4.5 hour ride to Munich.  We envisioned the long bus ride being a complete nightmare with Tyson but amazingly enough he slept 2.5 hours of the ride and so it wasn't too bad.  Poor Tyson was teething the second week of our Europe trip which made life a little hard on all of us!  But Germany was wonderful!  See pictures and descriptions below!

Our first stop in Munich was the Munich Residenz, the former palace of the Bavarian monarchs.  It was absolutely gorgeous inside.  It was definitely the most impressive palace I have seen on the inside.  No matter where we went on our Europe trip, Tyson insisted on stealing our audio guides and scooting around on the dirty floors. :)

Another picture from the Munich Residenz.

We visited Marienplatz, the city center of Munich, and watched the dolls in the tower pictured above dance when the clock struck noon!

Next we hit up an open air market near the city center where Stephen got his first humongous German meat sandwich and he loved it.

On our second day in Germany we took the train to Hohenschwangau where we saw the famous Neuschwanstein Castle (the castle Walt Disney modeled Sleeping Beauty's castle after), and the Hohenschwangau Castle.  Here we are at the lake beneath the two castles.

This is the Hohenschwangau Castle, a 19th-century palace which was built by King Maximilian II of Bavaria.

Here is the amazing Neuschwanstein Castle.  I loved the way it was set right up on top of a small mountain with the valley down below.  This castle was built by King Ludwig II, though he didn't spend much time here before he died young.

Here we are with a great view of the castle!

On our third day in Germany we went North of Munich to the memorial site of the Dachau concentration camp.  The Dachau concentration camp was the first concentration camp built.  We learned about what happened there and saw where different events took place.  It was horrific.  The large empty square behind Stephen is where people were forced to stand still for hours each day during roll call.

Each rectangle behind me represents a building where people were housed at the camp.  The camp ended up with thousands more prisoners than it was intended for.

Our next stop was the Nymphenburg palace.  By this point in our trip we were starting to get burned out, so instead of touring the palace we just walked around the huge gardens.

A view of the palace from the gardens.

On the final day of our trip we visited the BMW welt, a place that showcases all the latest BMW cars.  They let you get in the cars and see what they're like.  Stephen loved it.  This was his favorite car.

This was my favorite car!

With some extra time to spare, we decided to check out the English gardens.  The best part of trips are almost always the parts you don't plan!  We happened upon this huge festival in the park with a big band playing and tons of people eating traditional German food (and drinking tons of beer).

We got these delicious pancakes with applesauce.

As we continued through the park we came upon this place in the river where people surf!  They line up and take turns surfing this huge wave in the river!  It was awesome.

The river is also very popular to jump in and ride down (with no tube).  Tons of locals were doing it and Stephen decided to join on in!  He jumped in the river in his clothes and rode it down a ways.  The current was actually quite strong.

Here's a picture I caught of Stephen in the river.

Overall our trip was absolutely amazing!  An experience of a lifetime!  We arrived back in London really late Saturday night and flew back to the United States on Monday afternoon.  We are so grateful for the opportunity we had to spend six months in London and to travel Europe.  Our next location will be Boston for the next two years.  More adventures await us!